#“everyone has a skill” sure but can you tell my brain that and convince it that i’m not a livin waste of space

[aroace-poly-show]

i hate “what’s your greatest skill questions” like it’s really hard to write about something i’m convinced i don’t have

[writing-frenzy]

Isekai with the Kurosaki fam; now with some UraIchi spice

So, my brain has been dumping even more ideas for a fandom I can't write for, so I guess I'll dump all the ideas on the ground and sees what happens; also, partly inspired because of DevinePhoenix's Glass Body, Steal Wings and slightly be Cannon Ichigo in AU series by Williamcipher, especially the third of the series, because ye.

Anyways, so for me, I can never imagine Ichigo would part from his sisters and Goat-face easily, even in a normal au, because it's Ichigo's family, his friends, his lost, his life experiences that makes him who he is as a person; if he died and then transferred, a part of me wonders if he would ever try and get back home somehow. So my brain went-

Brain: hey, how about we have a thing that makes the entire family get into an accident :D

Brain: And, like, maybe a day before or when Ichigo was younger, he ended up saving a godly being's most beloved person, so the god is like; hey, I owe you, I'll reincarnate your family into my world; thing is, the world the god has is maybe connected in a way to an anime/webnovel/comic one of the girls or Ichigo's friends were reading, and Ichigo knows it because he was convinced to watch/read it as bonding.

It's a world of magic and fantasy, where words and names have power and things go bump in the night ever so easily. Ichigo and his Family find themselves in a cozy little hideaway, all confused but happy and relieved to be alive and with each other. Isshin in this au will be an awkward, not the best father but he loves and he tries, and he just wants the best for all of his children. (He is the unsarcastic B+ parent, because with all the shit in this au coming, Ichigo deserves this).

Isshin in their original world is descended from a sword wielding samurai family, and he's had the forms and everything beaten into him since he was young, and the reason why he never taught Ichigo was because he didn't know how to be a gentle teacher and he never wanted to hurt his boy. (it's why he's always given his children freedom and choice of what they want.) And coming into this new world, this new place, everyone can feel a change in their bodies, can feel power in their veins even if they don't know what to do with it. See, Ichigo's mom had a little something funky with her blood but didn't know it and Isshin is actually a human with spiritual powers but with their original world it never came out, and with the God giving them a boost/perks, everyone is learning how to control themselves first and foremost.

It's after a bit of convincing and Isshin making Ichigo promise to tell him if he's going too hard that he starts teaching him the family style, along with others in scrolls with phantom teachers to guide them along. It is rough, it is harsh, but it's Ichigo so he pushes on through and becomes better for it. (The two do agree to see if they can find better teachers for the girls though, as Karin wouldn't suit this style even if she would be good with a sword, and Yuzu seems like she would be better with magic then a blade.)

The family of four spends like three years here, learning all they can, devouring every book and all they can remember of the OG!Story of this place before they all have exhausted all the sources and knowledge of the cottage, can no longer progress in their skills as they have been, and had enough cabin fever to drive any sane person down the river. But they're not stupid, so first things first, Isshin scouting at first, then with his son, before him and Ichigo take turns exploring and scouting the area because they don't like leaving the twins alone. But as they're getting a lay of the land and comparing maps and such to reality, even getting a feel for their new magic gadgets and all, they come across monsters and such here and there Once Isshin is sure that Ichigo can handle himself, its only then they spilt so one can stay with the girls while the other explores for a few days, even if Ichigo is only allowed to do it for two days to his father's week.

After that, packing everything they need into magic bags and hammer space, the family takes one last look to their home of all these years, bows in thanks before they are off. It's not long till they join a trade caravan, Isshin trading his skills as a doctor to do so. They travel around for a bit, before in the end, they settle down in a bustling, safe city that never fell in the story, even if the story's protagonist and gang lives here with all their wacky and troubling hijinxs.

So, now that backstory and such is out of the way, let's get to some of the fun stuff. :3

Ichigo does not realize just how strong he actually is; see, in this world of magic and stuff, swords are... technically considered obsolete; of sure, in the story there is a Magic Swordman who is part of the Protagonist's party, but even there they mostly use the sword as fancy focus then to actually fight with it. But with the way Ichigo was trained, as well as both his and his father's lack of common sense for this world, for them it is as easy to cut down a monster as it is to cut down spells themselves. Neither Ichigo or Isshin understand how insane that is, because once a spell is out, you usually have to dodge it or hope it hits someone else if you can't counterspell it.

The Kurosaki's also avoid the Protag and his crew; lets not get involved in your drama, please and thank you (lol, just had the thought of how protective Isshin and Ichigo would get if the story was with a Harem Protag; both would be protective as heck over the twins because with either reverse or regular harem, girls usually get the shit end of the stick). Ichigo is just fine how he is, even if he keeps getting into fights because of random assholes, his charm flowing out and getting his own loyal friends without his knowing. Karin is way too interested in magical sports to care not to mention her age while Yuzu is getting fascinated by potions, alchemy, and cooking to care.

One day, after Ichigo has been feeding some tidbits to some strays, he finds what seems to be a tea and candy shop, with books to read. it doesn't have much business, being out of the way like it is, but there is the occasional regular coming out. Ichigo shrugs, he has time and so he enters this Urahara Shoten.

Somehow, someway, he ends up making friends with Geta-boshi, who as frustrating as he is, recommends good books and a listening ear. Things lead to one things, stuff happens, and Ichigo finds out this guy also has sword.

Sparring partner acquired, though it takes some convincing, a bit of bribing, but Ichigo is able to get the other to agree; he gets his ass beat easily, but Urahara is a harsh, but good teacher, and so Ichigo just thrives in the challenge.

As for Urahara, this guy is so fucking terrifying, just like in canon, how he is assassin sharp and quick with his blade even as he can spellcast at the same time, just watching Ichigo cut through his spells to meet his blade.

Kisuke: this is the most fun I've had in ages :D I wonder what else he can do if I don't tell him what's impossible.

These two end up getting involved in some harsh canon event disasters, Ichigo fighting with Kisuke, knowing the other man won't let him down. Kisuke, having someone he can trust lead the way, knowing, having faith the other can survive alongside him...

Just, these two bonding, getting closer, Ichigo introducing his sisters and Goat-Face who is giving that weird stare.

(On Isshin's part, he recognizes what's going on, and for all that he is not going to be a hypocrite, is not going to kick this Urahara guy as hard as he can and hide Ichigo away, he suddenly... completely understands Misaki's family's cold and hard stares as he had gotten, watching how the elder blond stares at his 20 year old son like he is sun, like he can't believe there is any light in his life again after being shadowed so long. He's pretty sure that is the same stare he had given Misaki as well, just as how Ichigo looks softer, warmer, happier the minute that Urahara guy stays by his side, just how his mother would melt around him despite her expression never changing.

So, Isshin won't say anything, especially since he can tell neither has a clue... but he will be doing the protective, embarrassing Father as much as he wants.)

So yeah, this is the idea :3 I also have another idea with a Mob Protagonist!Ichigo, where he comes to be a character never even mentioned in a story, and ends up charming local shop owner Urahara Kisuke, who is secretly the terrible, scary Puppet Master Benihime without knowing it. maybe I'll note it out when I feel like it, though if people want, they can ask questions about it.

[sinisterexaggerator]

Bossk x AFAB Reader

Summary: You join a small crew of other mercenaries on the lookout for your next big score, but there is time to kill before the hunt begins and you have an itch to scratch -- one that only a Trandoshan can reach with his sharp talons.

Warnings: NSFW / 18+ for size kink, cumflation, kissing, PiV sex, cunnilingus, blowjobs, alcohol consumption, and straight-up monsterfucking. Includes a little fluff, aftercare, and cuddling. Ending inspired by this artwork. P.S.: Bossk has two dicks.

Word count: 7500+

Notes: This is my first time writing for Bossk. I'm not sure if anyone will even read this or how many Bossk fans there are, but I've had it in my head to write a Bossk smut for a few months now, and I finally had time to do it! I haven't been able to publish anything in awhile, but I'm now settled in my new place and happy to get back into the swing of things.

*Banner and divider by me.

Bossk'wassak'Cradossk was a mouthful in more ways than one, you imagined. Luckily, to call a Trandoshan by his or her full name was not customary, and you were to be spared trying to pronounce anything but “Bossk.”

You had done your homework, impressing at least one of your new acquaintances, though that did not stop the reptilian-humanoid from introducing himself with a flash of his tongue. His preferred, shortened title was spoken so thunderously that it overpowered the cacophony of other voices in the bar. It was enough to ensure you would not make the same mistake twice.

That one syllable had been expelled between two rows of knife-sharp teeth, your eyes unable to focus on anything but this beast’s mouth -- that was until you noticed his head tilting incrementally to the left. He was regarding you curiously, a snorted breath being discharged from his flaring nostrils. It seems he had asked you a question and you had failed to hear it.

“What’sss the matter, tooka got your tongue?” he snickered, folding his arms as he waited for some kind of explanation as to your odd behavior.

“I-” you began, thinking quickly to cover your increasing embarrassment, “-I’ve just never been this close to a Trandoshan before. Much less the legendary hunter Bossk,” you finished, buttering him up. It may as well have been the truth, the only thing you failed to mention being the trailing thoughts fluttering around inside your brain in regard to his statuesque proportions.

This met with his approval, the mercenary belting out a short, sharp laugh. “Well, today is your lucky day then, issssn’t it,” he stated in a sarcastic tone.

You looked to the right at your partner; she had organized this little excursion. Scoria was a skilled bounty hunter in her own right, but she had convinced you that you would need help for this next job. Currently, she was talking to a man named Dengar who had introduced himself moments earlier. You caught his eye briefly; he had the nerve to wink at you.

Quickly looking away, you returned your attention to the Trandoshan who interrupted everyone all at once, his voice grating, yet somehow soothing to the ears. “We’ll head out at first light. I know how pathetic human eyesight isss in the dark.”

You had the sense of knowing he fully believed that statement.                        

“For now, let’ssss grab a drink,” he practically commanded, no one bothering to disagree with his proposal.

“Bossk, did I eva’ tell ya’ I love the way you think?”

“Shut up, Dengar,” the creature snapped back, causing you to suppress a laugh. He had emitted a growl that was downright predatory. You felt a little something dance down your spine. Fear? Excitement?

Following behind the others at your own pace, you thought it was a miracle this little backwater planet even had a bar, much less a room, your target lurking in the deepest, darkest depths of the forest where he had carved out a special place for himself among the native flora and fauna.

This being was said to be a Jedi sympathizer wanted by the Empire, and worth so much that even splitting the earnings four ways would have you sitting pretty for some time. Your quarry had spent the last several years funneling Jedi and Force-users to safety, the intel he possessed worth its weight in spice.

The worry was he would not be alone, and there would be many parties to contend with, more than you two could handle on your own – that’s where these so-called guns for hire came in.

You could not deny you were intrigued. In fact, maybe more than that.

Truth be told, as soon as you discovered who Scoria planned to solicit for help, you spent hours rifling through said hunters’ files. While Dengar was a notable hunter hailing from Corellia, Bossk was a powerful warrior of his ilk and had quite the track record, both working with hunters such as Aurra Sing, Embo, and Boba Fett, a man you had yet to lay your eyes on.

The sheer size of him, standing somewhere at 6’3” or taller, forced you to have to crane your neck when looking up into his eyes, the color of burning embers, black as pitch pupils swimming in a sea of red.

His talons were sharp as razors, as were the ones on his feet, capable of ripping a man in two should it be required of him, you suspected, yet you wondered how gentle he could be…

Your musings were interrupted when your partner asked for your order, Dengar having already rushed ahead, and Bossk having taken up residence on a nearby stool that barely supported his unique build. You stared unapologetically, having a rather impure thought, suddenly wondering what his weight might feel like on top of you instead.

“I’ll have what he’s having,” you nodded your head in the scaled sentient’s direction, the yellow clad merc turning his neck markedly to stare at you over his broad shoulder.

