#I'm just really into enterprise resource planning

[kittygirltitty]

I'm so normal <- has spent a good portion of her day doing perverted t4t erp

[jazzthatonewriterchick]

Prove Your Worth to Me (Brat-tamer!CEO!Nanami x Bratty!Black!Fem!Reader 18+ One Shot)

“If you wish to leave, you can, but if you stay, you need to prove to me your worth. I’m not a man who gives things out so easily.” 

Pairing: Nanami Kento x Black!Fem!Reader

Synopsis: In which you apply for a sectorial job, but the interview process is a lot more intense than you bargained for. 

Warnings: Smutty Smut; 18+ (MINORS GTFO); Dom!Nanami; sub!Reader; Black-coded!Reader (but anyone can still read this); Dubcon; Coercion; Brat-taming; Mild BDSM; Bondage; Degradation & Praise; Semi-Clothed Sex; Deepthroating; Hair-Pulling; Spitting; Mutual Oral; Doggystyle Over the Desk; Nanami Talks on the Phone While He F*cks You; Edge Play; Namecalling; Unprotected Creampie; Facial; PLOT TWIST

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned in this fic. However, as this is my writing, I do not give permission for my work to be reposted on any other sites that are not from my own accounts. Thank you!

Writer’s Note: This is how I'm coping. Rest in peace, Kento. You were the best man & the best baby daddy ever. Imma come & help you build that house on the beach -Jazz

********

You sit in the waiting room in the pristine office, your fingers clutching your bag to stop your hands from shaking. 

You're so nervous. Job interviews always seem to do damage to your nerves and confidence, even though you’ve done them many, many times before. 

‘This is no different,’ you think to yourself, practicing the mantra you’ve had in your head for a week preparing for this interview. ‘It’s just an interview. He’s just a person. You are confident, intelligent, and a boss ass bitch, whether you get this job or not.’ 

But fuck, you hope you get it. It’s a really good position: a secretarial/assistant position for Kento Nanami, the CEO of Nanami Enterprises which specializes in human resources, charitable work, and citywide issues. Mr. Nanami is well-known throughout Japan as an entrepreneur and a very generous man, rich in intelligence and skills as well as money.

Seriously, the man is loaded. He is in every magazine, including Forbes, and has traveled all across the world closing business deals. 

He is also extremely handsome. You’ve seen his face many times in the media with his sharp jaw, intense eyes, and neatly-cut blonde hair. You’ve heard he is taller in person (and bigger at that). You’ve seen him at press conferences and dinner parties, photographed in his expensive suits or even coming off of a private jet in his sunglasses, a permanent, stoic expression on his face. You’ve wondered many times what he looks like out of his designer clothes as any woman would to an attractive man. 

But now that you’re about to meet him, all of this hits you much differently. Now that you’re sitting here in his pristine waiting room with its coffee machines and packaged snacks for clients and hearing the buzz of work activity–phones ringing; heels clicking across the floor, etc.–makes your heart scatter in your chest. Your palms sweat so frequently that you have to wipe them off on your pencil skirt every five minutes. You don’t know if you can handle any of this. 

And you hate feeling this way. You know how good you are with job interviews. Every one you’ve sat for after applying, you’ve received. You take pride in the way you’re perceived, especially when it comes to appearance. Though your interview is at 10am today, you woke up at damn near the ass crack of dawn and primped yourself. You ironed your outfit, choosing a cream-colored blouse that you tucked into your pencil skirt, nylon stockings, and heels. You curled your hair. You spritzed on sweet-smelling perfume. You even planned your makeup look several days beforehand which has been executed well. 

You look good…but you don't feel good. How are you possibly supposed to nail this interview if you can’t even stop your hands from shaking? “Stop it,” you hiss to yourself, glad that you’re the only one in the waiting room. “You will get this job. You deserve this job.” 

And it sounds like a good job position. Like, one that any person would strive to possess in this materialistic world where capitalism rules the earth. You found it on Glassdoor and as soon as you read the description and qualifications (a college degree, certain skills, attitude, etc.), you applied.

As a secretary working here, you would be working closely with Nanami as his personal assistant to help him take care of his work and anything he doesn’t have a chance to get to, such as scheduling appointments and meetings for him, and attending them in some cases, making and taking calls, and other office and secretarial work. The pay is much better than your current job that you desperately want to leave.

You’re tired of working underneath an asshole who only cares about his money and could give less of a shit about his employees or their issues. 

Were you expecting Maki, one of Nanami’s assistants, to reach out to you? Definitely not. But here you are, sitting primped, polished, and positively terrified two weeks later after receiving that joyous email for an interview. You just hope you can hold onto your wits and– 

“Ms. L/N?” You startle at the sound of your last name and look up into the eyes of Maki from behind her glasses. She stands at the threshold of the waiting room in a black turtleneck and slacks that hug her toned frame. You can already tell she has every man in here simping for her. “Mr. Nanami is ready for you now,” she says. Though she doesn’t smile, her tone is warm. “I have to deliver something, so one of his other assistants will walk you to his office.” 

“T-Thank you,” you say, cringing slightly at your stutter. If Maki notices, she doesn’t act as if she does and doesn’t mention it. She leads you halfway across the hallway to introduce you to Mai, a shorter version of Maki with no glasses, short hair, and wearing a low-cut red blouse that probably would drive any guy crazy. “Gosh, you are gorgeous!” She gushes as soon as she sees you. “And your hair looks fabulous. You’d definitely turn heads here.” 

You smile bashfully while Maki rolls her eyes. “Can you please just take her to Nanami’s office for her interview?” she sighs. “You know he hates lateness.” She gives you a nod then, her eyes kind despite how intense they seem. “Good luck, Ms. L/N,” she says before heading off to do her work, her hips swaying in her slacks. 

“She’s something, isn’t she?” Mai giggles as she presses a button to one of the elevators next to you. “That’s my sister. She’s always that sweet and bubbly.” She gives you a wink. You giggle to yourself, deciding you like both of them and you wonder what the rest of the team here is like. 

Mai presses the elevator button to the upper floor and leads you inside the damning doors that automatically shut once you are both inside. Silence swells around the tiny box and you can hear your heart pumping madly in your head. You see Mai look at you out of your peripheral version. “Nervous?” she asks. You give her a sheepish smile. “Does it show?” you chuckle. 

“He really isn’t a tough guy,” Mai says, contrary to what you think. “He just likes everything to be perfect and detailed, right down to the T. Judging by your resume, I think you’re fit for the job!” She gives you a bright, comforting smile that is impossible to ignore or not feel. You thank her for the compliment, feeling somewhat better. One the elevator doors open on the floor, she walks you down the pristine hallway with marble walls and grey carpeting until you come to two oak double doors. 

Mai smiles at you despite you wanting to book it. “Right this way,” she says, motioning to the door. “This is his office right here.” She knocks for you three times, loud and clear. “Come in,” a deep, clear voice calls out. It sends shivers down your spine. Maki opens the door then and it’s like the gates of Hell opening for you. 

You are met with a gorgeous, spacious office that is fit for a CEO. On one side is a lounging space with a flat-screened TV, black leathered seats, and a bookcase filled with books of all genres and kinds. On the other is a kitchenette with all stainless steel appliances, including a fridge, freezer, microwave, dishwasher and dryer, and a mini bar where a bottle of scotch and a wine rack sit. In the middle sits a wide, polished, oak desk with a large glass window overlooking the city where a man sits behind his laptop and a mug of coffee. 

A very handsome man at that. His jaw is sharp, his face slim, not a stitch of facial hair anywhere on his face. His blonde hair is combed and styled perfectly almost if he purposely styled each strand. When he looks up, you’re taken aback by not only his looks but the aura he gives off. It is powerful and intimidating despite his calm and cool demeanor. It’s only intensified by the gray suit jacket he wears over a crisp blue button-up shirt that he’s paired with matching slacks, red bottom shoes, and a yellow, leopard-printed tie. You nearly giggle at the way the tie stands out against the rest of his outfit, giving him a hint of personality. 

When his green eyes meet yours from across the room, you feel all of the air in your body leave you. A current of electricity courses from your body to his, making the room feel tense despite the coolness of the office. He gives you a stoic expression as if he is irritated that he was interrupted. “Your 10 o’clock is here, sir!” Mai brightly announces. “For Y/N L/N?” 

Nanami’s eyebrows raise slightly. “Ah, yes,” he replies. He stands from his desk, giving you a chance to see how tall he is. The man is nearly six foot! You swear that you nearly fall out right there. “My interview. Thank you, Mai, that will be all.” 

Mai respectfully bows before turning on her heel to face you. “Good luck,” she whispers with a wink before closing the door behind you. Then it’s just you and him. You stand near the door while Nanami comes around the front of the desk, still keeping that same cool, blank expression. You feel like a deer who is being sized up for dinner by a lion. “So you’re here,” he says. “And only two minutes late.” 

You feel embarrassment flood you, making you hot all over you. You know he’s testing you, trying to make you break right off the bat…but you won’t let him. You clear your throat and meet him halfway, putting your hand out for a shake. “Mr. Nanami,” you calmly say. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I arrived here ten minutes early than my scheduled time, but one of your assistants had to leave me for work duties.” You give him a smile as the cherry on top. ‘See? I’m good.’

Nanami’s eyebrows raise slightly, obviously impressed by your quick-wittedness and ability to read the room. “Not bad,” he praises you. “The pleasure is all mine, Ms. L/N.” His larger hand meets yours, giving you a chance to feel his calloused palm and thick fingers. You try to avoid thinking about them around your neck. “Please, have a seat.” 

He motions to the cushioned seats in front of you while he takes his seat behind his desk, shutting his laptop. "You’ll have to forgive me for my tartness. I had a no-show earlier for an 8 o’clock meeting and I’m not a man of those.” You nod understandably. “It’s okay,” you say. “I can understand that. I’ve never been a fan of no-shows either.” You cross your legs as you sit, folding your hands in your lap. 

“Are you referring to your current job as a research assistant?” he questions. The corner of his lips twitch at the look of shock you give him. You damn near forgot where you work at! “I did my studying for today. Your resume is very interesting.” Interesting. You don’t know whether to be happy with that statement or nervous. “Oh…thank you. I actually have it here with me as a copy.” 

You go into your bag where you retrieve a folder and several copies of your resume. You pass one to Nanami who barely cracks a smile at the fact that you are prepared. He must be trying to size you up, see if you’re fit for the position. You watch him read over the paper, his index finger dragging over each section.

“So you graduated with a 3.8 GPA with a Bachelor’s Degree in marketing and communications,” he points out. You nod, trying to calm your rapidly beating heart. “Yes, originally, I was studying political science, but I changed my major during my sophomore year.” 

“May I ask why?” he asks, raising a curious eyebrow. You’re more than happy to give him an answer. “Politics can become too messy in my opinion, not to mention that the major was extremely competitive. I was also working as an intern at the time and on the–“ 

“Cheerleading team,” he finishes. “Yes, that’s listed here in your extra curriculum activities, but you left the team during your senior year, it appears.” He gives you a sharp look that is pushing you to give him an explanation. Your brain grasps for straws. “Um…senior year is a busy time for all students,” you quickly explain. “At the time, I was just trying to finish school so I could graduate on time, which I accomplished, fortunately.” 

Nanami only gives a “huh” at this which isn’t the response you are looking for. “Huh” as in “oh, that’s interesting” or “huh” as in “this bitch isn’t reliable and can’t handle shit when shit gives tough”? 

“Let’s talk about your current position.” He folds his big, calloused hands on top of his desk, on your resume. “It seems like a promising position. Why do you want to leave there and come work here?” 

You sit up straight, happy that you practiced for this exact question. “Well, I just believe it’s time for me to move onto something new; preferably onto a new company that has a diverse team and benefits for its employees. I believe that your company does so.” Nanami leans forward slightly, peering deep into the recesses of your soul behind his spectacles. “So what exactly do you think you can offer this company, Ms. L/N?” he asks. “Or more specifically, what can you offer me?” 

Your stomach drops. You didn’t practice for this question. “U-Um…I’m a quick learner,” you reply, forcing yourself to keep eye contact. “I’m not afraid to ask questions if I’m unsure, but I’m also not afraid to lean on myself for answers. I work well independently as well as in a team. I’m hardworking, determined, and detail-oriented. I’m also willing to do whatever work is necessary to succeed.” 

Nanami’s eyebrows raise once more. “Whatever work necessary?” he parrots, quiet interest in his tone. “Elaborate on that for me. What kind of work or things would you be willing to do in order to succeed at this company, Ms. L/N?” 

Your brain begins to jump from place to place, grabbing at whatever. “Staying longer hours,” you decide. “I know this is a 9-5 position, but if you ever needed me to stay longer to get a head start on work or complete something, I’d be willing to do so. I’m also good at creating Powerpoint presentations for meetings. A-And I’m well-organized.” Now you’re stuttering. Stumbling over your answers. You’re fucking up! He’s going to see your nervous and unconfident and put you on the chopping block! 

Nanami stares you down for a moment longer, making you feel like you’re on trial and he’s a judge, before leaning back in his seat. He places his hands in his lap, ever poised and sexy. “Hm,” he hums. “As much as I appreciate your willingness to stay longer hours, Ms. L/N, I will be honest with you: you’re not the first person who I’ve interviewed who gave me all of this jargon in hopes of getting the position and then didn’t deliver on any of their promises or skills.” 

You nervously gnaw on your bottom lip, gripping your hands to force them to stop shaking. “I’m sure you have,” you quietly reply, “but I’m also sure I can change your mind and prove that I’m worthy of this position, Mr. Nanami.” 

Something sparkles in Nanami’s forest-green eyes and the corner of his mouth twitches. “Worthy?” he questions. “That’s a new one: worthy.” He tests it out on his tongue as if it’s a new kind of food. Something foreign to him. He leans towards you once more, placing his hands on the desk. “Well, let me ask you this: do you think that you’re confident enough to work beside me if you do happen to get this position? Because from what I’m seeing, you’re not.” 

You’re so busy thinking about how handsome he is that you nearly miss his criticism. But when you catch it, you feel cold like you were just dunked in a pool of ice. You stare at him, dumbfounded. “Excuse me?” you ask, squinting at him. 

Nanami barely reacts to your reaction. “You stutter a lot,” he bluntly points out. “Whether out of habit or because you’re nervous which shows the employer, which is me, that you’re not confident in your words or thoughts. Then it’s in your body language: your shoulders are up by your ears and obviously tense, your skin is flushed, and your hands are shaking.” 

And he’s right. You can feel how tense and hot you are; how shaky and unbalanced you feel. You feel like crawling under the chair you’re sitting in and hiding from his scrutiny. But you also won’t allow him to expose you like this. “Well, I would think that nervousness is a common human emotion,” you retort. 

He nods, giving you a point for your fairness. “It is…but judging by your resume, I’m sure you’ve sat through many job interviews, and got the jobs as I’m seeing here.” He takes his glasses off, revealing his naked eyes to you. “So what makes this one so different? Why are you so nervous to be here with me today?” 

You can tell he’s trying hard to make you crack. He’s trying to see if you’re able to handle the pressure. Though you feel nervous and embarrassed, you also feel incredibly pissed. How dare you try to grill you like this? You can’t let him win this. You won’t. “Mr. Nanami,” you carefully say, your tone calm yet firm, “I understand what you’re trying to do here, but I’m not really appreciating it. It seems like more of a grilling session than a job interview. Aren’t we supposed to be talking about the job?” 

Nanami barely even blinks. “We have,” he replies. “And now I’m trying to decide if you are seriously fit for such a position. I take my work very seriously, Ms. L/N, and I need to be sure that you will take my work, as well yours, seriously as well. I can’t have you cracking under pressure or second-guessing things. Those are all signs of being unconfident.” He leans forward, squinting his eyes at you. “Now, do you think you can handle it?” he questions. 

You want to say yes, but you know he’ll argue with you. He’ll come up with all kinds of logic to tell you why you aren’t qualified for this position. So you keep quiet instead, just staring him down and forcing yourself to not look away. The more you stare, the hotter you get until you realize that it’s not out of embarrassment. This heat is out of attraction. Despite your anger, he’s just so goddamn fine! So you look down at your shoes, too afraid for him to see your true feelings under the anger.

Finally, Nanami heaves a sigh and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see it,” he sighs. “I’m afraid this is where we–“ 

“What?” you snap, causing him to stop short. You glare at him, enraged. “That’s it? You bring me in here for an interview just to tell me you’re not hiring me because you don’t think I’m confident?” You square your jaw at him and put a hand to your chest. “I am confident,” you hiss. “If you let me show you, I can prove it to you, Mr. Nanami.” 

Now, Nanami smirks. It's rousing and mocking, angering you even more. “Oh,” he nearly chuckles. “So now you want to look at me. And your emotions are easily roused which could complicate your work if you were to work here.” 

The room has gotten too hot. Too tense. You can’t handle this. If you’re here any longer, you’ll surely jump over this desk and wring his thick neck. “You know what?” you scoff haughtily. “I don’t need to sit here and be criticized like this. I may want this job, but I don’t want it that much to allow myself to be grilled like this.” You abruptly stand from your chair, nearly knocking it over. He looks up at you, his expression cool. 

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Nanami,” you nearly growl. “Have a good day.” You then whip around to storm out of the office, prepared to leave and never return.  

“Stop.” The command cuts through the air along with Nanami’s deep voice. You do so and turn to face him, confused. He is still sitting down, his steely eyes glaring at you from across the room. “Sit down,” he orders. You gawk at him. Is he serious right now? “Why?” you cackle. “So you can go and grill me some more on why I’m not a good candidate for this position? Thanks, but no–“ 

“I said.” The sound of his chair squeaking across the floor stops you short. He stands behind his desk, blocking the window with his big, tall frame. His expression is dark and intimidating, his eyes daring you to argue with him again. “Sit. Down. Y/N.” His tone is hard as steel with a slight undercurrent of a growl underneath. 

You stand there, taken aback at his change in demeanor. And even more so in the way it makes you feel. You feel tingly and hot, specially between your legs. Nanami continues to stare at you, silently daring you to disobey his order. Against your better judgement, you slowly walk back over to his desk on legs that feel like Jell-O and sit down. Your eyes find your shoes again, afraid to look into his as he sits back down behind his desk. 

“You really think you got it like that?” he asks. “You really think that you have what it takes to work for me? With me?” Your heart flips wildly at his questions and the roughness to his tone. He seems so calm and collected. Who the fuck is this? “Answer the question,” he demands. 

You swallow roughly before opening your mouth. “Yes,” you breathlessly reply. 

That is all Nanami needs to hear. He stands again, coming around the desk to stand beside you. You tremble, harshly biting your lip. “You said you’d prove to me your confidence and other assets that you can bring to this position if I let you.” 

Zzzzip. The familiar sound of a zipper coming down stops you short. You turn your head toward him in time to see his hips and crotch in your face and his hands working his belt off. “Well, now I’m letting you.” Your eyes follow his hands as he shrugs his pants down his waist before reaching into his Armani briefs to reveal his throbbing, hard, veiny cock to you. “Show me what you mean, Ms. L/N. Prove to me your worth.” 

Your eyes widen and your mouth falls open. This can’t be…he isn’t…he can’t… “W-What is this?” you gasp. “Mr. Nanami, you can’t–“ 

“Can’t what?” he asks. You look up at him, seeing nothing but molten lust in his eyes. “Don’t act as if you weren't hoping I’d do this to you. You wore that skirt and those heels for an obvious reason than to just seem presentable.” He nods at your outfit, making you feel ashamed. “And don't think I didn’t catch the way you looked at me when you walked in or the way you kept crossing and uncrossing your legs under the table. You’re fucking feening right now, aren't you, brat?” 

Brat. The name and the sharpness of his tone makes your stomach flip. “What?” you squeak. “I’m not a–“ 

“Talking back too?” he tsks. He places a hand on the back of your hair, near your scalp. “That just won’t do. A girl like you needs to be put in her place, don’t you agree?” He places his other hand on his cock, slowly pumping the hardened shaft in your face. “This is your decision, Y/N,” he huskily says. “If you wish to leave, you can, but if you stay, you need to prove to me your worth. I’m not a man who gives things out so easily.” 

Your eyes tick from him to his cock, back and forth like ping pong balls. You weigh your options carefully: if you say no, you’re out of a really good job and will be forced to return to the dreaded application process, but if you say yes, you’ll be nothing but a cock-sucking slut. What if he doesn’t even give you the job? 

“So what’s it gonna be, little girl?” Nanami hums. Looking back down at his cock, you take your chances. You wrap one tentative hand around the base of his dick, causing him to shimmy closer to you so he’s closer to your mouth. You then begin pressing light kisses around the head and length of his cock, feeling how warm his skin is against your lips. “There we are,” he softly moans. “Good girl.” 

The praise causes your pussy to twitch in delight and you find yourself beginning to lick up and down his long cock while your hands pump the base. He feels so heavy and thick in your hand. As you do this, soft moans drip from Nanami’s lips, deep and arousing. Your tongue and soft hands on him cause him to reach into his briefs to pull out his heavy balls, letting them hang as you continue to pump him. Your mind is racing, your eyes moving to the door ever so often.

Nanami catches you and chuckles to himself. “Don’t worry; my door has an automatic lock. Maki was only able to open it because I left it unlocked in the case of an appointment….or in the case of visits from horny little sluts like you.” 

You whimper at his degrading words, still slobbering along his cock and wetting it with your saliva. Finally, Nanami stops you and takes your chin into his hand, forcing you to look up at him. “So if I were to tell you that I was stressed and in need of relieving, what would you say to that?” he asks. The question would sound random to anyone else, but you know what he means right off the bat. 

So you give him the answer he is searching for: “I’d ask if I could help you,” you softly reply, your voice breathy and soft. Nanami’s cock twitches in response. “Then show me,” he demands, taking his cock and gently smacking the head against your chin. “Open your mouth for me, brat.”  

And you do so. As soon as your open your mouth, Nanami is hypnotized by your tongue and thick, juicy lips spread open for him. He angles his hips towards your mouth and slowly pushes inside, groaning as he does. “Christ!” he grunts, gripping the back of your head. “Your mouth is so tight and wet, darling.” 

Your moans are muffled as his cock slides into your mouth, stretching out your jaw. Your eyes, stinging with tears, widen at how large he is. You’ve never had a cock this big in your mouth before. Your eyes tick up at Nanami, watching as he strips himself of his suit jacket before unbuttoning his shirt. He reveals his bare, toned chest and hard, pink nipples as he begins to roll his hips against your mouth, forcing you to take more of him. “Come on, brat,” he demands. “Take my cock. Isn’t this what you were after?” 

His shaft slides against your tongue, filling your mouth and senses with nothing but the salty taste of his pre-cum, the scent of his cologne in your nostrils, and the feeling of his hand gripping the back of your head. He pushes you down onto his cock, forcing himself into your throat. A gargled moan leaves your lips as he throws his head back and groans at the feeling of being trapped inside your hot, tight throat. “I’ll go nice and slow, okay?” he coos. 

He then begins to slowly roll his hips against your mouth, causing his cock to plunge in and out of your throat, getting deeper each time. His heavy balls swing against your chin, becoming wet with the spit that has begun to pool and drip over your lips. Nanami tuts at the sight of you being a slobbery, sloppy mess for him as he fucks your face. “Such a mess,” he sighs. “Just a dirty, bratty little slut, doesn’t even know how to keep herself clean.” 

He wraps a hand around your braids and forces your head back, yanking his cock out of your mouth. You gasp at the sharp sting coming from your scalp. “You want this?” he murmurs, staring down at you. “You want this cock? Tell me no and I’ll stop.” Your eyes stare at the cock, now shining in your saliva, bobbing in front of you. Your pussy clenches impatiently in your panties, gushing all in the cotton article of clothing. You want this. You want him. “Yes,” you whisper. “Yes, I want your cock. Please give it to me, sir.” 

Nanami closes his eyes and inhales as if your words are a drug that he just got a hit of. “Call me Kento, darling,” he says as he plunges his cock back into your mouth. “Though ‘sir’ does sound quite nice.” He begins to thrust his hips roughly into your mouth, fucking your throat like it is his own personal toy. “It’d be a…fuck…a joy to hear you call me that every single day I…shit, darling…come in here. Even better to hear you moan it. Wouldn’t that be nice?” 

Your words are a garbled, mumbling mess around his cock, your voice taken from the sound the lewd, sloppy sounds leaving your lips as he mercilessly fucks your throat. You gag and spit around his shaft, earning praise by his orgasmic moans and grunts. The more he fucks your mouth, the harder his grip on your hair gets until you can feel your scalp burning. But you endure it. You also find yourself enjoying the bite of pain along with the feeling of being used. This is so degrading: being used as a fuck toy in such a way. 

And you love every second of it. 

“Fuck!” Nanami growls, finally pulling his throbbing cock out of your mouth. It bobs against your lips before he pulls away, slowly pumping the appendage in your face. You gasp, finally free to breathe. You are a complete mess, saliva dripping down your chin and staining your blouse; hair askew; makeup ruined. The blonde man stares down at you, your hair still wrapped in his fist. “Look at you,” he huffs. “You’re a fucking mess. Came in here all pretty just to get ruined by me, didn’t you?” 

