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astriiformes · 3 years ago

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hi! i was hoping to make a hunter cosplay of my own and ive been looking at a lot of different cosplays to see what works for people. I really like your cosplay and how you made it more real than cartoony, and I was wondering if you had any tips on creating a cosplay (and also I just wanted to say again that I LOVE YOUR HUNTER COSPLAY IT LOOKS AMAZING) 👉👈

Oh yes, I would love to offer some tips!! Let me say right out of the gate: I'm mostly going to focus on how I put my costume together, but I really don't want it to come across as intimidating/expensive/complex if you're newer to this stuff, so know that if there are ways you end up deviating or cutting corners or doing something totally different, that's just you figuring out your own path and that's something 100% encouraged! Cosplay is a cool hobby in part because there are a million ways to do it, and everyone makes mistakes along the way that help them learn. That said, here's a look into my process!

(Also my original response to this was apparently TOO LONG and tumblr wasn't going to let me post it, so watch this space for a reblog with some other tips!!)

I really like thinking about the, like, design and materiality of the costumes I make, so honestly my starting point for a cosplay like Hunter is first going "Okay, what do I think these different parts would be made of in the real world?" even before considering what I'm actually going to make them out of. For some things that's an easy question -- obviously the mask and pauldron of the Golden Guard outfit feel like they should look like metal armor -- but for others it's more complicated. Like, what types of fabrics would his clothes be made out of? Why? And for parts like Flapjack, how do you split the difference between "sometimes made of wood, sometimes a real, actual bird" in a way that feels satisfying?

For example, for Hunter, my thoughts were as follows: the Golden Guard outfit is fancier than the normal Scout ones and felt like it should look a little bit showy, but at the end of the day, it's also a military uniform that he wears out on missions, so choosing fabrics that felt both nice and durable seemed like the best way to capture the "feel" of the outfit. I wanted to make something that looked important but practical, and based a lot of my decisions off that vibe.

I also took note of some of the "impossibilities" of his costume as a result of the animated medium -- for example, his cloak shifts from being a simple over-the-shoulder cape (which is what most people seem to make when cosplaying him) to a full-on circle cloak that closes up in the front when he's standing stiff and at attention. That's possible in a cartoon, but not in real life, because those are two different types of garments that require totally different amounts of fabric! So with things like that, you sort of have to pick which vibes you want to preserve, as opposed to trying to mimic the show perfectly. For me, that meant patterning out a more complicated cloak, closer to the circle-cloak style but with seams and shaping in the shoulders that make it possible for me to pin it back and look a little like a cape, even though it isn't one. I liked the bigger, heavier garment because I feel like it really drives home his vulnerability next to Belos. But someone who prefers the cool swooshiness of his cloak when he's out in the field would have wanted to make the cape! If and when you look at patterns, definitely pay as much attention to the energy they have and what they make you feel as you do to whether or not they match Hunter's "canon" look perfectly. You're working with fabric, not animating, and embracing the medium you're actually messing around with is definitely going to help with capturing that realism you're after. Related, but just know you're going to have seams in your outfit where there aren't any in the show. It's impossible to make functional clothing without there being visible seams somewhere, even though cartoons rarely show them. Focus more on making the costume you want and learn to love the realism they add instead of stressing over "inaccuracy"

Another thing: I don't know how familiar you are with different types of fabric (being entirely honest, I am way less so than many of my cosplay friends, so don't worry if the answer is "not very") but doing a bit of reading on them might be helpful, and I really highly recommend going to a fabric store and walking around feeling the different materials, thinking about what kinds of clothes they remind you of and how they move and stuff. One of the things that adds a lot of the "realism" to my Golden Guard outfit is that I used a variety of different fabric types, all with fairly unique textures -- the undertunic is this thick, metallic linen, that looks almost like a fencing lamé, which felt perfect for evoking that "fancy, but also combat" vibe I was going for, the overtunic is a more synthetic material but with a texture to it that definitely makes it look less cartoony, the white cloak fabric is a nice, shimmer-y material that looks the most "luxury" out of all them, but I then lined it with a thick, heavy, gold cotton, which means it doesn't swish around as much but also maintains some of that practical/showy duality. Think about your everyday clothes -- I know right now, I'm wearing a light cotton t-shirt and jeans, both of which are made out of totally different fabrics. To really give Hunter a "real life" feel, I leaned into that same idea. The Golden Guard outfit especially has so many layers, so there's lots of room to play around with mixing and matching materials -- just make sure you like how they all look together, too!

(Here are all my fabrics before I cut them: you can see how they all look and act a bit different from each other, and how the textured ones especially break away from that smooth, animated look some cosplayers prefer)

(......and here were my dozen paint and spray paint tests to try to figure out which colors/sheens I wanted for his armor)

#hunter cosplay tag

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smoochkooks · 4 years ago

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—chapter four: white lies

this is a part of my an ode to a broken heart drabble series.

pairing: jeon jungkook/reader

genre: unrequited love, best friends to (?), heavy angst, future smut

word count: 1.5k

summary: it came easy to you to lie. but with every untold truth, you were hurting more on the inside.

previous || next

one year and 6 months ago

April was exceptionally moody that year.

Every day you woke up to either heavy rainfall or a beautiful, cloudless sky. Alternatively, it could also snow for a couple of hours just to have it all vanish once the sun reappeared. As much as you loved Spring, you hated the capricious weather with passion.

It was a normal, peaceful, Saturday afternoon. Saturday meant no classes to attend, no work to do on the side. It was just you in your small, cozy apartment, tucked underneath the blanket and binge-watching Attack On Titan.

You were never an anime enthusiast per se, but you happened to befriend a doe-eyed weeb all those years ago. Your current occupation was just a part of the aftermath. It wasn’t like Jungkook was obsessed, not at all. He was actually far from it. Now, at the tender age of twenty-three, his old hobby was like a relapse. His love for anime was coming in waves every once in a while, gradually transforming into a two-months-long hyperfixation and then, it was nothing. And the cicle continued.

He was currently in the stage of re-watching Attack On Titan, hence why you had been forced to finally give the damned anime a try as well. Hell, he was even coming over tonight to have a marathon with you.

(He’d said that season three, his favourite, you had to watch alongside him.)

You: eren's annoying little shit

Jungkook: told you so

You: but levi? damn I’d sell my soul for him

Jungkook: for a 5’2 emotionally unavailable man?

You: yep. that’s my type

It was far from truth. As much as you liked Captain Levi, he wasn’t Jungkook. You are my type, you wanted to write instead. There hadn’t been a man in my life who managed to even come close to you. But, as always, you kept those confessions to yourself.

Right when you were about to play another episode, your phone buzzed again.

Jungkook: I have a weird question

You: I’m used to that

You: shoot your shot.

Jungkook: what’s your finger size?

Confused, you read his last message once again. That was indeed a weird fucking question to ask, you thought. You had never really been a fan of rings. You only owed one - a gift from your grandmother she gave you for your sixteenth birthday. Rummaging thorough your drawer, you found it in a separate, black case.

It still fit just right, so you took a ruler, measured the size and googled the results.

You: it’s 7.5 I guess

You: why do you ask tho?

Jungkook: I need you to go somewhere with me before our marathon if that’s okay

You: you didn’t answer my question

You: but okay. what time?

Jungkook: ill pick you up at 5pm

Jungkook: you’ll see

Maybe it was for the better he hadn’t told you where he was taking you. If you had know, you would have backed away last minute. Come up with so lame excuse, blame it all on a headache or period cramps.

If you had known Jungkook was taking you to pick up an engagement ring for Soojin, you would have never come with him.

When you parked in front of one of the most high-ranking jewellery stores dowtown, the solemnity of the situation hit you like a whiplash. You took a deep, shuddering breath. Jungkook was thinking about marrying Soojin. Jungkook was going to propose to her, soon. He was ready to spent the rest of his life with her.

Jeon Jungkook, the love of your life, was about to slip out of your reach for good.

You couldn’t cry. Not in front of him. You clenched your fists so tight the knuckles turned white.

“I figured out you could help me,” Jungkook said, breaking the silence and unbuckled his seatbelt. “I checked Soojin's finger size once when she was showering and then I found out that your’s the same and well, you’re a girl so you obviously know more about jewellery than me and–”

“Jungkook,” you cut him off with a dry chuckle. You didn’t want him to speak. You didn’t want to see him. You wanted to jumped off his car and ran away from that place as far as possible. “You don’t have to explain yourself. I get it.”

You smiled at him with reassurance. It was actually hilarious, how you mastered the art of feigning your real feelings when you were with him. It came easy to you to lie but with every untold truth, you were hurting more on the inside.

“I’m here, so you don’t have to worry about chosing something horrible.”

He grinned and you noticed a dust of pink covering the apples his cheeks. It was hard, so fucking hard seeing him happy because that was all you ever wanted and yet it pained you not to be the main source of it. Jungkook was twenty-three and already so in love he wanted to get married. You were going to see him in a black tux, a prince charming waiting in front of the altar for his princess.

It ached. Why did it ache to see him happy?

The lady who worked at the jewellery store greeted you politely with a bow. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

“We are looking for engagement rings.” Jungkook answered.

You could tell she was a bit astounded but her professional smile never faltered when she responded with, “Oh, that’s still quite unusual to see the couple chosing an engagement ring together.”

You were about to protest but then, Jungkook did something you would never expect him to do.

He grasped your hand.

(It was warm. His touch was soothing. Comforting. Then why did it hurt so bad?)

“My girlfriend wants to chose the ring herself but she doesn’t know when she will get it.”

To make matters worse, he sent you a wink. The store’s clerk cooed at the scene and clasped a hand over her chest. For her it was yet another day at work, yet another pair of adults who had decided to get marry.

“You make a really beautiful couple.” she said.

Even Jungkook’s hand squeezing yours couldn’t ease the sting you felt hearing her speak those words to you. You smiled lightly for good measure. She then pointed at the display and gave you some time and space too look at the options.

Your whole face felt hot. Jungkook was still holding your hand, still playing the role of a perfect boyfriend. He didn’t seem to notice what kind of effect it had on you. He didn’t know how fast your heart was beating, how warm his touch felt on your skin. It was all just a silly joke to him.

He leaned closer to you, so the store's clerk couldn’t hear him. His breath tickled your skin. “You’re blushing.” he whispered.

“Shut up.”

He chuckled and let go of your hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

(No matter how much it hurt you on the inside, you already missed his touch.)

“It’s okay. Let’s chose my damned ring, shall we?” you proposed, mustering a nonchalant tone.

Dodging uneasiness with humor always worked out, it seemed.

You felt odd and out of place standing next to him and staring at all those glimmering jewels. In the corner of the eye you saw the lady who worked there glancing at you from time to time and that was when you remembered you were supposed to act like a soon-to-be fiancée.

“They’re all pretty.” you said to Jungkook.

“Which one you like the most then?”

You didn’t have to think long about the answer. The ring with an emerald stone caught your eye from the beginning. It was different than the others, definitely not a standard choice for engagement but something about its peculiarity made you want it to have it shinning on your finger one day.

Except, you weren’t here for yourself. Jungkook wasn’t your boyfriend. You were helping him chose a ring for Soojin. And you knew exactly what she would like.

So you pointed at the number thirty-two. A sparkling, white-gold ring with an oval-shaped diamond.

Jungkook let out a hum. “It’s really pretty, yeah. Excuse me,” he called. “My girlfriend would like to try out this one.”

You ignored the phantom pain you felt as you put the ring on. You flexed your fingers and just for a moment, you pretended it wasn’t a farce your best friend came up with. The diamond shone brightly just like the glimmers of happiness in Jungkook's eyes. He didn’t have to worry about Soojin's answer. He knew it would be thousand times yes.

You were good at pretending. After all, you had been practicing the art of it almost your entire life.

So you drove with Jungkook to your apartment and listened to him babbling about his newest project at work. You made snacks, sat in front of your TV and spent the next couple of hours watching Attack On Titan. You cursed him for spoiling you a few bits of the show and Jungkook, like the petty Virgo he was, reminded you how you accidentally revealed him Little Women's ending because you had read the book years before.

As you laughed and bickered with him, you still remembered about the crimson box tucked in the pocket of his leather jacket, but you didn’t allow yourself to break. Not yet.

It was only when Jungkook fell asleep around 1am that you stepped into the shower and let the tears flow.

And a week later, when the dreaded became real–

Jungkook: she said yes!!!

A white lie was told to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.

You: I’m so happy for you, Jungkook!

After all, the best you could do was give up your happiness for the sake of his own.

#jungkook smut #btswritingcafe #ksmutclub #bangtanarmynet #bangtanhq #jungkook angst #jungkook x reader #jungkook fanfic #jungkook x you #bts smut #my writing #an ode to a broken heart

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out-there-so-it-isnt-just-me · 4 years ago

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Hey guys...I have an idea if you aren't sad enough yet. I was struck by a painful comparison sort of crossover idea. It would never be canon, but I'm mourning the end of Campaign Two, and I want to be sad and over-dramatic. Essek, but as Eliza from Hamilton in “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.” But, it’s for the entire Mighty Nien. Some of the lyrics are so on point for a poor Essek who will probably outlive all of his friends (Elves still generally live longer than Firbolgs by a good 200 years). Anyway, enjoy.

Every other founding father's story gets told

It occurs to Essek, during one of the many periods without one of the Mighty Nein (the time that he dwells on them the most), how unfair their whole situation is. They saved all of Exandria, and no one knows. They are amazing, and odd, and frustrating, and no one knows. They will die loved deeply, but not widely. He knows they prefer it that way, all things considered. But, everyone else who saves all of Exandria becomes legends, while the people he loves best will be forgotten, remembered only by him.

And that. That sounds unbearable.

So, in-between the times he sees the Mighty Nein, he begins to gather accounts. He writes down stories from those they helped, or simply left an impression on. The people who have met the Mighty Nein have an air about them that he gets good at detecting. They attracted the oddballs and the outcasts. And if they're entirely normal (whatever that means), then they usually get a certain twitch if you ask for stories about interesting strangers. About half the time, a certain blue tiefling pops up in them. He almost has a heart attack when he hears “go fuck yourself,” in Jester’s cheerful voice, when he knows Jester isn’t anywhere near there. He ends up getting the kenku’s story, and the voices of his friends are weaved into it. Essek thinks the Mighty Nein are the best people in the world, in their own rambunctious way. Part of him wants the world to love them as he does, or at least have the option to. Everyone should have a chance to get to know them, even if it's just through tales. The world would be a better place for it.

...And when you're gone, who remembers your name?

Who keeps your flame?

Who tells your story?

Once there is only him and Caduceus left, this becomes a more prominent part of how he spends his time. After...after a long, long period of mourning. He has so much life left to live without most of the people who made it worth living.

I put myself back in the narrative

I stop wasting time on tears

I live another 50(0) years

He stops hiding his past and bears his sins and his story to the world. Essek tells his story so their story can be appreciated to the fullest; his part in their story emphasizes the depth of their compassion and chaos. He tells his story, but not as himself. Essek continues to drift from town to town under a vast number of aliases. Everywhere he goes, he spreads his stories of his friends, some serious, most silly. He disguises himself so he can stay alive to do a little more good, tell a few more stories, to truly live the life his friends wanted for him.