“HA! So you figure you can handle Trandoshan ale, do you?” Bossk snickered, banging the flat of his hand against the countertop where the awaiting bartender stood with a somewhat apprehensive look on his face. Though the lizard only had three “fingers,” he held up two, demanding his order to be fulfilled.

“Two. Trandoshan alesss,” he instructed with a snarl, seemingly not able to control his natural mode of being despite his intellect. By all definitions of the word, he was a monster. A monster that could walk and talk, among other things. Things you found yourself to be interested in; unsavory things; salacious things.

“What about me, Bossk?” Dengar asked, crestfallen.

The reptilian laughed full-fledged in his face before bothering to answer. “You’re on your own.”

“Well, excuuuse me for breathin’,” he snidely replied, Dengar deciding to rejoin Scoria who had found herself an opening toward the other end of the bar. Perhaps he wanted to continue their conversation, you surmised, curious as to the manner of their talk; Dengar made sure to call out to his partner before walking out of earshot.

“Remind me ta neva’ pick up your tab again.”

“Whatever, idiot,” Bossk shot back, though he had kept that booming voice of his lowered on purpose, making you wonder about the true dynamics of their relationship – it seemed complicated.

“Is this seat taken?” you thought to ask, another cutting breath being fired off from out of the hunter’s snout.

“What does it look like?” he quipped, not bothering to say yes or no. You thought that might be the closest thing to an invitation that you would get. You gingerly took your place beside him just as the barkeep returned with your ale.

The creature passed one toward you, then took up his own mug. He raised it in a toast, then bellowed out, “bottoms up.”

You held your tongue as you desired to turn his idiom into an innuendo. Instead, you collected your drink, hoping you had not gotten yourself in over your head.

After taking the first sip it was clear that you had.  

You coughed, so potent was its taste. Although it appeared normal enough, the hops must have been so aged that you assumed it had been around since the dawn of the galaxy. In fact, it was so strong, you wondered why it was not being used to power starships.

The Trandoshan laughed heartily, pointing one long claw very close to your face to accentuate his words. “Figures!” he taunted. “Never known an ape who could stomach the stuff, much less a hairless one,” he japed as an insult to your kind.

Once marginally recovered, you gave him a look, determined to not give up and for Bossk to label you a sissy. He was little known for withholding opinions, whether favorable or not, or so you had heard.

“It’s just strong, is all,” you rationalized. “I never said I didn’t like it.”

“Strong, like me,” he confirmed with a terse cackle, taking a chug of his own ale before making you an offer. “If you don’t drink it, I will.”

Defiantly, you took another swig, this time managing to not pull a face. Not sure of its alcohol content, you were already starting to feel a buzz. Smirking, you realized your inhibitions were beginning to lower, but you had already been in an impish mood.

“So I noticed,” you said, wondering if he would perceive your words the way you meant them.

His reply was casual and dismissive. “Maybe your eyesss are sharper than I thought.” He was not one to miss an opportunity to flatter himself, as if your complimenting him was not enough.

“So very humble, Bossk,” you stated sarcastically and with some familiarity, as if you had known this sentient for more than ten minutes. The hunter made a sound that was reminiscent of an angry snake; you regarded him out of the corner of your eye.

‘What do you know?” he asked with a somewhat irritated quality to his voice.

“Nothing,” you admitted, taking a chance to amend this by asking him a little something about himself. You were curious, after all, and at the moment feeling gutsy. “So, tell me then: how did you become such a skilled hunter?”

Without missing a beat, the Trandoshan easily proffered an answer. “The Sssscorekeeper, she smiles down upon me.”

Not surprisingly, you knew little about Trandoshans or their home planet, Trandosha, much less about their customs and culture. You felt a bit ignorant, hoping that he would not be offended at your cluelessness about his people. “The Scorekeep? May I ask who she is?”

“The Great Goddesssss….” Bossk began, talons wrapping firmly around his glass. “She exisssts beyond time and ssspace. She watches the hunt-” he said with gusto, “-and rewards us for our killsss.”

“And she favors you,” you added.

“Yesssss, for I am the best!” he concluded, self-assured.

“I see,” you said offhand.

You thought for a moment about what you had learned, not having much in the way to add. He took this opportunity to take a drink of his ale as you came up with another question, this one causing the corner of your mouth to twitch as you moved your stool a little closer to his. “And what do you think of human Gods? We don’t put much faith into them ourselves.”

Bossk turned his head your way and huffed but did not say anything so as to impede your progress. You wondered if he had any idea you were experiencing an attraction to him, or if he was purposely ignoring it.

“Weak!” he nearly shouted, a few patrons rotating in their chairs to stare.  Your eyes darted around quickly, noting that to bring attention to yourselves might alert the wrong kinds of people of your presence on this rocky world. This did not seem to concern the Trandoshan whatsoever. It was possible he enjoyed the attention, or assumed he could handle himself no matter the situation, therefore he did not think about those kinds of things. Whatever the case, he continued:

“Your Gods deal in suffering. Your reward is pain,” he growled. “Sssstupid.”

You could not argue with that and thought he had a valid point. It did feel that way sometimes, as if whoever was in charge of the universe enjoyed chaos and mayhem, strife and discord, or made a game of it and humans their pawns.

Smiling warmly, you scootched a little closer, allowing your elbow to brush against his. “And what do you think of human girls?” you asked, your voice matching your mood, so very tempted to finger the lightweight yellow material that clothed the reptile.

Bossk made a jerking motion and looked squarely at you, a sound being produced by his vocal chords that signified he was taken aback by your query. Blood-red eyes traveled your form; he took a moment before he finally responded, and it was not what you had hoped for.

“Piss off, sissssster… I’m trying to relax.”

You openly pouted, immediately quieting yourself as you took another drink of your Trandoshan ale. Having temporarily forgotten about its pungency, you almost choked, swallowing it down before having another coughing fit.

Bossk shook his head, chuckling darkly at you, perhaps finding you nearly dying to be amusing. “You don’t have to finish that, you know.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m weak,” you confessed. “I wanted to impress you.”

“HA!” the bounty hunter enunciated dryly. “Impress me with your hunting skillssss,” he asserted. It seemed he was making a habit of laughing at your expense.

That did not deter you. Testing the waters, you trailed a finger down the outside of his prodigious thigh, not really knowing what had come over you except you were inexplicably drawn to this… man.

And perhaps it was because he was not a man, or at least not a man the likes of which you had ever seen, that you were captivated by him, though you had been witness to many things this side of the galaxy that were strange and unusual, not so different from a Trandoshan, you thought, and yet --

“--Maybe I could impress you some other way?” you volunteered coyly, that third swig of ale having emboldened you more so than before.

Bossk angled his head like a curious animal, first in one direction and then the other. He glanced down at your finger tracing his leg and blinked -- you presumed he thought you ridiculous, waiting for him to tear you down once more.

“Are you flirting with me?!” he asked quizzically, and rather loudly at that. If you could have read his expression, you wondered if he might be confronting some sort of disbelief. However, his face was all teeth and tongue, his mouth stretching back nearly to where his ears should have been were he a member of your species. It was impossible to tell his true mood, at least as far as you were aware.

You returned a rather nervous, yet daring, “I don’t know, am I?”

He virtually howled, blood rushing toward your cheeks as he slapped his knee with an open palm. “You couldn’t handle me princessss,” he chided once he had calmed down enough to speak.

Feeling rebellious, your sullen temperament was not helping matters, as you were now speaking before you thought things through.

“Wanna bet?” you scowled.

“How much?” Bossk leaned forward across the bar top, not wasting a moment’s time, his face so close to yours you could feel his hot breath on your skin.

“My half of the bounty tomorrow,” you said without hesitation. You mentally slapped yourself.

“You’ve got yourself a deal, ssssweetheart. You’ll be lucky If you can walk.”

---

Bossk had a ship, the Hound’s Tooth. His modified YV-666 light freighter was more than well-equipped for his dirty deeds, and then some. Parked right outside the seedy establishment you had occupied, the lizard had taken to finishing your drink and the rest of his.

Taking you by the wrist like some ancient, uncivilized being, he had guided you outside, locking his talons around you with a surprisingly careful grip. He had chuckled deviously to himself, as if he had just won a prize, and perhaps he thought he had; you were not sure how often the hunter partook of sins of the flesh, nor did you care to ask. Instead, you planned to win that bet, however much of an excuse it was to get him in the sack.

The moment you stepped inside, the door slid closed, and Bossk was on you like a predator with caught prey, your body tossed like a ragdoll into the hull of his ship. You gasped, yet you would be lying if you said you didn’t prefer things a little rough, already anticipating what would happen next.

“Let’s ssseeee if you’re all talk…” he hissed into your ear, the tip of his forked tongue flitting against your earlobe. You were stock-still, as if caught in his hunter’s snare. You swallowed down your spit, one arm rising in an attempt to touch him.

“Sssssskkkk…”  At once intimidated, Bossk slapped your hand away, his own returning to curl a talon against the crook of your cheek. It grazed itself along your jawline before coming to rest at your chin. He pinched you delicately as a show of good faith; he did not plan to hurt you if he could help it. Then, that same claw slid down, down the line of your sternum and came to a halt at the edge of your lowcut top.

“Some cleavage,” he said derisively, its pointed tip pushing lightly against the fabric that barred your breasts; you were wearing a one piece leotard for range of movement, having left your weapons on Scoria’s ship. Bossk sliced it open with a single swipe, leaving fleshy mounds exposed for his naked eye.

He carefully watched the way they bounced and fought against gravity. Though large, he thought them perky, the apex of his longest finger lightly fondling your quickly hardening nipple. You stood transfixed, panting against the wall and somewhat shocked that he would cut to the chase so fast by nearly wholly undressing you in the airlock of his ship.

“Tooka must have your tongue again,” he teased, inching so close it made you wonder how it would be to kiss him.

“Good thing it doessssn’t have mine,” he finished, and it appeared he was going to address that very thing. The thin expanse of his long tongue delved soundlessly into your half-opened mouth, bypassing your dull, human teeth, Bossk engaging you in such a way that it took your breath away.

You felt a tickle at the back of your throat, the monstrosity having buried himself to the hilt that was his fang-filled maw. You thought he must be able to taste what you had for breakfast at this rate, your hands, tiny in comparison to his, aiming to push against the wide expanse of his chest.

The hunter rasped, that elongated, warm muscle traveling backward as he pulled his head a bit aways, the vertex of your tongue finally able to find his. You toyed with its unique feel, Bossk having no shame as he palmed the round of your breast, squeezing gently at first before he released you from his strangely deep and passionate kiss.

“I’m just getting ssstarted,” he assured you, his large frame dropping down before you to where his head was level with your chest. The sound of his knees hitting the duralloy beneath echoed throughout the entirety of the small chamber as it startled you to stand up straight.

Both of his massive hands took hold of either side of the remains of your outfit, shredding it off your arms and legs, then tossing it idly to the floor at your feet so that you were left with nothing but your boots. You shivered at the sudden breeze against your now bare flesh, Bossk snickering as he admired your human shell.

“Cold? You won’t be for long with me warming you up,” he forewarned.

You had little time to respond. In fact, you didn’t, so fixated on the Trandoshan’s scaled face before you that you couldn’t think of a thing to say. You watched in awe as the tongue that kissed you found the divot between your tits, the lizard licking a path from the base of your breasts to the underside of your vulnerable throat.

You shuddered in delight, closing your eyes instinctively, though your small reprieve didn’t last long as a flicker of something warm and wet darted across both your nipples at the same time. He had pushed your tits together, aligning them, little bolts of pleasure causing a moan to escape you.

The pressure of them being smooshed between inhuman hands, and the soft, nuanced use of his tongue induced a throb between your legs. Bossk suddenly growled, pulling away, having smelled a change in your pheromones that exacerbated his primal instincts. You nearly jumped when one of his hands lifted to disappear below, the back of a claw, shiny and smooth, skimming down the length of your torso to right between your folds.

