#hotspot is dead for some reason | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bunnyley00 · 11 months

Text

Camping

pairing: fem!reader x vamp!gojo (i have no idea why just roll with it. part of a story i never finished; 5.2K words)

warnings: PWP :3, degradation, praise, lotsss of dirty talk and compliments, fingering, oral sex, marking, daddy kink, gojo loves you a lot

A game of truth or dare gone right.

Gojo led you off of the RV, the sky painted with deep reds and oranges, as well as bright yellows as the sun got lower and lower. He opened the side panel on the bottom, revealing a tent or two and some sleeping bags. “So? What d’ya say, baby?,” he smiled, and you nodded with a smile of your own, “Let’s do it.” “I knew you were mine for a reason,” he hummed, pulling out the tent and handing you the sleeping bags. It didn’t take long to set the decent sized portable home up, only taking about 10 minutes before the both of you were settled in and cozy. “I’m glad this thing has a bottom even though we have sleeping bags and a blanket,” you mused. “Yeah. I never did like the tents that were exposed on the bottom. Leaves room for too many bugs to come join us,” he mused, “Want to watch a movie?”, he asked, having grabbed his iPad before exiting the RV. You raised an eyebrow. “Does your hotspot even work out here?” He opened his mouth to say something before checking and closing it. “Nope. Dead zone,” he sighed dramatically, falling back against the blankets under him. “I thought as much,” you giggled, “What should we do then?” “Hmm,” he sat up, “Truth or Dare?” He wiggled his brows as the suggestion left his lips.

“Truth or Dare it is then, fuckboy,” you nodded with a laugh, sitting criss cross across from him. He mimicked your position, “Hey! Be nice. Truth or Dare?” “Truth,” you hummed. “Hmmm, is it true that you like wearing my clothes because you love the way I smell?”, he asked, watching as you rolled your eyes playfully and blushed. “Well, duh...stupid. We’ve been together for 6 months. Truth or dare?” “You’re the one who called me a fuckboy, I was trying to be cute for once,” he grinned, “Truth.” “Copycat. And try harder,” you teased, “What was the first thing you noticed about me when you met me?” He paused, taking a minute to think briefly. ‘Your scent.’ “Your hair,” he settled, looking up at you, “Your hair, definitely,” he repeated softly, reaching a hand out to tuck a stray strand behind your ear, fingers grazing your jawline as it came down. You leaned into the touch, cheeks flushed as you rolled your eyes half heartedly. “Cute,” he mumbled with a chuckle, “Truth or dare?” “Dare,” you spoke up. “Ah, now she’s getting bold,” he teased, “I dare you to,” he trailed off, tapping his chin, “I dare you to let me give you a hickey,” he said, “Only if you’re comfortable, of course.” This was uncharted territory. Of course he had kissed your neck before, but he’d never actively left any marks yet, for fear of not being able to control himself. He was absolutely dying to do so. You felt your face heat up. “Alright.”

That was all Gojo needed to hear. It would be a major test of his metal, to not extend his fangs and sink them into your supple skin and finally taste you. He moved forward, tucking his face in the crook of your neck before kissing it a bit. “Tell me when to stop.” His voice was like silk, as was the feeling of his tongue and soft lips on you. You fought the urge to whimper, just letting out a breathy sigh as he gradually began to use teeth. His mouth was gentle against you, kissing and sucking in the same spot, slowly, and frankly, knowingly working you up. He suddenly bit down a little harder than before, causing you to gasp. “G-Gojo”, you whimpered, a hand shooting up to tug his white hair a little. He couldn’t stop the groan that left his mouth after that, easing up before pulling back. The look on your face was priceless, face flushed, pupils expanded as you reached up to graze your fingers over the blossoming mark, your pretty lips parted. Fuck. It made Gojo want to pounce on you. “Don’t stare at me like that,” you murmured, looking off to the side. “Sorry, sweetheart. I can’t help it when you whimper my name like that,” he whispered. “Truth or dare?”, you asked, meeting his gaze again. “Dare,” he said immediately. “I dare you to let me find your sweet spot,” you proposed and Gojo hummed, intrigued by your boldness. “Go for it,” he smirked, watching as you crawled forward. You kissed him first, your lips slotting against his soft ones with a breathy sigh through your nose. His hands moved to rest on your hips as you pulled back, trailing your kisses down to his neck. His eyes fluttered closed as you peppered his skin with your kisses, occasionally licking and nibbling on some spots just to get a reaction out of him.

He groaned at each small bite you delivered, taking your ministrations down his neck. His groans did nothing but turn you on, making your thighs pressing together as whimpers sounded out against his skin. “Fuck,” he suddenly moaned loudly, your mouth at the base of this neck and grazing the edge of his soft, defined collarbones. To hear the way his voice dropped, to see his body tense and watch his eyes close even tighter than before- it was enough to make you want to straddle him. You trailed your mouth lower, running your tongue over his collarbone before biting down slightly, sucking on the now light red skin. His reaction was immediate, his hand moving to weakly grab the back of your head. His other palm laid on your hip, thumb absently rubbing at the sliver of exposed skin. One of your hands was on his thigh, giving you leverage as you continued. “Fuck-, harder. Bite down harder,” he groaned, his fingers gripping your locks. You bit down harder, using more force as you looked up at him through your pretty lashes. You didn’t pull back until there was a blooming hickey, the purple and red looking oddly pretty on his light skin.

When he opened his eyes, his gaze met yours, swirling with arousal. As were yours, your hands clasped together in your lap. “Do you want to keep playing?,” he asked, voice slightly rougher than before. “I don’t know,” you answered back, yours breathy and airy, a stark contrast from his. “What do you want, then?”, he asked. A long moment of silence washed over you two, your gaze lingering on the floor of the tent before you looked up at him again, chewing on your bottom lip.

“You.”

“Say it again,” he murmured, voice lower in volume. He wanted, needed to hear you say it.

You sighed softly. “I want you, Gojo”

“I’m sorry, who, my love?,” he purred out, tone as sweet as honey yet devilish at the same time.

“I want you, Satoru,” you nearly whined.

“Better.”

He moved forward then, guiding you toward him again. One hand cupped your face as his lips met yours, kissing you languidly. A small shuddering breath escaped your nose as your body drew closer, his other hand returning to your hip. You shifted as you finally got close enough, not pulling back as he pulled you in so you could straddle his lap. Your breath hitched upon feeling his cock pushing up against your ass, tensing above him. The change in your body language didn’t go unnoticed. Gojo pulled back, rubbing your cheek with his thumb. “You sure you want it, sweetheart?” he murmured, “We can wait longer.” You shake your head, “No. It’s fine.” “Are you-” You shut him up with another kiss, and he took your answer happily, starting to move your hips back and forth on top of him. The sensation of your pussy rubbing against your wet panties made you moan, his length twitching against you. “So pretty,” he breathed against your lips, rolling his own hips upward. “You look so fucking good right now, grinding on top of my cock,” he groaned, running his thumb over your bottom lip, “My pretty girl, God, you’re gorgeous.”

With each compliment, your cheeks grew hotter, his lips kissing yours again before he moved them to your neck. “I can’t wait to make you cum over and over again. Make your legs shake and hear your cute little voice moan my name,” he whispered into your ear, and you were glad you were still grinding on top of him, as the words made your clit throb and your hips squirm from his low tone. His mouth laved over your neck, his large hands still guiding you back and forth on top of him. He left copious amounts of hickeys behind, the desire to see your skin marked up almost as strong as the carnal one wanting to bite you with his fangs and leave you a moaning mess on top of him. He could feel your arousal, how potent it was in the air of the small tent. Soft lips grazed against your jawline, the hand on your face moving down to grope one of your breasts. He kneaded it in his palm, listening to your breathy moans while he nibbled and kissed at the sensitive spot. You threw your head back and he nearly lost it, your neck on display with the marks all over it making his fangs want to extend.

“Yeah?”, he whispered, “Does that feel good, love?” You bit your lip, nodding and moaning as he pinched at your nipple. “F-Fuck, Satoru-” “That’s right, baby, keep moaning for me.” The hand on your hip slid around to your ass, squeezing it while his mouth continued its path down to your shirt collar. When he got there, he stopped, ceasing all movement with your hips despite your protesting groan of disapproval. He chuckled softly, shifting and picking you up to lay you down on your back. “Cute,” he hummed, “Patience, love. I’ll make you cum soon enough.” His hands ran down your sides, fingers hovering at the hem of your shirt. He looked up at you in question and you answered with a small nod. He lifted your shirt up then, helping him take it off and toss it to a corner of the tent. He growled softly at your choice of bra, the piece of lingerie black and lacy, a red bow in the middle of your round breasts. “Such gorgeous tits, fuck,” he breathed, kneading each one as he leaned over you, kissing and mouthing at the tops of them. Your back arched a bit, a hand running through his hair. He left his marks there as well, wanting to make his presence known all over your body. His slender fingers reached under you to unclasp it when you could take no more, your hands tugging at his shirt. “God, fuck, just look at you,” he murmured, taking in the sight.

He intertwined his fingers with yours, holding them down against the tent floor as he latched his mouth onto a nipple. He sucked on it softly, wrenching a moan from your lips. “Mmm,” he hummed, looking up at you as you writhed under him. He switched between the two, blowing cold air on them after he showed them love with his hot tongue. “T-Toru, please,” you whimpered suddenly as he slipped a knee in between your legs, teasingly rubbing it against your soaked core. He finally let up, kissing down your stomach to the hem of your shorts. He bit at the waist band, pulling them down with his teeth as he stared you down. The look in his eyes was enough to make you moan, a heavy lust dancing around in them. Tossing the garment aside, he let go of your hands to slide them down to your thighs, making you press them together. “Shit,” he groaned at the matching panties, the obvious wet spot making him bite his lip. Running his fingertips over the expanse of your thighs, he trailed more kisses to the thin fabric, slowly but surely pulling them off. You let him open your legs and the groan that came out of his mouth was loud, pupils dilating as he ran a finger down your slicked folds. “Fuck- look at this pretty little pussy,” he growled out, “Look at you, absolutely soaked, hm? Did Daddy get you this wet?”