...I try to make sense of your thousands of pages of writings

You really do write like you're running out of time.

Eventually, he gets his hands on some of Beau’s journals, Jester’s diaries, and Caleb’s research. Well, he always had the research, but he gets to the point where he can share it with the world. He slowly begins to share and explain their thoughts and personalities with excerpts from those. Maybe he also has letters that he shares parts of (though most of those, those words specifically for him, he keeps to himself, for himself). He wonders if they'd be angry at him for spilling their private thoughts. But neither Beau nor Jester filtered their thoughts very much in the first place, and he keeps anything truly painful out of the public eye. Caleb, well, Caleb was always about sharing his knowledge and research, provided it wasn't dangerous. And they were all dead anyway. One of the last things they told him was to be happy. And talking about his friends, learning more about his friends even after they were long dead, that made him the happiest he'd been in a while. So he hoped they wouldn’t begrudge him this small joy he’d managed to grasp and forgive him, should it be necessary.

I rely on Angelica

While she's alive, we tell your story

She is buried in Trinity Church near you

When I needed her most, she was right on time

Caduceus isn’t particularly interested in being well known or famous, but he never shies away from telling a story about any of his friends. Plus, he thinks it’s a good project for Essek. It's a way to continue to show his love for them and keep them alive in the only way they can be now. When Caduceus eventually passes away, he joins the eight other graves (Veth refused to be buried apart from Yeza) that lay in a tucked-away corner of the Blooming Grove. There is one space left, nestled between where Caleb and Jester lay, but it will be empty for a long time yet.

And I'm still not through

I ask myself, what would you do if you had more time...

...You could have done so much more if you only had time

And when my time is up, have I done enough?

Will they tell your story?

He keeps adding to his tale; he stretches it longer and longer with every shred he can remember. But, even his memory, as long as it is, runs out eventually. And their story finally ends, but he doesn't. He throws himself into activities that remind him of them. He does a lot of gardening ( mostly tea, poisonous plants, and flowers). He teaches children some rudimentary dunamancy in his spare time, for Caleb. He messes around with alchemy a little. Eventually, he publishes the last of the research that he and Caleb worked on together; ones that took him decades to solve by himself. He even finds himself drawing a surprising amount of dicks on random surfaces near the very end.

Oh, can I show you what I'm proudest of?

...I help to raise hundreds of children

I get to see them growing up

The time that doesn’t go towards his now worrying amount of hobbies, he spends doing what he has done since the beginning: caring for the Mighty Nien’s true legacy. He looks after and visits their children. He takes care of descendants of Luc, of Jester and Fjord, of the random teenager that Beau and Yasha seemed to adopt completely on accident, of TJ, of the Clays, and of a lovechild of Kingsley’s that found out who his father was and then somehow found Essek himself to learn about him. In an embarrassing show of sentimentality, Essek always keeps at least one offspring of Caleb's very first cat. There is a very funny story about Caleb thinking the animal was spayed when it was, in fact, not. He visits the different generations every couple of years or so (he has a schedule). The drow makes sure they know the stories of their ancestors, the adventures of the Mighty Nien; he tells them it's all real. He gives them ways to contact him if they’re in danger, or need any kind of help really ( he has funds to spare at this point). Every once in a while, a few of them will get it in their heads to write him yearly updates. It’s nice.

In their eyes, I see you, Alexander

I see you every time

And when my time is up

Have I done enough?

Will they tell your story?

It is strange and painful to see the attitude and mannerisms of the Nein in the descendants who have never met them. It is wonderful too. His stories of the Mighty Nein have become well-known tales that no one can decide how much is truth and how much is fiction (it’s true, it’s all somehow, hilariously true). He preserved them in his own way, in the right way (time travel is something he thinks of with a growing hunger the more years pass between when he last laid eyes on his friends). But in these men, these women, these children, they are truly alive.

One little half-orc girl has Jester’s mischievous eyes and infectious joy. Another halfling man squints just like Veth when she's trying to figure out if someone is bullshitting her. There’s a boy who charmingly bumbles his way through most social encounters, as Fjord did. A firbolg woman who has Caduceus gentle smile. A tiefling girl with all the audacious bravado of Kingsley. A man with eyes just as piercing as Beau’s, and a tongue just as sharp. Even Yasha’s kind and gentle demeanor somehow shines through in one small boy, despite her having no direct descendants. He gets to see these flashes of his friends in those who survive them, and it thrills him as much as it cuts him. (Sometimes, when the current cat has ruined some item of his, the pleased look it wears resembles the quiet glee Caleb exuded after he pulled a successful prank, but he’s pretty sure that’s just fanciful thinking.)

One of the last things Essek does before he dies is fully publish, in print, the entire tale of the Mighty Nein. How they came together, every person they helped along the way. The love, the loss, the kindness, the chaos, every moment he could recall or record was put into this one account (necessarily stretched out into several separate books). There is only one set, and he hands it over to the Library of the Cobalt Soul in Rexxentrum. Then he goes on his lonely way.

Oh, I can't wait to see you again

It's only a matter of time

There are now ten graves, each one as unique as its owner, nestled in a small corner of the Blooming Grove. One grave has the dirt still fresh around it. And somewhere, beyond the Divine Gate, there are cheers and laughs and cries of joy as the Mighty Nien become the Mighty Nine once more.

fin.

It’s my head-canon that by the time Essek dies he’s practically a mythical figure among the select families he looks after. It's to the point that in certain locations ( that have a lot of Nein remnants) he becomes a local legend, the guardian angel of nien (no spelling specified and with no real distinction of what that means), with skin like the night sky who drifts (literally) through towns and helps those who meet a certain requirement, unknown to the general populus. There are rumors that certain people have bestowed upon them a token they could use to call upon the angel’s aid. Of course, the people who have the tokens (sending stones or something similar. IDK how he would get that many wondrous items, but I focus on satisfying narrative not, like, plausibility) know Essek and know that he has died and that the tokens no longer work, but for a while they keep them as heirlooms, to show the love of one drow wizard for the friends he had long, long ago. Eventually, one of Veth’s descendants sells off their set because sending stones are worth A LOT, and the money seemed more practical. They have their stories; those are enough.

And before anyone complains about the Kingsley bit, I felt compelled to add a smidgen of Kingsley content because Essek loves Jester and Jester’s with Fjord and Kingsley is with both of them for years. I’m sure they get to know each other well enough that seeing traits of Kingsley is vaguely nostalgic and warming, even if it lacks the depth and love he feels for everyone else. Also, there’s no convincing me that Molly/Kingsley doesn’t have at least one illegitimate child running around from various trysts, he was basically the Scanlan of this campaign. It goes with the hedonistic vibe he gives off.

Also, is it normal that I completely designed the Nein’s burial site in my head because I did? Like I imagine they’re all spaced out in a circle. It’s almost like a stone gazebo but there’s not really a roof; it’s just a group of nine pillars that support a stone circle. The entrance is the Traveler’s door with dicks around the edge, and each of the nine pillars/supports is designed to look the knowing mistresses staff. The stone circle is covered in carvings of storm clouds and lightning. Wires are strung across the center of the stone circle to form the symbol of the Cobalt Soul. Not that you can see the wires, because vines have been grown all around them. Once you step through the Traveler’s gate, you’ll find yourself on some kind of rough mosaic floor, with depictions of a peacock, a pyramid, a snake, a sun, a moon, and (oddly) a pirate ship. The mosaic is made up of buttons of various materials and shapes. In the center is a saltwater pool/spring (depending on how magical we can get idk) and floating above it is an eternal flame encased in some sort of dunamancy magic that doesn’t actually exist that keeps it floating and eternal. Look I'm running out of ideas.

I can’t imagine what everyone’s grave marker would be, but I’m pretty sure Yasha’s is a simple stone that says "YASHA NYDOORIN: wife of Zuella and Beauregard Lionette," and the place where’s she’s buried is just covered in wildflowers that spread outside of the gazebo to encircle the structure entirely up to the gate. Also, everyone has a stone tarot card by their grave with the picture and designation that Molly gave them. Beyond that grows a weirdly dense thicket of trees and bushes that make finding the Nein's resting place rather hard. It’s said only the descendants of the Nein’s family or those favored by the Wildmother (or Traveler, Or Ioun, or Storm Lord) can find their way to them. And one tree, directly behind Yasha, is dead, struck by lightning who knows how long ago.

And they’re buried in this order: Yeza/Veth, Caleb, Essek, Jester, Ford, Kingsley, Yasha, Beau, Cad. I know there’s a good chance that a) Kingsley would just eff off and die somewhere unknown and b) Cad would probably want to be buried with the rest of his family, but shhh let me dream.

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alexmercer2424 · 4 years ago

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Could you do Danny Johnson with a very beautiful female, deaf writer S/O who has written a lot of bestselling novels, plz?

Im finally feeling better after not feeling well these past few days (not covid don’t worry, like tummy issues) and I ate my body weight in just a few minutes…

Danny Johnson w/ a Deaf Author S/O

First and foremost it would probably be awhile until he realized you were actually deaf

Like you’d tell him, you’d write it down because you have troubles speaking, but he still wouldn’t believe it

Especially since whenever he tries to sneak up on you, you turn around most the time

Even though being a killer, he should know, that we humans have that instinct if something is around us

Lol, Danny, many animals have that sense!

But It’d be like, him dropping all his stuff from his journals to his camera and made the loudest noise without you reacting would he finally believe you

He’s naturally a suspicious person so cut him some slack on that, he never knows what to believe from people because he’s a liar himself

He also didn’t believe you were an author

But that’s more so because there’s hardly any books in the realm and he wasn’t that much of a reader before coming to the realm

He had other hobbies after all

But it wasn’t until talking to some of the other killers, the killers that did read more than the usual folk (such as the Doctor or Nurse) did he understand that you were what you were

If anything, it made his ego perk up and made him bristle with pride because he got not only a sexy lady but also a smart and famous lady

He’s narcissistic so I hope you like being shown off like a trophy

Because as he’s showing you off, he’s also showing off that he has you and no one else can have you and he won

Will also make an effort to get you a computer of sorts if you prefer writing like that

He may steal it at times though because he likes technology

But you can’t touch his camera…

After all these some secret photos he doesn’t want you seeing

He doesn’t need you to know just how much he stalks you and takes pictures of you

He’s still a weird guy and what he does with your pretty pictures he has of you is for him to know and only him to know

Aka may have a weird shrine hidden somewhere…

Also since he knows you’re a great writer, expect him to bug you give made into a character

The narcissist side in him again

Also be ready for him to bug you writing porn…

The two of you aren’t always together keep in mind, and he gets lonely, it’s the least you can do

Besides! It’ll be fun to help you think up scenes and to learn about your kinks that way

How he asks you exactly tho?

There’s sticky notes fucking everywhere!

Literally!

You can’t hear his president begging so you have to see it in equal volumes

Like there’s no doubt a wall would be covered with paper and whatnot of him begging and trying to convince and also some risqué photos to be the cherry on top

Also him either sitting in the corner all seductive like or standing next to you as innocent as can be

Just do it or he’ll never leave you alone again…

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prettywordsyouleft · 5 years ago

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10 Date | The Wine & Dine Me Date

Summary: Kim Junmyeon was the epitome of a perfect catch - he was successful, handsome and everything you currently didn’t want in a man. Yet after agreeing to his request to give him 10 dates in total to change your mind, you realised you might have been looking for someone like him all along.

Pairing: Kim Junmyeon x reader

Genre: dating au / romance

Warnings: none

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

With the launch of your work project right around the corner, dating Junmyeon had become a little difficult. You were back to talking over the phone most nights, one of you falling asleep before the other did. You liked it when you woke up to see the call hadn’t been ended and could talk in the morning before getting ready for work.

Despite not meeting up, you were definitely growing attached to Junmyeon. You thought of him over the simplest of things, you messaged him when you needed moral support or a pep talk to get through the day, and you told him all your deepest thoughts as you lay in your bed, staring up at the ceiling.

You had grown curious of late. What it would be like to get ready for bed at his side? Would you be cute and giggly together or find it a hassle to share a sink brushing your teeth at the same time? What made his skin so soft, did he have a decent skincare routine that trumped yours or was he naturally akin to having clear skin? Did he snore? Move around a lot in bed? Steal the blankets? Maybe sleep talk? Even if you got to speak to him first thing in the morning and had become addicted to his husky, barely awake voice, would it be even more desirable in person? Would you fight a lot?

For someone who had only known him for a little over two months, you sure were full of questions that you craved answers to.

You realised you were more than ready for the next step, far more prepared than you had believed to be on your last date.

Now, you just needed your work commitments to ease up a little.

“I have an incentive for you,” Junmyeon announced as soon as you slipped under the covers, settling into your bedding. You glanced at the phone beside you on speaker and rolled to face it as if you were facing him too. You had adopted funny little habits since most of your time was now spent on phone calls.

“What is it?”

“Your launch date is next Wednesday, right?”

“It is.”

“And then the following week, you mentioned something about some time off?” he continued and you grinned. You had been holding out for that week for over two of them now. You couldn’t wait to sleep in, catch up on hobbies you had put on hold lately and most importantly, see the man you were talking on the phone to right now.

Grinning, you laid back onto your pillows. “A whole week! Sounds like bliss, right?”

“Can I be bold and take up the whole week?” he asked hesitantly and you frowned, glancing at the phone. It was as if he felt your silent curiosity, chuckling lightly before continuing. “I know the plan was thirty but-”

“Italy?” you cut in, sitting up.

“Italy,” he confirmed and you had to cover your mouth to stifle a squeal.

Could you? Could you actually go on a trip with Junmyeon like this? Your mind was already rushing forward with flashes of architecture and tourist spots and holding his hand the entire time through. Waking up in a new city and falling into bouts of passion in the evenings. Had you done enough in this budding relationship to go forward on such an adventure?

This thought alone stopped you. Weeks ago, that’s what you ached for. To become spontaneous, to live in the moment, to go with whatever was thrown your way, even if there were risks involved.

Junmyeon was dangling the opportunity for you to do just that in front of you. A grin crept up on your face again and you were soon nodding even if he couldn’t see you. “A whole week with you in Italy sounds like the best incentive to get me through the remaining days until my project is launched.”

He sounded surprised, perhaps waiting for you to decline such a bold offer. Junmyeon was quick to collect himself with a little breath. “Good because I already booked the tickets.”

“I swear I must have done something good in a past life to have someone like you in my life,” you murmured, still amazed that you had agreed and would be going to the place you had dreamed of ever since you studied Italy in high school. You were already trying to decipher what to pack and what you would possibly end up visiting, anticipating the architecture and the remaining art from the Renaissance era.

You couldn’t wait to see where this adventure would lead you next.

When the plane touched down in Pisa International Airport two weeks later, you were stunned that you had not only gotten on a plane and gone somewhere with Junmyeon almost a day ago, but you were now on Italian soil. There was no way to contain your excitement and Junmyeon seemed to enjoy it, holding you close as you exited the aircraft.