You whimper at his words, your pussy tingling. His thumb moves across your plump lower lip, spreading the saliva across your lips. “Oh…does my little brat love being degraded?” Hot embarrassment makes you flush. “N-No, I–“ 

You’re silenced by Nanami’s hand squeezing your cheeks, causing your lips to pucker. “Lying?” he sharply asks, his gaze dark. “You have the nerve to fix your mouth to say that shit to me yet your body betrays you.” He nods down at your thighs that clench together and your hardened nipples that have begun to poke through the mesh fabric of your bra. “I guess you need some attention too,” he sighs. “I just can’t decide whether you really deserve my touch.” 

He unhands you then, stepping away from you and leaving you feeling empty. The stinging sensation coming from your scalp and throat are all that remain of him. You feel like you’re burning up. There’s an all-consuming fire eating at your body and between your legs. You need him. You bend down to press your head to his shoes, your trembling hands grasping his pant legs. “Please, sir,” you beg. “Please touch me. You can’t leave me like this!” 

An aloof chuckle leaves Nanami’s lips. “Oh, I can’t?” he asks. “I can’t let you walk out of here with that pussy gushing for me and that mascara running?” You desperately whimper and babble pleas for more, the aching of your sobbing, wet pussy too much to bare. Fortunately, it’s enough for Nanami to give in.

“Oh, alright,” he pitifully sighs, "but only because you look so oh-so pathetic. And you did such a good job sucking my cock just now. Stand up.” You immediately rise to your wobbly feet as soon as the order is uttered. Nanami gives you a hot stare as his hand trails up the front of your blouse. “Let’s get these fucking clothes off,” he growls impatiently. “Oh, and I almost forgot.” 

Suddenly, his lips are on yours, rough and wanton. You moan into the kiss as his hot, wet tongue begins to explore yours, swirling around your mouth and tasting himself off of your tongue. His kiss is hungry and hard; not at all soft or romantic. He is desperate for you. Breathy groans and gasps leaves his lips as his hands begin to quickly unbutton each button to your pretty silk blouse. Soon, he becomes impatient and ends up tearing the thing off of you, resulting in a button flying off. 

You gasp, pulling away from the sloppy kiss as he flings your top open to reveal your lacy black bra. “Sir!” you shout in protest. “Kento, please! You’ll ruin it!” He tears the rest of the top off of you, pulling it off of your arms and tossing it to the side like it didn’t cost you a pretty penny. Nanami rolls his eyes at your dramatics. “You can rest assure you’ll be receiving the money for new clothing…if you do a good job for me now, that is.” 

As his lips and tongue find yours again, his veiny hands then begin to slide up and down your chest, fondling your breasts over your bra cups. You softly moan at his touch into his mouth, the tingling sensation you’re feeling between your thighs quickly growing. He pulls away from the kiss, gently tugging on your bottom lip with his teeth. “Mmm, such gorgeous breasts you have, darling,” he groans. “Too bad they belong to such a slutty brat.” 

Without warning, he slides your bra straps down your shoulders and slides the bra cups down to reveal your breasts and hard, brown nipples, pebbled by the cold and your arousal. A crazed look crosses Nanami’s eyes before he ducks down to capture a nipple into his mouth. “Shit,” you gasp, your hands finding his hair. His tongue wraps around your nipple, lapping at the tiny bud as his hand works your other breast, fondling it. 

Your mouth falls open and your eyes flutter closed at the new sensations you’re feeling. He then switches to the other, sucking and tugging on the nipple with his teeth, smirking at your sharp intake of breath. He alternates between each nipple, sucking, lapping, and licking at each like a hungered man desperate for water. With each torturous second, the tingling and ache in your cunt grow, making you go nearly insane. “A-Ah,” you moan. “K-Kento…fuck, sir, please!” You arch your back, pushing your breasts further into Nanami’s mouth. 

He chuckles, pulling away from your nipple with a string of saliva dripping from his bottom lip. He looks up at you, his eyes shimmering with lust. “Getting worked up over having your nipples sucked? Such a sensitive little thing you are, Ms. L/N. Now bend over.” You blink at him, momentarily confused and still recovering from the foreplay. “W-What?” you nimbly ask. 

Nanami gives you a stern look, a darkness coming over his gaze. “I didn’t stutter, brat,” he growls. “If I tell you to do something, you do it. How else will I be able to depend on you for this job?” He peels himself away from your naked breasts and nods at his desk. “Now bend over my desk now before I do it for you.” He then cracks one of his hands at his sides, the sound of his knuckle cracking making you gulp (and cream in your panties). 

You do as he says and bend over his desk, being careful to not knock over his laptop, mug, or papers. You brace your hands against the oakwood surface, biting your lip when you feel Nanami’s presence behind you. You’re a wreck before he even touches you, but when he finally slides his hands up your skirt to grip your thighs, you’re shaking. His hands move all across your thighs and backside, gripping your ass over your skirt. “Damn this skirt,” he growls. “Damn this ass of yours. Apologies, darling, but I have to spank you. After all, you deserve punishment for such naughty behavior.” 

He leans down toward you, his minty breath in your face and lips at your ear. “Do you want your punishment, slut?” he questions barely above a whisper. Pathetically, you nod, arching your back and presenting your ass to him. “Y-Yes, sir,” you reply. “Please punish me. Make me your good girl.” 

That answer pleases Nanami. He slides your skirt up to reveal your ass––and the lace, black panties underneath your nylon stockings. “Brace yourself, darling; my hands are rough.” 

Spank! The moment Nanami’s hand makes contact with your asscheek, you jump and gasp at the stinging sensation. His hands really are rough. Nanami chuckles at your reaction. “Yeah, you like that, naughty girl?” He does it again invoking a low, desperate moan from the deepest depths of you. Spank! “Y’know, I saw you staring at my hands earlier.”

Spank! “I bet all you thought about in that dumb little brain of yours is me bending you over and doing this to you.”

Spank! “I bet you want someone to come in and find us like this, your pretty ass bent over my desk.”

Spank! Spank! Spank! 

He does this again and again, punishing your ass until it is stinging and possibly red with his handprints on each cheek. Though it hurts and brings tears to your eyes, it also makes you wetter. The pain mixed with your pleasure is one intoxicating cocktail that you can't get enough of. Soon, your pussy has a heartbeat and it throbs impatiently, ready for something to be inside of it.

“Sir, please!” you whine, gripping the desk for dear life. “I can’t take it anymore! I’m sorry for being such a brat!” 

“Mmm-hmm,” Nanami hums, pleased with your confession. You feel him begin to yank at your stockings, pulling the waistband down your hips. “I bet that pussy is too,” he murmurs as he quickly pulls your stockings down your legs. He is rough and ends up putting a tear in one of them, but you’re way too horny to care. He then reaches your panties and pulls them down, groaning at the way your pussy lips stick to the cotton fabric. “And she is. Just look at how she’s crying for me.” 

You can feel how wet you are judging by the way your pussy tingles in the cold. Nanami bends down and gently blows on it, causing you to tense and softly whimper at the tiny bit of contact. “Such a beautiful pussy you have,” he coos. “And all for me.” Before you can even take a breath, he is gently prying your asscheeks apart and spitting on your pussy before digging in and slurping his saliva back up. 

As he does this, his tongue swirls along your clit and his pillowy-soft lips cushion your pussy, running along your slit as he plays with your cunt with his mouth. You gasp, moan, and sob into the desk, wanting to dig your nails into the oakwood with how good he is. He eats your pussy like it’s a profession of his, taking his time getting to know the ins and outs of you. He even slides his hand up to gently run his thumb over your puckered asshole while he tongue fucks you, groaning appreciatively at your taste. 

Your toes curl inside your heels and your hands grasp to grab for something only to get polished wood beneath you. You’ve never gotten so close so quickly before. Usually, it takes a while for a man to get you even a mile from cumming, but not with Nanami. He moves his mouth and tongue with precision against your clit, moving between fast and slow depending on how your body reacts.

But when his thumb begins to caress your asshole, you just about lose it. “Oh, God,” you sob, tears of pleasure pricking your eyes. “Kento, just fuck me. I need you to fuck me!” 

Then…nothing. The feeling of your nearing orgasm fades. Nanami stops eating you out immediately and you’re left wondering what happened. His hand suddenly finds your hair and roughly yanks it back, causing you to release a strangled gasp. It hurts way more than earlier, his grip tight and merciless.

He bends his face down to meet yours, his eyes dark and almost frightening. “You don't tell me what the fuck to do, brat,” he growls. “I decide what to do to your body. Me. Understand?” 

His grip tightens more and the stinging in your scalp of your braids being yanked nearly makes you see God early. “Yes!” you sob. “Yes, sir, I’m sorry! This pussy just needs you so bad!” Finally, he loosens his grip and releases your hair, emitting a weak moan of pain from you. 

“Alright, brat,” he cooly says. “I’ll fuck you…but we’ll do it my way. Put your hands behind your back, wrists crossed.” 

You do as you’re told, putting your hands behind your back and crossing them over one another. You then feel Nanami’s funny-looking tie wrap around your wrists, tightening them and securing them behind your back.

You softly gasp at the sensations of being restricted to which Nanami pauses. “Good?” he asks. You nod and he proceeds to continue to tie your wrists until he is finally satisfied. “There we go,” he proudly says. “Now you can’t squirm or make a fuss when I plunge my cock deep inside of you.” 

And you can’t. Your arms are completely restricted from movement, as is the rest of you as you stand between the desk and Nanami mounted behind you. He ruts his hips against your ass for a few minutes, sliding his cock between your slit and over your throbbing clit, relishing the sounds you make as you lay splayed out against his desk.

“Here I come, baby,” he whispers before sliding all the way home inside you. You gasp in unison as his thick cock stretches out your wet pussy walls, filling you up the way you’ve been waiting for. 

He starts slow at first, grabbing your hips and slowly rolling his hips so you can get used to his length and girth. Your hand flies to your mouth to cover it, muffling your moans. Nanami doesn’t like that. He tears your hand away from your face, pinning it back down on the desk. “My walls are soundproof,” he grunts. “You have no need to worry. Come on, baby; give me those slutty sounds I know you can make.” 

He begins to fuck you harder against the desk, one hand gripping your hip while the other lays flat on the middle of your back, keeping you pressed flat against the oakwood surface. As soon as he hits that spot inside you, you can’t keep quiet. You begin wailing in pleasure, overcome with the feeling he is giving you. “O-Oh, fuck!” you gasp. “Fuck, sir!” 

Nanami draws more of these moans and wails of pleasure out of you the more he fucks you until he is pounding your pussy against the desk. “God, you’re so tight!” he groans. “You’re much better than the fleshlight I keep under my desk. You’d be a much better addition to my office for stress.” He gives your ass a smack before lifting your leg up and fucking into you at a faster pace that is making you see the entire galaxy. 

“Take it,” he demands. “Take this cock. You wanted it so bad and now you’ve got it.” Yes, you do have it…but you don’t know if you can take it. Every rough thrust of his cock sends you into orbit. It shakes the desk with you bent over it, making your titties bounce against the surface and your ass jiggle against his hips. “Wait, sir!” you plea. “Go slow! Can’t…handle…it!” Your words are broken by the force of how hard he is fucking you, taking you very breath away. 

Nanami cackles like a villain straight out of a Disney movie as he looks over your plump ass pressed against him, his cock nestled deep in your ushy, gushy pussy. “Ohhh, is this cock too much for that poor pussy?” he teasingly asks. “Is it too big and thick for that slutty little hole to take? I believe I missed the part where I gave a fuck.” 

He continues to turn you all the way out, making the desk rock and causing his balls to swing against your clit, throwing you deeper into pleasure. “This is what you get for being a brat,” he grunts. “This is what you get for disobeying me. What you get for wearing that skirt and those heels. This is what–“ 

Rrrring! Rrrring! 

Nanami doesn’t slow his pace or stop his rough fucking into your cunt despite his work phone ringing. You weakly look up at the black telephone sitting by his laptop. “This is a call from Satoru Gojo,” the automated voice announces from the phone. 

“Shit!” Nanami hisses. He bends down toward you then, his nose nearly centimeters from yours. “I’ve gotta take this, but don’t you dare say a single thing. Don’t make a sound.”

You weakly nod, covering your mouth as he goes to pick up the phone. After a moment of composing himself, he clears his throat and answers. “Yes, Satoru?” he asks, keeping his voice steady and cool as if he isn’t fucking your brains out over his desk. “This had better be important. I’m busy at the moment.” 

“You’re always busy!” Gojo shouts into the phone, causing Nanami to flinch. “It’s what you always say when I ask for you to come out with me on the weekends…which you never do!”

Nanami sighs and you picture him rolling his eyes from behind you as he grips one of your asscheeks, no doubt leaving bruises. “That’s because all you do is hang out at clubs to fuck strangers and drink yourself into a stupor.” 

“Yeah!” Gojo agrees. “And it’s fun! You ever heard of that before? Fun? You ever try it? I think it’d do you good one of these days to have it some time, Keni.” 

This “Satoru” guy must really work Nanami’s nerves because you can feel the tension radiating off of him. He finds your hair and he grips it, continuing to pound into you at a faster pace than before. “What do you want?” He asks, becoming impatient. He yanks on your hair a little too rough and you whimper from behind your hand, your body tensing. Nanami quickly loosens his grip, looking down upon you with worry. ”Too rough?” he whispers. 

You look back at him and shake your head though your scalp burns. But you want it to burn. You want to take every single of ounce of pain and pleasure he gives you. “No,” you whisper. “I’m okay.” You begin to fuck back into him, tossing your ass back to fuck his cock, watching his face contort in pleasure. “Fuck me harder, sir,” you purr. “Take your stress out on this pussy. Make this little slut yours.” 

Nanami’s eyes widen like he can’t believe you’re really real. “Fucking hell,” he whispers. Suddenly realizing he’s still on the phone, he puts the phone back to his ear while he roughly pins you back down to the desk. “Sorry, what?” he questions. 

“I was telling you about the meeting we’re supposed to have at the end of the week,” Gojo repeats. “Were you listening to me at all?” You groan as Nanami’s cock sinks deeper inside you and your hand finds your slit, rubbing it in time with his thrusts. “Sorry, I got…distracted.” You giggle behind your hand. “Is this about the brand deal with the Human Rights Campaign? I told them we get 50% of proceeds.” 

“Not just them, but the New York Times too!” Gojo excitedly states. “I pulled some strings for us, man! They want to do a story on both of our departments! Say, ain’t it weird that we’re both a part of the same company but my department is all the way in the fucking US?” 

Nanami rails you harder; deeper; faster. Pushing you further and further towards an explosive orgasm. “Gojo, I told you already,” he grunts. “You’re part of the American branch while I’m part of–“

His words are quickly interrupted by a sharp gasp when you begin tossing your ass back into him, looking back at him as you do it. He glares down at you like he is one second away from ruining you. “You fucking brat,” he snarls. “You’re gonna get it later.” 

“Who’s gonna get it later?” Gojo asks curiously. “Nanami, you good? You’re acting kinda off. Are you with somebody right now?” Your heart lurches into your throat, but your pussy also clenches at the idea of being caught. “No,” Nanami sharply replies, yanking on your hair. “No, it was just a bug I saw. Listen, I’ve gotta go.” 

You thank God for that because you don’t think you can keep quiet anymore. You have to clamp your hand over your mouth and bite your palm to keep from screaming at the deep dicking you’re receiving. “So we’re on meeting both HRC and NYT on Friday?” Gojo asks. “It starts at 1PM to about 3, but I’ll be bringing wine along so that might turn into about 5.” 

“Yes, yes, that’s fine,” Nanami impatiently huffs. “Just keep me informed.” Without a goodbye, he hangs up and tosses the phone on the ground. “Now back to you,” he growls. He takes your hips and pounds into you with the force of a thousand men, wrecking you on his cock. “Don’t run from it now, brat. You were so desperate to fuck yourself on it minutes before.” 

Your tits swing beneath you and your ass claps against him every time he thrusts, creating a symphony of sounds mingling with your desperate whines and the squelching of your wet pussy being fucked by his cock. You can’t take it anymore. Your body is wet with sweat and your knees are buckling, tired from this and desperate for rest, just as your pussy is desperate to cum. “K-Kento!” you whine. “Keni, I’m so close! I need to cum!” 

And like an asshole, Nanami slows down, purposely rolling his hips in a way that is agonizing given that he isn’t moving any quicker. “Prove it,” he demands. “Make me make you cum. Beg for it, brat.” 

The slower he gets, the crazier you become until you’re pleading for him to just make you cum. “Please make me cum, sir,” you sob in desperation. “Make me cream all over your cock! Please, I need it! Your little brat needs to cum on that dick and have you fill her up.”

You turn to face him, peering up at him through thick lashes and big, brown eyes that have Nanami wanting to nut all over you just so everyone can know you are his now. “Please, Keni,” you whisper. “Gimme that dick. Gimme that cum. Your little office sluts needs it so much.” 

That does it for Nanami. He speeds up immediately, pounding your wet pussy into his desk until neither one of you are quiet and both of you are soon tumbling over the edge. “Fuck!” he groans. “I’m gonna cum! I can’t stop!” 

Your moans are signs of encouragement to cum deep inside of you and he does so. With a primal grunt of your first name, he pours his cum inside of your aching, twitching pussy. You cum right with him, your walls gripping onto him tighter than a vice as your body tenses. With a loud moan, you cum all over his dick, making his balls drip with your cream because there is so much of it. You can feel him drip down your thighs, staining your pretty nylon stockings. You can’t even recover from the orgasm yet. Nanami quickly pulls his semi-hard cock out of you, emitting a weak moan from the emptiness you feel. 

“Not done yet,” he snarls. He pumps his cock, wet with your and his cum, hard and fast, his handsome face red with a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Turn the fuck around and show me that face. Stick out your tongue.” You do as he says, though wobbly and soaked with sweat and cum. 

You get on your knees and look up at him, admiring his God-like body. You then open your mouth, sticking out your pink tongue, hot, needy pants leaving your lips the more he pumps his cock against your lips. “Gonna paint this pretty face,” he moans. “Gonna make you wish you listened to me.”

You watch his toned body tense and writhe as he finally cums again, shooting ropes of cum into your mouth and onto your face, destroying your makeup. You gasp as each warm drop hits your skin, coating you in all of his sticky nut. You feel used. Owned. 

Nanami staggers away from you, panting heavily, his toned body soaked in sweat. He swipes his blonde strands from his flushed forehead, still coming down from his high. He then looks down at you with his cum dripping down your face, your pretty interview outfit ruined, and your braids askew. “Consider yourself hired,” he says, a rasp in his voice. 

You giggle at his words despite his cum beginning to drip over your eyes. You shut them, not wanting to go blind. “Shit, I needed that,” Nanami sighs. You weakly moan, bringing him back to reality. “Shit, hang on a sec,” he says, panicking slightly as the cum begins to drip lower and lower down to your breasts. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” You hear him walk around you to his desk before returning with some tissues. 

He carefully dabs at your face, cleaning you up. “Sorry about your makeup, honey,” he says. “It’s all over these tissues now.” He goes down to your chest, cleaning between your breasts and neck. Finally, he finishes. “There now. All clean.” You open your eyes to stare into his, feeling like you’re wandering through a deep, wild wilderness in those green orbs. “Let’s get these off of you,” he says, moving behind you to untie your wrists. 

When you’re finally free, you twist your wrists around and wiggle your fingers, getting the blood flowing back through your bones. “So how do you feel?” he softly asks. You take a moment to assess yourself. Though your body aches, your throat is raw, and your pussy is feeling sore, you feel oh-so good. It’s so hard to explain. To be used up by him has made you feel better than you have in months. “I-I feel…good,” you decide. “Better than good. I don’t think I’ve ever cum that hard before. Thank God for your soundproof walls.” 

A slight blush paints Nanami’s face. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s so endearing and makes you wanna make him cum over and over again. “So I did okay?” he sheepishly asks. 

You wrap your arms around him, “Baby, you did more than okay,” you giggle, pecking his lips. “But you always do…but I’d be lying if I said that seeing your Dom side isn’t a turn-on.” Nanami beams at you, happy that he could make your dreams come true. “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” he chuckles. “We’ll have to make these lunch visits more of a frequent thing for us. Including the role-play.” 

You giggle in agreement and take his hands, allowing him to help you stand on your wobbly feet and weak knees. He then begins to fix his pants and adjust himself, putting his cock back in his briefs while you pull up your panties over your twitching, soaked pussy. “Oh, which reminds me!” you chirp. “The sandwich rolls are still downstairs in the employee fridge. I left them there in case our meeting got, um…lengthy.” 

Nanami smirks and curls his arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him. “Such a smart and sexy girl I’ve got,” he coos. “How was I so lucky to end up with you?” You place your hands on his bare chest, feeling his heart beat against your palms. “Guess it was just fate,” you reply, hopelessly in love with the man standing before you. Nanami smiles, silently agreeing with your statement. 

You then part and continue to get dressed, adjusting your clothes as to not make any of the employees aware that you two fucked in their boss’s office just now. “And you’re sure that Maki and Mai don’t suspect a thing?” you curiously ask as you fix your blouse, pouting at the two buttons that popped off. 

Nanami looks at you as he fixes his button-up, only fixing the first button before moving toward you. “No one knows I’m even dating anyone, Y/N,” he assures you with a kiss to your jawline. “I barely tell my team anything about what goes on outside this building. Don’t worry, no one knows that we’re–“ 

“Fucking!” Mai screams from outside the door, scaring the shit out of you. “They’re totally fucking, Maki! I told you!” 

“Mai, get away from the door!” Maki criticizes her sister. “That’s an invasion of privacy!” 

You turn to Nanami and beg him with your eyes to kill you if you don’t die of embarrassment first. He takes one look at the door before turning to you, his hands on his narrow hips. “Well, guess I’ll be looking for another assistant,” he sighs. “And a soundproofed door.” 

THE END.

[softerseasons]

Juno, out of curiosity, what does an accountant DO? What does it mean to be one? Because I know there's math involved. I've heard it's very boring. But I don't know anything else and I'm curious because you're very good at putting things to words.

Okay first of all, I cannot express just how excited I got when I first saw this message. There is nothing I love more than talking about things I know about, and usually when my career is mentioned I don't get questions so much as immediate "Oh, bless you" and "I could never"s. Which- totally fair! For some people, accounting would be boring as all hell! But for a multitude of reasons, I adore it.

There are multiple types of accounting. The type most people tend to be more familiar with is that done by CPAs- CPAs, or Certified Public Accountants, are those that have done the lengthy and expensive process to be certified to handle other peoples' tax documents and submit taxes in their name, amongst other things. Yawn, taxes, right? Well, the thing with that is that there's a lot of little loopholes that tax accountants have to remain familiar with, because saving their clients a little more here or getting a little more back there can really add up, and can do a lot for people who, say, have enough money to afford to hire someone to do their taxes but not necessarily enough to be going hog wild with. Public accountants can work for large firms or by themselves, and also do things like preparing financial statements for businesses, auditing businesses to ensure all of their financial transactions are true and accurately reported to shareholders and clients, and consulting on how finances can be managed to maximize revenue (money in - money out = revenue, in very simple terms).

The type of accounting I do is private accounting! That basically just means that I work for a company in their in-house accounting/finance department. Private accounting tends to get split up into several different areas. My company has Payroll, Accounts Receivable, and Accounts Payable.

Payroll handles everyone's paychecks, PTO, ensuring the correct amount of taxes are withheld from individuals per their desires, and so on. Accounts Receivable handles money flow into the company- so when our company sells the product/service, our Accounts Receivable people are the ones who review the work, create the invoices, send the invoices to the clients, remind clients about overdue invoices, receive incoming payments via ACH (Automatic Clearing House- direct bank-to-bank deposits), Wire (Usually used for international transactions), or Check, and prepare statements that show how much revenue we are expected to gain in a period of time, or have gained in a period of time. This requires a lot of interfacing with clients and project managers.

My department is Accounts Payable. Accounts Payable does basically the other side of the coin from what Accounts Receivable does. We work mostly with vendors and our purchasing/receiving departments. We receive invoices from people and companies that have sold us products/services we need in order to make our own products/perform our services, enter them into our ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning, a system that integrates the departments in a company together- there are many different ERPs, and most people simply refer to their ERP as "the system" when talking internally to other employees of the same company that they work at, because saying the name of the system is redundant) using a set of codes that automatically places the costs into appropriate groups to be referenced for later financial reports, and run the payment processing to ensure that the vendors are being paid.

To break that down because I know that was a lot of words, here's some things I do in my day-to-day at work:

- Reconciliations, making sure two different statements match up: the most common one is Credit Card reconciliations, ensuring that there are appropriately coded entries in the system that match the payments made on our credit line in our bank.

- Invoice entry: this is basic data entry, for the most part. This can have two different forms, though

- Purchase Order Invoice entry: Invoices that are matched both to the service/product provided from the vendor and the purchase order created by our Purchasing/Receiving department. We ensure that the item, the quantity, and the price all match between our records, the purchase order, and the invoice, before we enter this.

