#i've lived in houses with central air | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 7 months

Text

Common Knowledge 1

Warnings: non/dubcon, power imbalance, bullying, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

Characters: Geralt of Rivia, Harald Halfdansson, tall & plus-size reader

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You unfurl the strip of legal pad, marked with Professor Halfdansson's messy and pointed writing. The usual scribble that has you squinting at your returned papers. He must be the only instructor in the college that still handmarks his assignment.

Like much of his style, his slanted cursive is chaotic. Often, his lectures or spiraling tangents about his trips to Norway or some mythos unrelated to the topic at hand. He is a well of knowledge, but one which is often overflowing and bottomless.

The subject is far from your first choice. You prefer history with a human subject. Your intrigue is those events which truly occurred, people who once walked the same earth as yourself. Mythos and belief is a human creation but it hardly captures your imagination.

Along your search for title jotted onto the scrap, you find several other books to sate your personal preferences. A book on the Beothuk and their demise and another illustrated index of Renaissance art. Finally, you find the rear corner of the store, the mythology shelves nestled behind Spirituality and New Age.

You hover your finger before the rows and lean in, squinting through your lenses as you search out the rather Nordic-sounding name. You sense a shadow at the end of the aisle but do not look over. You'll just be on your way once you-- there it is.

You pinch the spine of the deep blue tome and slide it out. The cover is stamped with gold runes and lettering, a viking helm the central image. You double-check that it matches the professor's scrawl, however you can never be sure as his Fs look like Ss.

You set it flat on your armful of book, balancing the weight with the rest as you crumple the scrap and tuck it into your pocket. It's a bit more than you want to spend but it will be useful in maintaining your average through Halfdansson's course.

The shadow comes closer and you shift out of the way for the approaching customer. You sidle away as they huff, a breath that fans around them. He leans into the shelf and you sense his head shift and his gaze follow your slow retreat.

"Ah, you are a fan of vikings?" He asks, stopping you in your tracks. "You must've watched the show, hm? Cute series but not very accurate, you know?"

You blink, taken aback but his tone and his assumption. It isn't the first time you've met the attitude in your chosen discipline. When it comes to military history or the lives of vaunted men, there is often an intonation towards female scholars. You have been dismissed more than once.

"Never seen it," you lie, "you seem the type though."

You note his snow white hair, a peculiar shade, drawn back into a half pony, and his blindingly pale eyes. He wears a tunic better housed in the closet of a LARPing club and looms with an air of indignation. He puts a thick hand on the shelf and leans, no doubt used to towering over others.

"Funny, that is the very book I came for," he intones.

"Oh, what a coincidence."

HIs jaw ticks and he snorts, "seems you've found quite the lot--"

"I have. A whole trove."

You go to turn away and hear his sole clomp down behind you, "surely you can grab another encyclopedia. I really need that one."

"Uh, no, this is what I need."

He follows you down the aisle as you keep a quick step, uneasy at how he trails you so fervently.

"Maybe you should grab another one."

"I have all the others. I've been waiting months for that to come into stock," he insists.

"Well, you can find a kiosk and order one in--"

"On a three month backorder," he interjects and grabs your arm. "I'll pay you--"

You spin back to face him and hit his chest with your books, "don't touch me."

"Well, just..." he retracts his hand, "hold up. I'm trying to talk to you. To barter--"

"I'm sorry, but I need this book for class," you hug the books and back up, overly aware of the tingliness from where he grabbed you. You don't like being touched. At all. You can feel your heart pumping.

"Does the school not have a library, little girl?"

Your mouth falls open. Little girl? This guy just can't help himself. You haven't been rude, maybe matter-of-fact, but he's been downright mean.

"Not for sale," you push your shoulders up and back away.

You twist on your heel and speed away. You weave between the shelves and discount tables and join the winding queue at the counter. You don't look back and sway in your boots, waiting your turn.

"I could give you several recommendations for an alternate text," the man appears at your side, crowding you inside the black cords that rein in the queuing customers.

You ignore him and turn your head away. You wish he'd just take a hint. If you heard a single please or any sort of respect, you might consider it. He's only been a jackass and judging at first glance, he's too old for that.

"You don't need it–"

You move with the line and he growls, shifting with you.

"Look, girl–"

You snap your head back and give him a glare. He sucks in one cheek and exhales heavily, "miss, I am asking you nicely–"

The associate at the counter calls for next and you take your cue. You quickly cross the space and put your haul onto the wooden ledge. You hear the pushy stranger snarl something under his breath. You refuse to look back as you hand over your membership card.

Men like that are the very reason you despise the general public. Hard to fathom how you can be so intrigued by the human condition when you can hardly bear to be around other people.

#geralt of rivia #geralt #dark geralt #dark!geralt #geralt x reader #harald halfdansson #harald x reader #dark harald #dark!harald #harald finehair #vikings #the witcher #bookstore au #au #series #drabble

165 notes · View notes

thatlittleegyptologist · 1 year

Note

Are we still clowning on the anons trying to tell you how awful living in Europe is? Because I (a USian) saw them spouting nonsense and was like 'Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones'. Several communities there do not have access to safe drinking water at all. Texas's insistence on building their own electric grid incompatible with the rest of the country's meant that about 246 died in the 2021 winter storm. I'm trying to move to the land of bones because the US? YIKES

The US is not without its problems infrastructure wise, yes. I don't think any country is in all honesty.

Though, I think I should address how anon seemed to be getting wires crossed about the situation in Europe:

Most homes here are maybe 100 years old at most, some 150 ish, but most only 40-70 years (something something rebuilding after two world wars). Of course, you get ones built earlier that people still live in. I've known several people in my life who lived in 16th century built homes with thatched roofs. My own home is about 60 years old.

'The buildings are crumbling' yeah, they're old...so they will. But they're not falling down so there's no issue. We make repairs!

Despite their age they do have all the mod cons! Yes, including the 16th century farm houses! You see with continuous settlement people repair and renovate the existing homes, so over the years things like electricity/central heating/plumbing etc have been added.

That said, depending on when stuff like electricity and plumbing was installed it can fail. Anon said that anecdotally a socket had blown. This could be due down to age. However, it can also be down to an american adapter being the wrong voltage for the european plug socket. That tends to make them short out. I've had two american friends at uni who had plug sockets short out on them when arriving in the UK because they used the wrong voltage adapters. Nothing to do with the wiring. Mostly to do with no checking voltage requirements. I've had to do the same when holidaying on the continent. If I take the wrong one I'm gonna damage something.

While central heating and air con are in abundance in Europe, not everyone needs air con. In Northern Europe, before climate change, we experience cold winters but mild summers so our homes needed good central heating and thick walls to keep the heat in. Which they have! However, now climate change is upon us...imagine living in a house where the walls are thick and trap heat but it's 40c outside and you don't have air con still because it's still too expensive a thing to install for 3 weeks use a year at best. That's why anon has seen Europeans complaining about being too hot. The temperatures are record breaking high, and because it's not normal for it to be like that we don't have air con. Southern Europe, where it's much warmer, is where homes more regularly have air con. Pretty much every commercial building, regardless of location or age, has some sort of air conditioning and central heating system.

The 'europeans don't have central heating' probably comes from the posts about how most of us are going to freeze to death this winter due to fuel prices/shortages. We have central heating, we just can't afford to put it on. Thanks to Pusheen (fameux dictateur Russe) invading Ukraine, gas prices in Europe have gone through the roof. In the winter I used to pay £75 for gas and electric per month. Now, I pay £120 for gas alone. I live alone. My consumption is less (I halved the time I have the heating on to save money so it's -3c and I only have the heating on 2 hours a day). Many more people are in a worse off state than me. They can't afford to heat their homes at all. Add in inflation, which has pushed food prices sky high, recession, and stagnant wages, and people are dying from not being able to put the heating on. They've got it anon, but they can't afford to use it and also eat.

Moving to the 'move somewhere without bones' part of it all. Europeans are fine digging up bones and mosaics. Happens all the time, I've no idea why anon thinks we'd need to move or why we'd be mad about it. It's our history! Part of continuously living in an area for centuries means that inevitably when you dig down for foundations you're gonna find bones. That's where the Archaeologists come in! Laws here dictate that an archaeological survey must be conducted on any build site, so that if there is something there it can be properly recorded! This is so we don't end up with what we currently have where it's like 'nope no idea what's down there' and the surprise is a WWII bomb or a roman cemetery, or even a plague pit.

Actually that last one is one I've experienced. When I was looking into archaeology as a degree I went to a dig site for a new shopping centre where they'd discovered victorian ruins, a medieval abbey destroyed by Henry VIII, and a plague pit all on the same site. An absolutely wild time. These guys had to be moved or secured before the actual building work could commence. You can still go down and see the plague pit if you know the right people because the building was built in a way that preserved it.

Anyway, the digging of graves is where everyone seems to get funny with regards to archaeology. They'll accuse archeologists of grave robbing or disturbing the dead and that's so far from the truth it's unreal.

