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satoruhour · 9 months

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a/n: boss moved a few days ago and i got so much inspiration just from one of the movers calling her 美女 WOW !

warnings: perv!geto, mover!geto, reader has a deadbeat husband boooo, gojo listens in i guess? sex in a TRUCK, cheating, clit stimulation, oral / cunnilingus, fingering, p -> v penetration, unprotected sex, doggy, chokehold, creampie / breeding kink, panty stealing, n*sfw under the cut

thinking about…

mover!geto who gets notified on a job to some suburban neighbourhood to assist in a move, known for his fast team of workers and efficient way of packing. he’s surprised when he’s connected to a woman’s voice, greeting him cheerfully before setting up a meeting.

mover!geto who finds his eyes flicking down to get a look at your tits when he reaches your place, accentuated by the low cleavage of the sundress you’re donning in this heat. you’re also sneaking glances at the other, eyes travelling over his inked arms and tied hair but geto doesn’t notice because your voice is even more hypnotic in person, bringing him into the house to show the various furniture that’s about to be packed up. by now he already would’ve mapped out the best way to transport everything out, but the way your hips sway and your ass looks makes him giddy.

mover!geto who lies and says he needs a few more visits to your house to finalise everything, noting down how your husband treats you like crap, bosses you around and does nothing but laze around all day. and so he slips in little hints, your husband should get into guiness from how much he sits in front of the tv, and initiates small brushes of his fingers on yours, a hand on your back as he passes.

mover!geto who calls you with a pretty girl! when he needs to know which furniture to bring and which to dispose of, making your heart skip a beat — because how else would you react when there’s an attractive man in a bun with arms decorated with tattoos calls you? all the while his jumps from how quickly you answer, scampering over to him to nod with your bright eyes and big smile, no matter how shitty your husband was being. you truly didn’t know what you did to him, mind wandering to wanting to see your breasts bounce in his face while he flipped up your dress to fuck you.

mover!geto who orders another truck to be brought to your old home, getting confused looks from his workers when everything could already fit except for a few small things and he doesn’t tell them it’s already on the way with his best friend in the front seat. and of course your husband is ready to make his way to the new home immediately to continue doing nothing, leaving the both of you.

“you got everything?” geto asks, prompting you to look around at the barren house, a place once filled with love which turned sour and stagnant, but now is no place for those memories, nodding with a soft smile towards geto who only guides you out the front door.

“yep, think so. thanks again, geto-san!” the move only shoots you a small grin, and asks you to call him suguru instead, helping you to carry the smaller chairs and items for the last truck, noticeably smaller than the others. he stretches out a hand for you to ride at the back of the truck, almost collapsing from how soft your hands felt. if only he could feel them around his cock. his best friend, gojo, who’s also from the moving company shoots a salute in greeting, predicting what’s coming with a knowing look in his eyes as he slides the partition close.

mover!geto who has you on your back a few minutes after the truck takes off for the new house, you clutching onto the cling wrap for some stability while the long-haired mover laps at your clit, large, rough hands spreading your legs further and further while your moans echo throughout the large truck. you’re getting wet so easily as your body shakes from the sensitivity, feeling the other grin between your legs.

“feeling good, pretty girl?” you manage a whimper, knuckles turning white from how tightly you were balling your fists and he simply grabs them, keeping his eyes on you as he places them on his hair, already all unkempt.

“use me, baby,” geto groans lowly when you pull just slightly to see his face better, barely seeing the glint in his eyes and the shine of your arousal on his face in the dark truck, “use me like you fuckin’ mean it.”

all suguru can do is groan out when you push him down onto your pussy, continuing his abuse on your puffy clit while you grind your hips into his face, clearly unsatisfied with your husband. your mover’s tongue just feels so damn good on your neglected core that you can’t care about consequences right at this moment, gasping in surprise at the finger that draws circles around your hole.

“cleaned it earlier, don’t worry that pretty lil head of yours, okay?” geto reassures as you nod, obsessed with the way your cunt sucks his thick finger in so easily. it pulses around its tip, feeling your thigh shake beneath his hand while it’s pushed right to its hilt. you’ve never reached this deep with your own, body already craving more when it moves against him.

“oh, needy baby. bet your husband doesn’t do shit, hm?” you pout and shake your head, hand closing around his wrist to get him to move and he chuckles, barely warning you before he inserts a second finger slowly. the stretch feels so good and you whine with a tug to his hair that’s already falling apart, breathless moans leaving your mouth.

“he’s shit,” you have to calm yourself before you mumble, a hand goes through his hair, eyes fluttering close when geto starts to move his fingers, “shit at everything.” geto coos at that, head dripping back down and the combination of his tongue and his fingers make your eyes roll back, lips finally muttering out a suguru and geto moans into your perfect little pussy, loving the way you tense and clench around him.

mover!geto who gets a knock on the partition, fifteen minutes, gojo says and geto has you on your hands and knees quicker than you can blink, easing into your warm, dripping pussy with his hard cock. he sighs in relief when he’s finally in you, willing himself not to cum like a virgin just from being in your cunt.

“s— suguru… s’big…” you moan out, head hanging low as you feel the pain morph into pleasure and you’re moving your hips back onto his. geto still has to catch his breath for a minute, but the way you turn behind to look at him with teary eyes and downturned eyebrows and with a desperate plea, “show me how much you’ve been wanting me, suguru,” geto snaps his hips into yours, a loud groan leaving his lips at how wet your cunt is, essence dripping right from your core onto the truck.

“i’ll show you, pretty baby,” he starts a pace, waist bruised from how tight he holds them while he fucks into you. you’re just as tight and warm as he imagined, and pliant, too, cock twitching in you when he sees how obediently you take it. “show you how fucking much i’ve been meaning to bury my cock in you.”

“c’mon, spread your cheeks for me, mama,” geto whispers, a whimper leaving him when you do just that and he has a front row seat to your wet cunt sucking him in so well while he slams into you like an animal, not caring at the way your face brushes up against the harsh bottom of the truck, mouth going limp with multiple mewls filling the space.

“oh— fuck yes!! right there, right t—there suguruuu…” a hand goes to rub at your clit and the sensation sends you reeling, along with the musky smell of sex in the air and the pap! pap! pap! of geto’s hips against yours. you can hear just how wet you are from the way geto rams into you, pre-cum and your juices mixing and squelching each time his length disappears into you. he yanks you up, looping an arm around your neck and another ’round your waist, the arch of your back allowing the other to go deeper.

“cumming, s’guru, i’m gonna cum—” everything is hazy and blurred from how good geto sinks into you paired with the irregular bumps of the truck on the road, lightheaded already from the chokehold he has you in. the truck goes over a bump suddenly and the thick cock inside you hits a spot that has your eyes reaching the skies, a loud, choked moan leaving your lips before it gets swallowed up by geto’s, his hand turning your head to meet his.

“good fuckin’ girl,” geto says breathlessly into your mouth, “give me all your cum, darlin’.”

your whole body is on fire, breaking off the kiss momentarily to whine out profanities until geto’s asking, delirious, “where do you want me to cum, baby?”

and your primal need to be bred takes over, crying out now with tears lining your face as your body still jerks from the mindblowing orgasm. “inside suguru— i-inside, please—!”

suguru just grunts out at your plea, body also reaching his limit before he stills and he reaches his high, shivering behind you as he spurts hot cum deep into your cunt, spilling and overloading until your pussy’s full of his seed. he feels fulfilled, hissing when your hole clenches around him one last time, removing his cock from you slowly.

“keep it in ya, yeah?” geto grins just as the truck begins to slow down and you’re scrambling to appear decent while there’s the hot flow of your mover’s cum dripping out of your pussy, stifling a smile when you see your undies tucked at the back at his pocket and an instruction that if you want it back, you’re gonna have to find me in the toilet and let me fuck you full of my cum again.

mover!geto who finally gets you wrapped around his finger just like he’ll get you wrapped around his cock many, many more times after this.

#jujutsu kaisen smut #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk smut #jjk x you #jjk drabbles #jjk thirsts #jjk x reader #geto suguru smut #geto smut #geto x reader #geto suguru x reader #getou suguru smut #suguru geto smut #suguru geto x reader #jujutsu kaisen geto

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diejager · 6 months

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I love your Only Human fics 😭😭 I can’t help but think what Monster AU 141/Kortac would do if their only human got hurt during a mission….

A continuation maybe please?

Only Human pt3

Pairing: Monster 141 + König + Horangi x reader

CW: blood, injury, canon-typical violence, gun violence, flash grenade go boom boom, explosion, tell me off I missed any. wc: 2.4k

Only Human masterlist

They fucked up, they really flicked up. It was a simple mission, simple enough that you were sent with only three operators. Alejandro with his witness, slinked between enemy lines, shooting up and creating chaos once he shifted, his large body ripping through enemy lines like a hot knife through butter. Gaz with his aerial insights, flew over trees and spotted the soldiers you were shooting through and giving pointers to where they split up and where they collected. And finally, Horangi, stalking between the buildings, jumping from shadow to shadow with a slow sway of his tail, pouncing on his prey with the stealth of a tiger.

Laswell had promised that it was a quick in-and-out op, slipping through the village at night and taking out the leading figure of this hastily-made gang that was blocking the transport route between two important, allied towns. The shared intel was that it was a gang of ragtag rebels, raiding police stations within the mass, overwhelming the officers with their vast numbers of followers. They stole police equipment, vests, guns, batons, and ammunition, using them to power through the lines of officers and breaking through blockades built by the townsfolk.

While they weren’t trained in military warfare or had prior training with specialised weapons, they had the advantage of numbers, overwhelming any joint forces with their vast numbers of rebels. It was nearly astounding how many people were being paid and supported by Russia's wealthy Ultranationalists wanting to disrupt the trading routes and hurt the opposing team by prying them of a source of gas and material.

The few joint forces had slimmed down their numbers, leaving Task Force 141 to clean it up and take over their base of operation within the region. You were told that their numbers rounded a skeleton crew of twenty men, twenty-five at most. That’s why Price sent you four for quick and efficient disposal of the enemy.

That’s what Laswell gave you, the information burned into your mind from habitual memorization to ensure that your team would be prepared, and yet the data was wrong. Gaz had reported twice the promised number, not as well armed as you were warned but their number brought a changing tide to your mission. You wanted to turn back, to regroup and form another plan, but everyone was already in place and calling them back could be as much of a risk of being caught as storming in.

Perhaps that’s why you were all so careful and conscious of the dangers, moving in two, Alejandro and Horangi in one part and you walking under Gaz’s protective shadow. The initial plan was to box them in, working through both exits to snuff out any runaways and once you entered the compound, Gaz would drop down and lead ahead.

That was the plan, until, of course, all hell broke loose. It was chaotic, they were trigger-happy and within untrained hands, their guns were as leather as a trained one with how quickly they spent their magazine, cycling through one and spraying the wall you used for hiding. Soap’s wild clean-up would’ve been extremely helpful in a time like this; Ghost’s hungry haze would’ve swallowed them all up, opening up a way for you to pass; and König’s reckless and unpredictable shift that sent him into a wild frenzy while he tore through the base.

Unfortunately, they were back home, the little base they called their own when you first joined, yet you still had experienced and protective soldiers by your side, all special forces. Gaz led you with a strong hand and clear head, stopping at every corner to look at all sides before moving forward and you watched his back, looking out for any enemy rounding back.

Your situation would be - at best - organised chaos, made from what you were given at the moment, faced with a group over a dozen times and without backup waiting behind. There were hushed orders and observations sent back and forth between your groups, cautious warnings on your side and growls from the other. Nick had been informed in case of any immediate evacuation and Laswell, of the sudden change in the plan. You did your best with what you had, leaving bleeding corpses in your wake, slumped over the bloodied floor and against the stained walls, but you hadn’t expected the rapid change of shift in the enemy. They weren’t such men with guns and knives, they were trained - albeit sloppy - in ferality and ruthlessness, jumping at you and Gaz without a second thought.

Every lunge was met with a bullet, rifles firing at the advancing numbers holding a gun, a knife or both, leaving you with a graze or scrape, the skin under your clothes bristled and bleeding. They flooded like moths to a flame, one taking the place of a fallen, and two other taking his place. You were pushed back to back, Gaz’s wings fluttering in stress between you, fighting the need to cover you in a protective shield of muscle and feather.

“We’re compromised,” Gaz hissed into the mic, sending the message to any open coms on your connected line. “Victor-01, moving your way.”

“Copy,” Alejandro huffed.

Gaz tried leading you away, feet moving fast and steady around the halls you had to memorise for this Op. He tried to lead you safely, but they swarmed you like flies, appearing from every corner in an unending flood of shouting, thumping and firing. Gaz was bound to get hit at this rate, with his big wings and broader shoulders. It worried you that he’d take a bullet for you - you knew he would, as would the others - and get dangerously hurt. Through one door was a group waiting for you, gun trained forwards and ready to fire, but they were slow, sloppy, and they lacked the training and reflexes of a specialist.

You had time to push Gaz through a door and into a room, you hid on both sides, hiding from the straight line of fire. You unclipped a flash from your belt, waving it at him to catch his attention. It did and his lips broke into a grin, wild and electric at your idea. You had him count down the seconds, his fingers lowering until he balled his fist, shaking it as you pulled the pin out and threw it down the hall. Veering away from the door, eyes closed tightly and hands around your ears, the flash grenade blew up with a loud, ear-piercing screech. It sent them into a blind panic, weapons falling from their hands to rub the burning pain in their cornea, ears deaf to your quick-moving steps towards them, down they went, like those behind you.

Adrenaline pumped erratically through your veins, bubbling and warming your body to an uncomfortable heat that had you sweating under your gear. You turned another corner and you were closer to Alejandro and Horangi’s location, meeting up with them was your current objective, to regroup and take over the base in one group. They were just down the path, behind the sprinting men in jeans and t-shirts holding guns like it was a big, heavy toy. You could see their tense shoulders relax when they caught sight of you, guard still up and cautious, but glad that you were safe.

“Hunter,” Horangi hissed, his figure trembling as his nose twitched under his mask. He stared at your shoulder, the damp jacket stained with your blood. “You broken?”

“No, the adrenaline’s keeping me going,” you nodded back, trying to soothe his worry. Being the 141’s medic, you knew the benefits of adrenaline, it numbed the pain, the cold and the burns, but once you calmed down, you’d feel every little scratch.

You limped out of the building, body leaning against Horangi for support, his tail curled around your thigh and body tense in a possessive mood. He kept glancing your way, his golden eyes swirling with worry, pupils small and attentive to every wince you made. He moved according to your pain, urging you to put more weight on him when you walked on your bad leg, where a bullet shot straight through your thigh, bleeding through the quickly put gauze you covered it with and wrapped tightly in bandages. You promised them that you’d properly patch yourself up in the helicopter while they watched before you worked on them.

With your body riding off the adrenaline that kept you going for the past fifteen minutes, you jerked and winced when you walked on your left leg, the white bandage around your thigh staining red on the side. You were sure Horangi and Alejandro could smell your blood, or they'd been able to smell it before you even saw them, the irony tang wafting around them like a haze of their failure. The failure to let you get hurt and unable to properly protect you, you could feel the tenseness in their shoulders, their lowered head at your smile and the jerky movement when they moved around, seemingly pulling themselves back from doing something.

Nikolai waved at your group, ushering you in from his seat, strapped safely with his headset on and communication clear between everyone. With a short affirm from Alejandro, Nik took off, the bird curving to the left when he turned west, towards the UK. You waited until the flight was stable, flying through the air softly and steadily before you opened up your pack, searching for items to clean and reward your wound until you returned to the infirmary. You checked your tourniquet, tightening it when you saw that it was slightly loose, ripping open the wrapping around your leg, you reapplied the gauze, adding pressure to it to stop it from bleeding even more.

