#but i'm on the fence as to whether or not the slow build up to it all is worth it

[ranger-kellyn]

help if i don't stop thinking about the SV girl protag/nemona for more than 6 seconds i might get obsessed enough to forgive all of SVs flaws

[fountainpenguin]

"Hey, youngblood! Doesn't it feel like our time is running out? I'm gonna change you like a remix, then I'll raise you like a phoenix!" (x)

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New Criminal Experience chapter today!

Chapter 8 - “Shot”

❤️ Read on AO3

💙 Start from Chapter 1

💚 More Pixels Imperfect fics

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Mumbo and his new friend sneak up on Carrie's illager patrol... Looks like she, BigB, and their friends have Impulse in a pickle. But what happened to Skizz?

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

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Minutes later…

Despite Mumbo's insistence to the contrary, the enderman girl jogs with him down the messy street. Her name is Hazel, or at least that's what she tells him. What, are you gonna argue with her? She's just a kid, but when Mumbo urges her to stay out of the way, she laughs and skips backwards, keeping pace ahead of him.

"She can't catch me! I'd like to see her try. And I'd love to see those foreigners come crashing down. You should've heard that vex lady this morning; she was so rude when we were playing. I wish she'd run into my wall so I could crush her head with sand."

"Goodness me."

"Come on- Your glow will give you away. Can you turn that off?"

"Ah… No, I'm afraid. The illusioner pinged me with a spectral arrow, so even if I try to hide behind blocks, my outline's visible to everyone in range. Oh- Be careful with him. His species can see through blocks, whether you're lit up like this or not. Lighting us just makes it easier. For him and all his buds." The scythe hangs like an ice-coated stalactite in the center of his chest, right where his soul slot lies.

"Got it."

Wandering traders do get around quite a bit, you know. Even those who aren't big on going far from home (and there aren't many) have visited the neighboring hubs more summers than they've likely spent at home. Mumbo's seen a great deal of blocks, of course. The rare and the novel pass through Little Sun all the time.

But wherever he expected Carrie and her remaining raiders (Amused huff of emphasis on "remaining") to drag Impulse, it wasn't this. As they encroach the looming building, which must be at least, ah, five or six chunks high, Mumbo slows his jog to a trot. "Oh, my."

It's… a stadium? Yes, that might be the word for it, but if you think a community building like that has stayed untouched in an enderman city, you're terribly mistaken.

It's nothing the average person would construct. Mismatched blocks make up the walls, including anvils, birch, fence posts, gravel, leaves, and even sponges and kelp blocks. Those last two must have been traded for, because they stem from the ocean, and you certainly won't find one of those near the enderman hub. Mumbo gawks at them anyway. Wait a moment… Maybe he's been too hasty. Is it even a building? Is it the local dump? There are plenty of other endermen and endermites wandering around, browsing the walls like they're at the market for cupcakes and flowers. They cluster in groups, pulling blocks out and easing them back into place the way you do with drawers. Even the scrape of wood on wood's familiar, scratching in the grooves of blocks below.

"Who would trade for rare blocks, then shove them in a wall for anyone to take?"

"It's Mish-Mash," Hazel says, waving one arm with a flourish like she's introducing him to the finest work in the Fox Dragon's museum. "Mish-Mash is 'Give a block, take a block."

Mumbo tilts back his head, stepping backwards to take it in again. Technically, they're still within city walls (and the partially built ceiling above the amalgamation of strange things is there to prove it), but that doesn't stop a breeze from whisking through this place. It's dark out there… but the locals seem to like it that way. The claw-scratch moon hangs high above. "And… people do that? I mean, do they actually follow the rules of leaving things behind? … You wouldn't find that type of self-restraint among my kin; we wandering traders stock and sell whatever we can find."

Hazel huffs. "It's art. And if you take anything without leaving a drop-off, I'm turning you in."

"Well, we can't have that."

Right. So… Mish-Mash, then. Well. Mumbo asks his earlier private question, but leaves out the 'dump' bit this time: "Well, is this a building? I'm not seeing a door… And why do I smell pork?"

"It's a sparring ring," she says, making a bowl shape with her hands. "The seats go all the way around. They start up high, but the sparring ring is in the middle, down low."

… That might be a problem. Endermites can cling to blocks, scaling with little effort, and enderman can poof past walls without needing doors anyway. No stairs in sight, though. "So it's an amphitheater, then."

Hazel looks at him. "I'm 8."

Well, the semantics aren't important. Mumbo smiles anyway, shaking his head. Whatever it is, Hazel gets him in. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she teleports them both up to the upper seats, tucked as far in the back as she could get them. Vision blurs, the sky dips, stomachs squeeze… Now, how do endermen go from standing before they teleport to landing in a crouch? Do they still comprehend whatever twisted position their bodies take in that in-between space, even as the world ripples like smoke? That's a question for the ages.

Hazel sits up on her knees while Mumbo clutches his head, wincing through the ringing in his ears. She peeps above the awkward chairs for a few seconds, then ducks her head like a startled duck. Did I say 'duck' twice? Ah, it doesn't matter; you get the point. "The skunk's cooking."

"The skunk is cooking?" Mumbo sits up too. Hiding has its limits; even up here, behind all the careful seats made from cobble walls and stairs, the spectral glow pulsing from his skin is sure to sell him out. His flesh gleams with lantern light. Yeah, you could shake him back and forth and stick him on a hook, too. Carrie might try. He did tear through the whole patrol. Mumbo creeps his eyes above the lip of the nearest stair block chair. Hazel does the same. "Oh," he blurts. "Now, how about that? The skunk is cooking!"

Let's set the stage...

[Full chapter on AO3 - Link at top]

[nerfherdingteleporter]

What would've happened if they hadn't needed Dean in Hell?

If the demon who brought Sam back to life in the season two finale had just laughed and disappeared?

Idea number one (probable):

Dean holds a funeral

It's private, ritualistic. Sam is laid to rest like a king, his only court a brother whose hands are splintery from building the pyre.

The music is slow and sweet, a tender goodbye. Tears are shed, one at a time.

Then Dean gets into the car and starts driving

Maybe he drives forever, never sure whether he's running towards something or away

Maybe he finds a woman, and maybe he tells her what's in his past and maybe he doesn't, but there's always something missing from their house with the picket fence. After all, you can't have Americana without Uncle Sam.

Maybe he keeps hunting, desperation in every swing of a blade

Maybe he dies, somewhere on the road between states, an angry ghost or whiskey behind the wheel or a gun.

Maybe the Roadhouse never burns and he moves in next to Ash

Maybe he stays with Bobby

Regardless: still beautiful, still Dean Winchester, no longer quite whole

Because it was always hard to tell where he ended and Sam began, and Death did not take care to divide them cleanly

Idea number two (also probable):

Precisely the same as above except

Dean spends a week drunk and weeping and monologuing and mourning

When he claws himself out of the haze, Sam is...

To put it delicately...

Starting to smell like the rotting corpse that he is

So Dean holds his breath and his tears, covers Sam in a veil of salt, and sets the entire house on fire

The series began with Dean pulling Sam out of one burning house. It will end with him standing in the yard and watching Sam go up in smoke with another

Because yeah, that's where the series ends either way

I'm imaginative, but I can't see a Supernatural that isn't built around the brothers' bond

There's an epilogue, of course, but you need both Sam and Dean to truly work

Idea number three (I don't think the studio would've allowed it):

Look

Dean isn't near a grocery store

And he is a freak with no sense of boundaries

Bobby or Ellen or Jo roll up to check on Dean after like a week and he says he's okay

Which, sure, of course he's not crying, he's gonna spend his whole life getting over testosterone poisoning

But he's...why does he have so much food and why is it all meat

Where did he get it

Did he kill a cow or mountain lion or something

He is making jerky and he refuses to share and why is he looking so shifty-

Oh

My

God

Dean, no

(Dean, yes)

They haul him away from his homemade brother jerky and he stays at the Roadhouse while they try to socialize the Everything out of him

[mishkakagehishka]

waitwait. zombie au mika again.

imagine if the virus is actually suuuper slow. you're never 100% sure if you have it or not (unless you get bitten, of course, but through other means? the uncertainty could kill...) until it sets in, and by then you're doomed. so. mika gets a wound. everyone brushes it off - it's just a little scratch, nothing to worry about! weeks, months go by. nothing has happened, and everyone has relaxed. mika will be fine! until he wakes up and the wound that he thought was just a scar has started to rot. and then he knows. he's doomed. he was infected from that first moment, and now that there's symptoms? there's no salvation for him. where does he go from there? does he try to live out his last few days as a human peacefully? say goodbye to his friends and loved ones? beg his friends, the producer, anyone to kill him before it spreads further? before he loses himself and his mind? does he simply disappear one day, leaving everyone panicked and worried until one day they see a familiar-looking zombie with mismatched eyes?

[Inhales] ... like rabies... by the time you see the symptoms it's too late. First of all, I thought about zombie virus biology soooooo much in all the years I've lived knowing ab zombies as someone prone to overthinking so let me give you a few ideas. Cut because I realised this got too long BDBDBSBS

Personally, I love TWD's idea of "everyone's infected, if you die and the brain isn't destroyed - you're becoming a zombie" aka the "the bite is really just highly effective venom that does you in, but your fate is sealed either way" theory. Although what enstars is doing fits Dead Rising a bit better, I think. Or actually Project Zomboid where if you got bitten by one while playing, you'd basically have a timer... like you could continue playing, but you were scheduled to die because of that bite. I thought that was a cool concept. But also because of Mitsuru's line especially I think the epilogue will be "lol get prank'd Producer" so who cares + it's an AU + ratio. But to the TWD theory .... if I may build upon it (this is all for this specific ask btw i prommy i'm not just saying this for no reason), if the bite is just powerful venom transferred by bodily fluids like saliva and blood (and this is what bothered me about zombie media that implied this - nobody ever cares ab zombie-bloodied weapons coming into contact with their open wounds!! You can get hepatitis like that, nevermind zombified!!) then we can assume that any mixing of a zombie's bodily fluids with your own could cause you to contract the virus. So, for example, if you grow desperate enough to eat a zombie? Prion disease is the least of your worries. Or - in Mika's case?

I think. I'm sorry I love making him cry. I think Mika is a very emotional person. He's a slave to his emotions, he's impulsive, he's prone to panicking. In a zombie apocalypse, you'll have plenty opportunity to get cuts, whether you don't know how to properly wield some tools or weapons, or you're trying to traverse terrain/climb objects or, fuck it, you just accidentally cut yourself on a thorn or whatever. Mika is clumsy. Mika cannot see in the dark. Mika absolutely slashes open his arm on a fence trying to climb it while running away. He returns from the supply run covered in tears and snot because he's hurt badly. Faints from bloodloss badly. But they question him (you didn't get bitten or torn by a zombie, did you?) and he swears he didn't, the reason his arm is fucked is because he didn't let himself get bit. So they wait it out. Let me be cruel. They don't give him painkillers or patch him up until they're certain he's not infected - because why waste supplies on a dead man?

But what Mika didn't know is that zombies got cut up on that fence, too. It was a dangerous fence. When he slashed his arm open, all the bacteria got in. The dormant virus got in. First he becomes delirious when his arm gets infected, just, in general. Because they didn't treat it. He's begging and pleading to just give him an antibiotic or at least cut his arm off because he can't take the burning pain anymore. And the Producer probably takes pity and sneaks him antibiotics and treats him as well as they can. He's thanking them, still feverish, still delirious, straight up crying of relief. He promises them he's not infected, that they didn't waste the supplies and that he's so thankful.

He recovers - somewhat. Idk how long someone would take to recover, but they'd have a (flawed) understanding of the virus and have an approx. timespan when they'd think they're safe (FAVE part ab zombie media - when they think they know but they don't) so Mika gets released from quarantine, properly treated (and Producer gets side-eyed) and apologised to. And they think they're fine! He's recovering! They thought he was going to lose that arm, but he's actually doing okay, he can't use it well, the nerves and tendons are damaged, but he's getting by with help.

Maybe even months pass. He's smiling and laughing, he's bonding. Producer has become his best friend. They're having fun! And then one night when he's checking over his arm (he's mourning it, really, he's noticing he's losing feeling in it bit by bit, he knows he'll have to lose the arm even if he hasn't told anyone), he sees... skin chipping off. Rotting off. His heart drops into his stomach. How could this have happened? Since it was his dominant arm, they didn't even let him do supply runs again unaccompanied, there was no way he got bit?!

But it was undeniable. His hand was rotting. He checks himself over for other symptoms they were aware of. Rot. Weakness. Fatigue. Losing feeling of limbs. Slow healing. Sensitivity to the cold. Mika freaks the fuck out. He can't live out his last few days peacefully because he's hyperaware of the fact that they're his last days. There's so much he hasn't done yet! Saying goodbye to his loved ones? No way, no way. He can't burden them like that. He cries a lot. He cries so much. But he knows his days are numbered and he knows he's a danger to his friends if he stays in the camp. But he trusts the Producer. His best friend. He asks them to go on a supply run with him.

He's keeping his arm gauzed up as he leads them into the woods - he saw some abandoned camp there, he says. Deep into the woods. He asks them if they could go back to the camp on their own, without his help. They say they remembered the route - he was going straight and was marking trees with his own blood anyway. (They thought it was morbid, Mika thought "Hey, I'm not gonna need it, might as well".) He asks them if they have a weapon on them, one preferably silent that won't attract zombies. They have an axe. His breath hitches. He'd hoped for a knife, but alright.

He shows them his rotting arm. "Ya hafta do me in."

The Producer might take mercy on him and (try to) land a clean cut. (That's not happening. The axe is rusty, beheading him would take two-three swings, but they could just split his head in half.) But do they have the stomach for it? To kill their best friend so violently? But he's begging so desperately. Do they have the stomach to deny him, to leave him crying, scared, alone until he succumbs to the virus on his own in those woods? Do they... tie him up to a tree? Sit next to him? Hold his hand as he takes his final breaths? Hear him pleading with nobody, begging for it all to be a nightmare, that he'll wake up tomorrow, by Oshi-san calling him because he's late to rehearsal, that he'll see all his friends who've passed on... that he's scared of dying? Hear him chanting "I'm scared, please, I don't wanna die"? Would they squeeze his hand, trying to comfort him however futile it might be? Would "I'm right here with you" even comfort him?

