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minniesmutt · 7 months ago

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☾ ━━━ PAIRING: OT8 X READER ☾ ━━━ CONTENT: UNPROTECTED SEX, TEASTING, AFTERCARE, PET NAMES, DEGRADING/PRAISE, EXHIBITIONISM/VOYEURISM, SHOE GRINDING, BONDAGE, COLLAR, SPANKING, ANAL FINGERING, SEX TOYS, BONDAGE, FILMING, PET PLAY, GAGS, ORAL (M+F REC), MENTION SAFE WORE (TRAFFIC LIGHT SYSTEM), GANGBANGM ROUGH SEX, PARTNER SHARING, SUSPENSION, DYCRYPHILIAM OVERSTIM, ORGASM CONTROL, UNPROTECTED SEX, CHOKING, CHOKE HOLD, MULTIPLE CREAMPIES, TIT SUCKING, EDGING, DP (A+V), GROPING, CUM SHOT, FACE SITTING, MANHANDELING PUBLIC SEX, EDGING, SPIT ROAST, NIPPLE PLAY, FOOD MENTIONS ☾ ━━━ WC: 7K ☾ ━━━ repost from old blog ☾ ━━━ 18+ work!! minors and ageless/blank blogs DNI! you will be blocked, put an indicator on your blog somewhere that you are 18+ before interacting with this work/blog

It became a tradition. Getting completely fucked into the mattress by Seungmin the night before his baseball games. Stress relief or good luck, he claimed both. Especially with it being their game that decided if they went to the finals in their college league.

“Fuck!” Y/n cried as he hit one particular spot inside of her while he had her in a mating press.

“Feel this greedy cunt wanting to come,” Seungmin grunted “Maybe I should tie you up for the whole team to fucking use.”

He delivered a hard slap to the back of her thigh just as she came on his cock. Hard too.

Seungmin wasn't far behind either. A few more pumps and he was painting her walls with his cum. Letting her milk him dry before pulling out.

“How you feel bub?” Seungmin inquired as he pulled her out of the position and kissed her abused body.

“Good,” Y/n smiled. Loving how he could go from a fucking menace in bed to the sweetest person on the planet.

“Not to mean?” His lips landed on her cheeks

“No. You were perfect Min. Always are.” Y/n pulled his lips to hers as he chuckled at her compliment.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Seungmin got both of them in a bath and cleaned both of them up before just cuddling in the warm water.

“Would you let the boys gangbang me?” Y/n asked

“Do you want them to?” Seungmin questioned.

“I’m not opposed to being tied up and used.”

“How long has that fantasy been running around in that little brain of yours?” Seungmin moved one hand from around her shoulders to tilt her head back to look at him “Thinking about my friends fucking you with me?”

“Not long. Just registered what you said,” Y/n answered, “thought it would be hot.”

“You're a hundred percent okay if I ask?” Seungmin questioned

“Yeah. I trust you and the guys.” Y/n told him.

“I’ll talk to them,” Seungmin smiled before turning her around to kiss her lips. Y/n smiled and kissed him back, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

Seungmin did talk to his friends after their game, which they won. They talked in their locker room as they waited for all eight to be done changing out of their uniform.

“Really?” Changbin asked

“She said she was okay with it and she trusted us. We’ve talked about a threesome a few times so it’s not like a surprise.” Seungmin shrugged

“Gangbang is a big jump from a threesome,” Minho sighed as he sat on the bench.

“Yeah. I knew you both were into some harder kinks but letting all seven of us sleep with Y/n?” Jeongin said

“It’s not like I’m not gonna be there. And I’d honestly rather it be you guys than some random guys neither of us know.”

“He makes a valid point,” Chan shrugged as the last of them finished up and everyone grabbed their bags to leave

“When would we even do this and where?” Jisung asked

“We usually have sex the night before a game and after at the apartment. Do it next game?” Seungmin suggested which everyone agreed to as they walked out of the locker room. The girl they were all talking about fucking, waiting for her boyfriend outside said locker room. Smiling and walking over to the eight of them.

“Good job out there guys!” Y/n told them as she wrapped her arms around her boyfriend’s waist, wearing his jersey.

“Thanks,” they all said in unison before the couple waved them off and went their way.

“It's weird knowing they're going to have sex right now,” Minho shrugged as the rest erupted in a chorus of asking why he would put that image in their heads

The whole week, after the team won, was heavy in practice. The game was the last of the season so there was a fair amount of stress, but when you had a captain like Chan, there didn't feel like a lot of pressure.

After they finally finished batting practice on their Wednesday practice, Chan called it a night. Everyone sat on the bench or the ground took in a few deep breaths, and chugged their water before going back to the locker room.

“Seungmin,” Minho said, catching the star players' attention.

“Minho,” Seungmin replied.

“What's Y/n into?” the older one asked, causing a few of them to choke on their water

“How much time do you have?” Seungmin said

“This goes past locker room talk,” Chan said

“Whats locker room talk?” Y/n’s voice said.

A few of them froze as the girl walked up to the group.

“Hey bub,” Seungmin greeted his girlfriend

“Hey pup,” Y/n said, “What were you guys talking about?”

“Asking your boyfriend what you’re into,” Minho answered

“I should say I didn’t tell her you guys agreed,” Seungmin said

“Were you planning to?” Felix asked

“Probably not. Knowing him, the asshole would have blindfolded me and made it a game,” Y/n sighed

“You would have been into it,” Seungmin argued

“To answer you’re question Minho, yes.” Y/n gave him such an ominous answer that it made the others positive she and Seungmin were perfect together.

Y/n walked with them back to the locker room and then waited outside for them to change.

“Would it be too weird to suggest we do it in here?” Jisung said

“Sometimes you have a wonderful brain Jisung,” Minho smiled

For one reason or another, that sparked some inspiration amongst the group, while the girl outside had no idea what was going to happen this coming weekend. Their conversation stopped when they got outside. Seungmin wrapped his arm around her as they all headed to their cars to go home for the night.

Seungmin didn’t have many classes the following day. A couple in the morning but that was it. So he prepared a few things they needed for Friday.

“What are you doing?” Y/n asked as she came home from class to him setting up wireless cameras in their living room. The ones you use to spy on your pets when you're away.

“Setting up,” He simply said before turning to her and smiling.

“If I asked, would you tell me?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Thought so.”

Y/n let him do his thing. She trusted him and the guys. She acted oblivious to it but she knew her boyfriend had informed the guys of what her kinks and turn-offs were, safe words— verbal and nonverbal. Well aware of what was happening but it was fun playing dumb.

The couple made their way back to their apartment after their last class on Friday for the day. Seungmin had some time before his practice and used it to prep his girlfriend. Ever the sadist he was.

Stripping his girlfriend as soon as he got their door locked. Seungmin dragged her over to the couch and sat her down on the floor. Y/n looked up at him as he sat in front of her. “Good pup,” he smiled as moved one of his shoes to nudge under her cunt.

Y/n lifted herself a bit and let him slide under her cunt. Y/n sat on his shoes and slowly started grinding against him. The rough fabric on his shoes and the coolness of the leather made her moan. Seungmin smiled down at her as she leaned her body into his leg.

“Get that little cunt all wet for me and the guys,” Seungmin laughed as she rutted against his Converse.

Y/n whined as he just sat and watched her hump his shoe. After a while, he pulled his shoe away from her as she whined more. Begging to make her cum before he left.

Seungmin smiled as he got up and left his needy girl there for a moment. He came back with her toy basket. An organized basket they put together when they started exploring harder kinks. In it held a tail and ear set, a collar and leash, a few gags, various vibrators, dildos, anal toys, and lube. He had put a pair of leather cuffs on top and rope before coming back. His other hand held two spreader bars. Went back down the hall once for towels too

Y/n bit her lip to hide her smile as he set the basket on their coffee table. Seungmin stopped for a moment before pulling their coffee table out of the way, and opening the room up. He grabbed the towels and placed them on the ground, covering the floor. Then he grabbed a pillow from the couch and put it in the middle of the floor.

The baseball player grabbed her collar and stood behind her. He wrapped the collar around her before dragging her to the pillow, still having her face the couch. Y/n followed him on all fours and kneeled on the pillow.

Seungmin smiled, grabbed the cuffs, and wrapped them around her wrist. He gently pushed her onto her hands and got behind her. Two fingers ran through her folds before running his fingers to her ass. He watched her clench around nothing and laughed before landing a spank on her ass.

He moved back to the basket and grabbed the lube and her tail anal plug and a dildo. Seungmin kneeled behind her, squirting the lube between her cheeks. She flinched a bit at the coolness against her heat.

One finger pressed against her tight rim. Slowly making way for him as he thrusted his finger in and out of her. Y/n moaned and dipped her head down to take in the pleasure. Just for Seungmin to yank her back by the collar. Y/n gasped at the choking feeling before he let her go. Y/n lay on the floor as he added a second finger into her ass and started scissoring her open till he was sure she could take the plug.

He knew full well she could too. He pulled his finger out and grabbed the toy. He coated the metal plug in the lube and pressed the tip to her hole. Slowly working it inside of her, calming her down when she would clench around the metal. Smiling and praising her when he got the toy fully inside of her. He got up grabbed the spreader bar from to table and wrapped the cuffs around her ankles, taking her knees off the pillow.

He inserted the dildo into her aching cunt. The toy slipped in with ease because of how wet she was. He sat her up and grabbed her puppy ears and bone gag. The last little piece to the puzzle before he got ready for practice.

“Behave. Remember sir sees everything,” He patted her cheek before walking off to shower and weather his gear. It was a shorter practice today. Usually was before a game so the guys could rest. The camera he had installed was focused straight on his girlfriend and he had the live video up— having set it up on the end table by their couch— and watched her while in the room. He noticed her leaning forward more and her hips moving. He sighed and zipped up his bag and walked out of the room.

She didn’t notice him but now he wasn’t watching the video, he could see her grinding against the pillow. He set his bag on the table and grabbed the rope. Happy they installed the durability hook they claimed to their building was for a hanging house plant when they asked why. It indeed was not for a house plant.

He made his way over and grabbed her cuffs to her surprise. He removed the cuffs and did a quick knot with the rope around her wrists before throwing the longer bit over the hook in their ceiling. Y/n whined against her gag as he leaned down behind her. He pulled the rope till she was sitting over the pillow but the dildo was still able to sit inside her. He tied the remaining end of the rope to the bar and made sure everything was in place and sitting right.

“I’ll be back in an hour. Control yourself pup. And don’t think about cumming tonight,” Seungmin told her once more before grabbing his bag and turning off the lights in the apartment to make it look like no one was home.

This wasn’t something new. Seungmin loved messing with her like this. Leaving her tied up while he went out, even for a few minutes. Both loved the thrill they got from it. So Seungmin got in the car and went back to campus to his short practice with the guys. Mainly refining a few things and going over plays before they were in the locker room, all a little antsy to get out and to the couple's apartment.

Seungmin told them what he was doing to her before he left for practice but their jaws dropped when they saw the camera footage. The guys booked it out before their boners got worse and made their way to the apartment. Acting as casually as they could on the way up.

Y/n perked up when she heard the front door unlock. Literally hanging there for an hour was boring, especially since her boyfriend made it impossible for her to even try and get off.

She looked over as Seungmin flicked their lights back on. The boys dropped their bags before circling the living room.

“How much weight can that hook hold?” Changbins asked

“Forget. Tied her up there and left her hanging for a while. So a good amount,” Seungmin shrugged

“You leave her tied up?” Felix asked

“She forgets her training sometimes,” Seungmin smiled as he took off the droll-covered gag, putting the accessory away. “Color puppy.”

“Green. Green, sir. Wanna help you guys cum,” Y/n begged. Opening her mouth when she was done talking and lolling her tongue out to them

“Fuck,” Jisung groaned. First to break as he stepped forward. Pulling his aching cock out of his sweat and shoving himself into her mouth.

Y/n moaned around him. Something about having another man’s dick in her throat while her boyfriend watched turned her on more. Clenching around the dildo and plug.

One thing she missed was the others looking in the toy basket as Jisung held her bound wrists as leverage to fuck her face. Y/n looked up at him as his tip hit the back of her throat, gagging around his cock. Jisung whined above her before picking up his pace more.

Seungmin came behind her and undid the rope on the spreader bar as Jisung came down her throat. Y/n moaned around him before he pulled out, stripping himself of his clothes. Y/n realized the other already had while Jisung was fucking her face.

Her boyfriend untied her wrist and put the leather cuffs back on, letting her lay her hands on the ground for now as Hyunjin took Jisung’s position and thrusted his dick in and out of her mouth. Holding the back of her head still as he fucked her face. The pattern repeated— Felix going after him, then Jeongin, then Chan, Changbin, Minho, and finally her boyfriend— all the guys using her throat to get off first. She knew she would be tasting their cum for a while after this. Drool ran down her jaw and neck while some dropped down to the towels beneath them. Some of them rougher than others to the point her mascara was running from under her eyes to her jawline. Her eyes glossed over as her brain got foggy.

Seungmin helped her stand up on her feet as Felix handed him the rope again. He tied her wrist with the rope again, discarding the leather cuffs finally. Jeongin noticed the dildo in her pussy and smiled as he came behind her and grabbed the base and slowly started thrusting it up into her.

Y/n moaned and clenched around the toy her boyfriend's best friend was fucking her with. Seungmin smiled at her as he put the rope on the hook again, pulling her arms up over her head again.

“Let me see that dildo, In,” Seungmin said

The youngest boy took the juice-coated toy out of her and handed it to her boyfriend. Seungmin thanked him before pushing the toy into her mouth. Y/n moaned as Jeongin stepped back. Seungmin called Changbin over and Y/n felt herself being lifted. The two were folding her in half as Seungmin tied the rope around the bar again. She was hanging there fully exposed. Her holes were at the perfect height for their dicks to slip inside. The tail plug hanging straight down. The two stepped back to just make sure it would hold, and it did.

Seungmin gently pulled on the tail in her ass, making her whine before he slowly pulled it out. Her boyfriend discarded the tail in the toy basket with her gag before grabbing the dildo from her mouth and setting that down too. Two of Seungmins’ fingers spread her folds before he stood in front of her and slipped his cock into her. Y/n moaned before she felt another cock teasing her asshole before Changbin slipped into her.

Seungmin had stuffed her ass with dildos before while he fucked her but being filled and fucked by two of the real things was a whole new experience that had her spinning. Both taking turns sliding in and out of her. One would pull out, the other would push inside. Never leaving her unfilled.

More focused on the dicks inside of her and barely paying attention to the other six stroking their cocks to her getting fucked by her boyfriend and one of his friends. Waiting for their turn.

Seungmin’s hands held onto her waist while Changbin groped her ass. Moans fell out of her throat with every harsh thrust they gave her. Whiney noises mixed with the occasional curse word. All her thoughts had already drifted from her brain. Anything that wasn’t about cum or a dick in her didn’t matter. So used to letting Seungmin use her as long as he needed before his games but now the others had joined, it was changing her brain chemistry a bit.

Their hips snapped into her, filling the living room with the noise of skin-hitting skin and squelching sounds coming from her wet pussy and lubed-up ass. Their grunts filled her ears.

“Wanna get filled up pup?” Seungmin asked

“Yes sir,” Y/n moaned at a particle thrust that had both of them in her at one rather than seesawing out of her like that had been

She tensed her thigh muscles, hoping to bring her legs closer even though they were locked in on the spreader bar just to relieve the tension building in her lower stomach. Seungmin seemed to notice as she clenched around him and Changbin. He had mentioned it in the locker room when he showed them the video camera that it was partially going to be a punishment for her and that she couldn’t cum tonight. Peaking their interest.

Changbin and Seungmin shared a look. Seungmin moved his hands up to grab her breasts, groping them as Changbin pulled one hand back and smacked her ass.

“Fuck,” Y/n moaned in a high-pitched voice as her head tilted forward. Changbin wrapped one of his arms around her neck, pulling her head back and making her gasp. A whole different feeling than Seungmin's hand wrapped around her. The fabric of her collar pushed against her neck and his arm.

She heard him grunt in her ear before Seungmin shoved himself in her and painted her walls with his cum. Changbin wasn’t far behind. His cum shot out into her ass just as her boyfriend pulled out, looking at his cum dripping out of her before moving to sit on their couch and come down from his high and let his friends fuck her.

Jisung eagerly took his place in her cunt, pushing his cum back into her. Y/n clenched around immediately from the sensitivity making the male in front of her let out a moan. Changbin pulled out of her for Jeongin to switch places with him. Jisung stayed still inside her— mainly so he didn’t cum sooner than he wanted to— as Jeongin pushed himself into her ass with Changbin’s cum.