Firstly, there's so much paperwork involved when remains are found. So much. 90% of the time archaeologists don't even deal with human remains because we're digging up buildings instead. I don't know why people seem to think 99% of our work is with the dead. It's not. After finding remains, then we have to decide what is safe for them. If we can leave them in situ we will. You excavate, analyse, record the find, and then cover them back up. People seem to think we're getting to the grave site and then removing everything to keep in a box. That's only done if the remains are in danger from the construction or agriculture that's being performed there. It's a choice between saving a person's remains, or letting them get destroyed by construction work. Which do you think is more respectful in that scenario?

We don't make that decision lightly either. So many elements are factored into the decision, including the safety of the site (will someone come along and steal for the antiquities black market? See: Egypt and the reasons mummies are moved to storage when found.) and how best to keep this person's dignity. We don't want to smash through remains with bulldozers and concrete. Where we can, like that famous McDonald's in Italy with the body in the floor, we keep them in situ so they do remain in their graves. In the UK, recently, there was a huge mosaic uncovered in a field by a farmer. Archaeologists excavated it, recorded it, took a load of photos, didn't disclose the precise location, covered it back up, and then told everyone 6 months after it has been discovered just to preserve the site.

Most archaeological finds were discovered months before the public even knew about them in order to preserve the site and not get illegal traffickers trying to make money off things (again, the reason mummies in Egypt are moved to museums. it's for their safety not because no one wants them to be in their graves). We want these people and artefacts to rest in peace as much as you do. Believe it or not Archaeologists do care about the people and places they are tasked with uncovering and protecting. Sometimes you've got to move those bones because if you don't someone who doesn't care for anything but making a quick profit will dig that site and sell what they find.

Often it's a race between archaeologists discovering sites and therefore affording them security from getting disturbed, and traffickers digging in locations they know something might be and selling what they find to some rich bastard where it'll never see the light of day.

TL;DR: Europe isn't living in the Middle Ages, we're suffering from climate change and soaring fuel/food prices, and Archaeologists perform a vital job that isn't about grave robbing but about preserving and protecting the past from traffickers and giving those dead we do come across a voice in the present.

#this got long #but anon was too insistent on their bullshit yesterday that I wasn't in any mood to explain

318 notes · View notes

kithj · 2 months

Text

i made these slides for instagram for thirst's english publication but i'll share them here too :-)

i'm trying to compile a decent lesbian & sapphic vampires shelf... of these, i've read house of hunger & carmilla, though i was recently recommended this specific version of carmilla which is edited by Carmen Maria Machado, and i look forward to reading her commentary (and this version of the book is really lovely)

links & descriptions in order, under the cut

Carmilla

Isolated in a remote mansion in a central European forest, Laura longs for companionship—until a carriage accident brings another young woman into her life: the secretive and sometimes erratic Carmilla. As Carmilla’s actions become more puzzling and volatile, Laura develops bizarre symptoms, and as her health goes into decline, Laura and her father discover something monstrous.

A Dowry of Blood

Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things. Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband's dark secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.

An Education in Malice

Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua's College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold. On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla. But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. Tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and dark magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge.

House of Hunger

Marion Shaw has been raised in the slums, where want and deprivation is all she knows. Despite longing to leave the city and its miseries, she has no real hope of escape until the day she spots a peculiar listing in the newspaper, seeking a bloodmaid. Though she knows little about the far north--where wealthy nobles live in luxury and drink the blood of those in their service--Marion applies to the position. In a matter of days, she finds herself the newest bloodmaid at the notorious House of Hunger. There, Marion is swept into a world of dark debauchery--and at the center of it all is her. Countess Lisavet, who presides over this hedonistic court, is loved and feared in equal measure. She takes a special interest in Marion. Lisavet is magnetic, and Marion is eager to please her new mistress. But when her fellow bloodmaids begin to go missing in the night, Marion is thrust into a vicious game of cat and mouse. She'll need to learn the rules of her new home--and fast--or its halls will soon become her grave.

Thirst

It is the twilight of Europe’s bloody bacchanals, of murder and feasting without end. In the nineteenth century, a vampire arrives from Europe to the coast of Buenos Aires and, for the second time in her life, watches as villages transform into a cosmopolitan city, one that will soon be ravaged by yellow fever. She must adapt, intermingle with humans, and be discreet. In present-day Buenos Aires, a woman finds herself at an impasse as she grapples with her mother's terminal illness and her own relationship with motherhood. When she first encounters the vampire in a cemetery, something ignites within the two women—and they cross a threshold from which there’s no turning back. With echoes of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and written in the vein of feminist Gothic writers like Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, and Carmen Maria Machado, Thirst plays with the boundaries of genre while exploring the limits of female agency, the consuming power of desire, and the fragile vitality of even the most immortal of creatures.

A Long Time Dead

Poppy had always loved the night, which is why it wasn’t too much of a bother to wake one evening in an unfamiliar home far from London, weak and confused and plagued with a terrible thirst for blood, to learn that she could no longer step out into the day. And while vampirism presented several disadvantages, it more than made up for those in its benefits: immortality, a body that could run at speed for hours without tiring, the thrill of becoming a predator, the thing that pulls rabbits from bushes and tears through their fur and flesh with the sharp point of a white fang. And, of course, Roisin. The mysterious woman who has lived for centuries, who held Poppy through her painful transformation, and who, for some reason, is now teaching her how to adjust to her new, endless life. A tight, lonely, buttoned-up woman, with kindness and care, pressed up behind her teeth. The time they spend together is as transformative to Poppy as the changes in her body, and soon, she finds herself hopelessly, overwhelmingly attached. But Roisin has secrets of her own, and can’t make any promises; not when vengeance must be served. Soon, their little world explodes. Together and apart, they encounter scores of vampires, shifty pirates, conniving opera singers, ancient nobles, glamorous French women, and a found family that throws a very particular sort of party. But overhead, threat looms—one woman who is capable of destroying everything Poppy and Roisin hold dear.

This Ravenous Fate (expected August 2024 release)

It's 1926 and reapers, the once-human vampires with a terrifying affliction, are on the rise in New York. But the Saint family's thriving reaper-hunting enterprise holds reign over the city, giving them more power than even the organized criminals who run the nightclubs. Eighteen year-old Elise Saint, home after five years in Paris, is the reluctant heir to the empire. Only one thing weighs heavier on Elise's mind than her family obligations: the knowledge that the Harlem reapers want her dead. Layla Quinn is a young reaper haunted by her past. Though reapers have existed in America for three centuries, created by New World atrocities and cruel experiments, Layla became one just five years ago. The night she was turned, she lost her parents, the protection of the Saints, and her humanity, and she'll never forget how Elise Saint betrayed her. But some reapers are inexplicably turning part human again, leaving a wake of mysterious and brutal killings. When Layla is framed for one of these attacks, the Saint patriarch offers her a deal she can't refuse: to work with Elise to investigate how these murders might be linked to shocking rumors of a reaper cure. Once close friends, now bitter enemies, Elise and Layla explore the city's underworld, confronting their intense feelings for one another and uncovering the sinister truths about a growing threat to reapers and humans alike.

Unholy with Eyes like Wolves (expected April 2024 release)

Noémie, a dishonored and widowed noblewoman in early 17th century Hungary, finds herself in an unenviable position: After grievous trauma and loss, her last chance to regain her honor comes when she must serve as Lady Erzsébet Báthory’s handmaiden. Báthory is stoic and imperious, and as Noémie struggles to acclimate and accept her present and future, she begins to have dreams about a mysterious woman. Worse, there are stories of disappearance and deaths in the castle, and Noémie might be next.

#so many carmilla retellings lmao #i just bought an education in malice today. as a treat #my tbr is all over the place but i would like to read most of these this year....#books #my posts #vampires

27 notes · View notes

elodieunderglass · 1 year

Note

So I need to move and an interesting opportunity has presented itself; a beautifully finished and generously sized houseboat. I've been doing some reading, and know to expect maintenance costs and mooring costs (with council tax if I stay in the same place) but as you lived on a boat once I wanted to ask a specific question for the sake of my pets. How hard is it to keep the boat warm in the winter and cool in the summer? Too warm is less of a problem but one of my cats doesn't tolerate heat well. Too cold is scary because I've got a lot of little eight legged fuzzy friends who won't appreciate that. Also if you have any words of wisdom please don't hesitate to share. I've not committed in anyway yet; I'm just in the stage of researching and considering. But I have to admit being a moveable animal exhibit sounds really appealing; I've been really wanting to do some outreach and scicom with my tarantulas and this seems like a potential opportunity to do so.

A winter's scene in the cabin of my boat, Eve, on the canal in Wiltshire. The stove's going, the firewood's piled high, and there's whiskey and poetry. "It must be cold in the winter" say people who couldn't really be more wrong!

Artist Dru Marland, on the listing of this holiday card

People always ask/assume this, to the point where old boaters aren’t polite about answering any more. However, a well-insulated narrow steel tube with a multifuel stove in it is extremely easy to warm up. They are also very easy to air out, or cool down: you open a window on either side.

