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c0la-queen · 9 months ago

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RAGHHHHHHHHH

Could you ever so kind and provide some general dating Headcannons for all the four boys?? 🥺👉👈

Maybe some extra with red leader or someone else if you’re fine with that??? 🥺💜

Mwah mwah you have amazing work <3 /p

Oh my gods I am SO sorry that this is so late!! For some reason, Mr. Tumblr decided not to notify me about your ask?? And then I was at my bestie's house this weekend, so I haven't checked my inbox until now. Begging for your forgiveness rn Anon!!

Also literally kissing you for asking for Red Leader!! Mwah, mwah!!

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Edd

If you are dating Edd... girlie I am so sorry for your sanity.

Don't get me wrong, I love Edd! He was my first Eddsworld love, my pookie bear for real! But he's the biggest bastard of the entire gang and I stand by that.

Calls you dumb pet names to try and make you laugh. Sugar Tits (regardless of gender or lack thereof, might I add), Baby Doll, Sexy.

He WILL grab/slap your ass all the time. Even in public. Only grins when you glare at him.

This man is a horrible influence. It will be so hard to get your shit done if he has decided that you need to be spending time with him. Why worry about work or chores when you could be all cuddled up with him and Ringo on the couch?

Will sulk if you reject his attempts.

If he's trying to get shit done and you're pestering him for attention? He will drop his basket of laundry or the dishes in his hands in a millisecond.

If he's working on a commission or animation, he'll let you sit in his lap in his chair, let you sit all pretty for him while he works. When he finishes, if you've fallen asleep by then -which you usually do - then he'll carefully move you both to his bed and snuggle up to you and take a nap with you.

Speaking of cuddling, he does naturally run hot. Comes with being a big boy <3 But if you don't enjoy that, then he'll use his powers to cool down his skin for you. Anything to keep cuddling!

He also uses his powers whenever possible. Will abuse them without shame. He puts things on the highest shelf, just so you have to him for help. He'll put patches of ice on the floor under your feet, just so he can catch you before you fall (he'll never let you actually get hurt), and uses his super strength to scoop you up randomly and carry you around.

You cannot show your text messages to ANYONE. He will say filthy things, just to fluster you. Horny Bastard. Finds ways to turn even the most mundane conversations into teasing.

He'd do cute couple things with you, like painting together and swapping canvases every 5 minutes. His favorite is going to cat cafes. The cats literally love him, its like he's made of catnip with how they swarm him.

Physical affection is a huge thing with him. Even little touches throughout the day, like ruffling your hair as he passes by, or a big hug from behind while you fix food.

Overall, big teddy bear that just likes to see his darling blush.

Tom

As I've stated in previous works, Tom is a secret romantic.

He's not a traditional romantic like Matt, but he's romantic in his own way.

Likes parallel play a lot. Finds it relaxing to just sit in his room, testing new songs on his bass while you lay on his bed reading a book. Or in your room, lounging on one of your plush beanbag and organizing his Spotify playlists while you fold your laundry.

Dates with him consist of record stores, concerts, and late night walks.

He'll sing for you if you ask him to.

Very down to earth, both as a person and as a boyfriend. If you have problems, he'll listen patiently until you're done, then help you brainstorm solutions. He doesn't downplay or ignore your feelings, but he doesn't jump to emotions like others might.

He tends to sleep in late on his nights off, since he's more of a night owl than anything. You know that, so you've made it a little tradition to fix him coffee around 11. You know exactly how he takes it, and he always thanks you with a kiss on the cheek and a sleepy, mumbled "you're the best."

Very caring. He'll make sure you've eaten and had water. Will usher you to bed if he can see that you're tired, or do your chores for you if you can't do them for whatever reason. If you can't sleep, he'll make you a mug of chamomile tea and sing you a little lullaby.

When it comes to his monster tendencies, he tries to keep you away from it all. He's bitter about what he is, and he thinks that you're better off separated from that side of him.

At the start of relationship, he'd get angry if you tried to push it. He'd snap at you, distance himself, not talk to you for maybe a couple of days. Further on in the relationship, though, if you push the issue and reassure him that you love every side of him, even the monstrous one, then he'd be more willing. Willing to let you in, to let you see that part of him. He'd be nervous about it, but he'd do it because he loves you.

Matt

He is a traditional romantic! His Mama raised him right, and he drinks his Respect Juice.

Makes sure you two have date night at least once every week. Dressing up nice, going out to dinner or a play, taking a walk through the town to wind down the night. Heading back into the house, changing back into comfortable clothes. He'd wipe your makeup off for you, if you wear it.

Absolutely the kind of guy to get down on his knees in front of you and unbuckle/untie your shoes or high heels for you. He's just so devotional.

If, for whatever reason, you guys are unable to have your date night, he'll make it up to you in some way. A bouquet of your favorite flowers sitting on your bed with a little note. A passionate kiss before one of you has to leave the house. A heartfelt love letter sealed with wax.

Makes sure to text you throughout the day with sweet messages. Compliments, "I love you"s, selfies, updates on what is happening at work. Or just reminders that he's thinking of you. Misses you.

Likes to cook meals for you if its just the two of you at home. Breakfast is his forte, but he's not the worst at following a recipe.

Always amazing for advice. He'll let you talk to him while he hugs you from behind. If it's something sad, he might cry. Just the idea of you going through something negative makes him sad, too.

If he doesn't have advice for you, he'd do anything in his power to find someone who does. One of the other roommates, or even his mother, if you're comfortable with it.

Speaking of his mother, she absolutely adores you. Since Matt has such a good relationship with her, he's already told her so much about you. She thinks its wonderful that her baby has fallen in love. After a while, Matt will even bring you along to his lunches with his mother. You two hit it off instantly.

If you're okay with it, then Matt would love to show you off on his social media. He thinks you're so gorgeous, the entire world should know that he managed to land you. Its never anything invasive, and he always gets your permission before he posts things. Blocks any weird or gross comments.

Loves going on shopping dates with you. Most of the time, its at the mall or a mall in a different town, because he loves walking around and window shopping. Occasionally, he'll take you to more expensive stores. It doesn't bother him, he loves spoiling you. No matter where you two are, he'll buy you anything that you want. If you are adamant to spend your own money, he won't put up too much of a fuss, though he does prefer to pay for you.

He'll do that couples trend with you where you find nail polish that matches the other's eye color.

Gift giving is just one of his love languages in general. It makes him so happy to give his loved one things that he bought. For you specifically, he'll also throw in hand made gifts. He may not be the most talented artistically, but he'll stay awake late into the night, sitting on the floor with a YouTube tutorial playing, paper and cardboard scattered around, a pencil between his teeth, paint on his hands and smeared on his cheek. The end result may look a little crude, but he'll still present it to you with pride. And, of course, you always love it.

Tord

Tord is probably the most romantically stunted of the four. Its not that he doesn't love you, far from it really. He just grew up in an environment where love wasn't freely given, and was often limited for appearances.

His father, as the Red Leader, insisted that he keep a professional and feared image. So, Tord never saw him being affectionate with his mother.

It might be hard at first. You'll struggle. You two may fight. But you'll always make up in the end. He'll listen to you, try to understand your point of view.

He's not against physical affection, but he's able to live without it. Will indulge you whenever you ask. If he's busy, which he usually is, he'll let you drape yourself over him from behind while he sits in his chair, letting you rest your cheek on the top of his head and watch him work.

More than anything, his love language is words of affirmation. Despite being a man of few words, he'll always give you praise. He'll make sure you know that you are his, he is yours, and he loves you. Nothing will change that.

Scary dog privilege. He'll always walk just behind you in public, keeping a guiding hand on the small of your back. Stays alert of you surroundings and the people around, so that you don't have to. You don't even have to worry about people approaching you in public. One piercing glare from Tord is enough to deter anyone.

Not the best at giving advice to problems. He'll listen, but sometimes he can't quite understand why something is an issue. Doesn't invalidate your feelings on purpose, it just happens inadvertently at times. Always, ALWAYS apologizes and holds you close when he realizes what he did.

His preferred dates are nights in at home. Cuddled up on the couch with takeout watching shitty rom-coms. Cooking food that he ate growing up in Norway while you sit at the kitchen table watching. Going to the convenience store at midnight to get Ben and Jerry's in the middle of anime binges.

You become his crutch. When he's having bad paranoia on nights that are too quiet, he'll seek you out. Just having you lay in bed with him, warm and solid and breathing, always calms him down.

He will never let you meet his parents. You are one of the very few good things in his life, and he wants to keep that away from his fucked up home life. Might let you meet his little sister, but not for a long time.

Surprisingly, he does tend to talk more when its just the two of you. He allows you into his head, verbalizing his thoughts to you. He'll ramble about his projects, tell you about the history behind his culture, or rant about things that annoy him. Denies it vehemently in front of others.

He is a huge tease, second only to Edd. What's dangerous is how casual he is about it. Loves making you squirm, and he'll never even change his expression. Sometimes he won't even be looking at you, but rest assured that he is swimming in satisfaction over how flustered you are.

Red Leader

I have so many thoughts about him. Oh my lord.

This is going off the scenario where Reader is a Red Army soldier and met him through the army, after the events of The End.

I want to clarify that this is NOT following the events of TBATF!!! This is my own Red Army timeline, what I refer to in my Eddsworld bubble as "The Bad End"

There are two ways that you'd be able to catch Red Leader's attention. Either you are an extremely talented soldier that does well among your peers, enough to earn the praise of your superior officers and eventually Red Leader himself. Or, you were assigned as his personal assistant to help with paperwork and meetings, but you were so good at handling his temper and attitude that he found himself surprised.

The latter of the two is my favorite, so I'll be working under that one.

Before you, Red Leader had been through several assistants. None of them lasted more than a month. By nature, he was a moody, temperamental man. The stress of the army and oncoming war only made that worse. He saw those previous assistants as nuisances, only getting in his way. He would yell at them, berate them, drive them to the brink until they beg Paul and Pat to transfer them.

When they assigned you to him, they expected the same thing to happen. The two even made bets on how long you'd last. On your first day, Red Leader was nasty to you. Gruff and rude. But... you bit back. That took him by surprise. Instead of taking the insult and shuffling out like a puppy with its tail between its legs, you pursed your lips and gave him a stern look and talked to him in a way that nobody dared to. He should've been angry. Should have screamed at you, discharged you from the army in a heartbeat.

