#a spark in fate core

[izzasecretredacted]

Using A Spark in Fate Core to Build My World

I thought I’d show you my process through A Spark in Fate Core, a worksheet for creating an original campaign setting. This doubles as a writing tool and something that will contribute to gameplay, even after going through it, so I think it’s worth showing what I ended up doing before formulating that introductory post.

Since Spark in Fate was made specifically for Fate Core, a TTRPG I’m not using, I’m using part of it. I also homebrewed this a bit, since it’s built for collaborative worldbuilding and I’m just doing this on my own, but not that much..

Step 1: List Media

Going into this project, all I knew about it was that I wanted it to be kinky, in a world that’s atleast better than real life, and related to space. This first step, which is to list some media that I like or has things that I want in my world, will help me get a more solid idea. I’m not going to justify my choices, because I don’t have to, not until step 2.

Usually, you would have 1 or 2 per player. I picked 3 total, which is a bit less than you’d normally have, but that’s because of a future step.

Cowboy Bebop

Star Trek

Tekken 3

I didn’t need all of the media to be sci-fi, and in fact, only 2 have space travel. I didn’t need media with a story, either. I’m actually pretty sure that, every time I’ve done this with an actual group, atleast one person gives an album. I make a point that it works just as well as anything else. I picked these because they were either cool, or were cool and also had themes I wanted to explore.

Step 2: List Inspirations

After asking for some of the stuff I like, Spark in Fate then has the gall to ask ‘why’. This means I have to pinpoint specific things in the media I’ve listed that I want to see in my world, and put that concept into a phrase that’ll be called an inspiration. I went for 1 ‘cool’ inspiration and 1 ‘thematic’ inspiration for each piece of information, just to keep a balance or something.

I’ll describe my thought process for deciding each inspiration. I won’t go in depth about how that inspiration relates to the media it comes from, because I don’t need the inspirations to be perfectly reminiscent of how they were explored in the media I chose.

Cowboy Bebop

Bounty Hunting

This felt like a good way to facilitate swashbucklery duels, and maybe have an excuse to explore dub-con/cnc style dynamics.

Holding on to Identity

I tend to get bored of sex that just exists for its own sake (acespecs gonna acespec), so I figured it’d be fun to ask what makes sex, and for that matter, romance and gender as well, meaningful to the characters doing it.

Star Trek

Space Adventure

It’s fun, you should try it! That, and I recently came across a book called “Elf Genders” that has tables for randomly rolling genders for fantasy cultures. I won’t use that specific book, because some of the tables are checks for if certain things are discriminated against, and I just don’t want to introduce that in this game. I’m giving it a shoutout because it made me realize that it’s kinda silly how aliens in media are often just a couple of genders that humans ended up with, and I thought I’d contribute to rectifying that.

Almost Utopic

Utopian fiction appeals to me because I just think it’s a more productive way to comment on real world issues, and because not being depressing doesn’t make something less intelligent or meaningful. I went with ‘Almost Utopic’, partially to acknowledge that Star Trek’s politics aren’t perfect, but mainly because it makes fitting it into the Thirsty Sword Lesbians framework slightly more straightforward.

Tekken 3

Expressive Fighting Styles

I like when characters have fighting styles that fit their personality, and are flashy to the point of ‘that would never work in a real fight’. Basically, professional wrestling.

Tech Awakening Old Horrors

I wanted to interrogate the idea that technological advancement is inherently good. Obviously, as a tool, it's done some pretty cool things like develop modern medicine and make long distance communication practical, I guess. I’m more talking about the idea that we should have more powerful technology just for the sake of it, and thought maybe having really powerful technology that poses an existential threat could be a good jumping off point. I didn’t intend to end up with ‘fossil fuels but Lovecraftian’ but maybe I can lean into that.

Step 3: Genre

This is when you pick a genre and put an adjective infront of it to make it more unique. That’s about it. It sounds easy, but with a group, it can sometimes take awhile…

Anyway, I went with “Kinky Sci-Fi Adventure”, of course.

Step 4: Scale

Ironically, this is another one-question-long step. It asks what problems the PCs will need to face, ranging from small town drama to saving the world from a mad god. This is actually a pretty complicated question when you put it in the context of a single campaign, which is probably why it gets its own step. It asks you to say something like ‘small scale’ or ‘big scale’, but then add a phrase to elaborate on the nature of that scale.

I plan on this campaign being a monster-of-the-week with space travel and rival characters. Since the broader problems of the world aren’t being tackled (atleast, not in the start), this would actually be a ‘small scale’ campaign. I’ll specify that the setting takes place in a large location, but focuses on a certain type of character.

I went with “Small Scale (Space, but Filled with Rivals)”.

Step 5: Establish the Facts

At last, I get to start putting in some more tangible elements into this world. Normally what would happen is the DM would ask a question (my favorite starting question is ‘What does mundane life here look like?’, but that’s neither here nor there), and a player answers it in a way that incorporates one of the inspirations. Then, that player asks another question, and another player answers it by incorporating another inspiration. This goes on until every inspiration is incorporated, making sure everyone gets to ask and answer a question.

When I’m doing this on my own, I sometimes write down a question and randomly roll for what inspiration to use to answer it. For this campaign, I don’t have to, because Thirsty Sword Lesbians has a worksheet for worldbuilding, with questions that I can use for this process. This is why I only used 3 pieces of media with 6 inspirations, because there were six questions that I wanted to pull from the TSL worksheet.

Since the questions were decided by another source, I just picked the inspirations I wanted to use.

What community does the PC live in?

The Sell-Whips. (Expressive Fighting Styles)

What’s the scale of this community?

Scattered across two galaxies. (Space Adventure)

What is especially positive about this community?

Complete and mutual respect for each-other’s needs. (Holding on to Identity)

What is a serious flaw of your community?

Sometimes you need to ‘grab’ someone to help keep the ship running. (Bounty Hunting)

What poses a threat to your community?

The sorta benevolent Federation, which pressures others to assimilate to a specific way of life. (Almost Utopic)

What poses a threat to the world?

The chaotic, powerful, and destructive Extinction-Tech. (Tech Awakening Past Horrors)

Step 6: Name Your Child

It wants a title for the world. Most groups skip this step. I figured there’s no better title than my blog title, so refer to that and continue to Step 7.

Step 7: Step 7

This is Step 7. It’s the step where ‘Sparks’ are come up with, root problems that have an effect on the entire world, and it’s the last step that I want to do. This step exists even for small scale campaigns, because they give an understanding of where more local problems originate. This is normally done by each player thinking of 2 sparks, but I like to make sparks usings the facts I established in Step 5, which is not Step 7. Step 7 is this.

Remember these Sparks, they’re the whole reason why I thought this process was worth showing. They’ll come up in a future, similarly ‘behind the curtain’ post, and will hopefully play a huge role when actual gameplay starts.

It’s a dangerous job, but someone’s gotta do it. (The Sell-Whips.)

Interstellar travel takes a while. (Scattered across two galaxies.)

Sell-Whips stick together. (Complete and mutual respect for each-other’s needs.)

Sell-Whips hunt each other. (Sometimes you need to ‘grab’ someone to help keep the ship running.)

Life’s hard for those who aren’t homogenous. (The sorta benevolent Federation, which pressures others to assimilate to a specific way of life.)

Extinction-Tech is never good news. (The chaotic, powerful, and destructive Extinction-Tech.)

In later steps, a group or solo player would create more local issues, and then create some key characters and places. I plan on doing all that without Spark in Fate, so that’s why I’ve neglected them. I just needed to come up with a skeleton (or the outside of the iceberg, if you’ve seen that Brandon Sanderson lecture that one time), and get those Sparks as a secret tool that will help out later. It’ll be a bit until I start the actual journal, I got some homebrew ideas I want put into writing, plus a bunch of rivals and my PC’s crew, but next post will have atleast a little bit of narrativeness to it.

[n109hunter]

Fates Rewritten -

pairing: sylus x mc word count: 3,058 summary: After MC wakes up from an all-too-real dream, she struggles to piece together the fragments from another life - and rushes to seek out the only person who can soothe her sorrow. tags/warnings: SPOILERS for Beyond Cloudfall (Sylus Limited Myth), first person, angst, emotional hurt + a little comfort, established relationship a/n: This is my entry for the fanwork contest on twitter. I wish I'd had a little more time to polish it, but deadlines be deadlines. It was largely my need to get some of the intense emotions out after reading Beyond Cloudfall and "fix it" in a mostly canon compliant way.

(ao3 link)

I woke in a cold sweat, body aching with the all-too-real memory of growing horns and a tail - but more than that the pain of losing him. As if I’d really lived it. As if I’d really lost him. 

I’m vaguely aware of tears streaming down my face as my hands clutch mindlessly at my chest. Unable to calm the racing of my heart, my lungs burn as if I’d just been fighting a horde of wanderers. My waking mind rails against the possibility of any of that being real, but I know - I know too damn well it was all true. My mind and body resonated with those memories and the damning pain too deeply to have been false.

A wellspring of grief swells up from my chest, emotions too big to name let alone reason with overwhelm me and get lodged in my throat. I have to see him. It’s the only thought I can firmly grasp onto as I choke on one sob after another. 

Trembling from head to toe I climb out of bed, scrambling around my room as my body attempts to go through the habitual motions of getting ready. I go to grab a shirt but quickly drop it on the floor in favor of a jacket - I don’t have time to change, my pajamas are fine, I just need to see him. As I leave my apartment I almost forget my helmet, before hurrying back frantically to grab it. 

It’s dark outside, probably some early hour - I could have called him, but those kinds of thoughts weren’t processing. The overlap of memories is disorienting: I didn’t have anything like a phone I could have called him with in that lifetime. 

An orphan, raised on stories of slaying dragons, branded a sorceress to be executed… To be told such a fanciful story would have been one thing, but to remember it? Not everything entirely, nor clearly, but I remember enough. More than that: I remembered how I felt, and I can feel it all too keenly myself. The desperation, the anger, the desire, the hatred… And the love. The depth of our bond that tugs at me so violently now: I need to see him right fucking now. 

From a street lamp overhead Mephisto tilted his head as he watched her amble towards her bike, her movements… odd. He was a smart enough bird to know something wasn’t right, and sent a message to Sylus. 

I don’t think about how it is probably exceedingly dangerous to ride in my current state of mind. I’m too preoccupied taking countless fragments of moments and holding them to the light, seeing how they overlap.

“Do you know what you look like right now?” His voice asked me, layering gently over itself in two very different times. 

“What a smug expression.” || “You’re a young dragon who just grew her horns.”

I remember when, indignantly, I bit his hand in an act of defiance against fate. And I remember when, with that confident, captivating look on his face, he bit my hand playfully in the café.

Speeding down the streets towards the N109 Zone, countless memories re-arrange themselves in my mind. How many times? How many times had he reached out to me, spoke to me in a secret language only we could know, hoping to trigger a spark. 

And I had known it all along, deep down. From the first time I saw him, when I looked into his eyes and felt that insatiable urge to devour him. When I absorbed the aether core and saw that dreadful moment where his clawed hand grasped mine and stabbed him through. Every time our aether cores formed the linkage between us, or even that time in the cathedral, where we played the organ together… 

“You actually remembered.” He had said.

How many times have I asked him to explain? And now… Now I think I might understand a little of why he didn’t. At the very least, I can’t imagine how to explain it if it was me who remembered first. 

But at the end of my dream I was left alone, clutching the last fragment of his soul as my body painfully transformed. It was then I woke up with an anguish too great to bear, but also: a smoldering determination. Or rather, maybe it was better to call it ‘defiance’, of the fate we’d been handed. But I can’t fathom what might have possibly come next. With a grief that big, part of me doesn’t want to.

All I know for sure is: I have to see him. He’d been bearing the burden of it all this time alone, I can’t bear the thought of him being alone one more moment. To say nothing of the sickening nausea that wrenches my gut remembering how it had felt to watch him die. I have to see him with my own eyes, feel him with my hands, know that he is real and alive.

By the time I arrive at the base I’m somehow more disoriented than I had when I’d woke up. I feel like a time traveler several times over. The ride had been such a blur I barely remember it, which is a scary thought, but I don’t care to linger on it. My mind and body feel out-of-sync, and when my body sways it takes a second longer for my mind to correct it. I feel… drunk, almost, or drugged, like the first time I came to the N109. 

What am I going to say to him? I wrack my brain for a single word to start with, but before I can grasp anything I’m torn back to a dream within a dream in a flower field, I think of the flowers he took me to see a few weeks ago. 

Sylus is so damn good at reading my mind, would he know just by looking at me? 

The familiar sound of a crow calling startles me, and when I shake my head the synchronization of my body and mind gets a little better. Mephisto lands on my shoulder, and it’s a comforting weight. 

“…Were you following me?” I stroke a finger against his neck absently, out of habit. He leans into it as if enjoying the attention, but I suspect it’s more of a friendly gesture for my sake. 

The doors swing open and the faces of the twins greet me. 

“Hey there, boss-lady.” Kieran starts in his usual, friendly tone, but then it shifts as if he’s unsure of something. “Uhh, boss isn’t here right now, but he’s on his way.” 

“He said to get you anything if you needed.”