You winced and hissed under their watchful eyes, between Alejandro and Horangi, their tails swaying and occasionally curling around your forearm. Gaz, however much he’d like to sit beside you, to fuss and worry openly about your wounds, sat across from you, strapped in with his wings spread wide across the seats.

“Looks rough, Охотник,” Nik called to the back, light glinting off his glasses.

“Nothing new, Nik, you know that,” you replied through the coms, a lop-sided smile curling the corners of your lips.

He cackled, a full-belly laugh that had all of you smiling in your own ways. Nikolai was rambunctious, loyal and a big bear of a man. He was human, the other human in the Task Force apart from you (Laswell might’ve been the one sending you across the earth and gathering information, but she - regrettably - wasn’t truly a member.).

“Да! I do!”

When you landed, the rest of the TF was already waiting outside, arms crossed and shoulders tense. It seemed they got the news of your Op, showing their displeasure with deep frowns and deeper glares, none directed at you or the hybrids, it was some sort of self-hatred and anger at the person that gave Laswell the intel, their promise of it being factual and not sending them any updates on the case. Laswell, herself, was fairly mad, her stressed face pulled sombrely down.

Soap and Rudy rushed to you, voices low and tones raspy, they hovered near your group, fussing about the blood that caked Alejandro’s forehead, a slight graze from a rifle’s butt and other bruises from slamming into obstacles; Gaz’s slight pinch in the back from being slammed into a wall by a bulldozing enemy when he ran out of ammo; Horangi’s ripped sleeves, gashes bleeding lightly from attempts at slashing and stabbing knives by inexperienced hands; but what worried them the most was you, limping and hanging from Horangi’s shoulders.

Your eyes were hooded, equal parts exhausted and blood lost, placing all of your weight on the Haetae hybrid. While your upper half was unscathed - apart from the slight bruises forming on your skin - your leg, wrapped tightly in a tourniquet and bandages drowned in red. The amount of red would’ve been worrying if they hadn’t known you, but you’ve survived far more dangerous and life-threatening wounds, bouncing back with revenge. As truthful as it was, it didn’t stop them from worrying. You might’ve been more resilient than most - hybrids credited their resilience to their human parent - you didn’t have the healing ability of hybrids or the immortality of spectres.

“ ‘m fine, Rudy,” you smiled, so bright and reassuring when you were the wounded one. “Nothing a few stitches and rest won’t heal.”

“Si, but-”

“Doesn’t mean we’re not worried, love.”

Like his callsign, he walked in on your little group silently, peering over Rudolfo’s shoulders, his warm, brown hues meeting yours. His voice was strained with concern, croakier than when you left this morning, waving at them. Rodolfo moved over when Ghost brought his hand forward, Horangi passed you to him with careful and tender hands so that you could be brought to the infirmary without having to walk. You hooked your arms around Ghost’s neck, arms crossed lazily over his back and chin propped up on his shoulder. He held you against his chest, one arm under your ass and another carefully tucked under your knees, watching your wounded leg without touching it.

You looked at Price and Laswell from your perch, their hushed discussion with shrugging shoulders and crossed arms, but neither looked pleased with the outcome of your mission. You blinked owlishly when you couldn’t find König beside them, head turning from side to side to find the 6 '10 Austrian hybrid, but you still couldn’t find him. Just as you were going to ask Ghost where König was, a hand reached out to grip your forearm, thick fingers softly rubbing your strained muscle. You were met with a veiled face when you turned, brilliant, red eyes stared at your wounded thigh in distaste, his mind throwing him into the scene of the moment, turning and ripping the men that dared harm you to pieces, bloodied and unrecognisable parts of a human.

“Hey, König,” you called out, pulling him back from his violent daydream where his eyes turned crimson, glazed with bloodlust and rage, promising doom. “Do you want to come with us?”

“Ja,” he replied moments later, snapping to your face with blank eyes, now his regular, ice-blue colour. “To the infirmary first and mess all later. You need to eat and rest well to heal quickly, Schnucki.”

“What about the-”

“You need to rest, lovie. Let them deal with the debrief,” Ghost’s voice was stern and commanding, ending whatever protests you had.

As if to prove his point, he turned to face Price, his head nudging you to look at your captain, the imposing and dominating figure of Price’s horned head, thick, swaying tail and powerful wing. Price replied with a quick nod, curt in a way that shut down any voice, landing the hammer on the gravel with a resounding boom. You sighed, grumbling lowly about them worrying too much about a flesh wound, exaggerating your condition (in your mind) and threatening them with insubordination that had your commanding officers glare your way.

Taglist: @craxy-person @crowbird @dead-cipher @iwannabealocalcryptid @iizx7y @mxtokko @yeetusspagheetus @capricorn-anon @perfectus-in-morte @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @tallmanlover @distracteddragoness @vxnilla-hxrddrugs @konigsblog @havoc973

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fandxmslxt69 · 4 months

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Terrible Liar

Avenger!Loki x Avenger!f!reader

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of injury (reader has a nasty ass wound), mentions of blood and medical supplies, Loki and reader are both assholes to each other but its FUNNY. Rushed plot bc this came to me in a fever dream. Maybe some bad grammar, run on sentences etc. Ignore those ahaha. this is NOT edited or reviewed AT ALL. she's as raw as they come.

A/N: This came to be in a fever dream. Btw. Like God sent it to me. I'm sorry if it feels rushed I was so desperate to get it all down I blacked out. IT'S 5K OKAY MY BAD AHAHAH i'm kind of a slut for this kind of trope so MY BAD. anyway this is for THE @sarahscribbles 's Christmas Celebration!! Sorry I'm a little late, these two wouldn't shut the fuck up so I got carried away. ANYWAY I HOPE YOU ENJOY SARAH I LOVE YOU <3

Synopsis: What could possibly go wrong with spending a night sharing a room with Loki? (aka: enemies to lovers + one bed trope)

Word count: 5K

Oh man. You watched Loki bang the hood of the car in anger. That can’t be good.

You rested your head against the window of the stolen car, taking deep breaths. You could feel your whole body shaking from the adrenaline. You hadn’t calmed down a single bit since the ride out here. How long has it been? Probably less than an hour. You had no idea how far out you were from the nearest town and it absolutely was not the right time for this car to stop. Your entire body hurt from getting kicked in the ass repeatedly during the fight, and your head spun. Your left side throbbed and your shoulder screamed in agony. Not to mention, you are completely separated from the rest of the group, and you have no means of communication. Somewhere along the way, you had lost your comm, and your spare was of no use. Loki said the lines were down anyway, so it wasn’t much help to begin with.

Speaking of the devil, he threw the door of the car open, letting in the chill winter air, and huffed as he got back in, slamming the door behind him. “Stupid, useless vehicle. What is the point of transportation if it fails so easily?” He grumbled.

“It’s out of gas, genius,” “Well it’s not making for a very efficient getaway car,” He ran a hand through his hair. “Well?” You looked at him expectantly, but he only looked back with an expression of confusion. You sat up straighter to face him, but your vision blurred and your head swam. It took you a minute to collect yourself. “We can;t just sit here, we’ll freeze to death,” Loki scoffed. “No I won’t,” You clenched your jaw. “Okay, I’ll freeze to death,” “Tragedy,” His tone was dead as he pulled out his phone to mess with. “I’ll let them know it was a heroic death,” “You’re such an asshole,” “How original,” You nearly growled. “Laufeyson,” “Agent,” He replied smoothly, looking up at you with one of those disarming grins. You were not falling for it. You may be delirious and crashing soon, but you were not falling for Loki’s charms.

“We need to figure something out,” “You mean I need to figure it out,” “Oh my fucking god. I’m not gonna sit here like some passenger princess-” “Agent, you are trembling so hard you couldn’t even walk a foot much less help out in this little dilemma,” Loki interrupted. “I have no desire to starve out here, and horrifyingly, I can’t find it in my heart to let you die out here either. I’ll figure it out,”

You grumbled under your breath, and you were certain he heard you because he grinned wider and went back to messing with his phone.

He was right though, you were shaking really hard- both from the adrenaline and now, the cold. Whenever you exhaled, a puff of white air formed in front of you, and the tip of your nose was starting to go numb. The idea of leaving your fate at the moment in the hands of Loki was an absolutely horrifying idea, since you knew how reckless this guy tended to be. But you didn’t have much of a choice, and as much as it physically pained you to sit quietly and wait, you did just that. It was made another fifteen minutes before Loki peeled his eyes away from the phone pad. He opened the door to the car, and stepped out.

“Hey!” You yelled. “Where the hell are you going? Close the goddamn door!” But of course, he didn’t bother answering or listening. He looked around, staring at his phone occasionally before surveying the area again. And just when you thought he couldn’;t get more insane, he started walking away from the car. Your heart squeezed in your chest. Was he going to leave you here? Like hell he was. You kicked open your door, shakingly getting out of the car. You were vaguely aware of the stab of pain at your side that nearly had you doubled over as black spots danced in your vision, but you willed yourself to push it aside. You slammed the door shut as you walked out after Loki.

“Hey!” You yelled out to him. You had no idea if he could even hear you with the way the wind howled and snow whipped at your face. It was freezing cold, snow biting your cheeks and your teeth chattering after being out here for less than a few minutes. “Laufeyson!” You yelled louder, arm clutching your side and limping in the direction he walked in. No answer. You were positive a storm was kicking up.

“Loki!” You screamed this time, as loud as your voice let you. Your chest heaved, your throat hurt, and the air you gulped stung so bad you were so close to never breathing it again.

“Loki! God help me, Loki, when I find you!” You looked around slowly, yet all you saw was the outline of your stolen car in the winds, and white. So much white. “I’ll haunt you, you know!” You shouted into the wind. “If I die here, I’ll haunt you forever!” You had to shield your eyes from the harsh snow as you yelled. You knew he couldn’t hear you, but you also knew that he couldn’t have gotten too far. How long could he even last out here? Damn it, he could probably last a while.

Stupid, horrible, arrogant Loki. You contemplated going back to the car, but decided that if you were going to imagine a million and one ways to kill and haunt Loki for eternity, you might as well do it while freezing out here. You were only at number fifteen of your haunting possibilities when you heard his stupidly smooth voice. “What in the Nine Realms do you think you’re doing out here?”

You whirled around to find him standing there, absolutely unaffected by the weather or your situation. His cheeks were rosy and his pretty hair was up in a bun (that was more falling apart than anything) and pretty snowflakes hung in the curls.

He looked….well. He looked heavenly, to say the least.

“I was out here looking for you,” You shot back as harshly as you could, but with the way your teeth chattered and the small smirk that tugged at his lips, it didn’t seem to be working. “You should have stayed in the car,” He sounded almost…angry. Why the hell would he be angry when he left you behind? Although, the frown and furrowed brows were a little cute. “You shouldn’t have wandered off and left me behind,” “I was coming to get you,” “Like hell you were,” “I was,” He stepped closer to you, and you had to hold back everything to not huddle up closer to him like a goddamn penguin. He snapped his fingers and you felt something warm and heavy fall on your shoulders. “Put that on. We’re leaving,”

“Leaving?! Where the hell are we leaving?! Do I need to remind you that we are stranded in the middle of a storm?!”

Loki grumbled as he forcefully got you into the jacket he conjured. You didn’t bother saying thank you, which was fine because he only kept glaring at you before marching ahead.

“Where are you going?!” He didn’t bother answering. “Loki!” Assshit. You grumbled and huffed the entire time as you hurried after him, trying to block off the tingling ache at your side. You knew you didn’t get stabbed. Maybe it’s a big cut. You were certain you’d know if a knife had lodged itself into your side.

You had no idea where Loki was taking you but you kept your mouth shut in hopes that it was someplace warm and safe.

“Your hair looks like shit,” You blurted out. Okay, maybe not always keeping your mouth shut.

He looked at you from the corner of his eye. “You don’t look much better,” “Yeah but I said it first,” “Maybe I should have left you in the car,” “I would’ve still found you,” “Yes, haunting me forever,” “You heard that?!” He shrugged. “I was heading back to the car. You weren’t exactly quiet,” You stared at him with wide eyes. “And you didn’t even say anything,” “I found it too amusing to interrupt,” You frowned, shoving him with your shoulder. Wrong move apparently, because your vision started spinning and your knees nearly buckled. Loki wrapped an arm around you ever so gently, as if scared you’d shatter otherwise. “Stop talking,” He snapped. “And stop being so damn aggressive. I would like to make this journey without you collapsing on me,” “I’m not going to collapse,” You mumbled. “You always were a terrible liar,” He muttered under his breath, and more or less carried you to your destination. At first, you didn’t let him, but he won eventually, like he always did, and you leaned the rest of your weight onto him.

You had no idea where you were until you reached the smack middle of a small town. A picture perfect fantasy, almost. Little houses and small shops lined with lights and trees and covered in snow. It was like stepping into a Hallmark movie. Each house was so full of light, and even through the howling wind, you could hear the sounds of laughter and shrieking children.

How the hell did Loki find this place? “There’s a motel here. We’ll book rooms, spend the night. I’m sure there’s Wi-Fi too,” Loki sounded like he was talking more to himself than you.

“Freaking out?” You asked.

“Yes. I’m thinking of which way Stark will kill me if you die,” “Pfft. Tony wouldn’t kill you,” Loki raised his eyebrows but stayed quiet as he walked you both through the town. The storm was clearly picking up, and you were thankful that he had all those genes to keep him alive in this weather, and that he was able to find this place.

When you reached the motel- which appeared to be the only one in town- you couldn’t help smiling (even if you couldn’t feel your face at all anymore). It was a cute little building, rustic and heartwarming. Little snowmen lined the front, and a bed jingled as you and Loki entered. The inside was even better, with burgundy and gold designs and wallpaper that looked like it came straight out of a Victorian novel. It was cozy, and more importantly, warm.

You almost sobbed in relief as you practically collapsed onto an armchair by the counter. Your body sank into it, your nerves singing in joy as you slowly felt your fingertips again.

“Are you alright?” Loki asked.

You nodded. “Yup,” He made a sound of disapproval. “You need to lie better,” “Go shove your head through the wall,” You muttered back. He only grinned. Loki didn’t even appear fazed or relieved at the warmth, and simply marched up to the counter. There was no one there, and he rang the bell at least five times.

“Would you stop that?” You snapped after the sixth time.

“It’s a bell. It’s meant to be used,” “Not like that,” “It’s how you call for attention,” “Well I’m sure whoever runs this place will be here shortly,” He lasted a whole two minutes before he hit the bell again.

“Loki,” You hissed.

“Just a minute!” You heard a cheery voice call from the back, and a short old lady appeared, seemingly out of breath. “Sorry about that, all those damn stairs,” She chuckled to herself.

Loki flashed her a smile. “It’s not a problem at all,” “Oh my,” The old woman smiled back but this time you swore up and down she blushed a little.

Loki and his stupid, disarming smile.

“My…friend and I are a little caught in this storm,” He started, gesturing to you. You waved weakly at the lady and mustered up a smile. She probably thought you were crazy. You had no idea how you looked, but you knew it wasn’t how a normal person should.

“We were wondering if you had any available rooms for the night. Just two is fine,” He turned back to the lady with an even bigger smile.

“Well,” She smiled wider at Loki. “I’ll see what I can do,” He nodded, “Thank you…” he squinted at her name tag. “Lucy. Thank you very much, Lucy,” And there Lucy went, blushing and grinning at him again.