Instead, he found that he quite enjoyed it. He enjoyed your spitfire. Not that he'd let you know. He only gave you a noncommittal hum and dismissed you with a wave of his hand. But... he kept you around. Even found excuses for you to come into his office more than necessary. His penchant for teasing came back full force. He'd poke and prod, finding ways to make you react with that fire he so loved.

It takes a long time for him to finally make a move. Probably takes a near-death experience for him, or an injury to you for him to realize that he wants this. He wants a future with you.

At first, he may seem a little cold in public. Not to the degree that his father was - he promised himself that he would never be like his father. Simply a more... professional air about the entire thing. It was more out of anxiety than anything. He didn't want to make you a target, didn't want to cause you to get hurt. As his army grows more powerful and takes over more and more countries, he grows more comfortable with PDA. He knows that when he is the most powerful man in the world, he doesn't have to worry about anyone hurting you.

He would probably treat you more like a spouse than a girlfriend/boyfriend right off the bat. He's older now, thinking more about the future than the present. He already knows that he wants to be with you forever, so why go through the formalities and hassle of dating?

Always makes time for you whenever he can. If he's in a meeting with his generals or another world leader, he'll sneak text messages to you. Doesn't give a shit if he's caught. What are they going to do to him, Red Leader?

If he's cooped up in his office all day, his door is always open to you. Loves having you drop by unannounced to bring him food or coffee. He'll let you climb into his lap while he works, or sit behind him in his chair and cling to him. Even if you're just sitting in a separate chair nearby, working on your own stuff. He's happy.

If you want to continue being a soldier, or his assistant, he'll let you. But he's also perfectly happy to have you simply be his partner and not have a care in the world. You could sit all pretty in his quarters waiting for him to get off duty, or use the time to pursue your own hobbies and interests. As long as you're happy and cared for, it's okay with him.

Spoils you rotten. You're Red Leader's, so of course you only deserve the best things. Anything in the world you want, you only have to ask for it. It's yours. He would raze entire cities just to see you smile.

He does enjoy taking you out on dates. While also spending time with you, he sees it as a way to show you off to the world. Dressing you up in the finest clothes that he got you, the prettiest jewelry that he bought. Taking you to restaurants and operas where everyone can see you hanging on his arm. It makes him puff up with pride.

When the two of you are alone, he's so adoring. Loves snuggling. It's a struggle to convince him to let you out of bed in the mornings, he'll just be clinging to you. If you do somehow manage to escape his grasp, he'll catch you around the waist and drag you back to bed. Won't stop until Paul or Pat message him to get his ass out of bed. He always grumbles about how "it's my damn army, I should get to sleep in as long as I want".

Sometimes, at night, he has pains in his right shoulder, the side where he's burned and amputated. It can range from a dull ache to excruciating pain. On nights that it hurts too much to move, you'll scramble out of bed and get his medication from his nightstand, gently coaxing him to take it. You'll hold him and comfort him until the pain subsides and he falls back asleep.

He doesn't like to talk about it, really. It feels weird, letting anyone see this part of his life. Letting you see his vulnerability. Letting you see him.

But he does.

#eddsworld #eddsworld x reader #eddsworld tom #eddsworld tord #eddsworld matt #eddsworld tom x reader #eddsworld tord x reader #eddsworld edd #eddsworld matt x reader #eddsworld edd x reader #requested #eddsworld red leader #eddsworld red leader x reader

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utilitycaster · 5 months ago

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The thing that gets me abt the framework of downfall and the way Ludinus(and some ppl in the tags who seemingly are trying really hard to roleplay Ludinus) read it is that they're like "look at how the gods meddled and laid low to destroy this bastion of human achievement, they had no right and should have let themselves be systematically exterminated/have the world burn instead" when. Setting aside the revelation that the gods who struck down Aeor made themselves mortal to do it-- as in, they were on the exact playing fields of humans when they made their move and it wasn't some huge peacocking of power against upstart humans to strike them out of the sky-- the Divergence is going to happen. We KNOW the Divergence is going to happen. The gods are going to create the divine gate and remove any chance that they can ever do something like this again. "Blaugh, look at them meddle and plot-" and? Whatever they do, we know that the sun will shine once more. Melora, as brutal as she is as the starved Asha, will plant a tree of hope in the most destroyed wastes of Wildemount. And they will ensure that the suffering they wrought in the calamity, in Aeor, can never ever repeat the same way they had done it. Which is a HELL of a lot more than can be said for Ludinus who is actively reviving every cycle he can

first off "some ppl in the tags who seemingly are trying really hard to roleplay Ludinus" took me OUT so thank you for that.

I just reblogged a post with a quote from Cooldown that I think is really relevant in understanding the whole story of the gods and how we got to this point but like, just to summarize (and debunk a few things, hopefully) from the beginning of the episode to the end re: the life of the gods:

Gods (possibly aspects of the Luxon?) crash-landed on Exandria BECAUSE of what is all but outright said to be Predathos.

As far as I can tell, no deals were made between the gods and the Titans. The only person who has said this from what I can tell is Asmodeus, who I would not consider a reliable source of truth. Or rather: one might have been made but there's no corroboration that I know of.

They created the people of Exandria and sealed away Predathos both prior to the Schism

The Schism occurred when the Titans decided to attack the people (which to be clear - the people had been there for long enough to build that weird ruin on Ruidus with a portal, like, I would love to know what prompted the fight of the Schism since it had pretty clearly been millennia of coexistence).

The Betrayers decided the move was to leave and start over, and the Primes felt that was a dereliction of duty to the people. That's what the quote is about - it's about the fact that Erathis's motivation for being a Prime Deity isn't "mortals are my blorbos!" it's "we have an obligation to our creations" and more generally that the Prime Deities are invested in their domains for the overall good of Exandria but not necessarily the specific good of Aeor. (Taliesin follows it up with (as Melora) "You'd have to tear me from this fucking planet" w/r/t the idea that you cannot, in fact, destroy your bad first draft simply because it would be more convenient to you.)

Betrayers get sealed, unsealed, events of EXU Calamity occur (notably: the titans are all dead. you can fight about whether this was just or right later but they're gone and killing other people won't bring them back; the titans are largely used as a pearl-clutching prop by people with no arguments that are perhaps actually relevant to the current situation), and perhaps 50 or 60 years into the conflict the gods call a truce re: Aeor's Obtenebrator and commit to decades of living as mortals (and therefore limiting themselves considerably)

And so here we are

And I think this really gets to the point. Because ultimately, the argument in favor of leaving Aeor be is "when someone points a gun at you, lay down and die" and the argument in favor of the Betrayers is "when someone tells you to abandon your (living) obligations for them, do so." The former is despairing and nihilistic and the latter selfish and, well, a betrayal.

There is something profoundly nihilistic about Ludinus, for all he talks about freeing people and a better world. He's destroyed a city of innocents. He's indoctrinated hundreds if not thousands of people and many of them have died in his service; he's the architect of an empire and many wars in its name and is actively working with a second one. He's been killing fey and he's even physically given himself over to the cause. There is no crime or sin people attribute to the gods that he has not done himself in measures beyond nearly every other mortal. Like, I really think he's at a point where he just is unwilling to "lose" even though he has a friendless life and a legacy of violence and has destabilized the entire world and the weave of magic itself. I think he has to believe there's something on this Occultus Thalamus for him because if there isn't, he, like the Prime Deities, probably can't just pick up and start over. All he has left is to give in to just letting the world burn in the hopes that at least he gets the satisfaction of what he hates burning with him.

Basically, sounds like a rough time to try to roleplay him in the tags.

Something else you (and others) bring up is that amid all the "history is written by the victors" the story of Aeor and of the gods has actually painted them as far harsher. The story doesn't say that they were first chased to Exandria unwillingly and did not come in conquest; the story, as this post notes, evokes vast divine might striking down a city from the heavens and not like, living in fragile mortal forms during one of the most dangerous times in history and arguing amongst each other over how they can save both themselves and Aeor and if that's even possible. Like, even if you see the gods as the victors of this story rather than simply the survivors, the "unedited" version of the story makes them far more sympathetic.

You also mention the Divine Gate and that's a really interesting thing to me because the existing status quo of Exandria is actually remarkably nascent if you think about it. The Founding had gods, titans, and mortals. Post Schism had the Prime deities and mortals (and it is worth noting this is when the people of Exandria became the most technologically advanced; you want to talk about the Titans and Betrayers, you need to cover that the price of the wonders of the Age of Arcanum was that they were not present). Calamity had all the gods and mortals again, and the current era is the first where the gods are behind the gate. It's kind of a compromise between all the things that have tried to destroy one another - Betrayers and Primes are separated but all are free within their realms and can indirectly contact mortals; technically, so can Predathos. None can directly be on Exandria. Is it ideal? No. It's a compromise, and the sealed can become unsealed (which, consistently, goes very badly) but it's the option that doesn't involve the total annihilation of anyone. Ludinus seeks, by setting off this horrible cycle again, to undo that fragile imperfect compromise with a goal of wholesale slaughter. He provides no option for the gods other than "die by my hand" when even some of the gods were desperately trying to find other options for Aeor as of a day prior to its destruction. He's simply wallowed in his trauma for centuries, becoming colder and more unfeeling and less empathetic and more arrogant than the gods he accuses of the same flaws.

#answered #Anonymous #critical role #cr spoilers #cr downfall #ludinus da'leth

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gotham-daydreams · 1 year ago

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How would the yan batfam celebrate reader's birthday after they got them back?

Well, it can go a few ways, but I'll try to keep it short and simple for now!

First, the family will 100% fight over if they should throw a party now or actually wait until your birthday, because they definitely don't want to try and make up for all the one's they've missed, along with some other occasions that they absolutely want to celebrate with you.

It's a real mess, but what could one really expect from such a dysfunctional family? Though no matter what they settle on, it really depends on how long you've been with them.

If you've just 'gotten back' then it's probably something small, as they don't want to overwhelm you and want this to be another piece that eases you into your new way or life. Yet it definitely seems like some didn't get the memo as you are overflowed with gifts. You don't understand how they picked half of this stuff out, let alone why they bought it for you, but that's probably because they're guilt got to them and suddenly they had five times the amount of gifts they were originally going to get you. If the amount of gifts in the room pisses you off or you generally have a negative reaction to it, no one will let you go into the hall for a good portion of that day.