“Y-yes,” you moaned as he thumbed at your clit, your hips rolling down against his hand. “Yeah? Is this what you were waiting for? Hm? Me touching this gorgeous cunt?” “F-Fuck, yes-”, you managed as you threw your head back a little, his thumb moving faster. He stopped then, unable to hold back any longer as he settled his head in between your legs, breath fanning out across your pussy. He immediately placed a flat lick over your folds, and the whine that left your mouth only motivated him more. Wrapping his lips around your clit, he sucked on it, making one of your legs lift and your toes curl. He hooked his arms around both of them, putting them over his shoulders as he ate you out with more fervor. “You taste so fucking good, fuck”, he groaned, dipping his tongue into your entrance, lapping up your arousal.

“Sa-Satoru! God, fuck!,” you moaned loudly as his tongue assaulted your clit, the iron grip he had on your legs leaving you to just lay there and take it. A hand pulled at his hair, the other digging its nails into your discarded shorts next to you. You were panting, back arched and eyes shut tightly. His eyes didn’t leave your face, obsessed with the way you moaned and cried out from what he was doing to you. He slipped his tongue inside of you, moving it in and out as his hands kneaded your thighs. He felt your legs tremble and it made him chuckle. “So cute,” he groaned, “Does my cute cock slut want more? Hm, love? Does this greedy little pussy want my fingers too?” All you could do was nod, and he happily obliged, pressing in a single finger. Moving it in and out, he flicked his tongue over your sensitive bud, the two drastically different in speed. His digit moved with slow purpose, tongue rapidly working you up. “Look at you, falling apart under me- such a good fucking girl. You can’t get enough, can you, love?” No words could make it out of your parted lips, too busy moaning and whining as your lover fingered you, mouth unrelenting against your clit. When he curled it up, the resounding sound made him growl loudly. He bit his lip hard, watching as a wave of pure pleasure rolled through you. “Did Daddy find something? Hm? Is that my whore’s favorite spot? You’re weak here, aren’t you?” You moaned with a frantic nod of your head, rolling your hips down. “Do you want more, baby? Hm?”, he breathed, fighting to stay patient as his cock throbbed in his pants. “Adorable, you can’t even speak, can you? Something got your tongue, baby?”, he asked teasingly, slowly pressing another digit in. Your body practically begged for it, the single finger feeling like nothing but a tease.

Your back arched, lips perpetually open while he worked you open. He licked around your entrance with his tongue, still keeping your legs still as much as he could while your body trembled and shook from the pleasure. He slowly began to speed his digits up, sucking on your clit harder. Your orgasm was speeding toward you like a bullet train, the man’s hot tongue and long fingers bringing you to heights of pleasure you’ve never experienced. The faster he got, the higher pitched your moans became. “Oh, you’re close, aren’t you?,” he asked even though he could feel it- feel the way you clenched down on his fingers and see the way your chest rose up and down erratically. “Are you going to cum? Huh? Gonna cum all over Daddy’s tongue and fingers? Go ahead, baby, cum for me, give it to me, love,” he panted himself, his self control getting less and less stable the more he watched you moan and writhe. Your brows were furrowed, sweat prickling along your hairline as you pulled his hair harder while he rapidly worked you up to your orgasm. Within seconds you were convulsing, moaning out broken English while Gojo groaned, lapping up the cum around his fingers while he helped you ride it out. “Fuck, that’s right, that’s my good girl- keep cumming, love. Moan my fucking name just like that”, he moaned, pulling his fingers out to replace them with his tongue. Your legs trembled hard, your world shutting down for a few seconds as you rode the wave of ecstasy.

He was still lapping at your folds by the time you came down, and you whined loudly from overstimulation, your legs closing around his head. You gently tried to push his head away and he relented reluctantly, licking his lips as he stared down at you. No more than five seconds passed before he was kissing you again, impatient at this point. “Do you still want me? Still want my dick in this tight little pussy?”, he asked against your lips, rolling his fabric covered dick against your core. “Y-Yes”, you barely answered, nodding. “That’s my girl,” he murmured. He kissed you again before quickly sitting up to peel his shirt off, abs on full display for your eyes to take in. He took off his pants and boxers, hissing at the cool air hitting his shaft as it bounced up to slap against his skin. Precum coated his tip, rock hard from watching your body submit to him. He gripped his base, groaning as he fought to gain his composure. The sight of his dick made you whimper loudly, and you suddenly wanted, no, needed, to feel the weight of it in your mouth, needed to taste him and hear him moan, needed to make him feel the pleasure he gave you with his mouth.

Instead of voicing your desires, though, you sat up, reaching down to stroke it yourself when he moved his hand. “Shit!”, he groaned, brows furrowing as his hips jerked. You pushed his chest back with your hand, guiding him to sit instead of hover over you. “Greedy, aren’t we?”, he groaned, relenting under your soft touch. He could tell you were determined, could see it in your eyes as you finally got him to sit and you sat, kneeling between his legs. His reassurance came in the form of a hand running through your hair, guiding your face up to his so he could kiss you gently. When you pulled back, you leaned down again, hand stroking him slowly, mimicking the hand movements you saw just moments prior. You then gave his tip a lick, making him moan softly. “Fuck,” he breathed, looking down at you, a hand still in your hair, stroking it gently. “Again, baby, lick the tip again for me,” he requested, and you obliged. His groan made your thighs press together. “Fuck, good girl,” he praised, biting back another moan as you stroked the base. When you wrapped your lips around the tip, his eyes fluttered closed, groaning as you swirled your tongue around it. He couldn’t stop his hips from jerking up as you moved your other hand to his thigh to steady yourself, his head lulling backward. You slowly got used to the feel, and after a few seconds you allowed him to guide your head down. Moaning at the thickness of his length, you slowly bobbed your head, your own eyes closed as you felt him throb against your tongue. “Just like that, sweetheart, don’t stop- fuck,” he moaned, taking in only half of his dick into your mouth. You licked him from base to tip, tracing a thick vein before taking him into your mouth again. “God, your mouth feels so good, baby,” he moaned. You slowly started to take in more and more of him, fighting not to choke on it. His hand in your hair was still gentle, not forcing you to take more than you could handle.

So when you suddenly pushed your head down to take in all of him, and coughed a little, he was surprised, moaning loudly while his grip tightened in your hair.. You bobbed your head a bit faster then, taking him all the way in with each descent of your head. Gojo’s hand matched your pace, letting out a low, guttural groan each time his tip hit the back of your throat. His sounds only made you more eager, wanting to pull more and more out of him, your folds getting impossibly wetter. You let him move your head faster, moaning around him when he let out a loud curse at you deep throating him. “Shit!,” he growled, biting his lip as he watched you sputter and choke before lifting back up and doing it again. Whimpering, you opened your watery eyes, looking up at him while you sucked his dick. “Fucking h-hell, oh god, fuck yes, choke on it,” he moaned as you sunk back down. “Like this? Yeah? Like choking on my dick?” You moaned in response, deep throating him again. You started to stroke his base again, and he rolled his hips up before gently but quickly pulling you back. “As much as I want to cum- I don’t want to do it in your mouth,” he breathed, making you whimper as he laid you down again.

He loomed over you, hands roaming all over your body, pinching your nipples as his mouth kissed and licked at previous marks he made. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he groaned against your ear. “You’re all for me, aren’t you? Aren’t you, baby?” “Y-yes,Toru,” you nodded weakly. “Say it, baby. Daddy wants to hear you say it.” He kissed at your neck as he moved a hand to grip one of your ass cheeks, kneading it with a soft hum. “I-I’m yours, T-”, you were cut off then, a gasp breaking your sentence up by Gojo’s cock slowly pressing into you without warning, making sure to take his time at first. He groaned against your ear, eyes shutting tightly. He was glad you couldn’t see his eyes after they opened again, the blue in them becoming crystalline as he fought his primal instinct to fuck you into oblivion. “Sat-Satoru-,” you breathed, your voice quivering much like your pussy as he sheathed himself inside of you. “I know, I know, baby,” he growled softly, nibbling at your ear. He didn’t want to bite you more than right here at this moment, his instincts screaming to finally claim you. “You can take it, can’t you? Be a good girl for me.” The both of you took a second to compose yourselves, moreso him than you. When you finally felt him start to relax a little, you rolled your hips with a moan, hearing him hiss above you. He took that as a sign, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in. The feeling of your pussy wrapping around him made him moan, his hands balled into half-fists against the tent floor. You moaned against his ear, wrapping your arms around his neck for leverage and pulling him further down.

His pace was languid, his thick length moving in and out of you in a torturous yet intoxicating way. All you could do was pant and moan every time he slid back in, your folds covering his dick in your arousal. “So fucking tight,” he moaned breathily, his chest rubbing against yours with each thrust. You could hear nothing besides your own heart beating and your panting as well as Gojo’s, the world not existing outside of the tent you and him currently resided in. Soon, the both of you craved more, and by the way you squirmed, he could tell. The resounding chuckle against your ear made you whine. “More?” “M-More- harder-”, you echoed desperately. “Such a needy bitch,” he groaned despite his own want for more, thrusting faster. Your moans grew a bit louder as he put more force into his movements, one of his hands moving down to grip your leg. He lifted it up, your knee at his hip level. The slight change in position made you gasp, your back arching and your head going back. Your moans of his name were broken, much like your praises of how good it felt as your boyfriend grinded inside of you. “Yeah? Is it good, love? Hm? Does my slut like Daddy’s cock?”, he panted, still fighting with his instincts while he thrusted at the steady pace. Your toes curled, nails starting to dig into his shoulder blades. The sting of your nails only heightened his pleasure, his hips jerking as he groaned loudly. He took your sloppy nod as an answer although he wasn’t looking to get one. “That’s right- fuck, harder. Scratch harder,” he moaned, starting to fuck you deeper.