Horrible, absolutely tragic. The poor woman had no idea how insufferable Loki was.

Lucy rummaged through her desk, seemingly looking for keys to the rooms. She pulled out one, placing it on the counter, before going back to look for the other. You waited, tagging your foot on the wood floor, staring at the cute fireplace. Your whole body hummed in gratitude, and your feet tingle, feeling back in them.

“Oh dear,” Lucy muttered to herself.

“Everything alright Lucy?” Loki asked.

“It seems that I only have a single room available. This storm has the place booked fully,” She explained.

Hell no.

Loki sighed. “Very well-” “Are you sure?” You interrupted him. “Can you check again?” You probably sounded desperate, but you couldn’t stop yourself.

You can’t share a room with Loki. You’d go crazy. You’d do something disastrous- like give in to the urge to cuddle into his chest! Or God forbid, tangle your hand in his hair.

“I did, hon. I’m afraid this is all I’ve got,” She said apologetically.

Fuuuuck.

“It’s quite alright, Lucy. There’s two beds in the room, correct? I’m sure we can manage to share a room for a night,” Loki said hastily before you could interrupt again.

Lucy opened her mouth, as if to say something else, before she stopped. “Alright,” “How much is it for the night, darling?” Oh okay, he was really laying it on thick then.

“Oh- oh um…” Lucy chuckled nervously. “This room….it’s 150$ for the night. You can pay in the morning, if you prefer,” “Nonsense,” Loki smiled, pulling out cash from the pocket in his top armour, counting the bills. “Here you go, Lucy,” He handed her the money. “Thank you so very much for your help,” She nodded wordlessly as she handed him the key. Loki took it and turned back to you, arms on his hips. “Are you coming, or must I carry you?” “I wouldn’t mind being carried…” You started jokingly. Apparently, Loki couldn’t read the room, because he frowned, shrugged and then walked over, picking you up effortlessly.

“Hey-!” You started to protest, but a sudden wave of pain shot through you, shutting you up. “I was joking,” You muttered.

“Mhm,” He said, shooting Lucy another smile before heading upstairs to your room. The stairs were cute too, you noticed, lined with a soft matt and cute lamps lined the walls. And Loki’s chest was really warm, and- that had nothing to do with the motel.

Before your thoughts could get any more dangerous, Loki stopped in front of a room, hand rummaging through his back pocket to get the key. “You can put me down now,” “I’ll put you down when I feel like it,” Shithead.

He unlocked the door and stepped in, closing it behind him with his foot. All businesslike, he walked over to the big bed and placed you down on it. It was comfy, and you had to control yourself from not falling back and getting it dirty in all your blood and gore. Loki looked you over. “Fine?” You nodded. “Fine,” He smiled and you were certain he was going to call you a liar but you stopped him. “Laufeyson?” “What?” “Where’s the other bed?” Loki froze, looking around the room slowly. “Oh,” “Oh?” He looked back at you. “It seems, darling, that there is no other bed,” “No fucking shit! You’re sleeping on the floor,” He looked at you in disbelief. “Absolutely not. We can share the bed like civilised people,” “Everyone always says that! And then it never works out!” You threw your hands up. You winced, immediately dropping your hands to hold your side. “Everyone? Who the hell is everyone?” “The movies, duh,” He stared at you. “You’re serious,” “Dead,” He ran a hand down his face. “Alright. We’ll split the bed or something. I truly don’t care enough. I simply want to sleep,” You shrugged. “Fine. Go shower first, then I’ll go in,” “I don’t have clothes to change out of, genius,” “You’re a god genius,” You replied mockingly. “I’m pretty sure you can snap your fingers and get us some clothes,” He stared at you, like he hadn’t had that thought at all. “Right.” And indeed, with a snap of his fingers, a pile of clothes appeared on the bed, and one in his hands. “Try not to get yourself killed,” “I hope you drown in the shower,” He smiled at you before heading into the washroom. You were finally alone, even for a few minutes. You breathed a sigh of relief. Being around Loki always ended with one of you flustered. Tragically, it tended to be you. You looked through the pile of clothes Loki summoned- a plain shirt that appeared way too large, and some plaid pants. They weren’t outrageous. You just had to make sure you hadn’t lost any limbs.

You slowly peeled off the layers of your top- the jacket, weapons, cash, your useless comms and phone- and then unzipped your equally-useless-in-the-cold vest. You laid all your things on the floor, not wanting to get the bed dirty. Then, slowly, you lifted your top just under your chest, sucking in a deep breath.

Fuck.

There was a nasty looking cut, starting from right under your ribs and nearly crossing the other side. You didn’t think it looked terrible, but you are almost certain it needed stitches. It wasn’t bleeding too much, but that might have to do with being out in the cold for too long than anything else- even your top was more or less soaked in blood.

You didn’t even have a first aid kit. You traced around the cut slowly, wincing when it hurt. You prayed it wasn’t infected.

“Alright, hm?” Your head snapped up to see Loki freshly showered and changed, his now useless mission suit nowhere in sight. “Um, yeah, I’m fine,” His jaw ticked. “You’re hurt,” “Yeah but I’m fine,” “You are bleeding,” He sounded ...angry. Was he mad at you? “It’s not like I did it on purpose,” You snapped.

He clenched and unclenched his fists. He opened his mouth to say something, before he shook his head and stormed out of the room.

“What the fuck? You called out after him. He didn’t answer as the door slammed behind him.

You had no clue why he had to be so mad. It’s not like you chose to get hurt, and you certainly weren’t going to ask him for anything, so why’d he get so pissy? You grumbled to yourself as you grabbed the clothes, heading into the bathroom to scrub off the day.

It took you a solid twenty minutes to wash everything out. You were very careful to not open your cut further, taking warm water to wash off the dried blood around it.

You tugged on the plain shirt as you stepped out of the bathroom. You winced when you reached up to tie your hair, deciding to just leave it down to dry. You had thrown your old clothes on the pile of Loki’s in the bathroom, and used a spare towel to press against your wound.

“Welcome back,” You said sarcastically when you found Loki sitting on the bed.

“Come here,” He said curtly.

“You can’t just order me around after you walk out you know? And you can’t get bitchy with me for no fucking reason-” “Will you please come sit down so you can look at your wound,” Loki snapped, but it didn’t sound harsh. It was almost…pleading. You froze in your spot, blinking slowly at him. His voice sounded devastated and in your daze, you nodded, slowly walking over to sit on the bed beside him.

“May I?” He gestured to your shirt and you nodded again. He lifted it over your head, and suddenly you were thankful for putting on the sports bra Loki brought with your clothes.. “You didn’t say anything,” He whispered.

You swallowed. This was too freaky. You never got this close with Loki. “We-...we had other things to worry about,” You swore his hands trembled as he reached into the first aid kit beside him. Where did he get that? Did he run out to buy one? Damn it. You and Loki didn’t do fluffy shit. The one day you needed him to be an asshole….

He took his time cleaning the wound, and you tried your best to keep your yelps of pain down.

“Do you want stitches?” Loki asked in a soft tone. He looked ...frightened. And why too pale. Did he get squirm-ish at this stuff?

“Are you a medical professional?” You asked.

“Farthest thing from it,” You hummed. “Just wrap it up,”

He nodded, grabbing some cotton pads and the gauze. He carefully placed the pads onto the wound, and began wrapping the gauze around your waist. His fingers brushed against your skin, and you shivered at the touch.

“There,” He exhaled, pulling his hands away. “You can put your shirt back on,” “Yeah,” You nodded. You should definitely grab it now. You should probably put it on. But you didn’t move a muscle, not with the way Loki stared at you, and the way his eyes dipped lower occasionally. He looked away, appearing flustered, his fists clenched on his thighs. “Loki?” “What?” He snapped.

“Why are you so angry?” “You could have died,” His voice died down to nothing but a desperate whisper. “You could have died,” You opened your mouth to protest, to say that you had it under control and that everything was fine, but he shook his head.

“Don’t you dare say everything was ‘fine’. You’re still such a terrible liar,” You weren’t. He just had that freaky ability to tell when you lied every damn time.

“You could have died. Human life is so horribly fragile, you could have died at any second. What was I to do then, hm? Stare at your lifeless body?” “I thought you’d rejoice at my death,” You joked, trying to break the tension. His eyes snapped to look at yours, his jaw clenched and his eyes wide with fear. You thought he’d say something, but instead he just leaned in, crushing his lips harshly against yours. Before you could even react, he pulled away, breathing heavily.

“I would have died too. In the simplest terms, my heart would have stopped working the minute yours did too,” You froze in shock, staring at him with wide eyes. What just happened? Your lips tingled from the kiss. You wanted him to do it again. “What the hell are you saying, Loki?” “I’m saying that you are incredibly stupid and idiotic and completely selfish. And that I would rather die than live a life without you in it,” He started, his tone angry and desperate. Your head was spinning. Maybe there was drugs in the linen of this bed. Or maybe Loki hit his head.

“Say something,” Loki pleaded now, the fight gone from him. “I’m sorry if I offended you. I’m sorry I’ve been such an ass. I can’t help myself. I go crazy every time you’re around. I can’t think straight and I….I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve never done this before. I thought perhaps if I annoyed you enough, I’d get you out of my head. But Norns, every time you shot some clever remark back, it only egged me on more,” He was rambling at this point.

You felt confused, but at the same time a sense of relief washed over you. It wasn’t like you were in love with Loki- but you definitely didi entertain the idea of occasionally making out with him or spending the day shopping together.

So maybe it was a little crush.

And fuck, it was a relief to hear him blurt out how helpless he was with you.

“Did you black out?” Loki asked. He cursed under his breath, getting up to give you some space. “I apologise, I shouldn’t have said anything. I came off too strong,” He fumbled as he stood up, running a hand through his hair. “I just…I panicked. I apologise-” “Loki,” You stopped him from spiralling further, even if it was cute to see his usually composed self dissolve. You shuffled over to him on your knees. Even while on the bed, he was still fucking giant. You cupped his face and pulled him down, pressing a kiss to his lips.

You pulled away after a second, dizzy from the feel of his lips on yours. It was better than you could have ever imagined. He stared at you in shock, lifting his fingers up to press them to his lips. You nearly died right there.

“What was that for?” he asked, shocked.

You laughed, kissing him again. He leaned into it this time, wrapping his arms carefully around your waist, his lips pressing against yours.

You kissed him again and again and again, until you were both breathless and his lips were swollen and you were sure yours were too.

“You’re really fucking insufferable, by the way,” You muttered against his lips. He hummed, chasing after yours as you pulled away. “You drive me insane. You’re in my head all the damn time, I can’t get rid of you,” “Don’t get rid of me, then,” He captured your lips in another bruising kiss. “I don’t plan to,” You sighed happily as you shuffled back onto the bed, pushing aside bandages and gauze wrap and wipes. Loki was a lot neater, taking his time to put them away onto the night table. He crawled into bed with you, his body hovering over yours, hands on either side of your head, caging you in. He leaned down, pressing another kiss to your lips. One kiss turned into two, into three, and then you were making out lazily, your lips crushed together, heavy pants and heated breaths for god knows how long. Tragically, Loki rolled off of you, laying down beside you. You took deep breaths, trying to calm your racing heart.

Loki shifted, laying now on his side to look at you. You did the same, smiling softly. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“If you couldn’t tell, I’m not quite a people person,” You chuckled. “No, I guess not,” He could be your person though.

Maybe that’s too early to say. You kept your mouth shut.

“Did I come off too strong?” “Nah,” You shook your head, reaching out to wrap your finger around a lock of his hair. “It was a Hallmark-worthy confession,” “What in the Norns is this Hallmark?” You laughed. “It’s a company. It makes lots of cheesy rom coms, all of which have some sort of frustratingly handsome male lead and big confessions,” “So you’re saying I’m handsome,” He grinned devilishly.

“Can’t deny it,”

He leaned in and kissed you again. You kissed him back but then pushed him off. “Stop it. I’ll become addicted,” He leaned back in. “Not a problem. I have no plans to go anywhere,” You ducked away from him, laughing. “If you keep making out with me Loki Laufeyson, we will be having sex,” His brows furrowed. “Absolutely not. Not while you’re injured,” Damn.

“Fine, then stop kissing me,” “Well that’s unfair. I just got started!” You shrugged. “It’s not my call,” He huffed, pulling you closer, your back flat against his chest. His arm wrapped carefully around your waist, the hand coming to rest just under your wound. “Go to bed then. Before I do something crazy,” “I like crazy. I’m quite fond of crazy,” “Yes, crazy seems to follow you everywhere. It might be your whole identity, really,” “Is that an insult?” A pause. “I don’t think so,”

You fell silent for a minute. “I think Lucy has a crush on you,” Loki laughed. “What makes you say that?” “Um, the way she blushed when you smiled at her? You laid it on so thick,” You could hear the shiteating grin as he spoke. “I have no idea what you mean, darling. I spoke to her like a normal person,” “Hm,” You wiggled closer to him. “Nah, you definitely were charming her,” His hand squeezed your hip.

“Stop that,” “What?” You feigned innocence.

“Stop moving,” You wiggled your ass again, just for a bit of emphasis. “What? This?”

You swore the sound he made then was some growl. “You find new ways to annoy me every day,” “It’s my talent,” “And you excel at it,” You truly did. No one ever got under his skin like you did. And now with this new layer of your relationship, you have an infinite number of possibilities.

You knew you guys should probably talk. Figure out where you stand. A plan for tomorrow morning. Try to communicate with the team. You couldn’t find it in yourself to care right now though. Loki was warm, and as he peppered kisses across your shoulder, you felt like maybe tomorrow would be a good day too.

“I still think you’re an ass,” You mumbled, your eyes half closed.

He laughed, the sound vibrating in his chest. “Truly a terrible liar,” He pressed a kiss under your ear. “I still think you are the bane of my existence,” “The only one?” “The only one,” You hummed, content with the answer. You could figure things out tomorrow. Tonight, you just wanted to lay in this haze of sunshine. To sleep and wake up to get drunk on Loki again.

Tags: I'm gonna tag a few people because I think I'm silly and this is my second little christmas-y fic so what the hell i dont care LMAO. DONT FEEL OBLIGED TO READ <3 @sarahscribbles @divine-knight-hand @holdmytesseract @joyful-enchantress @saturn-rings-writes

#loki laufeyson #loki #loki x reader #loki laufeyson fluff #loki x f!reader #loki fanfiction #loki fic

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married-to-google-translater · 3 months

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Can I have Malleus, Kalim, Lilia and Sebek with an MC whose little baby brother was suddenly transported to twisted wonderland. MC’s baby brother is a mischievous bratty hellion but despite that MC really cares for him and has to constantly babysit him since they don’t have any parents so they only have themselves to take care of their younger sibling

This is now for Lilia and Sebek.

Malleus and Kalim are here (coming soon)

Lilia Vanrouge

Lilia quickly noticed that you became much quieter suddenly.

You definitely don't visit Diasomnia as often as you used to.

and he would get a little worried.

So Lilia quickly comes to visit.

You explain to him that taking care of your little brother takes a lot of time.

Because you have no parents in this world.

Lilia would really understand you

Oooh don't worry~

Lilia is here to help you with pleasure.

He already has three sons…

So your little brother would surely be nothing new.

You can go relax somewhere while he takes care of your brother.

Lilia would really like to work as a babysitter.

Whenever you ask…

And actually even if you don't even ask

Would your brother misbehave?

Oh Lilia sure would make your brother behave.

Just leave him with Lili for half an hour...

Sebek Zigvolt

You and Sebek would be a couple in potions.