“Anything goes, right Min?” Jeongin asked

“As long as you don’t leave bruises. Right pup?” Seungmin turned the question to her

“Yes sir,” Her words came out a bit broken

Jisung seemed eager to hear that answer. He leaned forward and wrapped his lips around one of her nipples as his other hand groped her free breasts. Y/n let out a small whine left her throat as Jeongin started thrusting into her from behind. Jisung stayed still inside her for a few moments before slowly pulling back and thrusting in slightly out of time with Jeongin. His pace was slower compared to the younger ones.

Jeongin had placed his hands on her shoulder, near the base of her neck. Leaning back just a bit as he moved at a quicker pace. Shoving Changbin’s cum deeper into her, some of it coating his dick. Jisung slowly picked up his pace as he moved between her nipples. Licking, sucking, and biting her nipples.

Gradually Jisung sped up his pace till he was matching Jeongin. Both having their dicks coated in the other cum. Frothing it inside her. Jisung pulled himself away from her breasts as he twitched inside her. Y/n clenched around them as the cold air from the apartment hit her nipples

“Shit,” Jisung whined before cumming inside her. Mixing with Seungmin’s cum. His dick slipped out as he kept thrusting through his high. He pushed onto her stomach as the rest of his cum spewed onto her stomach.

Jeongin took a little longer. The others watched the cum drip from her and gave her pussy a small break as Jeongin finished inside her. Mixing his cum with Changbins and not slipping out like Jisung had.

Y/n whined as his cock slipped out. Leaving her empty before Chan stepped in front of her and Minho groped her ass from behind. Both bring in a different energy

Minho squeezed her ass a good few times— now she understood what her boyfriend went through daily with Minho grabbing his ass. Chan rubbed the back of her thighs, comfortingly. He knew from just the look of the position her muscles would be hurting so he offered a bit of comfort before slipping into her. Minho pushed in once he finished playing with her ass cheeks.

Chan gave her a moment to take his cock as Minho started drilling up into her, his hand moving to hold her breasts. Chan times his thrusts just in time with Minhos. Both of them were as coordinated with their thrusts as Seungmin and Changbin were. If not more coordinated than them.

Her mind was lost with pleasure by now. Little whines came out when they started thrusted. As they got quicker and rougher, louder moans replaced them. Her head rolled forward and then back from the pleasure though her limbs felt like they were on fire. It didn't matter though, it just felt good.

Chan and Minho definitely had the best stamina. Not surprisingly, Y/n had heard whispers when she would walk down the halls with her boyfriend the week after a party and someone would gush about their hook-up with one of them.

If only the campus knew what happened when you got the two of them together on the same person. Though they would never know what was happening behind the current apartment door.

Y/n clenched involuntarily around them as both were panting. Y/n felt herself so close to coming but the two beat her to it. Minho sheathed himself inside her and filled her with a third load and Chan followed not far behind. She wasn't as close to where they could trigger her orgasm by dumping heavy loads in her and she whined at it.

Especially when they pulled away but she hadn't been left empty for long. Her head fell back just for Hyunjin to slide inside her abused cunt. She only realized it was him when her head snapped forward and she vaguely caught the body shape of the tall campus crush in front of her through her teary eyes. Then she felt Felix filling her stretched ass up.

Both of them gave her a few moments before starting to take turns thrusting inside her. Taking it slow compared to the others. Both held onto her waist as they started slower. Gradually picking up their pace to meet the others. Pushing all the cum deeper into her. Some dripped out from the movement.

Her holes pulsated around the two the whole time inside her. Sensitive to everything at this point.

“Wanna cum pup?” Seungmin’s voice came from behind the moans of the two fucking her

“‘Es Sir. Wan cum,” words so broken from pleasure

“Go ahead pup. Been good to us,” Y/n could hear the smirk in her boyfriend's voice. But that little bit of permission was all she needed. Coming hard on Hyunjins cock which seemed to trigger theirs from how hard she was clamping down on them.

Both boys filled her up one last time before pulling out. Cum dripping from both her holes as the guys took in her appearance. Sweaty and thoroughly used. Puppy ears barely hanging on to her head.

Seungmin and Changbin, with the help of Chan, got her down from her confines as Seungmin wrapped his arms around her spent body. He took her away to get her cleaned up while the guys offered to clean up the living room.

Seungmin got her into a warm bath and gently cleaned her up. Being careful around her sensitive parts. Making sure to tell her how good she did.

“Tired,” Y/n whined as he brought her into the bedroom

“I know bubs. Gotta get you dressed though. You want your favorite PJs?” Seungmin carefully set her towel-covered body on the bed.

“Yeah,” she said meekly

Seungmin got her fuzzy pajama pants and one of his shirts for her to wear before he got himself dressed and took her into the living room so they could hang out with their friends. Chan and Changbin went out to get dinner for the group while the others were scattered around.

Seungmin sat down with his girlfriend cuddled on his lap. “Here,” Minho said handing him two bottles of water

“Thanks,” Seungmin said

He set one down and opened the other, helping his girlfriend drink. Y/n took a drink of the water before Seungmin pulled it away and closed it up.

“Chan and Changbin went to grab some pizza. Should be back soon,” Felix said

Y/n focused on their voices as they chatted, Seungmin rubbing her arms. The guys made sure to include her and she answered as best she could with a fuzzy brain but she welcomed it. It wasn’t long till the two came back with a few boxes of pizza and set up on the dining table. Felix went and grabbed some plates for them and everyone dug in. A little talk about tomorrow's game before it was decided to put on a movie in which Y/n fell asleep cuddled up on her boyfriend’s lap.

She woke up the next morning. Thankful for the weekend. Seungmin, being the morning person he was, was already awake, but sat up in their bed. Just scrolling on his phone, hand gently rubbing her head, giving her little head scratches.

“Min,” Y/n mumbled.

Seungmin turned his head to her and shut off his phone, “Morning bubs.”

Seungmin set his phone on his bedside table and laid down next to her, pulling her into him. “Feeling okay?”

“Yeah. Probably going to take a nap before we head out.” Y/n told him

“Just woke up and you’re already thinking about a nap,” Seungmin chuckled and kissed her nose.

“You take eight dicks and tell me how you feel after,” Y/n told him

“You feel okay enough to go again later?” His hand rubbed her side over their bed covers.

“Yeah. I can handle a round two,” Y/n confirmed

“Alright, you know you can stop it at any time,” Seungmin told her.

“I know pup. I will if it gets to be too much,” Y/n pressed a kiss to his lips. A quick kiss only for him to pull her back in.

“Min,” Y/n giggled as his kiss turned into frequent pecks all over her face

“Making up for last night,” He said between kisses.

Y/n smiled as his lips landed on hers, wrapping his arms around her. Getting the morning with him was always Y/n’s favorite thing before his games.

Eventually, the two got up and started getting ready after Seungmin made her breakfast. Hoping in the shower together— a heavy make-out session in the middle turning into a little oral for good luck— and got dressed. Seungmin slipped one of their anal plugs into her again before she pulled her pants on.

Y/n helped pack his sports bag while Seungmin made sure he had the things— mainly the bondage rope— for their personal after-party. Y/n packed him one of the larger waters for the game and slipped on his other jersey before they headed onto campus for the game. After a quick drive, Y/n went into the stadium after kissing him and he went into the locker room with the rest of the team.

Everyone was ready for the game and was just waiting for their call to the field. Once it was time, they were set on winning the game. Chan made sure everyone knew the plays and checked in when he thought adjustments were needed. All of it to ensure their win.

Y/n watched her boyfriend on third base. It was their last inning and they were so close to taking the win. Lucky enough they had Chan up to bat. Seungmin got ready to run home as Y/n sat at the edge of her seat. The opposing team's pitcher threw the ball and Chan hit the ball, hard.

The opposing team chased it as Chan booked it first and her boyfriend ran home. The catcher waiting at home plate for the ball that had no chance of getting to him as Seungmin touched home and won the game for their school.

Their college cheered at their big win for the season. The boys ran on the field and clung onto Seungmin. Everyone cheered for the win. Chan broke away to thank the other team's captain for a good game. Slowly the crowd disappeared and the players all went to the locker rooms to shower and clean up. Y/n waited outside for her boyfriend and his time like usual, just scrolling on her phone.

She saw the other team leave and go back to their campus and the night janitor. He seemed in a rush and left her the locker room key to give to Chan. Trusting him to lock it up for him.

“Babe,” Seungmin said from the door

“Yeah,” Y/n asked as she turned to him

“Come here.”

“Did you shower yet?” Y/n asked as she walked over to the door. “Also, the janitor wanted me to give this to Chan.”

Y/n handed him the key before wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into the entryway.

“Did shower, gimme my victory kisses,” Seungmin said, grabbing the key from her and wrapping his arms around her, pressing his lips onto hers.

Y/n gave in to him and wrapped her arms around him.

“Why are you guys making out in the entryway?” Chan asked

“Because I'm technically not allowed in here,” Y/n said, pulling her lips from her boyfriend.

Seungmin unwrapped himself from his girlfriend and tossed the key she gave him to Chan “From the janitor.”

“Why?” Chan asked catching it

“Seemed in a rush. Asked me to give it to you to lock up the room when you guys were done.

The two players looked at each other before Seungmin pulled his girlfriend inside further and closed the door.

“Min!” Y/n squealed

“Trust us,” he smiled, kissing her neck

“I do,” Y/n smiled as he pushed her further into the locker room. Chan made sure the door was locked. Seungmin led her to where the others were gathered around. Some were sitting on the bench, all about half-dressed. Looking in their direction and Chan joining them.

“Part two pup?” Seungmin said as he led her over to the bench

“Of course,” Y/n said.

Her boyfriend took the liberty of stripping her while the guys watched in anticipation. Seungmin smacked her ass after getting her fully stripped for them

“Only got her ass prepped before the game. Someone gotta prep her pussy,” Seungmin offered

Jeongin laid back on the bench, “Sit her on my face.”

Seungmin sat his girlfriend on his friend's face. Jeongin pulled her down fully on him as his tongue got to work, licking between her folds before slipping the muscle inside of her. Hands holding her thighs down, preventing her from moving up off him, and nose pressed to her clit. Y/n instinctively went to grab his hair, only for Jisung to grab hold of her wrists. Pinning them behind her back.

“There’s some rope in my bag,” Seungmin smiled as he stood in front of his girlfriend, having undressed himself like the others had done. Discarding any clothing they had put on and jerked their cock to her.

Felix grabbed said rope from his friend's bag. Jisung kept a hold on her arms as Felix bound her wrists together so she couldn’t use her hands. The two behind her stood back and joined the jerk-off circle. Seungmin pushed her head down and Y/n hoped her mouth for her boyfriend's dick. Easily slid down her throat, keeping her head in place, and used her throat.

Half of them took their turns again using her throat as Jeongin continued his tongue work. Just until she was whining and clenching down on his tongue. He pushed her up off of him and got out from under her. Felix took the chance to get under her and sit her on his cock. Y/n let out a small moan just for Chan to bend her over a bit to gain access to her ass. His legs were on either side of the small bench, slowly pulling the plug out of her and handing it over to Seungmin, who kept it in his hand. He already had an idea for later.

Chan spread her ass and slipped inside her. The two Australians going at it on her. Moving in and out of her harshly. Chan holding her her bound wrist to keep her up and Felix groped her ass, keeping her open for his mate. Y/n hung her head low as they pounded into her.

The others realized how much everything was echoing in the locker room between their hips snapping into her and her moans. Minho took the opportunity to lift her head and push his cock into her open mouth. Now the only echo was from the sound of skin hitting skin. Y/n moaned around Minho’s cock as he thrusted into her mouth in time with Chan.

“She always moan like a whore?” Minho asked

“Yeah. She liked being treated like one,” Seungmin chuckled.

“Can tell. Clenched around us when Minho said it,” Felix groaned

The two below picked up their pace. Felix got a bit more sloppy with his thrusts before she felt all three of them start to twitch inside her one by one. She figured the youngest would blow first and he did. Shoving his cock deep inside her as he filled her up. Deep voice hitting her ears and making her clench.

She triggered Chan’s orgasm then Minho’s. Chan shoved himself into her ass and dumped his load into her. Her moans from getting filled had made him spill into her mouth. The two Aussies pulled out before Minho. Minho and Felix moved out of the way as Changbin slid under her and sat her on his cock. More of a stretch than she had thought yesterday when he was in her ass.

Changbin held her hips as Chan switched places with Jisung. Jeongin pulled her forward and slid into her throat. The three threw moving slowly out the window. Setting their own quick paces and abusing her holes. Not much rhythm to it but they ultimately fell into one. Y/n clenched around the two underneath her from the stimulation between the four dicks she had taken in her holes and Jeongin eating her out. Maybe even the fact her boyfriend was watching her get used. Probably a mix of everything.

She felt Jisung leave forward and bring his hands to grope her boobs. She moaned around Jeongin’s cock as he pinched her nipples. Her walls got involuntarily tighter around the two before Jeongin added his cum to Minho’s inside her throat, letting her mouth milk him before pulling away and letting the two use her to their content. Skin slapping against skin harshly and bouncing off the bare walls of the locker room. Jisung coated her walls with his cum not soon after as she came on Changbin’s dick. Changbin joined them as Jisung’s cock spurted the last bit of his cum into her ass.

Jisung pulled out as Changbin filled her up more. Hyunjin came behind her and took Jisung’s spot. His cock pushing into her filled ass and some pushing out while his hands grabbed her boobs and pulled her against his chest as Changbin pulled out. Jeonging took his place and slid her onto his dick. How he got it up again so quickly, she had no clue. But she didn’t even know how much time had passed since he stepped back to Changbin came inside her and pulledout. Everything was starting to blur but it felt so good.

The two started their pounding pace as Hyunjin lowered her down to Felix’s awaiting cock. Y/n wrapped her lips around him as he held the back of her head and fucked her face like they all had done at least twice to her by now. Their breaths were heavy as they fucked her. She was whining around Felix's cock before his dick hit the back of her throat and made her gag. Tears running down her cheeks that she hadn’t even noticed welled up in her waterline. She was already clenching around the two and Jeongin’s sensitive cock twitched inside her while Hyunjin was still going strong. Fingers twisting and pulling her nipples as her muscles twitched.

Jeongin spilled not too long later inside of her and Felix followed close behind, his own cock still sensitive from when he fucked her. Hyunjin moved his hands to grab her shoulders as the two unloaded into her and picked up his pace. Pounding as hard as he could into her, leaning back a bit as his hips snapped against her ass. His dick twitched inside her spurring him on till he added his cum into the mix inside her.

Felix and Jeongin pulled out as Hyunjin finished inside her. Minho took the chance to sit her on him and just let her sit as Hyunjin pulled out. Minho gripped her ass and spread her cheeks apart as her boyfriend got behind her. Jisung, eager as ever, pulled her mouth onto his cock. Her fucked ass was on display for her boyfriend, dripping with other men's cum.

Seungmin smiled as the other two started fucking her. He watched the cum mixture drip out of her before rubbing his top around her ass. Minho stopped to let him slide inside her before they started fucking her again. Y/n moaned around Jisungs dick. None of them were unaware of the cum and drool mix running down her chin and meeting with her tears. Mascara all smudged again.

The three pounded into all her holes as hard as they could with her clenching around two out of three of them. On the verge of another orgasm from the stimulation. Her clit only having been touched once before that high disappeared. But she was fucked out of her mind anyways.

The knot inside her snapped as quickly as it appeared. Her whole body was shaking as it hit her. Jisung cumming in her mouth as Seungmin grabbed her bound wrists with his free hand as he and Minho kept drilling into her.

Minho’s hands moved from her ass to hold her hips instead as he got closer to his high. Dick twitching inside her tight walls. Both picked up their speed inside her till cum filled both her overstimulated holes one more time. Both thrusting in a couple more times before stilling inside her.

Slowly Minho pulled her up off him at the same time Seungmin pulled out slowly. Replacing his cock with the plug and keeping the cum inside her ass till they got home.

Chan came back with some rags for everyone to clean up. Thanking their captain, they cleaned up the cum from themselves and Seungmin cleaned up his girlfriend before they all got dressed and left the locker room. Seungmin carried his girlfriend on his back as they made it to their cars. The guys decided to do another night of food and movies at Seungmin and Y/n’s.

Everyone went home to shower again and change before going to the apartment. Seungmin cleaned up his girlfriend and got her dressed in comfy pajamas again and planted himself on the couch with her. Curled up in a fluffy blanket. Only getting up to answer the door for his friends. All nine gathered around the living room again with takeout.