Besides that, you get some breakfast in bed, and maybe even lunch too if you didn't like the gifts- but expect a family dinner at the end of the day. They'll find ways to spend time with you, and most of the activities are either games that require multiple people, or the others will just... watch. Which may not have been so bad if you were in this particular situation.

Overall, while it is a little toned down they do still find ways to 'sneak' themselves into your birthday, and try to have fun all throughout the day. Though if you want to keep things more lowkey, then that's fine! But you'll still have to deal with them hanging around. You won't get a single moment to yourself.

If you've been 'staying' for a while, then they go all out and have the biggest celebration they can without any outside eyes peeking in. It may not be necessarily loud or anything but it's... a lot.

The moment you wake up (to which, you're most likely woken up by someone), your dragged out of bed and just about everyone is up and about like it's Christmas (and maybe it is, but I digress). Every meal of the day feels like some kind of feast, and they aren't trying to even hide the amount of gifts they've gotten you, which somehow all pertain to your interests one way or another. If anyone gets the same thing then you get to see a bit of a fight- so at least there's that, but unfortunately it's unlikely to last very long as everyone wants today to be a good day for you (and a great day for them).

Every activity/game is a family activity or deals with multiple players. They all take turns if there isn't enough for all of them to play with you all at once, but they work around it one way or another. If you want things to tone down, then you're either stuck watching a movie with everyone, or in a cuddle pile with most of the Batkids. If you couldn't get rid of them before- you absolutely cannot now. They make it near impossible to do so.

If you'd like to keep up your tradition with Alfred and bake with him, then you're more than welcome to!

If you 'just arrived' then you may be able to bake with Alfred in peace, minus the new observers that are a little too keen on watching you, and all too eager to taste test what you and Alfred end up making.

If you've been there for a while, then the family will try to turn the tradition from just you and Alfred, to you and the whole family. Even if it means turning the whole things into a game of some kind, or using other methods to get you to bake with them, they'll find a way to change it eventually... unless Alfred gets in the way of things. Though sometimes he may get sick and can't help you with the rest of the Batfam :[[

All in all, it's a mess! Who could've guessed? Ah, but really, it goes just about as well as you'd think. Very overwhelming and them justing to shove and further include themselves into your life by using your birthday to enhance that force. If you've just arrived, the force is lighter, and if not? It's heavier. Much, much heaver.

#talking daydreams #yandere batfam #platonic yandere batfam #yandere batfam x reader #gn reader

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markrosewater · 1 month ago

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As someone who only recently got properly into Magic this year my stance on the recent UB Standard legality is that so long as the mechanics are good, fun to play, and work well with the other Standard legal sets then I don't particularly care if Final Fantasy is legal.

But.

There is something about the Marvel Universe being Standard Legal that feels off. Final Fantasy shares many aesthetic and gameplay similarities to Magic that make it slide into the general ecosystem better from a Look/Feel perspective. Meanwhile, as much of a Spider-Man fan as I am, it is going to be incredibly weird seeing Peter Parker or Miles Morales face off against the critters of Bloomburrow, even more than Thunder Junction or Duskmourn do.

I will attend the Final Fantasy and Spider-Man prereleases because I love playing Magic and I am interested in both sets, but I cannot shake the feeling that this decision makes the overall play experience strange, especially since SIX Standard sets of a year is way overdoing it (maybe 3 In-Universe sets and 1 UB set would be a better balance?)

I understand the decision from a logical standpoint but the emotional reaction to Magic losing some of its Qualia is something that I can't ignore

I have read many of the responses to my request for emotional responses yesterday (I will continue reading - there are just a lot of people sharing). A common through line is the feeling of loss, that the decisions we’ve been making are taking things away from them.

So, I wanted to take a moment to talk about something that I believe Universes Beyond is adding to the game. I’m not talking about value to other people that aren’t you, but something that is upside to the enfranchised players that are the backbone of the game.

As I’m head designer, my focus is on mechanics and the core gameplay experience of playing the game. Universes Beyond has been a bolt of energy for the design of the game.

Because so many of you are sharing personal stories, I’ll use my own experiences as a way to illustrate my point.

One day, when I was seven or eight, I woke up and went downstairs to see that my Dad had bought me a comic book and left it out on the counter for me as a surprise. It was Spider-Man.

I must have read that comic ten times. It was the start of a life long love of comic books. I’m not quite sure why the superhero genre, in particular, spoke to me so strongly, but it did.

As a teenager I was a bit of an outcast, and when I stumbled upon the X-Men, it felt like a story that was core to my lived experience. I too was an outsider, but out there were people like me and if I could find those people, we could bond over our similarities.

I enjoy designing Magic. I mean really, really enjoy designing Magic. I don’t throw around the term “dream job” lightly. It is truly a lifelong passion. I spend so much time writing about it because it is something that brings me so much joy, and there is a desire to share that joy with others, my found family that shares my similarities.

Designing Marvel cards has been electrifying. I have spent years mastering the art of Magic design. Getting to combine that with my love of Marvel characters has been inspirational. It has inspired to make designs I would have never thought of.

It has pushed me in directions I couldn’t have predicted and resulted in designs that tickle both my inner Mel and Vorthoses.

And it hasn’t just affected my own designs. I have given more notes on card designs than I have in my twenty nine years at Wizards.

For example, the amount of back and forth with Aaron who designed the five Secret Lair cards we recently revealed at New York ComicCon was exhaustive. He and I have long bonded over our shared love of Marvel, so getting to translate that into Magic with him has been amazing.

And each Universes Beyond product we’re making has people as equally passionate about that property.

My point is from purely a design perspective, Universes Beyond has had huge dividends. It has inspired us to make fresh new designs. It has sparked creativity. We are making awesome card designs, mechanics, themes, and sets, things that most likely wouldn’t have come into existence otherwise.

The passion that beloved characters and worlds has inspired in us is translated into amazing Magic design, something that will make the act of playing Magic better for anyone who enjoys the nuts and bolts of the raw gameplay of Magic.

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in-another-april · 10 months ago

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summary/prompt + genre - just a few hcs about living together with spencer | fluff

warnings - mentions of food

wc - 385

notes - hehe i'm so normal about him *eye twitch* i have more but i didn't wanna overdo it soo lemme know if i should post the part 2

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- He’s pretty tidy overall, but he does have his things. Namely, the books. You’ve run out of space for yet another bookshelf, but his collection just keeps growing, so now they’re Everywhere. Every time you sit on the couch there’s something jabbing into your back and you just sigh and shoot him a lighthearted glare as you pull out his 3rd copy of The Illustrated Man from behind the pillow.

- His side of the closet is also a mess, especially the sock drawer, but he knows exactly where everything is and is surprisingly particular about his clothes. You ask if you can borrow his green sweater and he’s like “Which green, army, moss, or olive?” while you’re just ???? at him.

- He is absolutely obsessed with anything combining his two favorite things (you and books) whether its him reading to you, you reading to him, reading the same novel and discussing it book-club style, or just being in your general vicinity while he reads by himself.

- Speaking of general vicinity, he’s a sucker for parallel play. As much as he loves talking and interacting with you, he really enjoys the comfortable silence of being around you while you do your separate things.

- Stares at you with the sappiest heart-eyes no matter what you’re doing. You could be just folding laundry and he’s looking at you like you’re the only person in the entire world. Even if you’ve been together for years, he’s still enamored with you like a teenager with a crush.

- He cannot cook to save his life. He knows the processes and methods of cooking in theory, and can easily recite the history of practically any dish, but once he’s actually trying to make something he’s lost. He still wants to make food for you, though, so he practices up on a couple of meals he knows you like so he can surprise you with them after a long day.

- On his days off, he gets really into making elaborate coffees. The coffee from whichever local police precincts he’s working a case with is normally watered down and bitter regardless of how much sugar he adds to it, so he starts to appreciate the coffee from home a lot more and makes a whole thing of it every morning. You get him one of those fancy Keurig’s that makes espresso shots and has a milk frother and he almost cries.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds x reader #spencer x reader #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #x reader #reid x reader

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realcube · 3 months ago

Text

CONSEQUENCES

SIR NIGHTEYE SMUT. in which you're a villain who breaks into his house, and he punishes you for it.

tw/tags → nsfw, cursing, implied age gap, vaginal, bondage, fingering, oral (receiving), edging, pet names, impact play, breeding, riding, squirting, overstimulation, brief anal — MINORS DNI

note → oh he's too fine and underrated. smut is labelled if you want to skip to it.

the night was heavy with fog and frost, while the moon shone at the apex of the sky, casting only a soft glow over the big house that stood at the end of the street.

as a child, the house instilled a sense of reverence in you; aspirational and hopeful that one day — if you work hard enough — you may get to live in a house just like that one. but as you grew up, the respect you had slowly faded into seething jealousy and anger, as you realised that no matter how much effort you may put in to your academics or hobbies, you'll always come in second place to those who were gifted at birth with useful quirks, under this flawed system.

that was the beginning of your descent into villainy. and tonight was the night you were finally prove to your younger self that you made the right decision.

standing outside the big house, you stared up at it with a sober expression. you couldn't help but wonder who lived there. all this time you've lived nearby but you've never caught a glimpse of the owner. they were probably some big-headed hero; overpaid and worthless.

if they had enough money to buy such a massive house, they probably could afford all the additional secruity measures too. not that it was an issue for you; your quirk rendered the majority of security essentially useless.

your quirk allowed you to take an incorporeal form, in which you cannot touch or be touched, are invisible and can permeate through matter. however, the major drawback is that you are unable to breath in this form so you can typically only hold it for just over a minute consecutively.

still, a minute leaves you with enough time to rush through the front garden — passed all the cameras — and diffuse through the front door without having to break anything or do any lock-picking.

you don't have much time to scan your surroundings, instead you have to pick a room and study it to make sure there are no cameras or people, before you cease use of your quirk. not only so you can breathe again, but also so you can pick up objects that you want to steal.

you end up choosing the living room as that is where a lot of valubles are kept, and since there doesn't seem to be any cameras, you drop your incorporeal form and start picking up random shit and throwing it into your bag.

while you are doing this, you begin to get a general feel for the type of person that must live here. all their furniture is very modern and sleek and expensive-looking — you'd pick up the whole couch and take it, if you could. overall there is a very mature vibe to the decor, with the exception of a couple All-Might pieces of paraphernalia you find laying around. like a decorative silver silhouette laying on the side table. it was really ugly but you took it anyway because it might be worth something.

you continue going around the room and shovelling items into your bag, wary of your surroundings and who might be lurking. however, as you are sifting through the cabniets under the television, out of no where, you feel a blunt pain against the back of your head and everything went dark.

it stung real bad, and you woke up with a splitting headache. although the first thing you noticed was the pain, once your sight comes back to you and the world stops spinning violently, you become acutely aware of your current situation.

tied up vertically onto some contraption, in what looks to be a dingy basement, and opposite you, sitting at a table, there is a tall, slender man with green hair, sharp features and glasses, which he pushes up the bridge of his nose as he stands up.