When he passes, they could destroy his brain to make sure he doesn't come back. Or they could leave him be. They could honour his wish, or they could seek their own comfort in a foolish belief that a zombified Mika would mean there was still a little bit of Mika left in the world. Maybe one day, they'll find a cure. If not to return him to his human state, then at least to let him pass on. They'll give him a proper funeral then.

[melancholia-ennui]

Some thoughts on PF2e

Context: I played PF2e for ~2 years in two campaigns. Concurrently, I have been playing 5e since release, including running a 4yr continuous campaign from lv 1-20. I have a little experience of 3/3.5e from the NWN games, but never PNP, and I've dabbled in short campaigns in a few other systems, including Cypher and a system a friend was designing.

So, with everything going on (*gestures at WotC burning every last shred of good will they ever garnered from the community*), a lot of people are currently looking for a new TTRPG system to pick up. A fairly common piece of advice that I hear is "if you want something like D&D, try Pathfinder". While this statement makes sense in the grand scheme of all TTRPGs ever, and both systems trace something of their genetic heritage to the same original system (3e), it over looks the fact that the play feel and play style of these games are actually quite different, and I worry that it is setting some people up for disappointment if they don't understand the differences between these systems before going in.

So here's a little primer on the vibes key differences between these games, to help you gauge whether PF is actually the right choice for you if you're coming from 5e.

Disclaimer: I'll only be talking about PF2e here, as I haven't played the original PF - however, based on everything I've heard and read about it, many if not all of these points will apply equally to PF1e.

I've divided this discussion into sections so you can jump straight to the part of the game that most interests you. More could certainly be said on each of these points - my goal here is not to give a perfect understanding of the nuances of the game, but rather an overall "vibe" so you can gauge whether it's likely to be worth your time. If you're still on the fence about it after reading this, give it a try and see for yourself how it stacks up!

Overall

A Rule For Everything. Where 5e is often quite hand-waivy in the details of what you can and can't do, leaving a large part up to a mixture of GM discretion and interpretation, PF2e has a specific rule for most actions you would want to take in most circumstances. Pros: this results in fewer "falling through the cracks" moments where it's unclear how you should rule a particular action (in particular, you're not going to see the frequently botched "is an ability check an action, bonus action, or free" you get at many tables in 5e); good for supporting newer GMs who haven't developed the judgement need to make rule callings well in a rules-lighter system like 5e. Cons: offers less flexibility and GM freedom; I found that often questions which would be answered with "sure, give me a X check" in 5e were answered with "you don't have enough actions" or "you don't have the right feat" in PF2e; and if you've got a rules lawyer at your table, you need to expect a lot more rules-lawyering.

Finely Balanced. We all know that 5e is a little bawked - PF2e, by contrast, is a ruthlessly well-balanced system. While I'm sure experienced players have found ways to break it, I found that even extreme builds rarely feel outside of a narrow scope of variation. Those used to playing martials will especially notice the difference, as casters are much more closely pegged to martial progression than the "casters are better at everything" state of 5e. Pros: Very difficult to break the game; GM is very unlikely to be surprised by player capabilities; martials are much less overshadowed by caster. Cons: While it's hard to make a broken character, it's easy to make a bad one that lags behind more experienced players; can feel more "samey" (see discussion on Spellcasting below for more details); progression often feels slow, and it lacked the "oh shit I can do that now?!?" moments I've often had with 5e characters.

No Bounded Accuracy. What little balance 5e has is based around the system of Bounded Accuracy, which sets DCs at any level as falling between 5 and 30, on the assumption that 5 is the lowest roll you can make with proficiency and a positive ability score, discarding 1s, while 30 is the highest roll you can make with proficiency and a maximum ability score, except for 20s. PF2e has no such system. Instead of absolute values, PF2e has a sliding range of expected results that increases more or less linearly. As such, monsters and traps that are even a couple of levels higher than the party can become overwhelming rather than just difficult, and monsters much higher level than the party are untouchable. Pros: Can feel more realistic (as incredibly powerful dragon can't be taken down by a lucky commoner); numbers get satisfyingly big. Cons: Can feel less heroic (a commoner can't even touch a powerful dragon, no matter how lucky); much more subject to GM error and harder to adjust for "on the fly"; progress can feel slow with few "omg I can do that now?!?" moments (see Character Progression below).

Crunch. PF2e doesn't have the advantage/disadvantage mechanic, it has four levels of proficiency with different attached bonuses, many bonuses also use your level as a factor, floating modifiers don't abound like they did in 3e but are certainly more prevalent than they are in 5e, and in addition to all of that every DC needs to consider the +10 critical hit and -10 critical fail levels as well as the DC itself. You will be doing a lot more maths in PF2e than in 5e, on a turn-by-turn and level-by-level basis. Pros: Allows for a fairly high level of complexity, especially when it comes to how effects combine to give you bonuses to various attacks, saves and checks. Cons: If you find doing calculations slows play too much, well, this system has a lot more maths than 5e.

Character Creation and Progression

PF2e character creation and progression allow a great deal of customisation, creating a lot of diversity between characters.

To take just one example: where 5e has the single choice of a race/species/lineage, PF2e has several choices - your choice as first level is split between an Ancestry (broad categories like Elf, Human, Dwarf) and Heritage (kind-of like 5e subraces, but including the tiefling-type options, so you can play an Elf Tiefling, for example), and both choices give you access to a pool of Ancestry Feats that you acquire throughout your character development. While 5e races often feel more impactful from the get-go (especially when we consider races which have spellcasting or very powerful racial abilities such as Trance or Fury of the Small out the gate), PF2e ancestry and heritage choice well continue to affect you character till level 17, gaining increasingly powerful abilities as you go.

On the flip side of this, within the bounds of the tightly balanced mechanics of PF2e, the scope of "what a class feature/feat/magic item can be/do" is quite narrow. A significant number of your class progression features, feats, and even magic items you receive will be focused exclusively on keeping your numbers at the level of big they're supposed to be. This can be quite a culture shock from 5e where, unless you choose to take an ASI, you will more or less never have an entire level where the only advancement your character gets is "number get bigger".

I found this most frustrating when it came to magic items. In 5e, the bulk of magic items (especially in the earlier books) focus on expanding options with new ways of interacting with challenges (think the immovable rod or deck of illusions), with relatively few that focus on simple numerical increases (pretty much exclusively weapon +X and shield/armour +X). Importantly, because the few +X items go above and beyond the scope of bounded accuracy, getting one of these items always feels like the game is being rigged in your favour, so even these relatively bland options still come with a certain power trip and excitement. By contrast, in PF2e, players are expected to have certain magic items by certain levels - in fact, the system is balanced around this fact, so tightly that there even an optional rule to skip the items altogether and just make their bonuses part of your level up progression. As a result, at least in my experience, magic items becomes much more mundane - getting a new item feels less like a huge break and more like a necessary and expected part of your progression.

Further, because many feats have requirements of other feats or particular levels proficiency, PF2e follows 3e in that you need to plan your character more or less in full, as you'll often need to take particular feats or proficiencies several levels in advance if you want to pick up a particular later feat. This is in contrast to 5e, where planning a character is generally not required unless you are very committed to optimization - very few parts of 5e have any kind of prerequisites, and so you can generally pick up a particular feat or spell as soon as you hit the level it becomes available, without much forethought. For my part, I prefer 5e in this regard, as I like being able to adjust my character direction on the fly in response to events in the story, but while playing PF2e I found those possibilities were often gated behind earlier feat choices and whether or not I would be able to make those sudden changes in direction became very dependent on GM leniency over the retaining rules.

Lastly, although there are a lot of choices on the table, not all of those choices are equal, and PF2e has a bit of an issue with "illusion of choice" - cases where either both options are fundamentally the same (differing only in flavour or minor details), or else where one option is simply just better than another. For example, although in theory both Monk and Cleric have a couple of directions you can take them, I've been told that in both cases there's one or a couple of builds that are so head and shoulders above the others that choosing the other(s) becomes effectively playing with a handicap.

Combat

Where 5e uses the action/bonus action/reaction/movement action economy, PF2e has a three action economy: every turn, you have three actions, and most things you do use 1-3 actions, including moving, attacking, making checks, and interacting with objects.

In its defense, the three-action economy introduces a lot of opportunity costs that make combat feel tactical in a way that 5e often fails to be, and the restricted distribution on opportunity attacks (you have to have a feat, so not every creature and monster gets them) allows a lot more battlefield manouverability than some systems.

Unfortunately, it also has some issues. Firstly, due to the way the numbers work out, despite in theory having lots of options in combat, in practice there's often a single mathematically best option, which results in very linear and repetitious combat. (For a breakdown of the maths behind this illusion of choice phenomenon and comparison to 5e, see this video by Taking20.)

Secondly, because movement uses the same action economy as everything else, choosing to move always means not choosing to do something more impactful, like attacking, casting a spell, or even just raising your shield. This contributes to the problem of illusion of choice in the system, but it also has a problem all it's own: it makes fights incredibly static. In my experience at least, PF2e fights typically involve moving to a good position on your first turn and then repeatedly attacking or casting spells from that one spot until you're forced to move by a moving enemy or your target dying. By contrast, if you've got a DM who plays with cover and you're using the flanking optional rule, I rarely find reason not to move around for every possible advantage every turn in 5e. Similarly, where "can I leap off the balcony, swing on the chandelier, and attack the troll from above" is a very doable thing in 5e, you're likely making one attack max and not getting any of your ability benefits if you do that in PF2e - and that's if you're allowed to do it at all!

Now this final point is pure ~vibes~ - I haven't run the maths on it at all so it's entirely possible I'm just wrong here - but at least in my groups it felt like PF2e combat also lasted significantly longer. Most 5e combats are over in around 3 turns - but it at least felt like many of the PF2e fights I was in went to turn six or seven at least. This is good if you really enjoy Pathfinder combat, but as I say I found it less dynamic and even at times less tactical than 5e combat so it really felt like it started to drag in most cases, something I only really find in 5e when playing with new or inexperienced DMs.

Spellcasting

Now I'm a sucker for magic characters, and PF2e certainly has those.

As I noted above, PF2e spellcasting excels in its balance - it's pretty well pegged to the martial progression, so spells feel powerful but not so powerful they outshine the martials.

Mechanically, PF2e has a strong distinction between prepared and spontaneous spellcasting, with particular implications for upcasting. If you're a prepared caster (wizard, witch, etc.), you prepare spells each day for particular spell slots (this will be familiar for those who played 3e) - for example, if your Wizard knows fireball and enthrall and has two 3rd level spell slots, you can prepare two fireballs, two uses of enthrall, or one of each, but outside of certain class features once you've made the choice for the day it's set until you next rest (no swapping to a more niche spell when the moment comes for it!). Prepared casters learn each spell once, and can prepare it in any spell of it's level or higher. For spontaneous casters (e.g. sorcerer), you do not prepare spells each day, but instead you have a repertoire of spells you can cast, and you can assign spell slots when you cast the spell. However, you must learn each spell at each level you intend to cast it - you don't only need to know the spell to cast it, you must know it at the correct level, meaning valuable upcast spells may need to take up several slots among the few spells you learn.

This style of spellcasting requires a lot more forethought, and in this regard it arguably really centers the resource management aspect of playing a spellcaster.

However, in my experience at least, it feels very limiting after playing with the freedom of 5e spellcasting, and I often found myself preparing the same handful of generally useful spells every adventuring day.

Additionally, and this may in part be a problem of me just not having the time to look through the full spell list but it does fit with the wider design principles of PF2e, I found a general lack of spells that horizontally open up entire new modes of interacting with the world. Where 5e has spells like thaumaturgy, minor illusion, and command right out the gate, I found very few spells of this kind across the levels in PF2e, and those that did exist were always very carefully circumscribed with little room for originality in their use. On the upside, this is an excellent hedge against the classic 5e problem of overly cunning players with an under-prepared DM creating something game-warpingly broken with a low level spell slot, but I also felt I really missed the creative feeling of playing at the edges of barely defined magical effects and seeing what I could achieve with that.

As a final point in this section, where Scrolls are a pleasant but often rare part of a 5e caster's life, they are a core part of PF2e casters, so much so that - say it with me now - the system is balanced around the assumption you will have plenty available. (If you ever wonder why PF2e casters have fewer spell slots more or less across the board, this is part of the reason why.) If you are playing a caster in PF2e, buy and use scrolls often!

Exploration & Social Interaction

Without using third party expansions, 5e doesn't have either a proper exploration subsystem or a proper social interaction subsystem, which means your experience of these two pillars of play will vary wildly dependent on the DM at your table and how much (or little) they actually bothered to read the relevant sections of the DMG and supplementary materials.

By contrast, PF2e has developed subsystems for both - several, in fact, with the Influence, Reputation, and Leadership subsystems providing ways of navigating different scales of social encounter, and Hexploration and the exploration mode mechanics providing tools for exploration.

Of these, I've played in games using the Influence subsystem and the Hexploration subsystem, as well as exploration that draws more casually on exploration modes and various obstacles and dangers. I'll deal with each of the subsystems in turn, before giving an overview of how this approach differs from 5e.

Influence. This subsystem focused on tracking social encounters in a series of rounds, as party members uncovered the particular interests and weaknesses of their interlocutor and used those discoveries to help push through their persuasion. Cards on the table, I absolutely hated this system, as did our whole group, and we dropped it after a single session. I found it incredibly slow and clunky, with the constant die rolls and abstractions to the level of mechanics killing any possibility for meaningful RP. That said, I can also see the appeal for those who dislike the more structure-less or improv-style approach often taken in 5e games, and there are definitely aspects of the system I like enough to adapt to other uses (particularly keeping track of what topics or approaches will be especially effective for persuading a particular creature, and conversely which ones will likely cause it to close off).