“Airports are busy over here,” he pointed out when you looked up at him now wrapped around you and grinned, allowing him the intimate moment.

Not that you had been against all the touching since seeing him again. Even after sitting next to him, snuggling up and falling asleep on his shoulder during the flight, you couldn’t get enough of the man holding you either.

You could see this trip becoming the catalyst for a lot of impending confessions and overwhelming emotions.

For now, however, you were overstimulated by the sights and smells and the culture shock. On the taxi ride to your stay in Pisa, you peered out the window avidly, gasping endlessly and pointing out everything to Junmyeon. He merely watched your animated expression with a constant grin, satisfied with how happy you were already. And once you were standing on the tiny balcony to your room looking directly at the leaning tower across the courtyard in awe, you realised this was more than you had been expecting.

Junmyeon came in behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist. “Happy?”

“Happy is an understatement. How did you reserve us a place so close— this would have cost a fortune!”

“You promised me money wouldn’t be the talk of this trip,” he murmured against your ear, kissing the skin just below your earlobe. Swallowing as you tilted to the side to give him more access, you then sighed.

“Still, I’m being spoiled.”

“You’ve wanted to come here for so long, I wasn’t going to cut corners,” he admitted and you spun around in his grip, Junmyeon holding up his hand to stop the words you were already forming in response. “In saying that, it’s not as expensive as you might think. This is one of the cheaper boutique B&B’s in the area.”

“How am I going to make this even between us?” you wondered and he grinned, tucking some hair behind your ear.

“You could take me on a date tonight.”

You smiled. “Is that so?”

“Wine and dine me, Y/N,” he urged playfully and you couldn’t help but laugh at the suggestion.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere your wallet can take me,” he replied simply and you laughed, nodding happily enough as you thought of your comeback.

“So pizza?”

“How could we not have Italian pizza on our first night in Pisa?!”

“You’re right, it’s a must!”

“And pasta,” he added on and you nodded in agreement to that as well. Junmyeon ran a hand over your curves cheekily. “It’s carbs night.”

“Well, we’ll have to put in a lot of walking around Pisa tomorrow to make sure they don’t go and take up residence on my hips,” you compromised and he shook his head.

“Even if they do, it’ll be worth it, right?”

You bit at your lip, not wanting to tell him that anything with him right now was worth it. You were love-drunk in the best sense. A fairytale had come to life, your dashing prince taking you to a magical kingdom where the world seemed all too romantic in every direction you looked. Kelsi had been right all along, you had started to fall for someone spectacular.

Blinking away your thoughts, you looked back at the man watching you intently and tried not to smirk too obviously. “What about dessert?”

Junmyeon pulled you closer, sealing your lips with his momentarily. And then he kissed you again, this time the lust within him more evident. “Maybe we’ll have that when we come back to the room?”

“I like the way you’re thinking,” you agreed as your hands rested on his chest, your eyes glued to his. “I can tell this trip is going to change a lot for us.”

“All for the better, I hope.”

“Are we still just dating?” you wondered coyly and Junmyeon laughed heartily.

“Tonight will be date six, right?”

“Four more until I call you mine?” you concluded and Junmyeon shook his head.

“Not unless that fourth date ends with an I Do.”

“Junmyeon!” you exclaimed, gaping at the man chuckling once again. He then let out a deep breath, cupping your face in his hands and you shifted to kiss his palm gently. “After tonight I’m calling you mine.”

“What do we do with the other four dates? I thought our deal was I had to give you all of them?”

“We’ll do them just for fun,” you announced and Junmyeon grinned.

“I thought that’s what we were already doing.”

Stepping up onto your toes so you could kiss him, you then pulled back just enough to whisper, “I don’t think I need anything more to know I’ve made the right choice with you.”

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Part 7

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crewhonk · 5 years ago

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Quarantine

Summary: Steeb is worried about his girl during the pandemic. we got a little angst! we got alot of fluff! goofy!domestic!steebie!!!

AN: This is bad!!! lol!

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You’d never wanted to be a housewife. You’d always been driven and you’d always worked hard and even though you loved being home, it really wasn’t somewhere you had ever wanted to work.

And then the pandemic happened, and not only were the classes of your final university year been cancelled and put online, but you’s also been laid off from he two jobs you worked in between classes and studying and spending time with your boyfriend. You knew realistically, you didn’t need to worry about rent or anything— you boyfriend had enough money and generosity to sweep in and take care of you. Hell, he practically lived in your shoebox apartment in Manhattan anyways.

Didn’t mean that you were happy with the situation.

So, you spent your days cleaning, and watching Tiktoks and learning the dances, and once you’d learned them all, sat down and watched all of your comfort movies three times before deciding that your favourite hobby was putting your headphones in, sitting on your fire escape and staring.

Yeah, the house smelled like bleach and you weren’t doing well.

The days melded into one long continuous time period, only interrupted by going to bed once the pink of the sunrise shone over the buildings and when your boyfriend would come home once every few days. You understood— hell, he was one of the most iconic people in history, and despite retiring from combat, still had obligations to the public and to his team, the Avengers.

Steve Rogers was a grumpy hero of a man and you loved the hell out of him, and he you. However, you’d been distant lately, dealing with the changing world and the circumstances only exasperated by a government who didn’t lead and he understood that. The trauma you were dealing with was not unlike when he’d woken up from the ice. You and millions upon millions of people were being shut in and kept out of touch with each other and the world around you with the knowledge that you’d be let out of your home and released into a completely different world— one which you didn’t know how to live.

He saw the sag in your shoulders and how your eyes were unfocussed and how the corners of your lips were almost always turned down save for the few days where you could put on makeup and brush your hair and maybe even put on jeans to feel something. You’d made loaves and loaves of bread that he would bring to the compound and have to explain that he had a friend who had just made too much and left them on his doorstep. You had yet to tell the team— his whole life was exposed to them constantly, and save for his three best friends, nobody knew about the grumpy, domestic soft couple that was Steve Rogers and YN YLN. Bucky, Sam and Natasha would make frequent stops and while it took a while for them to accept you, they eventually did (once they realized that you refused to let Steve pay for anything or post anything about him).

So, he walked down the hall and fiddled with the keys in his hand nervously— not knowing which mood he’d have to be dealing with today but willing to give you any form of comfort you needed today. Being immune to the virus was a blessing, he knew— he could still work and the compound had been locked down since late February, all staff who wished to stay did, and those who did not, returned to their homes with the promise of a job waiting for them when things finished.

He twisted the key into the apartment of your door and was met with the sweet and sharp smell of lemon clorox. You’d been cleaning, obviously. Every surface was sterile— free of dust and any other blemishes. The floors were swept and mopped, and the windows were open, letting in the sounds of New York flow through the place he’d begun to call home. Walking into the kitchenette, he noticed that your sourdough starter had been moved, and that there was even a few new jars of pickles, onions and asparagus being fermented or pickled or whatever the new Quarantine Trend was.

“Princess?” He called, placing his keys on the counter and pulling off his jacket to throw over the back of the chairs pushed into the small kitchen table you two never ate at. Instead, he cocked his head at the thousand piece puzzle you both worked on when you had the patience, picking up a piece, squinting and placing it in its spot. He hunched over the table, not willing to commit and sit down, but stared at the picture hard, fingering through the pieces int he box and sighing though his nose.

“Fucking cats.” He cursed, frowning when he couldn’t find a spot to put the piece in between his fingers. You’d both done all the easy parts, and now it was trying to discern the blurry spots in the background and the melding of colours on the kittens tummy.

He jumped slightly when he felt your hands on his hips, wrapping around his torso and curling up over his chest, resting over his stuttering heart.

“Hi, Sweetheart.” He crooned, dropping the items in his hands and turning in your arms. He pulled you tight to his chest and rested his cheek on your wet, fresh smelling hair. Your t-shirt and leggings were slightly damp, you having just thrown on anything in a rush to see your guy.

“Hey, Stevie.” You mumbled into his shoulder and he nudged you until you lifted your head. When you did, his eyes roved your moisturized skin and the appearing freckles you were getting over your face from you time on the fire escape and in the sun. It was colder today, and he pulled you closer when you shivered at a particularly cold breeze that made the light curtains flap into your living room.

“You look fresh today. How’re you?” He asked, dipping his head and pressing his forehead to yours, noses brushing against each other. It was moments like these that he loved more than most. He could feel you shrug in his arms.

“You know.” You said offhandedly. “Life.” You’d long passed the point of explaining your feelings about everything to him— not wanting to rehash the same feelings of anger and fear and grief over and over again. He nodded and tilted his chin, pressing his soft lips against your own and sighing. His hand caressed your cheek and his thumb wiped your cheekbone as he kissed you slowly. The warmth that filled you at his tender touches was not unlike sun-warmed honey, filling every corner of your body. He pulled away too soon, and you chased his lips with your own, giving him one last slow kiss before wrapping your arms around the back of his neck and brushing the hair from out of his eyes. Sure, he may be an avenger, but not one single person in that building knew how to cut hair.

Not that you were complaining.

“I know.” He whispered, wishing with every fibre of his being that he could do just one thing that would ease the weight off of your shoulders.

“How was work?” You asked, pulling away to push the jars and bottles back against the wall of the counter, opening some lids before fastening them once more, not wanting any of the mason glasses to explode. He didn’t miss the way you would avoid his eyes when he talked about the outside world, or the monotonous tone you used when you asked the question.

“It was alright. Clint’s gone out to the country side to wait everything out with Laura and the kids. Tony’s gone too.” He said, opening the fridge to pull out the orange juice. “So all that’s left of the team is me, Nat, Sammy, Buck and Wanda. Also Peter brought this aunt to the compound, he wanted to get her out of the city and away from everything.” He hashed out and raised the carton to his lips, managing only two gulps before you slapped his arm and shoved a glass in his face.

“You’re an animal.” You joked half heartedly and he snorted, taking the glass. “So, May is living at the compound?” You asked, discreetly moving to the freezer and digging around for what you would want for supper.

“She is.” Steve confirmed, cocking his head and watching you nod your head.

“And Tony let her?”

“Well, she’s doing the two weeks of quarantine in her room which is on the opposite side of the guest floor. She basically has the whole floor to herself though.” He shrugged, lifting his chin and watching you react, just as the pieces were starting to click.

You hummed.

“You’d stay with me though.” He said over the lips of the glass in his hand. Your eyes shot to him and a blush dusted your cheeks slightly at being caught.

“Pardon?”

“I still have a room there, and I share my floor with Buck. Who is also immune to the virus, so you wouldn’t be stuck in the bedroom. You’d have a small gym, and a few balconies and a kitchen probably three times this size.” He said, nonchalantly. A smirk slowly spread across his face as he watched you look up at him from through your lashes before shaking your head and pushing him to the side so you could get some canned veggies from the pantry.

“You’d also have fresh food. That you wouldn’t have to go out and buy. You wouldn’t have to worry about running out of pasta, or canned food. You wouldn’t have to be in survival mode.” He crooned, coming up behind you and moving your hair to the side so he could pepper kisses over your shoulder and neck.

“We even have hand sanitizer and toilet paper.” He joked and you finally cracked, throwing your head back and laughing. You turned around and squeaked slightly when he picked you up and sat you on the counter. He shoved your legs open and wiggled his way in, resting his large hands against your hips.

“YN?” He ducked his head so you’d look at him. When you did, he offered you a small smile. “Wanna move in with me?” He whispered and you turned red. Sure, he’s been staying at your apartment a few nights a week, and sure, you’d been dating for a year, but because you were you, you’d always had a little twinge of doubt in your mind about whether or not he was being serious. Hell, you hadn’t even met everyone in his life yet- you’d never stepped foot in the compound for heavens sake.

“I don’t wanna be a bug, though.” You mumbled and he huffed before holding your face in his hands.

“You could never.” He affirmed, kissing your nose quickly and staring you down. “Buck loves you, and Nat adores you and Sam wants to be your best friend. You’re alone in this small ass apartment and I can’t help but worry about you. At least I have my people. You just got me and FaceTime with your family and my love, that’s not enough. I know it’s driving you insane.” He whispered and wiped the tears that welled in your eyes quickly.

“I don’t want to be in your way, or somehow make you associate me with work and then fall out of love with me and I know it’s stupid you don’t have to look at me like that. Plus, they’re starting to lift restrictions so—“

“You and I both know things are going to get worse before they get better.” He scorned and he tilted your face to look up at him. He pressed closer to you and you looped your fingers though the loops of his belt. He gave you a quick, open mouthed kiss before pouting his bottom lip.

“Please move in with me. I want you there. I want you out of the city and in my king sized bed and making a mess out of my balcony with your plants and gardens and I want to have movie nights with you and Buck and I want your stupid little Fermentation Station taking up Hal my counter. Please, baby girl. Come home with me.” He pouted, giving you his full puppy-dog eyes. You groaned, thumping your head against his hard shoulder.

“A king sized bed would be way better than that double bed.”

“The sheets are made out of such thin silk hey don’t even have a thread count.” He murmured and you groaned.

“I bet the pillows are those temperature regulating ones.” You hummed and he nodded, biting his lip.

“Fluffiest things you’ll ever rest your head on.” He kissed your neck and you giggled. “Wait until you see how thin the TV is.” He joked, and you played along, moaning.

“You don’t even watch TV on your laptop?” You gasped breathily. He nodded, biting his lip and your hand curled in the hair loosely at the base of his neck.

“How big?” You whispered and he leaned in, brushing his lips over yours as he spoke.

“82 inches. Surround sound.” He whispered, leaning down to pepper kisses over your throat.

“Oh, Lord take me now.” You yelled, throwing your hands into the air, making him laugh. He smiled down at you— you with new, bright eyes and an easy smile on your face from he idea of getting out of this small apartment and into Steve’s home.

“Seriously, come home with me. I can get a van and some people to get your things tomorrow if you want to pack a bag tonight.” He asked, his expression turning slightly nervous at your silence.

“I can pay for groceries—“

“I don’t even know where they come from. One day the fridge is empty the next day it’s full. I don’t pay for it and neither does Bucky.” He shrugged. “Seriously. Come on. I’m sure Bruce or Tony even have a job you could do if you get too bored.”

You perked up at the idea of working again and he rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t make it in the 40’d you know.” He joked. “You work too hard.”

“Bite me, Rogers!” You pushed him away from you, jumping off the counter and leaving the kitchen.

“Don’t tempt me!” He shouted back and you laughed, walking across the room to where you’d planted your dresser. You grabbed a bag from under your bed (which was also in the living room) and began throwing clothes into it.

“You can bite me all you want when I’m stuck in your room for two weeks.” You joked, throwing a wink over your shoulder and making him groan under his breath. The idea fo you in his silk sheets, marked up and nowhere to go was a very welcome image he was almost 100% promised.

“You’re a minx.”

“And I’m your new roommate too!” You chirped and Steve, for once, welcomed the blush that crept up his neck and onto his face. Maybe, there was a silver lining to all this COVID bullshit.

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers fluff #steve rogers angst #steve rogers imagine

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 5 years ago

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Eccentricity [Chapter 2: You Can Run Around Infinite In My Head]

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make.