For a moment I simply stare back at them as my brain processes these new inputs. As often as I come here nowadays, it wasn’t like they needed to roll out the red carpet for me or anything, so this welcome is… a little odd. Then it clicks, and I glance at Mephisto again.

“You told on me.” It feels nice and a little grounding to know my favorite mechanical crow is still looking out for me like always.

He turns his head away and gives a short, indignant caw. He’s being stubborn and a little shy.

“I’m just going to wait in his room…” I tell Luke and Kieran as I walk in, handing my helmet over to them. They step aside, but I hear them trailing behind me a little ways down the halls - they’re shuffling and dragging their feet on purpose.

“All right, but… just let us know if you need anything.” Then, silently, they fall back into the shadows. 

Do I look as bad as I feel? My face does still burn from crying so much, and I feel tired enough for two lifetimes of shared memories. 

Once I step into his room though, an inexplicable comfort washes over me. I feel a tension unravel and a new wave of grief as I hug myself, consoled in the smallest sense seeing signs of him.

Mephisto flutters over to his perch, but keeps a silent eye on me. Lingering in the middle of the room, I scan the familiar sights slowly. The art on the walls, the records and record player… My heart twists recalling that he hadn’t appreciated music ‘back then’. 

It all makes sense, doesn’t it? The hordes of trinkets and weapons he collects are much the same as back then. I can’t help but wonder how many of the weapons were collected from people who had tried to kill him, like those kept in his lair in Tarus City. 

A searing anger kindles within me at the thought of it, and a realization follows that once again my beloved has been branded a villain in this life. I cling to the anger, it’s so much easier to deal with than all the pain and grief, but it isn’t nearly enough.

I can’t bring myself to sit so I simply stand in the middle of the room, hugging myself tighter. What I need to do is get my thoughts and emotions under control, and figure out just what the hell I’m possibly going to say to him. But just thinking about how to open her mouth and utter the words makes me feel like I’ll start sobbing again. Or vomit. Maybe both.

Maybe he already knows. We’re bound together, we’ve shared dreams before… Again my thoughts derail as a heat warms my face recalling a certain dream I had a few months ago. I pat my cold hands against my cheeks, and internally squash down my shame. So what if he knows about that? 

Except, he knew all along and never told me so many other things, too. Part of me desperately wants something to be angry and indignant about, but instead all I’m left with is a sweetly sharp and aching pain: I love him so much. He’s always trying to be so considerate of me, and I know it’s because he wants us to live this life that we have together, right here and now. I feel so sure of it in the depths of my soul, as if his heart beats steadily alongside my own whispering this answer.

Tears are running down my face again. How can one person cry so damn much?

The door opens behind me, and I realize I haven’t thought of a single thing to say to him. My throat feels tight and my brain is just as uncooperative as it’s been this entire time.

Behind me the familiar sound of his footsteps approaches, and he softly says my name like a question, gently coaxing me to look at him. 

He told me before: between him prying and me opening up, he prefers the latter. Today, I might need him to pry a little. But more important than anything: I need to see him. 

That one overwhelming feeling that brought me here turns me on my heel. Without hesitation I rush to him, taking his face between my hands and tracing every detail with my gaze. He does the same, searching my face for answers - not yet reading my mind, it seems. 

I trace his jawline with my fingertips, brush my thumbs over his cheeks, my attention lingering briefly in places where scales grew like armor once. For the first time since I woke up I am seeing clearly, my body and mind in sync, the world and all things settling into place as I trace a finger down the bridge of his perfect nose and then brush it over those irresistible lips. 

And of course, those eyes. His utterly captivating eyes that pull me in and keep me. It hurts to think that I might have ever been afraid of him. I know now better than ever before (and I definitely knew it before) but he is, of course, utterly deserving of that fear. But not from me. Never me.  

Sylus’s hands rest on my waist. He doesn’t move away from my inspection, and for several moments says nothing either. He simply watches me in return, a slight furrow in his brow as he waits patiently - no doubt assessing every possibility as to what might have drove me here in this state. He’d raze Linkon - even the world - if something upset me. If I asked him to. 

I need to put his mind at ease. I wet my lips and take in a breath, but the words die on my tongue. 

“What happened?” He asks gently when he sees me struggle. Then, with a hint of pain -or maybe guilt- in his voice: “Did you have another bad dream?”

Despite everything, I smile. I also barely choke back a sob, but I still can’t help but smile. His hands draw up to cup my face and gently wipe the new tears from my raw cheeks. I manage a small nod to give him some measure of an answer, as I give him another look-over. 

He’s here. Alive. My dragon is here with me. I have to tell him I remember. 

But those aren’t the words that come spilling out.

“I love you.”

That’s the most important thing. Even if I can’t stop myself from crying again, I have to tell him this, even if I’m shaking as I press my hands to his chest, gripping the fine fabric of his suit and leaving wrinkles. 

“I love you so much, Sylus.”

He looks a little stunned, which I might have delighted in any other time. It’s subtle, because it’s Sylus, but his brows are slightly raised and lips parted as he tries to make sense of the state I’m in and the words I’m saying. Maybe I’m making it worse. 

“You-?” He starts to speak, maybe to ask something, or maybe he figured it out. But at long last the next words are there in my mouth full of bitterness and relief, hope and grief, and too many emotions to name let alone stomach, so I fling them out to be rid of them at last.

“I remember.”

It barely scratches the surface, but it tells him what he needs to know for the moment. In dozens of moments in our time together I have seen looks like this one on his face. Where memories overlap and he has to carefully bite back his words and feelings. I understand it very well now. Right now he’s wondering: ‘How much?’ and it’s not as though I could answer that for him in a single word. I’m certain there is still so much I don’t remember. 

“Is that so?” He asks slowly, brushing a hand over my hair soothingly. “And what exactly did you remember?” 

Yeah, I should have seen that one coming. I touch his face again, gazing into those stunning ruby eyes as I try to find more words. I’ll start simple.

“I remember a dragon.” Yes, that’s an easy place to start. In my memory he is breathtaking beyond words. “A beautiful, lonely dragon, who spoiled me rotten.” I feel a smile return to my lips, and I can feel the smug satisfaction of the Sorceress burn hot in my chest. ‘Rotten’, yes, by the standards of the Ivory City. But she had embraced her true desires, her true self.

Sylus closes his eyes for a moment and lets out a quiet laugh, a smirk on his lips. 

“You actually remembered.” He sighs, and though he sounds relieved, there’s some other emotion I can’t quite place. It might be close to the ‘guilt’ that sometimes colors his voice when he feels bad about plaguing my dreams with his wounds. Which seems fitting, in a strange sense. Painfully fateful in another.

How many of those dreams were actually ‘real’? Like the dreams we created between our bound souls, like warmth born between clasped hands. 

It doesn’t matter right now. Probably. 

“But… you left me.” I can barely get the words out, they’re quiet and break under the weight of emotions, but at the very least I don’t cry any more. I might actually be all cried out, but my head is definitely starting to hurt about it. 

“You should know that’s not possible.” He speaks in a low, soft voice. There’s an undercurrent of forcefulness that betray strong feelings, but he’s purposefully speaking so very gently. He takes my opposite hand, twining our fingers together. “Our souls are bound together. I am always with you.” 

“But you died.” I know it’s true, I felt it. He isn’t exactly denying it either. 

“And I’m here now.” 

His words are irrefutable. That’s all that matters now, isn’t it? It’s also not like I haven’t seen him survive the impossible before. It isn’t an answer, not exactly, but it settles some of the loud confusion in my head regardless. 

I touch my fingers just below his right eye. A familiar hunger thrums gently in me, but it doesn’t frighten me. For now, it’s enough knowing that it’s proof of our bond.

“Yeah…” I murmur, aware of how unconvincing I sound. Softly holding my chin he leans closer, so his eyes are all I can see.

“And I’m not going anywhere.” His words sound like an echo of our oaths to each other. The ring clear and strong, unwavering; the confidence he always embodies reverberates within me. I squeeze his hand tightly. 

“Good.” I feel my resolve overlap with the Sorceress’s from that moment he nearly slipped through her fingers completely. “You’re not even allowed to think about leaving me.” Her words overlap with my own, and I watch a smile form on his lips. “You’ll always be tied to me. Forever.”

That’s right. We’ll tear down any fate that tries to keep us apart with our own hands, and then we’ll reforge it into whatever we desire - together.

He lifts our hands and places a soft kiss against my knuckles. Time and again I’ve seen emotions pass over him that I couldn’t understand, but now I see more clearly. The warmth of relief eases his shoulders and bolsters him. I think… maybe he didn’t even expect my remembering to soothe him as much as it does. 

“That,” he says as his thumb sweeps over my lips, “is a fate I will gladly accept.”

[pseudowho]

Professor Higuruma: Part One, Star-Crossed

Leaving your job behind to study Law, you fall into the gravity of Professor Higuruma Hiromi. Soon, you find yourselves entwined in an affair so deep and alluring, you cannot see where Hiromi ends and you begin.

Warnings: 18+, MDNI, smut from Part One, age-gap relationship (20s to 40s), 'thread of fate', tw- leaving an emotionally neglectful relationship, tw- alcohol use, wet dreams and daydreams

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The bottle would not draft his timetable, and as such, it remained corked. Hiromi's thirst extended past wine and warm bodies, to something altogether more elusive; an alleviation of his crippling loneliness-- that which ground him down to dirt.

Hiromi sat on his sofa, picking up the claret, rolling it in his hands, putting it down, running his fingers through his hair, clenching white knuckles against jittering thighs.

The week had been long. His Department was undergoing fresh demands for classes and time and curriculums and more, that Hiromi had not the staff to facilitate. With the new term about to start, and fewer professors than ever, Hiromi felt like the wick in the middle of a candle burning at both ends.

From the heated sneers that set to flame in the room around him, Hiromi wasn't the only one already balancing on a knife edge. He felt the frost crisp the earth around Nanami Kento, his Literature department already at the end of their tether.

If the rampant deep-seated loathing for the world in which he lived didn't kill him first, the stress would. The loneliness would. The drink would. The pressure would. The late nights would. The loneliness the loneliness the loneliness the loneliness--

Hiromi threw his bottle and responsibilities to the sofa. Too touch-starved for solitude, but too burned out for company, Hiromi grabbed his jacket and keys, and headed for his favourite bar.

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See you later? At the bar across the street.

Let me know when you'll be here.

Are you still coming?

Not dressed up, sorry. On your way?

Got you a drink. See you soon?

???

The Spring evening was too crisp for such chilly rejection. The sun had seemed hopeful, earlier in the day, and you hadn't brought a jacket. You felt the bite upon your exposed arms, a nipping punishment for your optimism. Whether he was here, or not, made no great difference; he had not given you his jacket in a long time.

He would come, you reassured yourself. You'd buy him his favourite drink, and he'd arrive late, all I'm so sorry baby, you know how it is, c'mere, I'll warm you up, with twinkles in his eyes like you'd hung his stars and his hand in yours and the life you had lived and shit don't cry you stupid bitch pull yourself together.

You scurried into the bar, embraced by your own arms, before ordering his favourite drink and yours, as if a summoning ritual. The bar had a happy thrum, warm with love and life, and you saw cherry blossoms drift across the torch lit balcony. It beckoned you. You remained, waiting for your spell to work, with your eyes on the door.

The torches dwindled. A barman went to refill them with oil. Your fiancé had not arrived. The ice in his drink had almost melted, and you sank into a sigh that shredded down to the very core of you. The first time you saw the man in the black suit, arriving on a thundercloud, and sitting a few barstools down from you, you registered him only briefly, past the knife in your gut.

Then, a pair of coal-dark eyes met yours. The torches on the balcony reignited with a whoomph, setting drifting blossoms to pink-spark ember on the Tokyo backdrop. Your breath caught halfway, the scent of smoky petals and spiced cologne on the sides of your tongue. The barest clink of ice cubes settling in the glass, cracked through the moment that time had paused.

The man in the suit opened his mouth, offering only the other half of the breath he had stolen. His hangdog eyes were so curiously expressive. A smile wrinkled his nose. You stumbled across yourself, pressing your fiancé's undrunk drink across the bar to the black-suit man.

"Would you like this? It's in need of appreciation." The black-suit man laughed, a breathy rumble.

"Is it indeed?" He took the glass with long fingers, and you followed the trail of a trickle of the glass's condensation, dripping down his finger's inner length, to pool at the junction between. "Will it taste bitter in the mouth of someone for whom it was not intended?"

You smiled, your eyes narrowing in tease. "It is a gift."

"Oh!" He uttered, laced with small joy. "Then it will be sweet." He took a sip, a vermouth-honeyed tongue darting across his lips with an appreciative hum. "Yes, quite. Welcome, little drink. There is joy to be found amongst the unwanted." You laughed, and Hiromi felt a curious yank upon his finger. He had fallen into your company, and could not get back up.

"I must be old," he laughed again, swiping commas of grey-streaked Inky hair from his temples, "because I've forgotten my manners. I'm sorry for pressing conversation upon you. Thank you for the drink."

You shook your head, without the appropriate words to express how a stranger had warmed you more in moments than you had been in years. Your black-suit man bowed his head, standing, and turning away before pausing. Fate rolled a dice.