The curved, rounded arch brushed softly against your clit, parting your lower set of lips as he hissed a bestial sound. You trembled involuntarily, feeling almost ashamed of how wet that had made you, what you thought was a dastardly smile unfurling across the extent of the large reptilian’s face.

“Let’s have a tassssste,” he remarked, dropping your other breast for his now free hand to join in with his other. You felt the sensation of something sharp splaying your labia apart as his tongue, featherlight, dragged itself from the recess of your vagina, all the way to the top of your sensitive cluster of nerves.

You twitched against your will, pinned to your spot as your chest contracted with a breathy exhale. The bastard chuckled at your reaction, your spasming only further encouraging him.

“Barely touched you, doll face. Wait for it…” he lisped suggestively. Your legs nearly gave out beneath you once he really started in.

Fast flicks were administered to your already pulsating clit, your entire body quivering as your breathing picked up speed. The forks of his tongue stimulated you in ways you had not thought possible, the stretch of your lips between clawed digits exposing every nerve fiber to his attack.

Your bosom rose and fell as your breathing picked up, unable to control the pathetic whines and quavering mewls that fell loose on his ears. He only increased in fervor, and before you knew what had happened, you had crumbled into a heap amidst an intense orgasm.

Legs finally betraying you, you slid down the hull. Bossk pulled his muzzle away from you, once more laughing to your dismay. You cursed him under your breath, the Trandoshan at once standing up from off his knees even as you sat in a disarray on the floor. You could feel both the dampness of his saliva and your own secretions dripping down your inner thighs.

“Hmm, what was that? Don’t think I heard you, princess,” he informed you in a gravelly tone. You had no time to recover before he bent down to scoop you up, as if you were nothing more than his plaything and weighed about as much as a child’s toy.

“Come here,” he directed forcefully, though you may as well not have any say in the matter, Bossk holding onto you in his big, strong arms only to lift you up and set you down atop his shoulders -- frontwards.

You gasped, not knowing how you had even made it up there so quickly, finding your crotch to be centered with the lizard’s snout and your knees resting against his shoulders while your legs hung limply along his back. But then, you felt something else. There was a gentle writhing happening deep inside you, realizing he had sunk his bifurcated tongue straight into your core.

You groaned in ecstasy, unable to stop yourself even if you had wished to, that snake like organ massaging your walls as his beak rubbed against your still thrumming bud.

Your thighs tightened around either side of his mammoth skull, breasts pressed firmly against his face as your arms enshrouded the back of his head and drew him in. You subtly shifted your hips to and fro, finding yourself to be fucking his mouth with your cunt as he carried you aloft and down the hall.

He withdrew for just a moment with a slurp, causing you to whimper lewdly. “Watch your head,” he cautioned.

You looked backward and realized you would need to duck, clearing the entryway to the rest of the alien creature’s ship; the airlock shut behind you as you both vacated the area, and for a moment you dared to look around. However, once you had accomplished not beheading yourself, the Trandoshan made a guttural sound, delving back inside your pussy as he snarled predaceously, working his way deeper into the plush confines of your moist heat.

“Fuck,” you panted, hips once more gyrating slowly across his squirming tongue. He was playing with his food, you decided, somehow the man having found your g-spot as he worked it with unmatched patience. Your weight lifted up and off him as you raised your pelvis to meet his mouth; he was incessantly tickling you toward another release, and you could not help but want to get nearer to its source.

“Oh, fuck, Bosssssk,” you hissed out his name as if you were a Trandoshan yourself, a blast of hot breath streaming forth from his nostrils to scorch your skin as he laughed, even while still steeped inside you. You thighs clenched harder until finally you came, your body at once going limp so that the hunter would have to fully support you as he slid you off his shoulders and into his awaiting arms.

“That’ssss my name,” he stated to your annoyance, your eyes darting up as your chest heaved. Your expression alone informed him you were displeased at his attempts to be a smartass, hoping he did not force you to endure the other half of that childish phrase.

The man chuckled again instead. You were abruptly discarded with a thud, finding yourself tossed haphazardly onto what you thought was an oversized bed. You looked up at him, unable to hide your mild indignance. That’s when you saw it -- the size of his erection, jutting out obscenely beneath its cloth restraints.

“Shit,” you muttered,eyes widening. It was apparently time to put your money where your mouth is, and possibly quite literally. Still, you sat agape, having not even laid your eyes on anything but its substantial outline, and already you were thinking of chickening out. But that did not mean you weren’t at least somewhat curious.

“Shit is right, sssweetheart,” he jeered. “You’re in for it now.”

The man had little in the way of modesty, unhooking the white flack vest from around his chest to let it hit the floor. Then, trusting you enough – not that you were any match for him, and naked at that – he disarmed himself and allowed the remainder of his gear to be discarded in much the same manner, leaving him wearing nothing but his pressurized suit.

Finally, two talons started at the top of a hidden zipper to be cleanly whisked to just below his belly, Bossk shucking off the sleeves to leave his torso bare. Your eyes traversed his rough hide, though it was not unattractive, inquisitive to his very nature as his flesh was so different from yours, or any other species you had thus encountered for that matter.

Bossk’s firm pectorals lacked nipples, perhaps why he had favored yours with special attention earlier, though he had washboard abs that cascaded in ripples, exposing the tantalizing vision that was his rectus abdominis muscles. His scales were multiple shades of green, seamlessly overlapping one another, yet some jutted out more than others and came to tiny points like the ones lined along the arch of his skull. Overall, the Trandoshan’s calvarium was covered in these small, needle-like spikes, part of you wondering what their purpose was besides being a kind of organic armor; you would not bother to quiz him on the subject.

Together, you were skin and scales, now finding yourself to be daydreaming about what his body would feel like pressed up against yours, so frail in comparison; you deduced it would not be long before you found out, yet the grandiose size of his genitalia gave you pause. You were both eager and uneasy about seeing it outright.

He was not one to leave you hanging, his alien phallus springing forth from the gap in his suit where the zipper had parted; it was beyond sizeable, making your mouth water while at the same time putting the fear of God into you.

You were not sure what you were supposed to do with it.

“That’s not going to fit,” you blurted out, your eyes never once leaving the hardened, ridged cock of the creature before you. Its girth was nearly half as thick as your own forearm, an array of ribs and crests protruding conically along its outer edge on either side. The tip of his dick was shaped like the head of an arrow, though more rounded and robust, its entire length tinged an emerald hue that was brighter than his scales; unbeknownst to you, Trandoshan blood was green.

“It will if you want it to,” he sizzed sharply, something akin to a shit-eating grin having overtaken his face. “And you best make room for one more,” he advised, pushing down the remainder of his jumpsuit to reveal what he’d been hiding --there were two?!

You audibly gasped, Bossk placing his foot upon the bed beside you. One elbow came to a rest on his knee after he stepped out of the leg holes of his ensemble. He leaned forward toward you against his arm for balance, leaving nothing to the imagination; you openly gawked at his chiseled form. He waved a hand patronizingly in your direction, deciding to remind you of the alternative.

“Or-” he offered, “- you can give up now and expect to pay me all your hard earned creditssss.”

This simple admonishment was all it took to steel you for what was to come, not about to lose out on a job that could afford you a lengthy stretch of vacation should you be able to pull your own weight tomorrow. Either way, you would give it your best shot, deciding it was all or nothing; you swallowed back your trepidation and took one cock in each hand.

The beast before you made an unusual sound, something between pleasure and surprise. You weren’t even sure if he would like what you were about to try, but you also assumed Bossk was not one to hold back from announcing his displeasure should the need arise.

“Getting braver, are we?” he derided you, pulling his hips back from the hands that clasped his cocks to push them forward again, forcing you to squeeze them tightly in your fist in order to hang on – it seems this was the goal.

Taking the hint, you began to work your dominant arm, fingers traversing and exploring the many truncations of his anatomy. The other you guided toward your mouth, Bossk’s slit pupils dilating in anticipation. His tongue pulled away from wiry lips as his fangs clacked together, a soft, crisp hiss resounding in your ears. You relaxed your jaws, hoping by all of Alderaan's ghosts that you would still be able to breathe once it maneuvered down your throat -- and what an undertaking it would be.

“Good girrrrl,” he growled, causing you to hasten your efforts as you adjusted incrementally to the large invader sliding down your gullet, carefully beginning to glide your tongue and lips around its ribbed circumference. The hunter gathered tufts of your hair in his large claws, turning your head up toward his with a gentle show of force, his stare unwavering as he gazed into your eyes; this in and of itself shamelessly basted your loins, ensuring a smooth entry in the future, and you were becoming all the more eager for it as time ticked by.

“Not so bad, issss it?” he asked, his free hand moving below your chin as he held you steady with the backside of another of his unsettling talons. Although, you were now getting used to them, there being something decidedly sexy in the way a tool - designed to rend meat and flesh into sunders - could be so tender and conscientious as it touched and caressed your skin.

“Mnn mmn,” you voiced in agreement, sucking in air through your nose as you exhaled slowly, allowing yourself to further unwind. You felt your gag reflex trying to activate itself, yet you gradually managed to coax your throat muscles to loosen and go slack, finally intaking his member as far as your body would allow.

Bossk purred another pleasing sound, evocative of the Igua-Jaws that lived on Dagobah, his hips beginning to rock back and forth inside your mouth as the head of his cock plunged as far as your oropharynx. The hand holding his other phallus pumped him steadily, though it was hard to keep pace as the Trandoshan had found his own.

“Ssstay just like that, princesss,” he encouraged, fucking your mouth as if it was your vagina, not holding back even the slightest degree as you moaned and groaned under the uninterrupted onslaught of his cock. You did your best to stay afloat, at some point feeling used and liking it, as if you were nothing more than a squashy sheath to stick his dick in. Somehow, it gave you a sense of power -- he wanted you for reasons; there would be no more pretending it was all for fun and games.

You released your grip on his second cock, unable to accommodate it as you were only human and only had one mouth. You found it somewhat ineffective to keep jerking him, instead placing both hands on either side of the reptile’s narrow waist. You used this position to stabilize yourself, crawling up onto your knees for a better vantage. You could feel every thrust hit the back of your throat, your nails, clean and trim, digging into the hardened exterior of the man who had by this point closed his eyes in bliss.

“Sooo ssssoft and waaaarm,” he complimented, slowing his speed to instead fuck your mouth more deeply. He pitched his pelvis forward and backward, the head of his member edging close to your lips before he drove himself inward again. The meat of his thick thighs tensed, and you could feel his cock flex, indicating to you that he was close.

“Ssssssskkkkkkkkkaahhhh……”  The Trandoshan verbalized his rapture, offloading a torrent of sperm that hit the back of your soft palate and kept on coming. In order to breathe, you focused on swallowing, guzzling down Bossk’s seed to the point there was no more room in your mouth to house it.

You murmured a sound of protest as a white seepage leaked at the corners of your lips, dribbling down your chin for droplets to find their way onto your naked breasts. Still, his semen kept pouring itself into you, as if he were filling a swimming pool, the feeling of your belly becoming full setting off alarm bells in your head; it was as if you had chugged a milkshake all in a few seconds’ time.

Pushing against his hips, the creature relented. You sucked in a desperate breath as soon as his cock exited your mouth. You gasped, intaking another round of fresh oxygen, your hand lowering to hold your now aching gut.

Bossk ran the backside of his foreclaw against your belly, prompting you to remove your hand. Then, he poked it, chuckling morosely as he pushed you backward onto the bed.

“We’re not finished here,” he stated, taking up his unspent cock to wave it at you, though he was careful how he handled it, knowing from experience just how sharp his own claws could be.

You stared at him with wide, timid eyes as you wiped excess cum off your face with the back of your hand; you had never been with a species that had a hemipenis, not sure you could handle one round, much less two. You held your breath as he mounted you, aligning his reserve phallus up against your twat as he prepared for entry; he drew it across your already soaked slit, saturating himself from tip to base.