Potentially a better love story than Twilight (we’ll let @killer-queen-xo decide when it’s all said and done 😉).

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: Rome by Dermot Kennedy.

Chapter Warnings: Language, mentions of violence.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Tagging: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @killer-queen-xo @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! 💜

Missing In Action

I wish she would stop staring at me.

Lucille sat at the Lees’ usual table and apathetically picked through a heaping salad. (Friday was salad bar day, which I appreciated considerably more than the chicken finger obsession that marred Mondays at Calawah University.) Every once in a while, Rami nudged her and Lucille would spear a cherry tomato with her fork and bite it in half with perfectly even, white teeth. But her large blue-green eyes—they reminded me of webs of seaweed tumbling in the cold, frothing La Push waves—always found their way back to me, strangely focused, inquisitive, perhaps accusatory.

Ben probably told them how much he hates me for whatever nebulous reason and now they all hate me too and I’m going to spend the next two years being death-glared by five ridiculously attractive and somewhat incestuous foster kids.

Chemistry was a three times a week class. Ben hadn’t shown on Wednesday, and I was 99% sure he would skip again today. I spotted him around campus periodically, always from a distance: dropping quarters into a vending machine, clandestinely vaping behind dorm buildings (what self-respecting pre-med student VAPES?!!), browsing YouTube videos in the library next to a tower of unopened textbooks, biology and chem and physics and calculus. He wasn’t home, he wasn’t sick; there was no attempt made to construct any sort of pretext. He was patently avoiding me.

I stabbed moodily at the serrated disks of cucumber in my salad. Jessica was blathering away about the latest season of The Bachelor and ranking the contestants’ eyebrows from best to worst. “...Like seriously, has she never heard of microblading?!”

“For real,” Angela offered, not especially invested but forever a good sport.

Lucille’s eyes settled on me again as she sipped a cup of steaming tea, staring until her forehead crinkled with the effort, staring hard, almost leering.

“What’s her problem?” I muttered.

Jessica shot a glance towards the Lee table and slurped her Sprite. The great mystery surrounding her potential Mormon-ness persisted. “Who? Lucy?”

Only Lucille’s friends called her Lucy. Jessica, a shameless aspiring socialite, presumed she was everybody’s friend unless they explicitly informed her otherwise, which of course no one ever did.

“Yeah,” I answered glumly.

“Maybe it’s your dress.”

“My dress? What’s wrong with my dress?”

Jessica wrinkled her nose and surveyed me as if I were a bug, and not a cute bug like a roly-poly bug or The Very Hungry Caterpillar or whatever. Like a really hideous bug. Like one of those spider-cricket hybrid things that hopped straight out of a hell dimension and into the dark, drippy corners of your basement. “It’s, like, very 1960s. But not in a sexy Woodstock way. In a ‘I’m about to join a hippie murder cult’ way.”

“I got it at TJ Maxx. It was on sale.”

Jessica snorted. “Probably for a reason.”

“That’s it. I’m giving all the hippies in my new murder cult your address.”

She and Angela laughed. Mike and Eric, the missing pieces of our daily lunch puzzle, were preoccupied with a campus protest to convert fried fish day (Thursdays) into tacos day. I sympathized with their efforts, but didn’t feel that my one-week tenure as a Calawah University student gave me much right to go around overhauling the dining hall schedule.

“I doubt she’s actually offended by a dress,” Angela said, nibbling on French fries that shed grains of salt like snowflakes.

Jessica sighed dreamily. “But Lucy’s just so fashionable...and that accent...” She drifted off into some daydream which began—I could only assume—with Lucy’s invitation to go shopping together and concluded with marrying Ben on some lush tropical island in the South Pacific.

Lucille was definitely fashionable, especially today: short black dress with sheer sleeves that ran to her fragile wrists, black polka dot tights, black heeled oxfords, dangling ruby earrings like beads of blood. She would have blended in perfectly at Paris Fashion Week. Rami was wearing a cardigan and khakis, per usual; Joe was in dark fitted jeans and a roomy U Chicago hoodie despite the fact that Forks was at minimum a thirty-four hour drive from the Windy City. What did Angela say his major was? Finance? No, Mathematical Economics. So he’s probably aiming at Chicago for an MBA or Econ PhD someday. Angela had told me that Joe was wicked smart. He better be if he’s entertaining fantasies of grad school at the University of Chicago.

Scarlett had come straight from Fencing Club and was wearing bright pink yoga pants and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut out, sprinkling Hot Cheetos into her open mouth, her blonde hair secured in a tight French braid. You know those girls who are so irrationally, gluttonously, unfairly beautiful that it doesn’t seem possible the genetic lottery could spit out so many winning numbers at once, and you comfort yourself with the certainty that there must be some set of circumstances that would level the playing field—I bet she looks like anyone else without all that makeup, she just has a really good sense of style and knows how to maximize her assets, there are definitely some goofy oversized ears hiding beneath that hair and that’s why she always wears it down—and then one day you run into them wearing sweatpants and a ponytail in the tampon aisle at Walmart and they’re still so perfect it stings you, baffles you, makes you feel like there must have been some divergence in the evolutionary chain because there’s no freaking way you’re the same species? Yeah, Scarlett was one of those girls. Scarlett was the queen of those girls.

Ben was conspicuously absent from the table.

Scarlett’s pink leopard-print iPhone rang and she answered. “Hello?” She turned to Joe. “Dad says you left your phone at home. Do you need it?”

Joe was gnawing his way through his third slice of pepperoni pizza. “No, I’m good, thanks though.”

Scarlett relayed the message. “Dad says he’s going to bring it by just in case.”

“Oh my god, ScarJo, I’m fine! Tell him not to!”

“Dad says he doesn’t trust you and he’s going to be here in fifteen minutes. He’s also bringing the Game Theory homework you left by the hot tub.”

Joe groaned and rolled his lively dark eyes as Rami grinned at him; Lucille was still watching me and entirely oblivious.

“Isn’t it weird that Ben and Lucille have accents?” I asked Jessica. “That they’re from the U.K.? I didn’t think fostering kids was an international thing.”

“It’s not that weird. Dr. Lee is British too. Maybe there’s some kind of exchange system, I don’t know. But you know what I do know?”

“What?” Now my interest was piqued.

She smiled. “That the British accents are hot.”

“Ugh,” I exhaled involuntarily.

“Please get a hobby,” Angela begged Jessica. “Start a YouTube channel. Make care packages for orphans. Grow marijuana. Adopt a cat. I have a shift at the animal shelter this Sunday morning, you want to come with me?”

“Sorry, can’t. I have a temple thing.”

Temple on Sunday. The mystery is solved. She’s a Mormon for sure. I mentally resolved not to let her set me up with anyone unless I was still single on Valentine’s Day. Which, obviously, assuming I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere, I will be.

I gathered up my trash and slung my backpack over my shoulder. “Okay, well this has been a bizarre lunch to be completely honest, and now I have to go to Chemistry so I’ll see you later and hopefully we can brainstorm some more alternatives to Jessica’s current life trajectory on Monday. Because I am not looking forward to being a bridesmaid in these impending Lee nuptials.”

“Oh please!” Jessica lamented. “He doesn’t even know I exist. You, on the other hand...”

I scoffed. “Yeah, he wants to kill me. I truly have a gift.”

They waved as I left. I could feel Lucille’s eyes on me until I reached the door.

Sure enough, Ben wasn’t in Chemistry. I tried not to notice. I drew my atoms, wrote my equations, took my notes diligently and in my favorite sky blue ink. But I felt the emptiness in the chair next to me like a black hole, like an immense and dragging weight, like a snag in the fabric of all those interwoven strands of physics that orchestrate the universe like an immortal puppeteer. Why can’t I forget this guy? Why do I still feel like I’ve met him before?

Halfway through class, I hauled my emergency sweatshirt out of my backpack and pulled it on over my dress, floral and flowing and golden yellow like the sun, the sun that never shines here in Forks. I had liked it plenty under the florescent lights of the fitting room at TJ Maxx, and I had still liked it this morning; but Jessica’s words hummed around in my skull like wasps. The zipper of the sweatshirt was broken, but it accomplished the task of obscuring my dress well enough.

After Chemistry, I journeyed to the campus library to find a book I was supposed to read and present for a different class. I looked it up in the computer catalogue, spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out how the Dewey Decimal System works, eventually wound up finding the book on the highest floor of the library...and, to add a little extra peril to the mission, on the highest shelf. The book mocked me from its lofty, unattainable stronghold. The title was embossed in gold letters down the crimson spine. The Walruses And Me: A Transformative Experience. Idiotic title, I’m aware. It’s about some marine biologist who spent months alone in the Arctic studying the lifecycles of walruses. A noble pursuit, sure, but still a terrible title.

There wasn’t a chair or stepstool in sight. I tested my weight by stepping up onto the second-lowest shelf. The metal immediately squealed and shifted in protest. I retreated back down to the carpet, defeated by gravity. I scowled up at the book and sighed melodramatically. Ugh.

“Need something?”

I spun around to see Joe in his University of Chicago hoodie and pale flawless skin and intangible magnetism, that bewildering trademark Lee ethereality. I instinctively crossed my arms, clutching the sleeves of my sweatshirt, shrinking inwards like a startled armadillo in the Arizona desert.

“Are you, uh, anemic...?” he ventured.

“Oh no, I’m not cold. I’m just trying to hide my dress. My friend said it was too hippie-murder-cult 1960s.”

I figured he’d laugh, make a snide comment, maybe just blink in confusion. Instead, he glimpsed down at my dress—what could still be seen of it, anyway—and shook his head. “The neckline isn’t right for the 60s. And you seem like you’ve showered at least once in the past two weeks, so definitely not a hippie.”

I smiled, completely unexpectedly. “I didn’t realize Econ majors knew anything about leftist counterculture.”

“Disparaging it is our favorite pastime. Are you trying to get a book or are you just disrespecting university property for entertainment?”

I pointed. “The big red one.”

“The Walruses And Me...?”

“I know, it’s a horrible title. Not my personal preference. It’s for a class.”

“Bestiality 101?”

“Good guess. Marine Mammals.”

“Ahhh.” He glanced up and down the aisle, tapped his chin with agile fingers, pondered something I wasn’t privy to. “Turn around for a second.”

“What? Why?”

He waved his hand mysteriously in front of his grinning face. “It’s a magic trick. I’m going to make your problem disappear.”

“You can’t climb that,” I warned. “You’ll fall and break your neck. Or you’ll knock the whole shelf over and cause a tragic domino effect and the university will withhold your diploma until you pay them restitution.”

“I’m extremely athletic.”

“Are you sure?” I appraised him with exaggerated skepticism for comedic effect. “My dad refers to you only as the spindly annoying Lee.”

Oh my god, WHY did I say that?

Now he would definitely hate me. Now I’d have two mortal enemies on one campus. I mentally calculated how humiliating it would be to transfer to some Florida college, any Florida college, after only one week at Calawah. Hi mom, yeah I’m coming to live with you and Paul, a gang of hot pasty foster kids wants to slaughter me.

Instead, Joe threw back his head and cackled wildly. A librarian—mid-fifties, angry red hair from out of a box, fuzzy cat sweater—glared into the aisle and shushed him.

“Chief Swan...he actually...he calls me that? Really?!” Joe managed, wiping his leaking eyes. “That’s hilarious. I’m so glad my life is in his hands. Okay seriously, turn around.”

“Why would you help me?” I asked suspiciously.

“That’s just what I do. I’m a friendly guy.”

“This friendliness must not run in the family.”

Again, Joe’s cheerful demeanor didn’t falter. “You mean Ben? Forget about Ben, he hates everyone. Don’t take it personally.” Then he added: “Plus, as I’m sure you know, we’re not biologically related. No overlapping genetic material whatsoever. I didn’t get the male supermodel gene, he didn’t get the irresistibly charming gene, life’s not fair but the world keeps spinning.”

“It sure does,” I agreed softly. Unexpected wisdom from my new favorite Lee. I turned away from him. “Fine, I’m not looking, go ahead and dazzle me with your supernatural friendliness—”

“Done.”

“What?” I whirled around. Joe held The Walruses And Me in his hand. “How...did you...?!”

He passed me the book as I sputtered incoherently. “I told you. Magic trick.”

“I don’t....?!” I gawked up at the top shelf, at Joe, back to the top shelf. Sure enough, the space where The Walruses And Me once lived was now just a vacant slit in the row of dusty books. How could he have climbed up there that quickly? How could I not have heard anything? “The shelves didn’t even creak,” I murmured shakily.

“Yes, well, that’s due to my conveniently spindly physique.” Joe winked. “Any other problems I can help you solve at the moment, Baby Swan?”

“No. And don’t call me Baby Swan, or I’ll push this whole bookshelf over and tell the feisty librarian lady you did it.”

“That’s cold, ma’am.”

I liked that Joe didn’t make me feel like Ben did: unworthy, unloved, infuriating. Joe made me feel something else, something lighthearted, casual, buoyant; like the world didn’t have anything in it worth worrying about, regretting, agonizing over. Like unadulteratedly myself was all I ever needed to be.

I heard a muted buzz and Joe slid his iPhone out of his jeans pocket. Dr. Lee must have successfully delivered it. “Whoops, I forgot that Ordinary Differential Equations existed. Got to go. See ya.”

“Bye,” I replied. And then Joseph Lee was gone, very quickly, a little too quickly, the same way that Ben had vanished on that first afternoon after Chemistry.

Forks is weird. Calawah University is weird. And the Lee kids are super fucking weird.

Long Walks On The Beach

“Can I ask you a random question?”

“You just paid me $100 for an oil change that took fifteen minutes. You can ask me anything you want.” He grinned, flashing bright teeth and deep dimples.

It was Saturday afternoon. I had shoveled down a Chipotle veggie bowl as Archer changed the 1999 Accord’s oil in a small garage with a cracked concrete floor and the searing pungency of gasoline fumes thick in the air. He had apprenticed all through high school and rented his own shop after graduation. Archer now had a loyal clientele that encompassed virtually the entire Quileute reservation and a growing chunk of Forks...including Charlie and me, of course. Archer was the only child of Larry Foxchild—Charlie’s best friend since they worked together at Dairy Queen as teenagers—and the closest thing to a son my dad would ever have. I guess that made him like a brother to me, something that seemed intuitive now that I’d thought of it.

After the Accord was serviced we drove it down to La Push to walk on the beach, climb the salt-lashed rocks, toss pebbles into the roiling surf, reprise our childhood enthusiasm for poking dead washed-up marine creatures with shards of driftwood.

“Do you know anything about the Lees?” I asked Archer, investigating a deceased green shore crab.

His brow furrowed. He looked so serious like that, suddenly so much like Larry: the same tan skin, jet black hair, umbral eyes like oil wells, strong jaw overlaid with the stubbled shadow of a beard. We really aren’t kids anymore, are we? “The doctor and his kids?”

“Yeah. The foster kids. They’re really pale and strange and half of them are British.”

Archer chuckled. “I know who you mean. They’re hard to miss.”