"you're awake." he states plainly.

you open your mouth to spit a sly retort, and that is when you realise that you can't because he has taped over your mouth. so instead you furrow your brows and thrash against your contraints to express your displeasure. you hated being caught, but it wasn't a big deal, once you were less winded, you could quite easily slip into your incorporeal form and dart away.

"i see you tried to rob me. i have it recorded, and while you were out i took your fingerprints and a hair sample." the man motions to the contents atop the table, where you could see the tapes and plastic bag which presumably had your hair inside, and he held up the fingerprint samples.

"so i suggest instead of using your quirk to run away, you listen to my offer." he subtly quirks a brow, giving you a once-over to see if you were going to switch form, but instead he sees he has stunned you into complete silence, so he continues.

"perfect." he hums, holding his chin between his thumb and index finger in thought as he paces up and down the length of the table. "i don't think you are an evil villain who means to cause harm to innocents. i think you are a troubled young woman who is mad at hero society. would i be correct in assuming that?"

he looks over his shoulder, briefly awaiting a response and you simply shoot him an unimpressed look with your eyes, since he obviously knows you can't talk.

"right. can't speak." he recalls, then keeps walking, "with a quirk like yours, you could have such a bright and promising future ahead of you. but if i were to report you to the authorities, all that would be soiled because of one terrible decision."

even if you could talk, you didn't feel the need to correct him and say that this wasn't your first time commiting a crime.

"so, i am going to make you an offer. you could use your quirk and run away; i'll hand all of this evidence over to the police, they will catch you eventually and you'll spend the rest of your days rotting in prison. or you can let me handle you myself, and this whole incident will be our little secret."

he slinks up to you, and rips the tape swiftly off your face, causing you to hiss in pain. "what do you say?"

you couldn't lie: something about this man standing so close to you, his hot breath tickling your lips and his intimidating stare glaring right into your soul had your panites pooling with arousal. you shouldn't be so turned on by this situation but you can't stop it.

"what do you mean by 'handle me yourself'?" you cough, finally able to inhale a deep breath.

he tilts his head and explains, "i would put you on the straight and narrow path to rectitude."

"like, with a powerpoint?" you rasp.

he narrows his eyes at you through his glasses, and the intense glare causes you to shudder, "no. i have various methods that will instill cheer and bliss into you." he places his finger under your chin, to hold your face up so you maintain eye-contact with him, "they could be described as sexual in nature."

"some weird pervert fetish." your face contorts to reflect your disgust, though it's merely a guise for your bubbling lust and excitement.

"call it what you want." his piercing yellow eyes stare deeply into yours, "if you would rather not engage, then leave."

you press your lips into a thin line, and interally you relish in how well you got off; not only will you leave scot-free, but also this fine man is going to fuck you silly. a two-in-one! funnily enough, you loathe the alternate reality in which you didn't get caught.

although, despite the slight smirk tugging at the corner of your lips, you don't want to come across as too eager. otherwise, he might not view it as a suitable punishment and the offer will be retracted, so you try to keep the overwhelming joy to yourself.

in an attempt to feign hesitancy, you ask, "how is 'cheer and bliss' going to stop me from being a criminal?"

"i'm glad you asked. shows that you're paying close attention." his intense expression softens for a microsecond as he straightens his back, so you can tell your question pleased him. "i believe laughter and cheer is the backbone of our society and essential in the creation of a brighter future. you've already shown good humour through your ridiculously amusing display of incompetence while trying to rob me. it was thoroughly entertaining to watch."

every word that came out of his mouth was more shocking that the last. never would you expect such a stoic man to be so passionate about comedy and humour. also, you didn't appreciate him calling you incompetent but you kept your mean replies to yourself somehow, thus allowing him to continue,

"when you experience the same joy, you'll understand what i'm referring to and will never return to villainy." he says in a very resounding manner, picking up a long metal rod laying on the table and examining it, "you won't be able to walk properly after our lesson, so at the very least you will not be able to commit any crimes for the next couple of days."

you have no idea where he is going to put that stick, but the possibilities rushing through your mind cause your knees to quiver.

"so, will you be staying for your punishment?" he glances at your figure out of the corner of his eye.

"yes.." you stutter out, still trying to give the impression of a coy, confused girl so he doesn't know how desperate for this you truly are. "but can i ask one more question?"

he takes a piece of fabric out from the pocket of his suit jacket and polishes the metal stick, "you may ask as many questions as you would like, darling."

you gulp slightly, "what should i call you?"

he noticably tenses up for a moment before he gently sets the rod down, then turns to you, while adjusting his glasses, "mirai sasaki. though, you may have heard of me under my hero name: sir nighteye."

"oh, you worked with all might, didn't you? is that why you have so much merchandise of him?"

he nods, "the merchandise you intended to steal, yes."

you frown, frustrated that he was still hung up on that — you thought it was time to move on, but apparently not. "well, i'm sorry about that, sir."

he saunters up where you are tied up, metal rod in hand, and uses it under your chin so you look up to meet his penetrating stare, "if you are good, i might forgive you." he drops the rod and roughly prods the side of your clothed thigh, "we must get rid of these first."

[NSFW]

the contraption that was restricting you held your ankles in such a way that your legs where slightly parted. close enough together to allow sir nighteye to yank your bottoms down in one swift motion, leaving you in your panties. however, your legs were still far enough apart to provide space for his slender fingers to rub your labia through the damp fabric.

you gasp at how sudden he was, though you should've expected only efficiency from such a esteemed man. and it was only now that you take a look down to see your bottoms hanging around your ankles that you notice the contraption was holding you a couple inches off the ground yet he still towered over you.

"so wet already, hm?" he whispers, hot breathe tingling against your neck, his lips only inches away from your tender skin.

"mhm.." you whined, partially embarrassed by him finding out how turned on you are, but mostly too enthralled by his expert fingers against your needy clit to care.

soon, he tugged your panties to the side, circling your labia with his finger to gather your slick before licking those same fingers, promptly sticking them up your soaking cunt, causing you to yelp a little.

however, the pain from the initial stretch to accommodate his two digits quickly faded into pure pleasure. even when he wasn't moving, your eyes were still screwed shut while you moaned endlessly, feebly bucking your hips as much as you could.

he swiftly put an end to your unwanted movements by a harsh wack to the thigh with the metal rod, "behave. the true experience hasn't begun yet."

"when'll it start? i need you.. s' bad, sir." you choke, panting heavily and biting your bottom lip to distract yourself from the unmet needs between your thighs.

"since you asked so nicely." his fingers pump in and out of your pussy, lewd squealing noises echoing through the room with each disgusting slap of his palm against your clit. at first he is slow and thorough, making sure the base of his fingers are right the way inside you before pulling out, even curling them a little which would send a lust-fuelled spark up your spine ever single time.

his pace gradually worked up to being more hasty, more severe. his hand was rapidly thrusting in and out of your hole at a speed you couldn't even begin to compute. and every time you tried, his palm would slam into your clit again and send another mind-numbing jolt of pleasure to your brain.

while you moaned, he watched with a fiery intensity. eyes locked to your face, observing every subtle movement and slight twitch. he was obsessed with the way you looked for him, so greedy yet so innocent. all for his gaze only.

because of how observant he was, as soon as you felt your orgasming coiling inside you, he instantly ceased, preventing you from reaching your climax. once you were able to pry your eyes open, you pouted at him and groan, "huh?"

"not yet." with the cloth kept in his pocket, he carefully wipes clean his slick-coated fingers and gets on his knees. "remember, this is a punishment as well as rehabilitation." his angular features partially hidden between your plush thighs was an interesting sight. but you weren't able to appreciate it for long as your eyes rolls back into your head at the euphoric feeling of his tongue plummeting into your hole.

it squirms around, getting a taste for your juices, resulting in a hungry moan from him against your pussy, the vibrations tickling your clit. his lips lap it all up, while his tongue works your aching insides, plunging into you repeatedly.

exploring within the confines of your tight walls, eventually the tip of his tongue finds the gummy spot in you that makes your toes curl every time he brushes up against it. his mouth fucks you out feverishly; such an austere man losing his restraint was such a turn on for you, and had your pussy clenching around his tongue.

"mph— i need you.." you mewl out into the emptiness of the room.

meanwhile sasaki's face heats up red between your thighs. although eating you out was admittedly hot as fuck and had him pitching a slight tent in his grey trousers, it didn't fluster him because he viewed it as a process towards your punishment, opposed to an activity to feed his own lust.

that was, until he heard you call for him in that way — so lecherous and dirty. it had all the blood in his body either rushing to his cheeks or dick. that was when he realised he might be doing this to serve his own sexual fantasies instead of preventing villainy and helping you see the beauty in joy.

but it's something he has commit to. so what ever the overarching reason may be, he can deconstruct it later. for now, he has to see through what he started.

'see through' in the board sense. that didn't apply when he was tongue-deep in your cunt, devouring your insides like a starved, depraved man until your whole body was shaking and you were on the very edge of a climax. which is when he decided to pull out.

your eyes shoot open at the missing warmth against your pussy, and you inhale sharply. deeply uncomfortable with how the sweet bubbling release within your core was swept away in an instant and you were left with a longing ache between your legs. to be fair, he did give you a warning so you can't say this was unexpected, but certainly dissatisfying.

"sir, c'mon.." you plead, pretty cheeks glistening with tears, "wanna cum for you."

"you will, my dear. trust me." he slowly gets up from the floor, cleaning his sticky cheeks and lips with the cloth again. "it pains me to do this but i hope you are learning a very valuble lesson about grief. it's not nice, is it?"

"no.." you mutter, gaze cast to the ground in shame.

but your swiftly met with a harsh sting on your thigh by the wrath of his metal rod, "look at me."

reluctantly, you lift your head up so your watery eyes meet his, and he stares down upon you with scorn. he asserts, "say that again."