And he noticed that you had suddenly become tired and distracted.

And Sebek wouldn't like that.

So he would ask you why you are not so efficient….

Sebek question would be really loud.

One could say that he would yell at you.

Or at least that's what your little brother thought.

So the little brother decided to kick the "mean man" in the shin.

This would be how Sebek meets your brother.

Definitely not the best start.

You explain to Sebek that for some reason your brother is also here now and you have to take care of him.

At the same time, you try to stop your brother from kicking Sebek again.

Sebek doesn't like your brother at all.

Your brother doesn't like Sebek either.

It would really be best to keep the two separate.

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reasonsforhope · 9 months

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"India’s announcement that it aims to reach net zero emissions by 2070 and to meet fifty percent of its electricity requirements from renewable energy sources by 2030 is a hugely significant moment for the global fight against climate change. India is pioneering a new model of economic development that could avoid the carbon-intensive approaches that many countries have pursued in the past – and provide a blueprint for other developing economies.

The scale of transformation in India is stunning. Its economic growth has been among the highest in the world over the past two decades, lifting of millions of people out of poverty. Every year, India adds a city the size of London to its urban population, involving vast construction of new buildings, factories and transportation networks. Coal and oil have so far served as bedrocks of India’s industrial growth and modernisation, giving a rising number of Indian people access to modern energy services. This includes adding new electricity connections for 50 million citizens each year over the past decade.

The rapid growth in fossil energy consumption has also meant India’s annual CO2 emissions have risen to become the third highest in the world. However, India’s CO2 emissions per person put it near the bottom of the world’s emitters, and they are lower still if you consider historical emissions per person. The same is true of energy consumption: the average household in India consumes a tenth as much electricity as the average household in the United States.

India’s sheer size and its huge scope for growth means that its energy demand is set to grow by more than that of any other country in the coming decades. In a pathway to net zero emissions by 2070, we estimate that most of the growth in energy demand this decade would already have to be met with low-carbon energy sources. It therefore makes sense that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced more ambitious targets for 2030, including installing 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, reducing the emissions intensity of its economy by 45%, and reducing a billion tonnes of CO2.

These targets are formidable, but the good news is that the clean energy transition in India is already well underway. It has overachieved its commitment made at COP 21- Paris Summit [a.k.a. 2015, at the same conference that produced the Paris Agreement] by already meeting 40% of its power capacity from non-fossil fuels- almost nine years ahead of its commitment, and the share of solar and wind in India’s energy mix have grown phenomenally. Owing to technological developments, steady policy support, and a vibrant private sector, solar power plants are cheaper to build than coal ones. Renewable electricity is growing at a faster rate in India than any other major economy, with new capacity additions on track to double by 2026...

Subsidies for petrol and diesel were removed in the early 2010s, and subsidies for electric vehicles were introduced in 2019. India’s robust energy efficiency programme has been successful in reducing energy use and emissions from buildings, transport and major industries. Government efforts to provide millions of households with fuel gas for cooking and heating are enabling a steady transition away from the use of traditional biomass such as burning wood. India is also laying the groundwork to scale up important emerging technologies such as hydrogen, battery storage, and low-carbon steel, cement and fertilisers..."

-via IEA (International Energy Agency), January 10, 2022

Note: And since that's a little old, here's an update to show that progress is still going strong:

-via Economic Times: EnergyWorld, March 10, 2023

#india #solar power #renewable energy #green energy #sustainability #wind power #population grown #economic growth #developing economies #renewable electricity #carbon emissions #good news #hope #hope posting

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faebaex · 8 months

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Tangled in Wonderland - Fighting Fire with Fire

author note: aaaaa this is so late! Sorry, sorry – graduation happened and then I was very busy with misc things x-x but this instalment is a little longer to make up for it! Hope you enjoy, Scarabia is up next!

characters: Azul Ashengrotto x GN!Reader

You had only given yourself two objectives when you had realised that you had been transported to the world of Twisted Wonderland.

One: figure out a way to get back to your own world, preferably in one piece.

Two: keep a low profile and avoid the game’s named characters as much as possible.

Unfortunately, none of those objectives had been going well.

Despite your best attempts, you had already run into the game’s first two housewardens. Chapter one of the game had pretty much run on schedule, culminating in Riddle’s eventual overblot. You ran into Leona by fluke, and whilst the encounter was not as terrible as you thought it would be, you still found it less than ideal for your plan to keep a low profile, especially now that Leona would give you the odd nod here and there if you passed each other in the hallway. That caused you to get a few more stares than usual. There was also another curious issue that had caught your attention.

Even with you laying low and keeping yourself out of the main story as much as possible, Leona’s overblot still happened. You had noticed that Crowley had not asked/threatened you into investigating the odd accidents that had been going on around campus in the run up to the spelldrive tournament, which you assumed was because he was still avoiding you so you didn’t hound him about getting home. So even though it wasn’t you who helped uncover the truth about the incidents, the truth still came out and you, through fates untimely intervention, ended up on the Savanaclaw spelldrive field to witness his overblot.

Regarding your attempts to figure out a way home, research had been slow. Whilst Riddle was a great help, he could also be a hindrance. With midterms on the horizon, Riddle had been visiting not to assist you with your research, but to make sure you had been studying properly for the upcoming exams. Because he considered you an honorary member of Heartslabyul, Riddle deemed it his role to make sure you succeeded in your academic endeavours, even going through the effort of making you a study schedule and notes in order for you to maximise your study time efficiently. Although you appreciated the gesture, getting more sidetracked was not what you needed right now. But you figured there were worst things that could happen.

But as usual, fate decided to show you that there were definitely worse things.

You had just gotten to the library, tote bag full of study materials that Riddle had generously lent to you swinging behind you as you weaved through the bookshelves and desks, aiming for your usual table at the back. You figured you could continue your own research and if Riddle showed up, you could just swap the books over and he would be none the wiser.

Of course, you had no idea that a whole bigger problem than Riddle Rosehearts was awaiting you. Because when you rounded the corner that enclosed your library table, the devil himself was waiting for you.

Or in this case, Azul Ashengrotto.

“Ah! There you are prefect!” Azul exclaimed, slamming one of your research books shut which he had clearly been nosing through, “I have been waiting for you. I trust your classes went well today?” He smiled at you, that usual picture perfect, business smile affixed to his face. All you could do was stare blankly at him, willing every muscle in your face not to react so that you didn’t give him an opening.

Why were you running into Azul?! Chapter three started after midterms! You still had some time before then, brain already working overtime in an attempt to figure out what was the best way to lay low against a whole dorm that excelled in subterfuge and deceit. You were shaken from your thoughts by the sounds of chair legs scrapping against the floor, as Azul got to his feet.

“Say, prefect… Midterms are coming up and it seems to me that you have all the wrong content here,” Azul started as he gestured to the table with all your research materials gathered, “why don’t we take a walk and we can discuss exactly what I can do to help you…”

Oh no. No, no, no.

Without a word, you span on your heel and started to march out of the library, not looking back or faltering in your step. It seemed like you’d actually be studying for your midterms back at Ramshackle today. Riddle would be thrilled.

“My, prefect where are you going?” Azul called after you, and you didn’t have to imagine the predatory smile on his face now that your back was turned, “I only want to talk!”

The library door slammed behind you and you hightailed it back to Ramshackle dorm.

After classes ended the next day, you took the risky decision to return to the library. But this time, you had a plan. Having called in a small favour from the library ghosts that you have become friendly with, you began your walk over to your usual table. Unfortunately, but as expected, Azul was waiting for you, his perfect business smile fixed on his face.

“Prefect, so good to see you.” Azul said, voice smooth as he leaned against one of the chairs. You had to wonder how long he had been standing there, posed like that, waiting for you to turn the corner. You ignored him as you slipped your tote bag of your shoulder and took your usual seat, pretending like he was not there. There was a beat of silence as you found your bookmark and continued reading your book in the place you had left off on, but of course the silent treatment wouldn’t work on someone as adaptable as Azul.

“Ahem, prefect, if you would…”

“Three.” You said loudly, not looking up as you turned over the page of your book. In your peripheral vision, you watched as Azul freeze.

“… Prefect?” Azul enquired, smile frozen on his face.

“Two.” You continued, eyes glued to the book in front of you. The other books rattled on the table, one even flipping open, the pages flapping dramatically before slamming back shut. Azul lifted a hand to adjust his glasses in his usual move to mask the surprise and unease that threatened to destroy his perfect smile. “Why are you—”

“One.” Finally, you looked up, looking directly into his eyes. You were satisfied to see he looked appropriately unnerved, but the best was still to come.

“BOO!!!”

Azul jumped so hard that his glasses went askew, and you couldn’t help the amused smirk that spread across your face as he flapped to regain his composure. The library ghost that had popped out and spooked Azul cackled mischievously and flew around the table a few times before disappearing, giving you the chance to mask your face back into an indifferent expression when Azul turned his attention back to you, still looking a bit shocked. You only offered a small shrug in consolation.

“Those library ghosts can sure be cheeky sometimes.” You said nonchalantly, flitting your eyes back down to your book without another word. Silence fell again, and you swore you heard a small, disgruntled huff before Azul took his leave.

Today, victory was yours.

You had one full day of peace from Azul before he was back again like nothing had happened. You shouldn’t have been surprised, Azul had a tenacity that sometimes made you wonder why the Dark Mirror had not placed him in Pomefiore. And for whatever reason, he had decided that you were very interesting.

He began popping up everywhere. You kept seeing him in the corridors, flashing you a smile that could be fool anyone as being kind. He’d somehow appear behind you in the lunch queue, even if he wasn’t there a minute before. You even decided to avoid the library for a few days, punishing yourself to study for midterms in the creaky Ramshackle dorm, and even then you saw him on your walk back, conveniently placed near the hall of mirrors or the botanical gardens, giving you a friendly wave when you passed. Well, for what passed as friendly with Azul. It was becoming increasingly clear to you, Azul was not going away.

You wracked your brain as to why Azul had taken such an interest in you. You know that when the main character made a deal with him in book three, he had his sights set on Ramshackle dorm so that he could open a branch café of the Mostro Lounge, and it was obvious that this was his agenda still now. But he had never come after the main character this… fiercely, so why was he pursuing you with such aggression?!

You chalked it up to another one of fate’s cruel pranks.

Determined, you continued to ignore his constant presence. With all the studying for midterms that you had been doing, you were convinced that you might actually get a decent grade this time round. Riddle expressed his pleasure at your diligent studying, having been miffed that he had not seen you at your usual spot in the library but delighted to know that you had finally knuckled down on your preparation for midterms.

But you couldn’t continue studying at Ramshackle forever. With Ramshackle came Grim, and with Grim came Ace and Deuce. And when you threw in the Ramshackle ghosts, you had an environment that definitely wasn’t suitable for studying. So inevitably, you ended up back at the library. Once again, you had one day of peace before Azul’s channels of information got back to him that you were back at the library because the very next day, Azul was waiting for you.

“Ah, prefect!” Azul said cheerfully, going so far as to pull out your chair for you, “I’m glad to run into you again. I must have missed you the last few times I have come to the library, I haven��t seen you here!” Azul’s business smile was out in full force today, and your lips pursed as you took your seat, ignoring Azul as he tried to help your push your chair in, not that it phased him at all. Azul was in top form today.

“Now, I’ve have something that I’d like to discuss with you…” Azul began as he took a seat opposite you, folding his hands in front of him neatly. You ignored him as you reached into your tote bag and opened one of your study books, deciding to brush up on some alchemy terms.

“It has been brought to my attention that…” Azul cleared his throat delicately, and leans forward slightly, lowering his voice, “now, I know that your situation is a little… delicate, but please be assured, I can help.” You continued to ignore him, trying your best to memorise the endless amounts of alchemy components that you had apparently learned this semester. A hand gently placed itself on top of your textbook, and you looked up to see Azul with his perfected faux expression of mixed pity and sympathy, which you were sure had won him over many clients in the past. For you, it just made your stomach turn.

“I know you’re failing. Multiple subjects, in fact.” Azul said quietly, and your eyes narrowed at him. “And who told you that?” You asked bluntly, and Azul pulled his hand back, holding up in the air in a gesture seeking peace, “now, now… You know I have to abide by client confidentiality… But you know how friends talk…” Azul purred, a predatory glint in his eyes as he smiled at you.

Great, so somebody had talked. You wondered who it could be, Ace? Deuce? Grim? Not that it mattered. Now Azul was determined to get his claws sunk into you, and you needed to deter him. Fast.

“While I appreciate your concern, I’m doing just fine. You could say that I’ve got friends in high places where are looking out for me. One even gave me a study schedule. You may know him, he’s at the top of the second-year rankings, after all.” You retorted with a sickly-sweet smile, feeling glad to have gotten that dig in, knowing Riddle and Azul’s competitive history. Azul’s smile never faltered, though his eyes did harden slightly.

“Ah, but you have so many subjects to learn in such a short amount of time. Midterms are next week.” Azul pointed out, a hand moving to rest on his chest with a flourish, “with a copy of my notes for each subject, you are guaranteed to improve your grades, enough that the professors will not give you a hard time over it. I know I could never understand, but it must be so difficult being the school’s only magicless student. You poor, unfortunate soul. I would rest so much easier at night knowing that you weren’t struggling unnecessarily.”

Your eye twitched at that, the urge to throw one of the heavy, leather-bound tomes at your side directly at Azul’s head growing thick and fast. “I said I wasn’t interested.” You responded firmly through gritted teeth. You had hoped the sly mention of Riddle would get Azul off your back, but clearly you were being naïve. Your eyes fell back down to your textbook as silence fell between you again, hoping through some fluke that ignoring Azul would make him leave you alone, but of course it wouldn’t.

“Well, if you don’t want to make a deal based on a grades perspective…” Azul mused allowed, his smile turning a tad more sinister, “how about this? Think of all the time you’ll have free to spend working on your interesting little side project if you don’t have to worry about your grades?” Azul’s fingers stroked along the spine of one of your many research books and you froze.

Now, you knew that one of your main goals was to keep a low profile in Twisted Wonderland until you figured out a way home. And if you deluded yourself hard enough, you could believe that to some extent, you had. But whilst you could tolerate Azul’s stalking, his faux friendly behaviour in the corridors and in the lunch line, and his many attempts to solicit you in the library and rope you into a predatory deal that you had no hopes of ever completing, there was one thing that you would never let slide.

And that was someone attempting to foil your plans to get back home.

Your eyes hardened as you gazed over at Azul. You needed to get rid of him, to deter him so strongly that he’d be hesitant to ever approach you again so lightly. And you knew just the way to do it.

You didn’t want to do it to him, but in your defence, he had started it. And in the types of games that he liked to play, you had to fight fire with fire.

Your pursed lips melted into a smile as you leaned forward. “Why don’t you make a deal with me instead, Azul?” You offered, crooking your finger in a motion to call him closer to you. Whilst he seemed hesitant, he was clearly intrigued by your suggestion and leaned closed to you as you looked him dead in the eye, speaking in a hush tone.

“You’re going to leave me alone. Because if you don’t, I’m going to tell every single person I walk past that they should take some time to visit the Atlantica Memorial Museum in the Coral Sea. I’ll tell them ‘hey! I know there is a really cool statue that catches your eye as soon as you enter, but you should really take a moment to check out the photographs right by the door. There are some very cute pictures there, especially one with the prince of the Coral Sea!’ You never know what you might find, right Azul?” You watched the colour drain from Azul’s face with every word you spoke, barely able to mask his horror at what you were telling him.