You couldn’t ignore the request if you wanted to, the deeper angle making your already potent pleasure skyrocket. You tucked your face in the crook of his neck, moaning loudly and panting as he continued to thrust into you. “F-ugh-ah! Daddy!” “Louder, baby, scream for me- I wanna hear you get even louder,” he growled as you yelped at a particularly hard thrust. You dragged your nails up his back, a hand tugging at the hair on the nape of his neck. “Such a good girl, taking Daddy in so well, aren’t you?” “Y-Yes! Yes, Da-ah!-Dadd-y!” You could barely form words any longer, too enraptured by the feeling of his length pistoning in and out of your pussy taking away any ability to think about anything else. “You like this thick dick stretching out your greedy pussy, don’t you? So needy for me, you can barely talk-,” he groaned, lifting your leg higher. “You sound so fucking pathetic for me, moaning and whimpering my name while you lay here and take it.”

“Fa-Fast-”, you gasped out, and he was already ahead of you, picking up the pace. He finally got to reign in his primal nature, pulling back to watch you moan and yelp under him.The sight made his cock twitch inside of you, watching as you didn’t know where to go or what to hold onto. “So fucking adorable, you don’t even know what to do with yourself, do,” thrust, “you?”, thrust. Small yelps escaped your mouth after each one, and he couldn’t help but to grab your chin, kissing you passionately while he continued to rock his hips back and forth. He swallowed down all your sounds, moaning against your lips while your scratches got rougher and rougher. He suddenly changed his angle then, and when you nearly screamed, he growled, the sound making a shiver go down your spine at the roughness of it. “There it is,” he breathed, focusing his efforts on hitting your g-spot. “Satoru! Fu-ugh!-Fuck!” The tip of his length hit your bundle of nerves without mercy, leaving you a moaning mess under him. He reveled in it. “This is my pussy, isn’t it? I’m the only one who can make you feel like this,” he declared both for you and himself. “You’re mine, bitch- all fucking mine.” He bit his lip, glad your eyes were closed as his fangs extended slightly. He was fighting a war within himself, knowing if he bit you now, the timing would be all wrong. Making them shrink again, he distracted himself with another position change. He grabbed your hips, pulling you up and sitting. He kept the same fast pace, bouncing you up and down on his length. The way your tits bounced prompted him to grab one, sticking a nipple in his mouth as your grip around his neck got tighter. You weakly tried to match his rhythm, bouncing on top of him while his hips drove up into you. When he pulled back from sucking on your sensitive nipples, you tucked your face in his neck, biting down hard. His loud moan made your hips falter, your body trembling as it tried to cope with all of the pleasure you were experiencing.

He felt your trembling get increasingly worse, your quivering moans even reflecting how close you were getting. His hands stayed locked onto your hips, his own orgasm getting closer and closer the more he moved you up and down. “F-Fuck, this little cunt is squeezing my cock so well- harder, baby, clench down harder for Daddy-” Moaning against his neck, you clenched down harder, thighs tensing even more as he moved his hands to your ass, squeezing it hard. “My whore is close, isn’t she? I can feel it- your little cunt quivering for release,” he panted, the sound of you bouncing up and down only adding to both of your states of arousal. “You’ll be good, won’t you?”, he asked, your moans getting higher, and higher. “You’ll make Daddy proud and cum on his dick, won’t you?” In the midst of your rise you barely got out a nod, nearly screaming against his neck. You pulled back, feeling like your breath had been stolen away from you. He was knocking the air out of you with each pull down of your hips. “G-ah!-God, y-yes! Yes, ple-ase! Gonn-ah cum!”, you yelped and he groaned loudly. “F-Fuck, cum,” he moaned against your ear, “Cum, baby, be my good girl and cum all over my fucking cock-” Your vision went blurry before you could even register your orgasm crashing down on you, screaming his name and other garbled curses. He grabbed your chin to kiss you, both to quiet you and to stop himself from biting your neck. He moaned into your mouth, feeling you clench down impossibly hard on his dick, your hips jerking erratically. He kept thrusting into you, his own hips starting to falter from how close he was. “Fu-ck, you’re gonna make Daddy cum- God, you’re gonna make me cum,” he warned, his own toes curling. “P-Pill-”, you hiccuped, and he instantly knew what you meant, letting himself let go inside of you. The sensation left you reeling, his cum filling you up and hitting your already wrecked g-spot. It only prolonged your orgasm, your boyfriend kissing you passionately as you both rode it out. “Fuck, I love you so much,” he breathed, “Love you so fucking much, baby-” “L-Love you m-more, Toru-”, you whimpered.

The both of you rode out your intense pleasure slowly, Gojo taking the time to kiss at your hot skin, hands rubbing your body gently while he whispered sweet nothings into your ear. “You did so well, my love. You’re absolutely stunning. Love you so much,” he murmured, carefully lifting you so he could pull out of your spent pussy. A soft wince left your mouth but you otherwise relaxed, your eyes fluttering closed as the both of you laid down on top of the askew sleeping bags. Instead he just used the blanket he brought, pulling you close and covering the two of you up to take a well deserved nap. He cupped your face, moving your hair out of your face. Your eyes opened a bit and he smiled softly. “Sleep,” he chuckled, “I know you’re tuckered out.” You cuddled closer, laying your head under his chin and putting an arm over him. “Love you, baby,” he murmured. “Mm, love you too,” you said quietly, dozing off quickly as he played in your hair. He didn’t fall asleep until you did, both of you tangled up under the soft blanket.

--------------------------------------------------------------

hope you guys like this one -leyley <3

243 notes · View notes

octuscle · 10 months

Note

Merry Christmas! Or, er, Happy Holidays! Don’t wanna be presumptuous but I haven’t a clue what you celebrate, oh great wise Chronivac Support.

Aw why bother with niceties, you can probably tell I’m buttering you up. I’ll just get straight to it.

I live in the one campus dorm that’s right next to a frat house notorious for its wild, all-night parties. For most of my dorm mates, they love being so close to such a hotspot for booze and babes, but I—an eternally sober fruitcake— don’t really care for all that. Not to mention the loud music and flashing lights outside my window while I’m trying to sleep, god it drives me crazy.

Now, obviously I’m asking you to help me out, but I got a special request. Seeing as it’s the holly jolly time of year, I figured why not spice up my request. So, could you have one of their parties crashed by a real deal, mean Krampus? You know, Krampus, big, brutish, fuzzball that’s all about punishing naughty kids? You think you can have him punish those naughty frat boys and turn them into good little (or big, rather) musclebrats?

First of all, have a great holiday season too. I can't wish you a peaceful holiday season based on the information you've given me. I can understand you, but I don't really know how I can help you either. I'll send you a Krampus mask and a rod, maybe that will help with the next excess next door.

Bloody hell! It's Tuesday! In the middle of the week! Okay, maybe tomorrow is St. Nicholas Day, but that's no reason to make such a racket again. On the other hand… It's Krampus night. The evening of December 5th. There's no better occasion to put on the mask, grab the rod and really shake up the party in the house next door. You quickly put on a tracksuit and sneakers, put on the heavy mask, grab the rod and head next door.

The door is open. And step inside. Boozing and bawling frat boys are partying to loud music. And you see some of your roommates from your dorm. You shout "Krampus is here to punish the bad guys!" into the roar. And you start beating every jock who gets in your way with the rod. Nobody reacts at first. Then laughter. Then panic! Whoever your rod hits falls to the ground. You go into a sheer rush. Behind you, men lie on the ground with their limbs twitching, the drunken guys flee from you as best they can. But most of them just stumble over each other and make easy work of you. The big bell on your belt announces your arrival. You walk up the stairs with heavy steps. A few of the fugitives try to escape from the windows. A few barricade the doors. But no door can withstand your powerful step.

Apart from your own breathing and the music, nothing else can be heard. You pull the plug of the sound system out of the socket. Dead silence. The guys on the floor breathe peacefully and evenly. Another frat boy is hiding behind the sofa. One last strike with the rod. And your work on Krampus night is done.

Back in your dorm room, you take off your heavy mask. You're sweating in your heavy Krampus costume made of leather and sheepskins. The costume has been in your family for generations. Even your great-grandfather regularly took part in the Krampus runs in your home village in Salzburger Land.

Peace at last! "De verdammtn Gödln hom hodlt as kriagt, wos eana zugsteat!" you think to yourself as you finally take the costume off again and put it away in the wardrobe. And you fall into a deep and undisturbed sleep.

When your alarm clock rings at 07:00 the next morning, it's morning roll call in the fraternity house next door. The fraternity is known as the toughest training ground on campus. And home to the hottest guys. This morning they've been roaming the campus, stuffing candy and condoms into the good guys' polished boots. And now there are a few bare-chested push-ups in the snow. You love this sight.

You really couldn't ask for a better neighborhood.

Your pic found @hairysweatysmelly, the pic of the enhanced frat bros @nation-of-bros

#male tf #muscle tf #chronivac #bear tf #jock tf #xmas tf

121 notes · View notes

teecupangel · 5 months

Note

Catboy nonny here with the weirdest idea yet. So Desmond for some reason doesn’t activate the Eye (his choice or some intervention, doesn’t really matter) and the world burns. World is an apocalyptic wasteland. AND for some fuckin reason, Des is now a catboy.