"no."

"full sentence."

"no, it's not a nice feeling." you mumble to stop your voice from trembling. your eyes are locked to his, so you pick up on the very subtle change in his expression �� he's contented with your response.

"excellent. i think you deserve to finish now." he turns his back to you and walks over to the table. from how far away you are, you can't properly see what is laid out on the surface besides the tapes and samples, but you can tell there are many things.

once he's collected everything he needs, he comes back over with a few items in his big hands. first, there is vibrator in the shape of a c, which he stuffs into your cunt and allows the tail to hang out, positioning it so it brushes perfectly against your swollen clit. you moan quietly the whole time while he is toying around, fixing it inside you. and though he acts unbothered, really you are feeding his lewd desires and worsening his throbbing erection.

then he has a metal plug which he coats in generously in lube, then slips his arm behind you and shoves it into your ass. when he does so, you yelp and jerk against your restraints at the harsh insertion. but your pussy only gets wetter at how full and conjested you are.

"we will get started when i come back." he states, heading towards the door on the other side of the room.

your mind is already a bit foggy , so he is a few paces away by the time you figure out what he's doing, but then you promptly call out, in a slurred salacious voice, "huh, where're you going?"

"to make myself a cup of coffee. i'll be right back."

"what?! don't leave me here al—" before you could even finish your thought, the door slams shut behind him and he is gone. you can only trust that he'll be back soon to please you.

you let out a deep sigh; the first in what felt like ages. but the relief didn't last long as the wind was almost immediately knocked out of you again at the toy stuffed into your pussy beginning to vibrate. and not lightly either, it was essentially thrashing around inside you and destroying your clit.

you assume this would only last a couple seconds and sir nighteye was only doing this to tease you but no. it went on for ages, the piece of plastic ravaging your walls and poor clit for minutes on end. to the point you were shaking and twisting in your restraints, trying to deal with the copious amount of pleasure surging through you.

you screamed and shouted but you don't think anyone heard you. or maybe he did and he just gets off on this shit. either way you couldn't keep it all inside; it was unbelievably good yet it was just so fucking much. to the point you were gasping for air.

with a vibrator on full shoved into your pussy and abusing your clit, and a buttplug that would send jolts of hot ecstasy rushing through you whenever you'd arch your back against the wall behind you, it wasn't long at all until your first orgasm.

then your second and third rolled out directly afterwards. your thighs being covered with more and more slick each time.

by the time sir nighteye came back with his coffee, you were probably on your fourth or fifth — you lost count — and your sore body was laying limp against the cuffs that held you upright, with your head hanging low as your neck no longer had the strength to carry it.

"look at this." he takes a sip of his drink, while sitting down in the chair adjacent to the table, "you're a mess."

"st— stop, sir. ngh, t' much." you somehow find the strength to coak out, despite the heavy vibrations battering your poor cunt.

"i will stop after you squirt." he declares, completely unwavered by your dishevelled state. he folds his legs and stares at you while holding his cup, waiting patiently.

"sir!" you squeal, body consulving in sheer pleasure, and you grit your teeth together to stop yourself from letting out and ungodly shriek and you feel another seering climax build in your core, blistering your insides. it was so horny and good at first but now it was growing overwhelming, "please, please, please!"

"fine." sir nighteye sighs in defeat.

with that, the contraption you were held to suddenly deactivates and the cuffs around your wrists and ankles retract. therefore, without the support of the metal, you immediately fall to the ground and land on your hands and knees. and the force from hitting the ground sends the toy straight out of your hole, aided by your cumulative wetness.

the plug in you ass stays put, not that you were awfully worried about that one anymore now that the main source of the stimulation was gone, leaving you with great relief. you take a moment to catch your breath.

"come here, my dear. sit with me."

your legs are still trembling so naturally when you try to stand up, you immediately fall back down. in fact that's when you realise your whole body feels like jelly, even your arms are so weak they can barely keep you from face-planting into the ground — your previous orgasms have truly wracked your whole nervous system.

despite clearly seeing you being a fumbling mess and struggling to even stand or kneel, sir nighteye just watches silently, not offering you a hand even when you look to him with a glossy gaze.

after a couple mintues of clumsily stumbling around, you are able to half-walk / half-crawl over to where he is sat, but you fall over again just as you reach him, leaving you kneeled on the ground with your forehead pressed against his leg.

that's when he finally extends a hand you, and slips his arms under yours and pulls you up onto his lap, so you are stradling his legs and facing him. you flop against his chest, his toned abs comforting your cheek from through his white shirt.

"you've learned your lesson now, haven't you?" he hums, your head wrapped up in his arms as he idly strokes your hair.

"mhm.." you say into his chest.

"you won't commit any other crimes?"

you don't respond. at first you didn't have any issue with lying to him but now that he's cradling you in his arms like a precious doll, you feel the need to be more transparent with him.

he takes your lack of response as an answer, "understood. i punished you for the crime you did, even so i have yet to give you any incentive to remain righteous."

as he explains himself, his hands work to unbuckle his belt, so he can pull his cock free. your eyes are glued to his monstrous length as it bounces out, slapping against your thigh. he hooks his arms under your ass and lifts you up while he aligns himself with your sopping hole.

regardless of your recent encounter with the vibrator, you were still eager to be filled up with his cock, and for him to fuck your wanton hole until your legs don't work again. "c'mon.." you whine, burying yourself into his neck while he held you over his cock. cuddling into him was similar to nuzzling a statue but it still brought you some semblence of comfort.

especially as his hold on you finally released and you were left to sink down on his massive length, your slick entrance inviting him inside you, and facilitating your hole to gobble him up, all the way to the base despite how you wriggled and writhed.

his teeth grit together. he wanted to blurt all sorts of profanities about how fucking tight you are and how you are an angel that takes him so well, but he choked it back. replaced by faint grunts and sighs.

his vicious stare didn't part from your body for even a second. he was utterly mesmerised by the way your cunt swallowed him whole. and upon noticing your twitching thighs, he was reminded that you weren't going to be able to ride him, so he utilised his hand on your ass to force you up and down on his length, at a pace he was in control of.

he basically used your body is a fucktoy for his own climax, groping your ass how he liked, using your sore hole as his own, and toying with your plug whenever it appealed it him — tugging and twisting it, he loved making you squirm.

it wasn't long before another sizzling pool of pleasure was accumulating in your stomach, but this time it felt different. not only hotter but deeper too. his cock had that effect on you; the way it slammed into your cervix over and over again ignited something carnal within you.

"sir, m' gu— gnh—" the sounds falling from your bruised lips were hardly words anymore and just syllables. you couldn't form a coherent sentence with how his cock was ploughing into you. " 'm gunna cum!"

"go on. go on." sasaki spoke it like a mantra through bared teeth, eyes screwed shut as he revels in your tight pussy clenching down on him.

as the fluid coil in your core finally snapped, you found yourself gushing around his cock, drenching his grey trousers in the process. though you were too consumed by the sensation to care; your back was arched into him and a scream-like moan departed from your throat.

"(y/n)." he rasps at how your walls spasm around his length, and it tips him right over the edge into his orgasm. as he releases his hot seed into you, he lands harsh slaps to your ass repeatedly, punctuating each with a "fuck" under his breath. he kept smacking it until there was a searing red handprint left on your skin.

not that you minded. it was actually quite sexy hearing such a strict man lose all control for you — submitting himself to your pussy.

his cum spreads all throughout your insides, coating your walls a sticky white. with your orgasms coinciding, your convulsing pussy fucks him through his high until you've milked him dry of every last drop.

that's when he relaxes in his chair, taking shallow breaths in sync with yours, with your face buried into the crook of his neck. your body melts lazily into his, and one of his hands slowly move from your ass to trace your spine. his cock is still fit snug inside you but you like it that way, and so did he.

"now, for every week you go without committing any crimes, i will take you in a new position. how does that sound, my dear?" he asks through huffs.

"i won't do anything bad ever again." you reply without an ounce of hesitancy.

sir nighteye chuckles lowly, and caresses your lower back, "perfect."

#bnha smut #sir nighteye #mirai sasaki #sasaki mirai #mha smut #my hero academia #my hero acedamia #boku no hero academia #sasaki x reader #mirai sasaki x reader #sir nighteye smut

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the-s1lly-corner · 3 months ago

Text

Singing songs w/ them in the car (various crps)

I tried cajun shrimp yesterday and omfg it's so good I need to make it again soon but ik itll be a while since my dad isnt a fan of the seasonings

Characters: laughing jack, nina, jeff, ticci toby

Notes: reader is GN, you're both just going on a ride around town, songs are grabbed from my playlist at random so! yeah!

CWs: none

LAUGHING JACK

the randomized playlist has chosen hot to go .... this one is going to be... fun...

doesnt know the lyrics, but hes following along with you trying to guess the words as you sing along with him- he definitely gets the spelling parts right on the mark as soon as hes familiar with it

very loud and very into it, and not at all embarrassed about messing up the words or stumbling over them

he likes the energy the song has- very fast and high energy... he loves music like that

bouncing in his seat, the car kind of shifts and rocks a bit because of it, very large and hes not very.. calm about it... hopefully you guys dont get pulled over..!

NINA

The randomized playlist has chosen psycho teddy, which is so... fitting for her...

it should come as a shock to no one that she knows this song by heart, regardless of what version you have playing- the original, a remix, or an edit... she enjoys any rendition of the song

puts all over her energy into getting the words out and can keep up with the song- including the various other sound effects/noises in the sound

would sing with the window rolled down and tries to encourage you to sing alongside her, thankfully there arent many people out and about tonight- otherwise you might get a few odd looks

and if you do, nina doesnt seem to care at all- youre both having a good time so why should either of you care what others think?