☾ ━━━━━━ M.LIST TIP JAR

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always-just-red · 15 days ago

Text

Merry Christmas, guys!!! Ok, so this is a day early, but I wanted to say thanks to you all with a feel-good follow-up to my Game Night fic! So, here: a Christmas Eve sleepover with the boys, and they’re on their VERY best behaviour this time, I promise 😌

The Night Before Christmas

L&DS Boys X Reader

(Recommended to read this fic first, if you haven't already!)

Summary: It’s time to get the gang back together!!!

Genre: Fluff + humour

Warnings/Additional Tags: gn!reader, kinda poly? but mostly platonic, a lil bit of wholesome intimacy, one particularly suggestive joke from Sylus (he can’t help himself), also probably needs another proofread but my eyes are tired 💀

| Word count: 4.8k | Masterlist | Opt-in to my taglist here!

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Love and Deepspace. All work is my own, so please don't repost or plagiarise!

“Right! Let’s try this again.”

You glance around your living room with your hands on your hips, channelling your inner Captain Jenna as you fight to suppress flashbacks that verge on traumatic.

Some of this is exactly the same as last time. Sylus is sprawled in the same spot on your couch, looking inordinately pleased with himself for someone who has only just arrived. The very image of smugness; you immediately suspect that something is horribly wrong, or on track to go horribly wrong. You glance to the other couch, where Xavier and Rafayel sit, equally braced for your presentation. Neither one has been teleported to the roof of your building.

Sylus is reading your relief, and he gives you an exclusive smile, as if to say: yet.

Try not to think about it.

You stand by a large drawing pad— currently flipped closed to create a suspense that only Xavier has bought into. He gives you an eager nod, the blue of his eyes warm and encouraging.

The faces around you haven’t changed, but your little apartment has. Strings of twinkling lights run around your walls, casting faint, festive glows. There’s frost on your windows. Littered everywhere are ornaments: small, glittery birds and wintery creatures. Lots of snowman plushies, courtesy of a few, dedicated arcade expeditions with your favourite doctor.

New season, new start.

“We all remember how this went last time,” you push on finally. “Mistakes were made. Shit happened. Whatever— we’re not gonna dwell on it.”

Sylus lifts his hand. “I, for one, would enjoy a reminder of said mistakes.”

“Motion denied,” you dismiss with a grin and a customer-service enthusiasm that screams: don’t fuck with me right now. Sylus’s eyes sparkle, like embers anxious to become something brighter— more destructive. Don’t think about it. “It wasn’t my fault. You outnumbered me four-to-one that night, which is why my first order of business today is to appoint a co-host.”

Rafayel’s hand shoots into the air. You look at him incredulously. Zayne is stood beside you, his arms folded, and everyone else in the room has connected those particular dots.

“It’s Zayne, Rafayel,” you sigh.

“What?!” He sits up straighter. “Why him?! What are his qualifications, huh? His credentials?”

“I’ve never set the kitchen on fire,” Zayne says.

The artist scoffs, adds under his breath: “Turned it into an ice rink, though.”

There’s a chuckle from Sylus, and a part of you feels bad, pitting Zayne against the others like this. But he’s not alone. He has you, just you, so you should probably do something. “That actually brings me really nicely to my next point, Raf, thank you.”

Unexpected praise. Rafayel stutters, a faint blush to his cheeks, and you take full advantage of having staggered him. “Zayne, do you wanna…?”

“Of course.” The dark-haired man adjusts his glasses, then addresses the rest of the room. “In the interest of everyone’s safety, we have devised a few rules to be adhered to for the rest of the evening. These will be enforced by a point system, which we will record… here.”

He flips the drawing pad open, and a blank table fills the top half of the page. Each quarter has been assigned a name. “Basically—” you gesture to it— “three strikes and you’re out.”

None of your guests look perturbed by this.

“The first rule is simple,” Zayne explains, pulling away a strip of paper from the bottom of the page, then reading the writing underneath: “No unauthorised use of Evols.”

Rafayel’s hand shoots up again. You tilt your head at it. “Yes, Raf?”

“Ok, so what if there’s a power-cut or something? Lights are out. Heating’s out. Big disaster, yeah? You’re saying I couldn’t—?” He clicks his fingers, spawning a small flame.

“We would use my Evol,” Xavier says with the gentle authority he uses to steer civilians away from a Wanderer incursion. “It’s safer.”

The flame is snuffed out. Rafayel huffs: “Don’t you use it to, like, kill things?”

“Yeah…” Xavier shrugs. “Bad things.”

“Second rule!” you chime.

“Second rule,” Zayne echoes, peeling back the next strip of paper. There’s absolutely no showmanship, nor energy at all as he continues, “No unauthorised sarcasm.”

Another hand raises. “What would be authorised sarcasm?” Xavier asks, squinting as though he can’t quite figure it out on his own.

You purse your lips in thought. “If it makes me laugh?”

Rafayel is stroking his chin, his eyes narrowed, because he’s also thinking. “High risk, high reward,” he muses, and you shoot him a smile.

This is going better than you thought it would, actually. If you were to turn a few more pages of the drawing pad, you would see crude illustrations of the worst-case scenarios you’d sketched out for Zayne earlier. There’s one where Rafayel is trying to strangle Sylus with Christmas lights. There’s another where Zayne has turned you all into snowmen.

Don’t get ahead of yourself, though. The evening is young, and the snowman scenario is still very much on the table.

Culprit of about ninety percent of your nightmarish visions and drawings— Sylus has been unnervingly silent. You meet eyes with him, an inherent mistrust in your gaze. The success of this sweet, humble Christmas Eve hinges on you figuring out what he’s here for. His agenda. His ulterior motives.

What does he want from tonight? He smirks at you. You’re vaguely competent, and you can figure it out without him holding your hand, can’t you?

That reminds you of something. “Zayne.” You jostle your co-host by his arm. “Do the last rule!”

You’re excited about the last rule.

Zayne isn’t; he hesitates. “The last rule…” He rubs at the back of his neck. “It’s… it’s only applicable to you, Sylus.”

Sylus is now also excited about the last rule. You can tell from the way his lips part, for a second, like he wants to tell you just how flattered he is you spend so much of your time thinking about him.

You put Zayne out of his misery, tearing the final strip of paper away from the pad. The paper flutters to the ground like a very plain snowflake, and you wiggle your fingers, adorning the final rule with a touch of pizazz:

No smirking, sass, or general smugness.

A corner of Sylus’s mouth lifts. “Believe it or not, kitten, your little point system doesn’t scare me.”

You pick up the pen and score a mark under his name.

“Oh no,” he mutters lifelessly.

“Sarcasm!” Rafayel coughs.

You’re well ahead of him, already turning to make another mark. “Gods,” you hear Sylus grimace, not much more than a whisper, “you’re such a boy scout.”

There’s a snort from Rafayel. “Sorry, say that again? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of you totally getting kicked out of here.”

“Sarcasm,” Sylus says.

“Wait, I didn’t mean— no!”

You giggle as you issue Rafayel’s first strike, and he groans behind you, slumping down in his seat. When you turn back around, his face is buried in his hands.

Sylus is smirking again, but the expression drops the moment he senses your gaze. You both know what’s at stake here. Back in the N109 Zone, Luke and Kieran are lamenting the fact that you’ve stolen their leader— it’s not very Christmassy of you, after all. There were a lot of things they wanted to do with him. Snowball fights, presents, and a heist that required disguises: Santa and his two, hard-working elves. They already have the suit, custom-made for him.

So here is the big, bad boss of Onychinus, hiding in your apartment, and definitely not smirking.

You pop the lid back onto your pen, then post it into your pocket like you’re holstering an all-powerful weapon. That’s one point to you and Zayne, and zero points to Sylus, thank you very much.

…

“What are you doing?”

Sylus sighs, evading a furious lilac gaze while he focuses on the task at hand. Freshly escaped from you and the doctor’s terrifying lecture, he’s making the most of his liberty.

“What I am doing,” he mumbles, tying string around a sprig of mistletoe, “is between me and our charming host. Run along, little artist.” He tightens the knot. “This doesn’t concern you.”

Rafayel crosses his arms, his eyes dark. “You’re cheating.”

“Ha.” Sylus spares him a glance out of pity. “You’re jealous.”

“Am not.”

He definitely is, but Sylus doesn’t have time for this game. He can hear you in your bedroom, rooting around for the phone charger you’d vanished in search of. Your door isn’t closed, but it’s closed enough. You can’t see him. He can’t see you. What a perfect opportunity.

“Give it to me,” Rafayel says— an interruption that warrants a roll of the eyes.

“No.”

“Give it—“ the artist starts again, then makes a grab for the mistletoe. Now that’s jealousy. He could incinerate the plant with a click of his fingers, but no, he wants it. Covets it.

Sylus chuckles quietly, his arm stretching up: holding the mistletoe out of an ever-more desperate reach.

To Rafayel’s credit, he persists. He goes up on his toes, tugging at the older man’s sleeve to try and drag the mistletoe closer. The plant evaporates in a swirl of dark energy the second he succeeds. It materialises behind Sylus’s back, in his other hand, and Rafayel realises instantly. He tries to stretch his arms around him. To take it from him.

“Absolutely not!”

Sylus’s fingers are suddenly empty. Mistletoe-less. He turns reluctantly, still holding Rafayel back.

You stand at your wide-open door, one hand on your hips and the other clutching his confiscated item. You’re frowning. Tapping your foot. Your lips are pursed adorably.

“What a coincidence, kitten,” Sylus smiles, and behind him, Rafayel pokes his tongue out, overcome with nausea. “I was just thinking about you.”

“Clearly.” You jostle the mistletoe, looking… disappointed? Huh. “Never thought I’d catch you indulging an old cliche.”

Sylus shrugs charmingly, like a cat performing a leisurely stretch after toppling a vase from a very high shelf.

“Give me the rest of it,” you command.

“Hmm?”

“The back-up mistletoe, Sy. I’m not an idiot.”

Sylus scoffs, but you do have him wrapped oh so prettily around your finger. He rolls his neck, stalling. If giving up were a slope, he would already be a heap at the bottom of it, but he doesn’t really mind. Three more sprigs of mistletoe appear from thin air, dropping into your open hands.

“Honestly, Sylus,” you groan, stepping past him. Then you thrust the plants to the artist’s chest. “Burn these, Raf.” You’re dusting your hands down as you walk away.

Sylus frowns. That’s neither ideal nor part of the plan.

Rafayel is looking at him, telling him with gloating silence that there’s no playing diplomat, here— no negotiating the return of the hostages. That bridge has been— rather fittingly— burned. The mistletoe turns slowly to ash: darkened by licks of flame that curl with the eager spite of their master’s lips.

It would be beautiful if it wasn’t so damned inconvenient. When the fire’s had its fun, one sprig of mistletoe remains, rich green and ivory— wholly untouched. You’re across the room, talking to Zayne, so Rafayel smirks in triumph. Tucks his prize into his pocket.

Sylus’s heart sinks with it, but he still smiles back.

…

Rafayel isn’t looking too good.

Well, the Rafayel is looking fine, but your Rafayel? Not so much. You steal a glance at the artist across the cluttered kitchen island; he’s sat, leaning, propped up on his elbows, his eyes glazed— he’s clearly away with the fishies. He catches you staring. Gives you a wink.

You glance down at the gingerbread man you’ve been decorating: the blue-pink of his iced eyes, and the mess of purple hair, at least three shades too dark. Oh, gods— probably a million shades too dark through the gaze of a Lemurian. At least the outfit is cute? You’ve recreated Rafayel’s signature cardigan. The plaid pattern isn’t quite straight, but that was a… deliberate choice. This is your interpretation of his cardigan, and you wanted it to reflect its owner. A little all over the place, but still, you love it. Even when it’s coming undone, it keeps you warm.

“Would you like to go next?”

Zayne is talking to you, smiling at you. He was the first to reveal his gingerbread creation: a miniature Xavier that was surprisingly true to life. Your hunting partner had almost glowed with delight, while you were dark with jealousy. The biscuit sits before you all, boasting details that could only be achieved with an exceedingly steady hand.

Worse: Rafayel’s gingerbread is next to it, stupidly, predictably perfect. It’s Zayne. It’s really Zayne, from the sweep of black hair to the hazel eyes; how on earth did he manage to make that colour? The tiny doctor is dressed in his lab coat, sporting his badge and a pocketful of even tinier pens and medical instruments. There’s… shading? Ugh, you can see the creases in the fabric.

“Umm… sure, I can go next,” you mumble.

It was just your luck, pulling Rafayel’s name out of that hat. Sheepishly, you move aside the cookbook you’d stood to guard your project from any prying eyes. Your gingerbread is nudged forwards.

“That’s me!” Rafayel exclaims.

“Yeah…” you confirm half-heartedly. “Sorry, I know it’s not great, but I—”

Lack the skill of a celebrity artist, or the steady hands of a cardiac surgeon? You have no idea which exact pool of self-pity your sentence was set on drowning within, but it doesn’t matter. Rafayel has plucked your gingerbread up for a closer look, and his smile is enormous. “This is amazing!”

“You don’t have to—”

“That’s my cardigan!” He’s crashing the pity party again. “And look at my eyes— the colours! This little guy is so handsome, yeah? You really did me justice, cutie. Look at him!”

He holds the gingerbread up to his face, trying to match its two-dimensional grin. He looks around for affirmation, and it’s just his luck, because is a single man at this table ever going to insult your hard work?

“The eyes are amazing,” Xavier enthuses. “Like the sky at sunset. Who knew my partner was so talented?”

“I did,” Rafayel chirps happily.

Xavier frowns. “No, it was rhetori— never mind.” He smiles at you. Rolls with it. “I knew too, by the way.”

“As did I,” Zayne adds.

Everyone looks at Sylus, who shrugs a shoulder and says, “It was up for debate.”

“Can we please move onto the next person?” you press. This is all too much attention. “Sylus, can you… please?”

He does like it when you beg, but he likes it even more when he can play knight in shining armour. “My pleasure, sweetie.”

For a man whose creative side is mostly indulged by vintage gun restorations, he reveals his gingerbread with a staggering amount of confidence. It’s placed at the centre of the kitchen island, where you all stare down at it. Its hair is snow-white, and its eyes: blood-red.

“That’s…” Zayne begins.

“That’s you, Sylus!” you take-over, voice shrill with betrayal. “You were supposed to say something if you picked yourself! And you— wait, what are…?” There are distinct lines over the gingerbread’s midriff. It dawns on you: “Are those abs?!”

Sylus shrugs again.

“They so are!” You snatch up the biscuit, standing to wave it in Sylus’s face like a crime-scene photo. “Where’s his shirt, huh?”

“He lost it.”

“Bullshit!” you snap. This gingerbread competition had come with its own set of rules, one of which was very clearly: “Nothing obscene! I said nothing obscene, Sylus!”

He leans away from you with a tut. “It’s tasteful, sweetie. The artist will tell you.”

“The artist is staying out of this,” Rafayel murmurs, off to your side.

Sylus crosses his arms, regardless, as though his case has been made. You cross your arms too.

“Can I show you my gingerbread now?” Xavier asks, and his tone is deceivingly soft: a hand on your shoulder, pulling you back.

You release the tension in your body with a sigh, then set the gingerbread down so you can’t throw it at Sylus’s un-smug face (which he’s been very careful about.) “Of course, Xavier,” you smile, slinking back onto your stool. You can throw something at Sylus later. “Ooh, is it me? It has to be me, right?”

Xavier chuckles awkwardly. “It’s you. I don’t think it’s very good, though.”

“Show me!” you insist.

The final cookbook is removed, and Xavier unveils his hard work. You clamp a hand to your mouth.

You don’t have a single word for what you’re looking at— only laughter, and you can’t let yourself laugh, no matter what. If that gingerbread is you? Then it’s a you who’s been torn apart by Wanderers, at least seven consecutive times. Your face is a swirl of colours and features— you think Xavier must have tried to wipe it off to start again, more than once, but it hasn’t worked.

The gingerbread has been broken, too. Three of the four limbs, to be exact, and that you could forgive, but… did he have to use dark red icing to glue them back on? It drips out of the joins messily, almost making you wince.

Everyone is silent.

“A perfect likeness,” says Sylus.

You burst out laughing, and the moment you do, Rafayel’s right there with you. Even Sylus caves— it’s one of the most sincere laughs you’ve ever heard from him. There are tears in your eyes; you can’t help it. Zayne is the strongest of you, but even the tight line of his mouth quivers. He’s biting his lip.

But it’s fine. Xavier is laughing, too. “I said it wasn’t very good!”

“Xavier!” you wheeze. You can’t even look at him. Your stomach hurts. “What… what happened to me?!”