Sometimes you might wake up to ice on the inside of the windows, but the trick is to learn how to bank a stove overnight, which is quickly learned and a good life skill to have.

Our boat actually had an Eberspacher, a magnificently rare and antiquated form of central heating for vehicles that ran on diesel and made a tremendous fuss of it. You do not need an Eberspacher, but if your prospective boat has one, it is a very fun way to answer the question. “Doesn’t it get VERY cold in winter?” And you look blank and say reproachfully, “she has central heating…”

As for whether the boat you want has good insulation - try to visit it and see if it feels cold/damp. The listing or the owner should be able to describe the insulation. sprayfoam insulation is best, and if you see that you can be fairly confident.

Windows can get cold, but depending on what you have, there will be different treatments. Round porthole windows are usually fitted with round pillow things that you stick in, blinds can be made with thermal linings, and so on.

In general, the climate of a well-fitted boat is easier to control than a house. but you’re welcome to message me privately with the listing if you have more questions.

195 notes · View notes

thatfancygirlinwhite · 1 month

Text

Нооруз майрамыңар менен! Happy Nooruz!

Today is the 21st of March, aka the Spring Equinox, which means that it's Nooruz! Nooruz is the Persian New Year, celebrated worldwide by different ethnic groups, but mostly in Eurasia.

My country, Kyrgyzstan (Central Asia), has celebrated Nooruz for thousands of years for the coming of spring. It's a time of rebirth and new beginnings, and a way to bring in luck for the coming year. I've never celebrated Nooruz due to living abroad, but this year I wanted to do something special, so... I wrote a fic!

It's called a very apt For the Coming of Spring and you can read pt.1 on AO3!

Suddenly, there is an exclamation behind them, and notes on a sort of lute rise in the air. “Komuz,” the man with the grey hair says. He is smiling. “Today is a happy day.”

If you want to read up on Nooruz celebrations in Kyrgyzstan, check out this article!

Wishing a happy Nooruz to everyone, especially those of you guys who celebrate. Let's try to make this year better, especially in light of all that is happening in the world. Every action counts!

Quick PS for this post: yes this was totally meant to be a one-shot, but I've been so busy I did not have time to finish it! I want to make it as good as possible so I'm taking some extra time.

That means that House of Feathers, Hall of Night should be back on its normal, vague updating schedule, and hopefully For the Coming of Spring will be wrapped up very soon! Thank you all for sticking around!

#nooruz #the hobbit #bagginshield #nooruz fic

16 notes · View notes

rayslittlekitten · 2 years

Text

Cooling Off

“Toff Girl” (aka “Damsel” Universe) Masterlist

A/N: I am finally done with this! I've been working on this on and off for like two months. This is supposed to take place between Yes, Daddy and Damesl in Euphoria. The scorching summer gave me an idea and I was glad to add other elements I've been waiting to use into this. Iniitally I was going to make this a one off for The Little Sister universe but I felt this dynamic worked better for this one. Hope you enjoy! (Also, this was not beta'd so you may find some grammatical or spelling errors.)

Rating: E (18+ ONLY)

Word Count: ~4.5k

Plot: Trying to cool off turns up the heat instead.

Pairing: Raymond Smith x F! Reader

Contains: teasing, water gun play, sundress, bratting, chasing/primal play, dub-conish?, unprotected P in V, penetration with objects (i don't know if that needs to be a warning but including it anyways), creampie, choking, face slapping, degradation, manhandling, daddy kink, D/s dynamics, DD/lg elements (no age play), some aftercare, some praising

It's hot. Sweltering hot. And there's nothing on God's green earth that can provide sufficient relief except to hide from it. That is, if you're lucky to. Even then, sometimes it's not enough. It has hit record high temperatures and this type of weather was never intended for this part of the world.

It's so hot outside, Mickey decided to close the pub down for the day and let Ray work from home. There is no need for them to run around the city and if he's honest, he'd rather stay in the comfort of his air conditioned home anyways. Even the born and bred Texan can't get use to the heat.

And you? Never have to work a day in your life, but you choose to because even though your parents can afford to, you don't want to rely on them for financial support. Well, if there's a new shiny car you want, you know they'll shell out the money without question for their only child, but everyday living expenses, feeding yourself and putting a roof over your head, you want to be able to pay for it with your own hard earned money. Also, the beauty of your job is, most days you can work from wherever you want. It's essentially a remote job and when you're not at the office, you usually work from your own flat or at a café, but today you're doing it in the comfort of your boyfriend's house. You had invited yourself over this morning when he casually mentioned that he's working from home today and he didn't have the heart or stomach to turn you away when you greeted him at the front door in a short slinky sundress with his favorite morning pastries fresh from the bakery.

Now, you're nearly finished with all your tasks so you're bored. You're just waiting for your boss to email you back for approvals and you know she can take forever to get back to you. You look over at Ray who is seated at the dining room table, working quietly. That man has not left his seat for the last five hours since this morning. Even though he's working from home, he's still dressed in his pressed jeans, button down shirt with his sleeves rolled to his elbos, waistcoat and a tie. You don't know how he does it. Your sundress doesn't even feel light enough for you to beat this heat. While you appreciate the central air Ray has in his meticulously designed house, the unprecedented 40 degrees temperature outside is affecting the performance of the air conditioning unit. At least you're not sticking to the leather couch. It's really a good thing you have nowhere to go.

You've got to admit though, you admire Ray's discipline and focus. You've tried to distract him all day to keep him on his toes - and to have some fun - and it's like he's got invisible blinders and earplugs on. It first started small, like constant tapping your finger on the table or shaking your leg when you know he hates that. You would make an obnoxious refreshing 'ahh' sound after every loud sip of water. You almost spit out your water once seeing the stern look Ray the gave you after you did it probably for the 50th time that day. Then it escalated to you grabbing his butt or running your fingers through his perfectly coiffed hair, flustering him for a moment. At some point you purposely dropped your pen in front of him and bent over to pick it up, but he seemed oblivious to it. You even tried to get his attention by blatantly rubbing yourself under your dress at one point while he was on a call with Mickey, but he avoided your gaze and was so concentrated on his computer screen. You're pretty sure he saw you in his peripheral vision though. For a second you might have had his attention, but he continued to work seemingly unaffected. You can now see why Mickey hired him.

With nothing else to do, you check the time and decide it's time for your lunch break.

"Ray, are you hungry?" you ask him, breaking the deafening silence in the room. You needed to hear something other than the occasional clicking and clacking from both his and your laptops.

Ray brings his wrist up to check the time.

"Very. I'm almost done with this. Should probably order takeaway. It's too bloody hot to... cook..."

Ray's sentence dies off as he looks over at you getting up from the couch and bringing your arms up above your head to give your back and shoulders and good stretch from sitting on the couch for so long, letting a moan slip out as your muscles loosen. He adjusts his glasses as his eyes wander down below your waist where the hem of your short sundress rises, stopping just at the top of your thighs, but he notices the undercurves of your ass peeking out just enough as you twist your waist from side to side. When you look over at him, Ray quickly turns his attention back to his notebook, scribbling nonsense to pretend he wasn't distracted at all.

"Yes, Daddy," you answer before letting out an exaggerated sigh.

He pauses his task, his pen in midair, to look up at you with wide eyes and look of warning. You coyly look back at him with the slightest smirk, amused by his reaction.

"What? I didn't mean anything by it," you tell him, but he's not convinced.

"It just rolled off my tongue," you shrug.

Ever since you and Ray started exploring power dynamics in your relationship, which you both enjoy very much, you like to push it a little further each time just to see where it goes. Since this is still new to you and Ray, no rules or expectations have been established yet. He is more experienced in this than you are so you're still figuring out what works for the both of you and what you want out of the experience. You typically don't call him Daddy outside of the bedroom or scene, but you're feeling playful right now.

As if on cue, the tip of Ray's tongue darts from between his pink lips, just enough to wet them before returning to its hiding place, with his gaze still on you.

"I'm going to grab some ice water. Do you want any?" You ask as you saunter over to the kitchen.

Ray hooks a finger into the collar of his shirt, tugging on it while clearing his throat.

"Uh, yeah, sure. I could use some," he answers and then starts loosening his tie and unbuttoning his waistcoat to shed the extra layer.

Ray continues to watch you when the back of your dress rises again as you reach up to grab two glasses from the top cabinet. Of course, tall man, tall shelves. You have to tiptoe and use the countertop as leverage, leaning against it and practically climbing on it, making your backside stick out a bit and allowing Ray to have a better view under your dress, but not enough to see everything. You hear Ray clearing his throat again. After successfully getting the cups, you fill each with ice and cold water from the dispenser.

You walk back to the living room, heading towards Ray and place the glass on a coaster next to him. No water rings on this oak table.

"Thank you," Ray says as he turns to look up at you. "Good girl."

His attempt to hide his smirk didn't go unnoticed. You, on the other hand, have no shame in showing how his praise affected you. You feel your cheeks getting warm - and not because of the weather - as you flash him a wide grin.