"The balcony looks lovely. And, empty." Hovering on one footstep, his gait then steadied, and brogued black shoes clipped across the polished floor. You felt something fine and golden tug within your chest, as torchlight rolled across the black-suit man's disappearing shoulders. Another diceroll raised Fate's eyebrows.

You stood, hesitating between the balcony and the bar. The barman buried a scoop into some ice, watching two strangers interact with an oddly burgeoning certainty. He never interfered. Fate flipped a coin; how readily the stars did align.

"He likes red wine." The barman offered, nodding between your stuttering gape, and the void the black-suit man left in the doorway. You frowned, biting your bottom lip, unaware that your path had been decided before the words left your mouth.

"Then I like red wine, too." The barman smiled. He reached to a row of dusty wine racks above his head, pulling out a bottle with a glassy clink.

"Do you trust me?" The barman asked, placing the bottle before you with a muted thud. You felt a bubble of joy up your nose.

"I do, actually." You replied, awash with certainty as you paid, took two glasses, and headed towards the balcony. As you walked through the doorway, and firelight uncovered the gems hidden within your hair and eyes, your black-suit man smiled, and gestured to the rattan sofa opposite him.

As you sat, strangely comfortable under his gaze, in your state of plain dress, your black-suit man smiled over at you. He looked awkward for a moment, not trusting himself in his own shoes.

"...all this and I wasn't actually prepared for company." You both laughed. Your black-suit man watched you with a glimmer in his eyes, fingers plaited and clasped under his nose, leaning forwards on propped elbows. You struggled to open the wine. He huffed through his nose, your fingers brushing as you handed the bottle over with a scoff.

The man's eyes narrowed as the bottle opened with a brittle schtick; "Loosened it for me--" you laughed again, pinching your nose bridge, "--no no I mean it, I'm really very weak--" You rolled in your laughter together, with him babbling smiling reassurance, while he poured your wine.

"I have one condition to this rendezvous-- please can we not talk about work?" He groaned, clinking your two glasses together in his own hands before passing one to you, still warmed by fading laughter.

"Absolutely. I promise. No work talk."

He was older than you, by an uncertain amount, though you were no girl. You leaned on one palm, in easy silence as you smelled the petal-burst flames. He watched the aurora cast upon your cheeks, feeling his chest fill in a way he couldn't describe.

"...Hiromi." He offered. "My name's Hiromi."

"And it suits you. Should I remain a great mystery?" You gasped, melodramatic with one hand over your mouth.

"Appalling manners!" Hiromi shot. "You owe me a name."

"I gave you a drink! And a bottle of wine."

"Bullshit."

"I don't owe you a thing, in fact--"

The evening trailed away, all warm banter, easy laughter and lingering looks. The conversation grew sloppier, uninhibited, lubricated by wine, of which the bottles nestled, one, two, two and a half. Hiromi had laughed, as deep and rich and mature as the grapes, positively Dionysian, his laughter dying on his lips to catch you mid-shiver. He huffed into his glass, the scent of fermentation rolling back over his own face.

"Here." He dropped, lackadaisical as he sloped past on the way to the bathroom. You blushed to feel his jacket nestle, warm and homely, around your shoulders. He did not appreciate the enormity of the gesture, to you, as he walked away. On his return, you appeared muted, holding onto his jacket around with with two chilly hands. Hiromi felt a stutter in his chest, and sat down beside you.

"...are you alright?" He whispered, soft under the torchlight. Your head drooped onto his shoulder, your neck softened by wine, and he puffed his surprise, short and sharp across your cheek.

"I've had such a lovely time." You sniffed, feeling the clock tick far too late, and you had a busy day ahead, with the start of your new course, and you had to get home and prepare your mind for the beginning of a new life and--

"It...doesn't have to be over." Hiromi intoned, and your belly clenched as his voice rumbled through your core. Your head turned on his shoulder, your nose brushing his. Hiromi spoke again, stroking your nose with his until your eyes fluttered closed, having never felt more certain of anything in his life. "I...I've never done this, but...come home with me, just tonight, and--"

Your phone rang, shrill and piercing and you cried out, jolting away from Hiromi's touch. He chased your lips, his face twisting in a pain you didn't see, as you looked down at your phone screen, slurring.

"Shit...my fiancé..."

Hiromi's belly tumbled, sick with disappointment-- with something altogether more possessive-- and feeling that yank upon his finger, more insistent as he spoke, low and slow.

"Your...fiancé?" The words tasted rotten. Hiromi felt sick, bitter with the sudden loss, hobbled by the brutality of having gained the stars and lost them all at once. He watched you swallow, watched the flash of a wound reopening, piecing the puzzle together so fast now.

"The one who stood you up?" Hiromi toned, venomous with the injustice of the theft. You mistook the direction of his anger, and looked up, your face tight with apology. Hiromi shook his head, raising a hand. Your phone stopped ringing. A few moments passed before your phone buzzed. You read a message as Hiromi stood, turning on the spot, his hands cupped over his nose and mouth.

"You...shouldn't worry. I assume he's coming to pick you up, and I...thank you for such a lovely evening, it's been--"

You laughed without humour, eyes brimming with tears. You shook your head, and nodded, and shook your head again. Hiromi watched you, uncertain.

"I'll walk myself home. He's gone to bed." Hiromi paused, then scoffed.

"You're not walking home alone. Not a chance. Not like this."

He extended a hand to you. You took it, as if tied by the fingers. He held you, like this, all the way home to your cold bed.

You took each others' breath with you as you parted at the door. Hiromi was sure that his loneliness would not kill him first; the drink would not kill him first; the stress would not kill him first; the late nights would not kill him first; the pressure would not kill him first. Being taken to great heights, and then dropped in a dizzying fall, would.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

"Thank you for inviting me in." You whispered, smiling against the shell of his ear. In his bed, soft and open against his body, Hiromi sighed into your touch, your fingernails trailing across his scalp as he groaned. His cock throbbed, thick with promise.

"Couldn't leave you out there, naked." He mumbled against your lips, reaching under the covers to feel you and meeting only the cloth resistance of the mattress, but you were there because he could taste the wine on you, and you were opening yourself to him, he knew somehow.

"You're the one who undressed me." You said, your voice above him, but he was climbing above you, bracketing you to the bed while your voice whispered all around him. Hiromi felt his cock grasped, bucking forwards into the warmth and softness of it, chasing warmer and softer, and he begged you.

"Please you...never told me your name...let me in please, please--" He couldn't see your face with his eyes closed in this odd black moonlight, somehow within you and outside of you all at once. One more rock of his hips seated him within you, plush walls pillowy and smooth and all for him.

He groaned, low and desperate, rocking his cock inside you and he longed for you to welcome him with your arms, but any time he tried to draw them round him they flopped, useless, absent, so he urged you with his hips rutting faster, to pleasure you into holding him. Was it you crying out, or him? He couldn't tell, his pleasure mounting, pulsing through him in waves and why wasn't he trying to stop himself, he hadn't done anything for you--

Hiromi woke with a gasp, his pillow clutched between taut arms as he fucked involuntarily into the mattress, groaning into the mess of cum spurting between his sheets and belly. Hiromi's voice cracked, still lost in his dream, still spilling himself inside you in his mind. The blissful contractions of his cock dizzied him, surely the wettest dream he'd ever had.

Coming back to earth, Hiromi panted, face down in his pillow and a pool of his own sticky seed. His phone alarm rang. He groaned, feeling the catastrophic disappointment of the night before wash over him anew. Seeing the date on his phone in fumbling hands, sent another groan through him, and he buried his hooked nose in the pillow.

The new academic year began today.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

"Higuruma." More statement than question, Hiromi accepted Nanami Kento's proffered coffee as if being reminded of his own name. Hiromi took it, weary and silent, slouched at his desk beneath the crushing weight of having been scooped out in the middle.

Kento sat in Hiromi's visitor chair, regarding Hiromi with cool impassivity. He read the usefulness of any comments he could make, and set them aside for business.

"How do you plan on handling your evening classes? The high-school ones." Hiromi scoffed.

"Nanami, it is 8am on the first day of term, you cannot surely have a plan--"

"We'll offer assistant wages to one or two new First Years." Nanami said, before continuing, sniping and bitter. "If we must lose our Graduate Professors, and if we must host the accessibility courses ourselves, then at least the First Years can gain some income and some experience through teaching."

Hiromi rested his cheek on one palm. He stared Kento down.

"That...that's not a bad idea, actually, Nanami. I shall use that, I think." Kento and Hiromi inclined coffees and heads to each other, an easy camaraderie. Kento let the silence hang as Hiromi scribbled in his diary.

"I don't actually know how we'll do it, Nanami." Hiromi groaned, his face in his hands. "They make staffing cuts as if I can knit a new professor to take some of these classes. How much more 'self-directed learning' can I give these students? It's barbaric. They're being bled dry for this degree, and for what? So they can teach themselves? Shit."

Kento did not disagree, frosty again as the University Chancellors' departmental meeting montaged before his eyes.

"They're paying for a library, and the pleasure of our limited company." Kento sneered, as bitter as his coffee dregs. Hiromi sighed, trying to rub the alcohol away with his fingertips on his temples. Kento's eyes narrowed in cool regard, again.

"Home, or bar?" Hiromi grumbled, steepling his fingertips across his nose.

"Am I so fucking transparent?"

The faintest quirk lifted the corner of Kento's lips. He awaited an answer. Hiromi's head swam with the memory of you, interspersed with the false memories from the dream of being nestled between your thighs, and he felt his cock twitch. Hiromi shook himself out of it, sitting up and shaking his hands out with a huff.

"Bar, if you must know. It was...a late one." Kento hummed again. Hiromi did not elaborate.

"You should try harder to rest, before a work day. It is...irresponsible of you." Hiromi glowered over at Kento, Hiromi's junior by a good few years, quacking after him.

"Yes mother." Kento scowled.

"I could report you." Stony silence. Two chuckles in the office.

"No. You won't do that. You're my best friend."

"I don't have friends--"

"Shush."

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

You recalled taking a day off work, on your fiancé's first day at University. You ironed his shirt the night before. You made him lunch, with notes and flourishes. You enjoyed a hot breakfast together, brimming over like the coffee pot about his future, while you worked to support him, and then your future, while he worked to support you. You had opened your arms to release him, and closed them around him on his return.

And god, you had worked, gruelling long hours for three gruelling long years, but despite the great chasm he had dug between you, you had brimmed over again when he landed his new job. A lucrative career. More than enough to pave your way, while he worked to secure your future--

He stayed in bed as your alarm went off. He accepted your affectionate nuzzles, before rolling away into the embrace of bed. Your fingers closed around nothing. You ate cereal. You packed your bag. You bubbled, low and alone. You wondered if he'd mind you slipping a banknote out of his wallet for your lunch. Your belly clenched with anxiety, and you packed a microwave meal instead.

You rocked, rhythmic with the clatter-back-and-forth of the train. Your eyes closed. Your music was soft. Though, not as soft as those coal-soft eyes, the gentle, brushing aquiline nose against yours, of the night before. Not as soft as the bittersweet ache of loss, of failing to know him better. The ghost of his touch soothed the stinging guilt, of wishing you had spent the night in his arms, instead.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Hiromi was early to his first class, his nerves too frayed and electric to be anything other than hypervigilant. The lecture hall stretched up around him, an amphitheatre where he would slowly watch the soul and enthusiasm be sucked out of those wishing to learn Law.

He had held some optimism, years prior, that his own fractured soul (from years of systemic self-abuse in the Criminal Defense system) could be soothed by teaching the next generation of lawyers, solicitors, and barristers.

Alas, second to idealism, feckless optimism had oft been Hiromi's failing. Alas, the decaying state of education and academia could provide no such balm to his soul while it crumbled itself, and expected its professors to use their bodies and bones to prop up the teetering institution. The grind was different, but just as potent. Hiromi felt the crushing responsibility of leading his department through this storm, and wondered how many would remain on the ship once the rain cleared from his vision.

He resigned himself to filling his chalice with the immeasurable optimism of the fresh and uninitiated. Though under-subscribed compared to prior years, he was still excited to receive his first batch of students for the term. He hoped their passion could bounce off of him, and multiply, exponential.

While preparing his slides for the day, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows, Hiromi heard the steady fill of the lecture theatre behind him.

He could not shake the ghost of your head upon his shoulder. He could not shake the taste of your skin from his dreams. He could not shake his regret, for not shaking you by the shoulders and insisting you deserved better, instead of delivering you back to the bed of a man who didn't appreciate the treasure within his grasp.

"I'll be with you in a moment!" Hiromi called behind him, waving one white-sleeved arm in a vague gesture. "Please be seated! I shan't be long."

The chatter crescendoed behind Hiromi, and he turned, clapping his hands together and affecting a smile and speech, gazing into the sea of new faces.

"Good morning everyone! Welcome to your first class. I'm delighted you have all chosen to study the Law-- it means the flow of the insane into our noble professions remains, as ever, consistent." A few smattered laughs from the audience. Hiromi grabbed his clicker, a slide slow flicking onto the great screen behind him.

"My name is Professor Higuruma, and while I will only be teaching you Case Law this year, today we shall talk about what to expect from your course, and--and..."