- Hard Coded Invoice entry: Invoices that we enter manually due to there being no Purchase Order for them. This is often recurring services, like cleaning or repairs, that may happen too often or have prices vary too much for Purchase Orders to be practical.

- Cleaning up old purchase orders: sometimes Purchase Orders are put in the system and then never fulfilled. Because this shows on financial statements as being a long-standing open commitment, it looks bad, so we have to periodically research these and find out if the vendor simply didn't send us the invoice, if the order was cancelled, or if something else is going on.

- Forensics! This is my personal favorite part of the job, where someone has massively borked something that is affecting my work, and so I go dig into it, sometimes going back as four or five years in records to find the origin point of the first mistake, and untangling the threads of what happened following that mistake to get us to where we are today. There's an entire field called Forensic Accounting that is basically just doing This but for other companies (it's a subset of auditing, and often is done via the IRS) and that's my dream position to be totally honest. I loooove the dopamine hit i get with solving the mystery and getting praised for doing so faster than anyone else has even begun to realize the problem to start with.

- Balancing Credits/Debits: This is more of a Main Accountant role thing, but the long and short of it is that every business has Assets, Liabilities, and Equity. Liabilities and Equity are what we put into the company/what we owe, and assets are what we have received/what we are owed. Anything that increases Assets or lowers Liabilities or Equity is a Debit. Anything that decreases Assets or raises Liabilities or Equity is a Credit. Every monetary change we process has to include an equal Debit and Credit. This is its own whole lecture, so if you wanna know more about double-entry accounting, let me know, but it's yawnsville for most people.

- Actually cutting checks or initiating bank payments to vendors for amounts we owe them.

- Vendor communication: I'm on the phones and email a lot with vendors who are wondering where their payment is, or why something was short-paid, or if I can change some of their info in our system, and so on and so on. Every job is customer service, unfortunately. I don't love it, but I do a lot less of it in private accounting than I would have to do in public accounting.

- Spreadsheets: I make so many spreadsheets I am a goddamn Excel wizard. I love spreadsheets. This isn't necessarily accounting-specific though, most people in Finance jobs love spreadsheets, or at least use them to make their lives easier. I make them just for fun, because I'm a giant fucking nerd who finds that kind of thing enjoyable lol. So if you ever need a spreadsheet made for anything, hit me up.

As for math, that's a pretty common misconception. While there is math, it is very rarely more complicated than "I paid $3 of the $8 I owe, now I owe $5" for me. There are some formulas you learn in school (Business Administration with a focus in Accounting is what I studied), but they're also pretty standard and rarely include more than like... basic algebra. Which. Thanks @ god because I flunked so hard out of pre-calc in college. I could not have done accounting if it really were all that math heavy.

Aaaand yeah! That's all I've got off the top of my head- if you have any more questions about it, do let me know, I'm happy to ramble on for hours, but I'm cutting it here so I don't start meandering on without direction lol.

[aurora-nova-fic]

I've enjoyed Picard Season 3. I have also decided that I do NOT want Terry Matalas's Star Trek: Legacy, in large part because the last 15 or so minutes of the Picard finale, the horrid post-credits scene, and reading Matalas's ideas for Legacy have convinced me it's better to end it all here.

Picard finale spoilers under the cut.

I liked the ending of the season's storyline. Was it perfect? No, of course not. The glaring lack of Kestra Troi-Riker so much as being mentioned was odd - shouldn't Riker have at least sent Deanna "Tell Kestra I love her," or something? The fact that the Borg cube had enough space for the Enterprise-D, which was an enormous and notable WIDE starship, to navigate through to the heart of the cube was just silly. (Canon divergence fic idea where they have to go back to the Fleet Museum to get Voyager or the Defiant because a smaller ship will fit, and thus the Borg plan is thwarted but only after Earth is destroyed.) Flaws aside, it was good. It was satisfying. I particularly liked that it was the cleverness, resourcefulness, and tenacity of the crew which saved the Federation, but it was the power of love which saved Jack, Picard, Riker, and Worf's lives. I think that the final defeat of the Borg was a great way to end Jean-Luc Picard's story.

The wrap-up bits at the end were... fine, I guess, except for the parts with Jack. Beverly Crusher suddenly becoming an admiral and head of Starfleet Medical after disappearing over 20 years ago was pure inanity, of course. I did like the poker bit, although name-dropping a conspicuously absent Guinan was weird.

Jack Crusher - a young man who both voluntarily signed up for assimilation and had a list of criminal charges - does not seem like a likely candidate for Starfleet Academy at all, never mind an accelerated program. And what the hell is this "special counselor to the captain" role? It makes no sense.

Which leads to that post-credit scene. Ugh. It was completely unnecessary and in fact detracted from the end of season 2 (the best part of the season!) as well as this episode. Q's story ended in season 2 in a satisfying way.

The thing is, I never really cared about Jack Crusher for himself, only as an extension of Picard and Beverly Crusher. He was an underdeveloped character and not a very likeable one. So setting him up to be Q's new favorite - aside from the fact that we were supposed to have closed the book on Q - is... I don't even know. Matalas would like to bring Q into Legacy, and to me, Q needs to be gracefully retired, as season 2 intended. Let's find new and original ideas, please?

So. Legacy. First of all, it would clearly deal a lot with Very Special Man Jack Crusher. Not because such an approach to the character has been at all earned, just because he's Picard's son and Terry Matalas said so. No, thank you.

Also. Legacy would somehow bring Shaw back to life, Matalas said. Again, he had a satisfying death and now Matalas wants to undo that. No, thank you.

In summary, the ideas for Legacy as known are: Very Special Man Jack Crusher, the return of Q, the return of Shaw, and Captain Seven on Nine. I am interested in only one of these. (Don't get me started on First Officer Raffi...)

I would like to see another Star Trek show I'd actually watch. I'd briefly thought Legacy could be that, but having learned more, I'm not so sure. Terry Matalas gave us by far the best season of Picard. Let's not ruin it by dragging everything out and beating some dead horses, okay?

[lunapwrites]

Been a minute since I've done a reading, and they were calling to me this morning and also I'm just having a very shitty morning so let's fuckin go.

First, gonna open up with the rune we're studying today, which is sowilo.

This is the sun: guidance, goal setting, mastery, and success. It is a rune of clarity and healing. I feel like this gives an overall more auspicious tone to the tarot spread for today, which is... good.

The key takeaway with this bad boy is "you are on the struggle bus. The tribulation train. The purgatory pontoon. But keep moving, for the love of god, because I promise it'll be worth it."

I'm going to drop the longer interpretation under a break so I'm not forcing everyone to read it, so you're welcome lol.

Also, you'll note I'm going to use "we" here, because this ain't just about me today folks.

Starting off with our "hey, it you" card, Knight of Swords is ambition, action, motivation. The hustle game is strong in this house right now.

Nine of Swords is just here to remind me that the reason we're hustling is because the alternative is giving into the cloud of anxiety and despair hovering over us every day (which doesn't go away, but it's at least a little easier to move through if we just don't stop and think about it, literally DO NOT STOP.)

The Magician is manifestation and resourcefulness. Bringing ideas and dreams into fruition, which goes hand in hand with our friendly Knight. Hustle. But likewise it's a source of some of that surrounding anxiety. We're doing great over here folks!

Three of Wands is the card of enterprise and opportunity. We saw a chance and we took it, and that's led us to where we are now. Likewise, there's an element of foresight and planning involved here. None of what's happening now happened on a whim. Or... you know, at least our whims lol.

Normally I tend to read this position as "goals," but in this exact context it's reading more as a "why." There's been a lot of reveals recently, a lot of red and yellow flags, and that's got us moving forward very carefully -- but still moving forward.

Eight of Pentacles brings us right back to the hustle, but more specifically indicates skill mastery and general "improvement." We are really rolling our sleeves up and trying to make life more bearable for ourselves.

The next two cards are tied together very closely, so I'm going to discuss them together in like... The vaguest possible terms lol. These positions loop back around once more to our Knight, and speak more on our internal and external influences. The Eight of Swords indicates that we feel trapped, in one sense or another. Probably several. We can see the exit, and we can technically leave at any time, but we've reasoned we have no choice but to stay -- at least for now. The Seven of Swords indicates a betrayal, but (and especially with the Knight in context) it also indicates strategy. We are not sitting idly in hell. We are planning, and we are making moves, and we WILL land on our feet. We are putting ourselves first.

Knight of Pentacles in the hopes and fears position is, on its face, underwhelming: like, woo, you're going to be working hard and persevering, and making slow but steady progress. But within the context of the reading as a whole, it makes more sense why such a small aspiration seems so huge.

Finally the Ten of Pentacles. Man, all I can really say about this one is just that I wanted to cry when I saw it. It's THE goal. Long term success, foundations, sustainable future. Security. Home. Like I cannot stress enough how big a deal this is, what a bright light at the end of a dark ass tunnel that for once -- for once!! -- isn't an oncoming train.

None of this is telling me anything I didn't already know: the last few months have been really rough, and we're in for a few more. And things could still change between now and then. But at least as things currently are, there's an end in sight and it's going to be scary but it won't be a disaster

In theory, anyway.

But yeah this is once again my runes and cards being frighteningly on point and also in tune with each other and I think my method of "pick the one you feel in your gut" is really working out for me lol.

[infoshakil260]

Takeoff Kong Yiji's gown, and I'm going to set off with my broken oar

The world map is so big, I don’t want to have fun too early, I want to make a scene in my own way.

As I write this article, I am preparing to start a gap year. This is a completely new experience for me, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about it.

I first joined the company 7 years ago and my memory is still fresh.

Identity: A product primary school student who has just graduated half a year ago;

Time: March 28, 2016, Monday at around 1:00 noon;

Location: 9th floor, Fiyta Building;

First impression of the Goose Factory: dark and old.

There were no lights on in the whole HE Tuber building, so I followed the instructor with small steps in confusion. After arriving at the work station, I took apart the new computer and touched it. It felt really good. I went up to it and smelled it, but the smell was just average. The instructor laughed: The lights will be turned off during lunch break, and the computer will be yours in three years. I almost jumped up when I heard this and immediately bought a camp bed online.

That day I secretly decided that I would work hard for this laptop for three years.

1. I was impulsive because of an old lady

The novelty at the beginning was not enough to make me dizzy. After working for two and a half years, the team was suddenly assigned to Guangzhou to take charge of the Guangdong Provincial Affairs Project. Obviously the team is getting bigger and bigger, but I feel lonely. I forget about the laptop that is not yet my own, and ask myself for the first time: Should I leave?

This thought flashed across my mind, and I talked to the director at the time. He said: Sister, at your age, you are the most powerful. They are all young people, you are a child, and children have infinite vitality. Years later, I would still be filled with power because of this sentence, so I killed the idea before it could take shape.

Later, when the epidemic started, I was transferred to other departments to support micro-emergency projects, and then began to support government-enterprise office collaboration platforms. Later, I was stationed in Yunnan to be responsible for the planning of more than a dozen products in digital government projects. I was shaken again. If I were to leave, what could I take with me and what could I leave behind?

You may be wondering: What's going on? You can't calm down and want to move from time to time? Are you unhappy?

On the contrary, I am very happy after joining Tencent. Almost all my friends in Shenzhen were met in Goose Factory and I like them so much. They gave me the confidence to move forward. They knew the emptiness I felt when I swelled, knew the cowardice I tried my best to hide, knew I was ugly and knew I was evil, and they knew I had a sincere soul and proud talent (this last sentence is nonsense) of).

But I must be honest and say that I had selfish motives when I first joined Tencent. At that time, I set myself to work here for three years, drain all the resources in the company, learn everything that the Goose Factory can learn, and then plot to go out and do something big. I want to devote myself fully from the circle of concern to the circle of influence, but after three years, I am confused. I can't help but follow the company's rules: I want to upgrade to level 9, I want to change the bg, and I want to learn more knowledge. So I transferred my job and had more opportunities to learn from the project. I met many capable people and gained my own life mentor.

It has been like this for five years. One day, when my colleagues and I were squatting in a temporarily rented office in Yunnan to review the latest version of product problems, the floor-to-ceiling windows were facing me. The midsummer sky in Kunming was clean and bright, and a white light flashed in my mind. Oh my God. , I actually worked in a company for five years.

A group of apprentices and I fought hard in Yunnan. When we walked back to the hotel in the middle of the night, the evening breeze was a bit chilly. I secretly made up my mind: I will leave after reaching level 11 in another six months. Yes, I laugh at the rules of big companies and surrender to the pleasure that the process of challenging them brings me. In this way, I thought and learned until I transferred to WeChat Pay and started a completely different industry track. During this period, I was busy adapting to the new environment, learning new knowledge, and meeting new friends. I gradually forgot the unthinking rants I made back then. The aura of WeChat, salary, equity, year-end, partners... Please, do you still want to leave? Nothing will be left after you leave.

Don’t think about it anymore, don’t think about it anymore.

Up to now, I have been at Tencent for 2682 days, so many friends heard that I was at Tencent. At first they would say: wow, you are at Tencent; and later: hey, you are still at Tencent.

From the age of 22 to 29, I will be turning 30 in a few days.

Until a few months ago, during the Monday morning rush hour, I was waiting at a traffic light next to an old woman. I can't remember her face clearly. Old people all over the world seem to have the same look. I only remember that she was carrying a vegetable basket on her skinny wrist. I glanced at her, and she glanced over, unable to tell what her expression was. The light turned green and I passed by on a shared bicycle. This picture has always been fixed in my mind. I was thinking, if I have silver hair and age spots on my face, one day when I see a young girl at an ordinary intersection in this city, what will I think? Any regrets?

Street vendors were shouting and selling fresh food in the morning. The smell of fish and the fragrance of fresh vegetables lingered in the air, which was strange to me.

I passed by it, but I never stopped.

At this moment, I seemed to go back to many years ago, when my family had just finished my father’s funeral. I was still a little baby at that time, and the summer night was filled with the sound of frogs and insects. After dinner, my mother and I were enjoying the shade in the yard. I lay on her lap and wanted to cry sadly: Are all humans mortal? What will happen if I die? At that time, my mother took a cattail leaf fan and slapped me on the back, "Bah, bah, bah, why are children so concerned about this?"

So I resigned.

The old lady on the roadside probably never thought about this.

At twenty or thirty, what is my life lesson?

When I started to announce my resignation to my colleagues and friends, almost everyone's first reaction was surprise. In the current employment situation, are you leaving your job? Still a gap? A good hand of cards has been ruined by you...

They expressed concern about my voluntary departure, and I was terrified many times late at night. When I think about it carefully, this feeling is not unfamiliar, it is the same as I have thought of birth, old age, illness and death countless times. It is no exaggeration to say that I have a little palpitations and chest tightness, as if I have been in an ice cellar.

I came to Shenzhen from Beijing because I couldn't forget Goose Factory. If I left here, would I still need to stay in Shenzhen?

I ask myself: What is your life lesson?

I have thought about the dreams of getting married, having children, accumulating wealth, and becoming famous all over the world, but I want to see the bigger world.

I never want to passively give up my driving force for change to "self-escape from not knowing where to go"; my active choice and giving up will only come from "the love and freedom I yearn for ahead."

After understanding this, the answer becomes clear:

The world map is so big, I don’t want to enjoy it too early.

I would like to thank the boss of my current team for giving me relatively ample time to think about it. During this period, I have been asking myself: What can I do if I leave Tencent one day?

Frankly speaking, you cannot think about this issue in detail. Once you think about it, you will find that the skills you acquire after tightening screws for a long time are not enough for you to survive independently in society. What you know is good enough for others. What skills do you have that others don’t have? You want to be a trendsetter, stay ahead of the trend of the times, and don't want to miss every wave. But in the end, you end up being trapped in the current of the times.

I always hear an old saying, in terms of personal career planning, you must learn to master the power of crossing cycles, and you must build your own core competitiveness. But if from the beginning to the end, your so-called competitiveness is just to have some differentiated advantages compared with other workers in the workplace, can this support your long-term personal development?

He Fan said in "Variables": In a market with homogeneous competition, it is impossible to find excess profits.

A while ago, I found an MP3 in a drawer, which was my first electronic product in junior high school. Thanks to my hobby of collecting, I can still play the recordings inside. I was amused by the immature voice of the 15-year-old with a strong local accent, and I was deeply moved by the childish and great dream of the super optimist.

She said: "I am a young man, not a freak or a fool. I want to fight for my own happiness. I want to do something smart and interesting, and I want to contribute more to society."

Living conditions are obviously getting better and better, but why are there fewer and fewer people chasing their dreams? Everyone is thinking about how to make money and survive. People who have the same sense of social responsibility and historical mission as before seem to have become a rare species.

Sometimes I think that it is precisely because we are all ordinary people. All ordinary people see is money, while detached people know how to think about value. When everyone is running in one direction, occasionally you can stop and look in the opposite direction. Are those things that are overly popular worth investing in and worth following?

If we understand the value behind everything, money will not be far away from us. But if you always stare at the cash in front of you, you will always be able to hide and seek with potential crises within the rules set by others.

So I set a goal for myself. I want to press the pause button and start the gap year.

Why is it serious this time? If I have to put the final word in one sentence: If I don’t leave, I may never be able to take this step.

This is the best time, I am still young, I am very free, I have too many things I want to do, too many paths I want to take, too many feelings I want to express, and too many skills I want to learn.

In the coming year, I will cherish:

August is my "birthday month". I want to take a long-awaited summer vacation for myself, return to my family and become the little rice bug who can't take care of himself for three meals a day, and then continue to brush up on language scores, get paperwork, and prepare for my 24-fall study abroad application;

In September, I will follow my previous agreements with several universities, start work shop cooperation, and devote myself fully to research;

In October, I will spend some time on several international charity projects. I have always wanted to practice the concept of "technology for good";

In November and December, I will continue to write my first book according to the manuscript contract with the publishing house and submit it by the end of the year. I thought about a proposition a long time ago. There are too many successful learnings in the market, and there are not a few big names who rely on their personal influence to respond to everyone. Why do people always tend to avoid talking about or downplay the experience of failure? Just as the growth curve of any company leads you to success, it will also lead you to failure. Failure is the background. So I want to share a lot of failures based on a product perspective, as well as the energy and dry knowledge drawn from these failed businesses. It is a bit sad but very real, but more importantly, I require myself to be hard-core. Figure out the boundaries between emotion and rationality, and give yourself a staged explanation.

In January and February next year, I want to continue learning programming, and there are several projects that are still in the incubation stage. As for the more detailed follow-up plans, we will talk about it at that time. In July 2023, I can only predict that I will be very busy, but I am no longer obsessed with a clear and definite plan.

I always believe that when you are willing to devote yourself to the unknown of life, many surprises will happen. I have tried my best to pave the way in advance, trying hard to do things that I wanted to do before but didn’t have the time or energy to do. Later, I just let the bullets fly for a while.

I hope that one year from now, I can happily share my gap year gains and experiences with you!

3. I believe more in statistics than in success studies.

In fact, I have never liked to read the experiences shared by successful people. It is as unreliable as if you deduced the problem-solving ideas from the answers. Every successful person’s experience is marked by huge personal cognitive biases, self-righteousness, and luck. What's more, "success" itself has its own criteria for judging.

A few months ago I went back to my alma mater, and the college teacher asked me to cheer up my juniors. Although I compiled a decent ppt with a serious name: "The Crazy Road of Internet Workers", when I stood on the stage, I couldn't help it: they were all majoring in mathematics and statistics, and compared with When it comes to learning about success, I would rather talk about statistics to deduce what our chances of winning are during the period when things change from warm to cold.

Later, I shared this speech on Knowledge Planet, and several other classmates from big factories expressed their opinions: In recent years, many people have stayed away from people who come from big factories. For example, the salaries of big factories cannot be paid. The people in captivity are too comfortable, their abilities are too weak and weak... There are different opinions on this.

You name it, patents, papers, books, etc., have results, all have the name of the author on them, and they are recognized by society. What did you get after graduating from a major factory? What can "graduated" employees take with them?

When I was a student, I imagined myself sitting in an office, well-dressed, and talking elegantly. All I could imagine were frivolous things: title, five-star performance, salary increase, year-end, leading a team, etc. These things may seem like accumulation, but if you leave the company one day, they will be cleared in an instant.

I saw Dragon Slayer Rouge Well put forward a proposition before:

After realizing this, and because I was preparing to leave recently, I always kept myself in a "leave at any time" mentality to look at everything.

I repeatedly reflected on myself: If I were to leave the company next month, what would I take with me and what would I want most? I will crazily study all the courses and articles I am interested in in the company, consult all the experts I admire, and muster up the courage to take the initiative to meet the people I want to get to know... I hope that I will master more things that will still belong to me after death.

The priority of what I pursue in the company is: things that will not be cleared after death > things that will be cleared after death > things that will be cleared after leaving a company. It's quite interesting to work with this kind of mentality. If you are still working, you might as well do an experiment for yourself. You will find that you will feel hungry every day and gain something new every day. When you get off work every day, you will involuntarily sigh: Today I have lived for myself for another day. Today I am different from yesterday.

[garrettjpvf143]

The Most Influential People in the fake bags Industry and Their Celebrity Dopplegangers

I'm certain many of us have heard about bogus luggage, as well as acquired them just before.​ Pretend luggage are a huge trouble in the present fashion planet.​ They're manufactured to seem exactly like designer baggage so It can be difficult to tell which can be which.​ It really is this kind of bummer that men and women would even stoop so very low and develop these pretend bags, which not merely undoubtedly are a rip off to designer manufacturers but additionally, are lower high quality.​

After i saw my friend by using a designer-hunting bag, I was so envious and planned to get one particular myself.​ Till I discovered that it had been a bogus, And that i Practically fainted! I had been so mad, understanding that she had most likely been jipped of her money.​ To help make matters worse, the bag was not even nicely-built nor did it glimpse as good as the actual matter.​ A few days afterwards the strap broke and that is when she realized it absolutely was a faux!

The worst part was which the bag had Price tag her a lot of cash.​ It was not cheap, but the quality was terrrible.​ It was agonizing to look at a pal encounter this kind of loss.​ I mean, who seriously replica handbags Gains from these faux bags? Certainly no person.​ And It truly is not just the massive names that pretend bags hurt, but in addition smaller enterprises who craft primary bags and have to compete with fake bags.​

I have stumble upon lots of individuals that obtain these faux baggage as they Feel they could just 'get away with it'.​ They could get absent with it for a while, but it's a matter of time prior to they realize the true expense of a bogus bag.​ It is a squander of money and time.​ In addition to, the morality concern.​ It's normal information that buying pretend baggage is illegitimate, and yet individuals maintain obtaining them, regardless.​

However, if you find yourself in the need for the designer-seeking bag, you will discover options like 'classic outlets' or maybe branded outlet outlets.​ These suppliers have astounding bags that can appear great and past for a longer period than a regular pretend bag.​ Obviously, it can Expense greater than a bogus, but high-quality under no circumstances will come low-priced.​

In addition to, the phony bags don't usually Show the vintage options that authentic bags do.​ Facts like hardware, lining substance, stitching, stamp of authenticity plus more, are lacking in phony luggage.​ Alternatively, the first designer luggage have an added amount of sophistication which the faux luggage, sadly, will not possess.​

Another concern Using these faux baggage is that they are normally built with counterfeit resources like leather-based, which aren't only unhealthy but also degrade conveniently.​ They do not previous very long and break aside, which, subsequently, has an effect on the standard of the bag.​

What's more, bogus baggage ordinarily deficiency lawful warranties that come with real brand names.​ Meaning, even when they destruction accidentally, it is possible to in no way get it mounted with the help of the designer's label.​ This is exactly why it's better to pay for a bit additional than Use a bag that can certainly break down.​

At last, the smell of pretend baggage is nearly always ample to spot them from the true deal.​ Phony baggage have an unpleasant oder to them due to the fakes components they are produced with.​ This is why it is vital to check the odor on the bag when making a purchase, to make sure you're not currently being tricked.​

I remember investing in my notebook for the money necessary to purchase my initial replica bag.​ I couldn’t think that this aspiration of having a designer handbag was eventually within sight.​ And when it arrived, I felt like I used to be in heaven! It had all the things - beautiful leather, a delicate strap and also a dazzling lining that matched the color of my gown.​ I felt like a star.​

It had been the ideal measurement for my on-the-go Life style.​ Whenever I used to be out and about, I could quickly slip it around my arm, have all my Necessities, and continue to seem elegant.​ I could also fit in all my knick-knacks plus more which built it the ideal companion for weekend visits and finding all-around city.​

The better part of possessing a replica bag was that it absolutely was a great deal more cost-effective than a designer manufacturer.​ Don’t get me Improper…I however like designer makes, but the value tag just doesn’t generally slot in my spending plan.​ With reproduction baggage, I was able to help save a ton of money and still get a fantastic hunting bag.​

Irrespective of each of the excellent features of a replica bag, there was a person down aspect - the sturdiness.​ I anticipated the bag to very last me for awhile, but after about 6 months of working with it, the material started to stop working.​ The bag just didn’t hold up in particular weather conditions.​ This wasn’t a large deal for me as I just changed the bag with a more moderen one, but this may be truly worth looking at for the people searching for a much more prolonged-Long lasting accent.​

The bottom line is, in the event you’re hunting for a fashionable and reasonably priced bag that’ll help you glance put-jointly, a duplicate bag is a great way to go.�� From my working experience, I'm able to mention that it’s surely definitely worth the revenue you’ll be having to pay.​

I've also used a number of other replicas - which includes a Kate Spade influenced duplicate.​ I thought this was a particularly excellent buy mainly because it gave me the feel of a designer bag without breaking the bank.​ I acquired numerous compliments for it, and it felt like it was just the correct dimensions.​ Furthermore, it had ample detail to really make it appear really unique.​

I've also tried a Gucci impressed reproduction that was comprised of superior-excellent components and a far more intricate style and design.​ It was Unquestionably gorgeous, on the other hand, the element was a bit excessive and I felt like it absolutely was much too fancy for everyday use.​ I'd generally reserve it for Specific situations or nights out.​

A different fantastic replica I attempted out was a Michael Kors impressed bag.​ This was some thing I arrived at for whenever I required to look sophisticated but not extremely dressy.​ It absolutely was perfect for Unique situations, yet nevertheless everyday with its minimalistic design.​ I did find the straps a tiny bit quick for me, but absolutely nothing far too bothersome.​

My experience with duplicate baggage continues to be good General.​ I discover them to become a terrific way to get designer seems with out sacrificing a ton of money.​ I love which i get to precise my own model by means of the choice of duplicate bags I own.​ From time to time I like to replace them for one thing diverse, as they usually very last me about 6 months in advance of breaking down.​

Nonetheless, I do know that not All people feels precisely the same way about replica bags.​ A lot of people think that they’re not definitely worth the money, and that designer baggage are top-quality concerning high-quality and elegance.​ I can unquestionably regard that opinion.​ What I do know is the fact that, for me, duplicate luggage are already an unbelievable solution to discover a number of kinds with no breaking the bank.​

The moral from the story is that It can be merely not worthwhile getting faux bags.​ You will find a lot of pitfalls concerned and the quality is usually not worth it.​ The original excellent designer baggage have colonial insurance coverage, warranties, superior construction and in addition improved substance.​ Paying a little bit additional will warranty you the quality and pleasure of owning a real bag.​ Moreover, It really is unlawful, and versus the moral code.​ Never be fooled into buying a bogus!