"Have you picked a place for lunch yet?" he asks after taking a gulp of his much needed ice water.

"No, not yet. What are you in the mood for?" You snake an arm around his shoulders and slide yourself onto his lap while balancing your own glass of ice water in your other hand.

Ray watches you take a sip of your water. You shriek when a drop of condensation hits the exposed skin at the top of your chest. You glance down and remove your arm from his shoulders to wipe off the water. You seize up for a moment when another droplet hits you but realize how much relief the cold water brought you. A lightbulb goes off in your head.

"Actually, I'll go pick us up some lunch, yeah?" you ask, looking back up at him, catching his eyes focused on where the water fell on you. You clear your throat and his eyes move up to meet yours.

"Uh, yeah, sure, whatever you want," Ray quickly says before shifting his attention back to his work. "I'd like to finish this, please. Off you go."

Ray gently pats your butt and you move off his lap.

"I'll be back in a splash."

You lay a quick peck on his cheek and leave your glass of water on the table before going to grab your purse. Ray notices the condensation of your glass pooling onto his pristine table and immediately wipes it down before placing a coaster under it. His eyes twitch for a moment as he looks over to call out to you but you're already out the door. You dread the heat outside, but it'll be all worth it.

***

Ray had finally taken a break. He didn't realize how stiff his muscles were until he actually got up from his seat, giving them a stretch and loosening them a bit before taking a stroll to the bathroom. All the water he’s been drinking is finally catching up to him. When he walks back to the dining and living room, he expected to find you as he thought he heard you come in, but you're nowhere to be found.

"Hm," he curiously hums. Maybe he misheard.

As he gets comfortable again to continue working, he notices a translucent neon blue plastic gun with an orange tip next to his laptop. He picks it up to inspect it, the clear liquid content sloshing around as he turns it over and shakes it. For a moment, he glances over at his laptop screen and does a double take when he sees something he did not type up in large bold letters:

"WANT LUNCH? FIND ME."

Ray adjusts his glasses and lets out a heavy sigh.

"Love, I don't have time for games right now," Ray shouts, not knowing if you are even within earshot of his voice.

When he gets no response, he just shakes his head and goes back to work, but is interrupted by his growling stomach. He ignores it, taking a sip of his water when he suddenly feels something wet and cold hit the back of his head. He immediately flinches and ducks, quickly turning around to find no one. After a quick scan, he puts the glass of water down on the coaster and cautiously looks again. Everything seems to be in place and not a soul in sight. Just then, Ray's phone rings, startling him for a second. He quickly checks his phone before turning his attention back over his shoulders.

"Yes, boss?"

While listening to Mickey, his eyes stay vigilant of his surroundings, darting around behind furniture and walls for any sign of you.

"Yes, I'll send that to you right now."

He quickly hangs up the call and slips his phone back into his pocket, turning his attention back to his laptop to send the information Mickey had requested. Just as he clicks on the "send" button, he feels another squirt hit his face. He instantly turns his head towards the direction where it came from and sees movement from behind one of the couches. He recognizes the pattern of your short dress peeking out from where you're crouching down. He wipes his face and glasses with his handkerchief and then grabs the water gun. He slowly and quietly rises from his seat with the gun pointed out in front of him, holding the plastic toy like a real one, except his finger is on the trigger because he's ready to squeeze at any given moment. There will be no warning.

After a few moments of absolute silence, you curiously poke your head up to look over the top of the couch and stiffen as soon as you make eye contact with Ray and see him heading towards you. You gasp when he starts moving quicker. You run like hell to the kitchen, using the island as a barrier. The two of you circle the island as he chases you, both trying to predict which direction each of you will go.

At some point he pauses to shoot you, but you were able to duck in time to avoid getting hit. When you pop back up and try to shoot him back, you shriek when you see him rounding the corner so you sprint off but not without getting hit in the back with water, making you squeal. You jump into the first room you see, into his study. You crouch down and hide behind one of the large accent chairs most further into the room.

You're expecting Ray to walk into the room any second as he was close behind you, but you don't hear any footsteps. In fact, it's too quiet. After a few seconds, you cautiously peek around to look towards the door, waiting for him to emerge, but nothing happens. Peeking out a little further, you carefully look around the room.

You slowly get up to your feet, trying not to make any noise. Once you've steadied yourself, you freeze when you suddenly feel something against the side of your neck and one of your arms, the one holding your own water gun, twisted behind your back. You try to wiggle and move away but his other hand swiftly comes down to grab your other arm, also pinning it behind you, rendering you helpless. You try to kick back but he pushes his body up against yours, trapping you between him and the back of the tall chair.

"Did you think you were going to outrun me?" Ray asks, holding your arms steady.

"Maybe," you huff out, still struggling to get out of his grip.

"The sun must have fried that pretty little head of yours when you went out there."

"Yeah. Maybe you should take a look at it for me."

You're not in the business of hurting Ray, but the adrenaline running through you has got you feeling a bit competitive and also bratty. You swing your head back, hoping you won't break his nose, but just enough to distract him so you can get loose. Expecting his face to collide with the back of your head, instead you quickly find yourself pushing up against the decorative wallpaper. Quick on his reflexes, Ray avoided your attempted head bash and pinned you against an adjacent wall, carefully to not hurt you, but limiting your movements even more.

"Did you seriously just try to knock me in the face?" he asks incredulously.

"I knew you would move out of the way," you lie. You really underestimated his skillset. You know his line of work, but you thought he was just a paper pusher and chauffeur and the guns were just for show.

He’s a proper gangster. You’ve never seen him use a gun before, but you suppose that’s by design. Also, your own combat skills are very limited so you're not sure what you thought would happen.

You notice something pressing against your ass and you push back against it.

“Careful, love.” Ray warns, pushing back. “Finger’s on the trigger. Don’t want to get wet now, do you?”

"How do you know I'm not already?"

You usually don't really care for guns. You've witnessed toffs showing off their toys and shooting skills, particularly the men in your social circles. Flaunting their wealth won't do since you also come from money, so they need to find other ways to get your attention, but that doesn't do anything for you. Rich men with big guns? Big deal. You've seen too many of those. Unless the world is coming to an end and you need to hunt for your own meal, it's pointless. It's just an ego stroke for them. A gun measuring contest if you will. You're pretty sure they don't know how to defend themselves if it came down to a gunfight.

However, never having ever seen Ray in action with a gun before, you realize now that when he wields them, it gets your blood flowing. You've never been drawn to or attracted to guns, but there's just something about it when Ray handles them. He’s careful, precise and intentional with how he uses them.

He has nothing to prove. He utilizes it on a need-to basis. He knows it’s not something to flaunt and doesn’t need to whip it out to show everyone how big his cock is. He’s subtle and stealthy and that makes him that much sexier. You’re now both afraid and turned on by imagining him with a real one. That kind of power is like an aphrodisiac.

"The gun fight was supposed to cool us down but I guess it's doing the opposite, eh?" you say, pushing back again.

Ray looks down between the two of you to see you grinding back against the tip of his water gun. He curiously tilts his head to the side.

"This turns you on, doesn't it, love?" Ray asks into your ear, leaning in and putting his weight on you, causing you to groan.

"Maybe just a little," you admit.

"Just a lit'le? I can smell you," Ray growls. "You've been teasing me all day, love. Distracting me while I'm working. Being a naugh'y lit'le brat."

"Yet you've kept a straight face and focused the entire time," you respond. "Quite impressive really."

"Let's just say you'll never win a poker game against me ever," Ray adds.

“Well, now that I know—“

You get interrupted by Ray's phone when it rings. You feel Ray shifting, pinning both of your wrists with one large hand and tucking the gun into his belt before he reaches for his phone in his pocket.

"Yes, boss?"

You try to shimmy out of his hold as he's on the phone, but you have no luck. His long fingers are firmly gripped around your wrists and the weight of his hips are pinning you against the wall.

"Sure, boss. I'll take care of it as soon as my lunch break is over."

He hangs up and slips his phone back into his pocket and retrieves the gun, continuing where he left off. You feel your dress hiked up and there's a pause. You're wondering what's the hold up and you try to turn, but Ray pins you back against the wall. You flinch when you something running up and down your slit and let out a low moan when you feel it brush up against your clit.

"You're not wearing any knickers under that short dress and you went out in public that way? You've been more than naughty. You've been a bad, bad girl." Ray states.

"And what are you gonna do about it?" you tease.

"You're playing a dangerous game, kitten."

A guttural noise sounding almost like a purr comes out of you when you feel more pressure against your core.

“What are you going to do? Shoot me?” you taunt.

“Don’t think I won’t.”

“Oh, love. You're just hangry," you add.

"Hangry?"

"Y'know, hungry and angry--"

"I know what it means!" Ray quickly spits out right before his stomach audibly rumbles.

"See. Hang--"

"There are other things that are a bit more pressing at the moment," he interrupts while pressing his crotch into your backside.

You bite your bottom lip and hum, pushing back.