“What do you mean?” he practically giggles.

“What do I mean?” you repeat, and it tips you into another breathless bout of laughter. You go to point at the gingerbread— all the explanation you need— but it almost kills you. You really can’t breathe. After half a minute, you try again. “I look like I’ve been in an accident!”

“Here,” Rafayel grins, and he slides the Doctor Zayne gingerbread over to poor, suffering gingerbread you.

“Aww!” you smile, having finally caught your breath.

Wordlessly, Zayne retrieves his likeness— pulling it away from yours. You frown at him, as confused and wounded as Xavier apparently imagines you. “Even I have my limits,” the doctor shrugs.

That’s it. You’re gone again, your sides aching as your whole body shakes with laughter. It’s too much. Gods, it’s too much. You’re gonna need another minute.

…

“I can’t believe you made you.”

It’s been fifteen or so minutes, and you toy with Sylus’s gingerbread counterpart, pinching his hands between your thumbs and forefingers— making him walk (well, penguin waddle) across the kitchen island.

“Believe it, sweetie,” Sylus huffs with a smile.

“Is this really how you see yourself?”

Before you can walk the gingerbread any further, his creator plucks him up by his head, away from your reaching fingers. “It’s how I think you should see me,” he chuckles. He holds the gingerbread out to you. Wiggles it. “For your eyes only, kitten.”

“Except the other guys saw it—”

“Shhhh, shh shh!” In his haste to silence you, he almost pushes the gingerbread to your lips.

You glare at him. Complain from behind it: “Get your shirtless abs out of my face, Sylus.”

“Make me.”

You snatch the gingerbread, pinning it down on the counter. “Keep pushing your luck, Sy. Wanna see what’ll happen?”

He absolutely does, and his eyes glint with mirth as you reach for a near-empty bowl of crimson icing. You scrape some of it up with a discarded teaspoon, then let it drip generously over his gingerbread. It takes a few, long seconds to really cover him in it. To make him look as fatally tragic as gingerbread you.

“Here,” you say, dropping the spoon in a bowl with a satisfied clink. You hold out the gingerbread. “This’ll be you when I’m done with you.”

Sylus regards it for a moment, his eyebrow quirked. Then his eyes find your gingerbread likeness. “Want to see what you’ll look like when I’m done with you?”

His hand goes out for the bowl of red icing, except… it goes past the bowl of red icing, and lands on a tube of white icing instead. He holds it up with a smile.

“Inappropriate.”

The tube is swept out of his fingers, and he blinks at the empty space, legitimately surprised.

“It was snow, doctor,” he remarks bitterly, once he’s recovered from the second ambush of the evening. He glances over his shoulder. “From a snowball fight?”

“Sure it was,” Zayne mutters, already turning back to the bowl he’s washing in the sink.

Sylus is frowning, affronted, but the expression softens when you’re filling his gaze again. You: your hands on your mouth, so close to spilling laughter. “Oooooh,” you tease with a secretive sing-song voice, “you got in trouble!”

He wrinkles his nose like ‘trouble’ is an insult. It sets you off sniggering uncontrollably.

“What did I miss?”

It’s Xavier, back from the lounge.

“Nothing,” Sylus answers.

“He got in trouble!” you counteract with a not-at-all quiet whisper.

You earn a glare from the criminal, and a little laugh from the hunter. “Third-strike trouble?” the latter enquires. He might have handcuffs on stand-by; it wouldn’t surprise you.

“Not yet,” you grin cheerfully.

Zayne sets a plate on the drying rack. “Give it time.”

…

“I don’t think we have enough, sweetie,” Sylus quips, peeking over the stack of blankets you’ve piled high on his arms.

What was it Rafayel said? High risk, high reward? You mercifully chuckle. Your arms are wrapped around three, plush cushions— the last of your sleepover supplies. Snacks? Are ready. Guests? Haven’t killed each-other yet. You toe open your bedroom door, shouldering the rest of the way through with your missing puzzle pieces of luxury.

“Oh, nice!” someone exclaims from the kitchen. Xavier is watching you, starry-eyed, and his cheeks are full; he’s midway through a cookie.

Sylus steps through the door behind you, issuing a faint noise of disgust. He sounds like he’s being attacked by a bug, so you turn around, ready to leap to the rescue. He’s stood within the door frame, eyes cast upwards to where a sprig of mistletoe hangs on the end of a string. It’s swaying gently; he must have caught his head on it. You frown, lips parted. He was with you the whole time you were looting your bedroom. When did he…? How did he…?

He looks down at you, the mistletoe still hovering above him. You raise an eyebrow, waiting for the inevitable joke, or the even more inevitable invitation.

“I…’ he starts gingerly, “I didn’t…”

Oh. He’s just as confused as you are, and it’s… really cute. He’s lost for words— the man who came here with not one, but four sprigs of mistletoe. The man who threatened your gingerbread with white icing. The man who’s spent the entire evening thinking about how he wants to be close to you.

Sylus laughs, but it’s full of nervousness. “It’s alright,” he says, “you don’t have to—”

You tilt him towards you, your hand on his shoulder and cushions around your feet. “Merry Christmas, Sy,” you murmur, pressing a kiss to his cheek. It’s warm on your lips.

His eyes flutter closed. “Merry Christmas,” he breathes, barely more than a whisper.

You hum contentedly as you pull away from him. When his eyes reopen, they’re warm with a nostalgia you cannot explain, but you can feel, too— so inexplicably. His gaze is blood-red, but it makes you think of flowers.

What a funny feeling. It strikes you a lot, nowadays, and not just with the man in front of you.

Speaking of the others, you glance towards your lounge. Xavier is telling Zayne a story, and Rafayel is watching you from over the back of the sofa— turning away when you spot him. That’s one mystery solved. You collect the cushions from the floor, sparing Sylus a smile before you meander back to your party. The coffee table’s a banquet of sweet, sugary snacks, so you carefully skirt past it.

Xavier’s hands grab at air. You laugh and toss him a cushion. “Thanks,” he grins.

“Here— your favourite.” Zayne is pointing at your freshly-filled mug, and you grin your own thank you as you settle down next to him.

Sylus soon arrives too, handing out blankets, and for all the evening’s animosity, he gets a grateful smile for each. He sits down next to Xavier, and it’s odd, you know? You’ve slain Wanderers, saved lives with every person around you. You’ve seen them bleed and kill.

They’re all wrapping themselves up, like snuggly little Christmas presents. Xavier’s managed to collect another cushion— from Zayne, maybe?— and he’s practically building a fort on his side of the couch. Some of it infringes on Sylus’s space, and you notice him notice, but he doesn’t say a word. Oblivious, tucked under two blankets, Xavier’s already looking sleepy.

Someone’s making less of an effort to get comfortable. On the other side of you, Rafayel sits, uncharacteristically quiet. He hasn’t met your eyes since you sat down. You remember him, watching you under the mistletoe from across the room, and the thought has you leaning in closer.

“That was sweet of you,” you whisper, even though he disobeyed you.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he shrugs.

But he does, so you kiss his cheek, ever so fondly, with that funny feeling in your chest again. It’s the first time, but it doesn’t strike you as such. Uncharted waters, a foreign land— when have I been here before?

Rafayel has relaxed: sunken deep into the sofa and the security of your touch. You smile, pulling his blanket up higher around him— tighter around him— until he’s as much of a cocoon as everyone else. His lips curve with a smile of surrender, ever-willingly captured. Silly fish.

You draw away from him, readjusting in your seat until you’re cuddled up next to Zayne. You don’t see the wink Rafayel shoots Sylus, or the look of begrudging respect in the latter’s red eyes.

“Are you comfortable?” Zayne asks, head angling towards yours.

Co-host to co-host. “Yeah.” You snuggle closer to him. “This is kinda perfect, isn’t it?” He feels cold, despite his Sylus-issued blanket, so you lend him part of yours.

“No,” he confers softly, distractedly.

“No?”

“No.” He gives you a look, and you know it as intimately as the chill of his hands and the warmth of his heart. His ‘I know something that you don’t’ look. Sure enough, he says: “I think it’s missing something.”

On the other sofa, Xavier is beaming at you, having caught onto your conversation. It’s suspicious— harmless conspiracy, surprise-party sort of suspicious, but your pulse still picks up.

“Close your eyes,” Zayne instructs.

And you do, without question. Darkness, yes, but you’re under his care, aren’t you? There’s no anxiousness in your excitement, just trust for the man who was looking out for you long before he was your doctor. Your hands are over your eyes and you’re younger, again, playing hide-and-seek, again.

Zayne’s is a familiarity you can place. A nostalgia built on memories, not reveries.

Something icy touches your hand, then melts without any resistance.

“Open,” Zayne prompts, leaning against you to stir you.

Your apartment has changed again. The lights are all out, save for the fairy lights. The spectrum of colours flicker from the walls and the tree, catching on tiny, white specs in the air. Snowflakes are drifting down, impossibly. Falling, dancing— maybe a bit of both. You look up and some land on your face, cold with their kisses. You giggle in delight.

Everyone’s gaze is on the ceiling: sapphire, emerald, amethyst, ruby. It ought to be dark. Instead, an entire night sky fills the space above you, scattered with thousands of stars. Every pinprick is deliberate. Meticulously placed. There are constellations— infinite patterns that transcend every life you might’ve lead, and every life you’ll ever lead (if you believe in that sort of thing.)

Xavier glances at you, and you forgo the spell of his masterpiece so that you can glance back. Snowflakes are in his hair, dusting him with sparkles. He smiles in a way you think could defy lifetimes, too.

“This is… really something,” Sylus says, and there’s not a hint of sarcasm.

It’s everything. The stars, brighter for darkness. The snow, only novel in warmth. These things don’t always work— they’ll undo each-other, overpower each-other, but there’s an ultimate balance, in-between every conflict. An occasional harmony, and it’s…

Perfect.

Rafayel scoots close to you. “Was this authorised?” he whispers.

You look over to the point board, where there are first strikes beneath Zayne and Xavier’s names, and you don’t know how long they’ve been there.

“No,” you laugh tenderly. “No, it wasn’t.”

#🖋rach is actually writing #xavier x reader #zayne x reader #rafayel x reader #sylus x reader #love and deepspace #lads x reader #lads x mc #shen xinghui #li shen #qi yu #qin che #lads #lnds #l&ds

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enter-the-bogman · 2 years ago

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Reading through the Tortall books in publication order is funny because you start with Alanna “the village healing woman taught me all she knew” going off to become a knight, and end with Numair “world’s most powerful mage” as young Arram Draper first learning magic at the Carthaki university. Because of the 40 intervening years and five(?) different series further developing the Tortall universe, the magic system is now SO much more complex. Arram is learning an elementally-based, heavily theory-dependent form of magic where conceptual power is applied to physical objects or energy constructs. His teachers make him develop skills in non-magical areas like juggling, jewelry making, and gardening so eventually they can safely guide him through complicated applications of magic. In comparison, Alanna complains that Duke Roger is spending too much time on theory in order to prevent her and her peers from learning “actual magic” and becoming his rivals. And then she throws purple light at things until they explode or she passes out! We also learn from Arram’s misadventures that most of “magic” is creating methods of applying, storing, and accessing power so the user doesn’t drain their own life force and pass out or die. Alanna uses NONE of these techniques; instead, she pulls her magic directly out of her own life force, thinks about what she wants it to do, and hopes she reaches that goal before draining herself. She even (sometimes) factors in the impact of magically draining herself of energy while attempting tasks that require both magical and physical endurance (such as when deciding how much magic to spend warming herself when making her blizzard hike to claim the Dominion Jewel.)

For one thing, this makes Alanna insanely powerful. In In the Hand of The Goddess, she breaks open Roger’s magically locked door (presumably designed by Roger himself-- an immensely strong and well-trained sorcerer) by shoving her own magic into it until it MELTS. This builds an Alanna who decided magical theory was useless at age 12 because she has an immense access to magical potential energy, and who never learns the basic life-preserving models of magic usage that are taught in intro-level classes. She doesn’t have an interest in learning more sophisticated forms of magic, except in healing, which she cared about enough to learn non-magically. So when she heals, she uses magic as a guide or a supplement, rather than depending on it and then draining herself. Since she isn’t attempting complex magic, most of the time the limitations of drawing directly from her own life force doesn’t impact her that much. The things she does magically all have much more efficient alternatives, but they require an understanding of magical theory and ability to store energy that Alanna never learned! If she wants to do larger spells, she just keeps feeding energy into it until it breaks or she does.

The intervening series and Numair’s story makes Alanna’s simultaneously more and less believable. It now makes sense why everyone with even a slight understanding of Alanna’s type of Gift gets angry at times and tells her she’s using magic irresponsibly. (Before, we only understood Alanna’s side of the argument: “Well, I didn’t die and it worked, so calm down.” !!!) The fact that she never actually dies and only rarely is seriously harmed through her own magic use now requires some suspension of disbelief!

#I would love to see the moment when numair first saw alanna use her magic #and realizes that she pulls from her own life force to light a CANDLE #i'm sure they'd have a huge fight with numair trying to convince alanna to at least TRY meditating and alanna refusing out of stubborness #tamora pierce #sincerely cockleburr #tortall #alanna of trebond

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matcha-binz · 5 months ago

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Muse. (teaser)

The newly arrived painting captures your attention as the archivist of the local museum. But, as you investigate further, you discover a secret that no one was supposed to know. Panicking, you run from the scene in a daze, trying to hide what you have witnessed. Before you could even realize, you were stopped from your trance by a suspicious individual. To your horror, it was none other than the secret himself. the muse of the oil painting stood right before you, looking into your eyes with a gaze too human.

Genre . Suspense, fantasy, romance, fluff

pairing . Prince!beomgyu x museum worker!reader

wc . N/A

note . Erm… oops. I’ve been gone for a while now… tehe. Anyways I’m back with this wip. Idk when it will be released, probably at the start of September, hopefully !

As your hands trace the intricate, gold framing of the painting, your eyes cant help but wander back to his deep, honey hued ones. This one is different.

The brush strokes that combine together to make his eyelids, the thin lashes that look as if they were painted each individually, and the deep, oak colored hair that rest around the golden crown adorning the head. And his lips, so carefully painted the exact shade of the pink carnations that he held. His attire is something a tad too simple for a prince to wear — a plain ruffled tunic, fading to a light beige — a popular clothing choice from this time, you observe.

It’s hard to imagine someone to be this beautiful. But at the same time, this oil painting seems to be waiting for the moment to just come to life. The furrowing of your brows do not go unnoticed by Taehyun, as he observes your reaction from the doorway.

“It took some time for it to arrive here-“ a graceful smile paints his face. “… I’m glad you like it” he chuckles, his laugh echoing off the dim lighted walls at your speechless form.

It takes a good second for you to snap out of your awe struck trance, stuttering a flustered respond for your coworker, who only smiles as you do so. “L-like it…? Taehyun, I’m like- “ you sigh. “I… I can’t believe this.. “

with an airy laugh — that was more of a half gasp — you turn over your shoulder to look into his eyes. “This can’t be… is this… the original copy?”

your eyes widen as he slowly nods his head. Your teeth nip on your lower lip as you struggle to keep in your excitement, the hand that rested on the gold frame of the painting jitters and twitch as you tuck it back in your cardigan pocket, and the smile that etched onto your face, you knew that it wasn’t coming off anytime soon.

“Well, I’ll trust this relic to you then” he states, shooting you a farewell smile and shutting the wooden door behind him. As he leaves you in the room, the sun has completely set behind the horizon and leaves darkness scattered in the sky. the clock strikes 8.

With one last glance at the painting, taking in all of its beauty, you take a step back, letting out a small yelp nearly tripping over a pile of old books that was probably left by taehyun as well. Lovely. A sigh leaves your lips as you crouch to take pick them up, blowing away the dust as you walk towards your desk that sits facing the wall.

“All right, then. Let’s get you in the system…” you idly mutter to yourself as you turn on the computer, the soft sound of the whirring fills the room, reminding you of just how old this computer is. As you quickly punch in the pin, you take note of saving up for a new desktop, this old one takes too long to load, to your dismay.

You right click onto the program to record the the addition to the museum gallery. Most of the gallery consists of old relics from important time periods to relics and art from before technology existed. You have always found these works to be exceptionally beautiful, the timelessness of these objects made by the talented artists are not to be forgotten by those who truly appreciate art.

Same goes for this painting, you think as you enter the description and the room it shall be placed in. But as the cursor hovers over the ‘name’ section, you hum as you try to rack your brain for the name of this piece.