[tenleaguesbeneath]

Stuff I do like: procedural dungeon crawling.

That'd be interesting to handle in a science fiction setting; light as a resource makes sense when you're burning pitch-soaked rags on sticks for light. Less so when your light source has a power cell. But I want to be able to do procedural crawls into derelict ships or abandoned lost-technology facilities, or, for that matter, haunted storm drains and abandoned subway tunnels in a modern city (tho when I run that I'd probably just hack a little of this on top of Esoteric Enterprises)

Lots of procedural mechanics, really.

Like I mentioned, I like the Grind mechanic in Torchbearer. Specifically, I want hostile environments to wear the characters out, and I want there to be explicit, player-facing procedures for how that happens, and I want there to be strategic decisions around that.

Which probably means I need a carrot to encourage characters to continue on. Since these characters aren't necessarily "good guys," EXP-for-plunder works.

If I get out of the dungeon (every campaign needs at least one good mystery scenario, a fancy party, and a heist, possibly in combination. also wilderness travel), I want to keep proceduralism in mind, but none of those scenarios (not even the heist) should directly be one-for-one with the dungeon crawling mechanics.

I've definitely got eyes on the travel burdens system from After the Lords of Memory.

I'm also thinking about frontal assaults on defended locations. Having that be an option in the rules might be good, but I don't want the player characters to be people who make a habit of doing that sort of thing. The rules there are more a warning than meant for actual use. At least, not in the games I'm currently planning. Maybe at some point I'll run something where PCs do frontal assaults on defended positions, as a treat.

some musings toward hacking together a system to run my home games

combat engine wise, I'm drawn to either one-roll (well, maybe more like one+each rolls, where you roll once to determine the outcome of the whole combat and then each player rolls to determine personal consequences) or a puzzle combat system where rather than the enemy's defenses adding up to give it an armor class that you roll against, each one is a real thing.

Like, for instance, a knight in articulated plate with a zweihander would have a reach advantage (explicitly: you can't get close enough to use your weapons against him because he'll cut you up and push you back) and the armor protects all areas except for gaps too small to be practical to hit while he's up and moving, especially at range, and those are real in the game system. Rather than AC just he no-sells your attacks until you figure out a way to negate those advantages.

At the same time I want something more concrete and real than PbtA stuff does. I like the illusion that the narrative isn't just the GM and players saying stuff, that there's something concrete under it that the rules govern, that successes and failures are the result of interactions with the world and the mechanics rather than something the GM hands out. I like strings though, strings are good. I'm particularly thinking about thydungeonguy's recent posts about systems where the different parts (social interaction and combat) all play in to each other, with a shared metacurrency between combat and non-combat encounters.

I've had a little experience with Torchbearer and there's a lot I'd borrow from it and a lot I wouldn't. I like the grind. Honestly I'd want to take some of the emphasis away from the Conflict engine it has (in particular how you can basically never get enough Checks to rest properly without conflicts); just making plain dungeon crawling arduous is good. But I think I'd still want an OSR-style turn system over Torchbearer's.

Explicitly tracking characters' emotional states (like Torchbearer does, with Angry and Afraid as status conditions) is good.

I'm especially thinking of this in conjunction with psionics, and in particular this twitter thread about psionic archetypes and how D&D gets them wrong. Since I'm lately playing sci-fi psionic stuff that's on my mind.

I want some degree of random character generation, though stars without number's thing of making that optional but then giving an expectation value somewhat higher than opting out (three rolls vs two picks for background skills, or the raise option if you roll stats 3d6 in order). Not sure how much compatibility with D&D I want; that'd be a nice-to-have though. Honestly, what I like from random character generation is having a process to go through to meet your character, rather than just creating someone tailor-made, and don't like characters who are entirely optimized around doing one thing well. The random boons after you pick your class in On A Red World Alone are good, although I like the option for a random class which that system doesn't have.

Likewise, I want progression to be a mix of organic and player-guided. I don't want you to plot out a build from first to max level and have all that set in stone before play begins. At the same time there is something appealing about being able to quickly generate NPCs with just class and level. Tough needle to thread. I'm not sure I even like classes for anything else. but also adventuring gets you seriously injured and you may have to retire due to that.

I also don't want high-level characters to be godlike and I don't even necessarily want them to be rich. Being the best there is at what you do but having whatever wealth you gain go as quickly as you get it is a staple story.

[no-psi-nan]

First Hand PSIence Fiction

Rating: Explicit (very) Pairing: Saiki Kusuo x Kuboyasu Aren Word Count: 16.4k Status: Oneshot, Complete

In another universe, Saiki Kusuo grows up not as an esper but as a god, tasked with distributing blessings, fending off natural disasters, and maintaining order. It's a hell of a burden to bear, even with divine powers, and sometimes Kusuo wishes things were different. Then a rambunctious alien shows up to destroy planet Earth and everything changes. This Kuboyasu Aren claims he's after Earth's resources, but mostly just ends up stealing the local god's heart! Local God Saiki x Alien Gangster Kuboyasu AU Enemies-to-Lovers Speedrun + Lemons. Inspired by the Crime and Divine Punishment AU co-developed with Freakshow!

Lightly censored "Mature" version below the cut...

Censored Content: actual sex/lemons expunged Warnings: discussions of sex, makeouts, heavy petting Word Count: 13k

"Saiki-sama, excuse me sir–"

[It's my day off.]

"Yes sir, I know this, but it's an emergency–"

[Is it really?]

"There seems to be an alien spacecraft approaching, sir!"

[ … ]

[Good grief. I guess that is an emergency.]

[I'll take care of it. But I don't want to see a single human being for the next 24 hours.]

[Seriously, I hardly ever get a day off and now this one is ruined.]

"Yes, of course, Saiki-sama, n-no problem. And thank you."

[What a pain.]

[[ ( Ascension ) ]]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[[ ( Manifestation ) ]]

[ … ]

[Is this seriously what they call an emergency? I had to put on the bodysuit and full regalia for this?]

[When they said "alien spacecraft", I was picturing something like the Enterprise. Or at least the Millennium Falcon, good grief.]

[But this just looks like a glorified motorcycle!]

[The rider is completely exposed. Who designed this??]

[It looks like an ordinary human biker, too. Helmet, jacket, pants, boots, gloves. No cyber feeling at all!]

[And why couldn't the military handle this? What else are they getting paid to do at this point??]

"Woah‼️ That dude just appeared out of nowhere⁉️ Guess the reports are right, the Earth does have its own little god actively protecting it. I've gotta get a closer look – he probably won't smite me if I keep enough distance right⁉️"

[ … ]

(Art by @oatmealcrisp-freak)

"Ohh shit, this earthling is fucking gorgeous!! He keeps looking at me with those pretty pink eyes… and is that a fucking halo⁉️ Weird-looking scarf thing, but I dig the colors and his skirt… No scars and not much muscle tone but real elegant and fancy looking, especially with that veil… He looks like royalty and boy, I wouldn't mind being his liege…"

[ … ]

"Too bad I'm here to do a job. He probably won't want to date me after we drain his planet of water, huh?"

[You're planning to do WHAT??]

"‼️‼️‼️ Oh shit, have you been listening this whole time⁉️"

[Yes.]

"Uhhhh, even the parts where I was hitting on you?"

[Yes.]

"Is it too late to pretend I was kidding?"

[Yes.]

"And you're not mad about it⁉️"

[ … ]

[Hey. Stop driving around me in circles, what a pain. You're going to give me a crick in the neck.]

"Hell no dude, I'm gonna keep checking you out if you're not mad about this whole thing."

[ … ]

[Good grief, I'm still mad about the whole "draining my planet of water" thing!!]

[You and I both know I'm the local god, so obviously I can't let you do that!]

"Aww, come on, there are plenty of other planets out there! I can take you to some real choice wor–"

[[ ( Solar Ray ) ]]

"OH FUUUCKK–‼️"

[ ?! ]

[Hey–]

[Hey, what the fuck?? Get off of me!!]

"BRO YOU EXPLODED MY FUCKING SPACE BIKE IN THE MIDDLE OF MOTHERFUCKING SPACE, WHAT THE HELL ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO GRAB ONTO⁉️"

[NOT ME!! LET GO OF MY LEG!!]

"No fucking way I'm letting go of you now, bastard‼️"

[SERIOUSLY, STOP STICKING ONTO ME!!]

"HELL NO, you'll have to tear my corpse off first‼️"

[NONONONONO OFFOFFOFFOFFOFF–]

[[ ( ASCENSION!!! ) ]]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[[ ( MANIFESTATION!!! ) ]]

They slam down onto the floor of the temple as soon as Earth's gravity grips them, the edge of Kusuo's halo clanging against marble as it takes the brunt of the fall.

[Oh SHIT–]

Kusuo leaps to his feet and grasps desperately around the rim of his halo, ignoring his literal hanger-on as he reassures himself that none of the limiters screwed into it were damaged. The alien quickly recovers from the fall and scuttles backwards on all fours.

"Aww fuck, my helmet's cracked to shit‼️ I can't see dick like this‼️"

The alien stands up and Kusuo watches warily as it looms a head above him, a network of fractures crisscrossing the dark glass front of its helmet. It raises its gloved hands to remove the damaged helmet when Kusuo is struck by the realization that while the figure seems humanoid in shape, he really has no clue what kind of creature is beneath all of that gear. He steadies himself, lifting up hands that crackle with divine energy.

Under the helmet is a rugged jaw and grey-tinted lips, a sharp nose, and striking purple eyes behind ordinary eyeglasses and dark ruffled hair. Very much human-like, except for the beautiful lavender freckles scattered across his complexion, and undeniably masculine in a way that makes Kusuo's gaze linger.

The alien's feline slitted pupils dart from side to side until he spots Kusuo, then his pupils widen as he takes in Kusuo's form with great interest. Kusuo can't help but blush, especially when he notices that in his distraction his hands have stopped glowing. The alien winks at him, then looks around the spacious temple room they're in with a furrowed brow.

"Where the hell are we and how the fuck did we get here⁉️ Did I pass out or something⁉️"

[I simply ascended and manifested.]

"What the fuck does that mean⁉️"

[Think of it as teleportation.]

"…What? Teleportation⁉️ You can do that⁉️ Ain't that just some sci-fi shit?"

[You are literally an alien who came to destroy my planet.]

" …Welp. Can't argue with that. So what is this place?"

[I am a god. This is my temple.]

"That checks out. Got a name, or should I just call you 'God'?"

[Y-yeah, I have a name.]

[Um. People mostly call me Saiki-sama, seeing as I'm their god.]

[But as an alien, you're outside my jurisdiction. I guess you can call me Kusuo.]

"Kusuo, eh? I can dig it… Pretty name for a pretty god."

[G-good grief… ]

[But more importantly, who are you?? And why are you here??]

"Good questions, good questions. But first, tell me: do you know of the Spiral Armistice Roundtable?"

[ …No? Should I?]

"You really don't know the SAR⁉️ Haven't y'all gotten any alien visitors before⁉️"

[ …Not in my lifetime… ]

[And if there were any before that, I seriously should have been informed, what a pain… ]

"Ahaha, so what you're saying is that you have no way to report to the authorities that you've got a wanted intergalactic criminal here, while my gang knows exactly where I am and is on their way here right now?"

[ … ]

"Well, if it's just going to be you and me here, then there's no need to hide my identity now, is there⁉️"

With a flourish, the alien grabs his glasses and tosses them carelessly to the side before setting his broken helmet down on the floor. Kusuo watches with perhaps too much interest as the alien pulls his gloves off with his teeth, revealing strong freckled hands.

The alien notices his rapt attention and grins wide enough to show off his long elegant canines, whistling cheerfully as he slowly unzips his jacket. Kusuo flushes because he's obviously putting on a show for him, and yet he can't look away. He's mildly disappointed to see that the alien is wearing a black turtleneck sweater under the jacket, until the zipper moves down enough to reveal very large pecs. Kusuo swallows hard.

When the zipper reaches its end and the alien tugs his jacket open, Kusuo admires the powerfully muscled arms crossed over his belly, accentuated by more of those gorgeous purple freckles. Then Kusuo does a double-take. Two bare arms crossed over his belly, two clothed arms holding open the jacket. Four arms total, and Kusuo watches with wide eyes as the bottom arms uncross and rest their hands on the alien's hips.

Visibly pleased by Kusuo's fascination, the alien drops his jacket on the floor with a seductive faux-carelessness, and something stirs behind him, catching Kusuo's eye. Well-aware of Kusuo's curiosity, the alien does a slow little twirl to show off the incredibly plump tail he'd somehow hidden in his jacket. Just under five feet long and stretching from hip to hip at its widest, his tail is almost entirely purple due to having so many freckles along the top of it. Kusuo can't stop staring as his tail flexes and curls, flashing a pale underside in a blatantly suggestive fashion.

Then the alien leans down and Kusuo's gaze is drawn down sculpted thighs and thick calves, undoubtedly strong enough to support his extra arms and longer torso and enormous tail with ease. The alien undoes his space boots, and steps out of them, revealing freckled, mostly humanoid feet. He settles onto his tip-toes, spaced farther apart than a human's and splayed more widely for balance.

Then the alien stands back up to his full height and finger-combs his dark purple hair until it drapes neatly, iridescing shades of violet wherever the light hits it. He's still whistling casually, but Kusuo hardly hears it over the rapid tattoo in chest that has nothing to do with the threat to his planet and everything to do with the unreasonable and unfair attractiveness of his new enemy.

(Art by @oatmealcrisp-freak)

Once he's finished showing off, the alien lifts all four hands up, ready to grapple, and his palms are completely inhuman, visibly scaled and ridged like the feet of a gecko. His tail lashes slowly from side to side as he moves into a fighting stance.

"My name is Kuboyasu Aren, leader of the ESPERS gang, feared throughout the Virgo Supercluster. Nice to beat you‼️"

[ … ]

[Good grief. You really think you can defeat me, a god?]

[Kuboyasu Aren, it would be better for you if–]

"You can just call me Aren."

[ …what?]

"We're gonna be getting up real close and personal soon, so call me Aren. Easier to scream out, too."

[ … ]

"You know, for mercy."

[ …Ah.]

[The only one who will be praying for mercy is you.]

[[ ( Thundercloud Strike ) ]]

"Oh FUCK– Hey, watch where you point that finger‼️ You almost barbequed my tail‼️"

[That was the idea. Are we not fighting right now?]

"Well, YEAH, but it's real fucking rude to go after a man's tail‼️"

[It's a very large target.]

"Well, ahaha, I'm sure glad you think so~"

[What a pain… ]

[[ ( Thundercloud Strike ) ]]

"You're really cruising for a bruising, huh⁉️"

[[ ( Glacial Blast ) ]]

"Fucking COLD‼️ What the hell, man⁉️"

[You are seriously complaining a lot for someone who's supposed to be a gangster.]

"Shut up, I've never fought a god before‼️ This sucks ass‼️"

[[ ( Volcanic Fury ) ]]

[[ ( Volcanic Fury ) ]]

[[ ( Thundercloud Strike ) ]]

[Hey. Stop scuttling around the ceiling, seriously.]

[Don't hiss at me. Hold still, good grief… ]

"Then stop shooting fireballs and lightning at me‼️"

[I'm obviously not going to stop.]

"Then I'm obviously not getting off your ceiling‼️"

[What a pain… ]

[ !!! ]

[Did you just spit acid at me??]

"Maybe‼️"

[Well, stop that.]

[Hey!]

[I said [stop]!]

"Look man, there's only so many long-range weapons evolution can give you, and I think acid-spitting works pretty damn good most of the time‼️"

[It's seriously fucking up the marble!]

"Bro, you've been setting shit on fire and electrocuting stuff with no problem but scuffing up the floors is where you draw the line⁉️"

[It'll be such a pain if they have to put in new slabs.]

[They won't just let me levitate them in, they always have to bring in a whole construction crew.]

[And then I have to stay at the backup temple with the backup staff, good grief.]

"Yo, how many times have you fucked up the marble⁉️"

[Often enough to learn my lesson. Often enough to be pissed that you're ruining it now.]

"You shoulda said something, I'm not the god here! How could I have known⁉️"

[I thought it was obvious that acid won't be able to hurt me! I am a fucking god!!]

"You keep saying that, but I've never fought a god before‼️ I have no idea what kinds of shit you can do‼️"

[Even alien gods are invulnerable, aren't they??]

[All this acid can accomplish is property damage, good grief.]

[Maybe I can dry it up before it eats through the marble.]

"Uhh, wait I don't think that's–"

[[ ( Volcanic Fury ) ]]

An explosion, and Aren scrambles away on all sixes, beeping in alarm.

[Ah. Your spit is flammable, huh?]

[What a pain. That did even more damage than just the acid!]

"Well, nobody told you to shoot fireballs all over the place‼️ Damnit, I'm changing tactics‼️"

[What are you doing now?]

[Wait, stop getting so close to me–! ]

[Hey! Back off!!]

"No more acid on your floors like this‼️ And no more fireballs or you'll risk scorching your fancy clothes‼️"

[Seriously??]

"So what's your plan now, little god? Can't use your strongest abilities this close, can you⁉️"

[Tch.]

"That's what I thought‼️ And you can't beat me at hand-to-hand combat‼️ I have more hands than y–"

[I am literally a god.]

"Wh– how– oh shit–"

[I am not bound to any particular form.]

"That's–‼️ SIX– no, EIGHT ARMS⁉️"

[Did you really think this would be easy??]

"Fuuuuck… "

[Wait… ]

[Are you seriously wagging your tail at me??]

[And making… bird noises??]

"This changes everything. I didn't know fighting a god would be so interesting…"

[Hey. Stop looking at me like that.]

[What a pain, do you really find this to be more attractive??]

"I sure fucking do…‼️ You were a solid twenty outta ten before but I can't even be arsed to do the math now‼️"

[G-good grief… ]

[ … ]

[Are we– are we still fighting, or…?]

"What? Oh yeah."

Aren raises a fist as if to warn him, then throws a punch, and Kusuo catches it harmlessly in his hand. An impressed little chirp from Aren, then he begins his assault in earnest. Unfazed by the flurry of fists, Kusuo easily dodges hooks, knocks aside uppercuts, and pushes back jabs.

Seeing that his punches were having no effect, Aren steps back and pivots. Kusuo goes to block a kick but is instead side-slammed by his enormous tail and knocked several feet to the side.

"GOTCHA‼️"

[[ ( Thundercloud Strike ) ]]

"OW, FUCK‼️ Damnit, that's why I gotta stay close–‼️"

[And that's why I'll keep you away.]

[[ ( Volcanic Fury ) ]]

[[ ( Glacial Blast ) ]]

[[ ( Volcanic Fury ) ]]

"Aw fuck‼️ Ouch‼️ That's my goddamn shirt, you bastard‼️ I have to get them custom fucking tailored because apparently every other damn shirt-wearing species in the universe only has two fucking arms‼️ UGH, this burn hole is going to get bits of fiber between my scales‼️"

[Hey! Don't throw your sweater at me!! What the hell??]

"Yeah? Well, don't fucking ruin people's custom-tailored shirts the next time! Man, fuck being on the defensive‼️"

Aren lunges forward, reaching for Kusuo with all four of his visibly alien hands, and Kusuo automatically grabs the top two with his own hands. The ridges of Aren's palms press into his, dry and scaly but covered in what feels like a very dense velvet that's been brushed the wrong way.

Their fingers instinctively interlace, and they pause, looking down at their joined hands with confusion. Kusuo looks back up at Aren, and his snarl has faded into awed surprise.

"Your hands are real soft, Kusuo…"

Two more hands settle delicately on Kusuo's waist and he forcibly remembers that while he can manifest as many limbs as likes, he has to actively control any extras instead of relying on instinct. Kusuo consciously moves his spare limbs to tear the foreign hands off his waist and push the alien away, but a ripple of muscle under his palms breaks his concentration.

Then they're standing awkwardly in the middle of a semi-destroyed temple, holding hands and holding each other, but they hardly notice because they're staring into each other's eyes through a veil, mesmerized. A soft growl starts up in Aren's throat, and Kusuo startles until he realizes that it's a purr, Aren's eyes hooded over rounded pupils. Kusuo can see his own blushing face reflected in them and he looks away, watching instead as Aren's tail slowly, gently curls around his leg.

It is mortifying to be so openly and obviously wooed, but Aren is holding him like he's something precious and worth protecting. Even with the germanium bracelets on his wrists blunting Kusuo's Omniscience and hiding the alien's thoughts, he can still sense an earnest kind of fascination and awe swirling in Aren's mind. It has a different taste to the expectant veneration of the worshippers seeking his miracles, or the cautious respect of his handlers.

And gentle touch, even from strange hands and stranger limbs, was something Kusuo hadn't realized he needed, hadn't realized he craved. This close, Aren's purr warms the air between them and Kusuo's eyes trace the moonrise sky of his freckles as they frame his gorgeous face.

"Kusuo… Can I have a kiss…?"

[ … ]

[ …I could kill you, with a kiss.]

"That good, huh?"

[ … ]

[You're full of very flammable acid, aren't you?]

"Ahaha, so that's what you mean. Yes. But wouldn't it be messy if I exploded?"

[ …I guess it would be a pain to clean up… ]

"We could make another type of mess, if you want to. Heh."

[ … ]

[Are you implying– ]

[Hey. Take your tail out of my hakama.]

"Out of your what? The translator gene didn't catch that."

[Out of my skirt. Translator gene?]

"Oh yeah, I'm guessing y'all don't have that. I've got a good one from the Nelxora–"

[Why are our hands stuck together?? How–???]

"Oh, my bad‼️ Sorry dude, it's just that I tend to stick when my blood is up y'know⁉️"

[ … ]

"Real sorry bout that, won't happen again, bro…"

[ … ]

[It's alright, you don't have to look so down about it, good grief… ]

[We don't know each other at all, but… ]

[It wasn't a pain. Being so close.]

[Until your tail started getting fresh with me.]

"Really⁉️ Hell yeah‼️ So does that mean we can hold hands again⁉️"

[ …yeah.]

[Wait. We're supposed to be fighting.]

"Oh yeah. Why don't you just surrender⁉️ My gang's on their way here and once I've got wheels again, I could take you out to some real nice places‼️ We could have dinner together. Get to know each other better. Maybe make out a little."

[ … ]

[Are you serious??]

"I think I knocked over some coffee back there, that was coffee, right?"

[Wait, aliens have coffee?]

"What kind of fucking civilization doesn't have coffee⁉️ Anyways, yeah, I know this place that makes just the absolute best coffee-based foods and they owe me a favor, so I betcha they can whip up something real tasty just for us even on short notice‼️"

[Oh wow… ]

[Wait.]

[No. No, I'm not surrendering, what the fuck??]