Hexploration. This system involved moving around a hexagonal map in various steps, revealing the map as you went. I have fairly mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it was initially quite thrilling to have that "discovery" experience and watch the map slowly unfold. On the other hand, I quickly found it got slow and began to drag, as it became clear how many hexes we would need to traverse to discover as much of the map as we could.

The more casual form of exploration was closer to how I'm used to seeing it done in 5e, though with slightly better defined actions to be taken while traveling, which was welcome - although we often found everyone using the same handful (someone repeat casting detect magic, someone Scouting ahead to help with initiative, and most of the rest of the party Stealthing).

One thing that must be said is that all these subsystems are optional, and so if you don't like the rules of some particular system you can simply opt not to use it - although do take note of which feats players have selected, as some so specifically interact with particular systems. However, given PF2e lacks the bounded accuracy system, setting appropriate DCs for a given level requires at least checking a table, which is more work than the constant 5/10/15/20 baseline available in 5e. Additionally, 5e players should be prepared for the fact that many social or exploration things you might expect to just be able to do with some appropriate check are actually gatekept behind feats which you'll need to pick up over the course of your character progression if you want to do those things.

All told, the plethora of subsystems in PF2e will be very appealing to anyone frustrated by the lack of good rules for social interaction and exploration in 5e, though dependent on your play style you may find the more strictly regulated approach to these traditionally more hand-waivy and cinematic parts of play to be a bit stifling.

Conclusions

Everything I've said here is just my opinion, based on my own experience of the tables I've played at. That said, from everything I've heard being part of both communities, most of these generalisations hold up across the board.

I hope that I've managed to convince you that PF2e is not just a simple replacement for 5e - because if you went in with that expectation, it's definitely not what you'll find. That said, I still have a soft spot for many aspects of the PF2e system, and I hope that if you've seen something in here that's peaked your interest you'll be willing to give it a shot. (As an added sweetener to the pot, all the content for PF2e is available free online at the Archive of Nethys, so you don't even need to buy a single book to give it a try - WotC could never!)

On balance, I would say you're likely to really enjoy PF2e if:

You want a crunchy system with a rule for every possible action

You liked 3e/3.5e but wish there was something like it that was more streamlined without being "dumbed down" like 5e

You care a lot about balance and equality between different characters

You like planning your characters in advance

You like a lot of options, even if those options may be less impactful individually

You dislike the lack of subsystems in 5e

You dislike the chaos created by rules-vague spells and items in 5e

You like when number get bigger

However, while you might still get something good out of giving PF2e a try, you're much less likely to love it to bits if you:

Already find 5e too mathsy, crunchy, or complicated

Don't like memorising lots of particular details

Find items, feats and abilities that just increase your numbers a little dull

Enjoy flashy, cinematic magic even if it's unbalanced

Like making lots of your own homebrew and other to design it in a flexible system with a lot of give for over- or underpowered additions.

Are happy with fewer options but like every option you choose to feel like it has an immediate impact

Prefer gameplay that develops horizontally (more options) rather than vertically (better at doing what you can already do)

Prefer vague and poorly-defined magic for its creative potential

Hate rules-lawyering

If you're still on the fence, my best advice would be to just give it a shot - and if you find (like I did) that it's not really for you, then you can always just take the bits of it you do like and use them in other systems. Because that, really, is the joy of TTRPGs at the end of the day - we all get to create our own games, according to what we and our tables find fun!

Edit because apparently I somehow posted the wrong version of this and it was missing the tail end of the conclusion lol

[angelicsentinel]

Wip challenge: Stray? :)

Ah, Stray. The delightful little albatross around my neck. It was a longfic request, back when I was taking them, for an explicit ShinKai pet roleplay fic. I'm about 20k of 30k into it. It's the longest nonposted wip on that list. More under the cut. CW for angst and dark romance.

-

tl; dr: Shinichi blackmails Kaito into an arrangement. Kaito takes it because he has nowhere else to go. When someones see a person as less than human, it's not that hard to excuse certain actions as just. And anyone can do it; there's no special thing that makes someone incapable of it. But it's also an escapist fantasy about having the power to redeem your abuser; Shinichi softens out at the end, but the abuse is repeated and explicit in text in the beginning.

-

[0]

Icy wind blows through the corridor, and Kaito shivers as he runs. It cuts through his threadbare suit.

Yet the hunger aches worse than the cold.

Prior to this, he never thought he could be so hungry. A gnawing, aching emptiness rocking through his body. It hurts so much. His stomach is hollow, caving in, and there's a thick lump in his throat.

He lets out a slow breath around the corner after he vaults over the last barrier, attempting to manage the pain. It's not working, but he can't give up now. Not when he's so close to finding out whether or not the gem is Pandora.

Footsteps echo in the corridor behind him, and so Kaito attempts to scale the wall to the vents. He's halfway up when his trembling fingers lose grip and he slips, falling hard to the floor.

Fuck. He doesn't have time for this. Kaito tries to get up, but his legs collapse underneath him and won't hold his weight. Somehow, he manages to rise to unsteady feet anyway, thundering up the stairs to the open roof access.

He quickly holds the gem up to the moon, and nothing. Not that it matters anymore anyway, but at least it's not Pandora.

Close footsteps again, the door swinging open, but he’s already over the rail, and—

Kaito slips, his foot catching over the top rail, the cording that pulls the frame out for his hanglider tangling into a mess, and he topples over the fence railing. He grasps hold of the lowest rung of the railing with one hand, fingers slipping. He’s going to fall, isn’t he, to his death, hungry and cold and desperate and having failed at his mission—

(why is he still doing this? Shouldn’t he have accepted already that it was worthless, that the whole thing with Pandora was a sham? But he thought the jewel was real enough to tear his family apart and that’s the only thing driving him on now)

—he can’t hold on, his grip is slipping, he reaches up with his other hand but the harsh wind at the top of the building causes him to swing wildly, his hand slips from the metal, he’s falling—

A hand, gripping his wrist. Another hand. Solid and warm. He looks up, and it’s the big little detective, naked fear on his face. Kaito grabs his wrist with his other hand, and he pulls him up, grunting and straining with Kaito’s dead weight.

Oh, right. He should help him, shouldn’t he? Kaito’s feet scrabble at the edge of the building, eventually finding purchase as he walks up the side of it, and tumbles back over the edge, onto the roof, inertia causing him to collapse on top of the detective, head against his chest and thigh between his legs.  

Now that the adrenaline from dangling over a hundred meters above the ground has left him, the hunger and exhaustion come back with double the force. Kaito’s vision is doubling, and he blinks to clear it away but it just makes it worse. He’s so tired. He tries to push himself up, but his leg trembles and won’t support his weight.

Oh, he’s dizzy, his head is swimming and spots are flickering before his eyes, white growing at the edge of his vision. The detective is too close, his breath hot on his cheek. Kaito blinks. His lips look warm, and his face is so red he can almost feel heat coming off it. Is it as warm as it looks? He wants to—

He wants—  

-

Kaito wakes, comfortable and content. His bed is warm and soft. He doesn’t want to get up, and snuggles further inside the blankets. But his head throbs insistently, and nausea and pain fight each other for control of his stomach.

And the scent of the bedding is not quite right. It’s not familiar, and the sheets are too smooth. He opens his eyes and finds himself in an unfamiliar room. That has him sitting up sharply before he groans. The room is spinning wildly before him, and he puts his head into his hands in order to ground himself a little. 

Then he tenses. His face is bare, and his hat and monocle have been placed on the table beside the bed. He's grateful he had the foresight to wear prosthetic face pieces. 

The last thing he remembers is trying to escape from the roof, and then he fell and was rescued by—

“Why am I not in a cell?” Kaito asks himself.

“Are you that eager to get arrested?” someone says. Kaito whirls, heart in his ears, to find the detective standing beside the bed with his arms crossed. He takes a chair from the nearby desk, spins it, and sits down in it, crossing his legs. “Because it wasn’t easy getting you past the task force. It would be a shame for all that hard work to go to waste.”

Kudō wouldn’t do that, unless… "You want something from me," Kaito says warily, fiddling with the sheets. "What is it this time?"

Kudō hmms, shifting in his chair. “Nothing.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You don't have to," Kudō says, his voice mild.

"If you don't want anything, then let me go."

"You're a criminal, Kid," Kudō says. “I don’t think I can just let you go."

"So, what, your plan is to keep me here indefinitely?" Kaito asks.

"I couldn't leave you there," Kudō says in lieu of answering his question, "and I'm not certain you could leave right now, even if you wanted to."

"So you brought me here," Kaito says.

"You're lucky I didn't leave you there to get arrested."

"Why didn't you?" Kaito asks.

Kudō is silent. Finally, he says, "It shouldn't be like that."

"Are you going to turn me in?" Kaito asks.

"That depends on you."

Even more wary now, Kaito says, "Oh? So you do want something from me."

"The jewel—" Kudō begins.

Kaito reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out the jewel, and throws it to him before he can even finish his sentence. "I don't need it," he says.

Kudō jerks back but catches it, narrowing his eyes. "—and your word that you won't commit a crime while you're here."

"So, it's alright when the crime I'm committing is for your benefit? I haven't forgotten the train, Detective. Where I nearly died because of your orders, where I could have, if I were a little slower in escaping. And it's not the first time."

Kudō is silent.

"That's what you want, isn't it?" Kaito continues. "'Sit, Stay, Heel, Kaitō.'  A loyal obedient dog," Kaito spits out the last word.

"And what if it is?" Kudō says quietly.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Kaitō caged and chained and let out only to do your bidding.” Kaito looks up and laughs. 

"Would you?" Kudō says.

"What?"

“Become my dog,” Kudō says. 

"Your dog," Kaito scoffs.

"My dog," Kudō agrees.

Kaito is speechless for a long moment. And then he laughs again. Wild, uncontrolled, desperate. “Why not? What’s one more indignity?”

"Yes?" Kudō asks, still in that same even tone.

"Yes, damn you," Kaito grounds out.

"Anything I say, you'll do?" Kudō asks.

"I said 'Yes,' Detective," Kaito says.

-

Ask me about my wips

-

It's so funny, there's a reason it's dark romance; the person making the request ghosted me. I never thought we were friends, but I did think we were polite acquaintances, at least, since we'd talked a few times before. I don't know what I did lol. At the time I determined I was ghosted, I didn't think I would finish it, but it's the sink-cost fallacy. I already had 5k in it.

Anyway, iirc, it began consensual and soft? I don't remember the exact details of the request; once the ghosting happened, I was hurt, so it bears little resemblance to the request and what I first started writing other than it's ShinKai and involves pet play. I just felt bitter about the situation and wanted to tell a story that resonated more personally with me as a survivor. In the end, that's why I decided to continue.

[guesswho2568]

Wondering how to continue walking

A short story (Well actually idk if counts as one but ehhhhhh), that I wrote for this new world I had come up with. Also includes art I did for it I like the piece, but I'm unsure on the writing, so any feedback would be rad.

Yesterday was what I could only describe as a giant mess. It’s been a tough few weeks, what with this lousy job and the move to this new potential town. It’s early in the process so there’s not much here, and it’s on such a young Landwalker too. As young as they can be before a city can even be thought about being built (Which is around 100 years I think?). Of course when I came into this job, I was expecting to be able to actually interact with the Landwalker, get to talk to the gentle creature that will hold our homes and lives, not just sit in the office building and make graphs all day. It’s exhausting, not in a physical way, but in a way in which no sleep could aid this exhaustion. 

And Today was no different, I had to stay up late tonight staring at a screen that had so many numbers it would make a mathematician cranky. It was tough getting off the chair, I had been sitting for so long that I think I left a bit of me still on it. But with a few steps and a sore back, I got up. I exited the building to be greeted by an empty street, the split moon and the stars greeted me as I stepped out of the building’s shadow and began my slow crawl back home. About half way through the walk I started to feel dizzy and sluggish, maybe staying awake for this long wasn’t a good thing for a guy in his late 40’s, because soon I found myself on the ground splayed out like a leaf, losing consciousness.

I was awoken to the feeling of a stick being poked into me, I looked around and I found myself way off the path I was taking, where was I exactly? Apparently I had found myself right at the top of the observation platform of the Landwalker, how did I get there? A bunny girl no older than 25 was staring at me with a stick behind her back albeit poorly. I think I recognized her as the daughter of my boss, however that was it for information I had. I tried to pull myself up only to be quickly stopped by the young girl.

“Hey now, I don’t think you should be trying to get up, not after that fall”

She must’ve been the one to bring me here, and while the act of kindness was appreciated, I didn’t like how the ground felt and I wanted to stand, one failed attempt later and I was back on the floor again.

“Hey, you’re back on the floor again.”

“I know” I responded, but I was frazzled, quickly realizing the situation I’m in, what happened to me? I could barely crawl up this bench, let alone stand. But why here? Why was I taken to the observation deck? Why not the clinic?

“May I please ask what’s going on?”

“Well what’s going on is you were face down on the pavement and Sammy saw ya and sent me over to grab ya and get you some water and bring you over here.”

I didn’t see anyone else besides the girl and the landwalker, so I was confused. “Sammy?”, as I said that, the girl made way for the landwalker and stated.

“Yeah, Sammy, you should know her, you live on her after all.”

Live on her?

“That’s enough Abby, thank you for your help, but is it okay if I talk with him one on one? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The landwalker…wanted to see me? But why?

Abby nods and waves then heads back down to town. “Sorry for poking you with a stick, I didn’t really know if you were dead or not.” And with that final remark, I was alone with Sammy. I didn’t really know what to say, thanks for housing us? Sorry we built a sandwich place on your back? I just kinda stared at her for a bit and noticed the flowers in her hair, which was actually just a bunch of bushes. I realized we had been staring quietly at each other for a while, she didn’t seem to mind, she was surprisingly patient.

“Ah sorry, still a bit shaken up about this whole situation, was uhm, she really on the fence on whether I was dead or not?”