“H-how… Who…” He was flustered now, recoiling away from you like you had slapped him before leaning back closer to hiss at you, “how do you know about that?!” Azul was incredulous, so shocked at the dirt you had on him that he couldn’t even begin to deny it. He had to— no, he needed to know how you knew, like his very life depended on it.

“You’d be surprised what I know about you, Azul.” You responded cooly, leaning back in your chair and levelling him with a severe stare. “Things you’ve worked so hard to keep secret. I’m happy to keep them secret for you too, but you see, the thing is…” Your eyes narrowed at him now, and if he could have gotten paler, he would have, “when I get irritated, say by being constantly bothered by someone who can’t take ‘no’ for an answer…” You started to raise your voice with every word, “I get louder, and louder and…”

“Okay, okay!” Azul recoiled from you with an audible thump against his chair. He looked frazzled; pale faced with sweat beading on his forehead, “l-let’s not be rash, prefect. I see now that…” Azul cleared his throat, desperate to claw back some of his composure as he quickly stood from his chair, not even bothering to tuck it back in, “I see now that I’ve disturbed you during an incredibly important time. I apologise. I’ll take my leave, and I hope you can use your… Discretion not to act impulsively on this… Sensitive matter?”

You flashed Azul a serene smile that was not at all genuine, and he knew it. “I’ll try my best. There’s only so much I’m capable of. You know, being a magicless student and all.” You uttered with sweetness, and you thought you heard a low whine from Azul before he quickly made his escape, hurrying out the library with his dignity in tatters.

You smiled to yourself as you slowly pushed your study textbook aside. You knew it was a very risky move to threaten Azul like that, and there was a good chance that you might find yourself tied up and thrown in the sea by the end of the semester for so boldly confronting him. This wasn’t the last you would see of him, Azul too calculating to let you, a loose end that he never dreamed of encountering, go free. But for now, you could relish in the small, peaceful reprieve you had given yourself as you pulled one of your research books in front of you, finally continuing where you had left off.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #azul ashengrotto #twst azul #azul ashengrotto x reader #azul ashengrotto x y/n

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megbanned · 2 months

Note

I got a qeustion!

So pretty sure your mascot is- MB right? Well I’m curious…

Do they have any character lore or a story? Or just serve as a persona?

I think they look pretty adorable ✨

Was just curious since idk if they have any funky powers, but one of your posts has fire around them? Soooo-

Hi!

MB it's my sona and OC, both things I think XD

And yes, they have Lore!

This is a general reference of how they looks-

MB goes for They/Them in case you get a bit confused-

But for the lore: Right now I'm inspired to write, so expect a LOT of text, some things could be misspelled since I use Google Translate to write-

This image explains it more x'D

Basically it is a subtype of Worker Drone that works Underground at high temperatures where humans and normal worker drones may not be able to withstand that much heat.

They have shiny parts that allow them to light the way, such as their horns and tails. These parts appear to be made of lava, but it is another equally hot material that in turn helps them create mining tools.

This information is new and I did not explain it before: instead of having normal WD feet, they have paws, this in a way helps to feel the vibrations of the ground, as well as feeling that someone is nearby or that the cave where they are possibly about to collapse.

The hotter it is, the more efficient they are, however you should not let them consume each other or things will happen-

BUT Now that the planet froze What is MB's role? Survive

Due to the explosion caused by humans, the artificial heat that the MB colony maintained began to run out and they had no idea how to fix what gave them life, where could they get more heat? They need to consume that to live… They are made of heat, aren't they? They attacked each other until little by little there was no one left.

MB had to grow up during these conflicts and fights over the heat, he had never known what was above them even though some left the colony and did not return (they did not return since the Dissasembly drone killed them, curiously the DD did not come down to the colony since entering the caves was dangerous if you didn't know where to go, so the DDs who entered also died of overheating from not eating)

Due to certain decisions, 4 UWD (Underground Worker Drone) killed the few that remained of the colony, there was no more heat, there was nothing more to consume, MB fled the colony before they killed them, which meant that he had to go up to the surface, it took them a while to get there due to the different caves, MB met 2 other UWDs but no good things happened, when MB finally reached the surface it was not as they imagined it, it was even more spacious, and a great light covered everything, MB had seen the sun for the first time, something they had only heard from stories from other older UWDs, it didn't provide him with as much heat because of the cold snow but it was better than being down and dying.

While MB walked through this spacious place they couldn't help but see parts of other UWDs on the ground, as if something or someone had torn them apart. This terrified them, believing that the surface would be just as brutal as underground, but still decided to investigate, finding traces who were guiding to a camp seeing bodies of… Worker drones???, it was the first time MB had seen the body of a Worker drone, MB had only heard about them again because of what they told them, with the hope that they could help him to look for a warm area, MB was looking for them in that camp, but only saw abandonment and destruction, until saw the tracks left by the tires of a certain machine, a type of transport was what MB thought of, so they followed these tracks, it was a long road and the sun was beginning to set and their internal heat was not going to help for a long time, at one point and near a certain place MB ended up getting cold and collapsing because of it.

They found MB's body, they didn't know what type of Drone it was due to its appearance, but its visor showed the image "Low Temp", so they looked for something that could provide heat and a heater could help with that, for now.

Andddd this is a mexican drone- If MB were on the show, would speak completely in Spanish just like Doll speaks Russian.

SOOO this is what I have for now of MB Lore XD

The inspiration for some of the UWD lore was the Laica crystal caves located in a part of my country. sooo probably I will draw something about it later

and MB original design was this one

I later wanted to convert it into a Worker Drone and ended up creating a whole subtype of WD and the lore that I wrote previously.

SORRY IF I WROTE A LOT, I FEEL INSPIRED ASDSADASDSAD

#murder drones #murder drones oc #my stuff #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #Too much text sorry sorry sorry sorry #ask #UWD

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mostlysignssomeportents · 11 months

Text

Washington State's capital gains tax proves we can have nice things

Today (June 3) at 1:30PM, I’m in Edinburgh for the Cymera Festival on a panel with Nina Allen and Ian McDonald.

Monday (June 5) at 7:15PM, I’m in London at the British Library with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Baroness Martha Lane Fox.

Washington State enacted a 7% capital gains tax levied on annual profits in excess of $250,000, and made a fortune, $600m more than projected in the first year, despite a 25% drop in the stock market and blistering interest rate hikes:

https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/06/01/lessons-from-washington-states-new-capital-gains-tax/

Capital gains taxes are levied on “passive income” — money you get for owning stuff. The capital gains rate is much lower than the income tax rate — the rate you pay for doing stuff. This is naked class warfare: it punishes the people who make things and do things, and rewards the people who own the means of production.

The thing is, a factory or a store can still operate if the owner goes missing — but without workers, it shuts down immediately. Everything you depend on — the clothes on your back, the food in your fridge, the car you drive and the coffee you drink — exists because someone did something to produce it. Those producers are punished by our tax system, while the people who derive a “passive income” from their labor are given preferential treatment.

The Washington State tax is levied exclusively on annual gains in excess of a quarter million dollars — meaning this tax affects an infinitesimal minority of Washingtonians, who are vastly better off than the people whose work they profit from. Most working Americans own little or no stock, and the vast majority of those who do own that stock in a retirement fund that is sheltered from these taxes.

(Sidebar here to say that market-based pensions are a scam, a way to force workers to gamble in a rigged casino for the chance to enjoy a dignified retirement; the defined benefits pension, combined with adequate Social Security, is the only way to ensure secure retirement for all of us)

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses

Washington’s tax was anticipated to bring in $248m. Instead, it’s projected to bring in $849m in the first year. Those funds will go to public school operations and construction and infrastructure spending:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/was-new-capital-gains-tax-brings-in-849-million-so-far-much-more-than-expected/

That is to say, the money will go to ensuring that Washingtonians are educated and will have the amenities they need to turn that education into productive work.

Washington State is noteworthy for not having any state personal or corporate income tax, making it a haven for low-tax brain-worm victims who would rather have a dead gopher running their states than pay an extra nickel in taxes. But places that don’t have taxes can’t fund services, which leads to grotesque, rapid deterioration.

Washington State plutes moved because they relished living in well-kept, cosmopolitan places with efficient transportation, an educated workforce, good restaurants and culture — none of which they would have to pay for. They forgot Karl Marx’s famous saying: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

The idea that Washington could make up for the shortfalls that come from taxing its wealthiest residents by levying regressive sales taxes and other measures is mathematically illiterate wishful thinking. When the one percent owns nearly everything, you can tax the shit out of the other 99% and still not make up the shortfall.

Meanwhile: homelessness, crumbling roads, and crisis after crisis. Political deterioration. Cute shopping neighborhoods turn into dollar store hellscapes because no one can afford to shop for nice things because all their income is going to plug the gaps in health, education, transport and other services that the low-tax state can’t afford.

Washington State’s soak-the-rich tax is ironic, given the propensity of California’s plutes to threaten to leave for Washington if California finally passes its own extreme wealth tax.

There’s a reason all these wealthy people want to live in California, Washington, New York and other states where there’s broad public support for taxing the American aristocracy: states with rock-bottom taxes are failed states. All but two of America’s “red states” are dependent on transfers from the federal government to stay in operation. The two exceptions are Texas, whose “free market” grid is one nanometer away from total collapse, and Florida, which is about to slip beneath the rising seas it denies.

Rich people claim they’d be happy to live in low-tax states, and even tout the benefits of a desperate workforce that will turn up to serve drinks at their country clubs even as a pandemic kills them at record rates. But when the chips are down, they don’t want to depend on a private generator to keep the lights on. They don’t want to have to repeatedly replace their luxury cars’ suspension after it’s wrecked by gaping potholes. They don’t want to have to charter a jet to fly their kids out of state to get an abortion.

This is true globally, too. As Thomas Piketty pointed out in Capital in the 21st Century, if the EU and OECD created a wealth tax, the rich could withdraw to Dubai, the Caymans and Rwanda, but they’d eventually get sick of shopping for the same luxury goods in the same malls guarded by the same mercenaries and want to go somewhere, you know, fun:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/

We’re told that Americans would never stand for taxing the ultra-rich because they see themselves as “temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” It’s just not true: soak-the-rich policies are wildly popular:

https://balanceourtaxcode.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/WA-State-Wealth-Tax-Poll-Results-3.pdf

The Washington tax windfall is fascinating in part because it reveals just how rich the ultra-rich actually are. Warren Buffett says that “when the tide goes out, you learn who’s been swimming naked.” But Washington’s new tax is a tide that reveals who’s been swimming with a gold bar stuck up their ass.

It’s not surprising, then, that Washingtonians are so happy to tax their one percenters. After all, this is the state that gave us modern robber barons like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. And then there’s clowns like Steve Ballmer, star of Propublica’s IRS Files, the man whose creative accounting let him claim $700m in paper losses on his basketball team, allowing him to pay a mere 12% tax on $656m in income, while the workers who made his fortune on the court paid 30–40% on their earnings.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#economic-substance-doctrine Ballmer’s also a master of “tax loss harvesting,” who has created paper losses of over $100m, letting him evade $138m in federal taxes:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/24/tax-loss-harvesting/#mego

These guys aren’t rich because they work harder than the rest of us. They’re rich because they profit from our work — and then, to add insult to injury, pay little or no taxes on those profits.

Washington’s lowest income earners pay six times the rate of tax as the state’s richest people. When the wealthy squeal that these taxes are class warfare, they’re right — it is class war, and they started it.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/03/when-the-tide-goes-out/#passive-income

[Image ID: The Washington State flag; the circular device featuring George Washington has been altered so that it is now the head of a naked man clothed in a barrel with two wide leather shoulder straps.]

#pluralistic #steve ballmer #irs files #washington state #soak the rich #capital gains #taxes class war #euthanasia of the rentier

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mangoisms · 7 months

Text

circle k (back to you)

summary: in which you're just the graveyard shift employee at circle k bombarded by vigilantes.

━ chapter eleven: i am always running back to you | read chapter ten

━ pairing: tim drake x f!reader

━ word count: 4.7k

━ warnings: none

━ masterlist

━ a/n: SO SORRY.... it was the horrors (midterms). hope this chapter makes up for it because boy it is a lot of fun

The rest of the evening passes slowly.

It does nothing for your nerves, truthfully, but you keep yourself preoccupied with Wade. He crawls now and that leaves him wanting to explore every space possible. So, while Wally runs out for dinner and Linda wraps up a meeting with her editor, you watch over him and make sure he doesn’t get into anything he shouldn’t.

Dinner is deep-dish pizza—directly from Chicago. It’s all very indulgent, the way Wally can do things like that; he spoils you in that regard and you tell him as much as you wash dishes and he puts them away.

“Nah, it’s nothing,” he says, shooting you a small smile. “Besides, it’s for me, too.”

And you can tell that’s true by the four empty boxes of pizza that he ate, with two for you and Linda.

But still. When he leaves…

It’s not just that that you’re going to miss. With or without the speed, you’re going to miss him. Him, Linda, and little Wade.

Despite not saying that—because you don’t want to be a downer, because their home is in Keystone City, not here, and you don’t want to be selfish like that—he senses the shift in your mood.

“You know,” he starts, “me and Lin were thinking…”

“That’s never good.”

He nudges you gently, grinning. You shake your head, smiling, too. You pass him a freshly-washed plate and he dries it.

“Well, wait until you hear what we were thinking about.”

“What?”

“We think you should visit us every now and then.”

The thought that they want you around is warming, as usual. But…

“I mean, I would love to, Wally, but I can’t really afford that… Maybe, after I see how everything adds up during the fall, I can come for the holidays or something. But…”

He shakes his head. “Come on, kiddo. You think we’d say that and leave it up to you?”

“I don’t expect—”

“I know. But you should. We want to do whatever we can to see you. You aren’t the only one that’s going to miss something when we leave, you know. That’s why we’re doing this. Besides,” he grins at you, lightening up. “Who do you think you’re talking to? I can get you to Keystone in under a minute right now.”

Considering that Linda has told you that his speed is efficient but leaves one with a horrible bout of nausea and vertigo—at least in the beginning; she’s barely affected these days—you feel some mild apprehension.

But those things are temporary. You can withstand that, if only to see them again.

“Or,” he goes on, “we can fly you out, but that would honestly be pretty cumbersome and would also take too long.”

“It’s a plane, Wally. That is the fastest form of transportation we have in this country.”

He sniffs. “I’m the fastest form of transportation we have in this country. In the world! One of them, anyway.”

“Well, that’s how we normal human beings function. Not everyone can run faster than the speed of light.”

“Not everyone should,” he agrees. “I’d lose my appeal. That would suck.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“So, is that a yes or—?”

“Alright,” you relent, smiling. “How often are we talking?”

He smiles a tad bashfully. “Once or twice a month? You can come on the weekends… Just—you know. I know you’re gonna be busy with classes but…”

“It sounds like I should be getting a nice break every month if we do that. I mean, I can’t promise I won’t have work—”

“Just as long as you’re around, kid. That’s all we want.”

Your face warms at the earnestness in his words, embarrassed, though you know you really shouldn’t be. “Wally.”

“Hey, I’m gonna be honest with you. I’ve been in this game too long to try and dance around feelings. Hopefully your boy will learn that, too.”

“You aren’t wrong,” you mutter, shutting off the water and drying your hands, making a mental reminder to put on some lotion before they get annoyingly dry from the hot water and dish soap. “I’m just not… used to that.”

He shrugs, tossing his dish towel over his shoulder. “Like I said. In a world like ours… it’s important.”

You don’t disagree. But you can’t rail too hard on Tim. Questionable decisions regarding his feelings aside, the both of you only came to your senses after he had a close-call today. What does that say about you, that he has to nearly die for you to realize you need to see him again? Need to clear the air?