Now here’s the fun part. The survivors are obviously gonna go coocoo for coco puffs because I said so, and a group of them start worshipping Desmond and using surviving anime and comics as proof of his divinity. MODERN APOCALYPSE CULT FOR CATBOY DESMOND!

Where is his team during this? Unclear, but Bill’s dead because fuck Bill.

Desmond has no idea why it turned out like this.

After being knocked out by some kind of blast that appeared from Minerva’s hologram before he could touch the device, he woke up to the feeling of flickering cat ears and swaying cat tail.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he couldn’t make any other noise other than cat noises.

His phone was also cracked beyond repair and, considering how much his ass hurt, it might have been his fault.

Wait, he didn’t planned to get toppled by Minerva’s mind blast or whatever.

It wasn’t his fault!

Anyway, with no other ways to communicate with his team, he put his hood up to hide his cat ears and hid his cat tail by making it curl around his waist so his hood could cover it.

It wasn’t exactly comfortable (especially since he had to puncture a hole on his jeans for his newly acquired tail) but it would have to do.

It was more important for him to find his team.

The world burned and it changed the entire world.

Some changes were immediate.

All electronic devices died…

The death of so many people who were unable to stay in a building fortified enough to protect them from a force of nature they don’t even know about.

But the worst was yet to come.

The Solar Flare did more than destroy what it touched.

It changed the world itself.

The soil itself lost many of its nutrient, making it harder to grow plants necessary to survive.

Animals were not spared from its flames and their population dwindled into frightening numbers.

And the humans…

It is during these kinds of tragedy that humans show both the worst and best of them.

Humans formed different groups and tackled this new world in different ways.

And the weak groups…

They usually fell because it was the strong groups who managed to horde resources, leaving little for the weak to fight over.

It was during one of these ‘skirmishes’ that Desmond found his first followers.

Calling it skirmishes wasn’t exactly correct.

A group of humans enjoying the carnage and lawlessness of these lands were hunting down a small group of young adults who were just trying to find enough food to make it to the day.

Their first mistake was checking a convenient store, a hotspot for every other groups in the area.

They would have fared better had they broken into empty houses and looked for canned food instead.

Desmond took care of the ‘hunters’ easily. They weren’t professionals and stood no change against Desmond.

Still…

It brought a bad taste in his mouth how these people used to live normal lives before everything happened.

The people he saved tried to thank him but then…

They saw his cat ears.

And one of them shouted…

“WE FOUND OUR PROTAGONIST!!!”

Desmond’s luck smacked him right on the face.

The people he just saved?

They were part of an Anime club in junior high (to be more specific “Japanese Culture Appreciation Club”) and they all shared a delusion that this is now that set of an anime and they all have to find the protagonist to survive.

Desmond being a badass with cat ears and a silent type (not by choice!) became their protagonist.

When Desmond tried to explain that, no, he was not a government experiment that escaped or he wasn’t isekai’ed and that he used to be a normal human, they just believed that Desmond has ‘awaken’ his powers after the Solar Flare.

No matter what he says, the group follows him around and treat him as the ‘protagonist’ which is, really, just a word they use to deny any allegation of ‘worshiping’ going on.

Desmond can’t leave them behind because they’re kids, for fuck’s sake. They weren’t harming anyone (other than Desmond’s self esteem and pride) so…

Uuuhhh… Desmond is now in charge of young adults who believe him to be the protagonist.

… and it will grow to include other people.

… later on.

#not sure if this is what you wanted cat nonny #but this is what you’re getting XD #desmond’s first followers are all chuunis hahahaha #people try to deal with the apocalypse in their own way #desmond's looking for his team and can't find them #assassin's creed #desmond miles #ask and answer #teecup writes/has a plot #fic idea: assassin's creed #catboy desmond

32 notes · View notes

heliianth · 1 month

Note

Raises my hand I wanna hear about the au!! Here's some prompts to talk about for it if you want

1. Any thoughts about how killugon's familiar pact works?

2. What's killugon's magic like respectively?

3. What is Alluka and Nanika up too?

(No pressure to answer all of these but ur au just seems so cool!)

YAY ok hello hi ok

stuff is below the cut because i YAPPED sorry lol this is a biiig wall of text.

forewarning some of the Lore™ is kind of fucked but its pretty in line with some of the shit that already happens in hxh anyway so just. expect that ;;^-^

1—

Killua and Gon's familiar pact is weird and its a bit hard to explain so hang on with me here bc first i gotta explain what a normal familiar pact is like

witches can make deals with sentient magical entities—often minor spirits that take the form of animals—in exchange for power. it acts as a symbiotic relationship, though with some downsides. their life forces are linked together along with some other more case-specific caveats. it's for this reason that familiar pacts are pretty rare because generally magic entities don't want to suddenly become mortal like that, it's usually not worth it. but anyway. after both agree, they will collaborate to summon a magic object as proof and confirmation of the pact. usually it's something small like earrings or whatever, but magic users can always tell if something is a familiar object or not. they have capital-v Vibes. you can have a pact without a familiar object, but its a bad idea because the power boost can fuck you up; they act as, like, a filtration system where you only get what the deal says you get with none of the really really ugly side effects of a mortal using a spirit's power. trying to non-consensually break the pact by destroying the object voids the deal but also completely severs both parties' connections with magic (similar to how breaking a nen vow in canon has the potential to nukes your ability to use nen). a witch and their familiar can safely break the pact, but it has to be a mutual decision, and even then some drain in magic is likely

so... why is killugon's weird? bc the Zoldycks are weird.

Kukuroo Mountain sits on top of a magic wellspring (like a hotspot for natural magic) which allows the Zoldycks to do all sorts of fuckshit that wouldn't otherwise be possible, and that includes their dummy unethical family necromancy ritual that merges a benign spirit with a human in the seconds before your soul disappears after death, artificially creating a demon (demons basically being what humans call fucked up scary spirits. its not exactly what this ritual turns someone into, but there's no vocabulary for it because its so rare outside of the Zoldycks). it's sort of like a nasty perversion of the familiar pact ritual because it involves magic power between an entity and a mortal, but it kills the spirit involved instead of creating a bond. the resulting "familiar object" is called a Demon Pearl. Demon Pearls resemble gemstones and magic users generally think they're a manifestation of the human and spirit merging, like how lightning striking sand creates glass. unlike a regular familiar object, if a Demon Pearl breaks, the owner will just outright die. for future reference, this whole thing is colloquially referred to as an assimilation ritual.

as an aside: Killua's design is inspired by nekomata—cat yōkai that are sometimes described as being abused domestic cats that return from the dead(?) in order to enact revenge. so :3c

to get back on track: if a familiar pact is a symbiotic relationship between a witch and a spirit, Zoldycks are like little magic parasites that literally want to eat you. they actually have to eat you in order to keep existing, because they don't have their own magic to sustain themselves like "real" naturally formed spirits or demons do. and they extract that magic via . cannibalism. i guess its not cannibalism if they're not human anymore? u know what im talking about.

(as clarification: this ritual isn't like, monopolized by the Zoldycks, but it's also not common knowledge. it's highly illegal and difficult. not to mention immoral lol. they're just the only ones who have the resources, amassed skill, and gall to do it so frequently and openly as a family right of passage thing)

all that is to say the Zoldycks are technically magic entities that can make familiar pacts, but theyre bad at it and it would be a bad idea even if they werent. Killua by all means should not have one. but killugon do not give a shit about what they should and shouldn't do. that's like their whole MO

so Gon and Killua's familiar pact works because:

a) like in canon, Gon is kind of a bottomless pit of potential. his connection with magic runs really deep and his specific practice means he's less likely to "burn" through his magic than other witches—talk about it more when i answer ur 2nd question :3

b) their familiar object is Killua's Demon Pearl (a huge "fuck you" by having the object representing him and Gon's bond be something that actually can't be destroyed unless they want to kill him lol), meaning that it doesn't act as a filtration device so much as a straight up transfer. so Killua doesn't have to eat Gon to mooch off him at 100% effectiveness, but that does mean they're at risk of unbalancing each other. that's where the next part comes in

c) Killua actually has magic binds etched on him by his family. similar to Illumi's needle, it's supposed to be a safeguard against Killua getting into a deadly situation where he uses too much magic without a food source and starves to death, but it also makes him less likely to negatively effect Gon through their pact

as for the actual deal that lead to their familiar pact... "Let's stay together [forever]!" Gon likes calling it a promise instead of a deal because it feels less transactional. & yes that little blue necklace he wears is Killua's Demon Pearl. usually it's tucked under his shirt so people don't notice tho lol

2—

Gon does a branch of magical art called green alchemy!!! I don't have hard and fast rules for it yet as I kind of want magic itself to be wishy-washy and dependent on the user's own creativity in the same way Nen is and also because i feel like a type of magic that lets Gon go off the rails is where he'd best fit. so i don't have a strict definition of what "green alchemy" is yet beyond what the name implies, but the most basic application is physically turning parts of nature into other parts of nature. i want to make it a very material-based way to use magic so it forces Gon into being resourceful, and his aptitude with it is informed by his childhood spent in the woods learning the rules of nature before he uses magic to bend them. like grabbing a fist full of dirt and squeezing it hard enough to turn it into a really dense stone, or doing the reverse and causing a giant boulder to crumble into soil. it gets wackier when you add your own magic into the mix, and you can do thinks like speeding up natural processes; causing vegetation to combust, rapidly growing plants, etc. things like that

Killua is like. his main thing is that hes a little creature with sharp teefs and sharp claws. the assimilation ritual the Zoldycks did with him involved a lightning spirit, so he does have his lightning too, but using it is problematic because of those aforementioned binds he has on him and the whole. cannibalism thing. if he went sparky too often he'd have to eat something or someone in order to maintain equilibrium with Gon. so using his electricity kind of necessitates escalating a fight into a lethal situation in order for immediate food and he has to treat it like that