“Not really, but still, I was very worried, you fell hard and fast, please sit down. I’m still worried about how you’re doing.”

I did feel a bit woozy still, so I sat down on a nearby bench. “It’s okay Miss Sammy, I just was a bit too tired that’s all, probably didn’t drink enough water as well. But why did you want to meet with me?”

She still had a worried look on her face, she wasn’t convinced. “Gregor, is it? I understand that this might seem strange but I’ve been watching you for a bit, well I’ve been watching everyone else here, but you confuse me the most.”

“Oh it’s not strange at all, I mean, we live on you, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you got curious, but I don’t really find myself strange, I go to work, then I go home.”

“But that is strange! Usually you would at least hang out with friends, or do something else other than those 2 things?”

Ouch, harsh, but it wasn’t exactly wrong, thinking about it, I scrunched up my face at the realization that, yeah people tend to not do only 2 things in their life.

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t want to come off as rude, I’m still new to this whole interaction thing, I’m sure you just really love your job! I know some people that love their job very much and sometimes they can be engrossed in their work.”

A double whammy for sure, but what she said struck something that made me think. I don’t love my job at all, but yet here I am working myself to literally exhaustion, passing out on the street being unable to stand. I didn’t quite know how to respond, but I felt like I had to say something.

“Hey, Sammy, this might be a weird question but how do you not get tired from all this walking?”

“Oh I do all the time, when it happens I usually stop and take a little rest, those are always good to have!”

“That’s true, but I meant more like, what do you do if you get tired of walking as a whole?”

“I’m guessing the job you have isn’t one you love?”

“You saw through huh?”

“It wasn’t a very good disguise. But you’re right, sometimes I just get bored of walking all the time, sometimes I want to jump and run all over the place. But that probably wouldn’t end well for those on my back.” She snickers a bit. “Thankfully humans don’t have the exact issue as I do, but in some way you have your own little town on your back no?”

I had a bit of trouble understanding what she meant, I didn’t have any family. What “town” could I have? She saw my puzzled look and quickly reiterated.

“You silly! You have your own life and wellbeing to care about, if I’m not wrong you have to pay for your house, food as well! I don’t really have such an issue, since I can just graze on some tree leaves, but you can’t really eat leaves, well besides those tiny bowls of leaves, but those still cost money.”

She was right, this path I walk is tiring but I can't just jump and run off it. If I simply quit now, I’ll have to leave this place, and I don’t really have any other job or housing opportunities left. But if that will only lead to destruction we’re right back to where we started.

“If I can’t just simply jump off this path I find myself trudging on, then what can I do?”

“It’s simple! Simply walk a bit to the left, or right if you prefer. Sometimes I find myself trying new paths to a destination, and while at first people were worried, they soon understood. Now we get to explore all sorts of new places!”

“Hmm, I can see what you mean. I guess getting a hobby would be pretty nice.”

“Oh yes, hobbies are great! What do you like to do? Abby likes to make music, she’s still new to it, but she’s getting so good!”

I never really thought about what I liked to do, reading this it may seem obvious, but there is one thing I’ve always liked.

“Writing, I like writing stories, those are always nice to do.”

“That’s great! I’ve always wanted to read a book, sadly they don’t make one’s in my size, so I usually have someone else read them to me. This path you’re walking, maybe you can stop to write a bit! I can understand that sometimes stopping and doing nothing may seem unhelpful, but walking forever without stopping only causes things like this to happen.”

“I guess you’re right, but I’m not sure if any amount of rest can prepare me for the road ahead. I feel as if the road is only going to get harder, and I have to make a change soon, or else, tonight’s fall will be the least of my problems.”

“Then while going left and right on the path, do it slowly, take slow steps that will allow you to save your energy, and look for it”

“It? What is this ‘it’?”

“An opening to make the jump that won’t hurt the town on your back, one that will allow you to be free of this rocky path you face.”

This path I face, one of being stuck in a dead end job, doing something I hate. Is something I still have to walk, but it doesn’t mean I have to run it, I can take my time, maybe step a bit off the path just enough so as to not constantly step on the rocks. And then, when I see the path I wish to take, one that I want. I’ll make the jump safely, but for now I’ll continue walking, but maybe I’ll take some days off. That would be good.

After the introspection, I hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. By the time we had finished talking, the moon was high into the sky, and the only light that shined upon us was the moon and one single lamp post.

“Thank you very much for the talk Sammy, it’s been wonderful finally getting to meet you. To be honest, it’s kind of the main reason why I wanted to do this job in the first place.”

“It was wonderful to meet you too Gergor! I hope we can talk more soon, whenever you have some free time and when I’m not traveling to our next destination. I hope to introduce you more to Abby, she is very kind, even if she doesn’t immediately show it. It’d be cool to be friends with you!”

“Yeah, I think that’d be cool as well. I think I’ll try to take some time off, I guess I should head out now.”

“Oh Gregor, let me give you a lift, don’t want you collapsing again.”

She bows her face down and motions me to climb up, it’s a bit strange but soon enough, with just a little movement, off we go. Being high off the ground was normal, but this was a bit different. But it was only for a moment, soon I was at the window of my house, I landed on the fire escape outside and went in through the window, waved goodbye, and went inside to take a nice long nap.

This morning on the phone, I asked my boss for some time off, surprisingly, he was kind enough to give me a week off! I think I know why that is, seeing as he seemed oddly worried about my health. But with that, I have a full week to myself, a nice little break in this path I’m walking, Tomorrow I’m planning on seeing Sammy, and take up that deal on being introduced to Abby. But for now, I’m going to finish writing this, and then I’m gonna take a nap.

This path I’m walking will wait, right now, I’m going to sleep.

[madegeeky]

So, I started watching this show (which, atm, is a limited series) BEEF and I'm not really sure if I like it. I feel compelled to watch more, which I guess is a point in it's favor, but beyond that after every episode I find myself going "Do I want to watch more of this?" I always end up answering yes but the fact that I've asked myself after episode is an interesting experience.

The basic premise is that two people have a road rage incident and then start to get into this long, prolonged thing where they just keep trying to fuck with the other's life, everything (slowly) escalating.

It's labeled as a comedy but I'm not sure that genre really fits at the moment. Later, maybe? I'm only on ep 4 (or was it 5?) out of 10.

So, I was reading the (non-spoierly) reviews for the show on letterboxd. I did this largely because I kept being so on the fence about whether or not to continue with the show that I wanted an idea of whether or not it was worth continuing. In my experience, on letterboxd, you can often get a decent idea of the flavor of a movie/show without getting super into the spoilers.

But I ran across one review that made me go: "Oh. Yeah. That. That's why I find myself unable to stop watching that show." Because Ian Curran's description of the show is spot on: "It takes one central emotion—anger—and explores every shade and offspring it has to offer: frustration, rage, pettiness, [...] resentment, contempt, jealousy, indignation, bitterness, and wrath."

I hadn't really been able to figure out why I kept coming back to this show and I think that above point is why. It's not something I've seen before because usually when you see something so focused like this it's in a 2-3 hour movie. With that runtime, there's only so much you can do and so much variety you can cover in such a limited time. BEEF is almost 6 hours, though, and so it has the ability to take its time exploring different elements. It has the ability to do buildup and then small release and then more build up but starting from a higher point and then small release etc etc. So the build up is very slow but you're very aware that things are escalating and escalating and you know that when things finally break, they're going to break really fucking bad. (Or, at least, that's the hope.)

I can't recommend this show at the moment; I don't know if I like it and I don't know if it's a good show. But I do find it interesting enough that I keep watching and so I'll let y'all know where I end up with it.

[hauntedadagium]

A Sword At Your Throat (Part 1): As the months tick by, your arms instructor, Ardyn, grows steadily more impressed with your capability. Seeing promising potential, he pushes you hard, but you can take it. Throughout the lengthy and rigorous training sessions you begin to build confidence— and feelings— for your tutor.

AU Ardyn x Reader. Ardyn is teaching you how to fight. It's hot, it's violent, at one point he's concerned which is cute. Yes, I included his armiger and his shadowstep ability because I'm a whore. CW: voilence, sexual tension, bad lang. Words: 2,501.

As you walked through the academy to the practise grounds, your fingers pressed into the cold, steel hilt of your silver sword. You grip it with purpose, with faith, ready for whatever trial Ardyn had scheduled you in for the day. The last few months the enemies you had encountered had grown bigger, stronger, more challenging; but he wanted to push you. He wanted to see you grow. Blossom into the fierce warrior he knew you could be.

You spent long evenings with the Chancellor over dinner, sometimes late into the night, discussing tactics and strategies, piling onto you an arms-worth of textbooks every time. He'd dedicated more time to you than any other trainee, but between professional discussions, you often caught his gaze lingering. Whether it was from across the training yard or by your side, when he looked into your eyes you felt your heart race and mouth grow dry.

The way his fingertips grazed yours when he directed your movements, purposefully pressing his body against you from behind, guiding your hand to demonstrate the proper swordsmanship techniques. It felt good when he praised you, that satisfied grin on his face, moulding you into the perfect apprentice.

You rounded a fence into the outdoor arena and caught sight of Ardyn stood at it's centre. It was a vast space with a dirt floor, vague foliage dotted about for cover. There were no spectators today; the arena was completely empty. It was a little odd— usually there would be observations by other students.

Taking a deep breath, you walked carefully toward him, sword held to one side. It was lightweight, perfectly balanced; a gift Ardyn had crafted for you some time ago. You carried it with you everywhere, ensuring it had the keenest edge whenever he called you for training.

Your eyes darted left and right; he had a tendancy to ambush you with monsters to practise with, and you often suspected some form of deception. Today was different, though. Why was he standing in the arena and not on the sidelines?

"Ah, right on time." He grinned, unfolding his arms. "Are you ready?"

Your focus locked on him, brow twitching. "I'm ready."

"Confident as ever, I see." He chuckled quietly. "I have a surprise for you."

"Oh yeah?" Your hand curled around the grip of your sword tightly. He was teasing you. "Let's have it."

"Fiesty," he said with a hiss, narrowing his eyes. "I expect this to be a little more challenging that your previous endeavours."

"I can take it," you ground your boots into the dirt.

"I do hope so." Ardyn straightened his back and leaned forward in a slow bow.

What exactly was he planning? You could feel heat prickle up your spine, heart pounding in anticipation. The moment he lifted his head, it was if you were sucked into his gaze. His amber eyes gripped you, a blantant grin on his face. You suppressed the urge to turn and look around, to potentially see what may have been approaching from another direction, but you couldn't tear yourself away from him.

In a sudden, powerful blast of black smoke— Ardyn disappeared.

"Shit," you whispered under your breath, spinning on your heel to turn around just as he appeared behind you. His red sword was already raised above his head, cutting the air downward toward you.

In a flash you raised your sword to block him, and you could feel the pressure, his power, forcing your feet back through the dirt. Grinding your teeth you pushed back, managing to thrust him away from you.

"You?" You staggered back, exasperated. "You want me to fight you?!"

"What better test?" He lowered his weapon and took a single step toward you which you immediately replicated, refusing to give into the intimidation. He towered over you, tilting his head to one side. "Won't you give me this dance?" He extended his free hand and you swung for it with your sword, slashing through the air— but you missed. Of course you did.

He was much more powerful than you, you both knew that. This was the true test of your resolve.

"I won't go easy on you," you tried to forge some kind of courage, to which he simply laughed.

"Give me all you've got." With that, he lunged for you again, thrusting his blade forward. You spun around it, taking steps to further the distance between you.

"None of that shadow bullshit," you spat, "that's cheating."

"Cheating?" Ardyn pointed his sword towards you, "Do you think a real foe would care for your feelings toward cheating?" He cackled, standing firmly in place. "No. In the enemies eyes, you win... or you die—" he came for you again, landing a flurry of blows left and right, each of which you feebly managed to parry. The blunt impact of his sword against yours vibrated through your whole body and the ring of steel echoed throughout the arena.

"If I play dirty—" again, he disappeared from view in long tendrils of black smoke, and a voice whispered in your ear "—it's only so you'll learn."

You spun around and swung for him, but as quickly as he came, he disappeared again, rematerialising in the centre of the arena.

"Bastard," you whispered. You knew you couldn't win with brute strength. You weren't sure you could win at all, but you had to try. Perhaps if you impressed him, he would take your relationship more seriously.

"I thought you said you wouldn't go easy on me?" He shook his head, "I'm disappointed."

Rage boiled in your chest. If he was intending to engage your fury, he was winning, but you were certain it was some kind of trick. If you flew into a blind rage you would become clumsy and he could take advantage of that. He'd taught you every dirty little trick in the book, wondering how you could use something against him.

"The enemy doesn't care if you're hurt," he stepped forward, "if you weak," another step, "if you're angry."

"They just care that you're dead, and they will stop at nothing to ensure that happens." He ran towards you this time, blade outstretched to one side. He let out a cry as he swung for you and you parried just in time, the force weakening your grip on your sword.

"Fight me," he said, your swords grinding together in front of his chest.

Panic seeped in. You were losing your composure. The pressure to impress him coupled with your dismal lack of comparative strength was too much. Taking the opportunity whilst you were lost in thought, Ardyn swiped his weapon aside, lifting his leg to boot you right in the stomach.

You went flying across the arena, landing with a thud as your body scraped across the ground. He wasn't toying with you. This was serious.

You groaned loudly in pain, clutching your stomach, one hand somehow still wrapped around your sword. "Gods, Ardyn." You climbed wearily to your feet, hunched over posture attempting to conceal the pain somewhat. "That fucking hurt."

"Good," he smirked, walking towards you. "Next time it won't be my boot in your stomach, it'll be my sword."

Something filled your heart as he spoke that you'd never felt in his presence before. Fear. It struck you as you knew his sword would if you let him near you.

"Given up already?" As he reached you, his sword vanished in a spray of pink. Now unarmed, he leaned over and pressed both hands to his knees, tipping his head from side to side. "Perhaps you'd find me more manageable like this?"

"Fuck you," you said through gritted teeth, unfurling your body.