"I know you get off on me manhandling you like this--"

"I know you also get off on manhandling me like this--"

"You somehow don't know when to stop pushing Daddy's buttons, do you?" Ray presses the tip of the gun against your opening.

"No, Daddy! I--" You gasp and moan when you feel the gun start penetrating you.

"What was that, kitten?"

You bite your lip and thrust back, trying to fuck the barrel of the gun. You moan when feeling it pushing in deeper.

"You needy slut. Look how desperate you are," Ray growls.

You have no response except to enjoy the feeling between your legs until it disappears. You whimper at the withdrawal, but suddenly you're pulled away from the wall and tossed onto one of the nearby couches. You quickly turn onto your back, but you're met with his gun in your face. Testing his reflexes, you fake a lunge at him and he presses the tip against your lips. You slowly open your mouth, feeling the plastic slip in deeper the more you open up.

Ray watches you as he starts undoing his belt and jeans. You start to move your mouth over the barrel, licking and gently sucking on it, bobbing your head up and down.

"You dir'y lit'le whore," he smirks. "My dir'y lit'le whore."

Ray pushes your legs apart with his knees and aligns himself with you before shoving himself into you. You moan around the gun and your eyes roll back. While holding himself up with one arm, Ray's hips pull back and slam back into you.

"God, you're so fucking wet. You really do get off on me manhandling you, don't you, slut?" He continues to slowly drag himself in and out of you.

You don't quite respond. You just continue orally pleasing the gun as you feel Ray torturing you.

"But it's not fair when you need to be taught a lesson."

Ray's free hand goes for your throat and he thrusts into you rhythmically, at a medium pace.

You moan around the gun again and arch up, feeling pressure on the sides of your neck and cervix. He is not wasting time as he's pumping in to you deep and hard.

His grip around your throat tightens and you start to feel yourself fading. Shortly after, you tap on his arm. He immediately loosens his grip, gently massages your neck with his fingers. He pulls the gun out of your mouth and tosses it aside.

"You alright, kitten?" he asks, stilling his hips to give you a few moments. He leans down closer to you to examine your neck. “Are you good to continue?”

"Yes," you nod.

"Yes, what?" His grip on your neck tightens again, but not as strong as it was before.

"Yes, Daddy," you answer and then Ray places a quick tender kiss on your forehead before slipping back inside you, continuing where he had left off.

This was not going to be a slow chase, but it doesn't need to be because he is hitting you in all the right places, both inside you, around your neck and most importantly, your brain and pain sensors. You've both learned degradation and pain gets your blood moving, but Ray always balances it out with praise and affection. They're like yin and yang.

"Not wearing your panties out in public in that short dress? You were desperate for attention, weren't you? And teasing me all fucking day. Is this what you wanted?” Ray goes off.

Not being able to speak in the moment, you simply flash him a smirk as he continues to pound into you relentlessly. You can feel your walls start to flutter when you feel Ray smack your face.

“Don’t you dare cum. You haven’t earned it. This is your punishment.”

“Yeah? And what if I do?” you push back.

With that, Ray releases your neck, pulls out of you instantly and then starts jerking himself over you.

“No! I’ll be good for the rest of the day,” you pout and whine.

“Too little too late, princess.” Ray continues to stroke himself, getting himself closer.

“Please, Daddy?” You show him your saddest puppy eyes as you reach down and gently rub yourself to relieve some of the pressure building, spreading your legs a bit more. “I’ll be a good little kitten for you. I promise.”

Ray’s hand slows down as he watches you.

“I know you wanna cum inside my pussy and claim what’s yours, don’t you?” you continue to tease.

“Who’s Daddy’s fucking slut?” Ray asks.

"I'm Daddy's fucking slut," you mewl.

“And who owns this cunt?” He follows up.

“You do,” you answer.

“That’s right, and don’t you ever forget that.” Ray shoves himself back inside you and you gasp, feeling yourself full again.

You run your hands over his chest and move up to his face, slipping your fingers coated in your own arousal into his mouth. He sucks and licks on them before grabbing your wrists and pinning them above your head. He drives himself into you over and over again, sprinting to the finish line. You’re close to your own and you’re not sure how much longer you could hold back.

“Cum for me, kitten!” Ray grunts.

You finally let go and feel Ray spurting inside of you as you milk him, grinding up to meet him. You both moan loudly as your orgasms take over.

After you both take a moment, Ray pulls out of you and takes the bottom of your dress to clean himself off before tucking himself back in and making himself presentable again.

“Ray! This dress is dry clean only!” You scold him.

“That’ll be a lesson for you,” Ray nods. “Besides, that’ll wash out.”

“I’m not so sure…” you say, examining the white stain that’s forming.

“Love…” Ray starts.

You look up at him as he reaches in to grip your chin. He moves your head left and right, touching and checking for any marks or injury. He then inspects your wrists, seeing some light bruising. He brings them up to his lips and kisses them.

“You alright?” he asks, looking straight into your eyes.

You nod. He continues to stare at you for a second before planting a kiss on your lips. Both of your growling stomachs interrupt the moment.

“Come on, love. This is cutting into my short lunch break. I’m going to have to work through it.” He offers you his hand and you take it.

He pulls you off the couch and after you get to your feet, you fix your dress.

“The water gun was a fun clever idea but don’t you ever shoot that inside my house again, you understand?” Ray says as he leads you out of the room.

“Okay, fine!” you reply.

He swiftly swats your butt and you squeal.

“Yes, Daddy!” you correct yourself.

“That’s my girl.” He leans in and plants a kiss on your temple.

#charlie hunnam #charlie hunnam fanfiction #raymond smith #raymond smith x f! reader #raymond smith fanfiction #raymond smith x fem #raymond smith x you #raymond smith x reader #the gentlemen #the gentlemen fanfiction #d/s

213 notes · View notes

startrekfangirl2233-writes · 10 months

Note

Hello there! I’m back! Hangster with 2.

Fern! Here you are! A Kiss Goodnight with Hangster! They're so sweet they're going to give me cavities. You might need a dentist's visit after this one! Love you, babes!

A Kiss Goodnight

It's late. It's way too late for anybody to be up and as Bradley parks the Bronco on the driveway he's not surprised at all to see the lights out. The house is mostly silent, filled with the soft, dull roar of the central air as it spills cool air across his face as he walks in. The dogs are asleep on their bed in the living room as he loads his empty lunch tupperware into the filled dishwasher and starts it up.

Navigating by nightlight on the stairs, he skips the squealing second step and the half built lego on the sixth, but hits the squeaky toy on fifteen. That's when he stops, waiting with baited breath to make sure that neither of the kids has stirred. When he finally creeps into the master bedroom, his heart rate has just reached normal again.

"Roo…" That groggy, sleep-drenched, deep voice makes his heart melt.

"Hey baby. Did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet. But of course one of the dogs' toys just had to be on the stairs." Bradley stops unbuttoning his uniform when hands he knows better than his own wrap around his waist. He's happy to cart his sleepy love around as long as needed. A part of him aches when he has to leave Jake on the bed as he slips into the bathroom to finish getting ready for bed.

When he steps out of the bathroom with his face damp, it's to Jake sitting bleary-eyed on the edge of the bed. His blond hair is in a fluffy halo around his head and the bedside table lamp is on.

"Go back to bed, baby." Jake just shakes his head no adamantly , making grabby hands in Bradley's direction. Bradley gets in on his side of the bed, tugging at the soft sweatshirt drowning Jake, one of his, intelligible by feel and the peeling letters spelling Bradshaw across the back, down under the sheets. Jake goes easily, turning the light off as he slumps into Bradley's arms.

"Love you, Roo." His sleepy voice is a gentle growl that fills Bradley with as much warmth as the clumsy kisses pressed against his throat, cheek and the corner of his mouth. Jake's skin is warm and soft against his hands as he slips his hands under the loose sweatshirt.

"Love you, Jake." Bradley presses one final kiss against Jake's mouth before falling asleep. It's only in Jake's arms that he's home.

Want to request a Kiss and a pair for me to write? Guidelines are here.

Want to see other Kisses I've written? Here's the full Masterlist.

I DO NOT CONSENT TO HAVE MY WORK POSTED, TRANSLATED, OR PUBLISHED ON ANY SITES OTHER THAN HERE OR ON AO3 BY ME. IF YOU SEE MY WORKS ANYWHERE OTHER THAN HERE OR AO3, THEN THEY HAVE BEEN POSTED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND I WILL BE WORKING TO TAKE THEM DOWN.

#star writes #top gun fanfic #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick fanfic #top gun maverick fanfiction #kiss writing game #jake hangman seresin x bradley rooster bradshaw #hangman x rooster #jake seresin x bradley bradshaw

28 notes · View notes

invincible-selfxmade-punk · 2 years

Text

I saw this on Facebook last night.

The basic question asked when you were a little kid what did it mean to you to be rich? Like if you were to look at another person's family what would constitute being rich to you.

For me it was pretty easy to answer: in the late 70s and early '80s when I was a kid, rich people had cars with power locks and windows. They also had large garages with automatic garage door openers and the richest of the rich lived in two-story houses.