JEFF

The randomized playlist has chosen psychosocial !

you cannot look me in the eye and tell me jeff wouldnt be a slipknot fan- he knows most of their songs, and at least a handful like the back of his hand

that being said... hes not the type to sing out loud to songs... but given the delivery and lyrics of the song, hes definitely getting into it! is it a distraction to your driving? it might be at least a little, to be honest

if youre listening on your own playlist hes going to be very pleased in your taste in music, he generally doesnt make fun of you for your interest save for some teasing but he does have some genuine appreciation of your taste here

leaves him feeling a little more hyped than he was when he got into the car, grinning as the song comes to the close and you just know hes going to try to string you into some shenanigans- the question is what nature of antics will it be... knowing jeff, its not going to be something chill

TICCI TOBY

The randomized playlist has chosen mr blue sky !

honestly hes just happy to sit in the car with you while listening to music, and yes, hes going to belt out the lyrics- will loudly swear if he messes up the lyrics... its been a while..!

he uh... doesnt get to listen to that much music nowadays- you make a mental note to give him a player to keep on him so he has something to fill the silence when hes wandering the woods

definitely tries to pitch up his voice during the "so loong" at 1:50 in the song, his voice cracks but he just leans into it

overall hes having a good time and hes playing himself up simply because you seem to be happy that hes enjoying himself

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ghoulfuckersincorporated · 5 months ago

Note

Ghoul Thought™️, perhaps a request? I haven’t played the game to know anything for sure, but I’m vibrating imagining the possibility that maybe he has a heightened sense of smell, and can smell just how turned on and wet his little vaultie has been for him from the moment they met. 🥵

Probably tries to ignore at first, but at a certain point he really needs to call her out😏

So, not only do I think ghouls overall would be able to smell when you were wet, I think ghouls with a particularly sensitive "nose" (I have spoken at some length about sense of smell and scent marking in ghouls, so you can find elaboration on that here) would be able to detect hormonal changes, so they'd be able to smell when you're ovulating.

Cooper can absolutely smell both, though he's not quite sure what he's picking up at first. He notices the tang in the air when you two initially approach one another, so he doesn't necessarily think much of it. What he fails to notice is the longing with which you'd been sizing him up before approaching. Your smell changes during your first conversation (well, more like a first argument, since every conversation with the man is about one crossed wire or snarky comment away from devolving into an argument, especially when you've only just met), and the change seems to stick once you both calmed down and agree to travel together.

However, the first time you two stop by the roadside to rest for a few hours, he notices the smell returning. He doesn't say anything about it, simply watches you drift off to sleep out of the corner of his eye, intrigued about this person who is so willing to travel with a ghoul, especially one as gruff and unwelcoming as he can be. Once you begin to snore lightly (a sound that makes him chuckle), he spends a long time just staring at you, studying you curiously. The smell has fully returned, and is even stronger than before, but it takes seeing you rubbing your thighs together and sighing in your sleep for him to fully realize what's going on.

He spends that whole night with the most painful, bothersome erection he's ever had in his life, but he's too annoyed with you and himself to do anything about it. The next morning, he's quieter than he'd typically be, but you don't know him well enough at that point to notice.

From that moment on, he notices it constantly. The idea that you simply find him, specifically, sexually attractive to the point of fairly blatant arousal is ridiculous to him, so he spends a long, long time turning the whole thing over and over in his brain; is it some adrenaline rush? Or a ghoul fetish? Do scarred-up, rotted near-corpses just get you going in general?

That theory is a wash when tested, though, since any time other ghouls are around and his nose picks up on it, he's also obviously there as well. Even observing from a distance doesn't really support the idea; you don't seem to really "click" with the others in exactly the same way. You're kind to them, of course, as you are to pretty much everyone, and it actually softens his heart to know you still see ghouls as real, whole people. But that's all it seems to be: friendliness. No matter how much he may try to deny it to himself, there's a chemistry, a spark between the two of you that he can't ignore, and that he doesn't see when you interact with others. He also cannot ignore the thrill it gives him to see other ghouls studying the two of you together, their eyes full of assumptions.

You always choose to sit close to him even when there are other options. You pester him with personal questions and inquiries about the Wasteland and he has to pretend to be annoyed by it, secretly overjoyed to have some seemingly genuine companionship for once in god knows how long. Sometimes, in your sleep, you unconsciously move close enough that you touch him. Rather innocent touches, considering, but they never fail to send his heart racing, leaving him humiliatingly aroused at as little as your back against his outer thigh, your face against his hip.

All the while, that scent tantalizes, haunts him.

He ignores the problem as long as he can, enjoying the way you two have slowly begun to chat, joke around with one another; there might even be some real trust developing there. He doesn't want to jeopardize that because he's lonely and can't control himself. Even if it's slowly beginning to seem to him that you might actually want him, too, he'd rather have your friendship and be happy with that than push his often rotten luck and risk losing you trying to be greedy.

But at the same time...feeling his long-dormant sex drive reawakening is strangely thrilling. It makes him feel human, makes him feel alive. For so long, he's found his sense of masculinity in violence, in vengeance and bloodshed. Your warm presence, your beauty, your scent...it all makes him feel masculine in a very different way, leaving him waiting impatiently most nights for you to fall deep enough asleep that he can sneak away to relieve the ache in his balls.

Of course, he doesn't go far enough away that he can't watch over you, still. No, he stays close enough that he can still see you, can study every inch and soft curve of your body as he strokes his throbbing cock. It's not disgusting or perverted if it's done out of necessity, he tells himself. The desert is a dangerous place, and he can't afford to take his eyes off of you when you're in such a vulnerable state. That doesn't mean he isn't left feeling guilty after he finishes, though, the euphoria of his orgasm tainted with shame. Still, he finds himself in the same position most nights, sighing your name wantonly as he spills all over the ground.

He can only fight his urges for so long, though.

You spent most of the previous week smelling of blood (something he also found tantalizing but decided to not think too hard on), which meant that soon you'd be ovulating. It was funny, almost, how he had all but completely forgotten pretty much everything about how women worked, but a handful of months with you and he's suddenly keeping track of your cycle (sort of) like it has anything to do with him. The whole thing makes him strangely nostalgic for when he and Barb were trying to conceive, and the emotions of that only add to the inner tumult he feels. The fact that your smell becomes even more temping, more inviting in this time only makes things worse for him.

The new game you'd been playing recently, however, would be the straw that ultimately broke the camel's back.

The last few nights, you'd taken to settling in for sleep, as per usual, but your breathing wouldn't drop down into the same deep, rhythmic pattern that indicated unconsciousness. Instead, you'd roll over onto your belly, a position you didn't usually sleep in, laying on your arm, and begin rather conspicuously grinding against your hand, pretending to be asleep all the while.

Cooper Howard is a man with an excellent poker face. Not much shakes him badly enough to draw out a genuine reaction. But the first time you did this, he sat a few feet away, frozen, a lit cigarette burning itself away to nothing as it dangled between his parted lips. The smell of you, the sound of your little whimpers and quiet sighs, had kept him nailed to that spot beside you all night two nights in a row, even after you'd finished and actually drifted off to sleep.

He tells himself tonight will be different if you pull the same stunt.

Which, of course, you do.

A shocked gasp leaves you when he grabs you by the ankle, dragging you a few feet through the sandy dirt towards him and flipping you onto your back, staring down at you as he pulls himself halfway on top of you.

"Filthy fucking tease." he growls, your natural perfume making his head swim as his deft fingers move to the button of your pants.

The pitch dark of the desert night is eerily silent, save for the harsh sound of your breaths intertwining as he helps wrestle the worn material down your legs, trying his best to rein in his strength and not shred it to pieces in his haste to get to that warm, inviting place between your legs. A snarl, feral and borderline inhuman, rips from his throat when his fingers finally find what he's been fantasizing about. The small part of him that has any control is nervous for a split second, worried to frighten you, but the shudder that seems to break down your spine in response isn't one of fear.

He knows he should be gentle, take his time, but the wetness that he feels, the heat, the hormones in the air short circuit his brain, and after a few swipes at your puffy clit, he sinks his middle finger inside you in one fluid motion, giving a few pumps before sliding his ring finger in alongside it. The sounds you let out are the most beautiful thing he's ever heard, and they drive him to rub and tease and fuck you with his hands until you're whimpering his name in a way that tells him you're close. Fleetingly, he wonders what his odds of being able to knock you up really are.

You turn your head quickly and snag his lips in a passionate kiss just as you begin to come apart all over his fingers, leaving him swallowing your moans and whimpers as his hips buck and grind wildly against your own. It's sloppy and rough and your teeth are bumping against one another, but you still bring your leg up around his hip, letting him rub himself against you as he cums in his pants.

After a few minutes, the two of you calm down enough to really look at one another, though you're both a little hesitant. No one says anything for a good, long second, but the look on your red, sweaty face says you're happy. Nervous, he tucks his face back into the crook of your neck, laying a few soft, sort of awkward kisses there, debating whether he should pull away or not. He doesn't want to impose himself on you anymore than he already has.

But your leg remains wound around his hip, holding him close as your hands move up to cradle the back of his head, petting softly, and the loving touch glues him in place, too lost in your affection to even think about going anywhere. He knows that you two are going to have to have a long, likely awkward talk about this, about what this makes you. He isn't dreading it as much as he imagined he'd be. He's eager to call you his, actually, if you'll let him...

...but not so eager that he can ignore the way you're starting to grind against him again. Or the way he's getting hard all over again. Poor thing, you're not getting much sleep tonight, are you?

He'll make it up to you somehow.

#also you gotta at least check out new vegas anon #you can play it on a low spec laptop (at least I can)#and it goes on sale for like $2 all the time #cooper howard #the ghoul #cooper howard x reader #cooper howard x you #cooper howard headcanons #cooper howard smut #fallout prime #fallout tv show #submission

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alpaca-clouds · 6 days ago

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Arcane Season 2 - How Bad Pacing Can Ruin Everything

So, Arcane season 2 ended. And I am sorry, I need to vent.

I am honestly not sure whether the rumors are true and this were originally meant to be more seasons. The Riot CEO apparently denies it, but then again, I have seen CEOs confidently go out on stages to talk about a project which they knew was cancelled at that point in time. So, sorry, but I will never ever trust a CEO. Lying is like 50% of their jobs. Being greedy is the other half. Sorry, not sorry.

I am gonna write something about disability in Arcane (overall) during the next few days, but let me just talk a bit about the pacing issues of season 2.

Spoilers for season 2 - all of it - obviously.

Believe me or not, but I know the exact issue of Arcane season 2. It is called: Too many characters. Too many plotlines. It is something that easily happens when writing an ensemble story (no matter what the format is you publish the story in - it happens in books, movies, shows, games). At times it works fine if you manage to weave the entire ensemble into the same main plot. But as soon as you wanna give everyone their own little storyarc with a bit of their own themes, it often goes haywire. Either you will end up dropping some characters to the side and not properly finish up their story, or you will end up rushing everything. Neither is gonna be good.