"That's the spirit." He stood up straight and held his arms out either side of him. "Hit me with everything you've got."

With a flick of his arms, his armiger appeared behind him, astral weapons pointed directly towards you. A host of them hovered around him, glinting in the daylight.

"You rid yourself of your sword, only to present me with this?" you couldn't help but laugh pathetically, "do you think this some kind of advantage?"

"No," he replied simply, shaking his head. "I'm hoping it'll wake you up."

One of his weapons shot toward you and you leaned out of the way, feeling the air swish past your body as it sailed through the air.

"You're gonna get me killed," you stood your ground but a few feet away, sword poised.

"So be it," he shrugged casually, "Now... Move."

A flurry of his weapons hurtled towards you, one by one, zipping past your body as you parried and ducked back and forth. The barrage continued until but one was left, and you felt your chest heaving, struggling for breath as you dodged and rolled away from his onslaught of attacks.

Whether it was a momentary lapse in concentration or judgement, the final weapon sailed toward you and you leaned your body back just in time, though the blade skimmed past your cheek, blood pissing onto the ground beside you.

Immediately you dropped your sword and fell to your hands and knees, pain searing in the flesh of your cheek.

"Shit," the blood seeped into your mouth and you spat on the ground, hearing Ardyn's footsteps hurry toward you.

You were injured and in pain, but your mind whirred with one thing: opportunity. If you could garner enough concern from him, perhaps he'd let his guard down. He did want to fight dirty, after all.

"Oh dear," he skidded to a stop by your side and knelt down, pushing your shoulders so you would sit up on your knees. "Let me look at you."

Something in the tone of his voice; worry, panic; he hadn't meant to actually hurt you. Maybe this time he'd gone a step too far.

Ardyn's hand cupped your chin as he scooted closer and examined you, lips twisted into a snarl but his brow conveying unease. You let your eyes remain heavy, half closed, one hand by your side sliding through the dirt subtly to reach for your weapon.

Blood trickled down your cheek onto your chin, soaking his hand and gloves. It made it's way down the grooves of his uniform, staining his white shirt cuffs red.

"Can you hear me?" he cocked his head and you feigned semi-consciousness, incoherently grumbling a reponse to his question.

Your fingers found your weapon, slowly snaking around the hilt and gripping hard. Just as Ardyn turned your face to one side to take a better look, you swung your weapon up off the ground, curving in an upward arc toward his face.

But you'd miscalculated. He was ready. He'd seen through your parlour tricks and ducked out of the way in plenty of time, rolling back into a stand and kicking the weapon out of your hand. You felt the bones crunch and your knuckles shatter, screeching as once again you found yourself on your hands and knees.

"My my, that was a dirty trick. Now I'm impressed," he chuckled, "Perhaps I underestimated you." Summoning his blade back into his hand, he approached you, kicking hard into your ribs so you fell onto your side.

You yelped in pain, blood spattered dirt covering your clothes. You rolled onto your back, fingers clawing at the ground. Your weapon was far out of reach now.

As Ardyn reached you he kneeled over you, legs straddling your lower body, with one hand planted by your head and the other on his blade, he lifted the weapon to press against your throat.

"Do you surrender?"

Your eyes flickered open to see his face above yours, golden eyes wild and hungry. He drank up every last bit of your panic, your fear, as the cold steel grazed the flesh at your neck.

"You know I could end your life right here," he leaned closer and grit his teeth. "I expected better from you."

Your tangled thoughts scrambled for a retort, a way out of this dire situation. You could feel his breath rolling down your neck, his lower body pinning you to the ground. Gods, it was taking all of your strength not to kiss him, let alone fight him off.

"I yield," you breathed out heavily, blood still coarsing down the contours of your face.

"Pathetic," he grunted, about to move away from you until—

You spat in his face. A hunk of spit mixed with blood sprayed across his features and he flinched. You were so angry, aroused, you didn't know what the fuck came over you but you were pissed. Pissed that he'd gotten you into this state, hot, bothered, bloodied. He'd marred your face permanently. And for what? To teach you a lesson?

Ardyn's head turned slowly back to face you. You heard a deep growl rumble in his throat as he grabbed a fistful of your collar with one hand to sit you up, legs still straddling you. He pulled hard, moving his blade to one side, your faces mere inches apart.

"If you ever do that again," he used the back of his sword hand to wipe his face, "I'll kill you."

You smiled. You couldn't help it. This, this is how you'd beaten him. Broken him. Gotten him to admit he was utterly livid with you. You couldn't best him physically, but mentally you'd considered it your victory. Let that be a lesson to him for the beating he'd just issued you.

"Go to the infirmary and get cleaned up," he said, emotionless, about to let go of your shirt—

Your hands flew up to meet his, clasping them around your collar still. You didn't want him to let go. You wanted him to stay there. To kiss you. To relish in his victory over you by claiming your broken body as his.

It was a contest of wills from that point. His face softened slightly, and though you were sure you looked a mess, his eyes traveled from your lips and back to your eyes. You stared at one another for some time, his eyes flicking back and forth between yours, calculating his next move.

"Or do you wish to continue?" he finally asked, voice low, his face edging closer to yours. After months of pining, you finally had him exactly where you wanted him. And clearly, he wanted you too.

You weren't sure whether it was you or him that closed the gap between you but when your lips met, he kissed you deeply, passionately, furiously.

You heard his blade clatter to the ground as that hand now raked through your hair, grabbing a fistful and pulling on it slightly. You could taste blood on your tongue, and subsequently on his, his vigorous movements needy and claiming.

His chest heaved as he pulled away, fist still tangled in your hair. "Forget the infirmary—" he dove back in for a long kiss before continuing, "—I'll take care of you myself."

>> Part 2

[race-week]

Why Can't F1 Run Reverse Races?

Now I'm not talking about races where the cars stay in reverse the whole time and try to navigate the circuit, I'm questioning why when they have ran multiple races around the same circuit they haven't gone the other way around it.

I've tried to keep this relatively short so if there's any questions or you want me to go into more detail about things just ask, and I am very sorry about my drawings.

There are a few reasons why F1 can't run reverse races.

The big one is that racing circuits are designed to either be clockwise or anticlockwise circuits, this is something that is decided quite early on in the design process because it has an effect on things like where the runoff should be, where to put the pit entry and exit, where to put escape roads as well as where are the best places to put grandstands.

All F1 circuits must meet FIA Grade 1 Circuit Requirements and hold an FIA Grade 1 Licence, any track modifications as well as any alternative track layouts must be signed off by the FIA and have separate licences (this includes a reverse track layout)

The runoff is one of the most important points about running reverse races as reverse races can drastically change the speed that a car will be travelling at through a corner, for example, cars will be travelling very fast down the Wellington Straight, having to go very fast into Aintree and then brake hard whilst turning tightly for The Loop all whilst without locking up, this would be incredibly hard.

Like I said before whether the circuit is clockwise or anticlockwise determines the placement of run off, this is because it has been determined the direction that cars will be crashing as well as the speed that they will likely be carrying at each section. Club is currently a relatively slow corner as you come onto the pit straight but in reverse it'll be mightily quick, therefore needing a much deeper gravel trap which would require the Club grandstands to be moved backwards, there also would not be enough gravel on the side that is currently the entrance to Club as in reverse this is where most of the incidents will happen.

This is the current Silverstone Circuit with the run off and gravel traps coloured yellow and any buildings and grandstands in red. The white rectangles are to illustrate cars with the arrows being the directions that they would likely go in an incident.

Now this is what would happen if you tried to run Silverstone backwards without any changes (car direction is cyan) as you can see sometimes the car will conveniently find itself in a gravel trap however it's not one that would be deep enough or the correct orientation for it to be properly safe, and oftentimes these cars would be crashing into concrete walls instead, or worse grandstands.

Here are some of the changes that would need to happen, (gravel trap extensions in pink, buildings moved in cyan) as you can see these are likely to be some costly modifications and even then it wouldn't be safe, most notably this section

The issue with this bit is that two very fast sections of track would end up sharing a gravel trap that is way too small for either of them, as I said prior this section through Aintree and The Loop (bottom line) would be very difficult for drivers to get right and would often result in them locking their brakes, and well if they did that at the same time that someone went off in Maggots and Becketts (the top line) the two cars would very easily collide in the gravel and the only way to prevent that would be to put a fence up, but that still doesn’t solve the issue that the gravel trap would be too small for the speeds that they were going at.

There are also walls and barriers that surround the circuit, keeping Marshall's and equipment safe, now these walls running alongside the track aren't one solid wall but lots of diagonal walls, as such (if the cars were moving left to right) this is so that Marshall's are protected from the cars but can still get to them in an emergency. If the track was reversed a car would be able to crash directly into the gap or at least shower the marshall's with considerable debris. The marshall's would be too exposed for it to be safe and as such the walls would need to be set up the other way around which would take time and money.

In general all of these changes would cost at least 8.5 million Euro and that's even before you tackle the pit lane, the pit exit would join the main track on the inside line just before the cars reach Stowe, this is a potential problem for cars as they are likely to get caught in the blindspot of other drivers and squeezed into the wall. The pit entry meanwhile would be on the outside of a fast right hand corner, which would be susceptible for incidents, therefore the pit entry would have to be brought much earlier in the corner with a larger wall surrounding it.

Other things like access roads both inside and outside of the circuit would need to be changed and made more accessible as well and possibly new access points created all together.

Also a lot of these changes aren't reversible so the track wouldn't be able to run both clockwise and anticlockwise races, putting them back in the same situation that they are currently in.

[doorbloggr]

Saturday 22/5/21 - Learning When it is OK to Drop a Series

The way I consume shows and books makes it difficult to keep a constant schedule of entertainment. I am very guilty of binge watching/reading, when I start a series, I will watch up to ten episodes in one sitting well after midnight. Then i sit around for weeks at a time putting off starting the next thing, knowing it too will take all my attention for a few days.

Unfortunately this binge behaviour means that I have often been a poor judge of character when it comes to whether I should finish something. Hey I'm already 10 episodes into this show, might as well watch all 24 episodes. And that has meant I've got a number of series on my Finished Anime List that I sort of feel wasted my time.

Higurashi is moe-horror, a very specific flavour of anime/manga where the characters and themes are cute on the surface but there is abuse, murder and monstrosities when you get even skin deep.

The true catalyst for this epiphany was an anime called Higurashi: When they Cry NEW. I followed up on it after a streamer I watch said the original series was one of their favourite anime. The show is a psychological and physical horror, and as I've discussed in previous blog posts, my domain is usually Slice of Life, so... a far cry from my comfort zone. I told the two friends I get anime reccomendations from that I was watching it and their reaction was very telling of signs I shouldve read.

The friend who suggests me Slice of Life and Isekai/Fantasy anime told me that he would never touch an anime like Higurashi with a ten foot pole. The friend who suggests me Fan Service and Horror anime told me that she tried to watch Higurashi but thought it was pretty dumb and hard to watch.

I continued to watch the show, I was 8 episodes in, and wanted to see if it got better. At 17 episodes, I was questioning again whether I should drop it, but I was almost done, so why not just finish? I regretted that.

This post is not a recommendation against Higurashu by the way, but my opinion is, if you're ok with very visceral gore horror, heavy themes of abuse, and looping stories that only get scarier with each retelling... hey, Higurashi could be for you, but in hindsight, it wasn't for me.

After I finished Higurashi, I caught up on Log Horizon, an anime I am very familiar with and enjoyed a lot.

After watching Higurashi I vowed to myself to only search out anime I know I'll be interested in, or take on suggestions from my friends who know what I like. Since Higurashi I haven't chosen to drop any series, but I also have only watched one Isekai and three Slice of Life's since then, and I thoroughly enjoyed all start to finish. But to safeguard myself against future bad binges, I'm gonna end this post with some advice to myself, and others, on how to ensure your media consumption is enjoyable.

1. Keep records and check for patterns

On my phone I have a Notes file detailing all the anime I've finished. I mostly do this because I have an obsession with documenting my habits and looking back, but it also helps as a way to reflect on what type on anime I have enjoyed in the past.

If you have a record of what you have watched, you can look over the list and find trends. Then you choose new series that have a lot in common with your faves.

I have enjoyed many romance anime, and the one mecha anime I've seen, Guren Lagann, I enjoyed a lot. So when heard that Darling in the Franxx was a mecha anime with romance, I was veryyy interested.

2. Swap stories with friends

On the list I discussed above, about 80% of the anime I've watched were recommendations from friends. It's like a learning AI, but with real people. Friends give you a bunch of anime to watch and you tell them which ones you enjoyed. Then they can get back to you with anime they think you'd enjoy based on past preferences.

Ben-to was an anime I recently watched because a friend told me it's just the type of show I'd enjoy.

My friends have gotten really good at recommending me anime that I enjoy because I've told them when I'm watching a new show and whether I like it or not. Because of my long dry spells, I dont watch a tonne, but I also give my own recommendations back and they've enjoyed my suggestions.

3. Unsure? Four episodes

Ages ago, I was watching a podcast run by 3 streamers called LewdCast and they had a segment where they had an anime bookclub; basically they'd come to each podcast having watched an anime and discuss whether they liked it or not. But having to watch an entire series per week not knowing whether you'd like it is exhausting. So their rule was to watch the first four episodes.

Food Wars was actually a recommendation from LewdCast that I was very hooked into by Episode 4, so I watched the entire series and it is still my fave anime this year.

Episodes 1 and 2 are usually world building and introduction of themes and characters. So dismissing an anime after the first episode isn't giving it a proper chance. But after 4 episodes, the themes have been established, you're introduced to core characters, and you've been given a glimpse of what the flow or hook of the show is. You're at least partway into an arc and you understand how the show will operate overall.

Some people will tell you, "Oh this show is a slow burn, but it gets really good deep into the first season", but the truth is, if you're hating it or not hooked after 4 episodes, it's probably not worth it. If a friend I know tells me, "trust me, you'll enjoy this", then I will probably stick with a show I'm on the fence with more then 4 episodes. But if you sought out a show on your own and you don't know if you'd like it, give it four episodes. If you don't wanna finish it after that, drop it.