Still holding your sore stomach, Bossk sibilated filthily into your ear, his forked tongue causing a wellspring of goosebumps to creep across your arms and legs. “Hope you’re ready for the main event,” he sardonically emphasized, causing a shudder to rock you to the marrow of your bones.

Having only a moment to prepare, the reptile entered you, pitching forward so that you were quite suddenly stuffed to the brim. You yelled out, though it felt so good to be stretched so taut, the plush, sensitive tissue of your sex able to feel every inch and then some, including the miniscule protrusions that lined his cock from head to hilt.

Slowly, deliberately, he drew out of you, once more thrusting inside to get you accustomed to the sensation of being split open time and time again. You groaned somewhere between pain and ecstasy, your fingers coming to rest on what was now a second bulge, this one the stout imprint of his lizard’s dick.

“Sssseeee? Told you it’d fit.” He grinned like the horned devil he was, placing his gargantuan hand atop your own. He moved succinctly, not too fast and not too slow, pressing down on your pubic bone with his open palm. This intensified the pleasure of having him sequestered between your thighs, finding yourself wanting to splay your legs wider to reveal more of yourself to him, whether that made you vulnerable or not.

“What a pretty little thing you are,” he praised, bending forward to lap at the edge of your mouth before you supplied him entry, his talented tongue once more diving to the back of your throat as you bashfully twisted and wriggled among the sheets; you were pining for more and the hunter could sense it, rebuking you lightly for being so suddenly desperate, as if he hadn’t known this would happen all along.

“I’ve got your comm frequency, sisssster,” he said between snakes of a split muscle, licking the underside of your teeth before he parted ways with your face so that he could put all his attention into the task at hand. Bossk then began to make use of his powerful legs, each pump of his alien cock into you causing an indecent moan to pelt the air, the tone of your mewling betraying just how good it felt as you urgently tried to curtail your needy cries.

With his semen sloshing in your stomach, you did not seem to mind, having already forgotten his previous transgressions as you crooned to the ceiling of his ship.

“Fuck me, Bossk, fuck me; keep going, just like that,” you begged quietly, reveling in the peculiar experience that was your cunt being tenderized by the knobbed surface of his prick.

“What do you think I’m doing?!” he sassed back, the Trandoshan’s hips driving into you harder with every cast. He managed to penetrate you down to the convergence of your cervix; you had insisted, a shock of what felt like electricity climbing its way up your nerve endings to manifest itself in a yelp.

“Happy now?”

“Mmhmm,” you confessed, your hand cupping the shape of his abnormally large erection as it massaged your innards to your heart’s content. The continual pressure of his dick against the roof of your anterior walls finally triggered your body’s main erogenous zone, Bossk having hit it repeatedly until you exalted his name to the stars and heavens beyond.

“Heh, heh, heh…” he chortled dryly, obviously pleased with himself. He posed a question to you, even as he was working toward his own high.

“Oh, yeah? You liked that, huh?”

The way he phrased it was almost comical. In fact, you may have laughed had he not just given you one of the best orgasms of your life. Instead, you looked up at him with sultry eyes, pushing your breasts together for his viewing pleasure. He took this as an invitation, kneading and groping your right tit with one hand as his opposite held him up so as to not crush you with his weight.

“Mmm, always did love a nice pair of tittttsss,” he acknowledged, trailing off as you tightened your Kegel muscles and wrapped your legs around his lower back.

“Y-You’re gonna make me cum like that,” he conceded, that not stopping you in the least. You crossed your ankles, using the muscles in your legs to seesaw him back and forth inside your slippery crevasse. The Trandoshan was not amused, apparently not wanting to lose his spare load so quickly to the likes of you – a hairless ape.

“You never told me what you thought of human girls,” you whispered, intentionally allowing him to feel your torrid breath against his glossy scales.

“Grrrrmnnn….” he groused, not allowing you to get the best of him. “I love human girrrrlllls, and human girls love me,” he affirmed as if it was an indisputable fact.

This time you did laugh, the lizard canting his head as he glowered over you. You would make sure to reassure him, knowing he ego might suffer. All in all, you had come to the conclusion that Bossk was softer than he let on, despite his tough, leathery hide. “Mn, yes, we do…” You blinked languidly, smiling up at him.

Not knowing what you were in for, that was all it took; Bossk bust his second nut into your tight, mammalian hole. You squealed in surprise as warmth flooded your insides, your body not made to absorb and hold onto his sperm.

The Trandoshan gathered your legs, throwing them over his neck and shoulders as he continued to crank out more and more cum, the stuff spilling down your thighs and ass crack as your uterus expanded near to bursting. You watched in horror and mild fascination as your belly once more extended, as if you were being inflated like a helium balloon.

Once Bossk had drained himself, you were left looking four months pregnant, groaning as he slipped his cock out but held your legs firmly in place. He took hold of one ankle in each hand, then brought them together, looking down to admire his handiwork while not allowing you to spill one drop.

You drooled, sucking your own spit back into your mouth as you gazed up at your lover dumbly. He pat you on your tummy, once more tilting his head to the side. “Good thing humans and Trandoshanssss can’t breeeeeeed,” he snidely remarked.

Then, out of seemingly nowhere, Bossk produced a towel, having reached beyond you to some unknown part of his large bed with your ankles still gathered in his other hand. You hated to think how long that towel had been there, or if it was even clean, at least thankful there was anything at all with which to freshen yourself up.

“Thisss should do the triccck,” he said as he laid the worn piece of fabric out beneath you. Bit by bit, he lowered your legs, graciously permitting his spunk to travel down and out of you, finally taking some of the pressure off your guts.

You sighed in relief, wave after wave of semen trickling out of your sore opening, coating Bossk’s so-called towel in a deluge of his seed. When all was said and done, you weren’t sure how much of his cum you had interred within yourself, and how much had wound up on the bed, teetering somewhere between disappointed and thankful that it was over; you had won.

“Refresher’s down the hall and to your left,” he offered, granting you permission to use the sonic should you require it –- and you most certainly did.

--- Upon reentry to the lizard’s nest, Bossk was curled up in a position he had favored in the egg - knees to chest - having discarded his soiled linens to replace them with new ones.

Knowing that the hunt was to begin tomorrow, you did not expect Bossk to invite you to stay, yet he lifted the sheets as a way to motivate you to join him beneath the covers.

“Ssssleeping here is as good a place as any,” he entreated.

You suspected there was more to it than that, but decided not to deny him a snuggle after he had fucked you so good and proper. You slinked in next to him, your voluptuous rump sidling up against the convexity of his lap. Bossk intoned a little noise of satisfaction then, burly arms encircling your diminutive frame as you settled down to rest.

Who knew Bossk'wassak'Cradossk was a cuddler?

You could only hope that come daybreak you would still be able to walk, as Bossk had predicted otherwise.  For Scoria to find you with legs bowed and crotch aching from being pummeled with an oversized cock that was not meant for you was not how you hoped to start the day. Besides, you no longer had clothes to wear; you assumed Bossk might at least provide you with a shirt, or shorts, figuring he did not expect you to go out naked to meet up with your crew.

Within minutes, Bossk’s light snoring and the sssskkk of his tongue in and out of dreams aided you in drifting off to sleep, the monster of a man not above using you like he would a stuffy, cradling you the whole night through.

Not surprisingly, you would later promise him to keep this to yourself. Afterall, he had a reputation to upkeep.

---

Masterlist

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Trigun Stampede Character Thoughts: Vash

I've been putting off this write-up since I finished the show if for no other reason than whenever I go to analyze this funky little dude my entire brain just stalls and goes

✨ Hi, Vash. Hi. :) ✨

...anyways.

Here's a quick collection of thoughts on him now that I am finally more coherent! The hardest part of this was trying to make something readable with the sheer amount of things I could say about him. Geez.

(Please note that I have only watched Trigun Stampede! As of this moment, I am starting the manga and have not seen 98 Trigun. I thought it might be interesting to compare and contrast once I've read the manga. Bear with me in the meantime!)

Right off the bat, the show introduces us to who Vash is as a character - a pacifistic gunman who, while incredibly skilled, avoids confrontation when at all possible. When Meryl accuses him of running away out of fear, it's pretty quickly made apparent that, while it is out of some semblance of fear, it is not fear for himself. Rather, his concerns lie with other people's well-being first and foremost.

Or, really, his concerns lie near completely with other people's well-being. What happens to him is of very little consequence if it means everyone else is okay.

I want to talk about three different things when it comes to Vash, namely:

His incredible skill and competence

His terrible self-image

His solidly held pacifistic convictions

Skill and Competence

Ohhhh ok. So, I can't really comment on exact positions or maneuvers (I used to do martial arts pretty extensively, but it's obviously not the same kind and I know absolutely nothing about guns or marksmanship sorry), but I can sure tell you that I loved the way the animators had Vash move in episode 1 right before he pulls out his gun for the first time. I wish I knew how to make gifs properly because I would totally make one of that part. Even before Roberto's line that "acting brave is foolish" and "he's not long for this world" had finished, I was already convinced of the exact opposite. As someone who's done martial arts. Guys. The way he moves here.

It's a three step movement - he steps to the right, then to the left in an almost meandering way, shifting his body weight as he goes, before he grounds himself in a wide stance. It's slow, fluid, and calculated - a distinct contrast from his often jerky, exaggerated motions that we saw earlier. God I wish I had a gif. I don't think I can simply explain how insane it makes me. The animators could've just had him approach directly or run up to it - a lot of the times, with action heroes, there's a lot of flashy motion or jumping around, etc., which looks cool but isn't exactly something to be role modelling in an actual fight lol. But here? In the next episode, Nebraska mockingly says "this isn't the ballet" with regards to the dodging and spinning Vash does, but a lot of his motions... really are dance-like. He's damn near effortlessly shifting his center of gravity while remaining fluid in motion and completely balanced. No novice moves like that. He clearly has a lot of experience. For me watching, Roberto's line was refuted before he even finished it.

...which of course makes it even funnier when he realizes he's out of bullets. Oh, buddy. You looked so cool for a second there. Hjhdfnv

Really though, pay attention to the way he moves while fighting or shooting. He's always well-grounded, and the more serious the situation, the more fluidly and less exaggeratedly he moves. It's so, so cool. I don't know if I've quite seen that kind of motion in animation before, especially cgi (though it is possible I just haven't seen enough too...hehe...).

The episode 12 fight too! Again, Vash is balanced, even as he's being knocked backwards. He falls correctly, and allows his body to move with the gun. All his motions are precise and fluid. Contrast that to Nai, who is, uh... totally unbalanced lmao.

And then the way he tucks before he jumps out the window! The animation actually convinced me of this guy's over 100 years of experience. I actually believe it.

What's nice is that Vash, too, is aware of his own skill. He moves with a lot of confidence, and he clearly has a great degree of trust in his own ability to fight and shoot without seriously harming anyone - not once does he show the slightest bit of doubt in his abilities. One might expect, given Vash's refusal to kill, that he might be worried about accidental injuries when in the middle of a gunfight - but he isn't. Ever. The only way I can interpret this is complete confidence in his own abilities, and he most likely trained hard to specifically ensure that this would never be a concern. The trope of "character who doesn't want to fight or hurt people turns out to be really insanely skilled/strong" is always cool and fun, but in this context it's really a neat take on it, since I feel it is only because he refuses to kill that he intentionally developed such god-tier level marksmanship - I am going to go out on a limb here and assume it is much easier to accidentally inflict serious injury with a gun than it is to actively avoid doing so lol. He probably worked at being a really good fighter and gunman specifically so he could avoid killing.

I also find it kind of refreshing that he never calls his skills into question, since that does tend to happen with characters who have a poor self-image or low esteem. Which, uh, takes me to the next point.

Self-Image

Yeah, Vash's self-image is kind of in the gutter. He places the blame for all the tragedies that follow him on himself, despite the fact that he always puts in his full effort to prevent them from happening.