Here I am mainly thinking... Was the entire Black Rose/LaBlanc stuff planned to be there from the beginning? Was it put in later? I mean, given that the entire story felt like it might set up Mel as a Champion for LoL... How do I put it? Mel was too overdesigned in the show, to not be a future Champion. That was my feeling from the beginning. I don't know if they gonna make her a Champion, but man, it feels like it.

But no, the main issue really is the pacing. There is just too much stuff happening.

I will remain, that the thing that shows this better than anything was the second "arc" of season 2. Episode 4-6. And the general way the entire Caitlyn, Vi, Jinx thing plays out. We have the following things happen in the first six episodes of season 2:

Cait's mother dies

Cait swears revenge and asks Vi to assist her as an enforcer

Vi does not want to. Ends up getting drunk.

Vi decides to do it anyway.

They do a bit of chemical warfare for good measures.

They go down there. Fight Jinx. Vi cannot do it - partly because Isha.

Cait breaks up with Vi and becomes the evil fascist dictator

Vi becomes an alcohol addict.

Except, never mind, Caitlin is already feeling shitty about it next episode.

Jinx gets Vi and Magic Pixie Dreamgirls her out of her new-found addiction.

Jinx and Vi are good again. They go help Vander.

Cait meets Vi for the first time since the break up. They instantly are back on the same page.

Like, there is so many plothooks in this storyline alone that do go completely unexplored.

There are two characters here, that do play a role in the last three episodes too and that felt like they were some proper characters at some point. Those two are Maddie - the Scottish-dialect enforcer girl - and... Frankly, I do not feel like looking up the name. The big burly one, who after the break-up takes care of Vi.

Those two feel like they were at some point meant to be more real characters. But because of the pacing, they are barely ideas. Maddie starts making out with Caitlyn because...? I don't know. Because I literally do not know anything about this character but "she is an enforcer", "she is queer", "she is attracted to power(?)", and thats it.

And the other guy goes with Vi because... Uhm... I don't know. I know literally nothing about this chaaracter other than that he is big and an enforcer. *shrugs*

It most certainly feels like there was some planned version of this show, in which Cait and Vi both had a proper corruption arc. In which we really saw the two of them struggle. In which we actually saw Piltover and Zaun under the control of Commander Caitlyn and Noxus, and saw the horrible things they were doing and what it was doing with Caitlyn. In which we also saw Vi struggling with addiction and stuff.

But that was not the version we got in the end. Instead in this version... things go magically well.

Hooray?

Same with Jinx. Her mental health issues just magically get better when Isha is there, because that is what the story needs to happen now.

Here, too, it also feels like huge chunks of the story are missing. It feels like there was a story going more into the relationship of Sevika and Jinx for a bit. But if that story had been there once, it was most certainly no longer there. It was hinted at, yeah, but that's it.

And then there is the entire magic plot.

Look, I think among the fans of the LoL Lore I am not the first one to say: "Yeah, trying to marry the worldbuilding of Arcane to the established Runeterra worldbuilding does not work, because of the magic." Runeterra so far was always a fairly high magic world - at least that was implied by comics and short stories. Magic was a common thing in this world. Otherwise we could not have that many magic champions and a whole place whose entire thing it had been: "We are anti-magic Nazis building mage concentration camps!"

When Riot said, that Arcane was now the main canon, A LOT of fans of the lore were like: "You get that it is not gonna work." And yeah, Arcane Season 2 clearly shows how it doesn't work.

Because the way they put in the entire "Mel is magic, also the Black Rose is a thing" stuff just... It did not fit in the entire plot around it. Because Arcane had been designed as a world where magic was very rare and strange. But now Mel had to be magic and somehow had to be connected to the Black Rose.

Also... What the fuck even happened there in the end? Why put that in? Why make Mel go against LaBlanc? I am sorry, but that was simply too much for this plot. The entire Black Rose stuff stuck out of this plot like - pardon the pun - a thorn.

Generally there are several relationships that feel, like they had at one point been a whole more explored, but then got dropped to the wayside.

As I said, Sevika and Jinx are definitely an example. Ekko and Heimerdinger as well. I also feel like what was episode 7 of the show was probably originally more than one episodes and slower paced - though it still to me was the one episode in this, that kinda worked in of itself. And that the Ekko and Jinx relationship was better established.

I also feel that Viktor and that echo of Skye was probably at some point supposed to actually have talks. Like: "I will miss talking to you." - "No, you won't." Okay? THEN SHOW ME THEM TALKING PLEASE?!

Which kinda brings me down to the main thing that happened because of the pacing issue. Season 2 of Arcane knew only two extremes in terms of "Show, don't tell". Either it goes full "music video" in whcih indeed it just shows us shit without context or dialogue - or we get the information just via dialogue, in a complete tell.

This also shows in the last episode, with the entire thing of Piltover asking the Zaunites for help, after brutally surpressing them forever. Yeah, I see where they were going with this. About being the bigger people and planting seeds and what not. But frankly, there might have been a time and space for a story like that, if properly told (you know, with giving more of the Zaunites a voice in this story, showing more of the conflict and spacing this plot out over several episodes). But a) it was not properly told, and b) a world in which several genocides happen while Trump somehow won a second term is not that world. Yes, b) is not the fault of anyone working on Arcane. That was simply bad luck on their part. But a) is very much their fault - and even if we did not have a Palestinian Genocide and no second Trump term: Without a) being done properly, it would not have worked. It would have just not felt quite as miserable.

You know, the most frustrating thing about this was, that... While I think that one way or another I would still have hated how the show handles the topic of disability (again, I will write about this during the next few days), I generally might have liked the same plot, if it had been given the needed space to breathe.

Like... Sure, I would have never really been on board with "fascist Caitlyn", or rather with "fascist Caitlyn, who gets then forgiven by everyone". But I could have somewhat swallowed it, if that forgiveness had to be earned. But because of the breakneck speed of this show, it never got earned. I am not even talking about redemption arcs here - those are always a headache - but specifically about the fact that Caitlyn gets instantly forgiven by everyone.

Also, lol. The entire thing with Ekko convincing Jinx to come along off-screen. That was unelegant.

Heck, it feels in the first four episodes, as if there was an arc being set up for Sevika in general. And it feels like that arc needed to happen, given that Sevika ends up on the COUNCIL OF PILTOVER in the epilogue. However, that Arc just does not happen. Then, like... why set it up?

That is general the issue. There is a lot of set-up and very, very little payoff to any of it.

And here is the thing. I have heard people argue about whether or not this was meant to have more seasons. But frankly: I do not think that the writers who wrote season 1 would have written this story this way had they known it would be two seasons.

Mind you, compared to some people I would not rate the writing in season 1 higher than maybe 6 or 7 of 10. It was solid, but not overwhelmingly great. But season 2 in comparison is a 2 of 10, maybe a 3 of 10, if I am being gracious.

And frankly, I do not think any writer, who is in any way worth their salt, would write a story where a main character goes evil, and then do exactly nothing with it. I mean, sorry, us writers, we are a dramatic bunch. And we will not resist the drama being served on a silver platter unless we are forced too. I cannot imagine a single writer, who will go with the end of episode 3 and then not write a bunch of angst with Caitlyn and Vi - unless they were forbidden.

And mind you, CaitVi is by far the ship I am least invested in. But it is simply such a glaring example of where the plot is rushed in a way that it hinders the character arcs.

Oh, and also... Lest. Lest in the first six episodes clearly felt like a character, who was going to play a role. Only to then disappear to not be seen again during the finale. What happened to Lest? Is she dead? Is she alive? I guess we'll never know.

*sighs* I am sorry. I really am. I am just... very disappointed. This has been a mess. And I think it would not have needed to be.

Like, the animation is still the most pretty thing ever made in the world. But man... The plot? The plot sucks balls. And not in the sexy way.

#arcane #arcane season 2 #arcane critical #arcane spoilers #league of legends #riot games #media criticism #character writing #pacing #netflix

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gem-de-lune · 9 days ago

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Vibe Check 11/20

The lights are back on, so here is a feelings read. I did a read for their collective and 4 members who were the most willing. Will do ALL tmw in prep for MAMA LA.

Riize as a collective

Ace of Pentacles + The Moon + 3 of Swords + Knight of Swords

So the general consensus is that as a collective, the members are feeling both determined and fearful/worried of an outcome. Which leads me to believe they are abt to do something drastic?? The Ace with the Moon symbolizes new tangible results, but they do not know what they will be. They have no clue how it will resolve.

This brings anxieties with the 3 of swords and a lot more "paper" aspects at play (could be contracts) but seeing how they are all depicted as being crumbled up aside from the one the knight is writing it seems they will very soon be taking some sort of strategic and 100% intentional action here that will be rather significant in their perspective to their stance. They are very very serious about it but the energy is really really like "we are all in this together"....i think when someone said they are opening up bc they landed in LA that is 100% true. They feel safer?

Sungchan

Ace of Coins + 9 of Wands + 10 of Wands + Ace of Chalices

He is feeling a bit brave? Courageous even? There is a burden here in the 10 of Wands that has been released all of a sudden with the Ace of wands. It's almost a story about having run away from something and now feeling free and renewed. Two Aces here are not a coincidence. Its "new" energy. There is a clear intention to persevere and move past something that was restraining him before.

If I had tondescribe how he is doing he is feeling "fresh" and energetic as if he has prepared for something very well.

Seunghan

The Moon + King of Swords + 6 of Wands

He has taken on quite an active position here due to the King of Swords and the 6 of Wands. The vibe is kinda still his signature "go with the flow" but with very clear intent. Seunghan will probably always bee this way in that he cannot NOT accept an outcome in the end- he won't be that resentful himself either. But he WILL still try his best so long as he has the support and people rallying behind him. With the king here, although the moon clouds his path, he has clearity in his intentions towards his goal which is ultimately the 6 of Wands representing victory. He his climbing towards his desired outcome alongside others at the moment. He is doing his best. He is in very masculine energy atm.

In short, he is feeling very driven and determined, perhaps even anticipating a great outcome or at least a good time along the way trying to get there.