3—

ok so this question kind of calls me out bc i dont have a "plot" for this au yet. its really just a bunch of worldbuilding and AMVs i imagine while listening to songs lol. so what Alluka and Nanika are doing is probably similar to what they do at the beginning of canon. which is sitting in their vault </3 i dunno. maybe i will brainstorm something different!

but!!! i can tell you what their schtick is

Alluka is a case of the traditional Zoldyck assimilation ritual going real bad. so bad, actually, that it scares them into adjusting the process for Kalluto

i want to give another warning for like. everything that has to do with a necromancy spell involving small children. i felt sort of evil explaining all this

so. the ritual has the subject dying in a fairly instantaneous fashion so that the amount of time the human soul lingers is greater than if you... like... slowly bled to death. out of necessity to avoid complications, the kids kind of have to do it themselves :( obviously that requires they be trained beforehand for it. the age at which Zoldycks go through the ritual varies based on when they pass that hurdle, but it's usually 4-5. they like doing it ASAP because younger children generally deal with the whole merging with a spirit thing easier than adults. but Alluka just. never gets there. to no fault of her own... she just doesn't. and the Zoldycks smack face-first into the very real possibility that they're going to run out of time waiting for her to pass this training, and resort to going "you know what, training schmaining. you're doing it anyway. up you go"

this was NOT a good idea. turns out that the high success rate of their ritual not only has to do with age, but also the kids, you know, being prepared and willing. Alluka is decidedly not. she is scared out of her mind, and doesn't... do it properly. so when it's time to merge, she's still alive.

instead of the ritual doing what it's supposed to (hijacking a spirit's magic to shove someone's soul back into their corpse and merging the two in the process), they lose control over the spirit causes it to come into direct competition with the mortal soul. and when the contest is between a human child and Nanika—a pretty powerful spirit associated with nighttime and stars (hence "wishing")—the outcome is not going to be in the kid's favor. they end up having to do a completely different spell just to keep Nanika from killing Alluka, and due in no small part to sheer luck, the two get to tentatively coexist in the same body

Alluka has a worse time sharing with Nanika than she does in canon. Nanika is more volatile because it's kind of hard to forget what the Zoldycks did to her. she does not like them. even Killua is on thin ice until he makes up for it by being a sweetheart. but Nanika's attitude means Alluka has a lot of those magic bindings on her restricting what she and Nanika can do. this causes her to have a more difficult time adjusting to the way her body looks as a demon vs. as a human, she's less equipped to handle even just being around a lot of active magic (she doesn't have a strong connection to it), she's tired a lot of the time too. however, unlike the rest of her family, Nanika still being alive instead of merged with her makes it so she doesn't have to eat people. she behaves more like a "real" spirit/demon. so thats a W i guess

AND thats all. WAUGH it was really fun finally getting to share all these ideaasss with someone thank u for asking :D !!!! and sorry for the essay again lol

#heliianswers #hxh #heliichats #maybe i will make a tag for this au if theres more posts <- probably not but i can dream #hxh witch au #hey look a tag

14 notes · View notes

minimooberry · 10 months

Text

oh yeah since you're my husband now i feel like i have to tell you that im a vampire and im going to need a blood sacrifice in the next three days so that i don't turn into a monster and kill you in my sleep - no yeah i know that you're a vampire hunter and stuff - i mean i was kind of running out of options when my last two husbands died, like people might think that i killed then, which i did... technically. but it was so not my fault that they didn't believe me!

tfw when your wife that you've been crushing on for years lets you know that if you forget to devote your body to her she might accidentally kill you 🥰🥰 Araminta and Jamie Stone for @birdietrait's coven of simblrs !!

Jamie is well known for dealing with all things supernatural in their minuscule mountain town that's for some otherworldly reason always a hotspot for vengeful spirits, appiritions, and now vampires.

Araminta was cursed as a baby but it only came out when she first got married when she was 21. Her first husband was a total dick and couldn't stay loyal for 48 hours and so, since his body wasn't devoted to her, she turned into a vampire and like, ate him. woops.

she isn't actually in control of her body or conscious of what she's doing, but when you wake up with your husband's blood on your face and him dead on the ground it's kind of hard to not put two and two together.

after asking her family, her mother caved and told her about the curse. yikes 😓😓

araminta is known to be a very shy and cute girl, so they all just thought that this was a freak accident. she got married again when she was 24 to this other guy, but he was in love with another girl and only married araminta because their families made them. she felt a little more sad when she found him dead on the couch.

now araminta's 26 and she's decided to tell her new husband jamie right from the get go. jamie's actually a pretty nice guy in her opinion and he's hot asf too so maybe he can help her actually have a safe and stable marriage!

jamie is not happy about this, but he's had a crush on araminta since they were in middle school, so he thinks he'll have to let this slide.

accurate depiction of the curse btw:

#WHAT DO YOU GUY STHINL 😤😨⁉🔥#araminta.*#jamie.*#the sims #the sims 4 #sims #sims 4 #ts4 #cas #cas screenshots #vampires #sims vampires #sims 4 vampires #oc #ocs #simblr #my simblr #sims community #the sims community

33 notes · View notes

cerastes · 1 year

Text

Apropos of that Jew Question post, since it’s gotten me thinking, it makes sense, yeah. Bloodline’s never meant anything to me personally, and that won’t change, but I obviously can see it being important to others. It always puts me a bit on guard, because then I need to know your adjacent stances on topics and peoples — does your pride in your lineage reflect into thoughts such as “and I want all the enemies of my people dead :)” or is it purely and honestly a matter of good faith pride? Nationalism and all it carries with it is not too far away from all that on the skill tree, after all — so I know what I’m dealing with.

Technically (or practically in this case? I don’t know) I do have some Jewish blood in me from my father’s end of the branches, but it’s my father, so it doesn’t pass on to me according to tradition (his mother was Jewish), and additionally I am directly of Basque lineage, so you can imagine how impassioned some conversations were when the Jews and/or Basques were present for family events, which was always really off-putting to young me, in all honesty, because, well, y’all didn’t do any of that shit you are so proud of, was my line of thought. Of course, that was young me that wasn’t taking the bigger context of history into account, and that was more concerned with looking at it in a vacuum (and not without resentment for various reasons, chief among them being bored as hell and wanting to go home to Bomberman Hero already).

It didn’t help that my hometown was a Muslim hotspot and I had a lot of neighborhood friends that some more outspoken but overall not representative family members wanted to ethnically cleanse. Don’t ethnicity cleanse my buddy, please, we play Bomberman together.

But experiences aren’t universal, of course, so it’s not as if I think that pride in one’s lineage is synonymous with waiting for the right excuse to start unloading a magazine in a religious building’s general direction, but I do understand why it puts me, specifically, on guard, and I understand that’s a me thing that doesn’t reflect on the world as a whole.

#i’m putting thoughts into words I guess and I don’t usually do this on tumblr but #it occurred to me that maybe someone can relate to this and help them with their own thoughts #just maybe

53 notes · View notes

fleet-admiral-hiba · 2 years

Note

Helloo

First off thank you so much for doing my request, I appreciate it so much and it turned out a absolute masterpiece

you have skills I swear

I have another request but it could be more angsty, wherever you wanna take it

Alright so one of the harbingers or two, dottore would make the most sense in this scenario, while testing out some random things or whatever they somehow jump to the future, whilst looking around the palace (It could be ruins but that’s going down the angsty route, would still be entertaining though) they find some sort of hooded figure, after a bit of questioning where they are and who we are it is revealed that we are a future version of the little fox, us being in our teen years of sorts,

this really could go anywhere tbh, we could be mad at them for some reason, it could be revealed they pasted away and we where still in mourning,

ofc if you don’t wanna do this you don’t have to lmao

Thanks again, you’re work is amazing

-Simon

A/n: another great request man,I'm glad you liked the other one.

ADIEU

He was messing around with a new concept. He had always been fascinated by time travelling, but he didn't expect to really achieve such enormous task, even as basic as it had been.

He felt the pull, making him lunge forward.

Time stretched until he fell.

Snow covered the land.

It seemed familiar.

Very familiar.

He walked around the place, realising he had just landed outside the town surrounding the cathedral. But everything was silent.

No movement, no noise.

Nothing.

Shops laid abandoned. Houses ruined by the never ending storm, no pedestrian walking.

It was so silent.

So dead.

A once bustling town reduced to nothing but ruins.

Walking further along the road, he made his way towards what remained of the majestic building.

Looking around, he saw nothing but dust,broken pillars and remains of what once was the hotspot of the most prominent nation in the world.

He checked every room, but there was no one. Not even automatons. Or the few that were there were nothing but junk, having succumbed to the ferocious weather.

Not even the rooms had been spared. Walls busted down, nothing remained.

Only a lonely figure, kneeling on the ground.

And behind them...tombs.

He approached the seemingly only survivor.

But before he could ask who they were, he recognized the names engraved in the stone.

PANTALONE

PULCINELLA

PIERRO

CHILDE

And they went on. And on.

Disbelief. Surely it must have bee a dream, a sick sort of hallucinations.

But it wasn't.

And he knew who he had in front of him.

"Y/n" he whispered.

You turned around, but you had lost all of your humanity. You remembered him, but it was for nothing.

"Everything is lost. The traveller... destroyed everything. I am the only survivor" you said, already anticipating what he was going to ask.

Dottore stilled. How could it happen? Why? Didn't the Tsaritsa...

"Not even mother survived. They hid me in a chest, and told me to stay quiet. Time passed, I heard the shouts and the screams. But then...silence. They found me, they wanted to take me with them. I couldn't. I was but a child. I couldn't do anything to protect my home...

Once they died, everything went downhill. The city, the land itself. All perished" you went on.

Impossible. It was...