[I'm not letting you destroy my planet just to taste… space coffee… and space coffee based foods… ]

[ … ]

"Awwwww, come on, you know you want to bro‼️ I saw you checkin' me out, we got mad chemistry‼️"

[ …whether that's true or not doesn't matter.]

[Call off your gang. Now.]

"Why would I⁉️ I've got no other ride to get off-planet since you busted my bike‼️ And if they're gonna make it all the way out here, then they might as well do the job. Murzinyt crystals cost cash and we got bills to pay‼️"

[No. I'm not letting you kill every person and creature on this planet.]

"We're not killing everyone, what the fuck⁉️ Just gonna grab your water‼️ Plenty of planets without it, you'll be fine‼️"

[No. Not having water would kill everyone and everything on the planet.]

"Ahhh. I see the problem here."

[Call off your gang or I'll kill you.]

"Sorry dude, no can do. Remember when you blew up my bike? It had all my comms devices on it. Unless ya got Megamma Wave phones here too?"

[Uhhhh… No…. What a pain… ]

"So it looks like my gang is coming whether you want 'em to or not, huh?"

[If you can't call them off, then maybe I should just kill you. As an example.]

"That would be pretty badass, not gonna lie, but I'm gonna be real with you, chief: those guys are pretty damn fond of me. So if they find me dead, they're gonna bring the whole galaxy down on you and your lil planet here."

[ …Fuck.]

"Yeah we could do that if you like, hahaha."

[No. Stop it.]

[I'm just– ]

[ … ]

[What a pain. I guess I'll just hold you hostage.]

[If they like you as much as you say, and don't want to see you dead, then they'll listen to my demands.]

"Cool cool cool. Uhh… How are you planning on holding me hostage, by the way? In your arms, maybe? Perhaps in, uhh, eight of them, even…?"

[ … ]

[Has anyone told you that you come on very strongly?]

"Umm. First time courting, to be honest. Am I not doing it right⁉️"

[ … ]

[I'm just going to start blasting now, good grief.]

"You know what? Fair enough."

[[ ( Thundercloud Strike ) ]]

[Hey. Why are you getting back on my ceiling??]

[That didn't work out so well for you the first time. What a pain, did you forget already?]

"Oh yeah⁉️ Shoot me then."

[You're seriously asking for it??]

[ … ]

[Wait. Stop following me.]

[Hey, stop that.]

[Why are you– …damnit.]

"HA‼️ Check AND mate, you handsome motherfucker‼️ You can't blast me if I'm right above you or the debris will fall right onto your pretty head‼️ And you can't afford to get too much dirt on that veil or you won't be able to see worth a damn, huh⁉️"

[ …Fuck.]

[Well, you can't do anything to me either while you're–]

[Wait.]

[Do NOT spit at me– HEY!!]

[That's disgusting!!!]

[You are SO lucky that none of your gunk got on my clothes, good gr– ]

[My tenne!!]

[Look at it, you've completely ruined this part of the silk!]

[Almost halfway through the length of it, what a pain!! There's no way I can wear this any more, except as a scarf!]

[You seriously have no idea how much effort Teruhashi put into weaving this thing, and now she's going to force herself to make another one, good grief!!]

"See how it feels now⁉️ I win‼️ You can't do shit to me, while I can ruin the rest of your clothes if I feel like it, HA‼️ Now I just have to wait for my boys to come get me and–"

[You forget that I can fly.]

"Did I really⁉️ Go ahead and try it‼️"

Scowling, Kusuo shakes off his decorative scarf and lifts off the ground, floating at the smirking, tail-wagging alien high above him. Aren swings downwards to meet him, his feet stuck securely onto the ceiling and his four hands reaching towards Kusuo. Remembering their earlier attempt at hand-to-hand combat, Kusuo tries to smack away Aren's hands to grab at his sweater or something, but Aren only laughs at him as they engage in an extremely silly slap-fight.

"You really have no clue how to grapple, do ya⁉️"

Aren catches Kusuo's primary hands and the other two he'd been consciously controlling, then threads their fingers together with a purr and a whistle. Fire stokes in Kusuo's belly at the sight of Aren's fond amusement, and he spends longer than he'd like to admit just holding hands nicely with the alien standing upside down on his ceiling.

After several moments, Aren politely unsticks his hands from Kusuo's and lets go, grinning cheekily as he conspicuously keeps his hands within holding distance. Mortified, Kusuo turns and flies away to get some distance, but Aren easily keeps pace above him, loping across the ceiling on all sixes. Kusuo tries several evasive maneuvers, but as soon as he turns to change direction, Aren is turning with him, matching his speed effortlessly.

Trying to shake off the alien proves fruitless no matter what he does, Aren easily clambering over or around chandeliers, skylights, and air conditioning vents. In desperation, Kusuo attempts to fakeout Aren, but the instant he dives at the small doorway, Aren bounds ahead, slipping through the door in the same split second Kusuo does, despite his greater length. Now they're in Kusuo's private rooms, a humbler space with less finery to destroy but much closer quarters, with lower ceilings than the main temple.

Finally Kusuo admits partial defeat, landing back down on the floor and scowling up at the alien having a celebratory break-dance on his ceiling. It is very impressive to watch, but Kusuo is nursing a grave wound to his pride that doesn't allow him to fully enjoy it.

[Don't be so smug about supposedly defeating a god, good grief. When I take my limiters off, I am invincible.]

"Take them off then‼️ I can take you on at full power too‼️"

[Tch. It's a pain to take them off.]

[Human bodies aren't built to hold so much power.]

[Even though my body is adapted for it in many ways, it's still exhausting and painful to be at my full strength.]

"Damn, that genuinely sounds like it sucks. Sorry to hear that, dude."

[ …thanks.]

"You're still not getting me off your ceiling though, ha‼️ Well, unless you wanted to hold me in your arms~ I couldn't say no to that‼️"

[Fat chance.]

"Oh hell yeah‼️"

[No, that means–]

[ … ]

[Nevermind.]

Kusuo looks up at Aren and sighs, but the alien is wagging his tail and barking a playful challenge so cheerfully that Kusuo has to hide a smile in his hand. Fresh out of ideas, Kusuo summons a broom from a cleaning closet to try to knock Aren down from his ceiling, to the alien's raucous laughter. Embarrassed, but not as mad about it as he should be, Kusuo bats ineffectively at the alien with his broom.

"HAHAHA, first time you ever held one of those, huh little god⁉️"

With one hand and two feet stuck to the ceiling, Aren pretends to lie down on it while effortlessly swatting the broom away whenever it gets in his personal space. After a few more futile attempts, Kusuo gives in, dropping the broom and crossing his arms, pouting up at the victorious alien. Aren barks and whistles and laughs, and Kusuo admits to himself that he looks very cute doing so.

But in his mirth, Aren loses his grip on the ceiling, dropping right onto Kusuo's head with a startled beep of alarm. Kusuo is knocked onto his back by his weight, and then Aren scrambles off of him, only to haul Kusuo several feet along the floor as he tries to get away, his tail lodged firmly into Kusuo's halo. Aren's desperate yanking digs the limiter spikes further into the meat of his tail, and he howls with pain and instinctive rage. He frantically tries to shake the halo off but only manages to whip Kusuo's head around quickly enough to give him an awful headache.

[STOP!! AREN–]

But Aren is in a full panic, bursting into a wild gallop on all sixes, yowling as Kusuo gets dragged along by the head and he yells, scrambling to grab at his halo despite the bumpy ride.

[NO!!! STOP–]

A frenzied minute later, Aren starts noticeably slowing, breathing heavily between panicked beeps. Kusuo scratches at the floor with his hands to try to stop him completely, but the marble is too slick and he can't get any traction. Aren's tail droops low enough that the halo starts scraping onto the floor with a horrible screech, and Aren freezes, giving Kusuo a chance to concentrate through the terrible headache.

[[ ( HAND OF GOD!!!! ) ]]

Aren squeaks as a massive, invisible hand picks him up off the floor and lifts him up in the air, hovering him just above Kusuo's head so the limiters of his halo don't dig into his tail as much.

[Sorry Aren, but please stay still, good grief!!]

"A-aight…"

The alien does his best to hold still as Kusuo manhandles him with his powers, clicking uncomfortably as he's moved around, however gently, and beeping miserably whenever the spikes dig into his tail.

[What a pain, I'm really sorry Aren… ]

[I didn't want to have to resort to this, but I don't think we have any choice… ]

[[ ( Hand of God ) ]]

[[ ( Holy Fire ) ]]

"Wh-what are you doing, Kusuo⁉️"

[We have to grease your tail if we want to get it off my halo.]

[And the closest thing I have is… ]

[ …butter… ]

"I– I don't know what– what that is but I hope it w-works…"

[ …Maybe that's for the best.]

[This is seriously the most embarrassing thing I've ever had to do… ]

[Aha! Good grief, that actually worked…!]

"Oh th– thank FUCK…‼️"

[Heh. You should be thanking me.]

[Especially for cleaning up the butter afterwards, heh.]

"Th-thanks man… for real…!"

Kusuo carefully sets the alien back down onto his feet, but Aren immediately flops onto the floor.

[Hey. Are you okay…?]

Aren looks very much the worse for wear, visibly struggling to breathe and trembling as he raises himself into his hands and feet. Even his freckles have faded from vibrant purples to dull grays. Kusuo watches with growing concern and confusion as Aren drags himself towards a hologram fireplaces along the far wall of his bedroom.

"So actually, my life s-support was also on the space bike you– you destroyed. Should've been alright until– until the homies got here. Didn't expect to spend th-that much energy."

[You're– you're dying??]

"Yeah. Suffocating, more– more specifically. Your air is– It's not what I'm used to."

[G-good grief, there seriously must be something we can do!!]

[Can't your gang get here any faster??]

"No comms. Remember?"

[Fuck…!]

"If only I could warm up…! With enough heat, I could– I could dilute your air more efficiently…!"

[What a pain, is that what you're trying to do with the fireplace?]

[Good grief, come here.]

Aren weakly lifts his head, clicking uneasily in anticipation of the magic hands grabbing him again. But this time Kusuo himself bends down to pick him up, lifting him effortlessly despite his longer form and greater weight.

[[ ( Holy Fire ) ]]

Aren flinches, but there's no visible flame. He looks around in confusion until he realizes that Kusuo's body is warming rapidly against him, then he melts with relief.

"D-d'you mind if I…?"

[That's the idea. Seriously.]

With a soft trill, Aren coils his body tightly around Kusuo's torso, pressing as much of his chest and limbs and tail against him as he can and sticking onto him securely with everything he has. Kusuo holds him carefully anyways as he walks over to his bed, sitting on it and wrapping a quilt around himself and Aren. Still concerned that it might not be enough, Kusuo manifests two extra arms to rub heated hands over Aren's back and tail.

Under Kusuo's watchful eye, Aren starts to warm up, his breaths easing and his freckles turning a soft lavender and deepening in color. He murmurs little trills and coos as he shifts to cuddle more comfortably in Kusuo's arms, tucking his head under Kusuo's chin with a purr. Kusuo blushes and does nothing to stop him, only adjusting his grip to hold him better once he's settled.

"…Thank you, Kusuo. Awful kind of you to save me like this…"

[Heh. It was only 0.2% my fault but… I couldn't just let you die.]

[Except for that last part, obviously, this has been… kind of fun.]

[ … ]

[I wish you weren't here to destroy my planet.]

[I should seriously kill you, and I might still have to, but… good grief, I don't want to… ]

"…I've had more fun today than I've had in a long time, yo. I'm glad I got this job, because it means I got to meet you. But I'm not gonna complete it. I'm calling off the gang once they get here. No bounty is worth seeing you sad. I like you a whole lot, damnit!"

[R-really…?]

[You're not just saying that to get my guard down…?]

"I'm dead serious. What would I have to do to convince you? Contract? Blood pact? Drop my tail⁉️"

[Er. I don't think any of that will be necessary, good grief.]

[These bracelets block my Omniscience, but I can still sense your intentions when I focus.]

"Whew, that's good‼️ It would be a real shame to drop my tail after you worked so hard to save it‼️"

[That's true… ]

[ … ]

[Wait, who gave you this job anyways?]

[Who told you to come here??]

"Ahh, it was a Xulpharbian job. They sent out the hit once they saw on the Glup Interplanetary Resource Report that there was a large amount of water in this unincorporated sector. Should've been easy money, but we can survive without it. I'm not gonna forgive those damn Glups though‼️"

[For reporting on my planet and putting it up for destruction?]

"No, because those idiot Glups didn't mention your beauty in their report‼️ You're the strongest and most attractive creature I've seen in all the galaxy! Not to mention the most merciful‼️ And I know they saw you in that crazy telescope of theirs. If I'd had any fucking idea that my future mate was here, I woulda come bearing gifts!"

[Your future mate?? Are you serious??]

"Hell yeah, if you're down for it‼️"

[What a pain… ]

[Why do you keep hitting on me? You don't even know me.]

"Don't I know you now, a little bit? What is a fight but communication? Just through your fighting style, I can already tell so much about you‼️"

[Bullshit.]

"Don't know what |bull| is, but I can tell you don't believe me. Fair enough, fair enough. You don't know the Kuboyasu name, after all! How about it, bro - I'll spit some facts, and if they're all true, you give me a little kiss~?"

[And if you're wrong?]

"I won't be. And I'm already basically at your mercy."

[You'll stop hitting on me if you're wrong.]

"Aww man, for real? You don't like my flirting⁉️"

[ … ]

[If you're wrong, you'll call off your gang and make sure no other aliens attack Earth.]

"Wait, that means you do like my flirting⁉️"

[Do we have a deal?]

"Hell yeah we do, hot stuff!!"

[ … ]

[Well, are you just going to wag your tail at me or tell me what you think you know?]

"Oh shit, yeah! Your eyes are just so fuckin pretty, dude… Well, first things first. It's obvious you only ever fight one-on-one, probably against the same guy each time. You ain't got the spatial awareness you need for fighting in a team, and you never look around for other enemies either. You keep predicting the wrong moves for me, in a way that means you're used to one guy's particular fighting style and you're not really trying to figure out mine. Almost seems like you're expecting to know what I'm gonna do even though you clearly don't. Then you have to move twice as fast to correct yourself once you realize what I'm actually doing. Did you used to have future-seeing powers or mind-reading or some shit⁉️ Also, you never aim for the vitals. That means you don't ever try to kill that guy you fight, so he's gotta be close to ya somehow, huh? Maybe family? …Yeah I can tell by the look on your face that I'm right, haha‼️"

[ … ]

"And another thing, you clearly don't have a mate, or even a gang. There are a few scents around here that are stronger than others, but even those are barely there, and no other scents near your bed. And ya don't meet up with them on the outside very much either. This whole temple place is saturated with your scent, so you must spend most of your time here, even though you hate this nest. You didn't care what was destroyed when you fought me, so you're clearly here against your will for some reason‼️"

[ !!! ]

"Not sure how, since you're clearly powerful enough to take on any other humans. Y'all earthlings are social creatures too, aren't you⁉️ Maybe they've trapped you by keeping you in isolation like this. Away from your family and preventing you from forming a proper gang or finding a mate. Solitary confinement, learned helplessness. That'll break anyone, it will."

[ … ]

"Sooo… Do I get a kiss~?"

[ … ]

[Yeah.]

" …Wait, hold on now. I was just playing around, you don't have to kiss me if you don't want to! I don't want to do anything you don't want to do too‼️"

[ … ]

[Thank you.]

"S'just basic decency, man!"

[ …Yeah. I guess it is.]

[ … ]

[Good grief… I do want to kiss you… ]

[But not on the mouth. Not yet. Is that okay?]

"It sure as fuck is okay‼️ Any kisses ya got, lay 'em on me‼️"

[Heh. Alright.]

After eyeing Aren thoughtfully for a bit, Kusuo carefully grips the lower edge of his veil and pulls it forward, leaning in until he can drape the veil over Aren's upper shoulder. Aren's muscles twitch reflexively at the tickle of the silk edging, and Kusuo lowers his head to press warm lips onto Aren's bicep. The tiny, delicate scales feel lovely against his mouth and a rumbly purr is echoing in Aren's throat, so Kusuo presses another few kisses onto his shoulder.

He ends up with his lips pressed against Aren's collar, and Aren tilts his head trustingly to offer his neck. Kusuo can't help but lift his veil just a bit to kiss his throat then, and the pleasant tingle of Aren's purr against his lips is intoxicating. Suddenly curious, Kusuo opens his mouth wide and rests his teeth lightly against Aren's scales, and he can feel Aren's heartbeats accelerate against his body. Still, Aren's purr remains constant, and his muscles stay loose and relaxed against Kusuo.

Repentant, Kusuo withdraws his teeth and presses several extra apologetic kisses onto Aren's throat, as Aren purrs and croons at the attention, his tail wagging cheerfully.

[You seriously weren't scared that I'd bite you?]

"You haven't really put any effort into killing me yet, my dude. Didn't think you were suddenly going to try to tear out my throat with your teeth."

[Y-yeah… ]

"Besides, your teeth aren't sharp at all. You biting my neck would probably just be really hot. Especially if you scratched my scales just a bit with your blunt little claws!"

[ … ]

"Sorry if I sound kinda thirsty, but you're super hot, you're crazy strong, you saved my life just now, and you smell really good too… Only improvement could be adding some of my own scent around here~"

[ …You're going to scent mark my room??]

"What?? No dude, I'm not going to piss on your walls, what the fuck⁉️ I just meant adding my scent by BEING here with you for a long time‼️"

[ … ]

[You'd– you'd want to be here with me? Even though you know I don't want to be here?]

"Yeah, man‼️ I mean, obviously whatever your situation is here can't be TOO bad considering your health and these swanky digs, and I bet if you had the support of a mate you could easily improve these conditions. But if you want to go anywhere else in the universe, I'd be happy to take you there, too. Am I not being clear enough about wanting to be your mate?"

[Oh.]

[I thought you just wanted to have sex.]

"Well… I wouldn't say no, obviously. You are super hot… But I like your attitude. Even though you've obviously been through some really shitty stuff, you're not a pushover. You're clearly very protective and would make such a good nest mate. You're pretty funny too! And you're kind, even to a bastard like me that was going to trash your planet. And you're technically stronger than me, which is rare, and that's such a turn-on, to be honest…"

[And I can have extra arms?]

"And you can have extra arms. What can I say? I'm a simple man with simple tastes."

[Pffffffft. Heh. Fair enough.]

"And what about you? Do you think I'd be a good mate for you~?"

[ … ]

[I don't know.]

[I'm– I'm new to this.]

[All of this.]

"That's alright. I'm new to this too, y'know? First time ever seeing a dude and thinking 'damn, what a hottie'. First time ever fighting a dude and thinking 'damn, I want him as a mate'."

[Hehehe…]

" …wait a fucking minute… You thought I was only after tail and you still didn't reject me outright⁉️ Does that mean you would be open to…?"

[ … ]

"Your face is turning pink. Is that healthy? Is that a bad sign?? Fuck, I should have read the earthling manual–"

[I'm only blushing, good grief.]

[I'm not sick, just– just embarrassed.]

[I… I don't mind the idea nearly as much I thought I would… ]

[What a pain… you're– you're really attractive to me too… ]

[Umm… your muscles are… really nice. I like it when we hold hands too.]

[And you're really clever. And funny. And honest. You know. On top of having a gorgeous face.]

[And, uh… what a pain… I'm probably not supposed to find this attractive since I'm human, but… ]

[Your tail is… really thick. And colorful. And feels nice when it wraps around me… ]

[I'd like to… I'd like to touch it. If you don't mind.]

"Oh, I sure as fuck don't mind‼️ Touch my tail as much as you want~"

[Wait, errr… Good grief… Your tail isn't a… sexual organ, right??]

"Bwahahaha‼️ Nah, not any more than any of my other limbs. It'll feel good when you touch my tail, but it'll feel good if you touch my arms or my hair or my back. I think almost everybody has their junk in their pants, on most planets."

[Oh. Good.]

[And– wait. You're an adult, right?? What a pain, I guess I should've asked that earlier…!]

"BWAHAHA, yeah dude‼️ Old enough to have had a brood or two, if I'd been willing settle for a mediocre partner. You?"

[ …Heh. About the same.]

"Whew‼️ Would've been real fucking awkward otherwise‼️ So yeah, no worries, man! Go ahead, I've seen you eyeing my tail~ Look, I'll even make it easier for you to reach–"

Still blushing, Kusuo holds still as Aren unsticks himself, pushes off the blanket, and scuttles around until he can sit on Kusuo's lap and comfortably drape his tail over Kusuo's knees. Kusuo takes a moment to savor having Aren's chest pressed against his own, Aren's arms wrapped around him securely in a double hug and his bent legs pressed up against the outside of his thighs. Then he rests his chin on Aren's shoulder to look down his muscled back and examine his tail. It is very plump near the base and covered in freckles in gorgeous shades of purple, tapering slowly to a thinner and more flexible end that curls securely around one of Kusuo's calves.

Kusuo can't help but smile at that, and he lowers one of his hands onto the widest part of Aren's tail. It's warm to the touch, likely from absorbing his body heat, and the scales there are still delicate but bigger than those on his shoulder. Aren's tail is almost segmented, with little valleys crossing the width of it at regular intervals, and Kusuo enjoys trailing his fingertips lightly over each smooth hill and slight dip.

He presses his fingers against Aren's tail a little more firmly to really enjoy the pleasant texture of his scales when he realizes, to his surprise and delight, that Aren's tail has some give to it. Aren doesn't seem to mind when he presses down firmly on his tail, only purring and cooing peacefully against his shoulder. Kusuo lays both hands on Aren's tail then, pressing his fingertips into the ridges and dragging them along, marveling at the way his fingers sink pleasantly into the little valleys of smooth, warm little scales.

"You like the squish, huh?"

[Hehehe… yeah. Seriously fun to press and squeeze… ]

He plays peacefully with Aren's tail, enchanted by the excellent sensory feel any which way he manipulates it, while Aren purrs and whistles back just as happily.

[Better than any stress ball on the planet… ]

"Heh! That's my pride and joy as a Kuboyasu right there! I've been in a thousand battles and never dropped my tail once, no matter how big the danger or how insane the odds! One hundred percent original tail, baby‼️ You won't find a chonkier tail in the supercluster, guaranteed‼️"

[Um. Very impressive.]

"Hell yeah it fucking is‼️ Not one of those wimpy, skinny little tails that've been regrown a hundred times and couldn't sense a flongan if it was right on top of them!"

[You have sensory organs in here??]

"I sure do‼️ I can tell you exactly how many people are in this building and where each of them are. And that's just one of the tricks my tail can do! Didn't you know that the bigger and thicker the tail on a Kuboyasu, the more capabilities it has⁉️ I'm the best gangster in the galaxy for good reason, yo‼️"

[That's seriously cool… Even I can't do that.]

[ … ]

[The spots on your tail… they're changing colors.]

[But only where I touch them… ]

[ … ]

[Beautiful… Little rainbow trails when I brush my fingers along your lovely tail… I could do this for hours… ]

"Feel free to touch me as much as you want. Your hands on my tail feel real fucking nice…"

[Heh. I'm glad.]

[ … ]

[Now I'm wondering whether the freckles on your arms would change colors when touched too.]

"Only one way to find out, isn't there, babe~?"

[Good grief… Well, if you're okay with it… ]

[ … ]

[Hehe, these change colors too… But only to blues and greens, not every color like your tail… Still beautiful… ]

[Oh wow, you are so ripped… ]

[Holy shit, you're flexing and that's so hot…!]

"Hahaha~‼️ I'd make a very good mate, don't you think~? I'll take very good care of you, I promise~!"

But Kusuo is only halfway paying attention, distracted by Aren's four arms. There are gorgeous freckles changing colors just for him, and dozens of scars becoming apparent only under the press of his fingers. He frowns when he encounters a particularly large cut, deep and long and clearly recent, judging by Aren's little wince when Kusuo traces it.

Pity, rage, and unexpected protectiveness spark bright in Kusuo's chest, and he sets his hands solidly on Aren's upper shoulders. Kusuo's pupils start to glow a neon pink and the ends of his hair rise in an invisible wind as his halo produces a metallic hum. Aren clicks uncomfortably as jagged bolts of magenta lightning start crawling down Kusuo's arms towards his scales.

[Do not be afraid.]

"K-Kusuo⁉️"

Energy pours into Aren's body and he beeps with alarm, automatically trying to pull away as his scars light up, but Kusuo is holding him securely. Aren relaxes when he realizes the energy doesn't hurt, though he still clicks uncertainly at the foreign glow of his wounds.

[[ ( Divine Blessing ) ]]

The dull pain of his old scars fades away, and after a stunned silence, Aren explodes into sound, trilling and chirping and cooing and purring. Kusuo watches Aren stretch and test his arms, joy suffusing his body as Aren manages to move with even more grace and dexterity than before. Then Aren wraps all four arms around Kusuo, crushing him in as tight a hug as he can.

"Thank you," Aren manages to say between trills and chirps, his tail wagging fiercely in a blur of rainbow freckles.