Anton

Justice + The Magician + 4 of Chalices + Knight of Wands

This combination is giving kind of "hero" energy? But what stood out to me here is all the women present. This deck actuall has a lot of women, but the fact that this stood out I think cannot be ignored. There is some kind of collaborative element or "leader" thing going on directed towards a particular female. Perhaps this factor is freshly on Anton's mind or he particularly attributes how he feels to be thanks to this woman. She is older than him but not very old, who is either pulling the strings or helped him come up with an idea here. She is very active in assisting them at this time. Due to this, Anton is feeling like he could absolutely take on the world- like he just became captain America or smth. He isn't willing to settle. He isn't willing to conpromise. He is being a bit abrasive and is confident in his stance and opinions. He also must simply feel that American air of freedom lowkey lmfao.

Overall the vibe is that he has a job to do and he's gonna get it done (oh-weyo-weyo)

Wonbin

8 of Cups + 6 of Coins + The Empress

Don't be weary of the 8 of cups here. It is more symbolizing a fear but at the same time an understanding that things and the approach taken will need to change drastically from what was done previously. The other cards indicate the way things will be changing. Wonbin has always had Empress energy, and I think with the 6 of coins it is indicating some past behavior of letting bygones be bygones in a way? Like just putting on a smile to grin and bear it in a fan setting. I don't think he has settled on his attitude going forward towards SM and certain fans. But i see this in two possible ways- either he will do a complete 180 from his previous gentle persona towards certain audiences, OR, HE will be making some very selfish decisions rooted in his own Empress energy. Meaning the things and people he cares about.

He will make decisions for those things and those things only, rather than the things and choices that burdened him before.

Final Notes:

I'm sure yall know this, but Riize is 7 btw

#astrology #kpop #tarot #riize is 7 #riize #riize is seven #smsupportsbullying #seunghan #anton #eunseok #sungchan #shotaro #sohee #wonbin

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neolxzr · 1 month ago

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hey you get it its an alien stage alien au—wait a minute... this is just invader zim !!!

some more random info abt this au under the read more ^_^ open at your own risk its a lot of yapping

till makes it his mission to expose the aliens (mostly ivan. he has personal beef with him) to the rest of humanity, but he's the boy who cried wolf. no one believes him because he's been talking about aliens and bigfoot and mothman and whatever nonstop all his life.

till loves the supernatural but also fears it. it consumes most of his waking thoughts. he doesn't like how quickly the aliens grow close to mizi out of a desire to protect her from the (presumed) threat. he's kinda like if dib invader zim was some gay art kid instead of like a supergenius

this threatening feeling comes from till assuming that ivan and sua are on earth for some kind of conquest and or abduction reasons. are they actually? who knows...

mizi is a bit of a hopeless romantic and finding out that sua was an alien only served to make her fall for her more. she could think of nothing more romantic than this scenario, actually. even till screaming danger at her cannot deter her from her love

ivan fights with till and riles him up because he finds how expressive he is utterly fascinating. he says its to "learn more about humans" but mostly he just wants till's attention. he himself doesn't know why he wants this attention, though.

sua and ivan experience a range of emotions in a similar way to humans, yet their species is discouraged from acting emotionally and isnt taught about what any of their feelings mean. all they know, at the start, is that these humans draw some kind of strange feelings out of them that they've never felt before.

(it sticks with the overall theming of alnst being about trying to understand exactly what love means.)

ivan and sua's earpieces are multipurpose tools. they're connected directly to the brain and can't be taken off. they can be used to generate their disguises (its a hologram type of thing), works as a translator so they can communicate with other alien species, etc.

what looks kind of like a nose on the aliens' faces is not a nose. their antennas are used as their olfactory system (they are also quite sensitive)

till is no longer crushing on mizi at this point in his life. sometime during middle school mizi came out to him as a lesbian and so he told her he liked her and it was a whole thing and they both cried. it ended up serving to strengthen their friendship. its been about 4 years-ish since then and theyre still inseparable

till works some kind of shitty service job part time, at which he met hyuna. she's like his cool older college friend and sort of older sister. he plays with her band sometimes

this takes place in who the fuck knows where midwest united states, and the humans are korean-american. till is first generation and usually speaks korean with his mom at home

it takes a while for till to first get a glimpse of ivan and sua's undisguised forms, though when he finally does something about them seems oddly familiar to him.

mizi sees sua's undisguised form long before till does. she does not tell him this

luka is an alien too. wonder what he's up to...

ok thats all love you bye ^_^

#lazers art #alien stage #alnst #alnst till #alnst mizi #alnst ivan #alnst sua #mizisua #ivantill #alien stage invasion #thats it thats the title #HIII ALIENSTAGERS HOW ARE WE FEELING !!!#using my stupid silly au to cope with the absolute nightmare that was round 7 #ive been working on this for a long while now but i was suddenly invigorated to finish all my character sheets yesterday #this au is like my baby i mean its a combination of my two favorite alien-related medias #i have so many ideas for things for this i will eventually make some little comics or smth #maybe some more poster-ish designs too i love that stuff it just takes me 5ever #yknow i didnt make this with the intention of sua just Being gaz but about halfway thru #when i realized i had to give her a disguised form i was like wait. shes purple and hates everyone. thats gaz #anwyayssss ^_^ pls reblog and lmk what yall think this is my brainchild and i love it

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mariacallous · 9 days ago

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Georgians are in the streets fighting for their democracy. The Georgian Dream party, which is working to align Tbilisi with Moscow’s interests, declared victory in the country’s Oct. 26 election before the votes were even counted. Voters and election observers were harassed by Russian-funded gangs and mobsters; just after the election, protesters holding European Union flags were sprayed with water from high-powered hoses. And the person who has the iron will necessary to lead the charge against Russian-inspired authoritarianism in Georgia? A woman: President Salome Zourabichvili.

This is no accident. Across the world, women have, and are, playing incredible roles as bulwarks against the rise of authoritarianism. Moldovan President Maia Sandu is standing up to a tsunami of Russian disinformation. In Poland, women played a critical role in the effort to oust the right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party. In Hong Kong, women continue to be the practical and normative face of resistance to Chinese authoritarian rule.

These are the freedom fighters of the 21st century. And yet, the U.S. national security community tends to view women’s issues as a domestic concern, frivolous, or irrelevant to “hard” security matters. For example, in 2003, discussions of securing Iraq excluded women, with a top U.S. general stating, “When we get the place secure, then we’ll be able to talk about women’s issues.” More recently, the role of women in the military has been reduced to discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusion, rather than a focus on how women have been vital to solving the United States’ most wicked national security problems—from serving on the front lines in combat to providing essential intelligence analysis. But if the overall aim of U.S. national strategy is to shore up democracy and democratic freedoms, the treatment of women and girls cannot be ignored.

Globally, women’s rights are often eroding in both policy and practice, from the struggles of the Iranian and Afghan women who exist under gender apartheid to the Kenyan women experiencing the harsh backlash of the rise of the manosphere. In tandem, there’s been a sharp rise in reports of online harassment and misogyny worldwide.

National security analysts explore issues and psychologies through any number of prisms, but Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) remains an underutilized one. One of the national security community’s core tasks is discerning signals from noise in the global strategic environment, and regressive ideas on gender and gender equality can be a useful proxy metric for democratic backsliding and authoritarian rise.

The United States’ 2023 Strategy and National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security provides the backbone for the United States to leverage WPS to counter authoritarianism. It highlights that displays of misogyny online are linked to violent action. The plan also points out that formally incorporating gendered perspectives is essential for maintaining democratic institutions at home and modeling them aboard. This includes recognizing misogyny—online or in policy—as an early indicator of authoritarian rise.

Unfortunately, WPS is often misread as simply including more women in the national security workforce. But it is more than that. It offers a framework for understanding why it is useful to take gendered perspectives into account when assessing how the actions of individuals or groups enhance national security, which is especially important at a time when authoritarian regimes are weaponizing gender in ways that strengthen their grip on power domestically and justify their aggression abroad.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has argued that he is the guardian of traditional Christian values, telling women that they should be back at home raising children, and has been rolling back domestic violence laws at the same time. Days before invading Ukraine in February 2022, Putin said, “Like it or don’t like it, it’s your duty, my beauty,” which was widely interpreted within Russia as a reference to martial rape. Russia’s own army is built on a foundation of hierarchical hazing in which “inferior” men are degraded by their comrades. With that kind of rhetoric from the top, is it any wonder that Russian soldiers’ war crimes have included the rapes of women and children?

But Putin isn’t alone. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has consolidated media outlets to censor women’s voices, in the name of protecting traditional values. He has also used coercive financial practices to push women out of the workforce and positions of political power and into more traditional roles of wife and mother. In Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko attempted to force the deportation of the most prominent woman opposition leader and imprisoned her after she tore up her passport to prevent it. In China, where women were once told they “hold up half the sky,” President Xi Jinping has worked to undo decades of Chinese Communist Party policy on gender equality. Chinese women are now being encouraged to return home and become mothers, while feminists have been targeted legally and socially.

The WPS agenda provides the U.S. national security community with three opportunities to recognize, understand, and counter early-stage authoritarianism.

First, the United States can do a much better job of supporting women’s groups around the world as a central aspect of its national security strategy. Women’s groups are often a bellwether for authoritarian rise and democratic backsliding—as currently on display in Russia, China, Hungary, Georgia, and Belarus, where women inside and outside their respective regimes have been specifically targeted or attacked.

Women have also found innovative ways to resist the rise of authoritarian norms. In places like Moldova, women have acted as bulwarks against authoritarianism despite vicious disinformation campaigns targeting women leaders. Yet when it comes to formulating and executing strategies on national security, women’s groups are often left in the margins and their concerns dismissed.

Second, gender perspectives are essential to more fulsome intelligence gathering and analysis. The U.S. intelligence community can do a much better job of integrating gender—particularly as it relates to the treatment of the most vulnerable—as an indicator of societal and democratic health. This includes understanding how both masculinities and femininities influence decision-making and how, in turn, lived experiences act as necessary analytical tools. Training collectors and analysts of intelligence to recognize gendered indicators will provide a more robust view of the geopolitical landscape and fill critical holes in national security decision-making.

Finally, the United States must improve the participation of its national security community in WPS and feminist foreign-policy discussions. For too long, the “hard” security sector has distanced itself from more “human” security-focused endeavors and treated women’s rights as something that’s just nice to have.

Yet national security is an essentially human endeavor, and gender is a central component of what it means to be human. This is something that needs to be appreciated to better understand the many dimensions of the conflict—disinformation, online influence campaigns, and lawfare—that authoritarian regimes are waging against the United States and its allies.

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