It’s human, you think. So very terribly human of you.

It’s not like you’re unappreciative of him in your life but… you know this dance and song. You only realize what you have when you lose it. Look at your parents. You’ve slipped right now but you’ll fix it. You’ll make sure he knows how much he means to you.

But more importantly, right now…

“You guys… mean a lot to me, too.” You turn, seeing Linda pause near the island, and meet her brown eyes and even though it makes your face hot and the words get stuck in your throat, you force them out, underpinned with what you hope they can tell is sincerity. “You do. So much.”

Your throat tightens and you duck your head as your eyes burn.

Hard to quantify. Hard to put a label on what they mean to you.

But you know that much. That they mean the world to you.

Warm, strong arms come around you, squeezing you tight. You sniffle when you feel Linda come up behind you, squeezing you, too.

It’s an emotional day, you decide. For all of you.

So, you take a long shower to try and pull yourself together, then head to bed, bidding Wally and Linda goodnight.

You don’t intend to fall asleep when you crawl into your bed. It’s better to stay up, to wait for Tim to get here. But the day’s events start weighing down on you as you curl up beneath the blankets.

You try valiantly to stay awake by scrolling on your phone but it’s a Sisyphean task to do so. As your eyelids grow heavier and heavier, you know it will be a task that you fail as you stop fighting and give in to sleep.

It’s only the vibration of your phone that rouses you.

Groping for it, the display is obscenely bright in the darkness of your room. But the text waiting for you is unmistakable, impossible to miss.

i’m here

Suddenly recalling what you and Tim had agreed upon, you shoot up in bed, ignoring the head rush the action gives you.

The window that leads out to the fire escape is right next to your bed, covered by curtains. You toss your phone aside, rolling out of the warm cocoon of blankets; the AC in this place works well, a little too well, you think groggily as your bare feet connect with cold wood floors.

You shove aside the curtains and though you know who is waiting for you, that it is Tim, just Tim, your best friend, the still-not-fully-awake part of you clenches up in fear, thinking it might be Batman that is moving in the shadows, only barely illuminated by the full moon. But you know better than that.

It helps that your eyes are already adjusted to the darkness, recognizing the figure crouched in your fire escape. Dressed in… oddly enough, sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a light jacket. Completed with a plain black domino mask—not the usual one he wears, more akin to Robin, save for the color—that obscures the blue eyes you know and love.

You reach for the window. Well-oiled and taken care of by the owners, it is virtually silent as it slides open.

Muggy July heat rushes in, chasing away the cold.

Without the window and with your vision quickly clearing from bleariness, you can really take him in. The tension in his body, the way a breeze ruffles through dark hair, the twitch of his hands to you before they clench into fists. Waiting.

For you.

Your throat thickens painfully when your eyes snag on the white gauze taped to the left side of his neck.

Just a graze, Steph told you. But he lost a bit of blood anyway and his neck… if it had been the right side, would he not be here right now? Maybe it doesn’t matter. It’s his neck, there are so many important arteries running through there.

If anything else had happened, if he’d moved even a little bit, he wouldn’t be here.

That realization, coupled with the overwhelming emotions at seeing him again since everything, pushes you over the edge.

Your eyes burn with tears. You reach forward, ignoring the soreness in your belly, one hand grabbing his wrist and tugging him right into the circle of your arms.

That breaks the stalemate. He goes quickly, arms sliding around you as the first of your tears start sliding down your cheeks.

“Tim…”

He holds you tighter, impossibly warm, letting out a shuddery breath and whispering your name, too, everything inside you shivering at the sound, at the warmth that wraps up the syllables of your name.

“I’m okay,” he breathes. “I’m okay, I swear.”

“You were shot.”

An exhale of a laugh. It sounds shaky with emotion.

“Technically, I was grazed.”

“Tim.”

He presses his nose to your hair, hand stroking up your back.

“I’m okay,” he whispers, lips brushing your forehead. “I wasn’t going to die before I got to see you. No way.”

You sniffle. The two of you are quiet, speaking lowly, but you’re suddenly too aware of the other window on the fire escape, the one for Linda and Wally’s room. You don’t want to wake them—or god forbid, Wade—so you reluctantly extract yourself from his arms, tugging him again.

He follows easily, sliding through the window with a grace you aren’t used to. He shuts the window silently behind him, banishing the muggy air that had leaked inside. You wipe away your tears, attempting to piece yourself together.

As he turns back to you, hesitantly now, the air conditioner clicks on, and a second later, cold air starts blowing into your room. It should help cover your voices a little bit.

For a moment, it is silent.

Tim shifts on his feet across from you. The domino mask renders him impervious. Impossible to read without seeing his eyes.

But not totally impossible. The way he bites his lip doesn’t just draw your attention to his mouth, tempting, traitorous thoughts briefly crossing your mind, but it also clues you into his nervous state.

“I’m sorry.”

He speaks first, blurting the words out, seeming almost surprised at the way they escaped him before he decides to go with it, doubling down on it.

Taking a deep breath, he looks at you, whispering your name. “I’m sorry. For lying to you. For coming to you as Red Robin instead of myself. For everything. I just… I didn’t know how to handle it.”

“I know,” you sigh. “I know.”

You were in that position, too. You didn’t fuck it up this badly but… you each had your parts to play. No one is blameless here.

“I just,” he stops, looking away, hands clenching at his sides. “I want to be friends. If anything else. I want that.”

If anything else.

You understand what he is saying here.

He isn’t here under any pretenses. Isn’t expecting you to take him in with open arms. Would be fine as friends.

Well, you don’t want that.

“Tim.”

He looks at you. You extend a hand. Waiting. Not demanding.

Slowly, he comes to you. Palm sliding against yours. Warm and a little clammy, calloused but still soft.

A few inches of space separate you when he stops.

This close, you can feel the heat of him. Smell his shampoo, soft and fragrant. Eucalyptus.

You squeeze his hand once then let go.

He and Red Robin are two sides of the same coin. There is no Tim Drake without Red Robin, you think. Not right now.

Maybe it’ll change, down the line. One part of you selfishly hopes so.

You’ll always want him. But as Red Robin, the risk of losing him triples and you are greedy enough to want to mitigate it. The same with Steph. Even with Wally, who is considerably more durable. All of them, duty-bound, honor-bound. You cannot ask that of them.

Right now, though, you think you can make that demand. At least temporarily.

You reach for him. Pausing when your hands near his face. But he doesn’t move. Just looks down at you and you wonder if he can hear your heart, with how hard, how loudly, it pounds in your chest.

You have to be certain.

So, when your fingers finally touch the smooth material of the mask, before trying to lift it, you ask, in a whisper, “Can I?”

“Yes,” he breathes, some emotion you don’t know underlying his voice, one that makes your face warm and your heart skip a beat.

Your fingers find the edge, slowly, gently peeling it up. It peels and peels and peels until finally, it detaches into your hands. Almost flimsy now but with a certain weight.

That’s not what retains your attention, though.

It’s him. It’s always him.

Tim’s eyes are closed, the tiniest of wrinkles found between his brows.

You imagine what it must be like to him. Letting you do that. Peel back the final layer of him once and for all. Letting you see him. Tim. Your Tim.

Keeping the domino mask loosely grasped in one hand, your other reaches for him, your thumb finding the wrinkle between his brows. It smooths out instantly at your touch and his eyes flutter open.

There they are.

It’s a shade of blue that haunts your dreams most nights.

Usually a lighter, softer color in the light, something like cornflowers, but right now, they’re midnight sky blue, looking at you with a heavy kind of affection, warm and unbridled.

Your hand settles on his cheek. He leans into the touch. Your thumb strokes over the sensitive skin under his eye. Where dark circles mar the skin, exhaustion finally clear in his face.

You smile sadly. “You look tired, Timmy.”

“Last couple weeks,” he swallows, “have been… rough.”

“Tell me about it.”

He smiles. It’s a small thing but no less beautiful to your eyes.

Then he sobers up, gazing at you, pained. “I am sorry.”

“I know.”

“I was an idiot.”

“I know.” You take a deep breath. “We both were.”

He opens his mouth to protest but you speak before he can.

“It’s true. You know that. We didn’t handle this like we should but it’s… it’s in the past. We can’t change it. We just have to move forward.”

A slow nod, then his eyes flicker to your hand, still between you two, still holding onto the domino mask. He takes it from you.

You aren’t sure what you expect, but it’s not for him to toss it away, landing somewhere in the darkness, a near silent sound.

“Tim—“

“It’ll never come between us again,” he whispers and your breath catches at his words; his hands find yours, pulling the one on his cheek into his own, squeezing. “I promise.”

You take a second to compose yourself, letting out a slow breath.

“I believe you,” you finally say. “And… no more lies. Please. Tell me the truth. The whole truth. I want to be there for you, for all of it.”

“It’s going to hurt.”

Not a protest. Just a statement. A warning.

“So, it’s even more important for me to be there.”

He swallows, eyes searching yours. “Are you… are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“So… we’re okay?”

“No.”

His face falls. “Whatever it is… I’ll make it up to you. I swear. Whatever you want.”

“I want you.”

“You have me,” he promises.

“Not like that.”

He stiffens up, breath catching as he understands what you mean. He looks down at you, shock clear. Understanding but not truly believing. That won’t do.

“I love you, Tim. Not just as a friend but…”

You’ve said it to them both. I love you. And this ‘I love you’ isn’t better than the one you tell Steph, than the one you told him for the first time, back when your feelings were still strictly platonic. It doesn’t mean something more, something deeper, something elevated just because it’s romantic. But it’s different. In what you want. In what you long for.

He whispers your name.

You let out a slow breath. “And if you want that, too, then…”

“Of course I do,” he breathes, letting go of your hands to cup your face, bringing you closer. “Of course I do. There’s nothing else, no one else, I want. I just… I never wanted to assume.”

“I know.”

“But if you’re on board then… then we can try it out.”

It feels more like ‘trying it out,’ though. Despite the uncertainty, the whirlwind of emotions, everything that has happened, finally talking it out, finally laying everything out on the table… you’ve found solid ground. A foundation you can build upon.

It is no mere crush. No simple infatuation.

You are in love with Tim Drake. Plain and simple.

And he is in love with you, too.

You close your eyes, fingers curling around his wrists. After a beat, he presses his forehead to yours.

“I love you, too, you know,” he whispers. “I have for a long time.”

Your face is hot, flushed with heat, your heart pounding. You feel so light, like you might fall up, untethered by gravity and floaty from the cotton candy-sweet warmth unspooling in your chest, clogging your veins and the arteries of your heart. It wouldn’t be a bad way to go.

But before you do…

“Tim.”

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me.”

He kisses you.

Gently at first, tenderly, lips warm, soft, tasting faintly of spearmint. You feel like you might melt into a puddle of goo at it, at knowing it’s Tim who is kissing you so sweetly, making your knees feel a little weak.

You shuffle closer. He inhales sharply at you pressing into his space, curling around you to close the final bits of distance. It turns the kiss a little fevered, a little hungry, a little desperate.

You’ve missed him so much. You can’t stop yourself from whispering that, pulling away to do so.

He shudders at your words, lips pressing to your cheek, then your jaw, then your neck, and you open yourself up to him, too willing, too happy to let him have you like this.

He keeps saying it. Whatever you want. But he can have whatever he wants from you, too. Anything. Everything.

“I love you,” he breathes against your neck and your breath catches at the reverence in his voice. “Can you—can you say it again?”

“I love you, Tim,” you whisper and it pulls another shiver from him, lips pressing to your fluttering pulse and your knees really feel like they might give out.

Your fingers grasp the material of his jacket, tugging, and he brings his lips back to yours, giving you a mind-numbing, synapse-slowing kiss.

You separate eventually, foreheads pressed together, trying to catch your breath.

“Will you stay?” you ask softly.

“I’ll stay,” he promises, leaning back to press a heartachingly tender kiss to your forehead. You close your eyes, holding onto him.

After a moment, he pulls away, shedding his jacket, draping it over the footboard. You close the curtains over your window, then crawl into bed. When Tim comes over, he tries to push you over. Not hard. A gentle—persistent—nudge to your shoulder, keeping in mind your injury, though you should tell him that it’s healing much better at nearly three weeks since it happened. Enough so that Steph said she could see about Crystal coming over to take the stitches out, just to avoid waiting at the hospital, and the bill, too.

“Oh, hey—”

“Let me sleep there,” he urges. “I feel better if you’re furthest from the window.”

“Hero types, I swear.”

He doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he leans down and scoops you into his arms. You yelp and he shushes you. You can’t stop your giggles as he unceremoniously drops you on the other side of the bed, the one closest to the door. He crawls in after you.

“You’re going to wake them up,” he whispers but he’s grinning, too, as he slides under the covers, laying on his side.

“Who’s fault is that?” you shoot back. “Just ‘cause you and your savior complex need to be by the window—”

He muffles his snickers into the pillow, eyes closed, lips spread in a grin. Your chest warms and you wiggle closer to him.

Tim lifts an arm so you can settle against his side. Wary of the gauze on the hollow of his throat, you settle for tucking your head underneath his chin, pressing a soft kiss to his neck.

He strokes a hand down your back, a warm brand between your shoulder blades. Sleep isn’t far off your conscience, right at the edges of it, and with the warmth of his body and the reassurance of his embrace, you’re moving fast to it.

But before you do…

“Tim.”

“Hmm?”

“You’ll… you’ll be here in the morning, right?”

His arm tightens around you. You feel him press a kiss to your hair.

“I’ll be here. I promise.”

And he is.

When you rouse an indeterminate amount of time later, awakened by the sounds of activity outside your door—Wade’s high-pitched giggles, Wally’s low murmurs to him as he feeds him breakfast, the water running in the pipes as Linda uses the bathroom—Tim is still there. With you.

Deep in sleep, still, even with the slivers of light that come in from your window and the noises coming in from outside. Probably the repercussions of his ‘rough couple weeks.’ It’s quite similar with you, if you’re being honest. Besides, you hardly mind, basking in the feel of your legs tangled together underneath the blankets, the heavy but reassuring weight of his arm around you.

You manage to pull away a little bit to look at him, blinking out the bleariness in your eyes as you rest your head on the pillow, his face a couple inches from yours. Eyes shut, dark lashes casting shadows over his cheeks, breathing soft and slow. His hair is a mess, some parts of it flat from the pillow and sticking up in other areas. You spy a few creases from the pillow on his cheek, too. But even with that, he is still so beautiful to you.

You sigh, snuggling closer to him, shifting so you can run your fingers through his hair, your eyes falling shut again. You can stand to sleep a little while longer.

He lets out a soft, contented sigh as your fingers glide through his hair, gently taking out tangles as you go.

You pull away after a moment, feeling sleep lapping at your senses again.

You doze for a little while, rousing again to more noise from outside. The sound of the TV. Wally and Linda murmuring to each other. Wade giggling.

Tim shifts, groaning quietly. The sound, rough with sleep, makes something inside you clench, sparks of heat waking you up more fully so you can watch him wake up, too.

He rolls onto his back, stretching, then sagging into the mattress. You stay curled up on your side, your calf thrown over his, watching him wake up with a small smile on your lips that you know must be horribly lovesick.

Finally, he turns to look at you, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

“Hi.”

He gives you a sleepy smile. “Hi. Watching me sleep? Weirdo.”

He still has pillow creases on his face. You reach up to trace them.

“Well, you like this weirdo.”

“I love this weirdo,” he corrects. “Guess it’s fair, considering my night job.”