Before he could say anything else he got pulled back.

You stood there. Looking forlornly at the now print of where once Dottore stood.

You bid farewell to your home. And went away into the storm.

He was pulled into the present, and he run. He didn't even think he had it in him to care about something so trivial, he joined the Tsaritsa to fulfill his wish.

But your eyes... They were wrong. No child had to suffer like you did. And now he could prevent that suffering.

The emergency call round fast around, and soon all of them were there.

Pierro was... petrified.

The others were traumatized.

They had to do better.

Not for them.

But for you.

Time flew by...but who knew what happened to the beating heart of Snezhnaya...

Nor what happened to harbingers...

All we knew was that a great war ravaged the land ...

But no winners nor losers ever emerged back...

Only a lonely piece of scarf flew around the land of eternal winter.

#genshin impact fic #genshin imagines #genshin x gender neutral reader #genshin x male reader #fatui harbingers #fatui headcanons

74 notes · View notes

beardedmrbean · 10 months

Text

Gangland shootings and bombings that have plagued Sweden's biggest cities have spread to quieter suburbs and towns, shattering its reputation as a safe and peaceful nation.

Half an hour north of central Stockholm, Upplands-Bro features lakeside boat clubs, copper-red wooden villas and apartments flanked by pine and spruce trees.

But a 14-year-old boy was found dead in a forest here in August, and since January there have been several shootings and bombings targeting houses and apartments.

"It's awful. We've [been] woken up by explosions in the neighbourhood and it's scary," says 42-year-old Anna Petterson, who lives in Bro and has three children. "It's very much something that we're aware of, and we talk about a lot, and are afraid of."

Sweden has been a European hotspot for gang-related shootings and bombings for several years. But recently the violence has shifted beyond low-income, vulnerable urban areas and police say one reason is that gang members are increasingly targeting rivals' relatives.

Detectives suspect some of the latest violence has been organised by criminal leaders based in other countries, including Turkey and Serbia.

More than 50 people have been killed in shootings so far in 2023, and there have been more than 140 explosions. Last year, more than 60 people died in gun violence, the highest number on record.

"What started out as gun violence between young gangs looking to defend their territory has turned into a vicious circle of firearms trafficking and gun violence," explains Nils Duquet, a firearms researcher based at the Flemish Peace Institute in Brussels.

"Gangs have also matured and are no longer just the street criminals, but are often connected to higher-level criminals as well."

Innocent bystanders are also among the dead.

In September, a 70-year-old man and another man aged 20 were killed in a pub shooting in Sandviken in central Sweden, and a newly graduated teacher, 24, died in an explosion just outside the university city of Uppsala.

Soon afterwards Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson gave a rare national address admitting that "no other country in Europe" was experiencing this sort of situation, and promising tougher penalties for deadly violence.

Evin Cetin, an author and lawyer who has represented teenage shooting victims and suspects, says boys as young as 13 or 14 are being recruited by gangs, often through social media promises of money and designer clothes.

"Children are using their own bags not to carry books, but they carry the drug markets in Sweden on their own shoulders," she tells the BBC on a visit to Upplands-Bro, part of a nationwide schools tour to more than a dozen areas affected by gang crime.

Others are trying to tackle the problem by organising street patrols in areas affected by drugs and violence.

"That we're out and go around chatting with our kids and young people - it increases safety," says Libaane Warsame, during a night walk in Jarva, northern Stockholm, on a wet, windy Friday night.

Jarva looks like a lot of Swedish suburbs, with well-maintained apartment blocks, a few shops, and a nearby forest. The main difference is that it is more multicultural than many neighbourhoods, and it has Stockholm's highest unemployment rate.

Mr Warsame began patrolling the streets after his 19-year-old son - who police say was not in a gang - was killed in a shooting in December 2020.

"It's hard for [young people] to sit at home for hours without any income, any work. So they go out and stand around and there's a big risk that they will be recruited."

He also runs an organisation that supports families who have lost loved ones in deadly violence.

This year there have not been any fatal shootings in Jarva, but many locals say they remain on edge.

"I haven't been outside so late… because I don't want to make my mum worried," says Gizem Kuzucu, 17.

She often spends her evenings studying at Framtidens Hus, a youth centre, and says none of her friends have been in trouble with the law. But she has been exposed to crime on social media.

"I've seen a lot of videos on TikTok [in which] people are, like, talking about crime. They are like saying 'follow me on Instagram, I'm gonna post like a rapper that got killed'."

Another teenager at the youth centre, Libaan, says he grew up around older criminals and "did commit a few crimes" when he was younger.

"Kids here, they are really, really mean to each other…they don't know how to speak about their emotions, so what they do instead is that they lash out," says the 18-year-old.

Swedish police do not currently map gang members' nationalities, but research for the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention in 2021 showed young people born in Sweden to two parents from abroad were overrepresented as suspects in murder cases and robberies.

The right-wing coalition government, elected in September 2022, believes the rise in gang violence in recent years is directly connected to Sweden's earlier immigration policies. Until 2016, it had one of the most generous asylum laws in Europe.

"We can now see that 'outsideship' and lack of integration, in combination with trade of narcotics and organised crime is creating this very, very toxic mixture," Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told the BBC in September.

The government wants to make it harder for immigrants from outside the European Union to get social benefits, and to make preschool compulsory for children with two foreign parents in some areas, in order to improve Swedish-language skills.

Earlier this year, it became an offence to recruit children to participate in criminal activities. Stop-and-search zones are set to be introduced in early 2024 and ministers want to double prison sentences for offences including gun crimes and explosions.

The BBC was not granted a government interview to discuss these plans, despite multiple requests.

At the state-funded Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, researcher Klara Hradilova-Selin believes tackling gang crime "should have been a more important issue earlier" for previous coalitions on both the right and left of the political spectrum.

"There are colleagues of mine who were actually warning like decades ago [about] this kind of development of growing marginalisation in the deprived areas."

Worries about how gang conflicts are impacting the country's international image are also growing. "Sweden has always been viewed as an extremely safe country. Maybe one of the top safe countries in the world. And this image is falling apart," says Hradilova-Selin.

According to a recent survey for the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, eight out of 10 Swedish companies questioned believe it will get harder to attract foreign talent, investment and visitors due to the ongoing violence.

At Framtidens Hus youth centre, teenagers are being offered the chance to drive, dance and make podcasts. Former criminal Libaan says he would like a job that involves writing, or helping others, but he believes his future is also dependent on how he is treated by other Swedes.

"I don't feel included in the culture even though I'm born here. They kind of see me as this ghetto kid who has no future."

#nunyas news #overton window #has shifted in europe #a bunch of europe at least

10 notes · View notes

nerdwhoauthorinserts · 6 months

Text

"I still hear your voice when you sleep next to me..."

Possible trigger warnings?: -Angst -Mentions of zombiefied cat-like creature, haha.

Context/Synopsis:

Writing Prompt: Base a quick (Less than 500 words) story after a song you've been listening to recently.

Characters featured: -Copycat -Loki

Notes: -This is the song I based this on. (It's such a good cover, holy shit-) -This is meant to be a similar AU universe to Earth-807128 from the Marvel Comics? Not entirely the same, ofc, but basically a 'Copyverse' version.

The city was quiet, uncharacteristic of the usually bustling city New York once was. The world is close to being a whole desert, save for this one city. The buildings ruined as greenery and nature overtook the human-made structures, reclaiming the area again.

But why didn't anyone ever come here looking for resources? It would be a hotspot, being a literal oasis. There is a big reason.

In the center of the city, crumpled in a heap of awe-striking bone, is the skeleton of who once was a great prince of Asgard. The skeleton itself is harmless, if a bit creepy. No, the skeleton's guardian strikes fear in all who dared come close.

The creature stalked the area like a wolf patrolling its territory. A massive creature resembling a half-decayed feline of some kind. Big tufted ears, an exposed spine, an exposed ribcage, and a beating human heart in its chest that thumped with the power of the soul stone.

This creature appeared out of nowhere the same day that the Asgard prince used their power to turn giant, the same day that giant fell and left behind their bones. This thing appeared, sticking by the skeleton like the giant's remains were the creature's only lifeline.

Any human, mutant, or otherwise that came close to the skeleton met with the guard's ire, who'll do all it could to kill anything that got too close.

Though, there is a bit of heartache to this story, too.

Nobody knows who this creature is, as barely anyone is still alive who remembers. However, if you're close enough to notice, the monster makes known why it holds the god so dearly.

If you pay attention, in the dead of night when the moon is at its highest peak, you may hear the haunting melody of a song in the air as the soul stone projects the longing within the creature using the music the soul stone creates so readily.

It's a love song, deep and longing, speaking of the creature's unwavering love and heartache.

#bloki #tw: angst #selfship community #literaturelove #tw: body horror #potentially triggering #nerdwhoauthorinserts #copyverse #AU #romantic f/o #selfship angst

3 notes · View notes

coffyao · 5 months

Text

if brown leaves could be saved

Summary:

_______ an alternate universe where a young seungbae is transferred to yoonbum's high school for unknown reasons. and from there, do they start getting to know each other, but not without the emotions that start to rise, and the loneliness that they realise they might have in common in.

link to my A03:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/52761079/chapters/133446979

“Introduce yourself to the class.”

He took the piece of chalk from the teacher's desk and started writing down his name on the chalkboard.

Once he finished, he moved away to the side and straightened his posture, his hands clamped a little too tightly, and his pupils, darting everywhere except for the classroom that was right in front of him.

His perfectionist ways were obvious, as his pens were neatly tucked away in his blazer pocket, and his school tie was perfectly aligned.

But the braces that poke through his teeth, and the glasses that he wore along with it was a dead giveaway that he was a square.

But when he finally spoke up, his voice had erased any pre-conceived notion that was thought of him, the sincerity in him truly shining through.