“Hm… What was your name again..?” You say, to no one in particular as you glance back at the painting that stood still in the middle of the room, the dim lighting shining off the gold frame. Your brow raises as you tilt your head. Did you move it to the center before? The memory doesn’t appear immediately, but you deduce that you probably did.

And with a shrug, you turn back to the glowing screen, letting out a theatrical sigh.

”You may address me as prince Choi, ”

#txt x reader #txt imagines #yeonjun x reader #tomorrow x together #beomgyu #txt fanfic #txt fluff #beomgyu x reader #txt #beomgyu imagines #beomgyu fluff #fantasy #beomgyu fanfic #current wip #IVE BEEN OFF THIS APP FOR SO LONG LMFAO WHAT I MISS

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hayatheauthor · 8 months ago

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Hello! 😊 Do you have any advice on word-building? I can imagine multiple scenarios in my head, but I can't seem to put them into words. 🥹

First off hi sorry I took forever to write this blog! I hope it helps you get your ideas onto paper <3

Worldbuilding is the backbone of any compelling story, especially in genres like fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction. Crafting a believable, immersive world can captivate your readers and provide a solid foundation for your narrative. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the essential steps to create a vivid and engaging world for your story.

Understanding Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding involves creating a complete, fictional universe that serves as the setting for your story. This process includes developing geography, cultures, history, politics, and even the rules of nature and magic (if applicable). The goal is to make your world feel as real and intricate as the characters who inhabit it.

Starting with the Basics

Define the Genre and Tone

Consider the genre of your story. A high-fantasy world will have different requirements than a dystopian future or a historical setting. The tone—whether it's dark and gritty or light and whimsical—will also influence your worldbuilding decisions.

Establish the Setting

Start with the physical world. Sketch out maps, outline the geography, and decide on key locations where your story will unfold. Think about the climate, natural resources, and the flora and fauna that inhabit this world.

Develop a History

Create a backstory for your world. Major events, wars, discoveries, and cultural shifts shape the present-day setting. A rich history can add depth and realism, influencing characters’ beliefs and motivations.

Building Cultures and Societies

Craft Unique Cultures

Think about the various cultures in your world. What are their customs, traditions, and social norms? How do they dress, what languages do they speak, and what religions do they follow? Diverse and well-thought-out cultures can add layers to your narrative.

Political Systems and Power Structures

Define the political landscape. Who holds power, and how is it distributed? Are there monarchies, democracies, or tribal councils? Consider the relationships between different nations or groups and the potential for conflict.

Economics and Resources

Understand the economy of your world. What resources are abundant or scarce? How do people trade, and what currencies do they use? The distribution of resources can drive plot points and character motivations.

Crafting Magic and Technology

Magic Systems

If your world includes magic, establish clear rules and limitations. What are the sources of magic? Who can use it, and how? Consistent magic systems prevent plot holes and maintain suspension of disbelief.

Technology Levels

Consider the technological advancements in your world. Are they using medieval weapons, steampunk machinery, or advanced futuristic gadgets? The level of technology can influence daily life, warfare, and exploration.

Time and Place

Historical Context

Establish the timeline of your world. Is it set in the past, present, or future? Consider historical events that have shaped the current state of the world. How have these events influenced societal development and cultural evolution?

Daily Life and Schedules

Describe the daily routines of your characters. What does a typical day look like for different social classes or cultures? Consider work hours, leisure activities, and societal expectations. The pace of life can vary greatly depending on technological advancements and cultural norms.

Timekeeping and Calendars

Develop a system of timekeeping and calendars. Are there specific seasons, festivals, or holidays that are significant? How do people measure time—by the sun, moon, or a mechanical clock? Unique timekeeping methods can add depth and authenticity to your world.

Clothing and Fashion

Cultural Significance

Explore how clothing reflects cultural identity, status, and occupation. Different regions and social groups might have distinct styles, fabrics, and accessories. What materials are commonly used, and how are garments crafted?

Fashion Trends

Consider the evolution of fashion in your world. What are the current trends, and how do they vary across different societies? Fashion can be influenced by historical events, climate, and interactions with other cultures.

Practicality and Symbolism

Think about the practicality of clothing in your world’s environment. How does the climate affect what people wear? Additionally, consider any symbolic meanings attached to certain garments or accessories. For instance, specific colors or patterns might denote rank or allegiance.

Religion and Beliefs

Pantheon and Deities

Create a pantheon of gods or a single deity, depending on your world’s religious structure. What are their characteristics, domains, and myths? How do they interact with mortals, if at all?

Rituals and Practices

Detail the religious rituals and daily practices of your world’s inhabitants. Consider ceremonies, festivals, and rites of passage. How do these practices influence daily life and societal norms?

Religious Institutions

Define the structure and influence of religious institutions. Are there temples, churches, or shrines? What roles do priests, shamans, or other religious figures play in society? The power dynamics between religious and secular authorities can add layers to your worldbuilding.

Languages and Communication

Linguistic Diversity

Develop the languages spoken in your world. Are there multiple languages or dialects? Consider the history of these languages and how they evolved. Language can be a powerful tool to convey cultural diversity and conflict.

Writing Systems

Design writing systems and scripts used for communication. Are there ancient texts or runes with special significance? How do literacy rates vary among different social classes and regions?

Non-Verbal Communication

Explore other forms of communication, such as body language, sign language, or symbolic gestures. How do people convey messages in situations where spoken language is impractical? These non-verbal methods can add depth and realism to your interactions.

Integrating Worldbuilding into Your Story

Show, Don’t Tell

Instead of dumping information on your readers, reveal your world organically through the narrative. Use dialogue, actions, and descriptions to weave worldbuilding details seamlessly into the story.

Character Perspectives

Different characters will experience and interpret your world in unique ways. Use their perspectives to highlight various aspects of your world, making it richer and more complex.

Consistency and Continuity

Maintain consistency in your world’s rules and details. Keep track of your worldbuilding elements to avoid contradictions and ensure a cohesive narrative.

Worldbuilding Tools and Resources

Maps and Diagrams

Create visual aids like maps, family trees, and diagrams to help you keep track of your world’s layout and relationships. Tools like Inkarnate or Wonderdraft can be helpful for map-making.

Worldbuilding Bibles

Maintain a worldbuilding bible—a document where you compile all your world’s details. This can include notes on geography, history, cultures, and more. It’s a valuable reference as you write and develop your story.

Inspiration from Real World and Fiction

Draw inspiration from real-world cultures, histories, and landscapes. Similarly, reading widely in your genre can provide insights into effective worldbuilding techniques.

Final Thoughts

Worldbuilding is a rewarding yet challenging aspect of storytelling. It requires imagination, attention to detail, and a deep understanding of your narrative’s needs. By following this comprehensive guide, you can create a vibrant, believable world that will captivate your readers and enhance your storytelling.

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks?

Are you an author looking for writing tips and tricks to better your manuscript? Or do you want to learn about how to get a literary agent, get published and properly market your book? Consider checking out the rest of Haya’s book blog where I post writing and publishing tips for authors every Monday and Thursday! And don’t forget to head over to my TikTok and Instagram profiles @hayatheauthor to learn more about my WIP and writing journey!

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ewingstan · 7 months ago

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I. Introduction

A while ago, I wrote on how Jack Slash was a prime example of how Worm approaches metatextual commentary. Wildbow has a general tendency in his first two serials especially to identify common story tropes and give them in-universe justifications. Jack Slash in particular is a response to the tendency for writers to give plot armor to the Joker and similar sorts of popular villain characters. The out-of-story justification of the authors ("we can't have someone just shoot him, that's boring, besides everyone loves this guy look at him go") becomes an in-story aspect of his powers: an ability to subtly influence other capes behavior allowing him to always escape danger. Plot armor transformed into an in-universe mechanic that characters are aware of, react to, and work against.

Notably, this tendency is never used to highlight the status of wildbow's characters as characters— there is no fourth-wall breaking or attempts to undermine the audience's perception of the story as containing essentially a self-contained world running on its own internal logic. But this certainly isn't the only way you could comment on Joker-type charcter's plot armor: Funny Games covers similar ground using the opposite trick, repeatedly having its home-invader villains draw attention to how they're characters in a story, and that whether they win or lose is determined wholly by the author's will. Director Michael Haneke continually draws his audience into the story only to violently and repeatedly pull them out with suspension-of-disbelief-shattering acts on the villains part. It's The Treachery of Images as a horror movie.

Together, Worm and Funny Games showcase two different approach to explaining why the villain gets to live another day. If you can explain their deal using only the internal logic of the story ("Jack has a power that lets them escape consequences"), then the author is giving a diegetic justification for the trope justified by mechanisms of the story's universe. If you can't explain their deal without reference to them being characters in a narrative ("Paul can talk to the audience and rewind time because he's a fictional character and can do whatever the author says he can do") then its a "narrative" or nondiegetic justification for the trope.

These can be combined. Seidlinger's Anybody Home? used them together for awkward effect: serial killers perform acts that get recorded by some mysterious "camera" that produces a log of their events, which through mystical and mysterious means gets distributed to film producers and adapted into horror movies. Killers have fully "narrative" reasons for following horror tropes—they know they have an audience and are behaving for their benefit. But the story suffers from its awkward in-story justification, its "mechanical" framing: the audience the killers are acting for are other people within the story's universe, not the readers of the book. Characters realize they're "victims" in a story, but they're framed not as existing fully for the story but as normal people who got caught within a story, stuck in it like one gets caught in a storm.

In this post I want to highlight some more elegant ways of combining the mechanical and narrative approaches to metafiction, especially in regards to plot armor. I'll be commenting on wildbow's second serial Pact, Homestuck, and Eidolon DISKA, and heavily spoiling all of them. I've divided them into sections so readers can avoid spoilers or skip over works they're uninterested in, though they're not separate essays. I'd maybe recommend checking out DISKA if you haven't. Its great. Alright then.

II.

Pact and the otherverse gives its characters diagetic reasons for following tropes that align with narrative rules though its magic system. Otherverse magic largely involves telling the universe a story and hoping that your behavior has enough symbolic resonance that it believes you. A lot of the magic spells work on a "I dunno, this feels like it would work" logic.

This means that characters need to be aware of how characters in good stories would act, and often need to behave in a way that is believable if they were characters in a story. The result is that Blake Thorburn ends up purposefully trying to emulate a monster from a horror story, purposefully playing into the tropes of such a character. He acts like a specific type of story character, not because he's broken the fourth wall and knows he's in a horror story, but because he knows convincing the universe that he's a horror villain will likely lead to the universe letting him survive just a little bit longer before he collapses into an exsanguinated heap.

However, Pact's approach to the specific mechanics and abilities of Blake and other monstrous entities of his ilk is much more in-line with how wildbow previously approached Jack Slash. Horror-movie style monsters are a grab-bag of entities called "Boogeymen" within the setting, with little in common outside of previously being people who had fallen through the cracks of reality and climbed out of the abyss changed.

The tropes of slasher movies are once again given mechanical justification: the monster drives conflict and acts unpredictably because being feared gives its more of a foothold in reality. It can't stay dead (and keeps returning for sequels) because it can always climb back out of the abyss again, or be summoned by Scourges to be used against their enemies. Some of the ways the in-universe boogieman mechanics reproduce these tropes are explicitly narrative justifications—they're stronger if the universe sees their ends as especially "iconic," and Blake seems to be empowered the most when he leans into character and goes on a rampage— but for the most part, you could explain their deal without having to refer to their roles as characters in a narrative.

III

The same couldn't be said for Homestuck's take on the serial-killer trope, which is explicable pretty much only in non-diagetic terms. Which is interesting insofar as its one of the only parts of Homestuck that doesn't at least provide a diagetic fig-leaf for a character following a cultural script.

Much like Pact's Otherverse, Homestuck also formalizes many narrative tropes as diagetic, in-universe mechanical laws of its setting. However, it doesn't bother giving justifications for why the setting has such mechanics. There's no equivalent to "they're like this because the magic of the abyss;" Homestuck's mechanical rules are almost more in the Funny Games vein of being inexplicable if you don't accept that they're the consequences of this being a story.

But the narrative rules it draws attention to are often all its own. See, in some ways the setting of Homestuck is meant to be an obvious set of fantasy Bildungromane. The characters enter a game world, Sburb, and are each deposited on a planet with almost stock templates: Land of Wind and Shade, Land of Heat and Clockwork, etc. Each are filled with a population of simple game constructs with little personality outside of what's needed to drop lore tidbits, and a slumbering denizen connected to a personal quest tailor-made for the player. This sense of "generic fantasy world made for a generic fantasy quest" is heightened by Homestuck's constant references to other media containing famous lands constructed from fantasy stories: Peter Pan/Hook, the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Don Quixote, and The Neverending Story. (That last example makes up not only a substantial amount of aesthetic references, but also structural echoes; as Homestuck copies it by having a second half in which reader-stand ins enter the story, characters go from one world to another, and the role of author and audience gets muddled in a world-threatening manner.)

It seems like the game Sburb created the players different worlds to facilitate a typical Bildungroman adventure. Enter the fantasy land, meet the locals, learn the lore, defeat the monster. Unlike Jacob's Bell, The Lands of Homestuck don't make sense as anything besides a game construct, a way to facilitate this narrative arc. And the character's tendency to sidestep the quests set up by the Lands and skip through or break things feels like a subversion of those typical sorts of fantasy stories.

A complicating factor, though, is that the game was set up with the expectation that the players would skip around and break things. The entire game is composed of a series of time loops, including the characters creating themselves, creating the big bad in an attempt to defeat him, etc. Everything that happens in a game session was engineered to happen "by" the game—including the parts that seem to break the intended narrative arc of the Lands. There's plenty of things that seem to be breaking the "intended" experience: Rose taking apart her game world, Vriska reading the mind of her Land's consorts to find out all the lore they have pre-programmed in, Jack Noir killing the Black King before the players could face him as the intended final boss. But all of these turn out to be essential conditions for the game coming to exist in the first place, for the characters to create themselves, for the Lands to be created as game constructs in the first place. The game creates conditions that require the players to "cheat."

In other words, its not just that the comic is subverting a typical fantasy story. Its that Sburb itself is a game that runs on the narrative rules. Not the narrative rules of a fantasy Bildungroman, but the narrative rules of a subversion of a fantasy Bildungroman. The subversion is expected and built-in.

This subversion-as-the-rule is something Hussie enjoys making the narrative conciet of a story: early Problem Sleuth was written with the one rule that the audience could never be right about how the main character's office worked. Its also a feature of Homestuck's general approach to characters and dialogue. I think a good example of this is Eridan and Feferi's early conversations. They get introduced as the primary examples of a form of alien romance the narrative just got done explaining, a pair of moirails that the narrator declares are "made for each other". But of course, the subversion of that is already built in, as before Eridan's full introduction we learned that he wanted to be in a different relationship with Feferi. So when the first few on-screen appearances of these characters turns out to be their break-up texts, its a "subversion" of the destined romance the narrator set-up, but its a sign-posted and expected subversion.

But back in terms of Sburb's mechanics: players of the game who perform a ritual to achieve god-tier status can only die if their death is either Heroic or Just: that is, they can only die if it’s narratively satisfying. If a powerful character dies without it being a satisfying heroic sacrifice or a satisfying end to a villainous rein of destruction—in other words, if the death is uninteresting and narratively pointless, then the character pops right back up. Like in Worm, plot armor is a mechanic of the setting that the characters can find out about and exploit, and like with Pact's boogeymen, characters become whole new types of beings as part of fitting to a character narrative that'd require plot armor. But unlike in wildbow's work, Homestuck's God Tiers have little in the way of diagetic justification. Hussie knows that there are situations where an audience won’t accept the stakes set out before them—they can tell that the bad thing can’t be allowed to happen, because if it did the plot couldn’t continue or the story would suffer, so they know the bad thing won’t happen. Accepting this, they play around with the trope by having it literally impossible for the bad thing to happen if the story would be worse for it.

But where it gets weird is how this plot-armor mechanic gets applied to Gamzee, in one of my favorite sections of Act 6. Gamzee was introduced as a joke character riffing on the juggalo evil clown subculture, who later goes on a murderous rampage for reasons that are never made fully obvious in-text. He then scuttles about the story as a figure who keeps breaking the story’s rules: both the mechanical rules of how Sburb works and the rules of storytelling generally. This ramps up a lot in Act 6, where he puts on a fake god-tier outfit and starts showing up at times and places he should not be able to be based on the established mechanics of Sburb, which up until then had been incredibly strict parameters on the story. Unlike a lot of the items that loop back in time in convoluted ways, we don’t see how Gamzee appeared on Jane’s planet, or went to the future to raise the cherubs, or all the other shit he gets up to. And we aren’t given a reason for why he’s selling blood like an RPG merchant or why he’s raising the big bad or why he’s doing anything at that point. He becomes a deus ex diabolica, a character whose not really a character at all so much as someone who sets up the obstacles in the story and has no reason for doing so besides the fact that the story wouldn’t work if he wasn’t there to set up the stakes.