“Are they...” Just eccentric rich people? Traumatized from abusive childhoods? Government experiments? CIA agents? Secret murderers? The image of Ben in that first Chemistry class came roaring back to me, including the adjective that had flashed red behind my eyes like an emergency exit sign: fierce. Finally, I decided: “Dangerous?”

Now Archer full-on laughed, gripping his belly, shaking his head. Drops of saltwater flew from his short hair. “Seriously?!” he exclaimed. “Come on, they’re freaks but they’re not, like...that kind of freaks.”

“Are you sure?” I was starting to feel better already. Of course they’re not actual demons, you fucking idiot. This is Washington, not The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. Not goddamn American Horror Story.

“Yeah.” Archer skipped a grey pebble over the water, something I’d never been able to do. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know them all that well. They usually keep to themselves. But I’ve never heard anything bad about any of the kids. And everyone respects Dr. Lee and appreciates him for taking the pay cut to come to some bumblefuck town like Forks. He’s insanely highly credentialed, has degrees from Harvard or Yale or somewhere like that. Super impressive. We’re lucky to have him. I definitely sleep better at night knowing he’ll be the one to fix me up if I ever get a few fingers ripped off on the job.”

“Don’t even say that. Then who would I grossly overpay for oil changes?”

Archer smiled, then sobered as he peered out over the Pacific Ocean.

“What?” I asked, feeling a plummeting in my guts like primal fear.

“Well...okay, so there is one thing that’s always bothered me. You remember Grandpa Foxchild?”

“Yeah, of course.” He had been an impossibly ancient man with long grey braided hair, a low rumbly voice, gnarled arthritic hands, ceaseless wrinkles. I remembered Charlie calling me when he passed away last spring. Renee and I had picked out a flower arrangement to send to the funeral.

“So,” Archer said slowly, like he was still puzzling it out himself. “Grandpa used to say things like ‘That Dr. Lee has been around a long time.’ Which of course makes no sense, the Lees moved here like two years ago. And I’d tell Grandpa that, but he completely ignored me. He would just keep repeating it. ‘That Dr. Lee shouldn’t still be here.’ ‘That Dr. Lee should go on home to where he came from.’ ‘That Dr. Lee isn’t right.’ Creepy shit like that. My dad and I always assumed it was the dementia talking, but...I don’t know. It just bothered me. Because Grandpa...he wasn’t just being gossipy or suspicious. He was angry. And he was afraid. Grandpa was at Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima and he would talk about that no problem, mention landmines or flesh melting off a soldier’s face like it was nothing. He was a tough guy. Immeasurably tough, I’ll never be half the man he was. But if you mentioned the Lees, Grandpa got scared. Why the hell would he be so scared of them?”

I didn’t have an answer for him, not a single word. I just stared at Archer, my eyes growing huge, my heart sprinting, blood pounding in my ears. He knew. Grandpa Foxchild knew there was something off about them, and now I know it too. I don’t know how I know, but I do.

Archer tittered nervously. “Anyway, that was genuinely disturbing. But like I said. It was probably just the dementia.”

“What if it wasn’t?”

“It had to be,” he insisted. “There’s no other logical explanation.”

“I guess,” I agreed, scooping up the green shore crab corpse with my bare hands. I hurled it out into the waves, imagined it sinking through murky water and suspended grains of sand, the body settling into prehistoric silt, the scavengers descending upon it, the inescapable wheel of birth and death and resurrection through those who unwittingly carry our atoms with them into the next generation, into the perpetual future.

That night my dreams were full of pale skin and scorching eyes, Ben and Joe and Rami, Lucille and Scarlett, crashing waves, cold water and bleached bones; and Grandpa Foxchild’s mistrustful refrain: That Dr. Lee has been around a long time.

Benjamin

I soared down the staircase and through the dining room. Gwil was working late at the hospital, Mercy outside tending the animals, everyone else presumably scattered throughout the house. I had to get out before anyone noticed me. I had to get out without Rami or Lucy knowing.

I yanked open the door to the back porch. Rami was waiting there.

“Good evening,” he greeted me in that slow, thoughtful drawl.

“Stay the fuck out of my head.”

“You know how it works, Benny Boy. I can’t ignore the loud thoughts. And you’ve been having some very loud thoughts lately.”

I stared down at my shoes, all black Adidas. Black is good. It doesn’t show stains. For example, purely hypothetically, splatters of human blood and organs. “I can make it quick. I can make it painless.”

Rami’s aura flared maroon; not enraged, no, not quite that, but certainly revolted. I was always finding new and horrifying ways to revolt them, whether I was trying to or not. “She has a family, Ben. A father. You know Chief Swan, you’ve seen him around town. He’s a good person. She’s a good person. You really want to do this? You really want to relapse like this?”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t have to. Hearing thoughts is a tricky thing, and not a gift that I would ever want; unspoken words are rarely a steam and usually a storm, disjointed and twisting, interrupting each other, bottomless layers of whispers and screams. But I was sure Rami could catch the important parts: that I didn’t know the difference between good and bad people, that I didn’t know what to think of people at all, that for me her blood was not a desire but a compulsion. I couldn’t stop envisioning it spilling over my tongue and teeth, down my throat, hot and pulsing erratically and fading. “Why can’t you hear her? Why can’t I see what she’s feeling?”

Rami shrugged, characteristically placid and restrained. It was maddening. “There are seven and a half billion people on this planet. So maybe every once in a while you get one that lives in our blind spots, there’s something chromosomal or psychological that puts them on a different frequency. I don’t know. How the hell should I know? All I know is that you definitely shouldn’t be seriously considering...well. What you’re considering.”

“Have you ever met someone whose thoughts you couldn’t hear before?”

“No,” Rami admitted; and was that a ghost of unease that crossed his face?

“Please, Rami. Let me go. Pretend you never saw me.” My words come out strained, hushed, like a spilled secret, like a confession. I’ve never wanted anyone’s blood like I want hers.

He heard that; I could see the dismay in his eyes. Now his aura is dark grey, almost black. Disappointment. Resignation. Mourning. “I told you what Lucy saw.”

“What she saw is impossible and you know it.”

Again, Rami shrugged. That blind, mindless faith. I wished I knew what it felt like. “She’s never wrong.”

“Have you told him?”

“Who, Joe?! Of course I haven’t told Joe. He...”

“He wouldn’t believe it either?” I snapped, like it was a victory.

“No,” Rami amended carefully. “No, he would believe anything Lucy saw.” Lucy had visions: flashes of the future, the past, the present. They were rare and unpredictable, often fragmented, snapshots rather than arcs. But they were always true. Or, rather, the other Lees claimed they were. The real Lees. “I don’t know what he would do about it,” Rami said finally. “So I’m waiting it out. And killing one of the primary participants is definitely not waiting it out.”

I seethed as I glared at him, hating him in that moment, hating myself only slightly more; and he heard that too. But then that wispy, fleeting haze around him was a pink like the last threads of sunlight sinking into the Western horizon. Forgiveness. Attachment. Love.

“Come with me, Ben,” Rami said gently, opening the door. “Come back inside. You can beat this. You’re better than this. You’re a good soul. You wouldn’t be with us if you weren’t.”

I tried to laugh. It came out like a snarl. “I haven’t had a soul in a long time.”

#joe mazzello fic #joe mazzelo x reader #borhap #borhap fic #borhap cast fic #twilight au #twilight #supernatural au

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nickcifonie · 3 years ago

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In 2021, Anyone Can Make $ Playing Video Games!

I grew up playing games like Risk, Monopoly, a little Chess... and still remember buying my first computer somewhere around 1986 solely to play a computer game on. It was an Apple IIc, and that first game was some type of Pirate Adventure. I wish I remembered the name. It wasn’t all that good, but still, I was hooked!

Since that first adventure, I’ve spent thousands of hours as well as dollars playing just about every type of digital game that has followed! PC games, Atari, Wii, mobile games... you name it, I play it! I’d always generalize the cost (to myself at least) thinking “some guys play golf 3 days a week at $100 a round... I play computer games”.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it! However, the story has changed...

“Pay to Play” has become “Play to Earn”!

If you would be to search terms like “crypto games”, “blockchain games”, “make money playing video games”, and others, you’d find some really incredible statements. Today, quotes like the ones below are becoming more and more common!

“I made $400 last week playing a computer game” “I just sold my RPG character for $200 profit”

“I was offered $1k for a skin for my laser rifle of doom” (I made up the “laser rifle of doom” part)

“I bred my pet thingamajig yesterday and sold the baby!” (it’s digital, for those of you wincing)

In 2021, thanks to the blockchain, there’s a growing community of gamers who are making real dollars daily, mining, fighting, shooting, jumping... all while playing the same type of mobile and PC games that you had to PAY to play just a short while ago...

...but let’s start at the beginning.

You paid $172,000 for a what!?

Yes... all the way back in 2018 a CryptoKitty named “Dragon” was sold for an incredible $172,000. (300 ETH) Don’t be too surprised, it’s justified! It’s an adorable digital image, or “NFT” of a cat, after all.

It’s a lot of money, but for NFTs and blockchain gaming, flipping a Kitty today may as well be considered the stone ages. It’s still a record, but while you can still get started collecting these digital felines for as low as a couple of dollars, big-dollar trades still happen daily.

On the flip side of mortgaging your home to buy a digital picture of a CryptoKitty, Bored Ape, or CryptoPunk, you may feel better if you begin your adventure into making crypto (it’s real money, dear!) by playing a video game where you can “make money” instead of spending it.

I’m not saying owning a CryptoKitty or any of a plethora of “Avatar NFTs” we see popping up on various exchanges isn’t one way to do it... I’m saying to me at least, as a life-long gamer I’d much prefer playing a mobile, console, or PC game to collecting pictures in a digital wallet.

So what the heck is an NFT?

I could go into a long explanation... but since this article is about gaming and not cryptocurrency, I’ll tell you an NFT is a “non-fungible token”, and leave you google it if you really want to dig in deep. I do want to share more, so I’ll ‘splain it as simple as I can for you Lucy!

A CryptoKitty, as stated above, is a type of image called an NFT. (the collection is called “CryptoKitties) It’s a digital picture of a cartoon cat. There are thousands of different ones that have different shapes, colors, expressions and traits. (kind of like a real cat, but eats less)

The difference, is only one of each design is actually a legitimate “CryptoKitty”. (or a legitimate whatever type of image it happens to be) To be clearer... each NFT is a “one of a kind”, so if you’re thinking “but can’t I just make a copy?”, nope you can’t.

I mean... you “can” make a copy of it if you really dig the design and want it on your desktop, but it would only be a copy of that particular NFT, not the real McCoy! Ok... so what makes one real, and the rest fakes? The blockchain.

Now, I’m going to be true to my word and keep my promise of not making this an article about crypto or the blockchain, so just know this: the difference between an image that is an actual NFT, and a copy of one, is there is an underlying digital code that designates the real thing.

So real in fact, that artists are creating or importing their paintings and creations to the web as NFTs, numbering them as they would a lithograph, and selling their entire collections. So if you are an art fan, check with your favorite creators... you may be surprised to find all of their “works of art” on an online marketplace!

NFTs are viewed on certain marketplace websites and digital wallets where the copies cannot be displayed, so that is how we know one is real, and the others are not! Having said that, sure, there’s more to it, but just know that there’s a 100% secure way of knowing an image is a real NFT.

In addition, there can be more than one NFT with the same identical image. However, each has a unique underlying code, so even if they look exactly the same, they are not! Look at it like the playing cards or comic books of old... there may be 1,000 created (or “minted” as it’s called in NFT land) but they will each be numbered 1 to 1,000.

And guess which is more valuable.....? I knew you’d get it!

And these NFT’s make money how?

You’re getting warmer! There are a lot of different types of games coming out these days where you can make money playing. There are RPG’s, MOBA’s, Shooters, games in first person and in third, dungeon crawls... you name it!

If you’re thinking “how did I not know this!”, I was the same until recently! I have been gaming almost daily since I stepped into Ultima Online back in 1997, and I can’t even begin to tally how many hours and/or dollars I’ve invested into gaming.

Now, our hobby pays!

After 30-something years, my wife still thinks I’m bonkers... but I got a totally different look from her a few days ago when I told her I sold my game character for well over $200. Legit. I sold two more yesterday, and another this afternoon.

Some of these only cost me $10 or $15, some much more. Some are free. I sold another NFT character last week for $1,950, and it was sold on the game’s website, not on the black market.

So not only can an NFT be a picture of an Ape, Vegetable, Duck, or Stripper on a pole (we’ll leave it at that) but it can be a character in a game, a weapon, a mount, armor, or more.

One game is giving away free pet turtles with each character. For the uneducated on “pets” in computer games, it’s not the kind you keep in a bowl in your bedroom. It’s a companion that fights with you in an online game and may shoot fire from its eyes, heal you, or similar.

Soon after being handed out for free, they’re now selling for around $60 each.

So an NFT can be an image, a video, music, a meme... or even a shirt or shoes! But we’ll leave the NFT clothing explanation to another article. ;)

Remember that rare skin you paid out the nose for a year ago in Apex? Or the L33T character you built up in Fortnite or Warcraft? If you’re no longer playing that game, it’s money under the bridge. And you don’t own the bridge!

In this new breed of blockchain games, you could have LEGALLY sold that character, skin, weapon, land, house, mount, or whatever it was when you tired of the game. For a profit. Maybe for a LARGE profit.

Yes, in the past we were able to find ways to get around the system and dump our pixels from time to time. We’d sell the account on the black market, or cut a deal with someone like a drug dealer on a Chicago Street corner. Then we’d over who went first...

“You give me the account and weapon first!” “No you give me the money first”. Sometimes the deals even went through. Others well... let’s just say half of the parties walked away happy.

I made good money when after 4 years of daily playing I sold my Ultima Online account for somewhere around $2,000, but I needed to find a trustworthy “go-between” to broker the deal. Even then, I was sweating it!

With today’s crypto games, not only do the games provide the platform to buy, sell, or trade your character and items, but it’s encouraged, and done with good old U.S dollars! I’ve made $ playing 4 or 5 different games already this week, as well as flipping (buying low and selling higher) NFT characters!

How else can I make money playing games?

The way you earn varies from game to game, but each week seems to reveal another new strategy, platform, or idea. Many are new strategies, and while some have “triple A” 3D animation and graphics, others are simpler and use basic one-dimensional graphics for the gameplay.

Some of these games are actually tied to a token on the blockchain. The game developer creates their own token, not too unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, and it can be bought or sold on the open market as well as used in the game as currency.

Could you imagine if back in League of Legends, Guild Wars or Final Fantasy, when you were ready to move to a new game, you could sell or easily convert your gold to cash? Some of today’s blockchain games encourage it!

Not only can you now buy and sell characters and weapons, the gold in the game can be traded, bought, sold, or saved like real currency, stocks, crypto, or collectables. Never have I been as excited about PC and mobile gaming as I am today!

As an example, I am doing some work for a new game that will launch soon called Pepper Attack. Pepper Attack has its own token or coin... called MYTE. It can be used in the game as currency, but also be traded like Bitcoin. A lot of today’s blockchain games offer this same benefit.

Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to mine I go!