Kusuo's eyes close as he enjoys the embrace, reveling in the warmth and solidity and safety he hasn't been able to enjoy since childhood. Aren seems to notice, his chirping shifting to softer coos and warbles as he gives Kusuo another squeeze, wrapping his legs and tail around him too, and sticking onto him securely. Kusuo can't help but chuckle at that, settling his arms around Aren's neck.

[Why are those little sounds of yours so cute?? Good grief…]

"You like it⁉️ Hell yeah‼️ I wasn't sure if humans courted properly so I'm glad you're enjoying my displays!"

[Your displays?]

"The colors I made for you on my scales! You like 'em, right⁉️"

[Yes… They are seriously beautiful… ]

"Good good good… Can't wait to see your courtship displays‼️ I bet they'll be awesome‼️"

[Uhhhhh– ]

"Ahh, this must be it!"

[Wha– ]

But Aren is already unsticking himself and shifting upwards, and Kusuo looks up to see him settling two large hands carefully on his halo. It's still glowing from channeling the immense amount of energy he'd used to heal Aren's old scars. Aren examines the halo closely, peering at the round limiter devices screwed into it while avoiding the spikes that had dug into his tail, and Kusuo automatically holds Aren's waist to steady him.

Kusuo wishes he could feel the curious touches Aren is pressing onto his halo, but he can only faintly sense mild pressure when Aren experimentally tries to move his halo from where it hovers just behind Kusuo's head. After a bit, Kusuo indulges Aren's curiosity, moving his head to show how the halo moves with him. Aren clicks at the unexpected movement, then tries to move the halo himself by exerting greater force, his hands sticking onto the halo for greater traction as he pulls. Kusuo keeps his head perfectly still to mess with him, then jerks his head back. Aren beeps in alarm as he's yanked forward by the halo, then they both burst into laughter.

"You got me there, huh? Ha! Alright, alright, your strength is pretty impressive, Kusuo…"

Aren settles back down onto his lap with a soft croon, and Kusuo feels much too warm inside. He has two of Aren's hands on each shoulder and a soft tail around his waist, and Aren is looking intently into his eyes.

"Your halo thing is sick as fuck, but would you mind if I touched your hair? It looks really pretty, dude…"

[S-sure… ]

[But the veil stays on! Seriously!]

"Really⁉️ I thought we were kinda past that at this point, but I can dig a slow burn. Aight."

Kusuo is about to correct him, but two of Aren's large hands are sneaking in under his veil, and Kusuo hurriedly grabs the front of it to prevent it from slipping backwards. Aren hardly notices, his eyes fixed on Kusuo's pink hair, pupils wide like a cat about to pounce.

It's slightly terrifying to feel his veil being shifted, and Kusuo squeezes his eyes shut to prevent catching a glimpse of Aren's hands without a protective layer in between. Aren fearlessly slips his hands into Kusuo's hair then, purring in delight at the soft curls tickling his palms. He gently tugs at Kusuo's hair and lets the strands slip through his fingers, then tries to bury his fingers as deeply as he can, brushing his fingertips over Kusuo's scalp.

Kusuo relaxes into the exploratory caresses, feeling warm and safe with Aren's hands on him. Aren quickly notices this time too, his purrs shifting to soft warbles and coos as his lower hands start kneading carefully at Kusuo's shoulders.

Tension drains out of Kusuo with every gentle squeeze of those ridged hands, and he melts slowly against Aren's chest, forehead resting on an upper shoulder. He wraps his arms loosely around Aren's waist, a soft murmur of pleasure escaping him. He doesn't notice Aren's sudden interest at the actual sound he made, because he's too busy sighing with bliss.

[I've seriously lost my bet to Aiura at this point.]

[What a pain, I really thought I was only into normies but I've never wanted to kiss anyone else so badly… ]

"You– you want to kiss me⁉️"

[Yes… ]

"I want to kiss you too‼️ Oh hell yes, I'm gonna tear off this fucking veil–"

[NO WAIT–!]

[You can't take off my veil!!]

[It's not just for show, good grief! If I look at you with my eyes uncovered, you'll be turned to stone!]

"Oh shit, really⁉️"

[Yes, really.]

"Damn… What if I just lift it a little bit, up to your nose?"

[ …That should be fine. But seriously, be careful!]

"Heh! You really like me, don't you?"

[ …Yes.]

"Good, I really like you too‼️"

Kusuo squeezes his eyes shut again as Aren carefully lifts the lower edge of his veil and rolls it up. Then Aren holds the edge against Kusuo's face, just under his nose, by cradling his cheeks in his big, velvety palms. A soft sigh escapes Kusuo at the gentle touch and he lets his eyes drift back open to peer into the luminous depths of Aren's violet, slit-pupiled eyes.

"You're beautiful…"

[You're beautiful… ]

They blink at each other in surprise, then laugh bashfully, looking away with embarrassment before their gazes drift back towards each other. Kusuo is extra aware of Aren's soft breaths on his face, the scent unfamiliar but citrusy and pleasant, and he admires the pretty purple freckles framing Aren's handsome face and trailing across his nose. Aren's lips are a cool grey, and as Kusuo watches, a bright blue tongue flickers out of his mouth and licks along glimmering white fangs.

A thrill of excitement runs through Kusuo at the sight, and his eyelids drop to half-mast as his own lips part. Aren's tail wags delightedly and he accepts the invitation, leaning in to kiss Kusuo's mouth with a deep purr. The press of Aren's lips is softer than Kusuo expected, and he smiles. Aren grins back, and they experiment with gentle brushes of their mouths together, the velvety pads of Aren's thumbs brushing sweetly along Kusuo's cheeks as his lower hands settle around Kusuo's waist. Kusuo murmurs blissfully into their kisses, warm and content, his own hands tracing Aren's delicately scaled collarbones and shoulders.

Between kisses, Aren chirps and croons enthusiastically, and Kusuo can't help but be charmed. He lifts his head from Aren's hands and holds his veil down to trail kisses up Aren's cheek and across the bridge of his nose, following his lovely freckles as they bloom in blues at his touch. Aren's nose scrunches and his eyes squeeze shut in delight at the kisses, trilling quietly while caressing Kusuo's neck and collar with his upper set of hands. His lower hands stroke gently up and down Kusuo's sides, making him shiver with pleasure.

Kusuo finds himself wishing he could pull his bodysuit off at least partially to feel Aren's velvety palms on his bare skin, and he flushes a bright pink at the idea.

"Damnit, I want to feel your hands on me, dude… And I want to touch you with all of my hands‼️ Can't we tie up your veil or something so we don't have to hold it⁉️"

[That's– that's a good idea!]

[Good grief, why have I never thought of that??]

[We can wrap the ends around my halo, and it won't move that way.]

"Hell yeah, let's do it‼️ I'll tie it up for you, babe!"

Aren climbs off his lap and Kusuo mourns the sudden loss of his warm and comforting weight. Then big hands wrap firmly around his hips and lift him up, and Kusuo finds himself settled comfortably on Aren's lap. His plump tail curls cozily around Kusuo's waist, and Kusuo leans back into Aren's muscled chest with a pleased sigh, enjoying the strong legs holding him up and the hands caressing his sides.

Having four pectorals flexing against your back is a marvelous experience, Kusuo decides, holding down the front of his veil while Aren gathers up the back of it.

"Wait a minute… Will you let me touch your hair again before tying this thing up, Kusuo? It was real nice…"

[Sure. I seriously liked it too… ]

Aren whistles excitedly at the admission and Kusuo chuckles, holding his veil firmly as Aren's fingers trace up his shoulders and neck into his hair. While his lower hands knead at Kusuo's shoulders more confidently, Aren carefully buries his fingers in Kusuo's hair and tries to repeat the touches that had made Kusuo relax last time.

He quickly figures out that rubbing soothing circles onto Kusuo's scalp makes him melt bonelessly against his chest and Aren warbles happily at the discovery. Kusuo hums his approval and a shiver runs up Aren's spine at what sounds to him like a purr. He purrs back low and loud, massaging Kusuo's head while his lower hands move to caress gentle fingertips over his cheeks and nose and lips, memorizing the soft landscape of his face.

Kusuo sighs and moans softly in pleasure, arousal stirring in his belly at the worshipful caresses and the warm press of Aren's body against him. He hugs Aren's tail to let out some of his excited energy somehow, squeezing it tight against his chest to Aren's delighted purrs. Aren can't resist lifting the back of the veil then, and he presses slow, heated kisses onto Kusuo's neck and shoulders, his lower hands amorously stroking over Kusuo's bodysuit, anywhere they can reach.

[A-Aren– please…!]

[Please finish tying up my veil, good grief! I seriously need to kiss you so badly–!]

"Y-yeah, I want to make out real bad too‼️"

[But please be careful with the veil, it would be such a pain if you turned to stone…]

"You got it, boss‼️"

Aren sets about tying and twisting the veil into a coil he can wrap around the halo, careful not to tug too hard, while Kusuo very distractingly holds his lower set of hands and covers them with gentle kisses. He croons and purrs, and tries not to wag his tail very much, until he can lift Kusuo up, turn him around, and hold him against his chest. Kusuo closes his eyes and fusses with his veil to make sure it won't slip and risk turning Aren into a statue. Once he's satisfied, he grins and leans in to kiss his thanks all over Aren's cute, freckly face.

Crooning with approval, Aren enjoys the attention with a blissful shiver, running his bright blue tongue over his lips in anticipation of more kisses. Kusuo notices, and curiously sucks on Aren's lower lip to taste him. A hint of citrus is all he can detect until he licks his way into Aren's mouth, then he marvels at the tart and slightly smoky flavor of him, pleasant and bubbly on his tongue.

[See…? Your acid can't hurt me. It actually feels nice… ]

Aren is too busy to respond verbally, kissing back just as enthusiastically while caressing his neck and face, his lower hands slipping through the open sides of Kusuo's hakama to hold his hips. Kusuo hums approvingly at his touch, liking how Aren purrs back enthusiastically at the sound.

"You can touch me if you want, Kusuo… I'd like to feel your soft, pretty hands on me…"

Unable to resist the temptation, Kusuo grins and tilts his head to kiss Aren more deeply. His hands trace over Aren's chest and feel up soft fat covering marvelously sculpted muscle, all under a fine, smooth scale armor. He dares to lightly squeeze one of Aren's pecs, and gasps appreciatively when Aren flexes playfully for him.

Aren laughs and croons quietly into Kusuo's mouth, his tail curling around Kusuo's back to hold him close. His lower hands caress along Kusuo's outer thighs, then up to the curve of his butt, making Kusuo gasp and shiver in pleasure. He moans against Aren's neck as all four of his hands move to squeeze and stroke over and around his ass in a clearly exploratory way.

"No tail⁉️ Not even a little one⁉️"

[N-no… ]

[Good grief, is that– is that a problem…?]

"Hell nah‼️ That must make sex so much more convenient without a big ass tail in the way‼️"

[Seriously…? I like your tail a lot. Is it really such a pain…?]

He trails his hands down to the base of Aren's tail to squeeze there and Aren clicks uncomfortably.

"N-not there‼️ That's where my tail would break off in an emergency‼️"

[Oh– I'm sorry Aren!!]

"It's fine, no worries yo! You can grab my ass or the rest of my tail as much as you want, just not the very base of my tail from the back, aight?"

[Alright, thank you for telling me. Are there any other, uhh, areas I shouldn't grab…?]

"Nah, you can touch me as much as you want with your sweet hands~ Take off my pants if you want to, heh‼️ Just don't pet my crotch too much unless you wanna see what I'm packing, haha‼️"

[ … ]

"Ahhh, you're curious now huh⁉️ I'm down to fuck, if and whenever you're ready, Kusuo‼️ But if you just want to pet and make out, I'm also down~ This has been real good and fun so far‼️"

[H-how about we see how it goes…?]

"I'm so down for that too, yo‼️"

[Heh. I'm– I'm glad… ]

[Oh. How are you doing, by the way?]

[Your breathing. Do you need me to heat you up some more?]

"I haven't expended too much more energy… yet‼️ Ha! But I won't say no to getting cuddled and warmed up like that again. It was good."

[Hmmm… Heating up all of your body while I'm in your lap would be a bit of a pain.]

[How about if I… ]

Aren reluctantly lets Kusuo climb off of him, then starts wagging his tail delightedly when he sees Kusuo lying down on his back and inviting him to snuggle. He pauses when he notices Kusuo's head levitating off the bed with his halo pressed onto the pillows, and snorts with amusement, especially after Kusuo pouts at him.

"Let me try something, Kusuo… "

[ ? ]

"Close your eyes."

[A-alright… ]

Once Kusuo's eyes are closed, Aren leans in to steal a kiss, purring when Kusuo holds his head down for another few kisses. Then Aren carefully fits a couple of pillows between the halo and Kusuo to cradle his head comfortably, using the veil and the heft of the pillows to keep the bundle firmly in place.

"How's that feel?"

[ …very nice, actually… ]

[Good grief, I haven't been able to rest my head like this in a long time…!]

"It's not too heavy, is it⁉️"

[No, it's perfect. Thanks, Aren.]

"My pleasure‼️"

Aren settles comfortably onto Kusuo's chest then, warbling triumphantly at the sight of his smile until Kusuo guides Aren's mouth to his. Between passionate kisses, Aren coos with pleasure at the supernatural warmth of Kusuo's body and the indulgent strokes of his heated hands along his back and tail. His tail alternates between wagging delightedly and pressing itself into Kusuo's touch and Kusuo pulls away to chuckle at his enthusiasm. Aren simply takes the opportunity to breathe in the scent of his neck and trill blissfully when Kusuo manifests a few more hands to press and squeeze heat into his body.

[Is this good, Aren?]

"I've never felt better‼️ Where have you been all my life, Kusuo⁉️"

[Heh! I could seriously ask you the same question…! ]

Chirping happily, Aren lifts his head to kiss him deeply, his upper hands caressing Kusuo's cheeks and throat and collar. Kusuo shudders with pleasure and moans against Aren's mouth, squeezing him close as desire builds inexorably in his veins. He rolls them both over to kiss Aren more deeply, then thinks better of it and carefully moves Aren into the heated spot on the bed he'd just vacated. Aren does not seem at all bothered by the manhandling, trilling and chirping as Kusuo settles on top of him.

They kiss again, messily this time, hands tracing amorously over each other's bodies. Aren caresses Kusuo's butt appreciatively with one set of hands while the other strokes down Kusuo's spine to feel him shiver with delight. Kusuo spreads his legs to give Aren more room even as he squeezes and kneads at Aren's delightfully large pecs, more aroused than he's ever been and feeling very constricted in his perfectly tailored bodysuit.

[F-fuck…!!]

[Good grief, Aren–!]

[I– I'd like to accept your earlier offer…!]

"Oh, you're down to fuck⁉️ HELL YEAH‼️"

>>> ~ 💞 Love Fantasy 💞 ~ <<<

Aren coos and warbles as Kusuo flops onto him, nuzzling at his sweaty hair and pressing kisses onto his head, still securely holding Kusuo's hands. Kusuo melts into his afterglow and Aren's sweet affection, eyelids drooping sleepily.

"That was amazing, Kusuo‼️ Sorry about the confusion though, man– only ever jerked it solo myself, didn't realize I'd need to hold hands like that with a partner, heh… Kind of embarrassing actually…"

[It wasn't a pain. I seriously liked it… ]

[We can hold hands as much as you want. I'm very glad I can make more hands for you to hold, good grief… ]

"Really⁉️ Hell yeah‼️‼️ I really did pick the best mate‼️"

[You still want to be mates…?]

"Fuck yeah I do‼️ Do you want to be mates⁉️"

[Hmmm. I'm thinking about it… ]

[What does it mean to be mates, exactly…?]

"Oh yeah, there are probably cultural differences or some shit‼️ Being mates means nesting and traveling together and always having each other's backs, you know⁉️"

[That does sound similar to human couples… ]

[Er. Would being mates include… having kids?]

"If you want‼️ Some mates have a brood or two, some don't. Others have a brood for another set of mates to hatch."

[Do you want to have a… brood?]

"Not right now‼️ Still have plenty of galaxies to explore. Maybe later I'll have a brood… Two nestlings would be nice…"

[Umm. Would that even be possible with me as your mate…?]

"Oh yeah, no problem‼️ My species is great at borrowing genes, that's how I can talk to you so well‼️ Just copied the genes of aliens who are genius with languages. And even if you don't want to lend me some genes, I can always do a little parthenogenesis, easy‼️"

[Huh… ]

"So… Do you want to be mates⁉️"

[ …Let me think about it. It's still really sudden, good grief… ]

"Take your time, Kusuo. I'll wait until you're ready‼️ …We can still cuddle though, right⁉️"

[ …Yes. I do seriously like cuddling with you… ]

"Hell yeah‼️‼️"

Aren rolls them both over onto Kusuo's back to kiss him with a soft warble, tail wagging happily. He unsticks his upper hands from Kusuo's in favor of caressing his cheeks and throat as they kiss, and Kusuo buries his hands in Aren's pretty purple hair. He's surprised to find that Aren's hair feels very much like feathers, and Aren trills happily when Kusuo combs through it.

[What does that sound mean, Aren?]

"Hmmm…?"

[The bird sounds you were just making.]

"Bird?"

[The one that's like… ]

Kusuo mimics a trill and Aren instinctively warbles back, wagging his tail delightedly. Then he blinks and looks slightly mortified, his freckles cycling through shades of blue.

"It's cheesy as fuck, but my parents always used to sing to each other like that whenever they were in the nest, and I guess it stuck‼️"

[Cheesy?]

"Yeah… Uh, so this sound," and Aren trills, "means 'Someone is taking good care of me'. And the other call," he warbles, "means 'I am taking care of you'. Guessing you guys don't have anything like that, huh?"

[No… but I really like it. That's cute!]

[ … ]

[You know… It's a little weird to admit but… ]

[I do seriously feel like I'm being taken care of, with you.]

[It's nice… I haven't felt this way since I was a little kid.]

"What⁉️ Are you kidding me⁉️ There are so many earthlings here and no one is taking care of you⁉️"

[Well, I'm the god. I have to take care of everyone, because of my powers.]

"What the hell, man⁉️ Taking care of someone isn't a power thing‼️ You don't have to be stronger to take care of someone, or weaker to be taken care of‼️ It can be little things, like grooming them. Bringing them a little snack. Holding them close. You know‼️ Shit like that‼️"

[ … ]

[That makes sense.]

[I do have… friends. Who care about me.]

[But the situation here… Their hands are tied. There's not much they can do for me.]

"Hmmm, I see… Well, don't you worry about that anymore, Kusuo‼️ I'll be taking good care of you from now on‼️"

[ … ]

[Heh. I do like the sound of that… ]

[But you can't even breathe Earth's air properly.]

[What a pain… As much as I'd like to carry you around all day and cuddle, I can't.]

[And I don't want you to suffocate, good grief!!]

"That is a bit of a challenge. Hmmm… Ah, hold up‼️ This is the stuff you said you made, right? The stuff that has the genetic instructions in it⁉️"

[ …Yes. What does that– ]

[ !!!!!!! ]

[Aren!!]

"Mmm, not bad at all‼️ Now let's see…"

[What are you– ]

[Why are you shaking your tail like that??]

[Aren? Aren't you going to tire yourself out again if you– ]

"Done‼️ I copied the bits of your genes with instructions for breathing your Earth air‼️ Soon I'll be able to do things on Earth without having to be wrapped around you most of the time."

[Oh… What a pain… ]

"Ha‼️ Don't worry, I'll still take any excuse to cuddle close‼️"

[Good… ]

"That was just a pretty small genetic sample though, so it's gonna take me a couple of weeks to fully work it into my own genes."

[There's more where that came from.]

[ !!! ]

[I seriously cannot believe I just said that…!]

"BWAHAHA‼️ That good, huh⁉️ I'm down for another round too, Kusuo…"

[G-good grief… ]

[Um. But before we do that, I have a question… ]

"Go on. Shoot‼️"

[What would it take to become mates…?]

"Do– do you really want to, Kusuo⁉️"

[Good grief… It doesn't involve anything like a blood pact or ritual fighting, right…?]

"Ha‼️ That would be sick as hell‼️ But no, nothing like that, bro. It's really simple, something you can do even in the middle of a battlefield or through a vidcomm‼️ You just promise to take care of each other and press your foreheads together. That's it‼️ Official mates‼️"

[Huh… That's… seriously easy.]

[ … ]

[ … ]

"No pressure, dude, we can fool around without being mates, you know‼️ And if you're really not feeling it, I'll just cool my jets and let–"

[No.]

[I mean yes.]

[Good grief. I do want to be your mate.]

[It's a little sudden. And I can't say I'm not nervous.]

[But I really like you. And I do feel safe around you.]

[Even when we fought, I never sensed any real ill will from you.]

[And you even tried to make me more comfortable with the pillows, good grief.]

[I seriously want to spend more time with you. Get to know you better. Share some coffee.]

[ …Take care of you. And be taken care of… ]

[If… if that's okay with you.]

"F-fuck yeah dude…‼️ Ah fuck, I just can't stop wagging my tail‼️"

[Hehehe… Cute… ]

[ … ]

[My mate Aren… ]

"Wait wait wait‼️ I haven't said it back yet‼️ It's not official‼️"

[Oh.]

[Won't you be my mate, Aren~?]

"D-don't tease me like that‼️ Fuuuuuckkkkk‼️‼️"

[Hehehehehe.]

Aren chirps and purrs helplessly against Kusuo's neck as his tail wags wildly above them, and Kusuo chuckles into his hair, holding him close. Once he's able to calm down a bit, Aren shifts to press his forehead against Kusuo's, holding his hands and brushing their noses together sweetly. Kusuo blushes as their breaths mingle and they look deeply into each other's eyes.

"I know this is a little crazy, seeing as we were complete strangers a few hours ago and we're different species and whatever but this feels right, and I know you feel it too‼️ And… fuck, I don't have any fancy words or nothing but man, I'm going to take care of you‼️ As best I can, as long as I can‼️ I'll take you wherever you want to go, and stay wherever you want to stay‼️ I'd be fucking honored to be your mate, and I'm so fucking happy you want to be mine‼️‼️"

"I'm– I'm happy to be yours too, good grief," whispers Kusuo out loud, a little misty-eyed.

Aren's face screws up with emotion and he hides against Kusuo's throat again, croaking in a way that Kusuo greatly suspects is his form of crying. Kusuo kisses his shoulder and hugs him close, manifesting extra arms to pet and press warmth into Aren's body. His croaking soon softens into little trills and chirps of delight as Kusuo takes care of him, and he lifts his head to kiss Kusuo deeply in thanks.

[Mmm… ]

"Mmm… Hey Kusuo, what does it take to become mates as humans⁉️"

[It's a lot more complicated. There's lots of paperwork, what a pain… ]

"What's that? Can you eat it⁉️"

[No. But there's cake at the wedding. Unless it's actually foam, good grief… ]

"What's a wedding⁉️"

[Uh. It's like a party. Celebrating the new mates.]

"That sounds like fun‼️ Can we have a wedding and paperwork⁉️"

[Heh. I'll make sure we do… ]

[I'll seriously have to teach you a lot of things about human culture first, though… ]

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

[Hmm… ]

[Oh. You'll like this.]

[When humans become mates, it's called "taking a hand in marriage".]

"Oh yeah? Which one do you want⁉️"

[ … ]

[Why do I get the feeling that you think we take the hands literally?]

"You don't⁉️ Well that's great, I like having all of my hands‼️ Wouldn't mind having one of your hands though."

[Aren??]

"That was a joke, hah‼️"

[Good grief... ]

"Gotcha‼️ …Hey, now that we're mates properly, do you still want to fuck⁉️"

[ !!! ]

[Yes please!]

>>> ~ 💞 Just in Love 💞 ~ <<<

Kusuo's humming blissfully in the afterglow and Aren purrs happily along with him.

"Good⁉️"

[Seriously so fucking good…!]

"FUCK yeah‼️ …Oh, let's see how much genetic material you made for me this time…"

[A-Aren…!!]

"Mmm…! Yeah, that should speed things up quite a bit more‼️ Good job, nest mate‼️"

[I don't think I was blushing this hard even when we were actually having sex, what a pain… ]

"Ha‼️ By the way, let me clean you up, Kusuo. I've got wipes in the pockets of my pants."

[O-oh…! I'd– I'd appreciate that… ]

"No problem‼️ You just relax, I'll take care of you‼️"

Kusuo smiles and watches dreamily as Aren crawls around on all sixes, searching for the pants they had thrown carelessly away and locating the promised wipes. Once they're suitably clean, Aren pulls Kusuo into a comfortable spooning position. He wraps his four arms around Kusuo's chest, sticking his hands securely onto his torso and curls his tail comfortably around one of Kusuo's legs, then settles in to sleep with a soft coo.