“Right. Watching you sleep—which I wasn’t, by the way, I was just waiting for you to wake up—”

“Sounds an awful lot like watching me sleep—”

You grin and pinch his cheek. He grunts, halfheartedly batting your hand away and taking it in his, lacing your fingers together.

“Anyway. That’s not that big of an offense compared to, oh, I don’t know, dressing up and fighting crime each night.”

“Think that’s part of the whole ‘we love each other thing,’” he teases.

You smile. “I guess so.”

“So, then…” His eyes stray from your face, to something else, nerves clear as day; too early in the morning for him to make a solid attempt at hiding them from you and well. You know him. For better and for worse.

“Mmhm?”

“I guess I should take you on a date.”

“You guess?”

He blushes, red settling high in his cheeks in a way that is… decidedly tempting. “I mean I should. If—if you want to, of course.”

“I didn’t kiss you just for kicks, you know.”

“I sure hope not,” he agrees, looking back at you, face softening. “Will you, then?”

“Of course, Timmy.”

“And maybe…” He turns, reaching for you. You go easily, your fingers still tracing the pillow creases on his cheek. A strong arm wraps around your shoulders as he turns onto his side. In the warm light of the morning, his eyes are a softer shade of blue, the one you know and love.

“Maybe…?”

“Maybe… you’ll give me the honor of being my girlfriend?”

Oh, geez.

Your face flares with heat, heart skipping a beat.

“You cornball.”

“You love it.”

Your palm finally settles on his cheek—hot to the touch, too, flush still lingering behind. You lean forward to press your lips to his forehead. He lets out a shuddery breath, arm tightening around you briefly.

“Yes, Tim,” you murmur against his skin. “I would be happy to.”

“Thank you,” he whispers, but it doesn’t like he’s thanking you for agreeing to it—at least, not just that.

Maybe for everything.

But— “You don’t have to thank me. It’s not… I love you. That’s all there is and that’s all there ever will be.”

You pull back, thumb stroking over his cheek. He leans forward, lips pressing gently to your cheek. Your fingers find their way into his hair, sighing contentedly as he kisses down to your jaw.

You get so caught up in that, the knock on your door scares the shit out of you both.

Wally calls out your name. “You up, kiddo? Lin’s makin’ eggs and rice.”

Tim pulls away quickly and you sit up, your face hot.

“I’ll, um, be out in a few.” Your voice is steady, thankfully, but you can’t say much about your pulse, your heart beating out of your chest. Tim is sitting up, too, looking around the room—presumably for the mask he discarded last night.

“Okay,” Wally says. “Will Tim be joining us?”

You both freeze.

You should’ve known better, really. Wally’s been doing this for a long time. Nothing much will slip by him. Not unless he lets it.

Tim turns an impressive shade of red. Tempting, like it always is, but mostly, you just feel like a teenager caught red-handed with her boyfriend.

…Which isn’t too incorrect of a description.

You look at him, lost.

He clears his throat, raising his voice to respond. “I—uh, yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s fine,” Wally responds cheerfully. “Hope you aren’t allergic to sesame because I don’t care and I’m not going out to get something different for you.”

“Wally!”

Tim smiles, shaking his head. “I’m not allergic.”

“Too bad,” he says. “It’ll be ready in a few.”

Footsteps leave. Wally hums to himself loudly, happily.

You and Tim look at each other for a second before a giggle escapes you. Then another. He joins you in the next second, until you two are laughing loudly, listing into each other and flopping onto the bed.

In the kitchen, even from here, you can hear Wally and Linda laughing, too.

You grin breathlessly, looking at Tim’s smiling face, and decide the embarrassment of getting caught out is worth it, if you get to have this. All of them.

reblogs are appreciated!

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mmgwritings · 7 months

Text

I'M GONNA TAKE MINE OF YOU WITH ME

Character: Kaz Brekker / Wife! Reader

Prompts: There is a word for children who lose their parents, but there is none for parents who lose a child.

Warnings: Canon divergence; Angst; Character death; Grief; Kaz suffering; i'm sorry :(

Never trust the Saints; they give and take away.

Initially, a curfew was imposed. Without prior warning, patrol officers closed all clubs, brothels and merchant mansions, causing a commotion among the population that was soon violently suppressed. Later, when the disease spread from the interior of Kesh to the suburbs of Ketterdam, the healers' homes became crowded, and before long even the healers needed the assistance of the Grisha in the merchants' hospital.

Thus, Ketterdam remembered how to act. They had faced an epidemic before and would face this one with the same practicality. The funeral bells echoed incessantly throughout the day, while the bay south of the city was used to transport the bodies, piled on fishing vessels confiscated by the Council of the Tides. The former party town, Ketterdam, has transformed into a highly efficient funeral operation.

Burials were strictly prohibited. Thus, when the boats failed to remove bodies from the city quickly enough, in less favored neighborhoods, residents were forced to dispose of their loved ones on improvised pyres in the middle of the street.

This was the first scene we saw upon arriving in Ketterdam through the northwest gate, when the carriage had to make an abrupt stop in front of a pile of twisted ashes, which at first glance appeared to be the remains of slaughtered animals. However, horror soon hit us when the coachman, in a state of shock, vomited and exclaimed: “They are people, Saints, they are people!”

From the windows of the houses along the street, I could briefly see thin faces peering through the cracks in the windows. They were, without a doubt, the relatives of those poor burned creatures. Their looks were blank, as if they had already resigned themselves to the idea that the remains of their loved ones would end up on the street. I hastily closed the windows to hide the cruelty, but it remained etched in my eyes even when I closed them.

The trip was quick and extremely stressful, from Lij to the capital it was just two days of march that lasted the longest a lifetime. The exhausted horses showed visible signs of fatigue when the coachman left us at the hospital doors. However, as quick as it was, it apparently wasn't enough. The little girl was remarkably pale, her lips were dyed purple and her eyes were trembling under the weight of nightmares caused by the fever. My dear girl, a gift bestowed by the saints, the reward for any act of benevolence I have done in this world.

My mother used to say that the saints' mercy was unfair to mortals, because, as divine beings, they no longer understood the pain of any sacrifice, they no longer understood what it was like to lose someone. They were above everything and everyone. But I was a stupid young woman, I ignored my poor mother's advice because I thought it was the condescending words of a woman with pagan customs.

“Mommy,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with exhaustion, her eyes barely opening.

"I'm here my love. It’s going to be okay,” I whispered as I took her small, feverish body into my arms. At the beginning of the year, I could barely hold her on my lap for long, she was growing fast and turning into a beautiful, healthy five year old. Now, feeling how light her body was in my arms, my heart squeezed with pain.

Despite it being the early hours of the morning, a small crowd was sitting on the steps. They were probably sick people, but not sick enough to get a bed inside the hospital. I was trying to carefully pass between them, when, at the door, Nina appeared.

She was dressed in the black clothes of the doctors, with the distinctive blue apron of the merchants' wing, stained with small drops of blood.

“Y/N, come this way, sweetheart. I’ve already prepared everything for her,” said Nina, her kind face and caring voice leading me down a corridor to the east of the main hall. She was different since the last time I saw her, during the holidays. She looked sterner than ever.

“Any news from him? Did Kaz send any letters? Do you think he will arrive today?” I asked as I followed Nina through a corridor packed with doctors, heartrenders, healers and all sorts of people. I must admit that, little by little, the composure I had managed to maintain during the last two days of the journey from Lij to Ketterdam was starting to crumble. Felt like I was on the edge of an abyss, spiraling into darkness.

Nina looked at me with sadness as she led me into a small, but well-lit room with a comfortable bed, where I rested my daughter. She was in a restless sleep and quietly muttering nonsense words, the fever must be getting worse.

“Kaz didn't send any letters, none of them. Y/N, they must be on the way,” Nina reassured me. “Now, I need you to stay calm for her, please. We will examine her immediately, but you also need to undergo tests. You could be as sick as she is.”

“No, you don’t need to. I'm not going to leave her alone here” I said, freeing myself from Nina's hands the moment when a tall, tired-looking man entered the room, he seemed to be middle-aged, even though he was visibly a Grisha.

Nina walked over to him and they started talking in whispers, probably discussing the situation. It was not uncommon for merchants and their families to seek privileges in cases of calamity, but being Kaz Brekker's family, these privileges often extended to any kind of perk. Obviously, by now, the entire hospital knows that the wife and daughter of Ketterdam's biggest criminal are looking for help.

I sat next to my daughter, holding her soft hand and massaging her temple with my fingertips. Just like she is my joy, she is Kaz’s world. The gravity, the humanity, the warmth that keeps him alive. She looks much more like him: her light eyes, her dark hair and even her pert nose. At times, they seemed to share the same thoughts, to the point where I felt like I was somehow invading their space. She was his world.

Kaz would be able to destroy cities to protect her from her enemies, but that would not be enough to protect her from death.

Death came. It invaded my life so abruptly that I didn't even have time to cry for mercy. One moment, my daughter was in a restless sleep, and the next, she was convulsing, with blood pouring from her eyes and nose... The harrowing sounds were the most terrifying, they seemed to echo endlessly in my mind; it was the sound of her choking as she tried to breathe through vomit.

When it was all over, as my daughter lay on the bed with her head at an awkward angle, a horrible sound filled the room, resembling a wounded animal. I couldn't take my eyes off her to find the source of that sound. Only then did I realize that I was the one issuing it.

Once, when I was a child and still enjoying my hunting adventures with my brothers, we witnessed a fox with its cub in a trap set by my father. The cub was trapped, one of its paws shattered between the iron teeth of the trap, it was still too small to understand human antics, and its mother, whether out of compassion or instinct, killed it before we could get closer.

In those minutes when I was afflicted with acute pain, I reflected on that fox mother facing the suffering of her cub. I thought about how I didn't have the same courage as her, about how I would rather rip my own legs off with my teeth and offer myself to the hunters in exchange for freeing my cub from his torment.

Later, when Nina released me from her embrace with a pale, tearful face, speaking words I could barely understand, I considered how naive both I and the hypothetical fox were being in placing our faith in the benevolence of a superior, divine being. Tearing out my legs, my heart, begging, crawling – would that make any difference? Probably not. Yet even so, I would be willing to sacrifice myself for centuries on end in exchange for my daughter's life.

When I got up from the ground, with shaky legs and still immersed in a painful lethargy, I walked over to my daughter. The heartrender had cleaned her face, but there were still bloodstains on the collar of her blue dress, the same one she had received as a birthday present from her father and which she loved because it made her feel like a fairy.

When I held her little face between my hands she was still warm, it seemed like at any moment she would wake up and smile and tell me it was just a trick. But it wasn't, I spent a long time holding her face waiting for this trick to end and it didn't happen.

When I placed a kiss on her forehead, my tears fell on her face. It was an eternal kiss, I didn't want it to end, I didn't want it to be the last. However, when I pulled away, Nina wrapped me in a comforting hug. Finally, she retreated to a corner of the room, leaving me alone to watch over my pain.

I held my daughter in my arms, I ran my fingers through her hair, her face, memorizing every little detail of her. Finally, when she was starting to feel cold and heavy, I moved closer to give her another kiss, and this time, it was Kaz's goodbye kiss.

It was outside the hospital that Kaz found me. Nina took me outside when a team of healers told us they needed the room. In Ketterdam, the city of death, they are very practical about sorting things out. I was sitting on one of the steps, trying to catch my breath and looking at nothing, when Kaz, Inej, Wylan and Jesper arrived in a grain truck.

I didn't understand what emptiness was, nor how distressing it could be. I had no idea that it could be deafening, that the blood would rush through my veins and that everything around me would feel cold to the touch. Emptiness was the absence of all emotions, and at the same time, it contained them all. And the pain of emptiness made it extraordinarily difficult to notice anything around me other than the image of Kaz.

He was disheveled, his black coat was dirty with dust, and his hair was messy, as if he had spent the last few hours pulling out the strands. His usually restrained blue eyes were showing all of his emotions. A shadow hovered over them, something I had never seen before: fear. And I didn't know how to act other than getting up, walking a few steps, and finally succumbing at Kaz's feet in the hope that the ground would swallow me.

My breathing is heavy and shallow, sobs tear from my throat. There were no more tears, it seems that I was no longer able to produce them, however, a rain began to fall on us, as if it could cry what I was unable to. Above me, Kaz was standing still. He was like a wall that refused to fall under a storm, under the weight of reality. He refuses to vocalize whatever he's thinking, I think he's also feeling empty. It's as if any trace of humanity has been drained from him.

Would he become Dirtyhands, being all practical while he waits for the poor creature I've become at his feet to pull herself together? Or would he become the fox cub caught in the trap, hoping I could rip his throat out when he, for the first time in his life, didn't have a plan to get around the situation?

“Y/N, darling,” whispered Inej, as if calling my name could tie me to the ropes of the earth again. Besides, what else could she say?

Is this the moment when I would hear the lamentations, the pity, that would follow me for the rest of my life when they found out about the daughter I lost?

“She's gone,” I said, lifting my head and looking at Kaz. “We were waiting for you... but she got worse, so I came to Ketterdam. I really thought she would get better, but she's gone, Kaz” my voice broke completely.

I think whatever strength had kept Kaz up until that moment was gone. He turned his back on us, walking toward the side of the building, his steps swaying as if he were drunk, until finally he collapsed. A scream tore through his chest, a scream of rage, of frustration and sadness. But above all pain.

There is a definition for children who lose their parents, but there is none for parents who lose their children.

What are we now? A mother without a child? What would I do now? Just go home and put all her things together in a box like party decorations?

I got up and walked over to Kaz, hugging him from behind. We lay huddled in the rain, me holding Kaz's body as he thrashed about in a horrible cry. I offered whatever comfort I had: I kissed his head, whispered empty words, held him close to me. If I wasn't a mom, then Kaz wasn't a dad.

He would never hold her in his arms again, he wouldn't smile when she played with his gloves, which were too big, and he wouldn't stand by her bed on sleepless nights, watching her sleep.

“Kaz, she loves you more than anything” I said. Loved, whispered my treacherous brain. Then, fighting the lump in my throat, I said, “They've already put her with the dead people.”

Kaz shuddered, the crying became silent. The vision no parent, least of all Kaz, wants to imagine. Like any other death in Ketterdem, whether of the poor or the rich, our daughter's would be treated with little ceremony. No mourning, no funeral.

She, who was always warm, was now alone in the cold of the Harbor.

On the days when Kaz couldn't bear any touch, she was the one who defied him by clasping her little hands around his neck. Or on the worst days, when he came from the Barrel with someone's blood on his sleeve, she covered him with kisses and smiles. Kaz loved her the moment he saw her, covered in blood, wet, crying... and warm. When she was a baby he treated her like porcelain, if he could he wouldn't even let me touch her.

My hands met Kaz's, he was clutching his chest as if he wanted to rip out his own heart. I held him, afraid that he would somehow disappear under the weight of his own grief. If he leaves too...

“On the trip, when she was awake, I told her that you love her. That you love her so, so much,” I whispered in his ear. Then, the worst. “I gave her your kiss goodbye”

How can we survive this?

“No, Y/N,” Kaz said in a pleading tone, “I’m sorry, please. I'm so sorry"

When we lack words, guilt appears. It's our fault? Were we really that horrible?

The Saints. They give and they take.

#mmgwbrekker #six of crows #grishaverse #kaz brekker #kaz brekker imagine #kaz brekker x reader #shadow and bone

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blurban-form · 9 days

Text

Future Brisbane

So, at the end of “Surprise”, we get to see future-Brisbane, maybe 25-30 years in the future? A grown-up Bluey brings her child to visit her parents’ house, so her kid can blast Dad with tennis balls like she did.