[yunho-es]

Member/s: Jongin(EXO)

Genre:NSFW, Vampire!Kai

Warnings: mentions of blood, swearing, NSFW content

Words: 2348

I made a little moodboard for this oneshot 😊

I could almost hear my blood flow through my veins as I moved through the dark hallways. I had taken my shoes off so I make less noise, so now I'm roaming the dark castle completely barefoot. An amateurish move, but that was the only thing I could think of. I stopped in my tracks when I felt a cold breeze on my left side.

My heart sunk in fear and I found myself gulping and getting ready to run. I was lost, so there was no way I was turning around: going forward was the only way. I had promised myself that if I got out alive, I'd kill my colleagues. I wasn't one of the best investigators like them, they had just transferred me last week to a higher level. They used me as a bait to see how safe the castle is.

When I felt the cold breeze on my right side, I dropped my sneakers on the floor and started running for life. He's here. He exists. And he may not be as merciful as his crazy fangirls describe him. I want to keep my blood inside me and my neck clean from any bites.

I sighed in relief when I found a stairway that led down to what seemed like the garden. Hopefully, it's not a graveyard. Just as my hand reached for the fence, a firm, cold hand grabbed my wrist and I found myself screaming uncontrollably. I closed my eyes almost shaking in fear. The cold breeze was everywhere around me and the hand was still on my wrist. Soon I feel the other one on my mouth, muffling my ear piercing screams.

"Quiet."

The voice was husky and made me obey him. Before I could say anything else, I felt a strong pain on the back of my head and I found myself falling into his cold arms.

***

I was awoken by a loud slamming that sounded like a window being shut. I could hear the wind, but I couldn't see anything. When I had troubles to open my eyes, I realised I was blindfolded. That son of a b*tch blindfolded me. I tried moving my arms, but they were tied by a soft, silky material. I couldn't feel any pain, so I guessed he hadn't done anything to me.

"Feeling comfortable?", the voice spoke.

"Untie me. Now.", I demanded.

"No.", I shivered as I felt a breath near my ear. "Who sent the little girl to a dangerous castle at night?"

"That's my job."

"Your job is to break into homes? What did you even plan to do, stupid girl? Go inside, check if I'm real, then quickly go outside? Maybe snap a few pictures?" The blindfold was roughly taken off of my eyes and I immediately closed them. I wasn't ready for whatever was in front of me. "You can't even look at me. I don't understand. Are you really stupid or did someone make you do this?"

"I'm not stupid. I'm just trying my best and-"

"Look at me.", the husky voice interrupted me. "Open your eyes, dolly. You came to play, now let's play. Open them."

He quickly went from playful to serious and it scared me to death. I was squirming on the soft mattress, as if I really had a way out of this. Then, I felt his cold fingers wrap around my neck and I gasped. That's it. I'm going to die.

"You smell very nice. You look enchanting, so ready to be my sweet treat. So ready to die."

For a second I thought I stopped breathing. His movements were slow and I knew I could expect anything from him. "No, please-"

"Quiet."

My soul almost left my body when I felt a warm, wet tongue brushing against my neck, from my collarbone to my jaw. I heard low humming as he pulled away and I finally allowed myself to open my eyes.

I was greeted with dark, red eyes and a smirk. I was laying on a big bed with red sheets and the man in front of me had both of his legs on my sides, trapping me between them. He was on his knees, his hands on the sides of my head. "Hello." I thought of screaming again, but it would just make him angry. Who knows where he'd tie me up next? A dungeon maybe?

My eyes were staring back at his as I tried to breathe as normal as I could. His body was almost pressing against mine, but he supported himself with his hands on the mattress. "Please, let me go.", I begged. The brown haired man smirked at my words and licked his lips slowly.

"I let go everyone who enters. It's no fun anymore, don't you think?", he whispered. His nose was almost touching mine and I could feel his soft hair brushing against my forehead. "I'm sorry to inform you, but you're staying here for now. I can't let go a prey like this. Unused. Fresh. Perfect."

I could almost feel my heart jumping out of my chest. This was too much for me. I could end up dead in a second, so I tried my best to be nice towards him. "What do you want from me?", I asked, trying to find a way to get out of here.

"I don't want anything from you, I want you. I want to use the best I can from you. It would be a tragedy to let you go, stupid girl."

I watched as he took the soft material in his hands again and put it back on my eyes. "What kind of sick games do you plan to play?"

"Do not worry. You're going to love it. But not now. Tomorrow, dolly."

The shadow above me disappeared, just like the coldness that followed him everywhere. "Where are you going?"

"Good night.", he didn't answer my question. The room went dark and the door shut behind him. And he left me there, on a big bed with soft sheets, tied up and blindfolded. It was going to be an amazing night.

***

I managed to fall asleep after what seemed like hours of squirming. The room was still dark, so I assumed he had kept his windows closed. I figured it was because of the fact that he was a vampire, but they had advanced and our recent studies showed that they aren't what they used to be. Except two things: manipulative and filthy rich. They kept their old way of living in castles and dressing in dark clothes. All I could see last night were his dark hair and dark red eyes. I couldn't find the strength to look away, his eyes were too mesmerizing. The bastard had locked me inside and God knew when he would let me go. If he ever planned on letting me go, of course.

I tried to free myself one more time, and to my surprise, my hands were untied. Hurriedly, I took off the blindfold from my eyes and gasped. The room was big, covered in paintings and wooden furniture. I was now sitting on a big bed, covered with black and red sheets. They were silky and soft and I had a feeling that I would slip on the floor any second.

"Good morning, little bird."

My head turned towards the door. He was slowly walking towards me with a smirk on his face. His lips were matching is red eyes and his hair was slicked up, a few strands falling in front of his eyes. "F*ck you.", I hissed at him. I couldn't find the strenght to move, so I just sat there, waiting for his next words.

"F*ck me? Is that what you want? I could make that wish come true."

His hand pressed against my chest and pushed me to lay back on the bed. I found myself in the same position as last night, with him above me again. "I-Is that blood?", I gulped staring down at the red liquid on his bottom lip. A laugh escapes his mouth and he slowly licks the remaining drops of blood from his lips.

"I guess I could say your colleagues were tasty.", he smirked.

I wasn't sad. That's what they deserved for letting the youngest one go. The way things went, I thought I might join them very soon. "So you had your breakfast. Why do you need me?" I couldn't help but admit that he was a big refreshing, compared to all the old vampires I've encountered until now. He was extremely good looking and his smirk, whether I liked it or not, shot me right in the stomach. I always pitied women who threw themselves on his kind, just because some of them were handsome and gave off a big dominant energy. But right now, I'm starting to question myself.

"Oh, we're going to have so much fun. I bet nobody ever pleased you they way they should have. Have you ever been pleased at all, dolly?", his hands reached towards the bedframe again and I mentally groaned when I saw the silk laces. I gulped as he took both of my hands and tied them up, completely leaving me in his hands again. "Have you?", he repeated.

"No.", I whispered. I had never been pleased by anyone, just myself a few times. It felt good, but my small hands couldn't do the perfect job.

"I will show you, little bird. As much as I want to watch your lips take in my c*ck, I think it's fair if I show you true pleasure this time. That's what you deserve after being trapped here all night, don't you think?"

I shivered as his cold fingers brushed against my skin while taking off my sweatshirt. He licked his lips one more time and looked at me. All my clothes were soon laying on the cold floor and all I could do was stare at him and his movements. I'd lie if I said that I didn't enjoy his next one: his hands unbuttoned his white, long sleeved shirt and revealed his muscular body. He rolled his sleeves up and placed his hands on my waist.

"Now, darling. I need to know how good I'm doing my job, alright? So you will say my name. Say it as loud as you want.", the brown haired boy brought his lips close to mine, almost touching them, "Kai. Say it."

His soft lips brushed against mine as he spoke, almost making me faint. "Kai.", I whispered into his mouth.

"Good girl."

His lips left mine and he pressed them on my neck. His tongue left a wet trace and he stopped when he reached my breasts. I let out a gasp when I felt a cold hand grabbing my breast, carefully playing with it, while the other one still layed on my waist. The pleasure was building up at the bottom of my stomach with every single movement he did on my breasts and I found myself sighing in pleasure. The pleasure stopped too soon. He brought his tongue back to my skin and left traces until he reached my lower stomach.

"Don't worry. You're going to beg for more.", as soon as he said that, Kai pressed his cold fingers on my warm sensitive skin, sliding them between my folds.

"Oh-"

"My name, little bird. Say my name.", he was enjoying every second of it. He kept rubbing my clit softly, earning quiet moans from me. "Or am I not doing a good job?"

His fingers sped up and now I found myself moaning louder, internally begging for more. The feeling was so much better than when I did it. He knew exactly what to do. "More, please.", I managed to beg.

I watched him as he lowered his head with a smirk and moved his fingers. He looked up at me once again, then spread my folds with his two fingers before sticking his tongue out. I tugged at the silk laces as he slowly licked me up and down, taking his time.

"Kai-", I breathed out and threw my head back. My body was completely relaxed in his hands and pleasure was starting to build up in my stomach again.

"Beautiful.", he whispered against my clit, then sped up his movements. His other hand joined his tongue, earning much louder moans and gasps from me. The ball of pleasure kept growing, and his tongue worked harder against me. Kai occasionally let out a few hums, pleased with my noises. "So wet and needy, stupid girl." At this point, I didn't mind him calling me that. It even made me whimper, causing him to laugh. The wet sounds he was making made everything hotter. I couldn't believe how good a person can feel. He looked so focused and pleased with his impact he had on me. "Come on, baby. Finish for me. Show me how good I make you feel."

He pulled away from me, but his fingers kept working. His pace got quicker and messier, showing no mercy to my sensitive clit. Luckily, my wetness made it easier for him to move and better for me to feel. Suddenly, a big wave of pleasure washed over my body. I let go of the laces gasping for air. My lips called out his name a few more times in a whisper.

"Good girl.", he repeated, untying my hands. My body was tired and helpless, so I just layed there in front of him, waiting for his next step. "If you wish to investigate again, I will be here. A rookie like you never gets enough of games like this."

He was right. Even though I layed there still tired, my mind was replaying all the moments which had happened just a few minutes ago. I knew I was going to come back again.

[dailyaudiobible]

05/18/2021 DAB Transcript

1 Samuel 22:1-23:29, John 10:1-21, Psalm 115:1-18, Proverbs 15:18-19

Today is the 18th day of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is always a privilege, it’s always an honor for us to get together like this and have the accessibility to the Scriptures like we do and read them fresh and listen to what God is saying through the…the Bible. It is a joy every day to take the next step forward together. And, so, let’s do that. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. We’re still working our way through first book of Samuel. We’re pretty clear now in how David and Saul’s lives our intertwined. King Saul wants David to be dead and David is running for his life and trying to find a way to survive. And, so, let’s pick up the story. 1 Samuel, chapters 22 and 23 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we passed by a very famous portion of Scripture in the gospel of John today. And, so, we’ll talk about it and its context but let's start by just zooming in on a couple of key words here, “steal, kill, destroy.” So, if you are being said stolen from than something that belongs to you in your possession has been taken by someone who has no right. Kill, we can pretty much understand. Although for something to be killed doesn't necessarily mean you're dead. Things can die within us - dreams, hopes, desires. And then destroy is to render something that was perfectly usable, completely broken and worthless. Actually, if you want to get technical here, to destroy something is and its existence. So, like if…if your house burns down may have insurance and everything like that to rebuild another one. But the one you did live in was destroyed, its existence as it was, has ended. Steal, kill, destroy. If we look at our lives just trying to live, right, just trying to make it through another week, just trying to do our very, very best we can see that these themes are around us. Sometimes it feels very much like we’re being stolen from and its nothing we can put our fingers on. It's not physical, it’s “something is being taken.” Sometimes it feels like we can be experiencing theft, stealing, killing, and destroying like this…this is…this is happening. This is happening to me and I don’t know how to stop it. Jesus said, “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” In other words, the opposite of what the thief's ambitions are. So, doesn't that essentially describe life among humanity. That one verse, very famous, John 10:10, very famous verse, but that really encapsulates just about everything doesn't it? And, so, how is it that we find this concise statement from the lips of Jesus? What’s He talking about? Because John 10:10, this is a quotable verse. This gets said every week. This gets that all of the time, but it's part of a conversation just like John 3:16 is a part of a conversation when Jesus says, “for God so loved the world.” He’s in the middle of a conversation with a man named Nicodemus under the cover of night. So, this famous verse, John 10:10, “the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy” is part of a…of a conversation that Jesus is having and He's discussing shepherding. He…He's using the analogy of…of shepherding, that a flock of sheep they…they may go in and stay in a pen with many other flocks of sheep. It was a custom of the shepherds to keep the sheep together and guard them all in one place during the night, so that a predator or thief couldn’t come and take them. And then when morning comes and it’s time to go out to…out to pasture then each shepherd comes and calls its flock, and the sheep follow their shepherd because they know His voice. So, if you're a shepherd and you got 10 sheep and your sheep are in a pen with 100 sheep and they're all bleeding and they're all moving around but you come, and you call your 10 sheep that you spend your life with, that you love them and you know them by name and you would lay her life down to protect them and you call them, they hear you, they trust you, they know you. Out of the many they come running to their shepherd so that they can go out to pasture. And Jesus in this discussion is basically saying that's the way of it. Anybody who doesn't go in the sheep gate and call his sheep how isn't the shepherd. The one trying to get over the wall into the pen isn't the shepherd. Anyone who's not just going in the front door, who’s trying to get in some other way isn't the shepherd. They’re, a thief and a robber according to Jesus, but the one who just walks into the front door and calls their flock, and the sheep hear their shepherd's voice, and they follow the shepherd to pasture, that's the true shepherd. Speaking of those sheep and quoting Jesus, “a stranger they will not follow. They will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” So, this gives us some context to what Jesus is talking about. And, so, now putting our famous verse in context, Jesus said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father. And I lay down My life for the sheep.” Okay. So, it's not too much of a stretch for us to understand the metaphor here, that we are the sheep, and He is the good shepherd. But what we should probably understand is that if we are His sheep, we know His voice, which means that we can hear His voice, which means that He's using His voice, which means that if it's not His voice and it's somebody else's voice saying that He's the shepherd we know better because we know the voice of our shepherd and we shy away from that interloper like sheep do. I mean my neighbor has sheep and a flock and, you know, they walk around and they…they bleat and do sheep things and if I walk over by the fence, and they are very observant creatures, if I walk over toward them, they're going to stop what they're doing and pay very close attention to what I'm doing. And if I continue and I say, “hi guys. Good morning beautiful sheep.” Even though I’m being nice, they don’t know my voice. They get skittish. They want to go somewhere where they feel more safe. A flock of sheep feels safe with its shepherd. They trust the shepherd. So, if we didn't already know this, there are competing voices out there that want things from us, whether they want our money or they want our allegiance or they want our vote or they want our voice. And often enough we can find ourselves following when we should slow down. We've been learning quite a bit about how we got…it doesn’t have to be a major slowdown, it's just gotta be we are intentional about not reacting. There are forces out there that want to steal, kill, and destroy. And that's a pretty sure bet if we've lost the voice of our Shepherd and have gotten isolated. If we’ll think this through. Like, if we’ll actually take some time to meditate on this today many things start making sense and it should give us a profound desire to hear the voice of the Shepherd and to know the voice of the Shepherd. And we might think, “I know…I do…I do…I’ve walked with the Lord for years. And, so, I know what that feels like within me when God is prompting or leading or speaking.” And others maybe like, “I just don't even know where to start.” Simple enough way to start is to simply become aware of your senses, which is not to say like, “oh, just follow your feelings around.” But when something feels off…isn't it weird how we can be in a situation that looks normal but something's not right, something's not right. We don't know what it is but something's not right. And, so, we have this kind of intuition. Sometimes we can figure it out sometimes we can’t. If we’re slowed down enough we can ask ourselves, “is this prompting…is this sense…like if…if I'm gonna go forward with this…this path that I'm…that I'm deciding, will this lead me into life abundant? Is my shepherd there? Like, is this gonna lead me deeper into Jesus or is this about me and my own gratification in some sort of way?” If we just get basic, then we can build a foundation and begin to mature. We can simply ask, “can…can this be done in the name of Jesus? Does this bring love? Will I be known by my love that I’m a disciple in this situation? We don't have to be rocket scientists or have a PhD in theology. My neighbor’s sheep don't. I don't even know if they know their sheep to be honest, but I do know that they know the voice of their shepherd, which in this particular story from Jesus seems to be the goal. So, it's an attainable goal. And if we learn the voice of our shepherd and follow the voice of our shepherd into pasture, well that might change our whole life. And, so, let's meditate upon that today and move in that direction today because that will lead us deeper and closer to Jesus today.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit come. We need to know Your voice. We need to know it clearly. And we confess that so often we’re confused about it, but that might be less about Your withholding from us and more about our unwillingness to cultivate, to learn, to listen, to be present. And, so, help us Holy Spirit because how we've navigated this far in so many situations without Your voice, that's…it's a miracle. It's Your kindness and Your mercy and Your patience, shepherding us when were not even listening. But the joy of listening means that we will be led into pasture and we won't be stolen or killed or destroyed. So, come Holy Spirit. Help us to hear Your voice today we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