“My name is Yang Seungbae.”

Yang Seungbae.

He was then allocated to a seat with another student at the front, a seat befitting for someone like him. He was most likely someone studious and did his homework as soon as it was assigned.

Yoonbum laid his head on the desk and tuned himself out to the rest of the class.

________________

Once he woke up, the class was mostly sparse, where the usual dim sunlight poked through his heavy eyelids and his chest aroused with existential dread.

He quickly gathered the workbooks on his desk and shoved them into his backpack, leaving the classroom altogether and going somewhere where he could peacefully stew in his thoughts.

He goes into the library, the middle-ground location that was a bore for the popular cliques; but a hotspot for people who aspired to be someone one day.

But he was neither.

He didn’t how to talk to people, and he had no clue what kind of person he wanted to be.

He just liked the library because of the quietude within it, along with having a good number of books that provided a distraction for his fractured mind.

But it also helped his reputation, because at least his classmates could chalk up his antisocial tendencies to being a pompous bookworm, rather than being a useless outcast.

He walked into one of the aisles at the end, where most of its shelves contained fiction books, but he had only one genre in mind and one only.

A tragic romance.

When he picked up Anna Karenina a few months ago, a decision made on a whim, he fell in love with the book's heroine, and her morally questionable decisions.

But once he managed to finish it, he couldn’t shake off the emptiness that started to consume his heart once again, so he had to fill the void.

He started pulling out a few books at once, flicking through a few pages of them before putting them back, dissatisfaction running through his mind.

However, he decided to continue his search diligently, gathering a handful before sitting down on the floor and crossing his legs.

As he started going through the books again, his hyper-focus was pulled away by a voice with a prominent lisp.

“…sorry to bother you.”

Looking up, Yoonbum recognized him, his lambent eyes piercing through his own and needlessly apologetic in his tone, even with the flustered look on his face.

its Seungbae again.

“I’m looking for a book on law enforcement…but I can’t find it here for some reason.”

Yoonbum puts his books to the side.

“Why didn’t you ask the librarian?”

Seungbae looked down, stuffing his hands inside his blazer pockets.

“I wanted to find it myself.”

…That’s silly.

Yoonbum stands up and points his finger toward the far-left side, his least favorite part of the library but likely had the book Seungbae needed.

“If you go there, that’s where they keep the non-fiction section.”

He needed to quickly go back to book-searching. This was taking too much of his time.

“Ah damn, I’m such an idiot. I didn’t even think to look there.”

Seungbae then held out his hand, the relief on his face apparent by the grin on his face, radiant and yet another indicator that he is everything that Yoonbum isn’t.

Yoonbum tentatively puts his hand on his, and Seungbae gives it one strong shake.

“Thank you.”

Seungbae walks past and then suddenly stops, his eyes once again focused on him.

“…I’m new by the way. you’re in my class, right? What’s your name?”

Yoonbum hated this question because once it was asked, it would mean he and the other person would form some type of relationship. It also meant there was a potential they would become close, but it would come at the expense of hiding the worst parts of himself.

“…it's y-yoonbum.”

And that includes his desire to want to keep them for himself.

#killing stalking #killing me softly #yang seungbae #yoon bum #a03 fic #fanfiction #ao3 #yoonbumxseungbae #a03 link #ao3 fanfic #seungbum

2 notes · View notes

rin-the-shadow · 1 year

Text

Sometimes I wish Heroes in Crisis would have been an anthology series spotlighting a few characters over the course of several issues. Currently I'm leaning towards Hotspot, Lagoon Boy, Roy Harper, either the Protector or Wally West, Poison Ivy, and Raven, but if the miniseries got expanded for some reason, I could add more or maybe just expand some of the ones already getting a spotlight.

But then other times, I wish they had gone with the AI secretly being behind everything, possibly due to integrating prejudices from historical practices that the Trinity didn't fully manage to filter out. But then instead of everyone staying dead, have Wally West briefly regain access to time travel and then go back in time to save everyone and prevent the issue from being able to recur. At the end of the book, the Trinity would be working to change Sanctuary and vet human therapists to keep it from happening again, and maybe we would end with a scene of Barry Allen and Wally West in which Barry is helping Wally to deal with what he saw before.

#rin does fanfic #heroes in crisis #rin rewrites #writer things #ableism discussion #character death mention #I like the idea of interactions between raven and poison ivy #especially since ivy kind of tends to get turned into harley's satellite love interest sometimes #and sometimes it feels like dc only ever remembers they can do the trigon story with raven #but also i kind of like the idea of wally pulling a christopher reeves superman on everyone

10 notes · View notes

inc0rrectmyths · 1 year

Note

HELLO HI I literally had a crisis while trying to decide weather to send you an ask or not 😭😭

I wanted to say YOUR WIPS SOUND SO INTERESTING!! Like tell me more about them plisss 🥺

AAJKAKWIWW YOU CAN SEND ME ASKS ANYTIME YOU WANT DW <33

anyways! soo.. my wips are... complicated..

But here are some smol and BAD summaries..

WIP ONE: (FHCC)

this is the one I'm currently writing. And also posting about here and there. Its a story about an evil manipulative professor who runs a cult in the name of Caesar and wants to gaslight ppl into killing innocents in the name of Caesar. And he gets a job in a prestigious uni where he teaches the history department. The fourth year students consisting of all foreigners, he finds the perfect opportunity to corrupt them. a lot of murders happen in the campus and then they stop. But on the day of Graduation, when the whole campus was celebrating, the professor is also mysteriously found dead. Typical dark academia murder thriller hehe.

WIP TWO: (SAA:1987)

Its about five friends who live in the same tiny neighborhood. One girl and four boys. One of the boys Kunal is in love with the girl Chitra. And she loves him back. While their little sweet love continues to bloom, the other three boys, Shreyas, Aniruddh and Ronit are stuck in a painful and restricting poly relation. And one unfortunate day, Shreyas' very homophobic family hears the trio doing... stuff... And immediately lock Shreyas up in his room. Now keep in mind, he's a VERY sensitive boy who gets scared and nervous easily. This might seem like nothing to others, but this was a big deal to poor Shreyas, who committed suicide after a few days of being locked and unable to see his two lovers. The story ends in a tragically happy way. Where Kunal and Chitra are married, Ronit and Aniruddh are still dating but they both still mourn Shreyas. But all four of them have learnt to let go of him. Yet, he continues to be a missing piece. Typical tragic love story but make it gay and poly :D

WIP THREE: (TBM)

Back to murders! But now we kill criminals instead of innocents. Lord Byron Beckwith, a big British official built an institute in 18th cen Britain and the then colonial India. Two elite institutes for students around the globe. But as decades went by, the two campuses got corrupted. And became hotspots for drug dealings, sex slavery and human trafficking. And the victims were the poor students who were threatened to keep their mouths shut. A bunch of them also killed themselves for this reason. But cuz of the reputation the campuses held, the governments of both countries covered these sinister things with sorry excuses. And that's when a secret society gets revived by six Indian and five British students of Beckwith Institutes. And both the Deans aka the ones who allowed these crimes to take place, of Indian and British Beckwith are found dead. Another typical dark academia murder thriller.

WIP FOUR: (TPAHB)

The prince of one of the last remaining royal families of Spain was turning 20. And to gift his son, King invited a well known bard and artist to their palace. The bard was asked to paint a portrait of the prince who was gone for a few days. During these days, the king got so impressed by the bard, he asked him to permanently stay in the palace and entertain his peers. When prince arrived and met the new bard, he found him absolutely repulsive. And decided to avoid the man. But on the other hand, the bard is blown away by the beauty possessed by the prince. And the bard secretly makes prince his own muse. Composing songs for him, painting him or reciting poems in his name. No one knew about it. Until prince, who was weirdly fascinated the bard (he denied it) decided to sneak in his room. And found paintings of him and poems comprising of his name hanging from walls. The prince and the bard form an even stranger relationship where one hates the other but is also fascinated by him and the other one is surely in love but will never confess. This an enemies to lovers stuff with a lot of comedy lmao. Also gay <3

WIP FIVE (TGPW) [probably a duology]

The kingdom of Devhagar and Theoisia are rivals and have centuries long history of war, bloodshed and destruction. They both are constantly trying to win over the Northern and Southern regions which are inhabited by strong mythical beings, clever elves, notorious pirate clans and magicians, and most importantly loads of treasures. The never ending hatred of these two kingdoms was prophesied to stop. It was said that five heroes will rise, who will be from both Devhagar and Theoisia and they will team up together to defeat the two evil kings of the two kingdoms and end the reign of tyranny, black magic, hatred and violence. The Magician, a mysterious traveller with no name, said to be immortal finds two small girls while he was travelling thru Theoisia. Thr girls are named Diana and Minerva and immediately feels an aura around them. He decides to take them with him and protect them but mysterious forces constantly attack them, and The Magician realizes he can't fight all of them alone. He calls Kenneth, the captain of one of the strongest pirate ships. Kenneth and his crew take Diana and Minerva with them to a journey that is to find three boys in the kingdom of Devhagar. And they do find the boys after defeating multiple monsters. Shiva, Vishnu and Indra are the three boys described by The Magician. Now the five children are brought back to the magician. Who enlightens them. They have a task to do, they were born to end evil.

#wip stuff #wip summary #writeblr

10 notes · View notes

magickastiel · 2 years

Note

Please mob boss cas and babygirld dean fic rec list?!

i'm so sorry this has taken me so long!! i read some more bc i wanted to make sure i had a decent list

putting this under a cut because most of these are nsfw 👀

russian mob cas x babygirl dean fics recs ⬇️

ok here goes! for some reason, mob!cas and omegaverse go hand in hand in the fanfic world, so i've seperated this lil list into normal au and omegaverse because i know it makes some people uncomfy!!

normal au:

i'll come for you (rating: explicit | warnings: violence | complete) this one is next on my list to read so i can't give it a definite seal of approval but it sounds very interesting!!