The majority of this ties back to his feelings of culpability for the fall. I want to direct your attention to the scene where Vash is digging the tally marks into the wall in episode 8 - it can't possibly be the number of days that have passed since we see the transition of the sun only twice and Brad looks shocked when he sees the all the tallies (which he wouldn't be if they had been there for that many days). With the way Vash's tallies look a bit like crosses and the fact that he greeted the people in cryosleep on Ship 5 by name in the first episode, suffice to say, he is probably making a tally of all the people who didn't make it through the crash - people whose deaths he feels personally responsible for.

Really, I wouldn't consider Vash even remotely responsible for any of that - he had the access codes but like. Zero intent or knowledge of what Nai was about to do with them. Regardless, Vash carries the guilt from it in the way Nai won't, because in his mind, someone needs to take accountability. Also important to remember is that the only reason any human being still lives on No Man's Land is because of Rem's sacrifice. Vash needs to maintain his belief in the capacity for human kindness and his no-killing code, because if he doesn't, her sacrifice would be in vain. He keeps her values and beliefs alive. She's in everything he does. Even hollowed out and stripped of his memories and identity, the mass of roots and flowers that engulf July take on her likeness.

So, really, in addition to Vash just being a generally compassionate soul, his staunch pacifism is a refusal to betray her beliefs and let his mother figure die a second time. I need to fucking lie down.

With all this strain he puts on himself, it's really not surprising that when tragedy inevitably strikes, he is very hard on himself, and from what we've seen this actually manifests in a set of consistent self-punishing behaviours - I am of course referring to episode 3's "I don't deserve to cry" and his refusal to eat in episode 4 (despite apparently needing to, unlike Nai). This is very similar to what we see in episode 8 with him as a kid, where he goes somewhat blank (no crying, no anger, all his negativity directed inwards and at himself) and refusing all food except what little he needs to survive because "it's a waste".

The worst part of this though, to me, is that we see from certain throwaway bits ("one bullet is two slices of pizza/two dozen donuts!", his kid self's eagerness at the sight of the birthday cake and the spread of food, his first question on seeing the geranium being to wonder if it is edible) that he not only needs to eat but also seems to enjoy eating - so his refusal to eat is not only a denial of a basic necessity but also of one of the few things he genuinely likes that he will allow himself to partake in. In the context of Rem framing food as something to share with everyone, it also makes me wonder if his self-denial is something along the lines of "I don't deserve to share this with them". In that sense, it's really important that Luida echoes a similar sentiment as Rem (implying she wants to share this food/include him, and that some of Rem's views survive in these remaining people).

I do wonder if, because food is associated with sharing to him, that it has something to do with needing to "earn a place at the table" in a way. While I think Luida was trying her best to juggle a lot on Ship 3 behind the scenes after the fall and clearly didn't want to keep Vash locked up like that, the crew only started treating him better and trusting him after he found a way to help them. The unfortunate view that Vash receives then is: "I need to earn their trust by being helpful." Vash is a chronic people pleaser - I can't think of a single point where he does something solely for his own benefit. He has no desire to scare or harm anyone (quite the opposite!) so he goes out of his way to be as helpful and non-threatening as possible - hiding his true nature as a Plant (to such an extent that he doesn't know anything about his powers and has effectively sealed them away - he's practically human), masking his facial expressions by cleverly hiding his face or letting the light reflect off his glasses, trying to laugh off his competence as luck and his scars as embarrassing.

Is it because he doesn't want to scare people? Is it because he doesn't want to feel othered from them? It's hard to say. It's probably a bit of both.

Nai accuses Vash of loneliness and desiring love, and of seeking to fill that gap by appeasing humans. While I don't think this is necessarily wrong, it can't possibly be accurate as a core motivation, since Vash doesn't seem to really... accept a lot of positive interaction. Whether out of concern for others' safety, a lack of feeling like he deserves it, being secretive about his past and identity, or some combination of the above, Vash tends to leave a lot. He leaves Jeneora Rock's celebration early, tries to walk away from Meryl even as she's calling out to him, runs away from Home when Brad and Luida listen to the recording. He throws walls up and distances himself by laughing things off, or smiling, or simply not explaining anything.

I mentioned this during my live blogging while watching episode 9, but as Independents, it's intriguing to me that both Vash and Nai exist outside the cycle of dependence we see between the Plants and the humans - both of which cannot survive without the other. Nai appears to revel in this detachment, but Vash also seems to self-impose a certain distance between himself and everyone else - for all his friendliness and inability to leave someone hanging who needs help, he practices a lot of recognizably avoidant strategies. He exists on the periphery, never staying in one place too long (he can't), and treating every interaction with a certain kind of resignation - an understanding that it is temporary. He seems to expect the inevitability of being chased out over and over. The slightest of kindnesses given to him he always feels incredibly grateful for. Perhaps he feels that kindness is more than he deserves.

I honestly dread to think how he'll react once he regains his memories of what happened to July. I trust that he'll keep pushing on, as he always does, but is he going to remember that he deserves to eat and smile?

I really hope so. Otherwise I will need Meryl and Wolfwood to bonk him on the head.

Pacifism and Conviction

The thing about Vash's pacifism is that it's very difficult to tell whether it is primarily motivated by love or guilt. Vash carries an incredible amount of survivor's guilt with him and he absolutely is doing his best to keep Rem's memory alive, but I don't think it can be denied that he isn't just acting out Rem's beliefs - he really does believe in them himself. He's also genuinely compassionate and does care and become invested in the well-being of others. In the end, I'm not sure it really matters. I don't think the guilt or love can be easily extricated from each other at this point; they are both powerful drivers of his actions and core to his identity as a person, and while this is not exactly ideal for getting him to be kind to himself, they both strongly feed into his continuous choice to be kind to others.

And it is a choice, not naivety, as pacifism is so often brushed off as. Vash's compassion is something he chooses over and over again, in spite of the way he is often treated, and the way his powers hold far more potential for destruction than even Knives. Wolfwood thinks that Vash doesn't understand harsh realities and is going to receive a rude awakening but he does understand - Vash just chooses not to accept violence as the only way forward and believes that things can change and improve, and is willing to expend that energy and extra hurt into making that a reality. Nai thinks Vash is helpless and brainwashed into his belief - note the way Vash frequently appears as his child self when Nai tampers with his Gate or his memories; the implication here is that Nai sees Vash as incapable of making choices for himself and in need of protection - but not only is this horribly demeaning to Vash's personhood, it simply isn't true. Even Meryl chews him out for what looked like running away to her early on, and Roberto thinks he's going to get himself killed sooner or later. Everyone underestimates Vash, at least at first. And well, it's easy to. He's just a silly little guy! He's a bleeding heart who tries to help everyone he comes across! He talks about nobody needing to die in a world where most everyone is starving and desperate! To the people in-universe, he would look like a total fool, and far too idealistic to last long.

Except, he has. He's around 150 years old, he's scarred to hell and back, but he's still alive and he still chooses kindness. That takes a special kind of improbable mental resilience and stubborn conviction - and that's what most of the other characters overlook. Vash is, indeed, very sensitive and emotional and an idealist - he's also much tougher and more rational than hardly anyone gives him credit for. He's an excellent judge of character too!

His ideals and that stubborn faith are everything that makes Vash who he is.

This scene in episode 12 is the only true moment of triumph in what is otherwise a tragedy all around. Nai would go as far as to destroy Vash’s very identity to get his brother back, but at the cost of losing everything that makes him Vash. These ideals are the core of “Vash the Stampede”, and no matter how foolish they may seem or how little others understand his conviction, this is an identity he has chosen for himself. It’s who he is. And this assertion, coming directly on the heels of Nai trying to erase him and remove that autonomy, is an undeniable brief triumph in the midst of it all. Nai will always be Vash’s brother, and he will always love him I’m sure, but they diverged in their persons a long, long time ago, and Vash adamantly refuses to be an extension of or accomplice to his brother’s crusade of hatred… even if that means going against him.

Vash’s kindness is so necessary to a world like the one we see in the series, on the verge of extinction and giving up. Approaching situations with understanding and communication is really the only way to help improve understanding amongst others - and this is one of his biggest strengths; it's even reflected in his use of his Plant abilities (communicating between himself and the other Plants, the way he can open a path both to and from the higher dimension unlike anyone else). In this way, Vash is something of a necessary conduit. I just wish he'd let himself feel a little more tbh. He represses a lot - he canonically won't allow himself to cry if he feels responsible, any flashes of anger are brief, he doesn't stick around to have fun really. Personally, I'd like to see him allow himself grief through tears, a little bit of genuine letting loose and celebrating, and actually expressing things like irritation and annoyance next season. Perhaps that's wishful thinking.

I don't know how to accurately summarize my thoughts on Vash well enough other than to say, in keeping with the whole Plant thing, he reminds me strongly of dandelions. Bright, cheery, grow through cracks and root where you don't expect them to ever be able to eke out a living. Regarded as a weed by many but very difficult to get rid of. Hardy, resilient, and pop back up after being beaten down. Kids make wishes on them.

Anyways. Hugs him hugs him hugs him x 60,000,000,000

[icepoptroll]

what are some little features/appearance headcanons u have for the rtc gang? like as an example i like to imagine noel as someone with lots of beauty marks or ricky to be someone with an oval face shape

u draw all of them so uniquely THEM its incredible and i need to know the inner workings of ur brain when u draw and add details to all of them /pos /pos /pos

Lol thank you for this lovely ask!!!

To tell you the truth I never really sat down and thought about, "ok!! Here are the features I think everyone would have!!" It's more so like, when I made my choir design I just sort of let everything come to me organically. For some of them I heavily referenced the actors in the 2016 version but for others I just sort of did my own thing. For the most part I can't really accurately describe to you what I was going for other than creating organic shapes and playing with colors and trying my best to keep them consistent from drawing to drawing (but keeping my characters on-model is something I need to practice at). Mind you, I'm a hobbyist when it comes to art. I never got to go to art school, I wanted to once upon a time, but it just wasn't in the cards for me. I turned out to be really good at taking care of people so I went to school for nursing instead and now I work full time as a home health LPN. I mostly do art cause it's fun and makes me happy but I would say my art skills are still far from professional.

When it comes to some things that did specifically come to mind, though, I can tell you this:

1. My Mischa has piercings in his left eyebrow and his septum, as well as stretched earlobes. He also has several tattoos. I'm a fan of nu metal groups like Korn and I feel like he would be too and so I had to dip into this aesthetic.

2. I imagine Noel with a really expressive face which probably came about because of his horrified gasps when Karnak exposed his working at Taco Bell, and also his mischievous smirk in the nativity pageant scene. These kill me dead every time. I also feel he has these bright, beautiful honey/amber eyes.

3. Ricky. . . . . My beloved. I'm convinced he has curly hair and some big-ass ears lol. His face shape is what I can only describe as angular yet ovular. He's a petite guy. Olive green/Hazelish eyes. Very soft, clear skin.

4. Connie has dimples, for sure, and soft, sweet features. I went for more rounded shapes with her.

5. Ocean. . . . She smol. And pale. And covered in freckles. I sort of referenced Tiffany Tatreau's face for her but tweaked certain lines and shapes. My background is mostly Irish so I love to emphasize those features in Ocean. I give her a cooler, pinker skin tone like mine.

6. Penny has an ovular face shape. I always picture her with tan skin and dark hair with bright green eyes (obviously cause of the Savannah scene). I also feel like she'd be quite tall. I translate a lot of Penny's features onto Jane even tho I know her head was just plucked off of Dolly lol

But yeah other than this I sort of just go with whatever shapes, lines and colors tickle my brain and then try my best to keep replicating them. I'm really glad you enjoy my designs for them!!