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And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

[Singing] It only takes a spark to get a fire going and soon all those around will warm up to His glowing. That’s how it is with God’s love. Once you’ve experienced it you spread His love to everyone. You want to pass it on. I wish you for you my friend this happiness that I’ve found. You can depend on Him it matters now where you’re bound. I’ll shout it from the mountain tops. I want my world to see that the Lord of love has come to me. I want to pass it on. [End Singing] I love you my DAB family. I’m thinking of you. I’m praying for you. I want you to know that I love you so very much. I just thought that this was one of my favorite campfire songs at camp and I wanted to share it with my brothers and sisters around the Global Campfire of the DAB. I love you all. I love you Brian my brother and my sister Jill and the whole Hardin family. I am so grateful for this community. You guys are my family and I love you. Have a wonderful day and a wonderful tomorrow in Jesus’ name.

Hi DAB family this is Gigi from GVille. I wanted to share with you something today that I feel like it was the word from the Lord or for…for us and it is in Isaiah…it’s Isaiah 52 verse 2 it says shake thy self from the dust arise and sit down in a good sit Oh Jerusalem, loose thyself from the bands of thy neck oh captive daughter of Zion. And what I…I feel like the Lord is saying is that he has won the victory. He has done it, but it takes our faith, our response to Him we have to…to remove that…that band around our neck, to rise off…rise off from the floor and the dust and in the dirt and be able to, you know, sit it His authority enthroned with Him on high and to be able to move forward in His victory. We have to claim it, we have to believe that He has done it. Because the…the devil comes around like a roaring lion, but his only power is to deceive us, that the victory isn’t won, we’re still fighting, we have to work hard. And…and we fail. We don’t have the power, but God gives us the power and He has done it and in faith we respond, we receive, and the Lord has delivered us. In Jesus’ name I speak victory over you guys. You guys run the race, stand in the power of God and you will see what God has done in your life and overcome. And the world will know that He lives within you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hello Daily Audio Bible this is Dwayne from Wisconsin. All praise and glory to our wonderful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Today is May 15th and I’m calling you with a heavy heart. My son Nathan is struggling. I got some news that he attempted to break into somebody’s shed and I got really upset about what He’s doing. So, I’m asking that you’d please lift up my son Nathan. The Lord will keep him safe, that he will find some direction. He is lost, he’s got a lot going on. So, some of you know, you have prodigal sons so you know what that’s like. So, I’m just asking that you would please lift up my son Nathan, that God will wrap him in His arms, keep him safe and that his eyes will be opened and that he gets the help that he needs. Thank you DAB. Love you all pray for you all.

Hello Eva, this is Running Bear and I want to pray for you and your family. Heavenly Father, King of Kings and Lord of Lords we pray for this family that is suffering so much as they have this court date that is coming very fast but that does not encompass who they are or all that they are working towards Father. Lord, please bring healing into each one of their hearts and lives. Bring people around them that love them and that they can see that in their eyes, they can hear that in their voices. Lord, for this young lady that has been so betrayed where she has to be wondering what words are truth. Father, we…we pray for her, we pray for healing and we pray for a heart that wants You and wants to see You in spite of all of the suffering. Lord, please bless each one of them as they go to speak the truth and to share the truth that their able to recognize the suffering within them, but also that You are the redeemer and that Your desire is to bring healing in their hearts, in their lives, in their minds, and their bodies. And Father, please bless this family with the community around them that love them dearly and every day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

This message is for God’s Smile. This is momma ‘D’ in New Albany, Indiana. I heard your story today about how when you and Peter first got together and how you had surrendered him over to God. And I, several days ago, had called in and asked for prayer for my…I’ve been standing in faith for my marriage for 2 years now and he has divorced me, but the Lord has told me to stand, and I’ve been standing for his salvation and for the restoration of our marriage. And I was driving along, I’m…I’m just driving today, on my way out of town and I was…I guess feeling a little angry and I was saying, “you know Lord, I want him saved, I don’t even think that I want him back anymore” and just as I was feeling that I heard your story about Peter and I was reminded of a time, many years ago when my husband Jim…and I do still call him my husband…my husband Jim and I were just dating but I didn’t know if we were going to be together long-term cause he was not saved. And I remember sitting at my prayer closet one night after my children were asleep and surrendering him to God and saying “God you know, I…I, I want him saved and I want us to be together and if you will do that I will praise you all the days of my life and if you don’t do that I’m still gonna praise you all the days of my life. And within a week Jim got saved and within another week he proposed to me and I said I’m so glad you’re saved now because now I can say yes. And he’s fallen away, and he’s stepped out of our marriage for something else, but the Lord said to me, “don’t you think I could do it again?” Thank you for your encouragement God’s Smile, thank you so, so much. God used you today.

[istheresomebodywhocanimagine]

Sorry for the bother but may I get a Queen and BoRhap ship please? I have that awful sense of direction, I got lost in a restaurant. I also will never admit publicly that I like someone. Hate to be told what to do and people prying into my life. Always calm and would never be rude to people. A caring and a friendly person. Ambitious. I'm 158 cm tall, a bit chubby. Metalhead. A bit of a tomboy. Major introvert. Hard worker. Overthinker. Open-minded. I'm good at learning new languages.

figured i should get one of these bad boys out of the way tonight before i rlly dive into my homework so here goes

i LOVE that you love metal i fuck with pantera so hard idk if thats the kind of metal you’re talking about but i’ve also seen FFDP and korn live so that was fucking unreal hi everyone yes i have the broadest taste in music ever sorry

ANYWAYS ships r below the cut :^)

For Queen, I ship you with Roger Taylor!

I almost said Brian, but I think you two would be too alike to last. However, you and Roger? A match made in heaven.

Roger genuinely loves that you’re a metalhead - he’s always up on trends, so the fact that you’ve got an in on the metal scene gives him the insight he needs to keep up with what’s hot and what’s not.

Also, Roger would love that you’re shorter than him - I mean, he probably constantly gets hell for being shorter than Brian, so that fact that you’re much shorter than him would be a source of great enjoyment/relief for him.

When you first met, you were in the same class as Roger, and it was a discussion-based forum class that you absolutely loathed - a group of maybe 20 of you, sitting in a circle, discussing what went wrong and what went right in your labs earlier in the week - it wasn’t required, but you got extra credit, and you always wanted to be able to improve on your grade if at all possible. 

And since Roger didn’t want to piss off his parents with low marks while he was supposedly off at college ‘studying,’ he showed up too.

Roger was the only person that made the class bearable - he sat next to you, and he was constantly peeking over at your notes, chuckling when you wrote things like ‘instructor has no earthly idea what they’re talking about’ ‘this is wrong’ and ‘how does he even have a degree to teach this’

One time, Roger was so amused by your notes that he laughed out loud, interrupting a discussion between another student and the instructor, who looked at him and asked him to say what he thought, if he was so amused by what they apparently got wrong.

He glanced at you, hopeless - he hadn’t been paying attention, but you had, so you nonchalantly wrote ‘control group is not tablet and water - just water,’ then underlined it a few times. Roger glanced down, then nodded imperceptibly before folding his hands together and leaning over the desk.

“You lot are talking as if the control group is the antacid tablet AND the water - it’s just the water.” You marveled at how confident he sounded as he said so, and his blue eyes quickly met yours, sending you a charming grin before he was called upon again.

“The control group is the tablet fully dissolved in water, mate.” The student who had been bantering with the instructor was clearly upset Roger had insulted their intelligence, so they decided to challenge his.

“Actually, he’s right,” you chimed in, your voice quieter. Usually, you’d only speak when called upon in this class, but you knew Roger couldn’t bullshit his way through this one completely. “The control group is technically the water, untouched by the tablet. It’s affected by no variables, making it the control group.”

It was Roger’s turn to marvel at your sudden burst of confidence, and after class, he caught up to you in the hall to thank you. He’d always thought you were kind of cute, so this gave him his excuse to talk to you outside of class.

“Hey, I owe you one for what just happened back there,” he said, matching your pace as you headed for the front door of the building. Although he had class immediately after, he made a snap decision to skip so he could go wherever you were headed.

“Oh, it was no big deal, they’re morons,” you replied, a rosy blush creeping up on your cheeks when you glanced up at him, finding his gaze to be directly on you. When he held open the door for you, you thanked him, and he continued to walk with you as you headed back towards the dorms where you were living. 

“I’m Roger, if you didn’t know,” he introduced, holding out his hand for you to shake as you walked, and you shook his hand gently, smiling at him. “We should study together sometime - you seem like you know a hell of a lot more about this than I do. Actually, are you busy right now?”

And that’s where it all started.

Your ambition and drive to learn satiates Roger - both of you feed off of each other’s energy, constantly teaching each other new things and always trying to participate in new experiences.

But for smart people, you and Roger (especially Roger) can have your moments of being airheaded. What would life be without those moments anyways? 

If you had a good sense of direction and Roger wouldn’t be so stubborn about neglecting his glasses, you would have never ended up in book club in Lower Manhattan instead of an actual club.

It was one of their later US tours, and Roger had flown you out to NYC to see them play Madison Square Garden. Afterwards, you’d opted to go out alone, and it was a nice night out, so you two took off in your rental car with the top down, enjoying the only slightly smelly NYC air and the sound of relentlessly honking cars. 

Quickly, you found yourselves lost as you tried to follow the directions the manager had given you, which was a pointless attempt. You were humorously exasperated, but your calm nature let you continue to be more amused than anything.

“Roger, please just let me turn around and go back to the venue - you know I’m bad with directions.”

“Absolutely not, I’d rather die,” he dismissed, making you laugh in slight exasperation as you stopped at a stoplight, dropping your hands into your lap. “Now where are we going next, sweets?”

“I don’t know, Rog,” you groaned, holding your head in your hands. “What does that street sign say?”

“I dunno, it’s blurry to me,” he grumbled, making you laugh again at his horribly serious need for glasses. “Don’t laugh at me! I’m crippled.”

“Did you bring your glasses when you left for the US?” you asked pointedly, and Roger nodded furiously as you pressed on the gas when the light turned green, advancing forward towards God knows where. “Then why were they on the nightstand when I left a couple days ago?”

“Imposters!” he joked, distracting you and making you laugh as you shook your head. When you were unmoved, he leaned over the center console and pressed a noisy, wet kiss to your cheek, making you shrug him off and laugh. “I’m just taking the piss, please don’t put me in time out for forgetting them. I love you.”

“Uh huh... forgetting,” you replied, using a playfully disbelieving tone before you sighed and looked around at the street signs, spotting one makeshift sign on the sidewalk that had an arrow and said ‘The Club’ and nothing else. “Well, that’s convenient. The Club. Let’s stop there.”