Kusuo wraps several warm blankets around them with his powers, and then they've both fallen asleep, too tired to dream but resting deeply in mutual comfort and safety.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

" …signs of struggle, the lack of blood and bodily fluids clearly indicates that the fight did not end detrimentally for either party despite the many burn marks on the walls, ceilings, floor, and furniture. And as you can plainly see even without my helpful narration, the discarded clothing and notable presence of the two entities in question intertwined here signals that a mutual accord was reached, as does the pillows and veil tied up helpfully to facilitate canoodling and the currently unusually high temperature of this bedroom, likely for the comfort of its new occupant. Therefore, the most natural conclusion is– ahhh, hello Kusuo-kun, I see that you are waking up!"

[ ??? ]

[ … ]

[ …Asumi??]

"Yes, that's me, Asumi! Though I do currently go by the name Akechi, but that is a story for a– Mr. Jones-Smith, if you move your left hand a single centimeter closer to your blaster, I will be forced to start shooting, so I wholeheartedly recommend that you put both hands in the air if you'd like to keep them attached to your arms. The same applies to you, the orange alien in the back, I see you moving as well. No, I'm simply not going to put down my weaponry until a reasonable compromise is met between all parties involved, as is my duty to Kusuo-kun and, by extension, his new partner. Good, I'm happy we've arrived at the same conclusion together. Now Kusuo-kun, please excuse this intrusion into your private quarters, but both our government officials and these extraterrestrial guests were quite insistent on stirring up a fuss and waking you in a much more barbaric fashion. Would you terribly mind introducing your new partner to the various entities present, and perhaps waking them so they can join in the discussion?"

[ … ]

[Umm. Yeah, this is Aren Kuboyasu.]

[Good grief… Aren, wake up. We have a… situation.]

"Mmmmm… Y'all earthlings have breakfast, right…⁉️ I'm hungry as fuck‼️ Though maybe we could fool around a little more before– Oh hey, is that you, Plinkko⁉️ Whoa it's a whole party in here‼️ Nice‼️ Who's that with the guns⁉️"

[Umm. My estranged childhood friend, I guess. No clue why he's here now though…?]

"I would be more than happy to share the full story with you at a mutually convenient time, Kusuo-kun, but for now, there is the slightly pressing matter of whether our planet is currently under attack and what should be done about it, if so."

"Oh yeah‼️ Hey guys, so good news / bad news‼️ Bad news is that this Earth job is cancelled, so we're not gonna get that reward money. Good news is that I'm getting human-married and y'all are invited‼️ Look at my nest mate, he is so handsome and strong and he can have as many arms as he likes‼️ Kusuo, this is my gang‼️ They're yours now too‼️"

[Oh. Umm. Hello… ]

"Congratulations, Kusuo-kun and Kuboyasu-san, I presume? This is very exciting news indeed! Miko-chan, please send word to the tailors that Kusuo-kun will need wedding regalia done up as soon as possible, please! And as for our government officials, surely there will be no trouble spinning this marriage as an intergalactic power play for the media, and therefore consider it advantageous to allow Kusuo his wedding and full partnership with Kuboyasu-san with regards to whatever that culturally entails? Excellent, excellent, I do see a nod there! Now, I'm certain you'll keep your word because I've been live-streaming this entire event to a trusted outside source who will forward the video to the underground independent press network at the slightest hint of non-compliance! Oho, yes indeed! A pleasure to do business with you all as well! See? Now I'm putting down my weaponry as previously promised. Thank you so very much for your cooperation, I'm very glad we were able to settle this in such a civilized fashion considering the diversity of the participants involved!"

"…Are all earthlings this crazy⁉️ We are in for some fun times on Earth, boys‼️ Bring out my luxury collection from the cruiser, I need to get this nest in optimum conditions before our wedding‼️ And y'all humans are gonna let Kusuo replace the marble this time, aight⁉️"

[Good grief… ]

[lookbluesoup]

Alright, I'm painfully curious, what's with the oviposition in the second list. What are you planning on doing to Nate?

Oh man Anon what HAVENT I done to Nate :)

This is. NSFW. And it's a monsterf-ing au so it also deals with a kink that might be a little squicky to some, read at your own peril!

Salt and I have an AU for Nate and Mal where Nate's a captain on a spaceship, Enterprise style, and Mal is the last known survivor of a race of amphibious aliens on a planet that was illegally drilled and mined. When the primitive natives resisted, they were exterminated. It didn't end up working out for the mining company, when the truth got out they were shut down and fined into financial ruin. But the damage had already been done.

Nate's ship is investigating the planet in the aftermath when Mal is discovered. He and Nate fall in love over the course of learning to comminicate, while Nate and his crew gather evidence to present to their superiors about the state of the planet since its invasion and what reparations are owed. Which is all a lot of backstory for what's usually a smut playground for me and salt.

Mal is a sort of... humanoid axolotl, cuttlefish, slug, clam, tadpole, seahorse hermaphrodite who changes colors depending on his mood and likes to bite. (I have a Very NSFW picture of them over on my Pillowfort here)

They reproduce sort-of-but-not-really like snails/slugs, so his very long, frilled, prehensile, color changing "dick" is actually designed to lay unfertilized eggs (fish roe style, conveniently small and numerous enough to stand in for sperm) into the pouch of another of his species, where they would be fertilized and carried until old enough to be born.

Nate of course doesn't have the equipment to do any of that. But they can still have fun with their respective biologies. Mal's pouch also happens to be conveniently full of sensitive nerves and just the right size for, well. You know.

Oviposition is a shameless smutfic of the two of them getting it on.

This au started because I saw a gif of a clam using its squishy wiggly little foot to move and I commented to salt that clam feet were an underutilized resource for alien dick inspiration. There was a whole lot of "Haha... Unless?" in that discussion which ultimately led to me learning a few things about myself I didn't know before

[imalifegen89]

A Legacy Left Behind - Chapter - 5 - The Gemmond Incident

Rating: Mature

Category: M/M

Fandoms: Stargate Atlantis, Hawaii Five-0 (2010), Stargate SG-1

Relationship: Steve McGarrett/John Sheppard

Characters: John Sheppard, Steve McGarrett, Danny "Danno" Williams, PO Higgins (OC), Kono Kalakaua, Adam Noshimuri, Alicia Vega, Laura Cadman, Bates (Stargate), Original Stargate Wraith Character(s), Original Characters, George Hammond, Jack O'Neill, Catherine Rollins, Evan Lorne

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Swearing, Character Bashing, Not Catherine Rollins Friendly, Violence, BAMF John Sheppard, BAMF Team, No DADT

Summary: Team SG-11 goes on their first off-world mission. It's supposed to be a 'walk in the park,' easing them into the hectic life at the Stargate Command. But things have a way of going off the rails when this particular team is involved. One way or another, they'll prove that they've got what it takes to fulfill their mission.

-o0o-

The first official mission of SG-11, yay!

As always, Salchat, you are the best!!! Thank you so much for all your hard work. I'm improving but I'm still a lot of work for my Beta.

If there are any mistakes, they'd be my own.

Part - 1

Officers Quarters, Pearl Harbor-Hickam Base - Hawaii

The Naval Intelligence Command Analyst, Lieutenant Catharine Rollins, was tired. The 18 hour or so trips from Hawaii to Libya and back were taking a heavy toll and all she wanted to do was go to her quarters, take a long, hot bath, and collapse on her bed for a long, uninterrupted sleep until the next day. Both she and Harrington had been dismissed by Commander Joe White with orders to take the rest of the day off and report for duty the next day when they had returned to the base. Harrington had invited her to go out but she had declined politely, citing jet lag and the need to rest. In her mind, she had been cursing at the damn idiot to stop trying to get attached to her like a freaking limpet and just leave her the hell alone.

She sighed in relief as she finally reached her quarters without having been called away for something or other, despite her being off duty. That had happened a couple of times before and that was part and parcel of her glamorous career as an Intelligence Analyst. She entered her quarters, threw her traveling bag to a corner, and started taking off her sweaty and dusty uniform while fantasizing about a nice, hot, bubble bath. But being just a lowly analyst, she only had a cramped shower in her quarters. 'Ah well, at least it's not like I have to go for a communal shower.' She shuddered at the thought.

Her much-needed long shower turned out to be only fifteen minutes as the hot water got cut off. She sighed and got out, still quite travel weary. Then she found her most comfortable and baggy sweats, an old t-shirt that was a few sizes too big, put them on, and got under the blankets in her bed. She was hoping to catch a few hours of sleep before she had to go out for dinner.

Despite the physical exhaustion, her thoughts turned to the past few hours.

'Why is it that the handsome ones are always either taken or gay?' she asked herself rhetorically.

She had tried her damndest to flirt with the navy SEAL she'd had her eyes on for a while now. But the stupid asshole had been completely oblivious. She had been sure, when they were on their way, in that transport - his loud-mouthed friend had pointed it out clearly to the Commander. But the man had seemed utterly uninterested and even annoyed at his friend. Catharine had been reeling at that response, although she had kept up the pleasant conversation with the idiot, Harrington. Then she had seen the subtle drama between her SEAL and that rather unremarkable pilot. That had given her a clue as to the lack of interest from the guy. She knew she was a very pretty woman and was not quite used to her rather demonstrated feelings going unreciprocated in that manner.

'But he’s got to be bi, hasn't he? So there is still a chance. Claire was pretty sure when she told me that McGarrett used to go out with Anna from the Enterprise during the first year after he got his trident. Pff... I'm a much better catch than that woman, certainly much better than a damn pilot...a plain guy with dumb hair-do, at that...Argh. Besides, fighter pilots don't really have that long life expectancies now, do they? Oh, Steven, you could do so much better, really..' She let her thoughts wander about the latest individual that had caught her attention and his rather ungainly love interests.

She was dragged away from her musings by a certain ringtone on her phone that had only rung twice before. She sprang up in her bed as if she had been electrocuted.

'Shit, shit, shit! I should've anticipated this,' she berated herself, especially after what had happened and where she'd been.

She hurriedly got off the bed, found her personal laptop, and plugged in the special USB/Dongle she had been given about a month ago when she was recruited. She then switched it on, disconnected her internal internet connection to the base, and connected to a different server - a server with an IP address that bounced off several satellites and countries making it impossible to track the connection. She finished running the encryption she had been given along with the USB when a window opened on her screen, indicating an incoming call. She clicked the button to accept, with trepidation.

As usual, a black screen greeted her as the call connected. She had taken steps to protect herself as much as she could and had her camera already covered. She was reasonably sure that whoever was on the other side wouldn't see her either, but she couldn't guarantee it.

"Agent CR-17, this is Zero. We have questions for you," the disembodied and distorted voice coming through the connected call informed her. She grimaced at the 'handle' she'd been given. Then she took a deep breath to clear her mind and remember the details of the past 30 hours.

"Yes, please ask your questions," she replied when she was sure her voice was even and polite.

"You have participated in a certain meeting. Give us the particulars," the voice ordered.

'Well, that's easy enough,' she thought as she mentally listed the main points of the meeting. And then she launched into an account of the meeting that happened at the base between her, Harrington, SGC, and the SEALs, the gathering at the Wheelus Air Base in Libya, the points they discussed there, and the revelations that came to light about the alliance between the Wraith and the Goa'uld agents.

The voice was quiet for a long time before it answered. "Are you quite sure of this, Agent? They have seen our involvement at the Detention facility?"

"Yes, I am. I'd advise you to take precautions if you are going to conduct further operations in this manner. I'm certain they will be able to track your transporter movements. The scientists they have at the SGC seem very competent," she answered truthfully.

"Very well." said the voice, with grim finality.

"Now, this is your next task. Send the personal files of the members of the SEAL team who were involved in this meeting. We need to deal with this before things get out of hand - well - even more out of hand. Do you understand?" the voice asked with emphasis.

Rollins felt sweat running down her spine despite the shower she had just taken only a few minutes ago. Giving them verbal reports once or twice in a while was one thing, but sending highly classified personal files was something else entirely. But she knew that refusing was not an option, not if she wanted to keep her career or her life for that matter.

"Yes, I do." She answered the only way she could.

"Make sure we receive it all by the end of the month. You do not need to send them all at once. Take steps to cover your tracks. But make sure we have what we need by the deadline." The voice cut off abruptly, just the way it always did after it finished giving orders.

She stared at her now empty laptop screen for a few moments, trying to wrap her mind around the conversation she'd just had. Not for the first time, she regretted the circumstances that led her to accept this arrangement. Having a fat retirement fund to return to when she finally took her early retirement from the navy after putting the minimum years in, was a nice feeling. But she certainly couldn't enjoy it from a military prison or an early grave.

She shook her head and switched her laptop off. It was too late to do anything now. She had to concentrate on planning how to get around various security restrictions and get her hands on the files that were requested by her beneficiaries. She needed someone from the Human Resources Administration for this, didn't she? Then she felt a small smile creeping up on her lips - She knew exactly the person she could easily persuade into letting her take a glimpse of such things! Feeling quite satisfied and making further plans for her treasonous mission, she decided she was hungry enough and started to get dressed to go out in search of a proper dinner.

Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain - Colorado

Embarkation Room

(Four weeks later)

"I know you said renaissance age, but what does that mean, exactly?" Danny asked as he adjusted the strap of his MP7.

Everyone in SGC was issued FN P90 Personal Defense weapons. But the SEALs were partial to their own submachine guns and other weapons. The first thing they'd done when they began the training, was to raid the armory in the SGC to make sure they had those specific weapons and ammo they needed. The Master Sergeant in charge of the armory had gleefully sent out requests for the Navy to re-supply them with the standard weapons and kits for the Special Operators. The Navy had reluctantly given in, needing to keep up their standards.

"Like you just stepped into a Rome-Egypt hybrid planet in the 14th century," Bates replied with a grimace. He was not a fan of the planet. He had been on one of the Gate teams who had visited the planet before it was reformed by the SG-1. He hadn't been impressed.

"Hey, it's a nice enough planet,” Major Evan Lorne interjected. “Well, they were a bit uptight before, but then SG-1 sorted them out. They are good people now, took on refugees from Nasya and everything. It's safe enough for first-time planet hoppers. Besides, they are having their harvest celebrations this time of the year. Food, drinks, and merry people all around. And we have a standing invitation every year for the party," Lorne had visited the planet two years ago for his first 'travel through the Gate' experience and it had been a blast. He was very much looking forward to an encore.

"So, what do we do there?" This was from Higgins.

"Nothing much. We go and say 'hi' to the leaders, go to a party or two and come back home," answered Cadman. She had heard good stuff from Lorne and was looking forward to the experience as well. It would be nice for once, just to go to a planet and join a celebration, just enjoy the visit other than fighting or running for their lives, for a change.

"Nice," Higgins agreed.

The Stargate Command's newest addition - or the newly re-arranged SG-11, was waiting to go on their first extra-planetary mission. Four weeks had passed since Colonel Sumner initiated the first-ever SGC team combined with the SEALs and the CIA agents. They had all been heavily involved in training for all sorts of scenarios they could think of since then. Their days had been full of weapons, physical, tactics training, going through all available information about galaxy's bad guys, and then a couple of weeks spent in earth's Alpha site for field training. Sheppard and Lorne had had to beam down to Antarctica in between for projects at the Outpost and then visit Peterson Base a few times to keep up their flight qualifications. Altogether, those six weeks had been hectic and they were all looking forward to this outing. Listening to Lorne and everyone else who had already been to planet Gemmond painting a merry picture of their culture, had them all eager for the visit. The Wraith and the Goa'uld had been silent and hadn't made any noteworthy moves so far. They all knew that when they finally did, SG-11 needed to be ready to move. This trip to Gemmond for their harvesting celebrations was sort of a break before they had to go to war, so to speak.

"Dialing the gate now." Sergeant Harriman's voice could be heard over the speakers. He had started the dialing sequence for the planet designated P3X-422, aka Gemmond.

"Chevron One encoded,"

"Chevron Two encoded,"

"Chevron Three encoded,"

"Chevron Four... not encoded."

That was not the usual script during a dial-out. Sheppard exchanged a glance with Steve and turned back to look up at the dialing station. They were all waiting in front of the ramp while Harriman dialed. The day's duty officer-in-charge, an Air Force Colonel called Dixon, was standing behind the station where Harriman was sitting. He was also frowning at the diversion from the norm.

"What's happening, Sergeant?" They could all hear the Colonel asking Harriman over the speakers.

"Sir, the gate is not connecting. It's almost as if someone from that side is already dialing. You know, it's like, we're getting the 'line busy' tone," Sergeant Harriman guessed.

"That doesn't make sense. They know we're visiting them today. They usually like it when we visit," said Colonel Dixon, his frown deepening as he glared at the dialer. Then he looked over the see-through window to stare at the group waiting to go off-world. He grimaced as if SG-11 personally had something to do with the Gate refusing to connect.

Colonel Garry Dixon wasn't a big fan of the newly initiated team. His personal opinion was that the lot of them were too arrogant and cocky for their own good. And he hadn't really tried very hard to keep his opinions to himself. But SG-11 didn't let it bother them. They hardly needed validation from the opinionated Colonel. The man had only earned his stripes just by spending the required years in service without a single active combat tour under his belt. He had somehow landed his position as head of Public Relations for SGC, mostly thanks to his political connections.

"Well, dial again," said Dixon after a pause. The Sergeant did as ordered.

"Nope, still not connecting," Harriman said after the third failed attempt. The fourth Chevron refused to connect and the Stargate stubbornly stayed dormant.

"I don't like this. I don't like this at all. Something's not right," Bates muttered, shaking his head.

Sheppard stared at the Gate, thoughtfully. He could feel it in his mind. The Gate was trying to establish a connection with the input destination. He knew that Walter had guessed correctly; something was blocking the connection from the other side. Moreover, he could feel the Gate trying to force the connection, but not succeeding because something was lacking from SGC's side. It gave John an uneasy, itchy feeling in the back of his mind - like a puzzle piece that's been forced to fit into a place that it didn't quite belong. It gave him an idea.

"Sir, permission to take the Puddle Jumper on this visit?" Sheppard addressed the Colonel.

They had only just found this super-cool, little spacecraft back in Antarctica a week ago, and John had felt like he had been given a gift. He had been on the Chair running a diagnostic on weapons systems when the link had guided him towards one of the storage areas that was recently uncovered to show him the ship. He had finished the routine quickly and taken off towards his prize, with the mental connection in his mind laughing softly at his eagerness. He and Rodney had spent two days going through the ship top to bottom and declared it safe for flights. He had taken the newly named 'Puddle Jumper' (Rodney had insisted on calling it ‘Gateship,’ but John had exercised his veto power as the pilot and put a firm stop to that nonsense) on a few rides and returned with it back to the Mountain at O'Neill's orders. Jack O'Neill had promptly jumped in with Jackson, Carter, and Mitchell in tow, and taken it on a tour to space. He had returned after a few hours with all of them grinning like kids on Christmas, and then given his official stamp to put the Jumper on active service.

"What can you possibly do with the Jumper, Sheppard? We can't dial. The damned line is busy," said the Colonel, starting to lose his patience.

Sheppard mentally rolled his eyes. He knew that Dixon was quite skeptical when it came to believing in Sheppard's affinity for all things Ancient.

"I know that, Sir. But I also know that the Jumper's got a DHD in it, an Alteran designed. As advanced as our dialer is, it's still primitive compared to the real thing,” he replied. “And when there's the real thing, there's a chance that I could do something with it," he put on his most innocent expression and stared expectantly at the Colonel.

John could see Danny openly rolling his eyes and Steve trying hard to hide a snort. Bates was staring stoically ahead, staying away from the officer's spats. Agents Kalakaua and Noshimuri were staring at the Gate serenely, not letting this petty nonsense bother them. Cadman and Higgins were grinning ear to ear, watching the drama unfold. Lorne and Vega were doing the same as Cadman and Higgins, but they were carefully hiding their grins behind blank masks.

"So sure of yourself, Major?" asked Dixon, not bothering to hide his disdain.

It was obvious that he didn't believe for a second that Sheppard could do anything about the situation. The Ring was busy on the other side - there was not a damn thing they could do from this side until it closed, period.

"I don't see any harm in trying," Sheppard drawled with a shrug.

The Colonel looked for a moment like he wanted to refuse. Then he seemed to realize that it would be more fun to let John try and then berate him afterward when he inevitably failed.

"Fine then, knock yourself out. Just don't break the Stargate or the Jumper, Major." Dixon gestured grandly for them to get on with it.

...........

The team reached the next level where the Jumper was parked. The floor of the level had a trap door that could be remotely opened to let the jumper fly vertically down until it came face to face with the Stargate.

They all got themselves situated comfortably inside the craft. Sheppard took the pilot seat with Major Lorne as the co-pilot at his side. Lorne hadn't had the chance to take it out for a spin yet and Sheppard wanted him to familiarize himself with the controls during the flight. Steve and Danny took seats behind them in the cockpit. The rest of the team made themselves at home in the back where there was plenty of space for them and the equipment they carried.

"So, you think you can force a dial-in?" Lorne asked while he watched Sheppard going through the pre-flight.

"I don't know yet, Lorne. It's not like I've tried it before," said Sheppard with a crooked grin, not bothering to look up from what he was doing.

"Well, you sounded awfully sure back there," said Lorne.

"Let's just say, I have a feeling." Then he turned to look at Lorne and give him an impish grin. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

"Ah, Jesus! Please tell me it's not going to be like the time when we were doing that thing in Baghdad... Please! I'm begging you," Danny implored. His eyes had gone wide with what looked like genuine fear.

"Fucking hell, Danny, you had to bring that up," said Steve, trying to hide his fear behind annoyance.

"McGarrett, tell me that is not the case now - cos man, I'm gonna climb outta this tin-can right now." Higgins was already halfway up from his seat and looking furtively at the back door of the Jumper.

"Come on guys, relax. I'm pretty sure I know what I’m doing." Sheppard had finished checking on the flight controls in front of him and was now fiddling with the switches directly above him. He looked completely at ease, in direct contrast to the mounting fear in the atmosphere inside the craft.

"What happened in Baghdad?" Bates piped up from the cargo bay, stoic demeanor forgotten as his curiosity was piqued.

"Don't ask man. Just. Don't..." Higgins was shaking his head from where he was inspecting what looked like an electronic keypad with door controls.

"Oh come on, you can't just say things like that and expect us to let it go. Now you've got us all intrigued and shit," Vega cajoled.

"She's right brah, you gotta spill," Kono seconded. They were all getting increasingly curious as to what could possibly have these badass SEALs shaking in their metaphorical boots.

"Okay, people calm down. If we make it through this mission in one piece, I'll get drunk and tell you all about it - there’s no way in hell I'm going to talk about that shit while I'm sober," Danny promised the group, visibly collecting himself and.

"Stop exaggerating, Williams, it wasn't that bad. Got you all out of there, didn't I?" Sheppard defended himself with a full-blown, mischievous grin. Whatever he'd done, John was enjoying the memory, Lorne could tell.

"I was never the same again, man - none of us were - for a long time," Danny said petulantly. Steve nodded his agreement.

Sheppard finished off his flight checks with a chuckle and gently guided the Jumper above the opening on the floor. The technician outside opened the trap door, obeying Sheppard's signal. The little craft descended smoothly and came to a stop in front of the dormant Stargate, hovering just above the ramp.

..........

Sheppard dialed the address of the planet Gemmond on the Jumper's DHD. He could feel the connection failure even as he dialed due to the disturbance from the planet. He concentrated. He could feel the Jumper in his mind, wanting to co-operate eagerly.

'The Astria Porta is open on the other side. Is it imperative that we gain entrance to this specific planet, at this time?' John knew the inquiries that appeared in his mind were unmistakably Alteran, but he had no difficulty understanding what was being asked.

'Yes,' John thought confidently.

'Please enable the emergency override.' Another smaller, Ancient equivalent of a keypad appeared from the side of the DHD where John's palm was resting. He replaced his palm on the new sub-dialer, thinking 'Override.’

The new keyboard went back inside the DHD and John removed his hand to place it back on flight controls. The DHD started dialing the Gate address by itself and then dialed another sequence at the end. The Stargate in front of them came to life and the Chevrons started locking at double their usual speed. When the seventh and the final Chevron locked, the wormhole burst into life with a swoosh and stabilized with a splat. Then it waited patiently for the Jumper to fly through the gently rippling, blue surface.

The team chuckled, hooted, laughed, and whistled their praises.

John tapped his ear and activated the comms. "Sheppard to Control. Permission to visit Gemmond, Sir." He waited for the 'Go' order from the Colonel.

"Permission granted, Major." They all clearly heard the sour note in the Colonel’s voice, but they refrained from commenting, wanting to get going without any more delays on their first mission as a team.

[autisticburnham]

Emissary: Parts 1 & 2

Text crawl??? This is the wrong Star Franchise

Yes hair no beard Sisko is always strange. Better than no beard Riker, but still strange

I wish this Bolian had come back as a friend for Benjamin later on

Did Jennifer die in this ship's version of Ten Forward? Why are there so many windows?

Who is this BABY playing Jake?

To be clear, that last point is about the flashback. Actual Cirroc Lofton is also baby though

Ah, Benjamin and Jake looking at ds9 and how I know it's gonna parallel with Nerys and Jake looking out from it 😭😭😭

Here it is, the slowest theme song in the universe. RIP to y'all who think Faith of the Heart is bad, how do y'all stand this?