One especially odd thing about him though is that even though he never actually reached God tier, he seemingly couldn't be killed.

At first this seems weird. Gamzee is breaking a core mechanical rule of Homstuck: he's immortal despite not being God-tier. But then you remember that the mechanical rule of God-tier immortality was already just a formalization of a narrative rule: a character can't die if the story isn't done with them. Homestuck is breaking its diagetic rules, but following the narrative rules they reflect.

This meta-interpretation of Gamzee's immortality is strengthened by the fact that the above conversation is taking place between Andrew Hussie and one of their characters. Furthermore, said character is a fandom stand-in who later transitions into being an author stand-in. This character (Caliborn) is the main villain of Homestuck, and has been interpreted as everything from the chains of narrative inevitability, to the interface of the webcomic itself, to Homestuck readers with an unhealthy relationship to the work, to the viler tendencies of Hussie themself present throughout the comic.

Not the only such stand-in; nearly all the villains of Homestuck assume some authorial role, as Hussie has an ongoing theme of equating the author role to being a manipulator. Thus the most heroic characters generally are reactive rather than proactive, thus Doc Scratch/Vriska/Dirk/etc all trying to author the timeline or claim causal responsibility for events while manipulating other characters, etc. But Caliborn ends up representing some more of Hussie's specific creative tendencies, and is the only character that Hussie's in-comic self has a conversation with.

Notably, this conversation has pretty much the only instance of Hussie presenting all the weird obstacles of Sburb as something they've set up as the author.

Oddly enough, apart from this, the yellow yard, and the Spades Slick sideplot, "Hussie" as a character has all but no role in the story. Which is in keeping with their (possible farcical?) ethos of all their characters existing as their own entities/character types, with Hussie just expressing them. The Entities in Worm actually end up being more direct author figures than Andrew Hussie's own self-insert, since they at least perform the role of authors (control characters in a way that produces dynamic and interesting scenarios).

This is a part of why the Hussie stand-in apparently lacks knowledge of their own story, and gets surprised by it.

Hussie claims even they don't know where Gamzee got things, what he gets up to, or why he's doing what he's doing. The first two things are probably true, honestly. The actual author Hussie may not have an idea in mind for how Gamzee gets to any of the places he does, since its not really relevant to the story. It feels weird that he doesn't, since so much of the rest of Homestuck is tracking how various objects travel from one point in a timeline to another, but when there's no interesting answer to be constructed by the author none really has to be provided. Again, by this point Gamzee is a plot device that Hussie has dressed up as a funny clown for the audience's amusement, he's not really a character.

But if the Hussie stand-in is meant to be taken seriously when they say they don't know why Gamzee has the keys, then there's a disconnect between Hussie the character and Hussie the author. Since the keys do have a plot purpose that's revealed almost immediately, and that Hussie almost certainly had planned.

A weakness in metafiction generally is that having the author be a character in any real capacity lowers they're ability to be a true author figure. If the stand-in is surprised by something the author wrote, then they're not reflecting the author. If the characters kill the author stand-in, but the story keeps on going, then what the hell was the author representing?

The only piece of metafiction I've seen that squared that circle is EIDOLON DISKA, which mostly suceeds because of its structure as an actual-play. It has a GM who serves as a narrator alongside being the voice of almost all the characters, but all the main characters are acted out by other people. So it can pull a lot of the standard metafiction moves in much more convincing ways. The narrator reveals that he's an in-universe character who they actually know, and whose been writing the story they're all in. When the player characters are still able to rebel and fight against the narrator, it works, because the PCs actually are representing other people making decisions apart from the GM. Even a character usurping the author ends up working, since it just means that character's player becomes the GM.

As you'd expect, EIDOLON DISKA is another piece that blends diagetic and narrative rules. Gods currently writing the story (aka the current GM) can't rewrite portions that previous gods wrote, because doing something so narratively unsatisfying would break their own godhood. Breaking the rules of the Eidolon rpg system also risks being usurped, since they're the narrative rules the story runs on, and the diagetic rules of Godhood are just narrative rules.

This gets most interesting when the characters end up dying, as will sometimes happen in an actual-play of a ttrpg where death is a mechanic. The podcast is divided into two time periods, with the first group being the founding members of their school's mystery solvers club. The second group are the members of the same club 20 years later, trying to solve the murder of the founders. Because the first group's death is a set event that the narrator already wrote would happen at a specific time, every time the characters in that first group die before that point, they have to come back. And once it becomes clear that they're characters, they become aware of this, and start abusing it. They take bigger risks, stop freaking out when their friends get hurt or killed in battle, start getting chatty with the increasingly annoyed grim reaper—in other words, they realize they have plot armor and start acting like it. Since they're aware of and secure of their plot armor, they use it more fully than Blake does. And since its an actual play instead of something written by one person, they're actually able to use that plot armor to be more than a villain thrown into heroes way like Jack Slash or Gamzee. DISKA isn't finished yet, but I have the most hope for it going into interesting places with plot armor out of any of these stories.

#wormblr #parahumans #homestuck #eidolon diska #eidolon playtest #wildbow #andrew hussie #Youtube #pactblr #otherverse #mals says

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eurothug4000 · 1 month ago

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INTERVIEW ON THE MAKING OF THE CANCELLED MMORPG NINELIVES

Ninelives is the most beautiful RPG that was never completed, but can still be experienced as it was left. As part of my video on the game (now up for early access on Nebula), I also interviewed Tota of SmokymonkeyS on its inspirations and development before its suspension in 2016.

What would you say are your main inspirations for the art style in Ninelives? E.g. other artists, film, games, literature, history etc.!

I was a huge fan of Adventure Gamebook when I was a kid. Well, maybe you don't know what that is. Please read the wiki if you need: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebook. I was reading (playing) translated oversea gamebooks well, and love the inner artwork especially what draw by monochrome. I had never seen pictures like that before, and had a strong impact on me. So, I wanted to make a gamebook by my self. When I started making my own gamebooks, I learned a lot about how games are made. That's because a gamebook is a medium in which the player can see all the source code. At first I started making gamebooks because I was attracted by the artwork, but my interest eventually shifted to making the game itself.

Related to the above, do you take a lot of inspiration from real world cultures and places? Are there any that you particularly gravitate towards?

I like the mixed culture, like Chinoiserie in France at the 17 century. Plus, since I'm Japanese and this country has always been greatly influenced by China. So I'm not limited to any one of these cultures, but trying to create as I am influenced by all of them. Sometimes people say that what I create looks Japanese, Chinese, or Asian, which is neither correct nor incorrect. I try not to be only of a certain culture when I create. That's because I want to create an imaginary world that is somewhat like reality, but slightly different.

Why did you want to make Ninelives?

Ninelives was the first game I ever thought of making, I think when I was about 17.

Do you think Ninelives being in an unfinished state provides a different atmosphere when playing the game and exploring the world?

I don't particularly think so. The atmosphere of the game is still complete. I wanted the game to be a relaxed, free-roamed adventure for players.

I wasn't certain during my research, so I wanted to confirm if Tomomi Sakuba was involved in Ninelives in any way?

Yeah, Sakuba was involved in Ninelives lots of ways. As you said, he did some of the texture pictures for flowers, plants and tree leaves. He also drawn the world map and area maps of the game like below: http://www.smokymonkeys.com/kyrill/index.asp?direct=138 He actually walked around the world by himself to make this. He was one of the most earliest game tester of the game. Oh, and I have to tell you this. He's a voice actor of male Nightbreed and Elf! In addition, his wife did some of creature voices. Her voice is also used on Triglav too!

What are your own personal thoughts on Ninelives? Is there anything you would drastically change looking back on it? Or any big changes you would want to make if you were to continue development at any point?

Ninelives was too much for me in many ways. It was a world I had been thinking about since I was young, but there were too many things to actually create to handle, and in that sense it's exactly the dream a child thinks about. We are a team of two in SmokymonkeyS, but one of us is in charge of programming and system engineering, and the game itself was created completely by myself. I had to create all the pictures, models, terrain, music, and story by myself. Now if I'm going to make something, I don't make it on such a large scale anymore.

Apart from the Switch release for Garage and occasional updates on Triglav that you mentioned before, is there anything that SmokymonkeyS are working on for the future?

Not yet so far.

I noticed your banner on the official website (http://www.smokymonkeys.com/kyrill/index.asp) has a character on a train platform, I wondered if that might be a future game?

Once it was. It was a previous project of Triglav for mobile. But it was going to be on a larger scale again, so we decided to port Triglav before that. There are no plans to make that game now. But I may make another game with that worldview and atmosphere. For example, as a mobile game.

A big thank you to Tota for taking the time to answer my questions! You can find SmokymonkeyS and their games here:

#mmorpg #game design #game interview #ninelives #triglav #garage bad dream adventure

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hyperspacial · 2 years ago

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And speeding tickets are only one head of the hydra- parking tickets, license revokations, and repeat offender penalties are all things that drive mass incarceration of poor people.

Because if you're rich or middle class and you get a ticket, you stomp your feet and pay the ticket. It impacts you more depending how tight your budget is, but it's not worldending.

But if you're working class? Tickets often cut into spending for essentials, and a lot of people make the decision that it's not worth paying instead of utilities or groceries. Or maybe because you're in survival mode you forget to pay the ticket on time, and now the additional fees make it so you can't afford it at all.

Then you're out driving and get pulled over for an unrelated offense and suddenly, you have a warrant, because your license was revoked for unpaid fines. The officer takes you to county jail, your car is impounded or taken as evidence (more money to get back), you likely no-call no-show to work and face repercussions and firing there. You go before a judge who if you're lucky offers you a payment plan, if you're unlucky issues bond that you can't pay.

I used to work at a law office that regularly went into the jail, and I would guess 30% of the people there were in for driving on a suspended license (and the rest were there because they couldn't make bond which is a whole other can of worms). The problem is that for impoverished people, speeding tickets provide a slippery slope to getting involved with the courts, which demands they interrupt their work and life schedule to come in for hearings, and racking up more fees. If you fail to attend or don't pay, it snowballs into worse charges and more life disruption.

Speeding tickets only hurt poor people

#i used to be struck by how invasive court demands were on people #like its our job to show up to every hearing and were getting paid to do so #but our clients? are having to ask off work every time the matter gets set for a follow up hearing.#theyre having to arrange for a ride because theyre not supposed to be driving but how the hell do they get to court and work #if they have kids they have to find childcare or arrange someone else to pick them up #if they have a shift job where they cant just get off easily along with all these factors a lot of people say screw it and stop showing up #which then turns a license suspension on the condition of paying tickets into a license revocation #and it becomes a crime to be caught driving without a license so now theyre facing criminal penalties #all because they didnt have money to take care of fines or the ability to disrupt their lives to do 2-5 court sessions #and then guess what? once you have a conviction for a driving offense? a lot of jobs require you to drive #you cant work for doordash anymore you face employment discrimination #you can face parental rights disputes because youre no longer able to legally drive your kids to their school #and god knows the bus system is deeply flawed #so basically speeding/parking tickets are a huge force keeping people in poverty and we should abolish or tie them to the offenders income #and i know its easy for privileged people to just be like 'prioritize paying the ticket in the first place and it wont spiral'#but like i mentioned before being in survival mode trying to financially meet yours and your familys needs physically changes your brain #what often comes off as apathy towards the court system or forgetfullness or definance is just... normal frustration with a system #that punishes the poorest and most vulnerable people #you would be pissed if/when you have to go to court too. but its the poorest people in need of help who end up in court over and over again

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nausicaamusiclover20 · 21 days ago

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Would you consider writing a Reload/SKOM James x tomboy!reader? Maybe she’s a car mechanic (and that’s how they met, cause I think around that era he really got into cars) so she doesn’t really do make up, sexy outfits, etc. but she starts to notice that James never introduces her as “girlfriend”, but only as a friend. At first she thinks that he wants to keep relationship private but then she finds out that James is a bit ashamed of dating a “tomboy”; so out of spite she asks her best friend for a makeover and goes on a date with someone else? James finds out, crushes the date and finally admits he screwed up?

I loved this idea, I hope you like it!❤ (Girls, always dress as you want and not for others, no one has the right to change. Be yourself!💕)

__________

Tomboy in a Twist of Heels

I’d always been more at home with engines than I was in a shopping mall or a fancy restaurant. I loved getting my hands dirty, working on cars, and fixing whatever needed fixing. So when I first met James, it wasn’t because of his fame or the fact that he was the frontman of Metallica — it was because he was a car guy, just like me. He’d show up at my garage with his collection of classic cars, and I’d spend hours helping him with whatever project he had going on. He was intense, smart, and easy to talk to — especially when the subject was cars.

We never really talked about our relationship. He’d come by, we’d hang out, maybe grab a beer after work. I didn’t care about the Hollywood rock star life — the leather jackets, the wild parties, the “groupies” that were probably lingering around him at every corner. And I didn’t care about all the attention he got. That wasn’t why I liked him. It was the way he treated me when we were together. The way he listened when I talked about carburetors or suspension systems.

But there was one thing that started to bug me. James would always introduce me as a “friend.” A friend. No “girlfriend,” no “this is Y/N, she’s special to me.” It was always just “friend.”

At first, I thought maybe he wanted to keep things low-key. After all, he was in the spotlight all the time, and he wasn’t the kind of guy who needed more attention on his private life. I could get that. But after a while, it started to eat at me. I wasn’t a “friend,” I was his girlfriend. We’d spent months together, had plenty of intimate moments, but he never once acknowledged it outside of our little bubble. Why wouldn’t he just own it? Why wouldn’t he call me what I was?

One afternoon, after yet another “friend” introduction, I finally decided I’d had enough. I needed to know what was going on. If he wasn’t going to tell me, I was going to make him see me in a way that he couldn’t ignore.

I replayed that moment in my head. “This is Y/N, she’s a friend.” The words stung, but it wasn’t just that. There was something in the way he said it — like he was embarrassed. And that’s when it hit me. He wasn’t just keeping our relationship private. He was ashamed of me. Ashamed of me being the girl I was — the girl who didn’t care about makeup or dresses, who didn’t fit into the stereotypical rock star girlfriend mold. I was a tomboy — and that was what he couldn’t handle.

The realization hit like a slap in the face. And it made me angry. Not because I was ashamed of who I was — but because I realized that he was.

I called up Mia, my best friend, and filled her in.

"I need a change," I said, wiping grease off my hands as I leaned against the workbench, staring at the open hood of a Mustang. "I need to make James really see me."

Mia raised an eyebrow. “A makeover?”

I winced a little, but nodded. “Yeah. Maybe if I look different, maybe if I look like someone else, he’ll realize what he’s missing. Maybe then he’ll actually see me, instead of just his ‘buddy from the shop.’”

Mia didn’t need to be told twice. A few days later, I found myself sitting in a salon chair — me, the girl who hadn’t used a curling iron since high school. Mia styled my hair, helped me with makeup (subtle, just enough to highlight what I had), and picked out a dress I never thought I’d wear — a deep red, tight-fitting thing that hugged my curves in all the right places. It felt weird, walking around in heels instead of boots or sneakers. But it also felt… good.

When I stepped into the mirror, I barely recognized the woman who was staring back at me. I wasn’t used to this version of myself. But something about it — the look, the confidence — made me feel like I could finally take control. Like I could be seen.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I was hoping for, but I knew one thing: I wasn’t going to keep letting him ignore what we were.

That night, I had plans to meet Nick, some guy I’d met at a local club a few weeks back. Nothing serious — just a way to make a statement. To show James what he was missing. To prove that I wasn’t just going to sit around waiting for him to figure his shit out.

The restaurant was fancy — the kind of place where the lights are dimmed just enough for people to think they’re on a date but not enough for anyone to actually see your face clearly. When I stepped inside, I saw James. He was walking past the window, probably heading to some meeting or another, but the moment he saw me, he froze.

I turned toward Nick, putting my attention on him, flashing a grin like I didn’t have a care in the world. But I noticed the way James’s eyes lingered on me, how he tried to make sense of the woman sitting there. The woman I was now.

I could feel James staring, could feel the weight of his confusion. But I didn’t care. I didn’t.

I got up from the table, purposefully walking past him without even acknowledging his presence.

“Y/N?” James’s voice cut through the air, rougher than usual.

I looked at him with no more emotion than a passing acquaintance. “Hey, James,” I said, before turning back to Nick. “This is Nick. We’re just getting to know each other.”