Oh, god. Those eyes, that haunted him. The body he had made love to while he slept. The shock, mirrored in your own eyes back at him, a participant in his new audience.

Hiromi's arm and mouth drooped, with the tug of the fine gold thread that you, too, felt. The night you had almost shared together passed across two pairs of distant, breathless lips. You felt every pulse, every nerve, every fibre of yourself skip a beat.

How readily had the stars aligned.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Part Two, Interpretation, coming soon!

[celuere]

it‘s happening again.

pairing: ex!arlecchino x fem!reader

context: you just can‘t seem to get over her.

cw: modern au, desperate sesbian lex, rough sex, fingering, strap on,  unhealthy relationship, arle is very bad at feelings, hurt no comfort

word count: 900

art credits: bad thinking diary

got this idea while listening to right here from chase atlantic, i can‘t explain why it fits modern ex arle so well.

hot.

you felt so incredibly hot.

she was burning you from inside with each skilled curl of her fingers sending sparks of ecstasy down your spine. your skin seemingly boiling with how her lips made sure to leave no spot untouched.

you promised yourself to not let this happen again. to not fall back into her net each and every time fate forces you to cross paths again. whether it be at a birthday party of your mutual friends, the gym you both frequent or your local bar. it always ended with your naked bodies entangled with each other. you were the fuel to her fire just like you were drawn to her flame like a moth in the darkest voids of your heart. starved. starved of her. of her touch, her scent, her voice, her very presence. every single fiber in your body was screaming for her. craving her. you could never deny yourself a night with her, even though you already know what will be awaiting you the next morning. 

your attempts to form a single sentence between the breathy moans and whines falling over your lips were immediately cut off by her mouth. plunging her tongue into yours to avoid any kind of confrontation, your teeth clashing together in the instance.

she should know better than this. than letting you get close to her heart again. but it was you. her heart. the bane of her existence. but in her mind she just wasn‘t good enough for you. never will be. she doesn‘t deserve waiting for you at the altar one day, to promise herself to you for the rest of her life. you were the only good thing that life brought her and she didn‘t trust that.

the arch of your back into her while she felt you clenching around your fingers were enough indicator of your orgasm. she would usually stop herself here. however couldn‘t bring herself to. the way your fingers ran through her silky hair, that pleading look she could still make out in the darkness of your bedroom. pleading for her to stay.

in a moment of weakness she flipped you around on your stomach, she had to get you out of her system once and for all.

„a-arle…“

„quiet.“, the sound of a drawer being pulled open followed by the rustling of leather caused your core to slowly melt. you knew what‘s next.

„ass up.“, you hated how much of an effect that sharp tone had on you. causing your already puffy clit to ache at the bare thought. it wasn‘t fair.

feeling the weight of your mattress sink behind you before a pair of tattooed fingers snaked around your hips and pulled you back against her. a whimper so soft and desperate fell out of your mouth as she lubed up the silicone by rubbing the shaft through your slick folds. the sight of your bare ass presented to her, waiting to be plowed into gnawed at her already declining self restraint. 

she was gentle and rough at the same time. robbing you of your last bit of dignity with each drive of her hips into yours, a strong contradict to how tender her hand ran along the length of your spine. 

truth be told, arlecchino was happy she didn‘t have to look at your pleasured face right now. how full of love your eyes still were for her. as if she was somehow deserving of it. it angered her how you couldn‘t see it. how you deserved better than this mess of a person she is. she wants to hand you the world on a silver platter but she can‘t. and she hated it.

she hated herself for being everything you crave yet not what you truly needed.

the sound of your pleading voice bounced off the tense bedroom air, „a-arle, can we- mh-!“, your sounds now coming out muffled as a strong hand pushes your head down into the pillow, her pace turning almost feral.

„can we talk?“

you knew it was a foolish question and you felt beyond humiliated for even trying in the first place. just like it‘s foolish of you to have kept some of her clothes to yourself when she moved out. or how her toothbrush is still sitting in the same glass as yours. or how you refuse to throw away the shared photos of you.

or how you planned on proposing to her.

she was the future you wanted but never got. a flower that was just about to bloom but was stomped down before it had the chance to.

arlecchino was everything you needed yet nothing you owned.

were you crying out of pleasure or heartbreak? you didn’t even know the answer yourself. your fluids soaking the sheets underneath you just like your tears were staining the pillow now. but you‘d cry even more if she stopped now and you felt even more pathetic for it. 

but nothing compared to the emptiness filling up your heart when you woke up in your bed the next day. alone. in a cold bed. with nothing but the soft ticks of the clock thats hanging on the wall filling the room as you stared at the open chat on your phone.

„can we please talk?“

delivered.

[heliosunny]

My little sunny apple

Yandere!Caleb x Reader

I had one fic for Yandere!Xavier inspired by sleeping beauty. So why not Yandere!Caleb with Snow White. -There are details that are different from the game-

Growing up in a world devastated by the monstrous Wanderers, Caleb and you clung to each other like survivors in a storm. The orphaned boy you met at the shelter became more than a companion; he became your family. To you, Caleb was a brave, kind older brother, someone you could rely on. But for Caleb, you were so much more—his light.

When Caleb first arrived at the shelter, he was distant and bitter, carrying the weight of loss and distrust. At first, he resisted your attempts to befriend him, brushing off your kindness with scorn. But when he hit rock bottom—sick, starving, and too proud to ask for help—you were there, offering medicine and food, staying up through the nights to cool his fever. When the other children bullied him, you stood by his side, fighting battles that left bruises on your skin but pride in his heart.

It was your unwavering presence that sparked a change in Caleb. He vowed to be strong, to grow into someone who could protect instead of being protected. Despite the world’s chaos, the ancient apple tree in Linkon City—one of the last remnants of beauty—became your sanctuary. Under its shade, Caleb called you "Little Sunny Apple" a nickname that carried the hope and light you brought into his life.

But fate was cruel. During a catastrophic attack by the Wanderers, the shelter fell. The world you had built together shattered as the ground caved beneath your feet. Caleb was dragged from the rubble by strangers, unconscious and broken, while you were left behind, believing he had perished.

---

Caleb’s rescuers were not saviors, they were the Farspace Fleet, a militarized faction bent on survival at any cost. They took Caleb in, reshaped his broken body and fractured mind, and turned him into a weapon. His right hand, once warm and steady, was replaced with a high-tech prosthetic covered in synthetic skin. Under their harsh training, Caleb rose to power, becoming a feared colonel renowned for his ruthless efficiency. But despite his transformation, one thing remained unchanged: his obsession with finding you.

Years passed before Caleb discovered you were alive. The revelation filled him with a manic joy and a burning resolve to never lose you again. But Caleb was no longer the boy you had known. His love, once pure and selfless, had curdled into something darker. Like the wicked stepmother from a fairytale, he became consumed by his need to craft the perfect version of you—one who would never leave his side.

Through years of research into the Wanderers, Caleb had uncovered their secrets. Beneath Linkon City lay their cores, strange organic artifacts that, when harvested and refined, could create a serum granting extraordinary abilities: superhuman strength, longevity, and immunity to the Wanderers' powers. Yet the process was gruesome, requiring the deaths of countless Wanderers and innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.

From this research, Caleb created his masterpiece: a shimmering, otherworldly apple infused with the essence of dozens of Wanderer cores. He believed this "perfect apple" would make you immortal, tying you to him forever.

---

Unaware of Caleb’s transformation, you continued your dangerous work hunting Wanderers, finding solace in quiet moments at the ancient apple tree. It was there, on a rare day off, that you saw him. The man before you was a stranger, his features hardened by years of war, but his voice stopped you in your tracks.

"Do I know you?" you asked, skepticism in your tone.

"It’s me... Caleb," he replied, his voice trembling. "Your Caleb."

You were ready to dismiss him as an imposter until he uttered the nickname only one person could know: "Little Sunny Apple."

Tears blurred your vision as years of grief and longing crashed over you. You threw your arms around him, clinging to the boy you had thought you’d lost forever. The reunion was bittersweet—a balm for your broken heart, but beneath the surface, something felt off.

---

At first, Caleb’s gestures seemed loving. He brought you baskets of apples, listened intently to your stories, and promised to protect you from all harm. But his care soon became suffocating. He insisted you quit your job, claiming he could provide for you. When you tried to cook, he took over. When you wanted to explore his ship, he forbade it, urging you to stay in your quarters for your own safety.

One day, curiosity led you to a hidden lab aboard his ship. What you found left you breathless: the glowing apple, its unnatural light casting eerie shadows. Files revealed the truth of its creation—the slaughter of Wanderers, the sacrifices of innocents, all to craft a fruit meant to bind you to Caleb.

"You weren’t supposed to see that." Caleb’s voice cut through the silence.

Horrified, you turned to face him. "How could you? All those lives… for what?"

"For you" he said, as though it were the most obvious answer in the world. "To keep you safe. To make sure no one—not the Wanderers, not anyone...could hurt you."

He held the apple out to you like a sacred offering. "Eat it. Please. It will make you stronger. You won’t need to risk your life anymore."

You backed away, shaking your head. "This isn’t love, Caleb. This is control."

---

Caleb’s obsession reached its breaking point when he locked you in his quarters, convinced you would eventually "see reason." Days turned into weeks as you planned your escape, aided by Kevin, Caleb’s adjutant. Kevin, unlike his commander, treated you with kindness and respect. His gentle demeanor and steadfast loyalty reminded you of the princes from forgotten tales—a quiet hero in a story overshadowed by darkness.

Caleb noticed. His jealousy burned like a wildfire, consuming what little restraint he had left. "You still see me as your brother" he snarled one night. "But I’ll show you. I’ll make you see me as more."

Your chance to escape came during a Wanderer attack on the fleet. As chaos erupted, you and Kevin made your way to the lab, determined to destroy the apple. But Caleb intercepted you, his powers—gained from the very serum he had created, rendering him nearly unstoppable.

"Don’t do this" he pleaded, his voice breaking. "Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you."

"You don’t understand, Caleb" you said, tears streaming down your face. "Love isn’t about control. It’s about freedom."

In the struggle that followed, you and Kevin managed to destroy the apple. But Caleb’s fury was swift and brutal. With a single shot, he ended Kevin’s life, his eyes wild with grief and rage.

"You chose him over me" Caleb said, his voice trembling with betrayal. "But it doesn’t matter. I’ll fix this. I’ll fix you."

Caleb’s control tightened after that day. He kept you close, his obsessive love morphing into a gilded cage. You became his "perfect apple" a treasure to be admired but never freed. Yet even in captivity, your spirit remained unbroken. You vowed to find a way to escape—to remind Caleb of the boy who had once valued your freedom as much as your life.

[2kiran]

THREEKVENT NAVIGATION

sub bruce wayne soft dom gn reader handjob

Bruce Wayne leaned against the brick wall, his suit uncomfortably sticking to his skin with how badly he’s been sweating. Each movement caused his breath to hitch, the material grazing the cut on his side. Thankfully not deep, but it hurt like a bitch.

He reached over, unlocking the window. Bruce found himself returning late at night to your apartment after encounters with criminals, taking in more hits than normal for a proper excuse.

Fate happened. You were a kind stranger, he was injured, and he needed help. Eventually, it remained like that for a while. He’d be in one place, some sort of wound visible, and you’d take him in. His eyes had watched you like a hawk, grunting and squirming away from the slightest of advance on instinct.

Embarrassingly enough, he immediately melted into your gentle touch. You guided him, made him feel what it was like to be openly vulnerable with someone else present. It’s wrong. You’re a civilian, continuously helping Batman would put your life at risk.

He feels guilty about it. You’re too kind for him, never daring to stay close to him than is necessary and choosing to respect his personal space. It was welcomed at first, but he wants more of it, more of you.

The only time he’ll actually touch you is when the pain is incredibly overwhelming his senses, which has him catching your wrist accompanied by a restrained grunt. Like he’d been burned, he’d pull back once reality crashed back down. He can’t, he shouldn’t. He’s putting you in danger.

Damn it all to hell.

Bruce tripped, stumbled, landing right on your lap. How convenient, he thought. He held himself upright, clutching the top of the couch’s backrest in a death grip, eyes wide. Bruce frantically searched your face, analyzing your reaction. “I’m—” He’s cut off when you pull him closer, gasping in surprise.

“It’s okay.” You reassure him, a soft smile gracing your lips and he wants to kiss you senseless. Until you can’t feel your hands, your face, or use that smart brain.

He stays like that, straddling your hips as you clean the wound on his side. It’s taking everything in him for his thoughts not to drift towards sinful ideas, borderline unprofessional.

He can’t help it.

Every touch, even an accidental brush on his skin has his breath hitching, anticipation thrumming in his veins. Heat pools deep within him, leaving him aching. He hopes you don’t notice, pants tightening and he’s almost painfully hard.

You do. Of course, you do. Right when you finish patching him up, earning a few pained groans, you halt him from standing up and leaving. “Batman.”

Oh fuck. Bruce is doomed. He wants to sink into the floor, or maybe the wall would be better. You know how he truly feels about the situation, and this is the last time he’ll ever see you. Panic rises, but he doesn’t allow it to outwardly show. His palms suddenly become all clammy, sweat dotting his forehead—

“May I?” Damn you.