Just by owning an NFT from the game, you can login on a daily basis and click “mine” earning real-value tokens passively. Your Pepper goes to work like one of the 7 Dwarves mining MYTE, and later on you can convert it to other tokens or cold, hard cash.

There's more to do in this particular game as well. Like any good RPG or MMORPG, each pepper has a unique combination or skills like attack, defense, evade, hit points, and more. As an example of the possibilities, if you have a high attack score, other characters will be able to pay you in MYTE to “train” them, raising their score as well.

In addition, these NFTs have unique physical traits, some are common and some are very rare. This game in particular have toons that look more like anime-ish elves with weapons and a stem... I have to admit the artwork is really spicey! (see what I did there?) Other games are of course totally different.

Some people will simply collect these NFTs/characters as an investment, like playing cards or comics. Others will use them in the game, and still others will do both. Either way, they can be held, or sold for a profit!

Unlike the games of the past, when you’re ready to move on you don’t walk away and lose all the $ you have spent for characters, skins, weapons, potions, and other items. When you’re done, you’ll be able to sell your character and items... possibly for a profit... maybe a lot of profit... and move on.

These are not your father’s computer games!

As we move ahead in the genre, we are seeing AAA studios coming out with big-dollar productions, like Blankos, Mist, Illuvium, Ember Sword and others. Some of these games actually let you buy the land you build on!

Did you have your own house in Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, or Archeage? What if you could have used It as a shop and been paid in dollars for your wares, rented it to another player, or sold it for cold hard cash at a huge profit down the road?

In many of today’s games, not only is it common, but extremely hard to come by, and quite expensive. Not only are people paying thousands of dollars for a plot in some of the games that have land, but they’re paying it many months before the game is even released.

They do it, because in many cases they know that they can easily 2X, 10X, or even 50X their investment a short piece down the road. Seriously? Seriously... and the early bird catches the worm!

Other games with lesser budgets are more graphic-based, but have super earnings potential as well, and are just as fun to play. These include Splinterlands, (a card game like Magic!) Crypto Blades, Axie Infinity and more.

Regardless of if the new blockchain game of your choice is a RPG, MOBA, a card game or racing game... the fact that you can put some coin into your pocket playing adds a whole new element. It’s heckafun making money playing a game!

The early nerd catches the worm!

In many cases, if you can catch a game before it releases, the land, characters, weapons, and other items... in most cases all NFTs... can be grabbed at a tiny fraction of the future value.

Of course, always check out the game details and team first, and be confident it’s a good place to put your money. Not all games are made the same.

If you’re lucky enough to find out about and partake in an early sale, for example, like grabbing a character NFT or two in “Pepper Attack” before the late September launch date, you may be in for a real treat!

There are plenty of new titles coming down the pipe that look to be fun, have great communities, and offer earning opportunities. A web search will find services and websites that will keep you on your toes and alert you of upcoming blockchain game releases, marketplace opening, and more.

As we look forward, the future of gaming on the blockchain is really, really exciting! Not only are the games getting better and more fun, but they’re getting better at making the economics work more smoothly as well.

The games are not without challenges, as they need to be made to sustain themselves economically over the long haul. In addition, they need to have higher levels of security (thanks blockchain!) and of course, work without becoming “pay to win”. Thankfully, the new breed of developers have risen to the challenge!

The next time you look for a new game to add to your phone or desktop, or just want a change of pace, look to a game that pays to play! Your wallet might thank you.

Another perk, is your husband or wife will appreciate it as well! Instead of hearing “are you going to play that stupid game all night again?”, you may start to hear things like “I’ll put the kids to bed tonight sweetheart, so you can get online and play”.

One can only hope...

Author - Nick Cifonie

Nick is a lifelong gamer, who cut his teeth at the local Chicago arcade playing Tetris as a teen. Better known as Znick or Deacon Z, Nick became a Game Master in Ultima Online in 1997, ran a large multi-game guild for 15 years, and now spends his time in the “play to earn” arena. Professionally, Nick is a writer and 4-decade marketer working with the Pepper Attack team, as well as others. Nick is also a Catholic Deacon.

#nftart #nft marketplace #nftdrop #nftgallery #nftnews #nftcrypto #cryptoart #nftcommunity #nftartist #crypto #blockchain #nonfungibletokens #nft games #nft

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waywardodysseys · 5 years ago

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Unconditionally - Chapter Three

Warnings: mentions of cheating, cussing, SMUT, oral receiving (m & f)

Word count: 4.2+k

Author’s note: because everyone deserves to be loved unconditionally; part 3 of ?; sorry not sorry for this either; enjoy!!!

Unconditionally: Chp. 1, Chp. 2

Pedro finds you in the kitchen making omelets. He walks up behind you and wraps his arms around you. He brushes your hair aside then nuzzles your neck.

“Smells delicious,” Pedro whispers.

You shrug and smile. “Fair warning, I don’t cook often.”

Pedro’s quiet as he licks a sweet spot.

You sigh contently. You could get used to this. Mornings with Pedro. You frown down at the skillet on the stove – were you really thinking about the future so soon?

You turn around in his embrace. You swallow as you realize he’s shirtless. You bite your lip at seeing his chest in the morning light shining through the kitchen windows.

“See something you like?”

“Yes,” you half whisper, half squeak.

Pedro brushes his lips against yours as he touches your cheek and sweeps his hand through your hair.

You return the kiss as your free hand travels up his chest. His skin is warm, soft. You reach Pedro’s long neck and glide your thumb up it then trace his jawline and feel the prickliness of fuzzy hairs along the strong bone.

The food begins to sizzle in the skillet, but Pedro keeps moving his mouth against yours, his tongue dipping in for more. You give into him, not wanting to let go. Both of you aren’t giving a care to the world around you until the smoke alarm starts blaring its annoying beeps.

You jump back and face the stove, moving the skillet from the flame. You then walk over to the window and open it widely. Trying to move the smoke out of the apartment with a dishtowel.

After the alarm is off and the smoke nearly cleared, Pedro grins, “I want to set more alarms off with you Y/N.”

You turn and face him; you blush as you smile.

Pedro walks over to you and pulls you into his strong arms. “I’ve become a greedy man with you. I don’t know if I can wait a couple of days to see you again.”

“A second date? Tonight?”

Pedro smiles and presses his forehead against yours. He loves the intimate contact between your skin and his, no matter where that contact takes place. “Yes. Tonight,” he pulls away but cups your cheek, his thumb stroking your skin. “Unless you don’t—”

You nod. “I do. I want another date. Tonight. Please.”

Pedro smiles widely. “Good.” He kisses you loudly on the mouth. “How about I pick you up at seven?”

“What about breakfast?” You shrug.

“I’ve had my breakfast,” he says as he places a kiss against your lips.

You blush again, smiling down at the floor.

Pedro places a finger under your chin, raising your head up. “Never be embarrassed mi querida. You’re beautiful.”

“Pedro,” you sigh.

He glides his thumb over your lips. “Remember if I am moving too fast for you, let me know.”

You didn’t want him to slow down. This was still overwhelming, but you wanted him, you needed him in your life. You nod and smile. “I’ll let you know.”

“Good,” Pedro grabs his shirt, which he had to have placed on the counter when he walked in.

You watch him put it on, already missing him and his skin against yours. You follow him to the front door, and he turns to look at you while he puts his coat on.

“Seven?”

“Yes,” you say quietly.

“We’ll go somewhere fun.”

You raise your eyebrows.

Pedro pulls you in for a light kiss. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

You kiss him back then say, “alright.”

“See you tonight, Y/N.”

You rest yourself against the doorjamb as you watch him walk down the hallway towards the elevator. Once he is out of your sight, you turn back into your apartment and close the door, spending the rest of the day gleefully and patiently waiting for seven o’clock.

-------

Pedro walks into his Brooklyn apartment, shrugs off his jacket and hangs it up in the hall closet. You are the only thing running through his mind as he walks towards his bedroom and undresses. He recalls the way you blush at his words, respond to his touches, his kisses. He seared into his memory the way you looked at him with your Y/E/C eyes when he revealed his intentions, revealed he wanted you and only you for the rest of life. No one mattered after he laid his eyes upon you, no one other women could compare to you after he and you shared that passionate kiss under the mistletoe. If he hadn’t restrained himself, he would’ve pulled you away from the party, brought you back to his apartment and had you then.

Pedro doesn’t want to think about the past, but it creeps into his mind. He had loved deeply once and she turned his back on him by leaving him suddenly, with no explanation, no thought about his feelings. Then he learned she was pregnant with another man’s child. She’d been cheating on him, and Pedro had no clue. He had even been planning on proposing because he wanted to marry her.

After that, he closed his heart off to love. He remained focus on his career, his friendships, his family. He eventually came to terms he was going to be alone for the rest of his life until you walked in with your kind eyes, open heart, and gentle soul. You are the answer to the question which plagued him most of his life – will I ever love again?

Pedro knew he was taking an enormous chance, an even greater risk when he told you he couldn’t wait a couple of days for the next date. He needed to see you again, even if it meant the same night, only hours apart. He wanted you to know he needed you, he wanted you.

-------

You are being led into Spin in the Flatiron District at eight by your hand inside of Pedro’s. The ping pong venue is packed with people wanting to get out of their cramped apartments and have a fun night with friends or their significant others. You had visited this place a few times with Kendrick and Will. You push Will from your mind, all you want to think about is the man in front of you and the way he’s beginning to make you feel.

You’d spent most of the day writing after Pedro left. He had become your muse regarding the main male character in your book. You had poured your feelings onto the page and realized those feelings were for Pedro.

You had felt like a closed book your entire life. Not opening for anyone except those you trusted and loved. You had held yourself back when you were younger because growing up you thought you’d never find someone till Will. You had experience with sex but with love that didn’t happen till Will walked in and showed you what love could be and what could happen when you open yourself to having love and being loved. Then Will threw it all away because of a lie he has told and that hurt you even more. It broke you, it crippled you. It nearly ended you…then Pedro appeared, and all seemed right with the world. One touch of his strong hand grasping yours and you felt calm, peace, at ease. You felt the world was giving you a second chance when you had decided it wasn’t going to give you one and let you live out the rest of your days alone.

“Played ping pong before?” Pedro’s smooth voice cuts through the quietness between the two of you.

You laugh, “not since I was in middle school.”

Pedro raises an eyebrow, “then prepare to be taken down.”

You tease, “wanna do a bet?”

Pedro gathers you in his arms. “What kind of bet?”

“I don’t know,” you say as you place your hand on his t-shirt. “How dirty are you willing to get?”

“Mi querida, a tease.”

You shrug, “if you don’t wanna bet…”

“Oh, I do.” Pedro growls lightly before kissing you.

You swallow, “winner gets to pick their choice of room for doing the loser in.” Because this morning, you could’ve taken him in the kitchen, and he probably would have let you.

Pedro runs his hand down your back, “the loser?”

“Loser still gets sex. I mean, technically, it’s a win-win,” you laugh.

“Now I have a serious question.” Pedro states.

Uh, oh. “What?”

“When can the winner claim this prize?”

“Tonight,” you breathlessly say before bringing his mouth down to yours.

Pedro playfully smacks your ass before letting go, “we should get a table before I change my mind and just take you home.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” you say without any warning. Yeah, you wanted him, needed him. He was going to be your demise, and you didn’t mind at all.

“I promised a date Y/N. You are getting one.” Pedro says before pulling you further into Spin.

Sounds of chatter, music, and ping pong balls fill your ears as you make your way through the club. Pedro eventually finds a table tucked away in the corner. You both sit down, and he wraps an arm around you.

“Just got to wait our turn.” Pedro says as he glances at you.

“Drinks? Food?” A waitress asks as she appears.

“Whiskey neat,” Pedro answers.

“Blue Hawaiian.” You reply.

After the waitress returns with your drinks, you order food and settle in to watch the crowd of people milling about in the vibrant, art deco space.

“Tell me more about you.” Pedro whispers against your ear.

“Like what?”

“Your interests, hobbies.”

You take a sip of your mixed drink. It’s your favorite. The alcohol in it seems to give you courage as you say, “big animal lover, love to travel, still take time to read when I can, watch movies and TV shows. Should I say I’ve never seen any of your shows?” You laugh with a tease.

Pedro laughs, “please tell me that isn’t true!?”

You shrug, “I’ve seen Game of Thrones, Narcos, The Mandalorian, If Beale Street Could Talk, Kingsman 2, Equalizer 2, Triple Frontier.”

“You do know Kendrick and I worked on Equalizer 2 together?”

“I do. I would’ve gone to the premiere, but I was stuck down in Australia for a movie I was working on.” You reply.

“Kendrick talked about you that night. First time I heard your name.”

You inwardly groan. “I hope he didn’t paint me in a bad light.”

Pedro shakes his head, takes a sip of his whiskey. “No. He was saying how much of an ass your boss was. And he knew you wouldn’t retaliate; you’d keep to yourself and not push the boss’ buttons. Didn’t want to cause drama so you stayed and finished working.”

Yeah, Kendrick knew you well. You shrug, “I like to keep to myself and mind my own business.”

“Tell me what the ideal night for you would be.”

“Date wise or just by my lonesome?”

“Both. Start with the date.”

“I don’t know,” you shrug. “Probably dinner at home, a night in. Watching a movie or just being in each other’s presence. Me reading, writing. You reading or,” you pause as you look at him. “or you just looking at me like that.”

Pedro smiles widely, his eye crinkle. His hand reaches out and brushes some of your Y/H/C hair behind your ear. “Nice to know I’m already in your mind for your ideal date.”

He was?, you think. He is.

Pedro places a soft kiss on your lips and as he begins to pull away, you pull him back in. Tasting him, tasting the whiskey. Your mind wonders off to thinking if you were both not here and back at your apartment, or his, you’d devour him. You wanted him badly, needed him badly. He was beginning to become the air you needed to breathe, to survive. He was becoming your world.

You pull back, a little too quickly. Your heart is racing inside of your chest. You had never felt a wave of emotion hit this quickly with anyone. Not even Will – with him it was gradual but with Pedro it’s a spinning nosedive.

Pedro palms your cheek, concern in his eyes and voice. “Are you okay?”

You swallow, take a drink. “Yes.”

“I told you if this is too fast—”

Was it?, you think. Your heart is twisting inside of your chest. You close your eyes, trying to clear your mind. You and Pedro were on a second date. Second! Yet this felt more like the fifth, or tenth. Like you two had been together for more than just 24 hours.

“Talk to me. Please.” Pedro whispers against your ear.

You open your eyes and sigh, “I’ve never felt…,” you hesitate, “you’re doing something to me Pedro. I can’t explain it. Yet. But I want to feel it more than anything else. I want you, need you. Yes, this has been overwhelming but with you it’s something I want to experience. Something I want to last.”

Pedro palms both of your cheeks, lifting your face up to his. “You are my answer Y/N,” Pedro grins as you raise your eyebrows, “I’ll explain it one day. I have no intention of letting you go, of letting anyone else have you. I want to be yours and yours alone. I want you to be mine and mine alone. We’ve been given a chance to find someone again and I know my someone is you.”