[punk-chicken-radio]

i'm FINE!!!

i'm pretty sure that both @theoldsmelly and myself have been inundated with our share of the question "well, but how are you DOING?" the last year or so. which i likely think led to this playlist being started. or it could have been a random song he heard on the radio that prompted it and i am just projecting my own run of death and destruction within my life onto his choice. tomato tomato. but since i am writing the intro, i delve into my own brain processing being asked this question a lot lately.

it never gets any easier to answer it. do you give people the unvarnished truth? that some days you are hanging on by a thread and are convinced grief and worry and survivor's guilt will consume you? that always seems to be a bit much for people to handle so i usually answer with "oh you know, i'm FINE." which truly i am, at my core, but it isn't quite the truth. and it's not anyone's fault for asking the question...even if the ability to answer it without your brain wanting to devolve into snarkiness is ever present.

how we tiptoe gently, or bulldoze straight ahead, into the orbit around people in our lives that are really going through something is always a bit fascinating to me. maybe because i keenly watched it as a child, wondering at the way people just had such wildly varying approaches to simply talking to someone who has just had great tragedy in their lives. there is no right way, and no wrong way, but you can tell a lot about a person's internal life, their own emotional state and coping skills, and their comfortability with the messiness of life by how easily they can have a hard conversation with you that doesn't just involve the "we just prayin' for y'all ♥️" bullshit after asking 'how are you doing??". it's not in everyone's wheelhouse to go any further than that, and that just is what it is. we aren't all built the same. i actually don't judge anyone for it, because for the most part...people asking how you are IS genuine, and that's gotta be enough in and of itself, even if you can't truthfully answer it most of the time. and even if you do, most people struggle to know how to respond.

thank you for coming to my ted talk i didn't mean to give on how when we ask someone how they are, we only know how to really receive the easy answer....'im FINE'.

sorry this went off the rails @theoldsmelly but you know.....you ASKED the question 🤣😂

you know what's next....some songs about being fine and dandy and some about NOT being fine and everything sucks.

love (i was worried i had the parkys) axiomatic and the old (take more drugs) smelly

*this intro led smelly to ask me if i was okay via gif which is the actual best way

[olde-scratch]

Trick or treat

unfortunately, i already gave away some of my atla fic cause im p sure that's the only thing anyone from the server would like from me but i also have this dunmeshi oc (spoilers ahead sorta but im vague)

i might have already shown you this but i never went into detail on what it is so this is your treat (or trick if u don't like it)

basically, deep in the waters of the dungeon, there's a species of jellyfish that can parasitize itself onto other creatures to take over their body and use them to get itself food. this one in particular took over a large octopus (probably some kind of kraken) with advanced shapeshifting skills.

the jellyfish used the shapeshifting skills to mimic the mermaids' upper halves when it got big enough, then eventually decided to make its way upwards where it ends up spending most of its time scavenging (since it's too big to sneak up on anything that wouldn't see it, and explorers often have water-walking). i think the jellyfish could survive if it was severed, but the lower half couldn't, just because it doesn't have a brain anymore.

i imagine it would only show up briefly in the show itself, so i only really planned on eventually writing a oneshot for it. it likely gorges itself on the kraken after laios and crew kill it, and since it trained itself to talk (to convince explorers to trust it to leech off their rations) laios is too fascinated to kill it (yet).

they spend some time together, likely eating a meal (tho most of the meal is raw kraken that gets eaten before senshi finishes cooking). senshi and laios talk to the jellyfish about foraging in the dungeon and different monsters (since the jellyfish can't leave the water) and the jellyfish tells them about underwater monsters (tho their vocabulary is very limited)

the jellyfish disappears briefly without warning to fetch some plants and small creatures from deep in the dungeon's waters, but because it doesn't tell them what it's doing (it only tells them "wait" before it leaves, but the way down and back up is long enough without foraging and potential conflicts), the party has to leave before it resurfaces.

by the time the jellyfish comes back up, everyone's gone. it takes all the items it brought and climbs out of the water, then puts them all in a pile where the party ate the day before, and it sits there. and it waits for them to come back.

(ofc it doesnt wait long because there's other adventurers that come by and it can't stay out of water for that long, but yk. the angst.)

i think it does eventually get out of the dungeon at the end, but i don't think it can hang around the golden kingdom because of the demon's curse. it definitely shows up in the big battle sequence, though. maybe it even kills one of the canaries?

[ifacotarwasgood]

why was chapter 4 of acotar bad? some short craft lessons

CH 4

DISCLAIMER: not an exhaustive list, etc etc

click here for the full comparison between the original chapter and my revision.

all caps dialogue = amateur hour

tamlin has never felt less threatening than when he bellows, "MURDERERS!" if you ever feel the impulse to all-caps your dialogue (especially when its already tagged with an appropriate descriptor, e.g., "bellow," and italicized), don't. it's distracting and never gives what you think it's giving.

inconsequential micro action = bad pacing

a scene doesn't have to be a catalogue of every action. if I made note of every time one of sjm's characters looked at another character, or took a step, or otherwise moved in a way that had no bearing on the scene on either a physical or emotional level—we'd be here all day.

99% of the time, describing where your character is looking is a waste of words. the human brain can't imagine fine detail very well, so visualizing where a character's gaze is directed can be hard, especially as it changes over the course of a scene. it's also usually unnecessary: if two characters are talking, we can assume they're looking at each other in various ways.

it also isn't dramatic action. 'dramatic' in the literary sense, rather than the theatrical: it doesn't do anything. it doesn't increase tension. unless it's extremely well-placed, it doesn't underline the emotion of a scene in any significant way. all it does is become gristle that the reader has to chew through to get to the meat of the scene.

passive protagonist = deflated stakes

this was the chapter that originally convinced me to do a rewrite. it's such a textbook missed opportunity, I can't believe sjm's agent or editor didn't ask her to change it (it's totally possible that they did, and sjm chose not to).

it's sjm's first real opportunity to show us feyre's character: she's gotten herself into a situation that feels impossible to escape. she's killed a faerie, a crime punishable by death, and we feel the jaws closing in.

but instead of outsmarting or outrunning it, feyre doesn't have to do anything. tamlin (for reasons I guess make sense later? but are ultimately unsatisfying) rescues her from a situation that he put her in by suggesting she come live in prythian. we're told that feyre is good at surviving, but we don't get to see her put that skill to use. we're not shown her thinking on her feet; we're shown her saying 'yes' to a false choice.

tamlin handing feyre a way out makes no sense on a narrative or character level. it also undermines the apparent danger for the rest of the book. tamlin represents how dangerous faeries are: he's literally about to kill her to avenge one of his own. but then he decides not to—not because of her quick-thinking, but just because.

it seems like a small moment, but moving forward, it's hard to take any of the faeries as legitimate threats. not just because we've seen our first example completely undermined, but because it happened seemingly for no reason.

feyre hates her family = unbelievable motivation

purely on a character level, I find feyre's resentment of her family annoying. but who cares? one person's subjective judgement doesn't have any bearing over what should be done at a narrative level.

the problem is that feyre's primary motivation is keeping her family alive. once she's in prythian, all she wants is to return home so she can make sure they're taken care of. but that's hard to believe when we're constantly shown how little she actually cares for them.

time and time again, we're shown her resentment—her sisters are entitled, her father is useless—and yet we're supposed to believe that all she wants is for them to be safe.

in this chapter, sjm doesn't even give her a goodbye with each of her family members. she just has papa archeron tell her:

"You were always too good for here, Feyre. Too good for us, too good for everyone."

???

even a single moment of connection between her and her family would make her motivation feel more real, which would, in turn, propel the plot. it's a massive missed opportunity not to see her saying goodbye to each of her family members.

so that's why I included an extended goodbye in my rewrite. even a small moment of tenderness between each of them helps me understand and believe feyre's motivation as we move into the next sequence.

[nonsensefromtheabyss]

Hello! I am OK1610 from ao3. I loved Riddle V.I.Z.ion so much! Such an amazing story with great characters! I loved the aliens especially! Your story inspired me to weave my own tale for these characters as well as a design element for Diz (the support beams) for my refs of the aliens (credited in the post)! I cannot wait to read more about them and their pasts!

Any chance we can get a little sneak peak of what is to come?

('Riddle Classified' sounds like a great name btw!)

Hello!! Lovely to see you again!

Literally had to spin in circles at work when you said my story inspired you, was not prepared; I’m honoured <3 and I hope you have fun creating! You art is so perfect!!! I love how the style is still reminiscent of the game art but far more detailed and much more fun to look at—it’s so vibrant! They’re all super adorable (rotating Quiz in my mind rn) and it looks like such a sweet AU—I’m an absolute sucker for stories where things end well (which I don’t think anyone would guess from my own works XD.) Would be super intrigued to know more when you’re ready to share!

(Definite spoilers for my future Riddle School fic below the cut!)

Dutifully adding a tally to Riddle Classified’s column! I swear the title is going to be the bit I decide last with this thing, it’s certainly giving me the most trouble XD

As for sneak peaks, hmmm; it’s a little early in the process for me to feel like I’ve got much that’s actually interesting to share, but I could tell you about the first chapter? It’s post defection, a few years into the V.I.Z.ion Project, and involves Quiz being kidnapped by bounty hunters/pirates. He has to stall for time, turning them against each other as a distraction, while Viz and Diz sneak around and kill off the people stationed at other outposts before picking him up. 

It’s told from the perspective of the pirates, who really have no idea who or what Quiz is, and is set in a snowstorm to really play up a theme of isolation/being trapped. Horror movie vibes. They know something is going on outside, and they know their contacts are going cold one by one, but they can’t figure out why—maybe it’s just the storm like their leader says, maybe it’s something else. They’re stuck with this unknown alien who’s sounding way too plausible when he says the roof might cave in, or there’s something outside, who talks them into telling him the scary stories they’ve heard about rogue soldiers in the area. If they go outside and try to run, they’ll definitely die of exposure, but if they stay? Unclear. And surely nothing out there could be alive. The noises are the wind, just the wind, they’re not in danger, nothing’s getting closer, everything’s fine.

It’s a good opportunity to play with Quiz’s unique skill set of appearing very harmless to manipulate people, gives me the chance to do some exposition on the alien’s species lore, and—most vitally—sets a pretty sinister tone for the V.I.Z.ion crew actually in action! A good jumping off point for what’s to come!

Another chapter I’ve got planned as a definite inclusion (though I don’t know where it’ll go yet; probably late in the collection) is them kidnapping Phil. It’s from Phil’s perspective, and I’ve honestly just been galaxy braining over it for a few nights now; he just barely escapes them when they see him first (runs through populated places they can’t follow, gets on a bus, his dog attacks Quiz when he gets home) and then spends the next few days as Dib from Invader Zim trying to convince his family that Aliens Are Definitely Real And Also After Him. They don’t believe him. One night he wakes up to find that everyone else is knocked out, and the aliens are in the house searching for him. He doesn’t get away this time. Very stressful times for Phil—I don’t think I’ve ever written a non-stressful time for Phil. I don’t think I’ve written a non-stressful time for any of these characters.

With this chapter, I’m hoping to do something with the perspective shift, which is another reason I think it should come late in the formatting. While the aliens are very much villain protagonists in this, having everything be through their eyes will eventually make them familiar—maybe not exactly relatable, but certainly comfortable. The jarring dissonance of exchanging that highly militarised, desensitised perspective to an actually human one—the P.O.V of someone we, the audience, know—when he’s terrified and being hunted by them appeals to me. Particularly as, at that point, I will have written scenes of the V.I.Z.ion aliens interacting with humans from their own perspective, and the difference between what they think and what people think can be thrown into even sharper relief.

I realise I’ve told you about the only two chapters that aren’t from the alien’s direct perspectives, so sorry about that! But I hope they made for a satisfying sneak peak <3 maybe this isn’t what you meant at all… I’ve never actually done a sneak peak before!

[bronzewool]

So, recently I just learned Relocation Depression is a thing.

Which isn't something I would normally associate with myself because my family moved around pretty much my entire life. Maybe my parents did a good job of cushioning the blow by turning it into an adventure. Moving means a brand new bedroom I get to paint, a brand new park to play in, a brand new forest to explore, a brand new school where my bullies don't go to. Sure, my old friends wouldn't be there but I have my older brother, and he's already my best friend so its fine.