Your hand settled on his muscled thigh and he has to suppress a shiver. Your fingers inched closer to where he needed you the most, just a little bit higher. But then you stop. Bruce whines.

“Please,” Batman didn’t beg, never did. “Please, I-I need it.”

He panted, excitement delivering a spark of heat that rushed straight to his core. His arms surrounded your shoulders, trapping you in his hold as he leaned down to your neck to hide in shame. He assists you in pulling down his suit enough to expose his glistening cock, pre-cum oozing from his slit.

Bruce felt like a wreck, lips in a tight line to prevent any embarrassing sounds from leaving his throat. Your thumb swiped across the cockhead, pressing down with enough pressure to force out a choked gasp from him.

“Don’t hold back,” You whisper directly into his red-tinted ear. He felt his hole clench around nothing, your words making him light-headed and he involuntarily bucks his hips against your touch. “I’ve got you, c’mon. Let me hear you.”

His breath stutters when you begin to gently trace the angry veins, moaning softly as he pulsates in your grasp. It’s been too long since he’s had someone—anyone—to touch him intimately, but never like you are now.

Your fingers wrap around his cock, slicking up your palm. It’s a slow pace, guiding him to a gradual orgasm. Gods, fuck, why were you being like this? He’s uncertain whether he enjoys how you’re treating him as though he’s made of glass that could shatter any unforgiving moment or if he should beg for you to fuck him rougher, make him go all dumb and drunk off the feeling of you.

He desperately ruts against you, it was selfish but the both of you knew he needed it. “Mmm.. fuck, I–” He gasps when you jerk him off a bit quicker, coming up to tease the underside of his tip every single time. Throbbing at the increased pace, he felt his eyes roll back into his skull. “more, ah ah mngh, more please.”

Bruce knew his manners, with his skin absolutely flushed and mind consumed with lust and greed to taste and take. “Yeah? Keep talking for me.” You urged, twisting your wrist as his pre-cum lathed up your hand, producing so much he seems like he’s right there. “Feels so g–good.” He whimpers, thighs trembling as his knees were beginning to fail on him.

Your too-good praise didn’t help him, at all. He felt young all over again, horny and wanting. “Beautiful,” you whisper, “need me to help you, don’t you, B?” The air gets knocked out of him, leaving him panting. He can barely feel his brain, all sensations leading to your hand pumping his wet cock.

“Need you,” He didn’t care how pathetic he seemed in this state, all he knew how desperate he was for you with your slick palm teasing his tip, rubbing in little quick circles. “ngh, so bad...”

Bruce Wayne knew he shouldn’t be thinking like this, but he wants you to stay with him. He could protect and provide for you. Who else would you want to be with besides him? That’s right. No one.

[earthstellar]

One thing that I really liked in IDW 2 was the concept of Going Immersant.

Given the immensely long average lifespan of Cybertronians, it makes sense:

If nothing kills you, and you live long enough to have experienced all of what you feel you reasonably can in this lifetime, and you feel content with the life that you have had, and it seems time to retire--

--Why not return your knowledge and the entity of your self to the core of your planet, where your energy and your components can be reused and your memories and knowledge can be subsumed into the greater whole?

Plug in with the stray cables that stick out of the cavernous expanses deep beneath the surface of Cybertron, let yourself get situated, and allow yourself to daydream as the crystals grow around you and gradually consume you. It is not painful. It is a process of sharing.

Each daydream then enters the great memory bank of Primus, at the heart of the world, the core of life itself for your species. Your experiences become part of the eternal record of experienced Cybertronian life. You join your God himself, frame and processor, as you combine with him within the physical form of your planet.

Primus created you, and as you are subsumed into the crystalline forms that surround you, you will go on to sustain Primus in some way. An unending cycle.

Perhaps you feel something, leeching up from deep within the crystal mass, some unique energy meeting you halfway, the cables that snake their way into your ports like vines carrying some ancient data, older than yourself, older than the Rust Sea, older than the Hydrax Plateau, older than the Titans.

Maybe you cannot decipher it, yet. But it comforts you. It reminds you that you are not alone, after your visitors have gone. Where there is digital noise, there is something to produce it. You will meet it soon--

--After countless years of a peaceful rest, knowing that at the end of your endlessly long existence, your life will go on to benefit others.

And for as long as you are able, you still remain present, as well. Just not above, on the surface. For some time, others can still come and visit, speak with you, consult with you-- Although as your memory banks purge into the greater whole, you begin to falter in this waking realm.

And that is OK; To rejoin with Primus and re-enter the Well of All Sparks as an ancient elder, a repository of experience and wisdom, is to become a teacher to all. Even in peaceful, gradual death-- And even then, your energy and materials and thoughts remain somewhere, deep within the planet.

Returned. Recycled.

Eternal, in some shape or form.

It's just a really beautiful concept.

Without any natural death, Cybertronians have the option to simply return to Primus, return to the core of the planet, in a half-waking state.

At peace, gracefully and with intent.

All of what they have experienced and all that they are, all of their memories and feelings, all of the metals and compounds that make up their frame and armour and protoform, all of it can be taken in and absorbed.

The option is there, to emerge once more.

But for most, this is the final calling.

To go immersant is to enter peace, to become a living state of meditation until the very end for you as an individual. To have full agency over how you pass on, to make the decision and consciously know. To be happy with that. To relax into your fate, as you see fit.

To make the decision to be recycled, to contribute all that you are, to return your energy to the crystalline matter that fuels your world and your people and your God, who in turn fuelled you and will thus go on to fuel all those subsequently churned out by the Well.

To merge with your living planet on an atomic level, on an esoteric level.

I wonder if the fully immersant aren't dead in the traditional sense. Perhaps they are offline, to those in this world. Perhaps their frame is vacated as their data is absorbed. But that data is not lost, necessarily.

It's just a very beautiful end of life option for Cybertronians, and I do hope the concept is revisited in some form in the future.

[risuola]

ENTRY #7 ♡ F. READER X GOJO SATORU // You touched my hand and suddenly I couldn’t breathe anymore.

contents: arranged marriage!au, emotional confusion at its finest — wc. 509

a/n: are we going to leave the fluffy territory? i don't know, i enjoy writing those little pieces about confused fools in love (??), don't at me ♡

series masterlist

Blabbering.

A hazy echo of Jujutsu elders played somewhere in the background — monthly gathering of all high-grade sorcerers — and Satoru’s mind was somewhere else. Seated on a hard chair, a setting akin to a school lecture that usually would have reminded him about his old days, he struggled to keep his composure. The lack of snarky remarks and constant scoffs and sarcasm brought attention of few of his colleagues, but there was nothing in this world that could shift his attention away from you.

You were next to him, seemingly absentminded as you kept your eyes in front of you, studying languidly the characters hiding behind the matted glass. You were observing them, the surroundings and he was observing you, thanking his own cursed fate that the sunglasses resting on the bridge of his nose were just as black as the middle of the night, not allowing anyone to see through them. He thought it was funny, ironic even, that what always was a way to establish his dominance — a glimpse of his blue orbs being enough to remind everyone that he is the strongest — now was just an excuse to steal glances of you with the corner of his eye.

Every time he took a breath in, your scent filled in his lungs. It made him dizzy. His hand rested on top of your thigh, a tip of his finger just barely touching your naked skin, while the rest of his palm met the fabric of your shorts, but it was that sliver of flesh that was driving him insane. He couldn’t help but focus solely on the gentle way you moved. He was your stress-toy and you were his distraction.

Seemingly paying him no mind, you kept playing with his fingers. Your dainty ones brushing up and down his long digits, ghosting over his knuckles and pressing on the pads of his palm — a tickling touch across the sensitive skin of the inner part of his wrist and then, you were following the veins on top of his hand.

He felt lightheaded.

The tips of your nails were scraping against his pale flesh ever so slightly, leaving a faint trace of goosebumps behind and teasing him from time to time. Your touch was soft and tender, sending sparks of intimacy right through Satoru’s core. His heart was racing inside his chest and he wondered if you could feel it every time your fingers brush over the pulse at the base of his hand.

You were taking your time. Slowly, lazily following the lines and curves of him, exploring the valleys and ups. Satoru felt a tingle of a shiver that run down his spine. Every single of your gestures was playful, innocent, sensual.

Tantalizing.

He was on fire.

The heat was burning him inside out. He fought with everything he’s got to not grip your thigh, to not squeeze the plushiness of it, to not just touch you more.

Gojo was on the edge, he couldn’t take it anymore.

But he didn’t want it to end.

taglist: @kinny-away @anan-baban @lotomber @netflix-imagines @kawliflo @nishloves @ghostfacefricker6969 @thejujvtsupost @yozora7154 @cherrycolabarbedwirebedpost @ae-mius @ropickle @chokesonspit @lansy-4 @just-pure-trash @mo0sin

[revelboo]

revelboo! No more of this madness, I beg of you there's already 93 parts of "everything is alright" enough of these slutty horny robots😭… I'm just screwing around, you can do whatever you want personally I would like to see the next part of “point of extinction” or “the coma kid” I absolutely adore your work and look forward to it whenever I get the time to, so take as many breaks as you need and keep up the amazing work, our lord and Savior revelboo>:3

I’m dying right now 😂 I’m the only one at work and that’s just to work the phones, that likely aren’t ringing. So I’m going to write until I have to actually work.

The Coma Kid Pt 3

TFO B-127 x Reader

• “Maybe you shouldn’t hold them like that?” The one you’ve dubbed Big Daddy suggests and your captor makes a noise and flips you right side up a bit too quickly. Swallowing convulsively, you almost hope you do hurl all over him. Maybe that will convince him to let you go. Shoving at B-127 when he presses his face against your neck and shoulder, snuggling you like a kid with a new kitten. “I shouldn’t be here. Just let me go and I’ll pretend I didn’t see any aliens,” you say, shivering as his lips brush skin and something pulls at you, a tug in your core that makes your breath catch as a warm and absolutely unwanted feeling of rightness and belonging spill through you. No. Horrified, you struggle harder against his grip. Not happening. You are not feeling drawn to this kidnapping jerk.

• “But we’re sparkmates.” You must be able to feel that same warmth he feels holding you. Looking beseechingly up at Optimus as the bigger bot rubs the side of his helm. “I can feel them. Need them. They’re home and belonging and I won’t need to be alone ever again.” Trying to make Optimus understand that this matters. This is everything and he can’t just let you go. Needs you too much and maybe you don’t want him, that’s okay. He’s used to that. If he just keeps smiling, you’ll come around eventually. Feels you shiver against his servos when his mouth slides against your neck again. “I can’t let them go.” Panic growing at the edge of his processor, he forces a big smile, pretending it’s okay. “We’re going to be so happy together.”

• And he’s walking away with you as Big Daddy just looks on, concerned. Apparently not sure how to deal with this and not going to save you. Hating that the touch of his mouth against your neck sparks through you and he just keeps doing it. Heat spreading through you in little waves that you are not willing to examine too closely. “Look, pal, you don’t love me,” trying to shove his big face away and stiffening as his lips part and his glossa brushes the inside of your wrist, entire body going electric with the contact. With need. Swearing, you yank your hand back and slap him. “Cut it out! We’re not soulmates or whatever. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m going home.”

• “Sparkmates,” he corrects, slightly hurt. You can feel it, his spark thrumming every time you react to him. Because even if you don’t like it, you can feel it. You’ll come around eventually. Love him as much as he already loves you. “This is home. You’ll love it, everyone’s great here,” he says. You’re so soft in his servos, he’ll need to find soft things for his berth for you. Whatever it is humans use for fuel. “Neither of us ever need to be alone again,” he whispers, nuzzling against you as you slap him again and he ignores it. While it doesn’t physically hurt, it makes his spark ache that you’re so unhappy. “You’ll see. This was fated.” Just needs to show you he can be a good mate, attentive and caring. Patient. Servos flexing as the unwanted thought comes that if he gets you with a sparkling, you won’t be able to leave. You’d have to stay.

• Slumping in his grip and shaking out your stinging palm, you admit defeat for now. He can’t babysit you all the time, you just need to find an opportunity and escape. And sparkmates? It’s not like the big, alien lovesick puppy can actually do anything to you. He just wants to cuddle you to death. “Sure. Fine.” And he lights up, those little nubs on his helm lifting some as he grins at you like you just made his day. Eyes narrowing at him, because you resent the fact that he’s kind of cute when he smiles. Trying to remind yourself that he kidnapped you. He’s absolutely not a puppy, so you can’t think of him like that. Can’t start to like him no matter what.

Previous

Next

I need time to get it right

Always trying to decipher what it means

Hours wasted in the land of hopes and dreams

So I won't look back

I won't look down

I'll focus on the planet spinning round and round

Comatose and singing

[fangdokja]

"I burned their world for daring to look at you— imagine what I’d do if you tried to leave."

♡ Book. A Heart Devoured: A Dark Yandere Anthology

♡ Pairing. Yandere! Emperor x Reader

♡ Headcanons. #1

♡ Word Count. 859

Your silence will teach you loyalty.

His voice resonates through the throne room like a hammer against steel—unyielding, inescapable. You flinch at the sharpness of his tone, though no one dares to meet your eyes. The air shifts with his unspoken command. Chains, deceptively delicate yet unrelentingly cruel, wind around your wrists as you’re dragged toward him. They clink like a funeral bell, heralding your fate.