Here Pedro is bearing his heart, his intentions to you again. You had done the same you realize. You told him you wanted to feel what was happening between you and him. You told him it was something you wanted to experience; you told him you wanted it to last. You look into his coffee colored eyes, notice the crinkles around them. You see the kindness and sincerity in them again, you also see a flicker of love in them. This man is falling for you. Were you falling for him too?

You are once again rendered speechless. Oh, boy. What this man has done to you, is doing to you. He is yours, your heart pumps inside your chest. He. Is. Yours. Now if only you two were in a more private location because you want nothing more than be with him, whether having sex or just holding onto one another. You just want, need to be in his presence. It soothes you; it calms you. Nothing else matters, no one else matters but him.

“Pascal?” A voice cuts through the club and through the intimate moment you two are having.

Pedro brushes your lips with his thumb, “come on mi querida. I want to take you down and have you where I desire tonight.”

You blush and grab his hand, heading towards the section of ping pong tables.

-------

A couple of more hours and drinks later, a giggling you and Pedro are walking out of Spin, not giving a care to other people walking on the sidewalk. Pedro pulls you towards the curb and into his arms.

He hails a cab and gets you in the backseat. He climbs in and gives the driver his address then pulls you into his arms again. He rests his head atop yours. “Where shall I have you tonight?”

“You’re just lucky! I would’ve won if it wasn’t for those damn frat boys.” You giggle.

Pedro laughs as he snakes a hand under your coat, then under your shirt.

“Pedro,” you ground out at his touch. He drums his fingers lightly against your skin, causing goosebumps. You close your eyes and hum, then say, “don’t stop.”

He tips your chin up with a finger then glides his mouth over yours. “Never.”

You loop an arm around his neck, your fingers thread themselves through his hair. Keeping his mouth on yours for the duration of the cab ride back to his place.

Once Pedro has you inside his apartment, he pulls you to him, shrugging you out of your jacket quickly. He pulls you up against as his mouth kisses you soundly then his mouth moves down over your jawline to your neck. He finds your sweet spot and suckles at it.

“Pedro,” you say as you make the soft, gasping moan sound Pedro can’t get enough, will never get enough of.

He growls at the sound. “Eres mia.”

Your hands are fumbling at his jacket and pushing it off him. You aren’t sure exactly what he said but you do know mio is mine. “Only yours.”

Pedro removes his mouth from your neck, strokes your cheek. “You are mine Y/N. Eres mia.”

“Yours Pedro. All yours.” You kiss his mouth. “Eres mio Pedro.”

“The only room, only place I want you tonight is in my bedroom, in my bed.” Pedro breathlessly says as he grabs your hand and walks you through his apartment towards his bedroom.

When inside his bedroom you capture Pedro’s mouth with yours, kissing him deeply. Your tongue presses against his mouth and he lets you in. Your tongues dance together as you reach down and lift his shirt up. You part for a brief second as he finishes taking it off. He pulls you close as his lips finds yours again. His hand cups your cheek before he weaves his fingers into your Y/H/C hair.

You hook your arms around his back, your hands landing on his shoulder blades. You move your hands down slowly against his back. Feeling his soft, warm skin against your fingers.

You had wanted to get lost back in kiss since the Christmas party, and now you get lost in it every time he presses his mouth against yours. His mouth fused to yours is a feeling you never want to lose, a feeling you want to experience day after day.

Pedro reaches under your shirt and touches your skin. He wants to give you the same sensations you are giving him with your touch – featherlight which causes shivers to roll across the flesh as the touch sets the body on fire.

He lifts your shirt up; you pull faintly away and help him remove it. He dips his head as he kisses you along your neck. His fingers dance lightly across the edges of your beige bra, his fingers graze your nipples through the material causing you to let out a soft, gasping moan as well as arching your back, pushing yourself up against him.

“Pedro,” you whisper.

He lifts his head and smiles as he glides his thumb over your lips. “Y/N.”

Your hands travel down his chest and stomach as you keep your gaze on his coffee colored eyes. Your hands unbutton and unzip his jeans. You push them down over his ass, revealing his hard cock. You stroke his cock once, your thumb swirling over the tip. You lick your lips as you lean forward and whisper, “I want to taste you Pedro.”

Pedro half hisses, half growls before crushing his mouth to yours.

You pull away slightly and lick his lips before you kiss down his neck. You slowly move your mouth against and down his chest and stomach. You finally kneel in front of him. Your eyes on his hard, thick cock. You inwardly moan as you wrap both of your hands around him comfortably before leaning down and swirling your tongue around the tip.

“Fu—fuck,” Pedro hisses at the touch of your tongue on his cock. He rocks back on his heels as he feels your mouth engulf his entire length slowly. He looks down at you and brushes your hair away from your face as his entire length is inside of your mouth and the tip hitting the back of your throat.

You begin moving up and down his cock slowly. Your tongue swirling around his cock, from the bottom over the top back to bottom. You repeat this motion over and over until you reach the tip, when you do you swirl your tongue around the tip.

“Y/N,” Pedro grounds out as his hands tighten in your hair.

You keep moving your head up and down, your tongue back and forth. Swirling the tip with your tongue.

“Y/N!” Pedro hisses.

You smile as you release his cock from your mouth. As you stand Pedro pulls you against him and reaches behind you, unhooking your bra.

“On the bed,” Pedro moans as he backs you up against it.

You fall back, throwing your bra aside, and Pedro scrambles to undo your pants. He pulls them off, along with your panties, in a hurry. He pushes down his own pants and briefs, kicking them off before kneeling on the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight.

Pedro kisses you down your neck and across your collarbone. He leans up and looks down at you. “I want to taste you too mi querida.”

You moan at the mere thought of his tongue on your clit. Fuck! “Yes.”

Pedro kisses his way down your chest, he pauses to flick each of your nipples with his tongue, causing you to arch your back and your fingers to run through his hair. He palms your core. You’re hot, wet, ready. Pedro moans as he continues moving down across your stomach. He settles himself between your legs as his fingers open your folds, exposing your pink pussy to his eyes. He runs one finger along the folds before dipping his head.

He runs his tongue up and finds your clit. Nothing tastes like you, he thinks. You’re sweet like honey and sugar, nothing else tastes better than you.

“Pedro,” you moan as you finally feel his tongue against your clit. You suck in a breath as his tongue begins swirling around your clit. The orgasm inside of you climbing higher and higher as seconds tick by. “Oh—mmm,” you lustfully moan out. Pedro’s tongue works overtime as he brings you to the peak of pure ecstasy. “Fuck…,” you ground out as your toes curl and you arch your back as your orgasm seeps through you.

You run your fingers through Pedro’s hair as he travels back up your body, kissing your stomach, chest, flicking your nipples. Pedro nuzzles and nips at your neck as he positions his cock against your pussy.

You moan, “yes,” as you feel him enter, then protection for him crosses your mind, “Pedro…”

“I want to feel you around me. Please tell me you are…”

You nod, you are on the pill. “Yes.”

Pedro enters his cock slowly into your soaked pussy. He growls lustfully at feeling your slick walls around his cock instead of the latex of a condom being a barrier between him feeling you around him.

“Eres mia, Y/N,” Pedro whispers as he begins slowly thrusting in and out of you.

Your hands travel up his chest and then to his back where your fingers press into his skin as he begins thrusting faster and harder into you. You’re rolling your hips up, meeting his thrusts, trying to figure out his movements and when you finally do, when you finally become one, you’re on the brink of another orgasm.

“Pedro,” you pant as your fingers keeping applying pressure on his back. You look up and into his coffee colored eyes.

Pedro has kept his eyes looking down at you. Taking in the way you strain your neck and moan lowly at him inside of you. He takes pleasure in knowing he is the one making you cum, giving you endless amounts of pleasure with his cock, his mouth, his hands.

You reach up and touch his cheek, you stroke it lightly with your thumb. Looking at him with lust, looking at him with love. Looking at him and seeing only him, thinking of only him. Thinking he is the one for you. You swallow as you travel your thumb over his lips. He is becoming your world, the air you need to survive.

Pedro slows his thrusts to take in the look you are giving him. That look is for him and him alone. He captures your hand in his and strokes the back of your hand with his thumb. He then kisses your inner wrist, he feels you shiver at the intimate gesture, at feeling his fuzz against the delicate skin along your inner wrist.

“Y/N,” Pedro breathlessly whispers.

“Pedro,” you whisper back before pulling him down for a light kiss.

Pedro smiles as he pulls back and thrusts into you and explodes inside of your pussy. He feels you orgasm as well, feels your pussy milking him as your orgasm around his cock.

Pedro wraps his arms around you as he moves to his side. He pulls you up against him as he nuzzles your neck and inhales your scent. He can smell a hint of coconut and vanilla along with his sandalwood cologne. Pedro’s possessive as he captures your mouth with his.

You kiss him in return, one hand running through his hair while the other is pressed against his chest. You’re able to feel his heart under your palm. His heart is steady whereas yours is still coming down from the pleasures you and Pedro had shared.

Pedro pulls faintly away, runs a finger over your soft and swollen lips. “Y/N.”

You hum and raise your eyebrows as you look at him.

“If someone told me to choose what’s the most beautiful being in the universe it would be you. The sun, our planet, the billions of dazzling stars could never compare to you.”

You heart swells at his words. You’ve fallen headfirst into the deepest ravine, and there’s no chance of you ever wanting to climb out.

#unconditionally #unconditionally chapter 3 #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal smut #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal x you #multichapter #smut #when you meet your soul mate everything is calm

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rpgmgames · 5 years ago

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February’s Featured Game: Ressurflection

DEVELOPER(S): charlottezxz ENGINE: RPG Maker MV GENRE: Fantasy, Cartoon, RPG WARNINGS: Paranoia, fear and tension, mild swearing and blood. SUMMARY: Ressurflection is a Fantasy/cartoon RPG set in the fictional universe of the Arbvar and taking center stage primarily at the coastal city of ‘Horizon Bluff’. Its story and game play are heavily character driven, with its narrative divided into two parallels told both within and outside the mirror itself. Ressurflection’s core themes draw from our inevitability of fearing death, and that at some point or another, we all must accept it, and to treasure what’s really important in the time that we have.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *charlottezxz: Hiya this is Charlotte, lead game developer for Ressurflection! I’m some silly, overactive drawing monkey who works a lot with Narrow on Ressurflection! I’m always sketching and conceptualizing monster bois, taking a lot of inspiration from various games, primarily monster hunter! I’ve had avid interest in the Indie scene for a while now and a lot of the great friends I've made have been due to it and a lot of my recent favorite games have come from it! I would have had Narrow say a few things here but he’s hiding in a corner somewhere!

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *charlottezxz: Ressurflection started out as what can be described as two separate stories. Myself and Narrow wrote our own stories and every so often we swapped over ideas or combined them together with each other. One day I said to ourselves ‘You know what? This could work quite well as a game rather than just a story’ so eventually Ressurflection was conceived, around the idea of a mythical mirror capable ‘Ressurflection’ the title of the game. We’ve gone through quite a few iterations of the story before it came to its current form and to be honest if we even showed or compared them side by side they’d be pretty unrecognizable as the same thing except for certain characters, locations and the mirror itself to identify its primordial form having any kind of ancestral relevance to how it is today. As for what Ressurflection is about, I think our synopsis can get that across quite nicely! ‘Horizon Bluff has always annually held its ‘Legend of the Wyvern Glass’ festivities. The Wyvern glass was a long lost mythical mirror, once fabled for its power of ‘Ressurflection’ and coveted by a kingdom now all but gone. That is quick to change however with the arrival of the Roulette Runner’s circus to the coastal city of Horizon Bluff. Trouble is soon to set in motion not just the kingdom’s sudden reappearance but the entrapment of one of their own acrobats within the mirror silver. Yet things are soon to worsen...with the spread of a purple ‘corruption’ across the city and the fact that our most unfortunate trouper is far from alone within the mirror, finding himself at the mercy of its ‘Mirror Maiden’. > The apparent all powerful manipulator of its realm…’

How long have you been working on your project? *charlottezxz: Conceptually we have been working on it for 4 years which is hard to even fathom, however that’s more tinkering around the idea for the story and conceiving it as we learnt the engine. The blog itself is hitting its 4th birthday in February! Ressuflection’s development went on as i attended university, so its always been a side lined hobby of ours.Steam says 108 days worth of hours in the engine and most of the game progress other than concepts has been done in 2019. So I could say 4 years for the ideas/stories and concepts and a year of that for actual game making!

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *charlottezxz: We each have our own inspirations, Lost Odyssey, Final Fantasy 9, Xenoblade Chronicles, Monster hunter and many older PSX titles such as Medievil, Tomba and Heart of darkness are great influences and inspirations to me personally. The dark, dangerous environments of Heart of darkness contrasted by some innocent characters, the monster designs in capcom’s franchise and the storytelling and themes with a cinematic approach to cut scenes found in some of FF9, Xenoblade and Lost odyssey, a lost game stuck in the recess of the xbox 360. There are many more but these spring to mind first and foremost. Narrow himself draws inspiration from games such as Earthbound, the Persona series and FF10!

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *charlottezxz: We started the project in VX ace to begin with, until MV released. It was in Ace that I experimented learning RPG maker and in the early days of MV too. Although before Ressurflection’s time i also dabbled a bit in XP. MV seemed more in line for what we wanted, as i really wanted to try animating beyond SV sheets and do more, with Java being a bit more flexible and the scope of it being able to allow dragon bones later. However it hasn’t been without its hiccups! Part of that is the sheer amount of time you underestimate games and certain elements to take in their development. That and everything that comes with it, streamlining, trimming the fat...in the past week alone i spent days optimizing pictures, sounds and music in the game to cut down the staggering file sizes they were. So far they have retained their form without being as costly on the MB! Since I do the vast majority of the game development myself, everything takes a lot longer to develop. You underestimate all the little things to consider and that you may need later. By the end of development, I hope to have the vast majority of the game consist of custom assets and be able to truly call it something that is ours. Though that path is long ahead we won’t stray too far from it.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *charlottezxz: The game itself has always been a story-driven RPG at its heart, although certain game mechanics have been scaled down or developed further from puzzles to battle flow. As mentioned previously, the story has changed considerably which changed the direction of the overall narrative and gameplay as a whole. Certain characters and scenarios have been culled completely too. At its start the story wasn’t as heartfelt nor was the scope of the story all that big - Oh and the game had a time limit, a bit like Majora’s Mask! But it is a lot more meaningful now and we hope that you will enjoy it when the time comes.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *charlottezxz: It has been just myself and Narrow for the majority of the development but we reached a point where we wanted to reach out to find a musician for our game. We eventually came across Geoff who has done the majority of our music up until recently. However we have had friends help and contribute along the way such as Harry helping sprite some NPCs for me, Bart helping formulate and do some math balancing, Vaijack has also contributed to music making him our second musical boi and more on the way, our preliminary demo testers( it would take a little to list them all) and more peeps i’ll be sure to credit!