When you finally made it to the door, you walked in hesitantly. It didn’t seem like the type of building to be housing a dance club, but Roger was all for the simplicity of the name, so he led you in, quickly realizing that you were not in a dance hall, but a library.

“Oh my god, Roger,” you whispered, looking around at the stacks of books before meeting eyes with a group of middle-aged ladies who were holding copies of A Clockwork Orange. “This is a book club. They’re reading A Clockwork Orange. We’ve got to go.”

“Ooh, I love that book!” he said out loud, approaching the ladies without a hint of fear in him and turning your nerves all the way up to 11 as you reluctantly followed, still laughing to yourself at Roger’s unbelievable extroversion. “Come on, Y/N! Now ladies, what do we think of Dim and Georgie so far?”

And for BoRhap, I ship you with Joe Mazzello!

You’re a tomboy? Joe genuinely nuts for tomboys, for lack of better wording. 

He loves taking you to baseball games, whether they are for the Yankees or for the team that his brother coaches. You don’t mind the down and dirty nature of the game - after all, you aren’t exactly the ribbons and bows type. 

Speaking of baseball, you two met on the set of Undrafted. You were actually an old friend of Duke’s who lived in the area where they were filming - Joe had cast him as Ty, a tense character, and Duke had brought you along, saying he needed you as an extra body to sit in the crowd.

But really, he’d brought you along so you could zen him out when he needed to relax on breaks - your calmness always helped him chill, and he knew from the script that quite a few of the actors could use your balance when they were filming the high intensity scenes.

Joe was probably the most intensely angry character in the movie, and you noticed that very early on. You were seated near their dugout, pretending to text on an outdated Blackberry, when a bat came flying at the fence in front of you, making you jump slightly as it hit the chain links and bounced to the ground, rolling away from you.

“Sorry, bad aim,” Joe grumbled as he came to grab the bat, still partially in character, and you couldn’t help but send him a smile as he straightened back up, bat in hand.

“It’s alright, don’t worry.” The mellow sound of your voice intrigued Joe, and he gave you a slow nod before smiling a bit and turning back to go do the shot again. In fact, your mellowness was infectious, and exactly what he needed - the next shot, he absolutely nailed his intended target with the bat.

Once everyone had decided to take a lunch break, Duke came over to join you on the small set of bleachers, shaking some dust out of his hair before replacing the ball cap.

“What’s good for grub around here?” Duke asked, sitting down next to you. As you opened your mouth to answer, you heard a pair of baseball cleats crunching over gravel as they jogged nearer, then stopped in front of the two of you.

“Where are you two headed? Can I bum a ride?”

In front of you stood Joe, far calmer now, and far more attractive when he was up close. 

“That’s up to Y/N here,” Duke replied, standing up to join Joe and helping you off the bleachers. Now that you were standing, Joe was easily taller than you, and you almost wished you were at eye level again due to the bleachers.

“Y/N? I’m Joe.” He held out a hand as he introduced himself, and you shook it gently, giving him the same smile you’d given him not too long ago and gaining a goofy grin in return.

From then on, you became Joe’s right hand set therapist for when he got too into his angry scenes, and he became your random baseball facts plug once he found out you had at least some interest in the game.

Joe’s extroverted nature balances well with your tendency for introversion, but sometimes, it causes small clashes. Thankfully, you’re so calm and have such a mellowing effect on Joe, clashes never escalate to the point where you’re actually arguing. 

Your overthinking also sometimes clashes with his impulsive tendencies. He’s a bit of a serial Instagram poster, while you have to stare at your posts for 20 minutes before you reword the caption and then post it after proofreading twice. 

One time, you’d been listening to some of your dearly beloved metal when Joe had come in, phone raised as he took a video of himself headbanging to the music, turning so he could get you in the frame. When you waved him off and covered your face with the other hand, laughing, he pouted playfully before ending the video.

There was a moment of silence as you heard him clicking away at the keyboard, then he joined you on the couch, wrapping his arm around you and pulling you into his side gently. “Work, work, work. Whatcha working on now?”

You snuggled into his side, resting your head on his shoulder, and a small smile formed on your lips as he gave you an affectionate kiss on the head. 

“Just replying to some emails.”

“The grind never stops!” Joe then pulled out his phone again, texting something to Ben on Instagram that intrigued you.

“Why was Ben asking about me?” you questioned, sitting up a bit as Joe smiled sheepishly and hid his phone from you.

“Definitely not because I put that video on my story.”

“Joe! We’ve talked about this,” you laughed, sinking back down into a slumped position as you shook your head. “I swear, I’m going to delete Instagram off of your phone one day and Facebook Live the meltdown.”

“Please, at least Instagram Live it. Who uses Facebook?” You rolled your eyes at the exaggerated haughty tone that he took on as he said so, then raised an eyebrow when a notification from Chace Crawford also popped up. “Oh, no, your boyfriend is messaging me!” he gasped dramatically, opening the notification.

You snickered at that, shaking your head again and watching as he read the message. 

When he was done, he made a weird look before pulling up the camera and starting to record a live video. You barely had time to react and cover your face as you laughed, Joe putting on a serious expression. “Joe, you’re fired,” you mumbled, holding your laptop over your face as Joe switched to a pout. Chace popped in first to watch, followed by Ben and Gwil.

“I’ve just been fired as resident boyfriend and now I think Chace is moving in. Can anyone please let me bum on their couch? Ben??”

You giggled and scooted away from Joe as he talked to the growing number of people on his live, lamenting that you were kicking him out. At one point, he fell against your side, whining as he read Chace’s comment.

“Chace says he loves you and to come over. Your response?” 

“On my way,” you mumbled as you went back to your emails, barely loud enough for the camera, but the chat went nuts when some people caught it, Joe zooming in on his face. 

“Chace, she hates you and says she never wants to see you again.”

“Not what I said,” you gently corrected, grinning as you kept yourself just out of frame of his camera.

“Yes, it is. I’ve just decided it is... Love you.” He paused for a moment, looking up at you expectantly, and you raised an eyebrow, glancing between him and his phone. “Say it back,” he whispered, still loud enough for everyone to hear.

“I’m gonna go take a shower,” you resolved, closing your laptop and sitting it on the coffee table as Joe complained loudly, calling after you in a mock sad voice.

“Say it back!”

[marshaeb]

P.S: I'm Mated With The Cursed Alpha!

Chapter Eleven

Hey guy! Don’t forget to Like, Comment, Review, and Follow for more updates! My apologies in advance for all the grammatical errors. Book will be professionally edited when completed.

I ran as far as my feet could take me. Away from my insecurities, away from the drama and pain.

I blame myself for putting myself in these situations. It’s all my fault. I’ve put myself in front of others and because of it, I’ve only caused harm and disappointment to everyone close to me.

I don’t care! If it’s meant to be... it’s meant to be. Sarah’s happiness is for her and her alone. I can’t don’t anything about it.

Yes, it sucks that she got everything I ever wanted. To have my true love as my mate. To be marked by him...be engaged... To shower me with unconditional love.

Everything is now up in shambles. My love life, my friendship, my entire life and I can’t do anything about it.

I sat alone behind the library’s building where no one could see me and cried my eyes out. I-I just needed to release all these bottled up emotions I’ve been holding in.

Or maybe I needed a drink. A few shots of tequila or patron. Anything to help ease the pain.

Alpha Darius POV

After a long, tiring day of leading my pack and dealing with the damage of the outskirt region, I venture off on my daily routine of watching my mate. I know it’s a bit much, but I can’t help myself.

That smell of hers has a strong, powerful Alpha like me, tripping so badly... I-I’m addicted to it... I’m an addict to her.

And to top it off, it fits perfectly with her rare beauty. Her black, fluffy hair, complimented her soft, skin-kissed skin.

For the longest... I’ve envisioned my mate being a tall, less curvy, model-like girl. The typical girls I’ve always fooled with.

Shit! I’ve been missing out. She’s a rare one and I loved it that way.

She’s mine! I know she is! Deep down inside, these innate feelings I have for her are too strong. Just a mere sight of her makes me go crazy. My hormones spiral out of control. If I could take her and claim this very instant, I would, and no devil in hell would stop me.

But, because I cared about her... I’m holding back as much as I can for her sake. Gosh, she only seventeen. The least I could do is grant her the remaining freedom she has now.

Damn...I got it bad and I love every moment of it. Still, I fear for myself. It would kill me if I don’t end up being her mate. I don’t how I would live with myself seeing my chosen mate with somebody else.

Claiming her, pleasuring her, comforting her, making her smile...watching her carry their pups. It would be torture... completely suicidal.

I’ve seen it with my father and his father, it’s the worst thing imaginable! This curse... it’s a curse from the pits of Hades.

I fear so deeply for it... I pray to the Moon goddess to pity me.

For now, I’m going to do what Sethi advised me. Wait until that time comes. That’s why I’m keeping as much distance as I can.

I want more than anything to be the most central thing in her life, whether she likes it or not!

The other day at that daycare, I swear I was about to lose my shit. I think I did well because if I’d let my feelings taken anymore control. I was going to take her, right there and then.

After running fifteen miles to her pack’s property, I slowed down and stalked quietly through the forest. The guards were on duty as usual, and like always, they had no idea that I was there.

What a bunch of amateurs...Pathetic!

The evening sky was starting to emerge as I came closer to the other side of their home, where her bedroom window was... but something was off.

Her bedroom light was off and it was quite quiet. I couldn’t pick up her scent either.

She’s not home as yet. Normally, she’s home at this time...where could she be so late?

I scanned through the area thoroughly. There were no guards, no members of the pack around. I carefully inched a little closer and stared up at her window.

My eyes widened when I noticed that her room window wasn’t close completely!

I glanced at the tree right beside it and the wildest, reckless thought came to mind.

Before I know it, I was already over the fence, climbed up the tree, and through her room window within an instant.

“I’m inside her room... I’m finally inside! Knowing me, I would have been in here a long ass time ago.” I said to myself, inhaling a full load of her, spicy raspberry and caramel scent.

This was the closest thing to heaven on earth. I could feel the little tingles taking over my body. Those hormones inside starting to rage.

I walked around her little room, dragging my fingers over almost everything I came in contact with. Her comb and hairbrush, her handbags and even her stuff animals collection.

It was really cute, but I would have never thought she was a girly girl judging by her hard demeanor...especially towards me.

I looked over at the huge mirror hanging on her wall. My tall, muscular body structure didn’t fit at all in this girly ass room as I watch the light from the sunset, glare over my bare skin.

Night was starting to fall, making it a little harder to see...but that wasn’t going to stop me. I continued to look through her room, staring at her birdcage, then at a collage of small photos pinned on her wall.

All the pictures of her during the different phases of her life. It was adorable and for the first time, in a long time, a genuine, warm smile widened on my face. My heart skipped a beat when my eyes land on a sweet photo.

It was her as a child holding a Jack Russell terrier pup, smiling ear to ear. It was so sweet, it was hard for me to take my eyes off it.

Suddenly I heard the doorknob move, making my ear flinch back. I dashed over and hid within the wardrobe. Looking through the slight crack of the closet door, I watched as she walked out the bathroom into the room.

She was in there all that time!

I breathe in deeply, watching as she coated her skin with a handful of Cocoa butter. Then, drowning herself in perfume. I don’t know why she needed it...her scent was perfect without it and it was still so strong.

That peach silk nightdress hugging her curvy figure did it for me. I was getting heated and heated by the second, but something was quite off with her. Dropping things carelessly over her dresser, stumbling over a few times...was she...drunk?

She took a deep breath and fell in her bed front on. Shit, her fat ass stood tall from the mattress, making a slight jiggle ad twitch every time she moved.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Why did I do this to myself?

I could feel my cock hardening up, springing against my fitted jeans.

All I could imagine doing was taking her in that same position. Going ape-shit, bouncing on that ass. Pounding her into that fucking mattress long dick style.

All these perverted thoughts and lewd imagination weren’t making it any better. That’s what I thought until she rolled over on her back and spread her legs. That’s when the tormenting started.

My dick swelled rocked hard, throbbing by the sound of her sweet, desperate moans. Calling out for me to handle business like the Alpha I am. But shit...I can’t be caught! All hell would break loose.

The natural light of the Moon flooded through the window, but still, I could barely see her.

I thought not seeing would of make it better, but I could hear the wet, creamy, gooey sounds her pussy made as she played with it.

And that smell... Oh God...her smell!!! It was the ripe scent of wet, raw, juicy pussy flesh. I could smell how aroused she is!

Within seconds I unzipped my pants. My cock sprang right out pulsating like it was on fire. My tip of my dick was already coated in pre-cum...ready for wild penetration.

I can’t believe I’m doing this, but my hand somehow gripped my dick, stroking it’s long length slowly. I couldn’t help it. If I don’t relieve myself right now, I would find myself pinning her down, stuffing my cock so deep in her sweet little twat until I made scream.

My strokes started to speed up as she started to moan loudly, taking in jittery breaths. My entire body started to twitch, blood rushing wildly through my head.

My cock was throbbing out of my grip...it was like it had a damn mind of its own!

So much fiction being applied, I was so close to tipping over the edge, when suddenly she took a last deep breath and moaned aloud. “I-I’m cumming!!!”

I finally lost it, stumbling back slightly as a huge cup load of cum gizz out of me. It just kept shooting and shooting.

A deep, passive groan slipped out of my mouth breaking the sudden quietness in the room.

“Hmm...” She said, rising out of bed slowly. “Who’s there?”

She turned on her nightlight and looked around confusedly. Still tipsy, she

looked over at the closet and squinted her eyes.

Quickly, I hopped and shake my cock back into my jeans and zipped it shut.

I stood as still as I can, trying to control my breathing from such an intense climax, but it was getting harder as she came closer.

She stood just step away from where I was in the closet. Though she had no idea I was there, she was staring directly at me.

She reached out her hand and gently brushed her fingers over my hard abs and gasped loudly, taking a step back.

“O-Oh my gosh...” she mumbled

SHIT!

Read Chapter Twelve (Click the link below)