A single nod from him seals your fate—chains of silver, intricate but cruel, bite into your wrists as you’re dragged to his side.

“You are mine,” he murmurs, his breath a phantom tracing your ear. The words latch onto you, branding your skin and soul with their weight.

Defiance, he knows, is only temporary.

He savors every crack in your resistance. A predator by instinct and a conqueror by blood, he strips you bare of your defenses with a glance. His golden eyes, aflame with possession, hold you captive. His scarred hands grip your jaw, tilting your face until his gaze becomes all you know.

“Say it,” he demands, voice low but edged with menace. “Say who you belong to.”

When you hesitate, his grip tightens, sending a jolt through your core. The whisper that follows chills you. “Don’t worry, dove. You’ll scream it eventually.”

He builds his empire with the blood of dissent.

The scent of war never leaves him. Iron and death cling to his crimson-stained cape as it sweeps across the marble floors. You are displayed before the court like a trophy—a living testament to his dominance. His voice drips with mockery as he addresses the nobles, who laugh with hollow obedience. “This one thought she could defy me,” he announces, amusement laced with cruelty.

When the audience disperses, leaving the hall echoing and empty, his hand circles your throat—not to crush, no. He revels in your pulse quickening beneath his fingers, in the fragile truth of your mortality.

“I could break you so easily,” he murmurs, thumb brushing your skin with unnerving tenderness. “But then, where’s the fun in that?”

Fear is the wine he drinks by the chalice.

Within his chambers, the air is heavy, suffused with him—his presence, his control. The moonlight seeps through stained glass, painting him in fractured colors as he corners you against the ornate bedpost. Each deliberate step crushes any hope of escape.

“Do you fear me because you despise me,” his voice dripping with saccharine malice, lips barely inches from yours, “or because you’ve realized you’ll never escape me?”

Your trembling hands shove weakly against his chest, but he only laughs—a low, wicked sound that curls around your spine. “Struggle harder, little dove. I love it when you make me work for it.”

Your will is his favorite plaything.

He gives you everything but freedom. He smothers you with opulence. Gowns that pool like liquid gold at your feet, jewels heavy enough to weigh you down—his eyes going dark with arousal as he watches you wear them.

They shimmer under his gaze, but it’s you, not the ornaments, that hold his attention. You are his masterpiece, his conquest perfected. A doll under luxurious chains, a living, breathing masterpiece of his tyranny.

One night, his voice slices through the stillness like a blade. “Kneel.”

You hesitate, if only for a heartbeat. It’s long enough.

The slap that follows doesn’t break you—it’s never meant to break you. Instead, it reinforces a lesson, sharp and stinging. He pulls you into his lap after, hand cradling your face as though he hadn’t just hurt you. “Good girls obey without question,” he chides, stroking your hair deceptively gentle. “Shall we try again?”

He would raze worlds to keep you.

The rebellion whispers your name, and the news reaches him like a spark meeting dry tinder. Entire villages are erased in retaliation, his soldiers torching homes and slaughtering innocents. He sits atop his warhorse, impassive as flames devour homes and screams ring out like a hymn to his fury.

“She must learn,” he muses to his general, tone soft but final. “There’s nowhere she can run where I won’t find her.”

Your cries are a symphony, and your screams are his prayers.

Even punishment carries an unsettling intimacy. When you lash out, his arms cage you close, his voice a shiver against your ear. “Hush, my little dove,” he croons, brushing tears from your cheeks. “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” But the glint in his eyes betrays the pleasure he takes in your brokenness.

"Even death wouldn’t save you."

He keeps you in a gilded cage, both figuratively and literally, beautiful as it is impenetrable. The locks are ornate, crafted by the empire’s finest smiths, close to unbreakable. Exhausted, you collapse against the silk cushions of his bed.

He watches you sleep, an unsettling softness overtaking his features as his fingers trail across your cheek.

“If you were to die,” he whispers to the shadows, “I would burn this world to the ground and carve your image into its ashes.”

[tasteracha]

a/n: i'm still taking a little tumblr break but the combination of things i've seen today and @astraystayyh and @forlix had me.......is this chan? is this hyunjin? who knows. also this was written very quickly and not proofread.

you’re on top of him before he can blink - still wearing that sinful outfit and wearing an annoying confident smirk that makes your blood bubble up and threaten to burst out of your veins. 

it takes only a few minutes of a nasty makeout and heavy petting before he’s touching your core through your shorts and you’re jerking in his lap. 

you unbutton his pants and free his cock from his boxers in what must have been record time, him returning the favor to your shorts like he can’t last one more second without being inside of you. 

of all people, you understood the sentiment, especially when he looked like that. 

you take advantage of your spot on his lap and position yourself over him, sliding slowly down and savoring every centimeter of his cock as it enters you. 

“oh, fuck,” he curses under his breath when you’re seated fully, his entire length throbbing against your walls. your knees are already wobbly from just one taste of him inside of you, and yet you work past it to roll your hips against his. 

he lets you have your fun for a few moments, looking up at you with a twistingly confusing mix of adoration and condescension. you can almost see the moment he tires of your slow pace, his eyebrows furrowing as he weight out his options before deciding on your fate. 

his hands circle your waist, tight in a bruising grip as he steadies you. you barely have time to whine in confusion before he starts fucking up into you, keeping you still on top of him. you felt weightless, the only stimulus hitting your empty head was the feeling of him sliding in and out of you, over and over. 

“eyes on me,” he all but growls out when you drop your head to his chest, starting to pant a bit. “i want to see you fall apart on my cock.” 

you meet his eyes and almost fall apart on the spot - his pupils are blown out, dark possessiveness overriding everything else as he keeps you in place. you feel like a puppet, taught on his strings and there is nothing else running through your head other than his name chanting like a prayer. 

you don’t realize that you’re saying it out loud until he moves one hand to tangle into your hair, pulling your lips into his to shut you up. 

you come together and it’s brighter than the sparks of fireworks behind your eyelids. you sob into his mouth as he fucks you through both of your highs until the only sound echoing through the room is your harsh breathing mingling with his. 

you can't stand straight when he lifts you off and you almost stumble back onto him; and he laughs at you and you shoot him a glare, reaching for his softening cock in retaliation. the sound of his panicked shout when he curves away from you sends your heart soaring through the skies. 

[muletia]

[tfp] obsessed!orion pax x human!reader valveplug, minors don't interact!

based on this delicious ask about orion overloading from inhaling your pheromones and some tags provided by @tom-foolery-incorporated <3

word count: 800

Holding Orion’s helm on both sides, you pull him toward you, feeling no resistance from the startled mech. His faceplate lands against your chest, and you immediately envelop him in warmth, letting him sink into the softness of your human body. The familiar shape of your torso and the rhythmic symphony of your heartbeat give him a sense of comfort and belonging, as if, after a long, exhausting day, he has finally found his way home. Orion lifts his optics to you and smiles in gratitude, though you cannot see the expression.

“I missed you,” you murmur tenderly, pressing a kiss to the top of his helm.

“I am glad that our feelings…” he begins, but his words are abruptly cut off by the sudden, unfamiliar scent flooding his olfactory sensors.

It is sweet, unmistakably yours, yet tainted with something unknown — something he cannot name. Has no time to analyze it before the scent overwhelms him, urging to flee, to pull away before it does irreversible damage to his processor. Escaping should not be a challenge; after all, you are not restraining him, granting him full freedom to move. But the problem is that he hesitates to run.

One breath. Then another. And another. Each inhale draws the scent deeper, seeping into his very core, coating his spark, his tank, until it finally reaches the most sensitive parts of his frame, teasing them mercilessly. It creeps behind his interface panel, wrapping around his spike and valve, luring them into a dance with the desire that consumes him in an instant. Just moments ago, all he had wanted was to hold you close, whispering sweet words in your ear, but now — now, the image of sliding his spike into your tight, burning-hot folds is the only thought left in his processor. The only thing he wants to think about. The only thing he can.

Orion takes another involuntary breath, stress-induced from the sudden onslaught of overwhelming need, and it seals his fate.

“[Name]!” he cries out, voice breaking. His concealed spike spasms, and from its tip, thick strands of pink transfluid spill out, splattering against his panel before slowly dripping downward, seeping into the seams, finding their way out. Some rivulets trail down his thighs, while others pool onto the floor beneath him.

“Orion, did you just come?” you ask bluntly. Watching the way his back arches, his optics roll upward, and listening to the symphony of his stifled moans, you are certain of the answer. You should be surprised — after all, you had barely given him any real stimulation to get him to overload — but you know your partner well enough to have learned just how little he needs to unravel. Still, the meaner part of you, the one that always surfaces when Orion is deliciously pathetic, wants to see undeniable evidence of his overload.

“Move your head. I want to see.”

“Ah!” Orion whimpers. “N-No, do not look,” he pleads, suddenly ashamed of the intensity of his own desperation.

His embarrassment does not last long, though, because Orion does not want to pull away. He does not want to lose this intoxicating sense of helplessness, this loss of control that breathing in your scent grants him. He wants to stay right here, drunk on your sweetness.

You roll your eyes. “Oh, now you’re getting shy? Please, I’ve seen you worse.”

“Mhm,” he mumbles, barely processing your words. He inhales again, this time intentionally, and just like before, your scent floods his body. His still-hard, aching spike throbs, pleading for another overload, and his valve clenches around nothing, echoing the demand. He has no choice but to take in more of your scent, to drown himself in it. He presses himself against you harder, as if trying to meld into your body, rubbing his faceplate against your chest in a desperate chase for another untouched, hands-free climax.

Forgetting his own immense strength, he unwittingly forces you several steps backward, making you struggle to keep your balance.

“Hey!” you yelp, giving him a light, scolding pat on the helm. “I almost fell!”

That, finally, seems to snap him out of it — at least for a moment. Orion lifts his optics to meet yours, guilt flickering in his gaze. “A-apologies,” he murmurs, but his focus does not last long. He immediately buries his faceplate back against you, sensitive olfactory sensors dragging over your torso, trying to provoke another overload.

“Ah! [Name], please, help me!” he whines, his voice raw with need. He has to be inside you. Needs to ground himself, to find something solid to cling to, or else he fears he will completely lose his mind.

You sigh, feigning exasperation. “As you wish, love.” and Orion hurriedly retracts his transfluid-slick interface panel.

[hipsdofangirl]

my SVT bias line as HOCKEY PLAYERS

general + romantic headcanons

genre: college au!, hockey au!, some hockey lingo that may be wrong, subtle innuendos but nothing explicit, lowercase intended

note: always after i go to my college’s hockey games i want to write something… also not proofread as always cause i just got back from a game to sit down and write this for an hour straight... PLEASE comment your thoughts cause i need more people to talk to about this

general information:

the svt hockey team can play in any lines, but they prefer their units they dubbed themselves! this is what makes them so dangerous…

yoon jeonghan (04; position: right winger)

very fast but normally has no stamina, causing early line changes. they usually throw him toward the end of the periods to spark fear into the opposing team.

his signature move is flicking the puck to and fro in front of his opponent only to swipe it under his legs.

he loathes getting shoved but he plays it up so his team gets more angry (they always fall for it).

has best lettuce (slang for hair and this shocked me to my core learning about this)

subtly goes offsides and it’s a 50/50 chance of him getting caught.

he is not the type to pick fights but sometimes feels left out when they occur. one time, the other 3 were butting heads with the other team after a shot and he just stood there with an opposing player and just lightly grabbed his stick; the player tried tugging it back but jeonghan would not let go.

normally, after a fight he is immediately with his teammates and checking for any injuries and hearing them complain about the other team. if they are injured, oh boy watch out.

romantic

during warmups before the game, he purposely shoots with force and towards your direction. you can always spot a little smirk (and a giggle which mingyu side eyes him for) whenever you flinch in response

whenever he scores and his teammates hug him, right after he scans the crowd for you. once he spots you, he does his signature ‘click’ noise and salutes you (sometimes you blow a kiss and he dramatically is taken aback).

when he had his injury that took him to out of play for a month, he would always sit beside you, arm resting on your seat. whenever his team would score a goal, a smile donned his face as he clapped; you on the other hand, always stand up and high five the people around you, his face seems to bloom when he watches you with love.

obviously you receive his jersey and he adores you when you wear it. when he first gave it to you, in your apartment, he had to indulge in his free will and squish your cheeks before planting many light kisses.

when you were mad at him, you wore joshua’s jersey. he was not amused for too long as his name wasn’t the only way to claim you.

xu minghao (08; position: left winger)

exchange player

he is the one with the least amount of broken sticks in his usual line up

along with jeonghan he is one of the fastest but has better stamina. he is also agile and flexible, causing opponents to hate going one-on-one with him; he does that meticulous side by side movement but the final one he leans his body to the avoid crashing into the plexiglass (his opponent doesn’t avoid this fate).

toward the start of his second year playing, the coach told him to tone down his anger, so the rest of the year he wasn’t very aggressive, losing points and vigor till hoshi had to have a talk.

now? once second period rolls around and the vibes are set, he will RUIN them. not with physical fights but his ‘light-taps’ with his shoulder and stick seem to blur the line of being a penalty.