So I started to read through other people's replies and these were some of the things that I saw.

If you were a rich kid, your family had:

✅hot water

✅Could afford to eat meat

✅ a washer/dryer

✅Got to go out to eat. ..ever

✅ a bathtub

✅ a bike

✅ clothes that weren't homemade

✅ a microwave

✅ central air

✅ a car with AC

I came away feeling so humbled. I've always thought that I grew up poor. I always considered my upbringing to be very much lower class, at least compared to everyone else I do.

But growing up we had central air which we got when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, we had hot water and a bathtub, we ate meat every night, we always had a washer and dryer, and when I was about eight we got a microwave. I had a bike when I was 10, and I never once wore had me down or homemade clothes unless I was playing dress up.

@sophiaslittleblog

@bitter1stuff

@allhailthe70shousewife

@vaspider

@allnightsong2

I'm curious to know what your representation of being rich was when you were a little kid.

#question #viewpoint #discourse #what is it to be rich?#my childhood #70's #80's

197 notes · View notes

ahungeringknife · 8 months

Text

365: March 31

Eido came around the central planning tent. Her father was bent over the holographic display with Esis and they were deep in talks of some sort. Braldos was nowhere to be seen but it was sunset, the Baroness had probably retired for the night. She sidled up to the display and cleared her throat to get their attention.

"Oh, Eido, we didn't see you there," her father said.

"It's fine. I see you two are busy planning good things for our people," Eido said cheerfully.

"Yes," Esis said, "Its a shame construction needs to be halted until we can run proper infrastructure through the roads."

"Better to do it now than dig up the roads later," Misraaks said.

"Yes and-

"Father it's getting late," Eido interrupted. She knew if she didn't they could early spend all night here talking about their plans. She'd seen and heard Viksiskal come down here scolding the both of them for staying up too late dreaming and not enough time sleeping to enact on those dreams. Eido always thought it was funny to watch the Kall scold her father. Almost like the Kell of Light was some misbehaving hatchling. She supposed the Kall had plenty of experience with that at least.

"Ah, you're quite right. We will pick this up in the morning. Apologies for keeping you Esis," Misraaks said graciously.

"Not at all. This is the most fun I've had in ages," Esis chirped and her lower hands clapped together.

"Perhaps you'd like to join us for dinner?" Eido prodded, keeping her eyes perfectly polite and was very glad her mask was on so they couldn't see the way her mandibles moved suspiciously.

"What? I wouldn't want to intrude," Esis said.

"Nonsense! You're a valued community member and this means you can carry on the conversation and I can force my father to take a break. I believe the Guardians have a saying for it? He is a 'workaholic'?" She used her lower hands to quote it as she had seen Amanda and other Guardians do before.

Esis's laugh was a sweet tittering sound and she put her hand under her veil over her mask to quiet herself. "Eido," Misraaks said with great gravity for the situation.

"If it is no trouble?" she asked.

"No trouble!" Eido cried before her father could say anything. "And perhaps you'll even spare me a moment over my father during dinner," and Esis giggled again. Eido could see her father was getting quite cross with the teasing but she knew he'd forgive her. Esis nodded. "Wondrous. Our tent is this way, if you'll follow me," and she beckoned Esis.

Esis followed her and Misraaks turned off the table and trailed behind. She could tell he was grumbling under his breath.

The Eliksni district had been raised and in its place Braldos' outfit had constructed a tent neighborhood for the time being for House Light. As Kell Misraaks had an especially large one for himself and Eido and was more or less a normal home, be it with fabric walls. The kitchen, so to speak, was communal but Eido had already gotten dinner for her and Misraaks and also Esis and laid it out on the low table for them to sit at. A helpful Ghost had fabricated the table out of pure glimmer and Eido had spent an entire day asking Ghosts about their ability to glimmer hack like that. The inside of the tent was also lined with a thin plastic polymer that allowed it to be about seventy percent air tight. Tight enough for the ether diffuser to keep the air breathable for a moderate amount of time. You still had to sleep with your mask on but one could live in the tent and only bring the mask up now and then to take a breath without suffocating.

She'd gotten dinner for the three of them already. It wasn't anything special. Just some half pigeons for each of them. She'd never had pigeon until coming to City but they were everywhere and delicious too.

Eido showed Esis their home and played it off that it couldn't compare to a Baron's ketch. Esis just said, "You don't live on your father's ketch? I see it all the time on my way here from the Lucent Dawn. It must be more comfortable to sleep without a mask on up there. And you are a Kell's daughter."

Eido played with her lower hands awkwardly. Misraaks was removing some of his Splicer regalia in his room so thankfully wasn't there to give Eido a look when she said, "The ketch is not pressured for ether."

Esis' shining blue eyes went wide. "Really?" and it was almost incredulous. Eido saw her visibly check herself. "Excuse me. I forget myself," she said apologetically. "House Light doesn't have the resources our outfit has," it wasn't a slight it was just the truth. "But we'll change that," she assured Eido.

"I certainly hope so," Eido said and removed her mask as her father came out of his room, dressed down. He no longer wore his Splicer gauntlet or great heavy coat and cape or his intricate mask. He just wore a simple rebreather around his neck but not over his face. Eido did not miss the way Esis' head tilted slightly seeing him. "Great you're ready for dinner," she said to her father. She'd already removed most of her own gear before going to get them and was just in her tunic and wraps, foregoing her helmet and hood and all her extra pouches and belts and things she carried around with her.

"Yes. And I find myself quite hungry after such a day of arguing with Baroness Braldos," he said gruffly. Esis giggled privately and Eido made a soft little trill of a noise. Misraaks went and sat at their table and the two of them quickly joined him. Eido was still waiting to see what Esis looked like under her veil and mask.

Esis removed her helmet as she sat and her veil and mask were one piece she just pulled down. Eido looked at her father for a reaction and was delighted to see him frozen, looking at Esis while she was adjusting her scarf and mask to make it easier to eat. Eido was quietly smug and finally also looked at Esis. Eido wasn't particularly interested in romance with others, or even sex, though she had engaged in both (a secret she kept from Misraaks) but she could still recognize when someone was attractive. And Esis was. She had blueish-purple flesh and carapace and without her helmet you could see all her edges were rounded and soft but not in the way of someone polishing their carapace. Even her mandibles were curved in such a way to appear that her head from the front was a perfect circle and the ridges over her large evenly spaced eyes were small.

Eido would surmise that in a way a human would say: Esis was 'hot as fuck'.

"Thank you for sharing this meal with me," Esis said, perhaps oblivious to Misraaks' staring. "My father said House Light says a prayer before meals?" she asked.

Eido kicked Misraaks under the table gently making him start. He coughed and cleared his throat. "Yes. To give thanks to the Great Machine and our friends here in the City," he said.

"I see," Esis nodded. "Do not feel you must change your ritual for my benefit. I will partake."

Eido offered Esis her hand across the table and grabbed Misraaks' as well. Esis delicately took Eido's hand and Eido's mandibles shivered back and forth in amusement to keep from snickering watching her father fumble just holding Esis' hand for the prayer. Eido closed her eyes and bowed her head when Misraaks said the familiar prayer, giving thanks to the Light, the Traveler, the people of the City, and (a new addition the past few weeks) the Baron's outfit for their aid. "By the Light," Misraaks said to end it.

"By the Light," Eido repeated and let Esis' and Misraaks' hands go.

"I hope this isn't a probing question Esis-

"If you say that that means it is," her father growled a warning.

She ignored him. "But you aren't a Light worshiper are you?"

Esis didn't mind even as she cracked the leg of her half a pigeon. "Not so much. Many in the outfit are machine worshipers. I was raised as such. As you can imagine my daddy is one," she said sweetly. "I did not grow up with stories of the Traveler like I'm sure you did, Eido."

"What about your other parent? The Kell?" Eido asked.

"Baron," Esis said as a natural correction but not upset Eido would call him a Kell. He should have been if everyone referred to Viksis as Kall. "Hmmm. Papa wasn't the religious sort if I am truthful," she said thoughtfully. "Or if he was it was something he did in private. But our outfit does have some Light worshipers and some who worship the Great Machine. But being so removed from it our outfit turned to machine worship."

"Makes sense seeing as your Kall is a Splicer," Eido said, barely touching her dinner.

Esis made a face. "Viksis didn't believe that until he met the Light Kell," she said and looked at Misraaks who was trying to look as dignified as possible while eating his pigeon.

"I don't know how," Eido said. "The first thing he did when he joined our House was learn the names of the Servitors; from them themselves!"

Esis giggled. "Yes. Daddy is a humble sort when it comes to his abilities."

"He says you out pace him but you are not a Splicer," Misraaks said.

"I'm not," she said. "I don't hear the machine speak he can or feel the change in electronics or manipulate the Vex Net like you Misraakskel. I'm just an engineer."

"Just!" Eido cried. "As if you didn't create a Prime Servitor. An extinct machine."