That said, my love for ds9 makes this theme song feel like coming home, no matter how slow it is

Love that Miles is wearing the ds9 uniform and Benjamin isn't. Miles is the one coming from the Enterprise

I know Quark has Rom's nose in this episode bc they hadn't finished making his yet, but still, everytime I rewatch the episode I'm like "Does Quark have Rom's nose??"

32°C? I didn't realize they set up the temperature difference between Cardassians and humans in the pilot

KIRA'S HAIR

Nana Visitor, every Star Trek fan owes you their life for cutting up that wig

Is Odo's face meltier than usual?

Nog! Baby!

Odo may be a fucking cop, but at least he says no guns

I forgot the Ferengi hissing in the early seasons

Oh, I'm not used to seeing the Enterprise conference room not in HD

Benjamin, I know you're traumatized, but it's not Jean Luc's fault

"I've come to know the Bajorans" sir, you have one Bajoran officer and you nearly didn't allow her to wear her earring

I do like how Benjamin is doing his absolute best in the job and making long term plans even though he's planning on leaving

Odo, don't act like you wouldn't despair if Quark left

This hair does make Nerys look significantly more like Laren, which I guess is what they were going for

Opaka! Ma'am, I miss you

Remember how in the original script, you felt someone's pagh through their foot instead of their ear?? I hate Star Trek

Love when Benjamin just Yells. Emissary and Our Man Bashir show Supreme Acting

I wish we had gotten to see more of Jennifer. She seems so lovely

Morn! Didn't realize he showed up in the pilot

There are so many Bajorans not wearing earrings in this episode

Julian, the stuttering is cute, but please calm down

"He knows I'm a Trill, he finds it fascinating," that's bc he's an alienfucker

Love that ds9 immediately says "This whole 'Final Frontier' stuff is bullshit. People live here"

Didn't Curzon get fucked to death on Risa? How is he on the same operating table as Jadzia?

Dukat, no one cares what makes you happy

Benjamin: We'll try to keep the dog off your lawn. Dukat: What the hell is a dog?

Forget latinum, Kira's smile is the most precious resource in the universe

The inside of the wormhole looks like the time travel closet in Halloweentown 2

I know it's just supposed to show how much turmoil Benjamin is in, but the fact that the Prophets see Jadzia's internal view as this pretty garden is really interesting considering the inferiority complex Curzon washing her out of the program gave her and how much she is presumably struggling to find a balance between Jadzia and Dax given how much her personality changes over the first couple of seasons

Me trying to watch Benjamin in the white void the Prophets put him in:

How the fuck did Avery tolerate filming this?

Listen, I know I don't understand science, but I really don't understand how they make the station lighter. Please don't try to explain it to me

Damn, Odo, you've got such interesting potential as a character. I wish you weren't a fucking cop

Love the Prophets and how extremely different they are from any other species we meet

Miles, don't be rude to the computer; she's trying to help

"In a linear existence, we can't go back to the past to get something we left behind, so it's lost" well, now I'm emo about the finale title

Benjamin is being remarkably patient trying to explain the concept of time

He looks so uncomfortable trying to explain kissing to them

Listen, I don't have like One Big Event that causes my trauma, but even still, the phrasing of you existing in your trauma really Hits

Dukat enters the wormhole and the Prophets immediately go "oh, no, fuck this"

The Prophets are me trying to understand sports

Man, fuck the concept of a Picard speech, Sisko speeches are where it's at

Does Kira have a different nose than usual? I feel like it doesn't normally have that line down the mide

"I can't believe the Cardassians would ever attack a Federation outpost." Julian, hon, I love you, but how are you so clueless about very recent, very significant galactic events?

Avery Brooks is so fucking talented

I fucking love Kira

I know we joke about Julian being in ops when he should be in sickbay, but honestly, why did he not leave as soon as they started taking hits?

Benjamin and Jake hugging gives me life

In The 7th Rule podcast, Cirroc says that Avery wanted him for the role bc he was the only kid who called him "dad" and I'm so 😭

Love the contrast between the two meetings with Picard and how much better Benjamin is doing already just from acknowledging his trauma

Love Kira threatening Quark

Very good episode, but I think it's probably difficult for new viewers to follow, and has a bit too much action for my taste 7/10

[beybladeimagines]

I loved your recent headcanon of the team in their early 20s, thank you so much for that! I have a question Regarding hiwatari corp, I'm currently reading the manga beyblade rising, I'm confused, Kai's parents have been around all along? Voltaire isn't as evil as we thought? Maybe I'm being dim, but are you able to explain what hiwatari corp actually seems to do? And info regarding Kai's parents? I always thought voltaire was evil, so I'm confused why Kai would work for him. It's been years!

Mod Note: Yeah, when the manga revealed that Kai actually has a pretty decent connection with his family, I disassociated for like five minutes, because that lowkey makes no sense and contradicts so much of what we’ve seen. Let’s try to make some sense out of the chaos, shall we?

Let’s start with Hiwatari Enterprise. For the longest time, it’s remained a mystery. I’ve had to do some digging around to figure out what exactly it is. From what I’ve seen based on popular discussion, it’s apparently assumed to be a Japanese military company. But, if you ask me where in the manga it states that… I have absolutely no idea. Even “military company” is rather vague, because that could mean anything. Do they make steel, weapons, chemicals, electronics, etc.? I’m just going to weave together my thoughts.

So, let’s entertain the idea that it is a military company. I would argue that makes a lot of sense, because it explains the whole dynamic between Voltaire and Boris, Boris’ quest for domination, the entire existence of the Abbey, and the militarization and resocialization of young boys to become soldiers. Voltaire may not be serving in the military, but because he often engages with military officials through meetings and deals, he’s already familiar with the process of establishing order, of breaking people down, and of calling the shots from behind the scenes. As for what Voltaire’s company actually makes, I would like to venture a guess that it deals in electronics / devices. This would explain the massive amount of training resources that were found at the Abbey and that many of the boys were subjected to. Hell, I’d even argue that some of those boys were testing out Hiwatari Enterprise’s devices before they were deemed safe for use or even safe for the public. They were actual guinea pigs in a multitude of ways.

Fast forward to when Voltaire gets arrested and Boris manages to escape punishment. Even though Voltaire wasn’t really…doing anything, because of his connections with the military, I imagine his detainment was prioritized. Many would probably argue that Boris was simply “following orders” but in reality, law enforcement would most likely prioritize the man who is literally responsible for making devices for the military (due to that insane amount of prestige) instead of the man who did the physical, mental, and emotional abuse all at once. Gotta love the law’s priorities. 

Now, let’s talk about Kai. Why would he work for him? In a world where Voltaire apparently isn’t arressted, why would Kai go back to his abuser? We’ve got a couple different routes we can go here. Let’s say we’re following the anime’s canon. Here, Kai isn’t working for his grandfather; rather, he full on replaces him. The reason I argue that Kai would return to the company is because he knows that that’s where all of his trauma started. Kai is interested in dismantling the very thing that broke him in the first place. It’s as if he’s stepping back in time and getting a chance to start all over again. He gets to be the one in a position of power and he gets to put things back on track without involving blading. He feels as if he’s righting all of the wrongs he was exposed to. It’s not like Kai really even cares about the business aspect of things, but I do believe he wants to be seen as a real leader by others.

Now, let’s conceptualize the mess that is the manga’s canon. If Voltaire is still around and Kai decides to work for him, I imagine it’s because he wants to distance himself from the Bladebreakers. Kai had essentially embarrassed himself a multitude of times through his acts of betrayal. If we’re conceptualizing things with a dark twist, I’d say this act serves as the last chance for him to regain control or dominance, or to finally be seen as the best. I imagine that the longer someone is around a being as manipulative as Voltaire, they start to embrace the same problematic qualities and justify their desire for destruction. In Kai’s case, maybe he wasn’t so willing? Maybe it’s a case of manipulation. Or, maybe he’s just trying to keep the family together and stable (financially, maybe?) so he decides to do something he wouldn’t normally agree to. 

In this case, I’m going to let ya’ll decide what you want to believe, because it really does depend on the canon you choose to follow and how much you want to focus on the grim reality that is Kai’s life. 

Yo, but let’s talk about Kai’s parents, because they’re confusing too. I wrote headcanons before about Kai’s mom. Essentially, when Kai decided to be as hateful as Voltaire it tore her apart, and yet, we don’t see her standing up to Voltaire when he was telling Kai about how his dad chose blading over him. But, I imagine that moment was confusing and hard for anyone. Her husband just stood up to his father, but his father has made their life pretty stable, but his father is also imposing a problematic rhetoric onto her son, but also…you have no idea where the hell your own husband is even going and what he plans on doing. I imagine she regrets that day and it’s the first thing she thinks about when she wakes up every morning. 

As for Kai’s dad, well… Kai has a hard time swallowing his pride and I believe he gets that from his dad. I think his dad knew he contributed to fucking up his own son’s life by not making many attempts to clear the air. But because so much time has passed, he has no idea if he should even bring the trauma up or act like everything is fine. I imagine he tries to act like everything’s fine and tries his best to win Kai’s affections. He pops back into Kai’s life rather unexpectedly, but Kai is ready to forgive him. He got the truth and although Kai struggles to understand and truly come terms with said truth, I think he just wants his family back, because lord knows his friendships aren’t stable. It takes a while for Kai’s father to actually address their past, but I think everyone in that household is just ready to be a family again. They have missed so many years together. Kai is so fucking tired of being bitter. This doesn’t even involve blading or being the best. This involves having someone to come home to, this involves unconditional love, this involves receiving a form of support that is absent of jealousy. He needs family now more than ever and I think everyone is determined to rebuild as well.

As for Voltaire being portrayed as the strict grandpa that’s suddenly welcomed back into the family, I-… I don’t get it. It’s completely out of character. I mean, my goodness. This entire time we thought Kai didn’t have a family or if we thought that he did, we assumed they were abusive or something… Now that we found out they actually love one another, I can explain that - easy peasy. But Voltaire being reintegrated into the family picture? And not arrested? You got me fucked up. I can’t even conceptualize a rational justification for that nonsense other than they rewrote the canon and in that canon, apparently Voltaire did nothing wrong. I might need some time to think that part through, anon. But I hope everything else made a hell of a lot more sense!

[nil-marte]

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There are many companies that offer a test period according to the scheme "now you pay, then if you do not like it within 30 days, we will refund your money."

I am talking only about companies that are ready to provide you with the opportunity to use their services for a month without any payment at all, and which do not require entering credit card details until you complete the test period and declare your desire to use the services of the company and beyond.

In my opinion, only such an offer can really be called a "free trial period". Everything else is a marketing ploy. Is not it?

1. ExclusiveHosting

I got to know this company in 2019. I was interested in the offer of a free trial period of 30 days without entering card data and I decided to give it a try. See what happens in practice.

I activated my account and got a trial period. During the free period, resources are limited and they are less than after switching to a paid service. But the resources provided were enough for me to host a site based on one of the CMS. Enough space for files, the ability to create a database of melons, a free SSL certificate - all this is possible during the free period.

For a month I watched how my site works and at the end of the test period I came to the conclusion that I simply have no reason to leave here. Everything works fine, the service is convenient, the support service is adequate and responds quickly enough.

Thus, after the end of the test period, I paid for hosting services for the next year. In this company, billing is annually.

There are three hosting plans here.

f your site is a set of static HTML pages or a landing page, the minimum Exclusive Plan will suit you. If your site is based on CMS WordPress or another uses databases, it is better to use the average tariff MULTI-EXCLISIVE. If you have a site with high traffic every day, the ENTERPRISE tariff is suitable for you.

If you want to try the free hosting period or order the VPS (there is no free trial period for the VPS) from ExclusiveHosting, follow the link.

2. SPRINTHOST

Good news. They do provide a free month of hosting with no card details required.

Bad news. Their website and interface are in Russian.

I think that most of the potential readers of my review do not speak russian and this will be an obstacle. But I will still mention this hosting, just in case, because it fits the topic of the review.

To start using this hosting, you just need to create an account. Within five minutes you can install the content management system from the application manager or upload your website files via FTP

At today's dollar / ruble exchange rate, the cost of tariffs is as follows:

Plan VOSTOK1 (storage 5gb, 5 sites per account, free ssl - 1,58$ (118 rubles)

Plan VOSTOK2 - (15 Gb, 20 sites) - 4$ (298 rubles)

Plan VOSTOK3 (20 GB, unlimites sites on account) - 6,68$

These prices are valid when billed annually (after the end of the free trial period). When paying on a monthly basis, the cost is about 20% higher

I can say that I have been familiar with this hosting provider for several years and I am completely satisfied with the quality of services. There is also a VDS rental and a dedicated server.

If you indicate my promo code SPH567843R during registration: you can get a 25% discount from the first payment (after a free trial period) for shared hosting services (only for plans VOSTOK1, VOSTOK2, VOSTOK3, offer does not work for other plans from the "PREMIUM" line or for VPS). They say that in this case I will also get some kind of discount on the payment for my hosting. Yes, I have a couple of sites on this hosting and the discount will not hurt me.

Here is a link to this hosting if you want to test.

3. HostBuddy - 60 days free trial

I'll be honest. I have just started testing the services of this hosting and cannot give an objective assessment of the quality of their work ...

Last month I noticed a generous offer from this provider. A whole 60 days test period without entering card data. I decided to check if this is as good as promised.

Indeed, immediately after registering and activating my account, I got access to the control panel and the ability to launch the site.

When everything was ready, I noticed the unexpected ... There is no free SSL certificate on the free test period ...

Come on guys ...

How can I use the site for 60 days without a SSL certificate in 2021? Google won't like it, and neither will visitors. I reported this issue to support and asked to deactivate my trial period. I do not need a FREE TEST PERIOD if I have to PAY FOR A SSL CERTIFICATE to use it. What's the point of this?

To my surprise, I received a response that a free certificate was activated for me. And a week later I received an email newsletter from which I realized that now this is a new practice and all users during the test period will be able to use a free test certificate.

Nice moment. The feedback worked.

In any case, if I was wrong, and by default the free certificate for the trial period is not available, you know that you can resolve this issue by contacting support.

Then I noticed another limitation of the test period. During the test period, no email account can be activated on this hosting. Well, you know, if you want to use an email with your domain name and use a web client for correspondence.

This is still not available here during the free period. I pointed this issue to the support team. Unfortunately, this time they did not come to meet me. They offered me to pay for at least one month, thus removing the restrictions of the test period and getting an additional month of hosting as a gift.

I'm still thinking. I still have a test period. Perhaps in the coming days I will prepare some site for which the presence of an email is not important and will continue to test this hosting. I will report on the results later.

You can also start testing this hosting and share your experience in the comments. To do this, follow the link below.

That's all for now. If this topic interests someone next time, maybe I will talk about companies that provide a free or very cheap trial period for VPS. Good Luck!

[littlehollyleaf]

@vampirebillionaire - funny you never assumed it was anyone other than Ed who did the killing, cos I was the opposite and have just been assuming that ofc Eddie, even mind controlled, wouldn't have been able to stab a bunch of street thugs to death... idek why my thoughts were so adamant about that! (maybe I felt he didn't have the strength?? certainly it's not his style, but as @vivo-morior-iterum-vivo points out if he's mind controlled then he'd be behaving contrary to his style anyway so that's a moot point!)

You're right that he really could WELL have done it himself and certainly that he might THINK he did it himself while blacked out. Even though they were friendly last we saw there was still an element of antagonism towards Ozzie in Ed (ie. during the bank robbery with Lee). It makes sense Eddie might think that relatively small aspect of his personality could have cranked up to eleven in a new personality and resulted in him unconsciously trying to frame Ozzie / get Ozzie killed (like happened when he unknowingly tried to have Lee killed).

PLUS, if Eddie is being controlled, he and Ozzie are widely known to be antagonistic, so it would be a smart ploy for someone to use Ed to put Ozzie in danger. It's plausible enough that Ed might do such a thing for Ozzie to believe it as well, so if Oz survives he would go after Ed and not the real culprit.

Yeah... assuming mind control... that probably IS the most likely scenario? (though I'm taken with it partly cos it means that surely Eddie will now feel the need to kinda RUSH to Ozzie and explain himself to avoid Ozzie retaliating, which I very much want, so, maybe I just find it likely cos of that :p)

@vivo-morior-iterum-vivo - I don't really think Zsasz fits into this either, he was just one of the killers that came up as I was brainstorming potential perpetrators if not Ed. So yes, agree with you there.

Fair point about it being too soon for a ventriloquist plot. I plumped for him as a mastermind cos I agree that the whole thing doesn't feel like something Hugo would bother with, but while I'm open to J being behind it I'm just not convinced he'd bother either I guess. To cause chaos maybe, that def does have potential to work - have the other criminals pick each other off so he gets the city to himself. But... I'm also not sure if he cares about that? Part of me thinks he's not bothered about what the other criminals are doing and is happy to let him run their own territories however while he focuses on Bruce (100% agree he shot down the chopper - but I'm thinking that was Bruce-related rather than intended to cause a criminal-GCPD scuffle, since it was a Wayne Enterprises helicopter).

The idea that Ozzie is responsible and using Ed to frame himself is fun! :p But I'm with vamps on that atm - Ozzie is in such a position of power I feel like he wouldn't think he needed to be underhand/secret about gaining smaller gang territory/resources, he'd just go ahead and brazenly send his people to attack. Like he said to Jim about the chopper - if he'd done it why would he lie? He's completely open about his crimes atm because he considers himself safe from any/all retaliation. Better to take credit in order to further publicise his power/control.

Good thoughts both of you about Lee's whereabouts rn. I hadn't stopped to consider. Captured or trying to avoid people for fear of killing them both make sense to me.

Re: Jervis at Ace chemicals - this is the one thing that's making me wonder about J being involved with Ed... because if the playing card IS mind control related that keeps pinging as something Hatter would do to me (the card itself even has an Alice in Wonderland sort of design to my eyes - like the caterpillar's smoke?)... so if Jervis IS mixed up with J, but also created a mind control device for use on Ed, then, seems likely all of that would tie together somehow...? The idea that Ed is an experiment for something J has planned for Bruce might be a good shout in which case... but then again, Jervis being at Ace Chemicals might not be an indicator he is working with J at all! So, idk.

Need more information damnit! :p

Oh idea!

Been batting about theories with people about who killed the Street Demon leader etc if it wasn’t Ed

Thoughts include -

is he working with J while blacked out? (either via mind control or as a new personality)

is Hugo or ventriloquist!Penn masterminding the framing of Ozzie, using Ed’s smarts to uncover relevant info then sending in a strong guy like J or Zsasz for violence etc. (I have a minor theory that Jervis might be involved here helping develop a mind control device, @vampirebillionaire thinks the playing card we keep seeing might be such a device which I actually love the thought of)

Then I thought - wait a minute, if we are looking for someone capable of violently killing a bunch of thugs, what about

LEE?

Since spoilers tell us she is ‘switching’ into a kind of violent mode now and then - perhaps she and Ed were working together on the Ozzie frame? Either of their own volition somehow, or because Hugo has programmed them to be used, either by himself or a third party….

[gehayi]

I know Christian has committed sexual crimes and maybe murder, but can you list what in the business sphere he has done illegally or unethically? My dads a lawyer who deals with this shit, so I'm curious.

For one thing, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. is, by its name, incorporated. That means that it needs a board of directors. Christian says loudly in both Fifty Shades of Grey and the un-Google-able sequel, Grey that he has no board telling him what to do. This statement could have been qualified in Grey; he could have thought that he had a one-person board and that he was it, which is possible. But his reaction in Grey is the same--that he doesn’t have a board because he doesn’t want one. That’s not how incorporation WORKS.

Second, he violates the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. All but one of the employees at Grey House, his headquarters, that we see is a white-skinned blonde woman, and that one exception is a white-skinned redheaded woman. Ana speculates that he hires women who look a certain way; in Grey, we’re given confirmation that yes, that’s exactly what he does. From where I’m sitting, he should be half-buried under anti-discrimination class action suits.

He employs a private hacker, Barney, who breaks into computer systems to illegally obtain information--like Social Security numbers, amounts of money in bank accounts, images in closed-circuit city TV cameras monitoring roads, etc. Grey also states that he uses Barney to vet all potential hires and any woman with whom Grey might get into a BDSM relationship. This should raise all sorts of questions about identity theft and violations of privacy. It doesn’t.

He ordered another employee (Jason Taylor, his chief bodyguard) to beat Jack Hyde  (the man who attempted to rape Ana shortly before this) within an inch of his life when a) Jack was unarmed,  b) he was not threatening  or endangering Grey, Ana or Taylor, and c) Ana was in a tank of a limo that resembles, in many ways, one of the cars James Bond drives. I’m pretty sure that you’re not allowed to order random assaults on despicable people who are not a clear and present danger to you or those around you...even when you have skilled bodyguards.

The chief accountant of the company (Gwen) and the the Vice-President of the company (Ros Bailey, who seems to do all the work, thanks to Grey’s ineptitude) are in a romantic and sexual relationship. To me, this indicates conflicts of interest.

The company was founded with money that Elena Lincoln stole from her husband and gave to Christian Grey. Furthermore, Grey either knew that the money was stolen when he received it or learned it shortly afterwards. I’m pretty sure that profiting from a crime is also illegal.

Grey routinely uses company resources for personal gain. He seems to feel that since it’s his company, everything belonging to the company belongs to him individually. 

At the end of Fifty Shades Freed, when we find out that Elena’s ex-husband Linc Lincoln was the Big Bad all along, Christian says this in a phone conversation:

“Ros, how much stock do we own in Lincoln Timber?”:::“So, consolidate the shares into GEH, then fire the board . . . except the CEO . . . I don’t give a fuck . . . I hear you, just do it . . . thank you . . . keep me informed.”

You can't just say "You're fired" as if the words were magic—and that's what Christian is doing. He doesn’t OWN Lincoln Timber, not the slightest part. Elena Lincoln's ex does. And the ex doesn't like Christian at all. I can't think that he'd allow Christian to buy a controlling number of shares—and I doubt if Christian did so, especially since he mentioned earlier in Freed that he didn't even know if he'd invested any money in lumber or timber.  

Boards of directors can be changed, but not by one person hiring or firing everyone.1) Boards can be elected at the annual shareholders' meeting at the end of the year.

2) A shareholder can call a special meeting when they want to change directors before their term ends. However, this involves contacting all other shareholders and giving them notice of the place, time, date and purpose of the meeting.3) Shareholders can vote to remove directors from a board, with or without cause, unless the corporation has a staggered board. Once that is done, they can vote to replace the directors they voted out.

However, a) a meeting is required, b) a quorum of shares must be present at that meeting and c) a majority of all shares entitled to vote must participate in removing and replacing the directors. Furthermore, many by-laws translate this as "a majority of all SHAREHOLDERS" rather than "a majority of all SHARES." Which means everyone might get a vote over the dismissal of Lincoln Timber's board, even very minor investors.4) With a staggered board, only a portion of the board is elected every year—half to one third, generally. Replacement and removal of members of a staggered board are similar to what's done in the third case…but members of a staggered board can only be removed with cause. And the by-laws spell out what the causes are. Posting bail for someone that one shareholder doesn't like is not a valid cause.

Removal and replacement of boards always seem to come down to other shareholders, meetings and elections. And even if Christian could just wave a dictatorial hand and say, "Begone!", Linc could put the directors that had been removed, as well as anyone else on his side, up for election again, campaign for them, recommend that other shareholders vote for them, etc. This has been done in other companies; it's fairly routine.

As plans for vengeance go, this one is unworkable, illegal, and pretty much useless.

Christian also plans to do the following:

“But he’s seriously crossed the line with Hyde. Linc’s made this personal by going after my family. I’m going to crush him, break up his company right under his nose, and sell the pieces to the highest bidder. I am going to bankrupt him.”

Bankruptcy law has ways of fighting hostile takeovers, which is what Hellspawn is proposing. Not only that, but a Chapter 11 bankruptcy—the most typical way for businesses to go bankrupt in America—wouldn't leave Linc stony broke, which is what Fuckface wants. "A [C]hapter 11 debtor usually proposes a plan of reorganization to keep its business alive and pay creditors over time."Chapter 11 bankruptcy is REALLY common with big businesses. This not only wouldn't leave Linc broke, he might even profit from the deal. If Hellspawn wants to force Linc to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which involves liquidation of non-exempt assets and distributing the proceeds to debtors...well, first of all, Chapter 7 is generally used by individuals, not businesses or corporations (which usually file Chapter 11) or sole proprietorships and partnerships (which usually file Chapter 13). Note the word "generally." It's not impossible for a business to use Chapter 7, but Chapter 7 would involve selling a great many assets, including the business itself. So it's not common.Second, Linc himself would have to cooperate with Hellspawn's "plan." He'd have to apply for credit counseling first, because you can't petition for Chapter 7 liquidation without that. Then he'd have to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition with the courts, agreeing to sell almost everything he has because that's the only way to pay off his debts. Linc is a wealthy man. What's likelier—that he'll voluntarily strip himself of almost everything he owns or that he'll fight a hostile takeover? 

And that’s just the stuff I can think of right off the top of my head. I’m sure there’s more.

Does that help?