This time however I'm not feeling the old joys of being in a new place, decorating my own apartment, trying new food, and making new friends. Everyone I love is now in a different time zone so now I have to workaround when is the best time to call. I can't see them on a whim anymore, can't tell them I how weird it feels being in a different country where the culture is different, the rules are different, the people are different and you feel like an oddity for just being yourself.

Lately I just feel tired.

I've felt tired for a while but I think I've just been ignoring the signs. I have trouble convincing myself to go to bed when I'm tired, I keep jolting awake at 3am convinced I overslept, and I'm stressed out at work. I'm gonna be taking on more responsibility and its becoming very clear there are gaps in my knowledge that I need to fix before anyone finds out I'm way underqualified. My new co-workers said some pretty transphobic shit over the course of my first week. To the point I've now associated the word "mental case" with my own sense of self because that's what they believe someone like me is. A mental case.

My gender dysphoria has shot through the roof, so now I'm stress eating again which is just feeding my dysphoria even more. I'm painfully aware I don't fit into my favourite jeans anymore, my fat is hanging in the wrong places on my hips, my breasts are getting bigger, and I couldn't come out of the closet even if I wanted to because my brain won't be satisfied until I "look how I'm suppose to look". Enby folk are all beautiful skinny androgynous people with dyed hair. I don't look like that, so I avoid looking in mirrors and critique my height, high-pitched voice and the other girly parts I want to hack off with a knife.

Worse, I can't escape my own thoughts because I constantly make excuses for why I don't have the time to enjoy any of my hobbies. Can't write my original story because I have a backlog of fanfics I wanna write. Oh, can't write any of these fics because there's too many WIPs and I'm overwhelmed by choice. I wanna RP again but I have too many muses fighting for attention and the muse I want to write for needs their own blog and that's my least favourite part of the process.

Writing is overbearing, lets do something else instead.

I want to practise drawing my own characters, but I lost any skill I had as a kid and its gonna take way too long to catch up and be where I need to be...maybe I should just watch youtube tutorials instead of practising.

I wanna learn Spanish on my commute to work, oh but I always listen to audible in the car. Which one do I pick? Maybe I should just listen to music that doesn't require me to pay attention.

I downloaded a ton of games to play so maybe I can do that instead. No, I'm not a little kid anymore. I'll just feel guilty for wasting the entire day away playing video games instead of doing chores.

Maybe I could watch this series on my watch list? No, I'm not really in the mood to give this thing my full attention...maybe I should just scroll social media. That doesn't require any brain power. Social media is always there for me. It would never hurt me.

I'm sad now...Maybe I should quit social media...but what else would I do?...Wow I'm lonely. I should talk to my friends...but its been years and I'm sure they're busy...and its gonna be weird to jump out of the blue asking to pick up where we left off...is that selfish?...Wanting to rekindle a friendship because you're lonely?...That doesn't sound like something a good friend would do...I wish I was a good person...maybe I would have done a better job of making time for my friends...I miss them...I'm sorry I was a shit friend...I wish we could go back to college and start over...I promise I'll appreciate you this time around...But you're married and have different prioritise now...it sounds nice having a roommate...it sounds nice having someone to go home to...

[ava-core]

when i tell you i’m courier six: may brainrot i am MAY brainrot!! more info on her!! (still not the main post on her…i have an entire google document on her with all her stats, backstory and a journal of her journey as i play the game as her)

in the meantime, here’s an OC chart of her (template provided by @vault81 <3)

yeah, par for the course.

some tidbits on this chart i’d like to explain:

of course i blocked out her real name. call me marjorie, but it adds to her mystique…and the fact that no one in the mojave, too, is none the wiser her real name isn’t May Bells? yeah i’m into that. the only person who has an idea is Boone, and that’s because they’re around each other 24/7—enough for him to notice the dogtag around her own neck that’s visible when she sleeps has strange symbols on it (his 3 INT can’t quite reach the fact that it’s mandarin) and he’s pretty sure they all don’t translate into something as short as May Bells.

may also has this strange flirtation going on with the strong, hot-headed women of the NCR: colonel cassandra moore, whose compliments seem…loaded, and corporal betsy, who never misses the opportunity to flirt unabashedly with may (who can never respond, despite usually being quick to reply with a dry or scathing quip). what can she say? she’s got a type. something about tough-around-the-edges soldiers with baggage to carry…oop.

of course boone doesn’t appreciate that. it’s first recon on first recon beef for this less-than-verbally-charming courier who will pick her nose if she knows there’s a booger in it

on that note: her 3 CHR stat and 28 Speech is so fun for me. i usually play as couriers with silver tongues, and may is, at the end of the day, underneath her combat prowess and big brain…just a nerd. just look at that big, fat 9 INT. she knows her way around terminals, science, how a plasma rifle works and how to jury rig that shit. she’s basically a few training modules away from being a certified trauma surgeon. she literally does math problems in pre-War textbooks to destress. she’s also convincing when she needs to be so long as the conversation involves reason and logic. but when she gets flirted with? nope. this girl will NOT respond with anything else than a silent, burning red face or roll of the eyes, depending on how much she likes you.

this aspect is so funny. really. i’m so used to the smooth talkers that i just up and use the failed speech checks for dialogue because i can see may saying them with her rifle in hand, her trigger finger itchy because where her words fail her bullets don’t. (“i came here…for uh…yeah, fuck it, you’re going to die.”)

her tag skills are medicine, science, and unarmed. this surprises no one.

this girl LOVES her sarcasm. growing up in an environment where you had to be kind, calm, and submissive, the freedom to just be a jack shit asshole with your words was a promising proposition may took without a second thought the moment she was in shady sands.

still, when she doesn’t need to talk, she won’t talk. she prefers the company of books, and later in the story, when she grows closer to boone and the rest, she still retains her fondness for silence—she bonds with others by being silent together.

while she might seem like an average grizzled merc with her mask and the scars and bullets around her body, not to mention her terrifying presence perk, she’s actually quite forgiving. it ties into her natural tendency towards compassion, no matter how hard she tried to suppress it; hell, remember her father, who murdered almost all of his entire family? may remains conflicted about that, and despite his abuse of her and her siblings, there are times where she remembers him fondly and often honors his memory alongside the other deceased members of her family.

it’s her recognition of the complexity of these relationships and how they tie in together that make her more empathetic of the people in the mojave. she knows everyone around her’s got their own burdens; if they’re not doing anything to actively shit on you, why add to that, right?

may spends a lot of her time thinking. she’s always pensive, always wondering, thoughts swirling around in her head, the entire opposite of head empty. may head full. too full. always full.

also, yes, she’s superstitious. somewhat, as i indicate, because she’s not above dismissing some Shi rites she deems irrelevant entirely—but some centered around karma and the value of the soul, she upholds. an example is, again, her effort to respect the dead civilians she encounters in travel. a broc flower here, a silent prayer there. if no repose is to be found in this life, it was the least she could do to at least wish for them to find it in the next one.

MAY BELLS i love you…my nerdy, awkward, sarcastic little courier six…playing fnv as you is the highlight of a very difficult week <//3

also if she was exposed to modern music, she’d probably love my chemical romance, fall out boy, green day and the smashing pumpkins. you can already imagine what kind of person she’d be…that emo-punk eyeliner phase LMFAO

so…one more song for the road, one i know may would have as a favorite.

[diffenbachiae]

hi lizzie. do you have any advice for someone who is very much not on their own side

yes!!! for me it was 3 separate pieces all kind of coming together over the course of the past few years. the first 18 years of my life were a long stretch of ‘if i can just make it to adulthood and out of this house it’ll all be okay’ and once i made it i was very quickly realizing that everything was not, in fact, okay. some of this might not be as relevant for you if you aren’t someone with c-ptsd but for me this is what helped!!

1) If everyone else is a person, you have to be a person too. Things that apply to all people must be true for you as well.

that’s where I had to start because that’s where my self-esteem was- it was really hard for me to convince myself that i deserved to eat, let alone that i deserved friendship, love, or affection. i would have myself come up with Rules for All People. all people deserve enough food to fuel their body. all people have inherent worth without needing to prove anything. all people deserve friends who treat them well. this really helped me confront the hypocrisy in my own brain and helped me see how flawed my own perspective of myself is- it’s really hard for me to think of myself as a person automatically and it’s much easier for me to come up with things i think are true for all humans and then logically i Must be part of that group.

2) Nothing will get better unless you try / you have to trust yourself.

dude i wasn’t even trying for such a long time. i think that a big part of this was my obsession with rescue/found family stories as a kid- i expected a safe loving adult to swoop in and save me and teach me how to be a person and obviously that never happened, but i didn’t realize the fantasy persisted. i wanted my friends to let me tearfully confess my childhood and have that magically make it better, i wanted a picture-perfect significant other to scoop me into their arms and erase my childhood… this isn’t to say that talking about your loved ones with your feelings doesn’t improve things, but that mental health recovery has to be an individual journey at the end of the day. you have to want to get better and work at it. part of this for me was working on not lying to myself. i would think ‘it’s okay that i’m laying in bed for 12 straight hours today, i’ll get up and clean tomorrow’ all while knowing full well i wasn’t gonna fuckin do that for a second. it was always tomorrow, next week, next year, things will be different, but then i wouldn’t take any action to make things different. i started to practice telling myself i would do things and following through. this feels really silly to type out bc it sounds so simple but self-discipline was one of the biggest skills i was lacking and teaching myself it has made a HUGE difference. it’s really hard to learn how to make yourself do things you don’t want to do but if you start small and ramp up it’s way easier.

3) You’re allowed to have fun.

everyone in this goddamn world will try and convince you you can’t have fun and it makes it so hard to stay on your own team. shame is a really powerful weapon of control and it’s so easy to start to internalize it until you feel guilty about EVERYTHING. guilt about eating food, what kind of food, if it was too much food… guilt about rest, about oversleeping, about productivity… idk i feel like there’s a million rules to follow about what my life ‘should’ look like and none of them seem quite that focused on the enjoyment of that life. i started to try and practice looking at my choices with less judgement and more focus on enjoyment. sure i can spend five hours on tiktok and then tell myself i’m lazy and terrible because of it but that doesn’t actually do or solve anything- i’m beating myself up because i feel like i should. what’s more useful is to think ‘did i enjoy that time genuinely? do i even remember any of the videos i watched? did i do that because i get joy out of it or because it’s easier than being bored?’ tiktok is my example because it’s the app i most easily fall into using out of habit and not enjoyment, but i also genuinely really enjoy tiktok when i use it in a specific way (crochet inspo, rewatching my favorite covers of songs… instead of just the FYP)

this ended up being really long rip i hope it’s useful to you anon!!!! please keep in mind i’m not a mental health expert of any kind i am just someone who is too poor to afford therapy and has spent countless hours reading books and online resources in an attempt to not feel like a pit of sadness on a day to day basis lol. please feel free to send me more asks or message me if you want to talk more (this goes for anyone reading this as well!!!!!) ✨💖💖

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

I mean, I just know enough about violence and people to know it doesn't appeal to me. Consequences of any kind aside I just know it isn't fun. People hear me say I don't like killing things for fun in games and try to assert I must be vegan instead of the world's only human obligate carnivore, but like... It just isn't appealing to me. It isn't interesting.

Killing and assault get ascribed a whole bunch of things in some people's minds like making them feel powerful or in control, setting off some kind of social circuitry. They get something out of doing it and getting away with it, or whatever else, but to me is just uninteresting mechanics, just flesh and blood, bodies and whatever your weapon is made from? Probably metal. To give someone the experience of being murdered, even temporarily for the messy mechanics of it? Why?

I can think of billions of things I could do that day instead, and I am not even sure hunting an animal that would actually taste good to eat gets on the list. I mean it might, how many loops would it take you to take down a bear and eat it is a more interesting question to me, but even that has the killing part I don't like. How many times are you willign to fight that bear for a good roast? Can you even eat it all before the loop resets?

It would take very particular circumstances and exit conditions to get me to do it [kill a man], like say, an ex showing up in my life with a weapon, especially if the exit condition is me surviving the day? Then yeah, I'd do it and never look back, never struggle with it at all honestly. Killing in self-defense for me is morally uncomplicated.