She waved that off. "Viksis helped a great deal in that creation though will downplay his intervention. I simply created the shell that the spark of a Prime could live in."

"If Viksis was the one who did it why did ours not spark?" Eido asked.

"I don't know. I haven't been allowed to look at it," Esis gave Misraaks the side eye.

"I thought the planning of our new neighborhood to be more important," Misraaks said. "And you have risen well to the challenge. You have quite the eye for city planning."

Esis chittered happily. "Thank you. I helped the other engineers plan all the ketches in the fleet for optimal space usage for our outfit."

Eido let them talk about the city planning for a while so she could eat her dinner. Listening to them talk about running sewer and water lines and trenching fiber optic wire was not what Eido would normally consider flirting but the way her father was sitting towards her, making direct eye contact, and using his lower hands to gesticulate was flirting. Especially with the how attentively he listened when Esis spoke. The only people she saw her father listen to so acutely were Ikorakel, the Young Wolf, and Eido herself. Her father was more guarded when talking with Esis while Braldos or sometimes Viksis or another outfit officer was around but in their home he was very open. Eido was glad to see her father getting out there. He'd never done it since he'd adopted her that she could remember but she knew many Eliksni in House Wolves lamented that Misraaks was too busy being a father and Mara Sov's 'stooge' to notice when anyone desperately flirted with him.

They all started when a strange shank appeared in the tent. "What-- where'd that thing come from?" Eido asked.

"Oh-- gosh I'm so sorry," Esis said apologetically.

"Is this your shank?" Misraaks asked.

"No? Yes? It belongs to my friend Fasik. He sends it looking for me when I don't return home at a reasonable time and I've stayed up too late working," she said, absolutely embarrassed."

"Fasik? I've not heard of him," Eido said.

"He's a tinkerer on the Lucent Dawn with me. A dear friend. What time is it?" she asked them. A flap on the shank's top snapped open revealing the time. "It's passed midnight? Already?"

"We kept you," Misraaks said.

The shank bumped gently against Esis' arm. "Yes yes. I know. I'll be back soon. Run along," and she shooed the shank away. It flew back out of the tent. "I had quite a lovely dinner don't think you kept me up," she assured Misraaks. "But I should be going. Tomorrow is an early day," and she leaned over to pick up her helmet.

"I'll see you out," Eido said and got up.

"Thank you," Esis said put her mask and veil back on as well.

Eido left the tent with her. "Esis," she said quietly before she could go.

"Yes?"

"I hope this isn't too forward. Do you have a family?"

"I assume you mean other than my parents and siblings?" Esis teased her. Eido giggled and nodded. "I have a child," she said and Eido's heart sunk a little. "But they're grown and work in the mechanics gang in one of the ketches," she said cheerfully.

"I see. And their father?"

"We're just friends," Esis shrugged. "We thought we were in love but after we had a baby we realized we were better friends than lovers," she sighed dramatically. "Thankfully we were friends or my papa would have killed her where she stood for leaving me right after we picked from our spawn," and Eido could laugh at that and Esis made an amused noise, eyes squinting in a laugh. Then in a kind voice she said, "Why? Did you want to know about Fasik?"

"Uh-- um-- well-

"Fasik is just my friend. I don't have a partner at this time. I'm usually too busy."

"Really I figured as the Baron's daughter you-

"Eido," she said, voice still gentle. "You're a good daughter," and Eido flushed realizing she'd been caught out almost immediately.

Eido leaned over close. "My father is also usually too busy," she told Esis as a secret.

"I know," Esis said and those two words spoke volumes. "Perhaps next time he'll invite me to dinner himself."

Eido's heart jumped excitedly. "I'll drop some hints," she said and they shared soft secret giggle of knowing something the Kell of Light didn't. "Safe passage back to your ketch, Esis."

"Thank you. I will see you tomorrow," and she bowed her head and walked off.

Eido threw the door of the tent open, startling Misraaks who was cleaning up the table. "Eido, you're letting the ether out," he scolded her.

"She's totally into you," Eido said, letting the flap close.

"What?"

"Father, don't play dumb with me."

"I don't have to. I don't know what you're talking about," Misraaks said, putting the chairs back properly.

Eido folded both her arms. "Of course," she said because of course her stuffy father wouldn't admit to something as base as wanting to court a Baron's daughter. Or anyone's daughter. "I'm going to notate what we talked about over dinner before bed," and she went into her 'room' in the tent.

#365 #writeblr #writblr #fanfiction #destiny #destiny 2 #destiny the game #eliksni #the fallen #mithrax #misraaks #eido

16 notes · View notes

filmnoirsbian · 2 years

Text

That summer post really was a joke but in all seriousness I grew up in the south in a house without central air in a place that regularly got over 100f in the summer AND I've lived in the north in buildings without working heat in places that regularly got below 0f in the winter. And I will pick summer without ac everytime. It's uncomfortable and sticky and I'll take frequent showers but at least I won't have to worry about literally dying in my sleep. "You can always put more layers on! You can't take your skin off!" I am here to tell you that you can in fact run out of layers to put on and when you get cold enough, no amount of sweaters will save you.

#tcp

180 notes · View notes

inkofamethyst · 4 months

Text

December 18, 2023

IM GETTING A MAJOR RAISE NEXT YEAR??? LIKE TWENTY PERCENT???? (it's far better to be excited about this than to remember that I'm probably behind many of my peers due to my decision to attend graduate school and be bitter tbh) Suddenly a pet-friendly one bedroom apartment with central air and a balcony doesn't seem like as much of a stretch (especially not if i go farther away from campus (and double especially since a rainstorm which would otherwise have been a lovely time for recuperation seems to have rocked my current building to the core,,,,, from power outtages to roof leaks i just,,,,,, hhhhh reminding myself that this isn't permanent helps)). But now everyone can afford to either be a bit pickier. Hm. I suppose I also don't necessarily want to succumb to any major lifestyle creep though. I want to SAVE. I want a HOUSE. (but i also kinda really wanna live alone lol)

still feelin a bit down about last night lol. but it's over. done.

On September 6, I shared my goals for the school year, and I'd like to revisit them now that I've completed my first semester.

Stay within monthly budgets -- going excellently!

Take a programming course -- coming up next sem!

Go to fitness classes -- haven't yet

Maintain connections with interesting people -- I've met interesting people, still working on connection maintenance

Try a new recipe each month -- I do believe I've done this

Decorate my room -- yeah.. so I haven't been as decorative as I'd intended, mostly because I don't see myself living here for more than two years, so I still haven't decided whether I want to go through the hassle of putting things up... I think I should though, maybe over winter break? Saw a tiktok that said waking up to a beautiful space helps you feel safe and secure.. don't really care to fact check bc it sounds good enough to me!

Go to talks in various departments -- technically I went to one in a different biology department, but that's not really following the spirit of this goal since I was thinkin like astronomy or history.. so not yet

Read for fun or listen to audiobooks -- none yet, maybe over break

No studying while eating -- success (this is not hard, I generally don't enjoy studying haha)

Today I'm thankful for the (eventual) raise. Merry Christmas indeed.

[edit, sometime after midnight: AND I GOT AN A+ ON THE PAPER??? HUH??? MERRY CHRISTMAS INDEED (literally praying for my other classes)]

6 notes · View notes

ourimpavidheroine · 5 months

Text

So one of you was asking me, via DM, where I thought my fanfic was set. This is a map that a fan drew that I've always used in my head. (If you click on the link you'll get a better resolution.)

Obviously this is pre-spirit portal. The spirit portal itself is set in the central part of the city, of course. A fair amount of what was in the downtown area would move east as well as south, where there is more room for expansion. However, in my AU the downtown area is still a working city, and while certain parts of it needed to be rebuilt - and the area where the spirit portal is belongs to the Air Nation - after a time people just treat the portal like another park more than anything else.

The red star is the very swanky neighborhood the the North of the city where Wu, Wei, Madame Zong, etc. live. (And where Tupilek ends up getting the berth for his boat - the docks there are all for private yachts, not commercial, which is mostly in the southwest part of the city.) The yellow star is where Bolin and Opal's house is, and further up is the Sato estate (which later becomes Naoki's bending academy.)

The purple star is where Plumwood Academy is, the school Naoki and Meili attend. It also has the various embassies in it.

The green star is the North Bridge, the one they always talk about driving across.

The blue star is Yumi's dojo.

The orange star is Meili's Bridge Clinic - that long main road that it's located on is my fictional Bridge Avenue. The Flower District is in the south part of the city, as well as the neighborhoods where Bolin and Mako grew up. In my mind the triads have a firm control over the south part of the city, some control over parts of the central and eastern parts of the city, and none at all in the north part of the city.

#maps

7 notes · View notes

diabollicallyangelic · 5 months

Text

SUCCESOR

Page 6

FNAF fic

------

Characters:

Vanessa

Abby Schmidt

???

------

The early morning sun peeks through the curtains on the living room windows, the glare hitting Vanessa directly in the eyes as she tries to keep herself from falling asleep.