What is the best part of developing a game? *charlottezxz: For me it has to be conceptualising all the little ideas we have and bringing them all into being. This is especially so for any monster and character bois! I spend a lot of time visualizing and planning the design of areas, locales and creatures. Would this thing live here? Why would it be this way? If this is a historical town wouldn’t it have x and x? Then when we ultimately put it together, and all the pieces of the puzzle line into place and then you can just...experience, the final thing, that for me is the best part in developing our game for me.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *charlottezxz: I learn best by doing, so more often than not I just dive into things, including the engine blind and tussle around with it. It’s a silly way of doing it, but I've often found myself learning more that way than following tutorials. Although in any game I've played, RPG maker or not, i do like to ponder and deconstruct scenes within them. The Witch's house, Pocket Mirror, Dreaming Mary, Mad fathers and Ib are all wonderful games that are great to learn from, dissect and understand what makes and made them tick. This applies across any game I've played or intend to play! I look at game making as one giant puzzle with lots of intricate little details that need to be solved, it’s more fun and engaging that way!

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *charlottezxz: There’s some characters I like a great deal, but i can’t talk about as it would be spoilers to the plot, that and it’s hard to pick any overall favorites. Charm comes across as a fun character to write for as she’s quite witty and sarcastic, the kind of dialogue that comes a bit too naturally to me. She’s a budding magical prodigy of the circus under the tutelage of Jerine. She bigs herself up a lot but isn’t quite ready to deal with the problems of the adult world just yet, as much as she strives to get into it. Then there’s the likes of Ashley as well, she’s the loudest circus member and a close friend to Zakai, its ringmaster. She’s a super hard working down to earth country girl who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and jump into the thick of things. Honestly I love all the cast, but there’s those two for now!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *charlottezxz: I would say ideally we should have had all our ducks in a row before we dove into development. My development style is very messy, especially since when we started development we had a lot of learning ahead of us. That combined with focusing on a lot of coursework and real life things meant I often forgot how we made things for consistency. This has improved considerably since i started getting more organised now, keeping lists and things tabbed for reference. My desk has bits of paper kept with it with information I need to retain. I forget far too many things for my own good, but now I'm taking better count measures! I would advise anyone to keep tabs of important information about your game such as consistent sprite style sizes, resolution size, x and y positions of certain things and important variables and switches.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *charlottezxz: There’s a few ideas bounced about to do side stories for some of the cast of characters in the circus, such as before they became one and the origins of how certain members joined the circus essentially the ‘First Stringers’ and ‘Second stringers’, these being those that joined afterwards. These would be great to do as small little episodes added onto the game post development, but currently they are just ideas and won’t be given too much thought until the game is either done or close to fruition.

What do you most look forward to upon finishing the game? *charlottezxz: My most hopeful thought is for people to enjoy the game and have as much fun and interest in it as myself and Narrow have had in creating it. It’s the kind of game we want to make and hope that the characters and story chime with people enough for people to see the journey through to its end! It’s a big scope of a project but i have endless enthusiasm for it, no matter how long it takes it will get out there at some point!

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *charlottezxz: That the games story and overall feel doesn’t quite hit the right notes, it's always a little back concern. From a technical perspective I would say that the game might have some oversighted bugs or critical crashes that slip under the radar or not run as smoothly on other PCs on release. We will do our best to optimise the game as much as possible for MV and squash those pesky bugs during testing, but it is on our minds often as a niggling fear.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *charlottezxz: Gut everything from the base project that you know you most definitely will not be needing and give all your files smart tags and naming conventions. It would be great if MV allowed for sub folders, but it does not so naming your files smartly is key to finding what you need. Any of these files you know you will use often in certain ways, make them common events and call for those in events and cut scenes. This saves you mass editing them later. With naming conventions this could be Actor_1_Hurt or Chapter_1_NPC. Anything you want at the top of the list name it with _ to begin with. The bigger our project gets, the more important this has become for us and we hope it serves other inspiring devs well all the same.

Question from last month's featured dev @rojisroomrpg: How do you keep yourself happy and healthy when making your game? *charlottezxz: I’m normally a happy-go-lucky person, so I'm rarely not happy when working on Ressurflection. It's the happy little hobby I devote most of my spare time to. However, recently i would say my hands, wrists and neck have been hurting from spending a little too much time drawing assets and pieces for the game. Taking more breaks and spreading that time with other activities in between has helped to ease that pain and i would like to advise any dev to do so for their own health, including always having one or two bottles of juice, water or whatever beverage always at hand to sip at as you dev away!

We mods would like to thank charlottezxz for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Ressurflection if you haven’t already! See you next month!

- Mods Gold & Platinum

#ressurflection #gotm #game of the month #rpgmaker #rpg maker #rpg maker games #ressurflection game #gotm 2020 #2020 #february 2020 #february #indie games #games

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collecting-stories · 5 years ago

Text

Treacherous - Connor Murphy

A/N: More Connor Murphy. That’s it, that’s the author’s note.

I can’t decide if it’s a choice, getting swept away. I hear the sound of my own voice, asking you to stay. - Treacherous, Taylor Swift

\\\

Connor sat at the computer in lab, leaning back against the chair and staring at the application page for the local community college. He was trying to turn things around but it was a slower process than he would’ve liked it to be. The hardest part was bringing up his grades. Evan had offered to tutor him but there was no way Connor could endure hours listening to Evan stutter through explanations of things he already didn’t care about. Besides, wherever Evan went Jared seemed to appear as well and he was definitely not spending any more time than humanly necessary with Jared.

“Hey Wednesday Addams,” speak of the devil, Jared Kleinman leaned over the divider that separated Connor’s computer station. He was quick to click out of his browser, “trying to catch some porn on school time?”

“Jared,” Evan piped up, his mouth twitching nervously as he stood behind his friend.

“What do you want Kleinman?” Connor asked, fisting the hand in his lap, nails digging into his palm. Keep your cool, he silently reminded himself.

Though none of them saw it, you turned away from your computer, just in front of Connor’s cubicle to see what the commotion was. You had heard the scrapping chair, the dropped bag and the soft curse when Connor couldn’t get into the computer right away. You had silently cursed yourself, suddenly nervous that the guy you’d been crushing on for forever was sitting behind you. Not that he even realized it, but still, the nerves were there.

“Nothing, nothing, just wanted to know if you were gonna be sacrificing any babies in the woods tonight, ya know, it’s your holiday.” Jared joked, though no one laughed aside from himself.

“Shut the fuck up Jared,” Connor bit out.

You hear the chair legs scrape against the linoleum floor and you see him stand up. His jaw is tense and he looks ready to punch something. You’d seen him punch plenty before, a locker, numerous people, a computer, hell you’d been there in elementary school when he threw that printer at the teacher. But you were still somehow attracted to this guy. Maybe because he’d always been nice to you.

“Jared,” Evan tried again, tugging at his own shirt as he took a step back.

Kleinman continued to ignore Evan’s warning. A few other students were looking on now. “Chill out man, I’m just joking.” Those three words must have been highlighted in Jared’s dictionary because every time he said something rude he followed it with ‘just joking’ or ‘just kidding’ as if that made it all better.

“Yeah, you’re real fucking funny man. I’m howling.” Connor snapped.

“Hey, guys come on, lets just...uh, lets just, go Jared, okay. Let’s just go.” Evan attempted again, the higher pitch in his voice hinting at his obvious nerves.

“Why, what’s gonna happen?” Jared goded, “Murphy’s not gonna loose his cool is he?”

You jumped when Connor’s fist slammed against the keyboard of the computer. He grabbed his messenger bag off the floor and shoved passed Jared, his long legs taking him out of the computer lab. You scraped your own chair back, shouldering your backpack and deciding in that moment that you were going to do the thing you’d always wanted to do before, see if Connor was alright.

Evan shot you an apologetic look when you passed them and you just offered him a sympathetic smile. You knew that whatever dumbass thing Jared had said was in no way a reflection of Evan, he was a nice kid and you got along well enough. Evan wasn’t who you were thinking about right now though, the only person on your mind was Connor. By the time you got out of the computer lab you could the flap of Connor’s black denim shirt around the corner, in the direction of the art room. There was a set of double doors that led out to the bleachers and you figured that was probably where he would go.

You cut through the girl’s locker room, hoping your theory on Connor’s whereabouts was right as you slipped out the back door and headed across the parking lot to the bleachers. Once you were down the hill you found him easily, the only person on the field this late in the school day, he was on the steps that led to the first level of the bleachers, smoking what you assumed was a joint. You’d heard all about Connor’s exploits as the school stoner, as if no one else in the whole school every smoked.

“Hey,” you approached cautiously, like someone might a wild animal they were afraid would attack them. And you weren’t, of course, you were just nervous that he was still upset and that he wouldn’t want anything to do with you.

Connor looked up at you briefly and then went right back to smoking, eyes downcast.

“I’m sorry, about Jared, he’s a real dick sometimes.” You said, unsure what else to say.

“You friends with him?”

You shake your head, you definitely weren’t friends with Jared.

“Then it doesn’t matter.” He replied.

“I heard you were uh,” you scuffed your shoe further into the dirt, “I heard you were looking for a tutor. Evan, um, mentioned it.”

“So?”

“Well I just, figured, I could help.” You were doing pretty good in your classes. Good enough that you could offer your help reliably.

“Why?” He looked back up at you again and you were struck with the same thought you always got. How undeniably lovely he was to look at. There was something about Connor that was just calming which might’ve been ironic considering how tormented he always seemed to be.

“Something to do in my free time?” You shrugged. You obviously couldn’t say it was because you wanted to spend more time with him and you definitely couldn’t tell him that you had been harboring a massive crush on him since third grade when he used to walk behind you in line and talk to you.

“I don’t need your pity.”

“It’s not pity, I want to help.”

“Why?”

You shrugged again, “I just want to help.” Because he always seemed like a nice person, beneath everything else. “I was having trouble freshman year, I know how hard it is to catch up.”

“Yeah,” Connor nodded, “fine.”

The first time you tutored Connor was at a Starbucks that was an equal distance between your houses. He showed up in the same black hoodie he always wore with fitted gray sweatpants and a white shirt, a brighter outfit than you’d ever seen him in before. His hair was pulled back and you couldn’t help thinking it was your lucky day because as good as Connor Murphy looked with his hair down he looked even better with his hair out of his face, if only because you could see it.

“Hey,” he nodded and slid into the booth across from you. He eyed the coffee you had sitting amongst your books and he frowned, “none for me?”

“Oh, sorry, I wasn’t sure what you would want so-”

“Yeah, yeah I see how it is,” he replied, grin on his face, “guess I’ll get my own.”

You laughed as you watched him get up and mutter a ‘people these days’ just loud enough for you to hear. When you looked over at the counter, he was watching you, a smile on his face that made him seem a lot less scary than people made him out to be. He winked at you as the barista made his drink and you turned back to your books to hide your smile.

Connor was impossible to study with. He was easily distracted and he got antsy sitting for any length of time. His comprehension was alright and he was smart, that you could tell immediately. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand what he was learning it was just that he couldn’t stay still long enough to learn it.

“We’ll be here all day if you don’t pay attention.” You pointed out, leaning forward and tapping the textbook that lay ignored in front of Connor. He was busy doodling pictures in the margins of his notebook, notes half written.

“Sorry, it’s just,” he looked over the government textbook sitting there waiting for him, “a lot.”

“Well-”

“Let’s go for a walk or something?” He asked.

Tempting, you thought. You wouldn’t mind clearing up all these books and walking somewhere with Connor. Getting to talk to him about something other than English analysis or political theory would be nice. You wondered what you would talk about. Just more school or something more? Home life? Hobbies? Likes and dislikes? “Connor, we have to get through this. We’re almost done.” Ten more problems and he was free to go home.

He chewed on his bottom lip, thinking. He was distracted but not as much as you thought he was. It wasn’t impossible for him to sit there and read he just didn’t want to. Besides, he knew the faster he finished the quicker you would leave and then this perfect afternoon at the Starbucks would be ruined. He couldn’t watch the way you pulled the neckline of your sweatshirt over your nose when it got too cold or how you sniffed your coffee each time before you took a sip, as if the smell was just as important as the taste. He couldn’t hear the sound you made when your americano was just a little too warm and burned your tongue or listen to the explanation you had on the perfect temperature for coffee. He’d sat there distracted by you all afternoon and now that there were only ten problems left all he could think about was this being over and him having to go home.

“Just a short break, a change of scenery?” He offered.

“What did you want to change the scenery to?” You asked.

He smiled as you closed your notebook. He was winning. “The park? Or we could just take a drive? I drove my mom’s car here.”

“Okay. I’ll quiz you while we drive?” You offered, packing the rest of your books. You were 99% sure you would do whatever he asked you to.

Connor was a much better driver than you thought he would be. He didn’t speed, he wasn’t careless, he liked to drive with the windows down and take backroads and he kept his eyes forward, trained on the road the whole time. In truth he was more nervous than he thought he would be. He figured driving was a good idea but then he was terrified he’d get distracted. He could see the headline play out ‘local boy drives girl off road after being distracted staring at her’. A little long maybe but appropriate.

“Okay, explain with rationale what political theory makes the most sense for global affairs today?” You asked, notebook open in your lap.

“I thought this was a quiz?”

“It is!”

“That’s like a full blown essay question.” Connor reached for your notebook and you grabbed it back, holding it away from him.

“Eyes on the road mister.” You laughed, “and answer the question.”

Connor pouted, deep in thought as he rolled to a stop at the light. “I don’t know, realism?”

“I need an explanation not just...I don’t know, realism.”

“Haven’t I done enough?” He asked, glancing over at you before the light changed. He wondered how aware you were of how attractive you were.

“Go,” you nodded toward the road and he began driving once more.

“Why’d you offer to help me?”

“I told you, cause I wanted to.” You shrugged.

“How’d you know I needed a tutor?”

“We’re in the same classes and I get very nosey about everyone else’s grades. Besides you sit in front of me so I always see your tests and stuff over your shoulder. That and Evan mentioned it.” You shrugged.

“And you just wanted to bring up the learning curve in our senior class?”

“Oh god no, you know how many people I’d have to tutor?” You laughed.

“So why me?” He asked, frowning, “you just feel bad for the weird freak kid? Figured you could get in some community service?”

“Connor,” you said, your voice sounding...not sympathetic but soft, fond even, “I wanted to tutor you cause I wanted to spend time with you.”

“Don’t fuck with me.”

“I’m not. I like you a lot Connor.” You admitted.

The car pulled off onto the side of the road and Connor put it in park, turning to you. He looked at you seriously, staring at you as he tried to decide if what you were saying was true. Were you actually not lying to him, did you like him? You were smiling like you meant it.

“Yeah?” he chanced, “you aren’t fucking with me?”

“No.” You shook your head.

Connor leaned forward toward you, his hand holding the shoulder of your seat. He crowded into your space and you watched as the sweetest of smiles spread across his face.

More Connor.

#Connor Murphy imagine #Connor Murphy fanfiction #Connor Murphy x reader #Connor Murphy fanfic #deh fanfiction #deh imagine #deh fanfic #deh au #dear Evan hansen imagine #dear Evan hansen au #dear Evan hansen fanfiction #dear Evan hansen fanfic #cs discography series #collecting stories imagine

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