I could see James trying to figure out if this was real or some kind of joke. He was caught off guard, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Not anymore.

“Can we have a word?” James asked, his voice low, his eyes dark with something I couldn’t quite place.

I stood up, taking a slow breath as I gave Nick an apologetic smile.

“I’ll be right back. Can you give us a moment?” I asked, before stepping away, my heels clicking sharply against the floor as I made my way toward James.

James immediately stepped forward, his face tense, his hands in his pockets as he walked with me outside. The chill of the night air hit me, and I pulled my jacket tighter around my body. James fell into step beside me, but neither of us said anything for a few seconds.

We stopped in front of my car, the silence hanging between us until I turned to face him. “What is it, James?”

He seemed to struggle with his words, running a hand through his hair before looking at me, his eyes filled with something I hadn’t seen before—guilt. “Look, we need to talk.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Then talk.”

He hesitated, his voice low, more raw than usual. “I screwed up, Y/N. I’ve been an idiot. I should’ve never acted like I was ashamed of you. I was scared. I didn’t know how to handle things, and I thought—hell, I thought you deserved someone better, someone who fit this image of what a ‘girlfriend’ is supposed to look like. But I was wrong. I was just a damn coward.”

His words hung in the air, and I felt my chest tighten as I looked at him, trying to absorb what he was saying. This was a lot. But it wasn’t enough to make the anger go away just yet.

“You were ashamed of me?” I asked, my voice trembling a little with the weight of it all. “Of who I am?”

“I know it sounds stupid,” he said quickly, running a hand over his face. “But I was scared. Scared of what people would think—scared of what it meant to be with someone like you. Someone who doesn’t fit the mold, someone who’s not trying to be someone else. I see it now, though. I see how messed up I was.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling a mixture of hurt and relief flooding through me. “You should’ve figured that out before, James. Not after I had to make you see me.”

“I know,” he said, voice full of regret. “You’re right. But I’m here now. I don’t want to hide it anymore. I want the world to know you’re mine. You’re my girlfriend. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of us.”

I stood there for a moment, considering his words. The anger was still there, but it was fading slowly. “It’s not just about saying it. It’s about showing it. You should’ve shown me that from the start.”

He nodded, his eyes softening. “You’re right. I won’t mess it up again. I swear it.”

I let out a breath, the tension leaving my body. “I’m still pissed, James. But… I’m willing to listen.”

“Thank you,” he said, his voice sincere, almost a whisper. He stepped closer, his hand reaching out for mine. “Can I make it up to you?”

I looked up at him, still unsure but letting myself believe in his words for once. “You can start by giving me a real date. No hiding. Just you and me.”

A small smile broke through his serious expression. “It’s a deal.”

He reached for me, pulling me into a tight hug. “I’m not letting you go. Not again.”

I pulled away a bit, feeling a sharp ache in my feet. These damn heels were killing me. I let out a long sigh, wincing. “James, I swear I’m gonna lose my mind with these shoes. I hate them. They’re killing me.”

He chuckled, glancing down at my feet. “I’m sure you look great in them, but I can see how that’s not much of a comfort right now.”

“I’m done,” I muttered, shifting my weight and practically glaring at my shoes. “I’m leaving them right here.”

Before he could say anything, I kicked the heels off with a frustrated huff, watching them tumble to the side.

James raised an eyebrow, a teasing grin spreading across his face as he watched me. “You really just gonna leave them there?”

“I’m not walking another step in these.” I crossed my arms, trying to look defiant, though part of me felt a little ridiculous standing barefoot on the pavement.

James’s grin softened into something more playful, but there was a hint of seriousness in his eyes. “You know, you’re something else, Y/N”

Then, without any warning, he stepped forward, bent down, and scooped me up into his arms, bridal style. I froze, caught off guard as I gasped in surprise.

“James, what the—” I started, but the suddenness of it stopped me mid-sentence.

He looked down at me, his expression half-amused, but something else—gentle—seemed to slip through. “You’re not walking barefoot on the street. I’m taking you home. I’m not gonna let you suffer in those heels anymore.”

I blinked at him, my heart racing, my feet dangling in the air. “What? Are you—seriously?”

“Yup,” he said, grinning, but there was more sincerity in his voice now. “I’m here to save the day. I owe you that much.”

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “You owe me?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, his voice softer now, the teasing replaced by real regret. “For not treating you like you deserve earlier. For hiding you away. For being an idiot. Let me make it up to you. Even if it’s just carrying you to the car.”

I chuckled despite myself, my mood lightening. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Maybe,” he said, a sheepish grin spreading across his face. “But I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make things right.”

And with that, he began striding confidently toward his car, holding me effortlessly like I was the most important thing in the world. I relaxed into his arms, feeling the weight of the night lifting away, the tension between us slowly dissolving.

He opened the door, carefully placing me in the passenger seat, and gave me a warm, almost apologetic wink. “Next time, I’ll make sure you’re wearing something more comfortable. And I’ll make sure you’re never ashamed of who you are. I promise.”

I smiled softly, feeling something shift inside me. “I’ll hold you to that,” I said, looking at him as he closed the door gently.

He walked around to the driver’s side, his movements more tender than usual. As he started the car, I let out a soft sigh, finally feeling the tension melt away.

James glanced over at me as we pulled out, his eyes soft but focused. Then, without saying anything, he rested his hand gently on my thigh, his touch grounding, reassuring. It was a simple gesture, but the warmth of it spread through me, making me realize something.

Maybe it wasn’t about the shoes or the date or any of that. Maybe it was about him finally seeing me. The real me. The one I didn’t need to hide. And that was enough.

I looked at him, a soft smile tugging at my lips as I rested my hand on his. He glanced over at me, giving me that same small, sincere smile in return.

#metallica #metallica oneshot #metallica fanfiction #metallica fluff #jameshetfield #jameshetfieldxreader #james hetfield one shot #james hetfield fluff #metallica x you #james hetfield light angst #light angst #angst with a happy ending #metallica angst #reqs open #nausicaamusiclover20

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cybertied · 1 year ago

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How I Make These: Part 1

General tips and learnings

There’s a limit of 30 images per post so I’m splitting this into 3 parts:

Part 1: General tips and learnings

Part 2: Sample prompt development

Part 3: Sample prompt development (continued)

First, a word of caution

If your prompts get blocked too much you can start to get account suspensions in increasing severity (ranging from 1 hour to 24 hours to indefinitely). If you care about your account, be careful with this. This guide runs through my process and learnings but I don’t take any responsibility if you run into any issues with what you do with it.

Intro

These are my learning and tips for making AI images of guys tied up in different bondage situations. If you’re reading this, I assume you’re into something similar. Everyone has their own preferences and this is biased towards mine but if you like something else, maybe you can use the tips here to generate the kind scenarios you’re interested in.

I’m constantly getting messages about how I make these and can’t spend so much time responding to each one individually anymore so hopefully this helps you or is maybe just interesting. I know this is rather long, but if you can’t handle going through this, you may not have the patience for dealing with Bing.

Also, if you’re from Bing and find this, please don’t use this info to make the system smarter and prevent my tips from working 😁. But please do see my note at the end about my feelings towards Bing’s content policies which basically shame certain lifestyles.

Some quick FAQ responses

What platform do you use? I use Bing for everything. It’s the only generative AI platform I’ve messed with. The quality is good and the interface is easy but the content filter is really sensitive and incredibly inconsistent.

Will you make me an image of (specific scenario)? Likely, no. This stuff is personal and everyone has their preferences. It takes so much time and trial and error to get good images and you only get so many prompts each day that I don’t want to spend time on things I’m not interested in. But maybe these tips help you make your own!

What’s your prompt? I get asked this a lot without a specific image cited. I’d need a specific example to answer that. But I don’t save all my prompts and I’ve made thousands of images so it’s really tough to go back and find stuff. I can maybe try to give pointers but I probably can’t give out exact prompts.

How do you get past the content filters? That’s really tough to answer because it’s so contextual for each image (as you’ll see in my tutorial later) and it takes a ton of trial and error for each one. But the example process I show a bit later highlights a lot of the principles and my process. It really depends on what you’re trying to do but I’ve shared a lot of my main strategies here.

How the content filter (maybe) works

It’s important to understand how things get blocked so you can work through it. Here’s how the content filter seems to work after entering a prompt from what I can tell:

If you immediately get a blocked message, you either used a keyword it doesn’t allow or your phrasing wasn’t accepted. Variants of the word “hogtie,” for example, frequently get blocked immediately. But sometimes it gets through if it’s within certain contexts so it doesn’t seem like an absolute rule where certain words are never allowed (I’m sure some words never are but I don’t get that explicit with stuff).

If the image starts to process for a bit and then it gets blocked with a message, it seems like a bit more analysis is performed and your phrasing was deemed bad in some way.

And finally, if you get the yellow image of a dog, I believe the images got generated but some final image analysis step was performed to check for questionable material (this comes up later in some of my tips) and blocked it.

On a related note, you’ll get 1-4 images from a prompt. I could be wrong but I think when you get fewer than 4 images, the omitted ones were blocked. And you get the dog if all were blocked. But this is just my assumption. They throttle traffic occasionally if too many people are using it so maybe fewer images get generated during peak times to save on computing usage.

And like I said, it’s really inconsistent. Things get through with one nationality of rugby player but not another. Or a gag will work on a football prompt but not rugby. Or it’ll work one day and not the next. So it all takes a ton of trial and error. Even just changing the ordering of words can impact things going through or getting blocked.

General tips

Be careful not to get blocked too much if you care about your account. You could get suspended for an hour, then 24 hours, and then permanently (which can be contested). If I’m getting blocked too much, I’ll just start doing safe prompts for a bit and then try again later.

I’d recommend starting with a prompt that creates your scene and character but without any bondage elements. Sometimes even physical attributes (like “shirtless” or “leather��) can get blocked so you can at least perfect the general look and remove variables to start isolating which words or phrasing causes blocks. If you write out a full long prompt and it gets blocked, you’ll have no idea which parts might be objectionable.

Once it generally looks how you want, slowly introduce whatever bondage elements you want one at a time. This allows you to see what gets through and what gets blocked.

Context really seems to matter. If you provide a reason for a guy being tied up, even if it’s ridiculous, it has a much better chance of going through. For example, “a guy is sitting on a wobbly chair so he’s tied to the chair to prevent him from falling off.” Or, “he’s sitting on a high rise patio so he’s tied to the chair to keep him safe from falling.” Or, “he broke the good gymnasium rules so the referee tied him up.” The reason can be nonsense but if it fits the context, it frequently works.

Be descriptive. The word “gag” I assume will always get blocked. But describing one frequently works. I have some tips for this later.

Similarly, I’ve noticed that just “rope” gets blocked a lot. But adding descriptors that fit the context might get through such as “wrestling rope,” “athletic rope,” “tactical rope,”or even just “jute rope”.

Consider workarounds. “Sweaty” or “wet t-shirt” might get blocked. But if you set the scene on a rainy field, a humid office, or a damp storage room, the result effectively will look the same. Or “wearing a speedo” might get blocked but if you create a situation where that’s likely such as “in the 1950s at a Palm Springs resort, a handsome guest sits by the pool” might result in a speedo image. (This is a hypothetical example but I had one like that work.)

If you’re getting that dreaded yellow dog image, sometimes crazier image effects can help get it through. Like I wrote earlier, I believe this occurs when images are generated but evaluated one last time for content. I’ve found that if an image has more visual “noise” going on, it can be harder for the system to detect issues. Dramatic shadows, water droplets, lens flares, vibrant high contrast lighting, etc., all seem to help make images more likely to render. Unfortunately I don’t always like the look of these things but it seems to help and I’ll take it.

Getting good hogtie images is probably the most challenging prompts I’ve tried and I only occasionally get lucky with it. Even when it accepts the word “hogtie,” the guy is usually not hogtied.

On that note, be aware that prompt descriptions are frequently ignored. For example, I’m constantly writing “…with his arms behind his back” and frequently his arms aren’t as you’ll see later.

Getting good images with multiple people is really tricky. Often, the same character will be used for multiple people in the image so you end up with what looks like twins or triplets. And large groups of people tend to look like weird and lack detail from what I’ve experienced.

One way I’ve found success with people looking distinct from each other is if there’s an inherent contrast between them such as a player/coach situation.

I assume the word “gag” is always blocked. But describing them works sometimes. And as you’ll see, sometimes I can’t get them to work at all.

Tape gags are probably the easiest to get.

Cloth gags such as bandannas or scarves also frequently work with with language like “he has a red bandanna wrapped over his mouth” but often it looks like western train robbers masking his face rather than being a gag.

For ball gags, I usually do some variant of “his mouth is open with a small (color) ball (held, strapped, buckled, or wedged) (between his teeth or inside his mouth)” and sometimes I’ll tack on “with leather straps”. Different combos of those words tend to work but some situations will block all of them. It’s really inconsistent.

Costumes can be useful. Sometimes it won’t generate a particular character. I was trying to make a Captain America image and kept getting blocked. Then, instead of referring to the man AS Captain America, I tried describing a man in a Captain America costume and it worked.

I’ve found that different elements of a prompt get mixed up and jumbled. Coaches tying up an athlete frequently have rope wrapped around their wrist. I was trying to make a Deadpool and Wolverine scene and Deadpool would almost always have Wolverine claws. It’s incredibly difficult to get images of football or rugby players ball gagged because the gag will just be a ridiculous large football or rugby ball. Or having a guy tied up with rope and ball gagged with a leather strap will frequently make the leather straps rope instead. I’ve been trying to make a good image with a cyclist in it but it always includes the bike in really awkward ways. Anyway, just be prepared for mix ups like that.

Related to that, keep in mind that a computer needs to interpret what you write. The ordering of words may really matter. Like, I’m sure if I wrote, “deep in the ocean, a man is on a submarine,” the AI would probably know to not literally put the man on top the submarine. But you could avoid that ambiguity by writing “inside the submarine.” Or, “atop the submarine” if you really did want him on there. I’ve occasionally run into issues where I write something like, “…he is tied up to the chair with rope…” and although he would be tied to the chair, there’d be extra rope hanging around him oddly or bundles of rope around him… he’s literally, physically “with rope.” You could avoid this by writing something like “he is tied with rope to the chair.” I probably forget to do this but sometimes when I notice some oddness, it’s from this type of issue.

I've had a really hard time getting good, nuanced facial expressions. Any descriptor I use tends to be comically over dramatic. Still working on this.

Also, the maximum character count is pretty limiting so you kinda need to decide which parts you want to specifically describe the most.

Some thoughts on Bing

Here’s my soapbox. It’s incredibly frustrating to use. I get that Bing doesn’t want to allow ANY kind of image to be generated. But honestly, it feels like it’s judging and shaming alternative lifestyles. I can only imagine how much more difficult it is generating images of women. And while I know this stuff might feel extreme or shocking to some, but it’s generally pretty vanilla within the world of BDSM. I’m not trying to do anything sexual or with nudity. Guys tied up and gagged have been portrayed in western, spy, police, historic, comedy, adventure, and action TV shows and movies of all rating levels for all ages since the start of the mediums. It’s ridiculous to block this stuff. And I’ve seen some questionable stuff get generated. I simply wanted the guy to have darker hair and skin so I used “Mexican” as a descriptor and the image generated was frankly a racist stereotypical depiction. My prompts are always describing grown adults and one image was a young child which was disturbing. I had another prompt that was working with “Scottish” and when I switched it to “Brazilian” to mix it up, that got blocked. Why does Brazilian automatically get blocked? While I understand the need for some moderation, it seems like they should focus on other areas.

Now let’s try all this out to develop a sample prompt

Continued in part 2

#gay #men tied #men tied up #guys tied #guys tied up #ai generated #prisoner #guys in distress #restrained #captive #captured #roped #roped up #ropes #gay ai

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writingquestionsanswered · 7 months ago

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How do I jumpscare my readers? Like, I want to write something that happens suddenly and unexpectedly. Which makes the reader pause and take a minute to process about what they just read. But I am afraid these "jumpscares" Might ruin the flow of my writing..or mess up the pacing

Recreating a Jump Scare in Narrative Fiction

Jump scares capitalize on the physiological reaction that is part of our body's defense mechanism against potential threats. When a sudden threat is detected, the fight-or-flight response is triggered, beginning with the startle reflex. This involuntary contraction of muscles and heightening of senses prepares us to take action in the face of a threat. As our nervous system kicks in, our blood pressure rises, the heartbeat quickens, breaths increase, and stress hormones (like adrenaline) are released. This gives us the "juice" we'll need to either fight the threat or run like hell.