Abby's soft footsteps pat out of her room and down the hall, and she appears in the living room staring softly over at Vanessa with her big brown eyes, so reminiscent of Mikes.

"Nessa?"

"Mm?" She responds groggily, blinking the sleep out of her eyes.

"I'm hungry." Abby says quietly, walking slowly over to stand in front of Vanessa who's trying to sit up on the couch.

"Sure thing B." She murmurs. "I'll go make pancakes."

She wanders into the kitchen with Abby following close behind her, carrying a puppet looking doll in her arms.

"I don't think I've met that one yet." Vanessa yawns, mixing the ingredients Mike had left out together to make the batter.

"I haven't named her." Abby responds, holding the doll out in front of her.

It had a white mask with red cheeks and a wide eerie smile carved into it's mask. Purple stripes were painted under its eyes and it's limbs were long and skinny.

"Ah." Vanessa says, flipping the first pancake.

She finally spared a glance that the thing and was quite startled at first.

"Hey B, where'd you find that?"

"Oh, Mike brought it home for me after his first night at his job." She responds quickly, making the doll dance in the air.

"Interesting." Vanessa sighed, grabbing a small plate from the shelf above the stove and putting the pancakes on it.

"Here you go. Go sit down at the table, ok? Don't get your friend dirty either."

"I know." Abby says flatly, taking the plate and disappearing off to the dining room.

There the doll sat now, in the passenger seat of Vanessas car.

Abby had forgotten it there and Vanessa had forgotten to return it before the incident-

It stared rather condescendingly at her. Even though they were blank, its eyes held a certain emotion to them.

The thing rocked back and forth as Vanessa turned corners in the car and when she breaked.

"Oh, stop looking at me like that." Vanessa murmurs, pulling into the driveway of Mikes small house.

She unbuckles her seatbelt and picks the puppet up, setting it on the dash after staring into its eyes for awhile.

Guilt settles into the back of her mind as soon as she had picked it up, and she sighed after setting it back down.

"I'm finding Abby, don't worry-"

Vanessa slammed the door shut, taking a deep breath before walking up to the door and knocking on it lightly.

------

Sorry if it gets a bit slow for a few pages, I'm working on my abilities to move a story along

------

Page one vv

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #freddy fazzbears pizza #vanessa afton #vanessa fnaf #fnaf security breach #abby Schmidt #the puppet fnaf

6 notes · View notes

lastweeksshirttonight · 10 months

Text

Hey uh remember when I did retrospectives of Last Week Tonight episodes? Let's bring it back to 140.

Last Lee Tonight (wherein I'm definitely showing United Passions at my next bad movie night) Season One, Episode Six

(original air date: 6/8/2014) Major topics covered: FIFA, Bashar al-Assad's incredible iTunes library

"And speaking of Germans losing things, it was the 70th anniversary of D-Day this week."

It's really nice to throw this show back on again, on a note unrelated to the purpose of this project. I don't talk much about myself but it's been a rough few months with work scheduling, my chronic illnesses, and my mental health. For every "I'm taking a very spontaneous and ill-thought-out trip to New York to see John Oliver WOOO!" moment, there's been at least five "why can't I catch a break"s. When I'm not being beaten down by the collective forces of capitalism, I genuinely haven't been watching much John at all, mainly in an effort to play the large backlog of video games and read the large pile of books lying around my house. I've been moderately successful there (hey y'all should give Cassette Beasts a go, it's delightful), but there's nothing like going back home, so to speak. (I hesitate to call LWT a comfort show for me, given that it's basically A Record of the Decline of the United States in Real Time, but it kinda serves that function to some degree. I am a psychopath.)

Where we last left off in... May, Jesus Christ, I'm so bad at scheduling and writing and content creation - when we last left off in May at Episode 5, things were finally starting to coalesce into the modern LWT experience. We had our first viral segment on Net Neutrality, the first time a segment was uploaded in full to the LWT YouTube, and an opening news roundup that was starting to feel more thoughtful and themed. This episode continues that theme and gives us our second big viral topic.

There is a variant on the desk-slapping here, where John doesn't do it to open the show, but does a milder version of it to get the audience to shut up so he can move on with doing the show. One of my favorite things about him is his constant desire to barrel through clapping or any audience praise of anything he's done at a given moment in time and this opener is a pretty good example of that.

We open on John calling the week disappointing because California Chrome, a horse competing for the Triple Crown, did not win the Triple Crown. You can tell this is an early episode of LWT because there is no prerequisite horse-fucking/bestiality joke, just John angrily saying "fuck that horse" about Tonalist, the horse that defeated California Chrome. All of these horses sound like indie bands from my college years. I feel like Tonalist opened when I saw MGMT live.

We then move into German Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. This gives John an opportunity to plumb one of his favorite comedic depths, making fun of the musicality, smoothness, and romanticism of the German language. A German man used his lifeline to call Chancellor Merkle, who, thankfully, did not answer, as she was busy running Germany.

This transitions into China hiding the events of Tiananmen Square from their populace, including by censoring the Internet.

youtube

Attempts by protestors to use different trending words - and to put facts about Tiananmen Square in a sex tape - to get around that were also clamped down on, leading to this absolutely glorious screenshot of John's hypothetical romance novel:

I feel like someone on Reddit probably wrote When Spring Turns to Summer recently.

We also learn that Friends is incredibly popular with Chinese youth. I'm not really shocked by this, Friends has a weird international reach. I know multiple Korean idols who learned English partially through watching Friends. The fact that there's a Chinese replica of Central Perk? That's wild. The show edits a Friends clip to include historical facts about the massacre, and then we move to our central story.

I'm a big fan of whenever John talks about FIFA and football in general. Recently in one of her "posts relevant to my interests", @tellthemeerkatsitsfine noted that there's a strain with John and his contemporaries with them being nerds who really wanted to be jocks, and I think that dichotomy really helps John come off credibly when he talks about the deep-rooted corruption in this particular organization. The sport is something that is literally rooted into him, hardwired as something he deeply cares about... but there's the rest of it to consider.

youtube

In my opinion, someone who deeply loves something can really be the best at describing everything wrong with it. You don't really find the grime if you're only on the surface of something. I know that critical observation of a fandom while in said fandom is in short supply these days, but I wish it was more common.

Anyways. I think FIFA's corruption and grotesqueries are pretty known in 2023, but at the time, knowledge of their fuckery wasn't as widespread. Socially, we've definitely spoken a lot more about the cost-benefit analysis of the Olympics and taxpayer-funded stadiums, which is comparative to John's opening about the issues with FIFA and claims that World Cups bring money to the areas hosting them. (Not true!) Other items I'd completely forgotten about, like FIFA Court and their boardroom looking like something out of Dr. Strangelove.

The "And Now This" is "Chris Matthews Reminds Everyone Who He Used to Work For". (Answer: Tip O'Neill.) My abiding memory of Chris Matthews is Zell Miller accusing him of beating a woman and challenging him to a duel at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

youtube

SNL had a pretty great sketch of this where Will Forte played Miller that I can't find right now. PISTOLS AT DAAAAAAAAWN MATTHEWS!!!!

The final segment is on Bashar al-Assad's campaign of terror against Syria, rigged electioneering, and chemical warfare. More importantly, al-Assad's life history and iTunes library are discussed.

youtube

This was also the subject of the classic Bugle episode 187, which has a chance to go far more in depth about his favorite music, like "Sexy and I Know It". (Andy Zaltzman describing Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes as a doubles tennis group is one of my favorite Bugle moments of all time incidentally.)

Right Said Fred coming out to perform an anti-Assad version of "I'm Too Sexy" gives us the first time John has had a celebrity come out basically to troll one single person, and thus almost the cornerstones of modern LWT have been established. Eagerly awaiting the first bestiality joke. Also, really love the changed lyrics, they put a hell of a lot of effort into this one. I wanna see Right Said Fred live now.

Random notes:

Lee will continue sexualizing one (1) older man damn it: light blue and dark blue checked shirt, black tie, and black jacket? I know I've said red is John's color but light blue is a very close second, 10/10

I feel like I made up for not doing these for two months by writing about five year's worth of unnecessary analysis of this damn episode. Hopefully you enjoyed it!

It was amazing seeing an ESPN ad for something not handegg-related. -groan-

LWT YouTube is still a bit confused, as we did get the two major topics as their own videos... and then 1 minute of the FIFA section as its own minisode. I really would love to know the logic behind why there specific jokes were isolated like this in the beginning of the show's airing.

youtube

My sausage, if anyone cares, is the Korean idol industry. It's an absolute cataclysmic nightmare and yet there's a lot there personally that changed me and a lot that I love out of it. It's complicated. Fuck SM Entertainment.

A reminder that John's LMFAO fandom has endured for a decade longer than the band itself lasted:

youtube

#john oliver #last week tonight #last week tonight with john oliver #last lee tonight #fifa world cup #seriously debating tagging zell miller in case anyone has that snl clip #zell miller #the bugle #the bugle podcast #andy zaltzman #Youtube

13 notes · View notes