romantic

after the whistle has been blown to perform another puck drop in their zone, minghao will always look to you and tap his stick onto the ice.

whenever you get the courage to create a sign, he will read it but then won’t indulge in your schemes; however, when he faces the other way a smile seems to shine through the face shield.

now when HE had his injury, he would also sit next to you. it was awkward when his injuries overlapped with jeonghan’s as you all sat next to each other to cheer. when it was break time and the screens in the middle points to a new ‘____ cam’, jeonghan would look over at him leading minghao to sigh and gave a brief glare to the man. jeonghan would purposely flag down the cameraman and point towards you two. have fun under new situations (kiss cam, dance cam, cowbell cam, you name it).

he wants to teach you how to play or at least how to successfully hit the puck. he desires to indulge in both of your hobbies for a closer connection; even if you can’t skate or is not accessible, he will find a skate park where you two can hit a ball with hockey sticks while complaining about your latest group project.

if the ice is accessible, he will teach you how to skate…oh? you already know how to skate? no, you don’t; he will correct your form or tease you, allowing himself to be barely out of reach as you stretch your hands to lovingly strangle him.

unlike the others on the team, he never asked you to wear his jersey. instead, whenever he visited or you did, he would ‘forget’ or ‘misplace’ his jersey around you and sometimes overnight. he wanted YOU to ask if you could wear it; call it self-consciousness or call it pride, he wanted you to take this step. of course, you always noticed and knew where it was; and of course, one time he happened to catch up trying it on in the spur of the moment. and of course he had to see it off too…

lee seokmin (81; position: center)

originally played baseball as a kid till he fell in love with watching his sister ice skate.

didn’t think he would actually join the college team but he immediately vibed well with the other players.

somehow on the official roster they spelled his name wrong?? who is dokyeom??

at first, he was scared of boarding people or engaging in fights; however, after watching mingyu and wonwoo tag team someone after the pushed woozi out of the goal, he accepted his anger.

the first time he showed aggression was during an argument he had with mingyu: he slammed his bag on the locker room floor and the silence was so loud that everyone teases him about it to this day.

unlike some of his teammates, he continues to occasionally fight; when a fist goes flying and knocks his helmet off, it’s hard to miss that rare dark look (only reserved for some moments you aren’t naive to) before he winds back to tackle the assailant.

ANYWAYS since he is one of the centers, the other members hold amounts of trust for him as he never fails to lighten the mood. with random words that become pregame cheering phrases, or with a jaw-dropping goal that flew just over the shoulder and into the net. even when he barely misses, his teammates will no doubt have his pack and flick it in.

during warmups, he loves ‘missing’ the goal and miraculously a kid gets the puck.

romantic

always looks forward to what sign you created in the crowd and secretly hopes it’s his number written on there.

when the rink has open ice skating, he loves taking you on there. bonus points if you suck cause you know he will hold your hands the whole time (even if you don’t really suck and you are pretending) and beam at you with the prettiest smile and shining eyes.

after games, he WILL ride the bus with you back to your apartment. when you ask how he is going to get back to his place, as the closest bus line doesn’t go that way, he somehow is passed out in your bed: snuggled under your weighted blanket and hugging your plush squishmallow (he eventually abandons it for you when you give in hmm it’s like he was never asleep…you feel bad when you wake up and look over on the floor to see the abandoned mallow’s beady black eyes staring into you).

it’s a little tradition and mini competition between you two to see who can leave the most notes of encouragement for one another! he came so close to crying—when you first started this trend—by placing 7 blue sticky notes littered with words of affirmation and doodles: located on top of his hockey stick, inside his gloves, top of the inside of his helmet, in the side pocket where he holds his water bottle, and on both of his skates.

please please please wear his jersey!!! his mood will sour when you don’t. even if it’s dirty and smells and someone spilled beer on it—don’t worry!! seokmin will give you another one which leads to his coach wondering why he has no jersey (or one that reeks with beer).

[pankowperfection]

Just a Kiss?

Warnings: smut, 18+, oral (fem receiving), some dirty talking

A/N: this one goes out to @torturedlexdepartment as a very late birthday gift

"Come on y/n, we have to nail this kiss. We really need to practice."

You could barely believe where you were, sitting on the sofa in Rudy's hotel room after he had insisted you run your lines together to perfect your roles as Romeo and Juliet.

So far during rehearsals you had never made it to the fated kiss scene, which for some reason was stressing Rudy out.

It's not like you didn't want to kiss him. Who wouldn't? Especially with how often your mind drifted to how the soft pillows of his lips would feel moving against yours.

Your anxiety was climbing quickly, worried that it would be awkward or make you act weird around each other. You knew you needed to suck it up and get it over with. After all, it was just a kiss. Right?

"Okay fine. How do you want to do this? Should we read our lines then just continue with the scene or do you want to just skip ahead to the kissing?"

A smirk spread over his handsome face at your annoyance, thinking of all the ways he could drive you crazy.

With his hand resting against his chin as if in deep thought he let out a soft hum, pretending to think it over.

"Hmmm. I think we've practiced our lines enough. Let's just get straight down to the kissing."

You push off from the couch, legs shaking slightly as you slowly walk over to him.

As soon as you get close he wraps one hand around your waist, pulling you flush against his front. His hand comes up to cradle the side of your face, butterflies swarming in your stomach when you meet his blue gaze and watch his eyes drop to your lips.

Before you can overthink it he leans down, softly connecting your lips together in a sweet kiss. You gasp in surprise and he takes full advantage, making a lazy stroke with his tongue into your mouth that has heat surging to your core.

His other hand twists into your hair, angling your head better so he can deepen the kiss even further. Your hands somehow end up under his shirt, nails skimming down over his abs and making him groan softly into your mouth.

His sound of pleasure starts a frenzy, both of you rushing to get the other out of their clothes as quickly as possibly. You wind up on your back on his bed, your black lace panties the only thing left covering your body. His eyes do a slow sweep from your toes to your face, the look of pure lust totally transforming his features.

Rudy crawls up the bed, settling between your thighs before connecting your mouths once again. While your tongues fight for dominance he rocks his hips forward, the thick bulge in his boxers sending sparks of pleasure through your system when he presses just right against your clit.

He breaks away breathless, pressing wet kisses down your neck before finding your sweet spot. Your nails dig into his back as he teases you, the friction not enough to send you over the edge but just enough to drive you crazy.

"Fuck y/n. I need to taste you."

His words make you moan, watching as he slowly slides down your body to settle between your legs. He doesn't waste any time, pulling your ruined panties to the side and licking a slow stripe from your hole to your clit.

"Oh Rudy, feels so good."

He groans at your praise, going straight to work and lavishing your clit with quick flicks of his expert tongue. He has you on edge in no time, back arching off the bed while your legs start to shake. Just before you can fall apart he stops causing you to whine loudly.

"Sorry sweetheart but I need to be inside you, right now."

He shoves his boxers down and kicks them off behind him, peeling your panties down your legs before tossing them off the bed. The sight of him fully naked, thick cock jutting straight out as he hovers over you, is one of the hottest things you've ever seen.

He gives himself a few quick pumps before lining up, waiting for you to give him the go ahead to continue.

"Come on Ru, give it to me."

He takes your breath away by slamming all the way home in one brutal thrust. You feel fuller than you ever have, stretched to the absolute max. He pulls out slowly, watching as each inch reappears before thrusting all the way back in.

"God you feel so fuckin' good. Even better than I imagined."

The roughness in his voice combined with how good he feels moving inside you is almost too much to handle. Your walls clamp down tight around him, dragging a deep moan from his throat that makes your toes curl.

"Don't stop Ru, 'm so close."

He somehow manages to speed up, lacing your fingers together and pinning your hands to the mattress beside your head. Each time his pelvis rocks against yours you get closer and closer to your release.

"Come on y/n, cum for me."

His words are your undoing. You fall apart with his name on your lips, stars dancing in your vision from the extreme amount of pleasure. The way your pussy spams around him drags him with you, a few quick stutters of his hips has him filling you up with his release.

He continues thrusting softly, working you both down from your highs while covering your face in soft kisses. Finally he stills, pulling out slowly and rolling onto his back before tucking you into his side. You fall asleep feeling warm and safe, wondering what took you so long to make a move in the first place.

[wwaheoh]

“What do the cold hands of Fate fear the most in the Universe? The fiery indomitable spirit of Humanity.” HSR x gnReader

Firefly, Himeko, Jing Yuan (+ Yanqing)

a/n: Starman by David Bowie type shit

Rip and tear. A dwindling defense against a relentless offense. Bugs, in the billions, cascading down towards Glammoth, all with the intent to devor. Her muscles screamed, the armor she was in began to grow heavier each minute, a metal coffin awaiting the moment her body gave up on her.

But she would not- could not let this happen. As part of the Iron Calvary, she had met someone she sparked a sense of wonder, of the uniqueness of each and every person. Someone she wanted to defend. Of course, this relationship was difficult to manage, with all of them having been born as nothing more than to fill the ranks and fight for their Empress. But there were times where the two of you could spend time together, really feel like people instead of the bred soldiers you were. Emotions that others in the Iron Cavalry knew not of bloomed between the two of you. 

The day the Swarm had come to their planet had been the day she intended to speak to you about these feelings she had, during the small breaks they had. She didn’t even know what to say, the words and their meaning never having been taught to her. 

So as she fought, all she could think about was you, the Empress barely even holding a space in her mind. Yet as she watched the suits of metal fall from the sky, it dawned on her that she might never be able to tell you anything. Tearing through the bodies as she rocketed forward, carnage raged around her, blood, guts, and fire being blown everywhere as panic fueled adrenaline.

Then the Swarm Mother appeared. And alll hell broke loose.

In her peripheral vision, a bright light appeared. Turning, she realized that it was yours. The two of you had played with the idea of decorating the suits- being reprimanded when attempted. But some super specific damages could be overlooked.

You exploded forward with a speed that left a sonic boom behind. Fire exploded as you bulldozed your way through the Swarm, leaving a trail of destruction through the army. Going straight for the Mother.

You exploded, with enough power to detonate stars, a beautiful supernova. 

Firefly screams, muscles seemingly revitalized with a feeling she’s never felt. Born to be a soldier, emotions taught to be kept down to keep a level head. All of it is thrown out the window as she charges forward into the regenerating mass. 

The smoke begins to clear, the Swarm Mother seemingly unaffected by what you had done.

It fills her with a rage that burns deep into her core.

Tearing through, she aims at the Swarm Mother, filling this blast with all of the power left in the mech, firing. 

A bright light overtakes her vision, white is all she sees before it goes to black.

-

Firefly sits by the window of the ship, watching the stars slowly pass by, one of the lessening times her body is able to be outside of stasis without suffering repercussions. An odd feeling stirring in her chest, bits of memories leaking from the box she locked them in, too much to bear.

Silver Wolf is running some maintenance on the mech. As the resident tech support of the Stellaron Hunters, it's become her job to make sure the mech known as “SAM” is in top shape.

beep… beep… Beep… Beep. BEEP… BEEP

What starts off barely audible begins to screech, the navigation system begins to go wild. Silver Wolf looks towards Firefly, who was broken from her thinking and now staring with wide eyes at the sound. 

“What’s that?”

Firefly quickly rushed to the mech, nearly tripping over herself as she hit a series of buttons, prompting a green holographic map to shine. A small red dot currently hurling itself at nearly 43,000/mph through the vastness of space. A red dot that symbolized a mech suit just like hers, another survivor…

“We have to recover it- it’s another one like me!” She exclaimed as she rushed to tell Kafka and get the ship to follow the projected path. 

Quickly the ship began to move faster, slipping off course and diverting its route to intercept the mecha. 

After several tense minutes, the ship was successfully able to slow the object down and reign it into the ship.

It was a giant piece of rock, yet something inside told her that it held something deep within. The frequency that had been discovered wasn’t something that could be made from an asteroid or piece of space junk.

Clearing everyone from the room, she entered her mech, charging it up to live with a flare of green, before slamming her fist down onto the rock and breaking it in half.

Inside was a damaged mecha, another Fyrefly Type-IV Strategic Assault Mech. Damaged, with battle damage all over. Metal melted and melding into other parts. It slowly creaked open, a body, with a face she never thought she’d see again falling out and onto the cold surface.

It was you…  the soft motion of your chest rising and falling told her that you were atleast alive.

Breaking from her stupor, she quickly screamed, “K-Kafka!” Said person quickly barged into the room, Blade and Silver Wolf ready, guns and blade in hands before quickly realizing what was happening. “We need to get them to my pod!”

They did just that, pulling your body into Firefly’s pod, stabilizing your vitals and checking for the sickness that ailed all of the Iron Calvary’s soldiers. It was there, but had been slowed to an insane rate as you had basically been ambered.

-

After several hours passed, you had finally awoken. Panicking at first before Firefly, who had been waiting by your pod-side, helped calm you down. Finally stable and conscious, they started the procedure to let you out: draining the fluids, unhooking you, taking out the IV, and taking off the oxygen mask. 

They allowed you some privacy to put on some clothes, pulling a white curtain around you with some spare clothes ready for you. 