Even if it was incidental to the exit condition I would probably kill the ex showing up with a knife or gun each time just to make sure I don't die of complications, or of them coming back for round 2 on another day... But that has little to do with the time loop, the time loop would just shape my success/survival at it.

Even being a random victim I'd probably try to get through the loop making them unconscious. Any scenario, even in self-defense, where they aren't liable to try me again? Even after it was me that stopped them? Why bother with the procedure and the process of it?

But for fun? Out of curiosity? Yeah, never.

Even if I didn't think there would be any emotional consequences. Even if I knew there wouldn't be.

If I have writer brain questions about how hard it would be to actually stab someone I'd sooner spend time on ballistics jelly etc... And there would be benefits to me because I am a writer and you could learn a lot about realistic depiction of fucked up shit in a time loop, but no part of me has any interest in doing those things regardless.

I mean imagine for a moment even just fucking instead. Just finding anyone you could convince to willingly and enthusiastically fuck you within 24 hours, knowing stis and pregnancy aren't an issue? A million do-overs. Doesn't that sound like a more fun game? I'm asexual and I think people are gross and I think that sounds like more fun. You could get so good at flirting, which I imagine would make most people also feel in control and very successful and like they are getting away with something. And would also be like, a use-able life skill?

If you want to train your skill at potentially killing someone, for the practical and self defense purposes of that... you don't have to kill anyone, just get good at fighting? Try out hunting animals that are yummy to eat? Fight them with your hands idgaf.

Call everyone you have ever known and tell them exactly what you think of them. Catharsis.

Two instances of burning something down even harmlessly will get you diagnosed with pyromania, but in a time loop you can burn an abandoned barn down as many times as you want for free.

But imagine, imagine the things you could google without ending up on a watch list? Time's going to reset. You could teach yourself to hack, one failure at a time, to play instruments, to pull off the perfect bank robbery and get away with it. There are so many beneficial and -victimless- crimes you could learn to get away with that could change your life.

Imagine a time loop that's a day, a week, where you don't age and will remember everything. I am not sure I'd ever actually try to leave it... but I still wouldn't 'waste' my time killing someone for no reason.

Murder for no particular reason is just boring.

if you were trapped in a time loop how many repetitions do you think it would take for you to willingly kill another person, knowing there would be no consequences

[myogi-nightkids]

Rotating an idol!au in my brain waugh

Takumi is a swing dancer who wears a panda hoodie and wears a mask cause he's embarrassed about bein a dancer; an he gets well known in the town - Everyone calls him 'panda' cause of the hood even though he officially has no name as an idol / dancer.

He dabbles in other styles and writes his own songs, but it takes him a long time and he doesn't perform his own stuff live - Just does dances to other people's stuff or to covers he makes instead.

Itsuki knows about the originals and has demo tapes much to takumi's embarrassment, but he keeps it quiet for the most part.

Itsuki helps takumi out with lighting and stage; its super low budget and the lights go nuts sometimes but when they work theres really nice light changes and spotlights on time - He tries to use a fog machine for a performance and it overkills the stage, so takumi has to save it by making it look intentional.

Keisuke & ryosuke are a duo with the red suns as back up dancers; they change who performs when - Keisuke can sing but hes not on the same level as ryosuke

He prefers rock & adjacent, but does pop-type for red sun performances for the group when he needs to, but hates singing the love songs.

Keisuke gets into a dance-battle with takumi and loses, but since he doesn't know who he actually is he goes on a hunt to try find Panda. Panda keeps landing in more contests and more eyes on him, much to his dismay - He wasn't in it for the spotlight.

Keisuke runs into Panda after shows, then practices, then just generally meeting up - then ends up aquatinted-turned-friends with takumi; some guy at a gas station who thinks hes a dumbass ( he does not know chat. ) and tries to convince ryosuke to let this Panda guy in the Red Suns.

I feel like night kids would be Blues.

Just vibes.

Keisuke does want to know who Panda really is, but he always vanishes without a trace - Takumi just takes the mask / hoodie off and walks around in normal clothes so no one can tell he's Panda.

At some point takumi is workshopping his song in the open and keisuke hears it; Is impressed with his range and skill, and hey you should join our idol grou- OI STOP RUNNING AWAY

It ends up in a cat and mouse chase for a few weeks, takumi showing up and avoiding keisuke; Keisuke complaining to Panda about how this guy just wont talk to him damnit but hes so skilled, and Panda-takumi is sitting here sweating not sure how ( or when ) to explain what the truth is.

[anemia-rp]

After everything I saw and experienced so far I'm convinced there are certain things that will leave permanent scars on your brain so to speak. And maybe on your soul as well, if you believe it exists, that is. You can just learn to live with the madness inside of you and make the most of it. Yes, I can draw and maybe at some point I will show you some of my creations. I think you asking me to design something for a shirt of yours depends on whether you like my style. You can sew? I never tried it and I don't think I would be able to do it.

But the pictures they created might get destroyed the moment you show a side they didn't imagine you would have. I'm not convinced there is the perfect villain out there even though people would surely wish for it to be true. Also I think it differs from person to person what they believe makes a villain.

I personally think it's more entertaining to catch someone off guard with your actions or with your way of thinking. I do enjoy doing the opposite of what people want from me, but I also like to mix things up and simply act on impulse. Don't think too much into things and do what comes to mind first, that will keep others on their toes around you. And that is surely true that good and bad lay in the eye of each person.

A submissive that has their own will and uses their mouth to tell you what they want from you would be something worth discovering. I never met such a person either and maybe I never will. But I would say even though it would be nice to have them more involved it would also be fun to make them forget what they wanted from time to time. I had people claim they were in love with me and I turned them down every time. I can't believe they really have feelings for the real me because they just see the version of me they want to see. I take it happened to yo before too.

Maybe people simply don't want to discover whatever lays under the surface if they were to tame me. I guess I'm not sure myself what I mean by getting romantically involved. It seems I don't know much about love and it's likely that will never change. It's more likely that other's don't see me as someone they want to get really close to like that.

Judging by how much the world changed over the years, your kind had to do a lot of adapting. But the same goes for goblins even though hiding in front of people has become easier over time. Maybe the vampires will achieve world domination or there will be supernatural fights for the top spot.

I think for most people that are like us it's that way, that you either get hated or loved. I think even you might surprise yourself in certain games. I can tell you though that people keep surviving without hurting others on purpose. Also it's often that you either hurt or be the one to get hurt instead. The survival instinct is very strong in a lot of people and surely supernatural creatures too.

Some bad shit simply messes with how your brain is wired. I sometimes heard that vampires don't have a soul, so that's that. I'm not really sure about souls. Though there must be something that defines what we are and what we like and dislike. I actually don't think this has only to do with brain wires and imprints. Drawing, yeah, that's a cool skill. But sewing is so, too. Just like knitting. And it's quite relaxing. I've always been interested in fashion so I tried to make my own stuff. Just like drawing I guess it's not for everyone.

True, there are many different kinds of villains with different intentions. However, I guess most people just hope that the villain treats them out of all people in a different way because they are special or something like that. Everyone wants to feel special after all, guess that's something that unites all people.

Guess there aren't many situations in which I just act on impulse. Not even in a fight I do. I often happen to calculate the outcome already and my next step. You could say that's the same when it comes to bedroom activities.

I'd say dominant people would make the best submissives. If you can make a dominant bend to your will then you have a funniest playmate I guess. Yeah. Dunno if you can truly love someone if you didn't see all their sides beforehand. Probably, but longterm they would probably fall out of love again if they see sides of you that are unpleasant.

All the technical advance is difficult to get used to especially. Could be one day it will be only robots and supernaturals. Artificial intelligence…dunno, humankind overestimates itself again, thinking they'll be always cleverer than the machines they created. But that's no news.

I can see the appeal of seeing into who people turn in extreme situations. And I guess you can win lots of those games if you just use your brain, huh? There are many ways to fight after all.

[redheadlesbianfreak]

For the writer meme: 3, 7, 10, 26?

First of all, thank you for the ask and I'm sorry I'm only getting to this just now! I will answer to the best of my abilities.

3. I think all my writing rituals are very cursed. I'm still getting used to finding a good ritual for myself. Sometimes, I'll set a timer for myself and force myself to write for an hour. One of my creative writing professors said it's best to do this rather than stop because you can always fix it later (and you don't have to share what you write). Right now, I haven't posted to Ao3 for a while because I've been trying out different ideas for Futurama and new fandoms that I haven't posted. It's important to remember that's okay and you don't have to post everything you write.

I have to go to war with my brain, or at least, that's how I see it. I have a lot of ideas for several fandoms I've been a part of for years and I would say about 1% of them get written down, and even less than that will ever make it to Ao3. A lot of that is the result of a lack of skill/experience, poor time management, etc. but the biggest issue is that my brain constantly tells me "you can't." As in "you can't write this idea, you aren't good enough," or "this idea is bad and everyone will think you're an embarrassment." And yeah, I think this mindset is what holds me back the most, and proving myself wrong is the best way to get out of it. Sometimes, "just write" is the best way to get out of it rather than wasting time debating my brain.

7. My greatest joy is proving myself wrong, which is relevant to the third answer. In 2021, I convinced myself that I would never be able to write anything the length of a novel, which is something that I worked around in 2022. In 2022, I wrote a story that was 67k words to completion, that was coherent, and I was shocked. It's very short, but it's still the length of a novel. In 2023, I would like to push myself even further and try to write a story over 100,000 words. I know I can do it, as I got very close in 2022, but it's difficult.

Being able to write something to completion, and write something coherent that accomplishes what you set out to do is very difficult. But that difficulty and planning and passion make it unbelievably rewarding in the end. I'm not sure who is going to see this and read it, but you should be very proud of yourself for writing a complete and coherent story, no matter how long it is. That is a hugely difficult accomplishment in my eyes. I think we have the desire to create that pushes us forward, even in tough times, and I think that is a really beautiful fact about humanity.

10. This is an interesting one for sure. I think uncompleted WIPs are haunting, especially if you are in a stage where you aren't sure if you'll ever complete them. I mean, it feels like all that hard work is worthless unless you complete it, even if that's not necessarily the case. I think the experience is worth it because you're getting words down. You get to realize what went wrong. But it's still haunting. I think older works of writing can be haunting because you have the capability to do better now, but it's important to remember that they still hold value.

26. The best way to get into a character's head is to really understand their mindset and their goals within the story. If they are acting irrationally, the writer really needs to enforce that idea and make sure the reader understands why they are acting this way. And you should try to avoid explicitly telling the audience this, but you can give them cues through the character's self-reflection and the way other characters react to their actions. Writers need to make sure that character behavior is consistent throughout the story as well.

I do think that some people freak out over "staying in character" when it comes to fanfiction. I'm going to break something down. Every single fan and person has very different interpretations of each character in a given fandom. I've seen people who have wildly different interpretations from me. And honestly? I think they're completely wrong even if the majority of the fandom agrees with them. However, it doesn't mean my interpretation is correct or their interpretation is invalid, it just means that we interact with the fandom differently. And I would like to raise the point that shows and movies have different writers with their own interpretations of characters that they often write out of character.

Overall, I think it's most important for the writer to make sure their character writing is strong. Make sure their character writing is consistent rather than "accurate to canon" because someone is going to disagree with you no matter how many hours you spend trying to make sure your writing is "accurate to canon." But if you do want to get things accurate, my best advice is to read transcripts or TV Tropes pages for specific characters. Utilize fan wikis if you need to do so. Study how dialogue is written in canon and try to get your dialogue close to that.

My final point is that there will always be people who dislike your writing. It's a hard pill to swallow but you can't please everyone because that's impossible. So why not try to write what you want to see and please yourself? On the flip side, there will always be people who DO like your writing, so it's important to remember that. Learning how to trust yourself and your mind is the best way to grow as a writer. If you can't do that, you'll end up with a whole lot of nothing, and you can't get better if you write nothing.