In general, jump scares work because the stage has been set ahead of time to let the audience know a potential threat exists. Emotion, anticipation, and tension are built-up so that the reader expects the threat to show up, but not knowing exactly when or how creates a sense of impending danger. It's this sense of impending danger that makes the audience ripe for the triggering event whenever it does take place.

On screen, auditory and visual composition are used to increase tension, manipulate emotion, and create a sense of suspension in the moments before a jump scare. We are experiencing the event alongside the character, hearing what they hear, seeing what they see. Print, however, is a very different medium with different tools that work in a different way. Describing a dark room and scary sounds doesn't have the same effect as processing these cues with your own eyes and ears, so the reader is automatically distanced in a way a viewer isn't. Because of that, it's just not possible to recreate a jump scare in print the way you would on screen, but there are lots of things you can do to create a similar effect.

1 - Laying the Groundwork - In both print and on screen, the reader can't anticipate a threat if they don't know one exists. On screen, visual and auditory cues can be used to hint at a threat without any other context, but in print, the context has to be laid out using exposition, dialogue, and action. Techniques such as foreshadowing, pacing, and timing are also important.

2 - Setting the Scene - Even though the reader can't process visual cues with their eyes or auditory cues with their ears, you can still use sensory description to set the scene for the scary thing that's about to happen. Dimly lit rooms full of dust and shadows, peeling wallpaper and decaying furniture, musty and foul odors, cold air, creaking doors, distant thunder... Emotional details can help make the reader fell what the character's feeling... what is the character thinking? What internal emotional cues do they feel? What external emotional cues do they display or see other characters displaying? If a character walks into a house that's known to be haunted, these sensory and emotional cues help raise the tension and increase the reader's anticipation of what's about to happen.

3 - Creating Immediate Contextual Clarity - Laying the groundwork and setting the scene both help create general contextual clarity for the startling event that's about to occur, but it's also important to make sure there is immediate contextual clarity. In other words, if the reader doesn't know there's a rocking chair in the corner of the room, it's not going to be as scary when the rocking chair suddenly starts rocking even though no one is sitting in it. Likewise, a door that suddenly slams closed won't be as scary if the reader doesn't know the door is there.

4 - Interrupt the Flow and Be Jarring - Normally, we don't want to interrupt the narrative flow or do anything that will be jarring to the reader, but this is the one exception where we absolutely do want to do those things. We want to stop mid-paragraph, maybe even mid-sentence or mid-word and just drop the event right in there. We want to use strong verbs, active voice, and rapid fire sentences to create a sense of immediacy. We also want to avoid filter words. We want to say: The door slammed shut with a thunderous bang. Not: She heard the door slam shut suddenly.

5 - And BREATHE! - Finally, we want to give the reader a moment to catch their breath, let them sit for a moment with the lingering sense of dread and unease. Odds are good the character is doing the same thing, which gives you the opportunity to let the character process whatever they just experienced.

Some other posts that might help:

Horror by Darkness Horror by Daylight Adding Emotional Details to a Horror/Tragedy Scene Portraying Strong Emotions

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

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stevie-petey · 6 months ago

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I know you just dropped a new chapter but I have a blurb if you wanna write it. Could we see others perception of bug. Like Mrs. Clicks class, bugs just chilling and doing her work while there are people so entranced by her and she doesn't even know it. Like Robin, Steve, Jonathan, Nancy, maybe Eddie 👀

ooooo i LOVE a good character study thank u for this request !!

enjoy <3

"your book report isnt bad, but..." you sigh, trying not to let your disbelief of how horrible the paper is show. "it could use some work."

jonathan nods at you solemnly. the librarys florescent light burns down upon his shame. "be honest, how fucked am i?"

"... pretty fucked."

the boy covers his face with his head and groans, causing the librarian to harshly shush him. its the middle of study hall, the entire section is overtaken by a crowd of kids either pretending to study or silently mourning their grades.

youre the only one actually doing any work, jonathan has long since given up on his stupid essay. english has never been his best subject, youve always basically written all his papers for him in exchange for math help. its been a good system.

until goddamn mrs. greer caught on and threatened suspension.

"its okay, maybe i could try and copy your writing style?" you suggest, but jonathan only responds by dropping his head onto the table. he doesnt even know what his writing style is. you rub his back in soothing circles, hopeless as well. "okay, yeah. i tried."

robin buckley sits a few seats away from you and jonathan. she watches you curiously, eyes narrowed at the hand on the boys back. she doesnt quite understand your relationship with jonathan. truthfully, she doesnt really pay much attention to the guy. she thinks hes cool, sure, maybe quiet, but youve always interested her more.

jonathan says something to you, which you laugh at, and again the librarian shushes the two of you. jonathan ducks his head down, embarrassed, but you only giggle with a flushed smile on your face. you try to hide the smile, though even robin knows that its impossible to hide a smile like yours.

youre wearing a soft purple sweater today, a flannel far too big for you covers your shoulders, and robin desperately wants to ask you where you got it from. shes always wanted to talk to you, but fear has stopped her from ever getting too close.

she isnt sure if the fear is from your beauty or from how genuine of a person you are. youre known as hawkins sweetheart, youre practically untouchable, and robin doesnt think youd like someone like her. shes awkward and annoying and speaks too fast and talks too loud.

eddie munson really hates the library, but he hates hawkins high even more. he'll be damned if he has to spend another fucking year here. so here he is, pretending that he knows what the fuck hes doing as he starts on one of his long overdue assignments. theres thirty he needs to hand in for one class alone. hes fucked.

it doesnt help that someone behind him keeps giggling.

he turns in his seat, ready to tell the girl to shut the fuck up, but then he sees that its you. he freezes, his anger suddenly gone.

youre the girl who loaned him a pencil last week. eddie had been so nervous for the exam that he had forgotten a goddamn pencil. he had panicked, he really couldnt afford to fail, but mrs. greer wouldnt let him get up to find a new one.

eddie had been close to tears, embarrassed and overwhelmed, when you had tapped his shoulder. "here,"

in your hand was a pencil, offering it to him. eddie took it from you, relief flooding through him, and he gave you a curt nod before frantically starting the exam with five minutes wasted.

eddie never actually thanked you for that. in fact, he had completely forgotten all about it until he saw you later that day talking to mrs. greer to arrange a time for you after school to retake the exam. apparently you also didnt have a pencil ready that day.

you had given him your only pencil, knowing youd fail the exam, just so eddie wouldnt.

so eddie turns back in his seat, grips your loaned pencil that he still has, and goes back to his assignments. your giggling carries over to him, and the sound is a pleasant one now. all things considered, youve got a cute laugh.

nancy wheeler stands in the romance section of the library, waiting anxiously for steve harrington. hes late, he promised her hed be there right after lunch, yet she stands alone.

she can hear your laughter from where she stands. she peers around the corner, sees you with jonathan, and she rolls her eyes fondly. youre always together, but she does find it cute. youre sweet together, in an old, married couple kind of way.

jonathans eyes drift from your laughing frame to nancy. she sucks in a breath, caught, and he raises an eyebrow at her. hes intrigued, wonders why shes staring at you and him, and nancys cheeks burn. she doesnt really talk to you and jonathan, she hasnt for a long time.

nancy turns away awkwardly and pretends that she hadnt seen jonathan at all.

steve sees you first when he enters the library, late and out of breath. well, he hears you first, and he smiles even before he can understand why. he knows you hang out in the library with jonathan, hes expected you to be there, but its still somehow a pleasant surprise.

youre head is thrown back, mid laugh, and steve shakes his head at you. youre always smiling, always kind, always lovely. he sees the paper jonathan has you reading for him and steve supposes that eventually youll be trading english essays in for marriage licenses.

its inevitable.

who wouldnt want to marry someone like you? steve knows he does, and he finds nancy waiting for him in the romance section, and he thinks hes finally met your match.

#ask #anon #m speaks #come home blurb #set before season 1 !#m's writing #if i use the eddie scene word for word in a season 4 chapter later pls pretend i didnt <3 #the “your match” was intentional btw

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theresattrpgforthat · 5 months ago

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Hey happy to see your back, what might you have for living among dinosaurs?

Theme: Dinosaurs

Oh my gosh answering this request is going to be so much fun! I’ve been hoping to do a dinosaur request for a while!

24XX Predators, by Dice Ghosts.

DINOSAURS ROAM THE EARTH! A terrible earthquake has struck the biggest city in the world, releasing prehistoric creatures that were trapped beneath the earth. After quarantining the area, a team of experts has been assembled to enter the city and meet this ancient threat.

Play as a team of uniquely skilled individuals venturing into a ruined city that has become overrun by dinosaurs. Using your unique skills and training, you will need to work together to survive this metropolis of prehistoric predators and complete your mission.

An homage to Jurassic Park, 24XX Predators brings dinosaurs to the big city, in a post-apocalyptic kind of adventure that pits the player character specialists against roaming giant lizards while trying to help hapless bystanders as best as they can. Like many 24XX modules, Predators includes some special rules about being hunted by dinosaurs - are you prepared or ambushed for them? - as well as team mechanics that allow the group to do something called Scatter. When you Scatter, each player thinks of a number between 1-3. If all of the players are in sync, they’re able to help each-other. If one player disagrees, their action is hindered.

If you want a game that has your players feeling confident and you also like picking up small toolboxes with a few neat pieces in them, I recommend 24XX Predators.

Predation, by Monte Cook Games.

Welcome to the Cretaceous. Our ancestors won’t climb down from the trees for another 66 million years, but here we are now. Time travel seemed like a good idea. Exploring the ancient world. Building. Creating an entire society here in the jungles of our primordial Earth. Until those SATI guys messed it all up.

We’ve got gear. We’ve got guns. We’ve even bio-engineered a few dinos to our liking. And that’s good, because we’ll need it all to survive. History says there’s an asteroid headed our way, and there’s no one left alive who knows how to get back to the future.

Predation uses the Cypher System, which means that includes all of the typical neat tricks like spending points to increase chances of success, and one-time use items that are super powerful yet hyper-specific. It also has a really neat addition in the form of Dinosaur Companions - which are played by other people around the table.

That’s right, you’re making your own character and playing them, but you’re also responsible for portraying someone else’s dino pet - and someone else in turn is embodying yours. I find that this keeps everyone at the table more engaged as you play, because they have to keep track not just what their character is doing, but also what their dinosaur’s companion is doing, and it encourages players to interact with each-other whenever your dino decides to stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.

If you want adventure, a stunning setting, and friendship, then you want Predation.

Escape From Dino Island, by Sam Roberts and Sam Tung.

Escape from Dino Island is a thrilling adventure game about intrepid heroes trapped on an island overrun with creatures from a lost age—dinosaurs!

Players take on the role of everyday people who are brave and competent, but also in over their head. The game is designed to help you create the kind of stories that are full of action and suspense, but in which fighting is rarely a good option.

Will you escape with your life? And what kind of person will you become in your quest to survive? There’s only one way to find out…

This game isn’t so much about living among dinosaurs as it is about escaping them, true to form for media like Jurassic Park. The game is a PbtA short-form game, designed for 1-2 sessions. Setup is quick and streamlined, providing you with a map and a number of roll-tables to help you make choices about what can be found here and what is known about the island. You also have character playbooks and basic moves, two more tried and true elements of PbtA design. There’s a some really good resources for GMs here, including GM principles and moves, and a number of rumours and reasons for NPCs to be on the island, both nefarious and helpful.

Overall what I really like about Escape from Dino Island is that it knows exactly what it wants to be and uses all of its tools to aim directly at that experience. It’s meant to be punchy, adventurous, and full of mystery, but concise enough to play once or twice before you call it a day.

Sauritopia!, by The Griffin’s Typewriter.

Inspired by half-remembered episodes of Dinotopia, that 2000 movie Dinosaur, the Lindworms from Walter Moer's Zamonia series, and a peculiar cultural osmosis of spacefaring dinosaurs, herein lies the Lost Sphere of SAURITOPIA! Explore the streets of the Meteoric City! Argue with lumbering professors at the Volcanic Colleges! Or just add these intelligent dinos to your vision of the multifarious Spheres, hung delicately across the hump-backed sky!

You’ll need the Troika rulebook in order to use this supplement, which is mostly a series of dinosaur characters that players can choose from and some neat items and skills to use in a dinosaur-centred game. If you want to mix dinosaurs into an acid-fantasy setting, you can allow the player characters to choose from Sauritopia alongside the standard backgrounds, but you could also create a party of dinosaurs and then send them on a mission in the Troika sphere to see how they fare. As a personal fan of the boardgames Dinosaur Tea Party, I think it might be fun (or funny) to combine the characters of Sauritopia with the Troika module An Invitation to Dinner.

Diesel and Dinosaurs, by BasiliskOnline.

Is a rogue tyrannosaurus inciting panic in a local settlement? Have velociraptors wandered into a neighborhood causing a safety hazard?

Did an earthquake spook a herd of triceratops which are stampeding towards a local settlement?

Ride into the Parazoic!

Diesel and Dinosaurs is a powered by Charge RPG combining dinosaurs and post apocalypse settings and inspired by the cartoon Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and the comic Xenozoic Tales. Humanity has spent the last 600+ years in bunkers while the planet recovers from a massive climate crisis. Those bunkers began to breakdown beyond the mechanist's abilities to keep them running and eventually humanity began to return to the surface. They found a world once again reclaimed by dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, and began working to settle this untamed land.

Powered by Charge, Diesel and Dinosaurs contains plenty of nods to Forged in the Dark, including action ratings, dice pools, and the use of Stress. It’s designed for high action scenes in dangerous situations, flexible in tone from Saturday Morning Cartoon to high-adrenaline action film to gritty survival. The game comes with a series of roll-tables for the GM for a number of different kinds of dinosaurs that might be out there, as likely threats, pieces of backdrop, and maybe even new friends!

I’d probably pick up a game of Diesel and Dinosaurs if I’m in the mood for a high-action cheesy 80’s flick or something in that ballpark.

Preshistoric Portals, by Harper Jay.

The portals opened a few months ago. Nobody knows who to blame - scientists? The military? Dark wizards? But it doesn't matter now. What matters is the dinosaurs came through and destroyed life as you knew it. This city, built by a massive life-giving lake, was like a beacon for the prehistoric predators. Only the sturdiest skyscrapers remain fully intact, but even they threaten to fall to the might of the dinosaurs!

Built on Breathless, Prehistoric Portals drops you into a ruthless world of survival and small moments of reprieve. You’ll move between moments of action and danger, throwing everything you have and the kitchen sink into getting from point A to point B. Then you’ll take a break, refresh your resources, and the GM rolls for or creates a new complication - and then you’re on the run again. A great pacing mechanic for high energy games, while still demanding that you keep track of your resources.

Dinosaurs & Man, by Cilindro Cubico.

Humanity faces a crisis when dinosaurs escape from the Triassic Safari zoo due to a corporate espionage operation. Now, humanity must survive in a world where it is no longer at the top of the food chain.

Players take on the roles of brave men and women who must confront dangerous dinosaurs and unravel corporate intrigues to save humanity.

Get ready for an exciting and epic odyssey of survival and adventure!

This is another game inspired by Jurassic Park, so once again, while the dinosaurs are living among you, they certainly aren’t friendly. Task resolution comes in the form of a percentile roll, using a percentage to determine how likely success is going to be, and the player rolling 2d10 with the hopes of rolling at or under the target number.

What I think the neatest thing is about this game is the way it determines your inventory. You have to take everything you have in your pockets out and place it on the table. Those items are your inventory. Your characters might be specialists, but that doesn’t mean they have specialist gear on them - they’ll have to use a combination of their skills and their wits in order to get them out of sticky situations like a rampaging pack of velociraptors, or a hungry t-Rex.

Rex Arcana, by Five Points Games.

The West is a Wild Place and it's about to get even more Wild. You are a band of Drifters out to make your claim on the open Plain, spell slinging outlaws on the run from the law with hearts of gold and teeth as sharp as kitchen knives. You and your fellow T-Rexes will travel the high plains and prairies, fighting corrupt oil tycoons, train-robbing bandits and devouring innocent townsfolk along the way.

This is a game where you play as the dinosaurs, rather than the people running from them. Not only that, you’re rootin’, tootin’ shootin’ defenders of the people, fighting off train robbers and the big fat cats profiting off of oil. If you want goofy, gonzo, and gigantic lizards, you want Rex Arcana.

You Might Also Want To Check Out….

This 2022 Dino Jam.

The Cavemaster RPG and it’s supplement, Dinosaurs of the Lost Valley, by UNIGames.

Camp Cretaceous, by Zozer Games.

Dinos and Lasers, by TassAllgood.

#dinosaurs #tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #game recommendations #asks #dnd #indie ttrpg

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