After what seemed like forever to Firefly, you walked out of the room. A sense of dread as she proposed the question, “Do you remember me?”

An uncomfortable silence fell, with the other Stellaron Hunters trying but failing to not show that they were very blatantly eavesdropping on the two with bated breaths.

Finally you respond with affirmation, you do remember her. You remember them. You remember that hail-mary effort to take down the Swarm, intending to sacrifice yourself in order to bring down the Swarm Mother and give a chance to the Iron Cavalry- to her.

She rushes in to embrace you, with you opening your arms as she launches onto you. “Well, I’m called Firefly now…” “It’s… nice to meet you Firefly.” The name feels weird on your tongue, the two of you only having been designated with numbers rather than anything meaningful. But as you play with it, it feels right. 

Fyreflies, small little things that shone beautifully in the night. A future, together, that shone as well.

A beautiful sunset began to fall on this planet’s horizon, a warm orange transitioned into a deep purple. Stars twinkling in the evening sky.

It was you and Himeko, a cup of coffee in both your hands. The two of you were sitting on the porch of a home the two of you purchased. It wasn’t somewhere the two of you lived year-round, coming only for a couple weeks to relax from all the trailblazing the Astral Express got up to. It was quaint, overlooking a beautiful environment.

Taking a small sip of the coffee, you held in spitting it out- yup, still incredibly strong. Himeko laughed softly, admiring the fact that you still attempted to build up a resistance to the taste over the years. A beautiful thing to hear, never losing its novelty no matter how many times you heard it.

This was all so perfect…

“This isn’t real, is it?”

“No, dear.”

Even in a fake world, Himeko was so incredibly intelligent, probably having even figured it out before you did. 

“We didn’t win against Sunday?”

“No, everyone in Penacony is currently under the control of the Order.” She nursed her cup of coffee on her lap.

“Well then… I guess this is goodbye. I’ll see you in the real world.”

You leaned forward, kissing her on the cheek before setting down the cup of coffee and standing up. 

“I’ll see you too dear.”

You readied yourself, tensing the muscles in your arm as you pulled your arm back, righting your feet before swinging forward. A crack formed in existence, another swing, it expanded. Several more impacts before finally, the world exploded in white.

-

Alongside the rest of the Astral Express, all six of you readied your weapons, as the giant behemoth of a golden conductor leaned over the group.

Now it was time to reach the truth, in the Waking World…

Waves and waves of Mara-Struck, soldiers under your command, fallen and changed into these walking dolls for the Abundance to control. They begged for the sweet release of death, pleading for it all to be over. Apologizing over and over, begging for forgiveness as their bodies became prisons, as they attacked those that they swore to protect.

The last contact they had with your squadron was three hours ago. An outbreak of Mara-Struck caused by chemicals planted in the drinking water. The scientist had been apprehended already, but the effects were still being felt hours after. 

Jing Yuan paced in his room, awaiting further updates. You, his betrothed, was a respected commander, even with his hand in marriage you refused to become complacent, continuing your training and leadership on the battlefield. Yanqing was just returning from his mission, having been the one to find the source of the contaminant and lock up those involved in spreading it. 

“General, I have returned.” Yanqing greeted as he closed the door behind him, before quietly asking about your whereabouts, having not seen you. “They did not return with you? The last they told us, they’d be regrouping with you.” Jing Yuan questioned, a slight panic beginning to settle into his otherwise calm and lazy demeanor. “No sir, they didn’t relay such to me… last I heard they were clearing out the Mara-Stricken.” 

“And why was I not informed of their prolonged absence?” “I don’t know, general.” “It seems others are keeping vital information out of my hands. I’ll deal with it later, come, we must ensure the safety of them.” “Yes General!”

The two didn’t want to think of the possibilities, what might have happened to you in these few hours that you were dark. They weren’t arm-chair philosophers but men of action.

Stepping out, they marched out of the Seat of Divine Foresight, people instinctively moving out of their way. Yet one did, a newly instated assistant, one who was quiet but as they babbled on about how Jing Yuan shouldn’t leave, he knew why they truly were there. Nodding with a polite smile, he acknowledged their words before turning and continuing his march, signaling to a nearby Fu Xuan about the “assistant”. 

A group of guards quickly apprehended them as Jing Yuan and Yanqing left in search of you.  

-

Their first stop was your final ping before you went dark. Upon entering the area, the smell of bark and scent of iron filled their noses. Corpses were strewn about, mara-stricken and normal alike. None have the insignia of a Captain. 

Following the carnage, they begin to hear sounds of metal on metal, grunts, shrieks. Quickly hurrying, they turn the corner to see you, covered in blood and sweat, and a mob of mara-stricken soldiers surrounding you.

Quickly they rush in, with the power of the General of the Xianzhou Luofu and his Retainer, they carve a path through and quickly pull you from the center. With you out of the danger zone, Yanqing summons several blades, slashing at the horde with killing intent, slicing them in half as the blades whizzes through them.

As the Retainer takes out the horde, Jing Yuan turns to you, apologetic, “I’m so sorry, your whereabouts were hidden from me. I came as soon as I could.”

Still shell-shocked from finally being able to rest, you turn to Jing Yuan, softly pressing your knuckles against his jaw. 

“I knew you’d always come for me…”

Those were the last words you exchanged with him before passing out.

-

You woke up in an infirmary, several doctors rushing by, attending to other patients. Covered in bandages, the sterile smell of the room filled your senses. Looking around, you noticed Jing Yuan and Yanqing sleeping on the seats next to your bed. 

Your lips curved upward into a small smile as you took in the scene. Your boys, waiting for you to get better. 

[capacle]

Drawing stars on sticky notes?

What do you get when you combine Progress Clocks, Aspects, Usage Dice, and Insight Rolls?

If you answered “an unholy mess”, well, that’d have been my guess too if someone asked me that. But that didn’t stop me from doing it anyway. And, surprisingly, instead of creating an abomination that shouldn’t see the light of the day, it became the core mechanic of my newest game, one that I’m giddily excited about.

I want to dive deeper into this quirky little mechanic called Sparks, that involves drawing stars on sticky notes. In essence, it is a tool to track progress of any kind. Towards a goal, an event, an effect, whatever. But in a closer look… well, it is more than that.

Escaping the temple

Let’s say you grab an ancient idol from a cursed temple, triggering a self-destruction spell. You need to escape before the temple collapses and traps you inside. You’d grab a sticky note, write “The Temple Collapses,” and place it on the table. Your Spark is now created.

To advance the Spark, you’d add rays to the star when certain fictional or mechanical triggers occur. For example, if you spend too much time in a room while trying to escape, you might add a ray to represent the passage of time. Or say you try to place a heavy rock in place of the idol to stop the spell, and you roll a bad Fate Check (the equivalent of a Yes/No Oracle or a Fortune Roll in other games), you’d add a ray to the Spark. A particularly bad roll (e.g., a 1) might even add two rays.

Up until this point, you might be thinking, “Well, this is just a Progress Clock.” But here’s the fun twist: every time you advance the Spark, you may perform a Spark Check by rolling a D6. If the roll matches a ray on the star, the event happens, and the Spark resolves.

For instance, if you’ve added two rays to your Spark and roll a 1 or 2, the temple collapses. If you don’t hit a ray, the temple holds, and you can keep pushing to escape. This creates what I like to call “controlled unpredictability”. You get a sense of the odds of the event happening, but you can’t predict exactly when it will occur.

If you continue advancing the Spark—for example, by getting lost or failing additional rolls—the likelihood of disaster increases as you add more rays. Let’s say you roll again with four rays and hit a ray. The temple collapses, trapping you. The Spark resolves, and now you must deal with the consequences.

But that’s not all! Let’s say you miss all previous checks and end up filling all five rays of a Spark. Well, you still have to make a Spark Check. But since the Spark has only 5 rays and the die has 6 sides, rolling a 6 after the star is full results in an Overturn.

An Overturn flips the expected outcome. If the event was negative (e.g., the temple collapses), it might turn positive: the collapsing ground reveals a hidden network of ancient tunnels filled with mysterious symbols. What was almost a certain disaster opens up as a new path your adventure can take!

SIDE NOTE: I get it that using stars as a tally marker may not be the most intuitive graphical solution. I honestly chose it to meet the vibes of the game, and give it an air of mysticism, like it is more than just a counter. But I encourage you to use any form of tracking you prefer: tally marks, tokens, numbers, checking boxes and so on.

Flexible and modular

I hope that by now you can see this is more than a tool to count up to 5. If you follow me for a while, you know that I’ve toyed with the same idea in Derelict Delvers with Danger Clocks. In that game, they are restricted to represent monsters and obstacles. In Everspark, they can do all sorts of things.

You can use Sparks to track challenges, such as overcoming obstacles (including combat); the arrival of looming threats; the depletion of meaningful resources; contests between parties vying for the same goal; long-term projects like crafting, studying, or achieving a personal milestone; and conditions affecting characters, enemies, or environments.

Sparks can also track events like a lunar eclipse, the arrival of a king; the use of special power sources like mana or magical items with limited charges. They’re useful for tracking character advancement (including multiclassing), exploration (like a full journey or delving into a dungeon), or even montage scenes where you tackle complex challenges like making plans, setting camp, or preparing for a journey.

You can even create layered challenges to represent more complex or powerful enemies. Say you are fighting an enormous creature, and you want it to be a high-stakes and dramatic encounter. Instead of relying on “HP inflation” and just make, say, a 3-star Spark, you can represent different aspects of the challenge with separate Sparks, like a Spark representing an Arcane Shield that needs to be dealt with before harming it, and another one for its Spiked Tail that causes all sorts of trouble for melee attacks.

Instead of turning the combat in a boring meat grind, you have to approach the encounter as a puzzle. Different characters with unique skill sets can contribute, and the whole scene becomes more dynamic. You can even have environmental Sparks representing dangers or potential opportunities.

And the best thing is: you don’t need to prep that in advance. Crafting Sparks is part of the game. And I encourage you to do it as a collaborative process, if you’re playing in a group. We have a lot of fun brainstorming possible things we can add to a scene to make it even more memorable.

Spark-based scenarios

Picture this: you’re deciding who gets to be the next captain of the ship. It starts with a skill contest. It’s two candidates—you against them—and you are displaying skills to decide who’s going to be the captain. You have a resource Spark, which is the crew support. You can tap into it to gain leverage, but it can go either way—perhaps the crew support goes to your adversary, making it a double-edged resource.

You have to resolve this contest before the serpent god arrives (a threat) and, who knows, eats the loser of the contest. All the while, you’re dealing with the storm of the century (environment), which is battering the ship and tossing the crew around. On top of that, the ship is leaking (escalation)—because why not?

This can be a full session of chaos, crazy ideas, and unpredictable outcomes, with new Sparks being created as a result of complications and bad rolls. Others might be discarded as the situation evolves. It’s a wild, chaotic, and incredibly fun experience.

On top of that, you can bend the rules with “Spark tricks,” which are ways in which you twist and bend the rules of how to advance and resolve Sparks. These include locked rays (which can’t be hit), regenerating rays (that are erased), linked Sparks (where one Spark affects others), resistance (making two spark checks and keeping the worse result), and persistent Sparks (which remain active even after being resolved).

You get a sticky note! And you get a sticky note!

These are just a few ideas. It’s important to note that Sparks are modular, optional and disposable. They can be used for almost anything, but they shouldn’t be used for everything. You can handwave situations, roleplay them, or use just a few rolls to resolve them. But if you want more granularity, want to zoom into the action, or want to give more screen time to certain moments, Sparks can certainly help. And when a Spark is no longer relevant, you can simply discard it, even without resolving it.

It’s amazing all the things you can do with a simple piece of paper

My advice is that you introduce Sparks gradually into your gameplay—the book itself divides Sparks into Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. In my home game, we’re seventeen sessions in, and since all players are already comfortable with the mechanics, it is beautiful to see the proliferation of Sparks: characters are working on new skills, getting rid of curses, and trying to find lost relatives. The city has a creature about to arrive, a gang following them around, and more. All that tracked with Sparks.

Just think of nachos

When I was coming up with a checklist of the things you have to consider when creating a Spark, I had a pleasant surprise. See, you need to create the Name of whatever you’re tracking; decide how and when it Advances; when you need to make a Spark Check; what happens when you Hit a ray, what is a possible Overturn; and if there are any Special rules or conditions.

Hence, the NACHOS template was born.

Obviously, you don’t need to write every detail down for every Spark (or for most Sparks, really), but it is a good way to make sure everyone knows how the Spark behaves and to align expectations. If you want to play around with how a Spark works, just think of Nachos.

Hack it away

I’m super excited to get this in everyone’s hands and see what creative people can do with it by bending its rules and applications. I see it as a tool to inject a layer of tension, suspense and surprise to what could otherwise be just a tally count.

I’m working hard on editing Everspark at the moment (meanwhile, the campaign is on late pledge, so you can jump in if you want). It’s coming out nicely, I must say. The Sparks chapter has nearly 20 different suggested ways of using them, all with examples. And more nuance than I can fit on a post.

I’ve also published a video explaining this concept in even more detail:

Meanwhile, check out the campaign page and join us to keep the Everspark alive! And I’d sincerely appreciate it if you shared this around with people that might like it.