Compare future Brisbane with current Brisbane

First of all, nice to see the house hasn’t fallen down, Dad and Mum have kept it in good repair (thanks Hammerbarn) and it now has solar panels, as do a number of other homes.

Many things have changed:

An incredible increase in land use density; multiple medium and tall towers (like in downtown) now are common in the suburban area. Assuming this means much more multifamily housing.

Roads much less dominant/conspicuous in the hills

Look how the trees have grown.

The communications towers on the hilltops are less conspicuous.

Three waste/recycling bins (addressing the green waste recycling issue)

Drone transport (for deliveries?)

Some things haven’t changed:

Sky is blue. That’s good.

The whole area hasn’t flooded from rising sea levels…

Adult Bluey drives, or at least is using a private vehicle, rather than something like an on-demand transit service. (Maybe the drone deliveries mean less congestion on the roads but traffic has never been a big issue in Bluey-Brisbane 😉)

Inside the house is not crazy-futuristic, some electronic gadgets, like a Roomba. (I was expecting more high-tech like a Mr. Fusion from “Back to the Future” but that’d probably be by the kitchen or by the garbage wheelie-bins.)

I know my parents still have the same stereo they had 30+ years ago, and much of the same furniture.

Note that 30 years of progress has not improved how Roombas dock with their charging stations.

Some other new tech in the front hall:

Electronic digital picture frames with weird floating connections to the wall.

Wifi router thing on ceiling

Spherical thing (maybe something like an Alexa?)

New comfy chair, replacing the red one.

Density Increase

The increase in land use density in the Brisbane suburbs where the Heelers live is one of those dreams of land use planners; more density in already developed areas is generally considered a plus, assuming the infrastructure can accommodate it. Higher density means more people in a given area making public transit more efficient and reducing costs to serve the homes with utilities.

Is that kind of growth possible in only a few decades? Yes, here’s a North American example… this is where I grew up, in the early 1980s it looked like this in Mississauga, ON around the Square One shopping centre…

…and now it looks like this in the 2020s.

So that’s growth over about 30-40 years, which is a little longer than how much time has apparently elapsed in “Bluey”, but not a lot. It’s possible, and this kind of thing can snowball / accelerate once initial projects get underway.

Public opposition (NIMBY) can prevent this kind of thing from occurring in many cities.

#Bluey future #Bluey land use - residential #Bluey tech #Bluey

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comradekatara · 6 months

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Hi, hope you're well.

What type of vehicle (non-motor options also welcome) would the gaang + others own/use? But also which vehicle would they like to have (so like a dream vehicle)

aang: one of those kids who bikes everywhere like he’s in an 80s movie. he’d probably get some kind of eco-friendly electric car. or he’d find a way to paraglide everywhere idk

katara: ideologically opposed to cars, exclusively takes public transport (or just straight up walks, or if she’s really desperate, makes sokka drive her), but it is a secret dream of hers to have a really cool badass motorcycle, even though she is fully aware of how dangerous they are (or at least, so she claims). fwiw jet and haru both ride motorcycles; jet’s is really loud fuckoff motorcycle, whereas haru’s is more like a cute little green moped

sokka: he can drive, but because it’s his family’s car, he only drives it when absolutely necessary, bc the thought of getting a single scratch on it and disappointing gran gran, his absent father, or even his mother’s ghost, is a thought too nerve-wracking to bear. his dream vehicle is an efficient nationwide high speed rail. his slightly more realistic dream vehicle is that car from james bond (yes i know it’s an aston martin im talking specifically about the aston martin from the bond films that q modifies in various ways don’t @ me)

toph: her family probably has a chauffeur. she obviously cannot drive, nor does she care about breeds of cars. she’d like driving in a fast convertible though for the feeling of the wind in her hair

zuko: also grew up with a chauffer. never learned how to drive bc he has no depth perception. which is a very good thing because his road rage would be atrocious. his dream vehicle is probably a beautiful dappled grey horse.

suki: she drives/lives in her pickup truck. she wishes she drove/lived in a slightly bigger pickup truck, or perhaps a red ferrari

mai: she was born to ride the new york city subway. she loves to hop the turnstile even though she can afford it, but it’s not about that. it’s about the principle ($2.90 is simply appalling), and most importantly, it’s about the thrill of it. however, i do think she’d enjoy driving too, if only because she loves fingerless leather gloves. she doesn’t really need a car to wear that though.

ty lee: she’s a very sensible driver. she’s never gotten a ticket but if she did she would get out of it masterfully. her dream car is that toy pink convertible barbie drives in the barbie movie.

azula: never learns how to drive because she never needs to learn: she does not drive, she is driven. she doesn’t care what kind of car she’s being driven in, as long as it’s noticeably expensive. one time mai makes her ride the subway with her and she is scared out of her mind. she expresses that fear through loud disgust

#yourlocalamoeba #asks #the gaang and #modern au #I feel like I’ve answered a very similar ask before #the thought of azula on public transport will never not be funny to me

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carionto · 7 months

Text

Humans and Boredom II

The planet cracker.

A devilish name that somehow still does not do this type of Human ship justice. Arrays of massive gravity hooks capable of tearing out kilometers wide and deep chunks of mass from any celestial object one of them decides to settle in orbit of.

The process is slow and tedious and, luckily, unsuitable for any practical military application, but unimaginably rewarding nonetheless. Once a chunk has been lifted, a fleet of harvester drones meticulously tears it further apart and separates into individual minerals and any other categorizable substances. From there the internal refineries of the planet cracker process them further into more usable metals, alloys, resins, and countless other resources. Finally, another fleet of transport ships ferry those back to where they are needed.

The land based production capacity of an entire (small) planet, with a single (albeit metropolis sized) ship, crewed by no more than a hundred Humans and thousands of drones.

One of these immense beasts - The Hardy Gal - was stationed around one of Saturn's moons - Epimetheus - that was recently voted out of the global popularity contest "Who's Even Heard of This One?" and thus sentenced to become part of the Dyson Ring.

The drone fleet that was supposed to be tearing up the unfortunate little moon, however, was recently recalled for refitting after a report showed a key part was manufactured using an outdated guideline by a suspiciously licensed corporation, that was also caught up in an unrelated embezzlement scandal.

Suffice to say that chief Gravity Master Boris Fruischtyen didn't have much to do. Laws and regulations do not permit any unsupervised extraction results to just be left in orbit. Oh no, can't preemptively arrange chunks for processing later, nope, "efficiency? what's that?". *sigh* Lift, hold, harvest, repeat.

Boris would have nothing to do, except the gravity hook arrays were a set of fifty per array, and The Hardy Gal had eight arrays. Four hundred individually aim-able and moveable chunks of matter.

While his day job was not very productive for now, his social media activity shot through the roof. There's a lot you can draw with four hundred "pixels" and the literal cosmos as your canvas and backdrop.

His personal favorites were water features and creatures set against the blue of Saturn, and he arranged quite a few of the extinct whales and penguins too. Additionally, every day he would fulfill one of the audiences top ranking requests.

Through these he discovered he has a fascinatingly good sense for flower compositions, especially from unusual angles. It's odd. He's only ever seen flowers in images and videos, perhaps lacking actual real life flowers to compare to allows his imagination to fill in the gaps in a way referencing factual knowledge would limit him. Who knows.

Despite having access to a three dimensional canvas, he preferred to keep things flat.

"What can I say, 2D is better. *chuckle*"

However, that doesn't mean he keeps things simple. The gravity hooks are quite good at selective manipulation, they have to be to target certain spots beneath a whole lot of other matter (which is then raised alongside the "elevator" matter). He demonstrated how the same image can look wildly different if you just change the "pixels" from squares to spheres, or how certain material compositions change color when squeezed more densely.

His personal favorite part is the finishing touch. After he's had a drone go out and stream his latest piece from plenty of angles for the viewers, he gives the whole image a simultaneous and gentle push back towards the moon. After a few touching hours of people in chat saying farewell, sharing personal stories and just asking questions Boris is always happy to answer, the image impacts the surface where the majority of parts were extracted from in a spectacular show of minor impacts and a shower of debris. Too bad it doesn't have an atmosphere, just imagine how cool it'd look burning up on reentry.

#humans are deathworlders #humans are space oddities #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humanity fuck yeah #humans are artists #boredom #carionto

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queen-mihai · 6 months

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I want flight attendants to be overpaid and relaxed. I want the job to be so efficient and well managed that it seems like they barely have to lift a finger.

Now before I continue, I'm gonna address the first argument that bigots are gonna claim I'm "not thinking about"

"Well if two flight attendants can take care of a flight while barely lifting a finger, surely the airline will just fire one of them. Don't you think one of them would just get fired?"

No. And imma tell you why.

Two attendants might be able to barely lift a finger on a normal day. But those same two are gonna have a HARD frickin time trying to keep up with 30 or more unruly passengers who are all panicking at the same time. You don't fire somebody who could help on a bad day based on how easy their job is on a good day. People who disagree with that statement have NO business holding a leadership position.

Back to people.

I want teachers overpaid and underworked. Teachers are some of the most creative people you'll ever meet. Now imagine all that brainpower and they're in a school that's actually well funded and they don't need to worry how to pay their MORTGAGE. Now you're talking a generation of people who are taught by teachers who can actually show how much passion they have for what they do.

I want people flipping burgers to be able to afford luxury living. A house, a car, a cottage with a little boat where they take vacations 5 weeks out of every year. That's a hard fucking job. Pay them.

I want the people who pave the roads to fly around the world, meeting people they may never have otherwise met. No matter what country from which they have origins.

I want people who clean toilets to dance with royalty and for that to be so common as to be boring.

I want race car drivers and race team owners to be members of the same clubs and relax at each other's houses during the off seasons.

I want every seat on every transport to feel like first class.

Exclusivity is bullshit. Nobody is gonna be a part of everything. I am excited to learn how to fly but less excited to dive in a cave. No individual person is going to be interested in everything and if you don't want to wait in a line, then maybe you should learn patience. And if your job is so demanding that waiting in line for an hour would RUIN YOUR LIFE, then maybe YOU NEED HELP TOO.

I want design engineers not to be overworked even if they're well paid.

I want managers to have good communication with their teams and easy work managing their part of the business.

I want executives to have access to the REAL numbers and for them to be able to make decisions that make sense for everybody instead of just shareholders.

I want more businesses to be employee owned, and for every decision maker to make decisions for the good of the people impacted by those decisions.

And I want anyone not willing to do so removed from power.

Each and every person alive can do *something* to help make all this a reality

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hasufin · 1 year

Text

State of failure

I am currently making hardtack.

This is a mistake. The year is 2023 and there is no good reason to make hardtack. The stuff is an inherently bad idea. There is no practical use for hardtack which is not met today by a product which is superior in every way.

Hardtack existed as a solution for a particular time and application: a way to create portable calories which did not require any cooking in situ, which could be transported in almost any condition, and could be stored for years at a time with no significant detriment.

Today, we have a great many options to meet these requirements. We have MREs. Canned foods. Dehydrated foods. UHT packaging. Freeze-drying. Energy bars. Every one of these options manage to be better-tasting, more nutritious, and just overall more pleasant than hardtack.

Throughout much of history, the idea of going an extended period of time without being able to cook at all would have been ridiculous. What could your circumstances be, that you could not, just once every few days, start a fire? and if you can start a fire you can, at minimum, make waybread. Which isn’t particularly pleasant, sure, but is worlds better than hardtack.

But for a certain period of time, hardtack was indeed the solution. it’s mostly synonymous with sailor’s food, but was also a significant part of a soldier’s diet; certain forms of the stuff, known as “hard biscuit” were used even through WWII. It does have its advantages, mainly in durability. Actually, that’s pretty much it. Hardtack, if kept dry and free of insects, will last pretty much indefinitely.

What, you may wonder, is hardtack?

Well. It’s basically the worst, most basic form of bread you can imagine. It’s unleavened and as dry as possible. It consists of nothing but flour and salt, with just enough water to form into a stiff dough, then baked and dried. That’s literally it.

The hardtack above used 2 cups of whole wheat flour (plus a bit more for the working surface), about a teaspoon of salt, and somewhere between 1/2 and 5/8 of a cup of water.

I combined the salt with the flour. Note - no fat, no sweetener, no flavoring, no leavening. Then, I added half a cup of water and proceeded to knead it. And knead it. And knead it some more. It is impossible to overknead hardtack, because it’s going to be indistinguishable from masonry no matter what you do.

Now, there is some skill to this. You’re up against two competing needs. First, you must make your hardtack as dry as possible. Water is your enemy. If there is water, it could mold, or grow bacteria, or fungus.

On the other hand, you want your dough to be completely smooth. Any seam or fold in the dough will become a crack. The biscuit may break apart; some mold spore or insect could get in.

So, while I started with half a cup of water, I found that amount inadequate and added a little bit of additional water to make it work into a smoother dough. As you can see, it still wasn’t perfectly smooth but I successfully incorporated all the flour.

Once I had a terribly stiff dough, I rolled it out on a floured surface. There’s plenty of leeway here on how you can do it - some people would simply take pieces of the dough and pat them flat. Especially into the 19th century, this could be done with machinery, to make very consistent biscuits. That’s actually pretty important, since sailors and soldiers would want to be sure they were getting a fair ration.

Personally, since I have round biscuit cutters, that’s what I did. This is the style largely favored by the British, to be packed in barrels for Naval usage. Americans tended to make squares or rectangles for most efficient packing in tins. If these were being made professionally, the biscuits would then be impressed with a seal, usually indicating the company which manufactured the biscuits.

The next, and more important, part is to poke holes in the biscuits. These are not for show: they are meant to release steam when the biscuits are baked. If there are no holes, steam may accumulate in pockets, resulting in bubbles. While this might yield a moderately more pleasant hardtack - one that can be more easily broken apart - it also makes it less durable and more prone to spoilage. The holes need to be poked all the way through, which isn’t quite how most such baking is done, but there is no elegance to hardtack.

Next is baking. To be honest, hardtack is not baked. It is sterilized and dried. The simplest method is to bake the biscuits in a low oven for many hours - four is typical, but sometimes the hardtack is baked several times, or overnight. It should be baked just hot enough to assure anything in the flour is killed, and for long enough to remove almost all moisture from the biscuits.

I have opted for a compromise, in large part because I already had my dehydrator out. I baked the biscuits at 250°F for two hours, then transferred them to the dehydrator, where they are currently drying for.... well, until I decide to shut it off. Probably when I go to bed. Sadly, my dehydrator tops out at 160°F, which is 40°F too cool for proper sterilization. If it went up to 200°F, I could put the biscuits directly in there without needing the oven at all, but such was not to be.

So far, it smells surprisingly pleasant, and the one piece I have tasted confirms: it’s terribly bland, of course, lacking even the sourness of yeast. It’s also - as one could predict - quite hard, requiring prolonged dipping in tea to make it soft enough to bite. In short, the flavor is inoffensive while the texture is weaponizable.

I made this stuff knowing what it would be. I started out with the complete expectation that it would be akin to eating a roofing tile. Why do I do this?

Curiosity, I suppose. Now, sometimes I try to improve these historical recipes - I recognize the limitations under which they were made, and try to make them pleasant by adding spices and seasonings which were not available, applying techniques which would have been impractical, and adding fats and sugars which were uneconomical.

Not this recipe. You cannot improve hardtack without compromising its purpose. But I’d seen so many references to it, I knew I wanted to make it for myself, just to experience it.

I’m not going to share the stuff with my friends, though. Not anyone I want to keep as a friend, at any rate.

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