Castiel is a member of the Bratva who holds a lot of power inside and out of prison. Dean is a former Army medic whose big mouth got him into deep trouble with the Aryan brotherhood just weeks into his sentence. He needs protection, or his measly two years in lockup could end as a death sentence.

life is a highway (rating: explicit | warnings: none | complete) dean is oblivious and hot for an accent. cas is violently hashtag girlbossing his life

The one where Dean falls for fellow student Cas, who’s so much more than first perceived. Will Dean be able to live with the secret once revealed, or will it doom them both?

rule one (rating: unrated (i'd say mature) | warnings: none | complete) short oneshot which i would love more of! dean is the prison babygirl and cas has dibs

There were only a few rules to prison. Some were the stuff you saw in movies: keep your head down, spend as little time in the showers as possible, etc. And some were specific to the George Hoyt Correctional Facility (aka Purgatory): the guards usually overlooked contraband porn mags if you let them have one, if TJ is on kitchen duty do not eat the mashed potatoes. And most importantly: you do not fucking touch Dean Winchester.

angels like you (rating: explicit | warnings: violence | incomplete) it looks like this one may have been abandoned but i've subbed just in case because i really liked where it was going!

Dean Winchester's trip for a drink turns into so much more when he visits the Red Room, a shithole strip club right in the center of the city. Run by Castiel Krushnic, the leader of the Russian mob, it's a hotspot for booze, sex, drugs, and for-hire mercenaries. But Dean doesn't know that- he's just moved here. Yet, in his first week in the city, he's already attracted the attention of Krushnic himself- which can only spell trouble, in a town like this one.

look what you made me do (rating: explicit | warnings: graphic violence | complete) despite the serious and dramatic summary, this one is VERY fun. a dark romantic comedy if you will

Dean watches, terrified, as blood coats the door–his knuckles depositing more and more of it with every knock. “Come on, Cas, open up.” Panicked, he looks back over his shoulder, the dead of night feeling less comforting and more like it’s about to bust wide open at any second. How could he be so stupid?

hit on me (rating: mature | warnings: none | complete) this is super cute! dean and cas are both just trying to do their jobs with mixed results

Dean had a standing date every Thursday night with an incredibly attractive Russian businessman. Well, “date” may have been a little misleading, given that Dean was at work and the Russian businessman was someone Dean waited on. Whatever Dean could think what he wanted about it in the privacy of his own head.

perfectly capable crime lord (rating: teen | warnings: none | complete) i'm cheating a bit with this one because cas isn't russian but he does speak russian at one point so eh

When Dean asked his boyfriend what his job was, Cas told him, completely deadpan, “I’m a mob boss, Dean.” But no one’s boyfriend is actually a mob boss. Right?

shouldn't have opened the door (rating: teen | warnings: none | complete) again, cheating bc cas isn't russian but this is a very cute series!

Dean opens the door one night to find one of his spookier customers at his door.

omegaverse au:

shipwreck of your heart (rating: explicit | warnings: violence | WIP) ✨ ok this is THEE fic to read and follow imo!! if you're like me and you don't have strong feelings about a/b/o, i would recommend giving this a try! while a/b/o is definitely a theme here, it's not front and centre. dean is the most babygirl to ever babygirl. cas is basically a russian mr darcy. it's amazing.

Dean Winchester is a young Omega working three jobs to support himself and his abusive, alcoholic father. His dream is to help his aunt and uncle send his brilliant little brother to college. One of the few bright spots for him is the job he works at a burger place called Mystery Spot, a restaurant owned by four Russian brothers that Sammy and Dean joke all the time is a front for a mafia. One day, however, when a man comes in and tries to kill Dean’s favorite Krushnic brother right in front of him, the Omega is forced to admit that maybe his running joke with Sammy isn’t too far off the mark. As Dean is thrown into the world of the Krushnic mafia, he finds himself getting closer than ever to Castiel Krushnic himself. The Alpha seems to harbor a strange soft spot for Dean, one that grows more obvious and more confusing by the day. Suddenly, Dean has to wonder why the kindest person in his life is a mafia boss, and why said mafia boss is so dead-set on taking care of him. It’ll take a very stubborn person to convince Dean he deserves that. It’s lucky Castiel Krushnic is a very stubborn man.

better than revenge (rating: explicit | warnings: none | complete) as the author's notes say, this one is a lot lighter than you think it will be! this definitely has a 'modern' omegaverse vibe too which is a lot more enjoyable to read than most other a/b/o fics

Dean Winchester is #blessed. He's got a great family, a million followers on social media, ad endorsements coming out of his extremely fine omega ass, and he's about to graduate with a hard-won Master's Degree in Computer Engineering. Said degree is an escape hatch to the life he craves, away from the scripted roles his well-meaning father keeps trying to corral him into. Dean's a lot of things, but he's not cut out to be a Don—or to fall in love. Castiel Krushnic is a ruthless, hardened alpha underboss for the Russian Mafia and his only soft spot is for his daughter. When she's sent away to the U.S. in hopes of a better life, Castiel follows, reluctantly moving a chunk of the operation with him. His marching orders are clear—first order of business is to send a message to John Winchester, Don of the enemy local syndicate. The easiest way to do that? Use his son. Sounds easy, but Castiel wasn't expecting to fall head-over-heels, or for Dean to want him back. What's an alpha to do when a beautiful omega and an unorthodox mob boss have him questioning everything, abandoning his past and all of its pain for something much better than revenge?

#mob!cas/babygirl!dean has me by the throat!! 😩#ask

17 notes · View notes

autolenaphilia · 2 years

Text

The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery

The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery from 1995 is the second Gabriel Knight adventure game, developed by Sierra and written and designed by Jane Jensen. The first was Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

The most obvious change from the first game is that the pixel art graphics style has been replaced with Full motion video using live action footage of actors against 3D backgrounds. Unlike pixel art graphic adventure games, this is not a style that has seen much of revival (partly because it’s expensive) and makes this game seem very much of its time. Many of the FMV games from the 90s craze for the medium are not beloved either.

I won’t lie and say The Beast Within looks great today. The FMVs have a low resolution and are very grainy, as do the sprites of the characters outside of it. There is some dodgy CGI too. The end result looks like a 90s tv show uploaded to youtube in low quality.

Yet The Beast Within is in my opinion one of the FMV games that stand the test of time. And that is both due to gameplay and story.

For one thing, it’s actually a fairly traditional point-and-click adventure game, except the cutscenes and the character sprites are live action footage of actual actors, instead of animations. The FMV craze sometimes took the form of “interactive movies” in the mode of Dragon’s Lair, and didn’t have much actual gameplay. But The Beast Within is a fully fledged adventure game.

And it’s a good one. There is some pixel-hunting, but much less so than the first game, because this time the cursor changes to indicate an interactable hotspot. There are no complex system of verb commands either. The puzzles felt largely fair and reasonable, and I didn’t have to rely on hints much. And as far as I can tell, there are no dead-ends. There are sequences where you can die, but you are given the option to retry them from a checkpoint with no penalty. As far as gameplay goes, this is a pretty good adventure game that cuts down on the bullshit that especially Sierra perpetuated in the genre’s earlier days.

The story is the star in most adventure games, and this is no exception. I love the story of The Beast Within, despite its flaws.

It helps that the acting in the FMVs is far above the general reputation of FMV games. These actors are overall legit good and I don’t feel they hinder the story being told. If the acting is arguably bad sometimes it’s the good kind of “bad” acting: overacting. And it’s a gothic werewolf horror story, such camp fits the tone.

The game of course stars Gabriel Knight once again. He is now living in the castle of his ancestors, the Ritter family, in Bavaria. And he gets asked by the locals to investigate a series of murders, that seem to be committed by a werewolf. This being a horror game, it’s of course actually a werewolf. Once his friend Grace Nakimura learns about this, she decides to fly over to Bavaria from New Orleans to help, against Gabriel’s wishes. Grace is a playable character now, alternating with Gabriel. They conduct parallel investigations into the werewolf case.

Gabriel tries to find the werewolf killer in the present, and investigates the murders to find the killer. While Grace investigates the past, doing mainly historical research that she hopes will help identify the present-day werewolf.

It’s interesting how this game handles the idea of two American investigators working in a country in which they don’t entirely understand the language. Most of the game’s dialogue is in english, but there is a surprising amount of german. More than you expect from an American production. They got a translator to translate relevant dialogue by Jane Jensen into German, so it’s understandable. And especially with Gabriel, who barely knows any german (Grace has more basic knowledge and can form sentences), you get the sense of them being in a foreign country. They come across educated and/or younger people that speak fluent English, other german characters don’t and they’re stuck trying to figure it out. The pronunciation by the actors is however variable and heavily depends on the actor. Some are actual germans or have basic pronunciation knowledge, some clearly don’t. I appreciate the effort though, which does give some versmillitude to the game’s setting.

The roles of Gabriel and Grace have been recast. A decision which I understand. The original Gabriel Knight voice, Tim Curry doesn’t look anything like Gabriel Knight, even if his voice is the definitive one. And Leah Remini is not Japanese-American, like Grace is.

And the new actors give different takes, but ones which largely work. Dean Erickson plays a more awkward and less confident Gabriel than Curry’s in the first game. Perhaps he is humbled by his past experiences, and he is clearly not entirely comfortable in this new country in which he does not speak the language. It’s surprisingly endearing.

Joanne Takahashi as Grace is also fine. She is more let down by the writing than her actual acting skills. She is likeable enough, Grace is still the charismatic character I loved in the first game. But there is some really awkward character writing for her in a vain attempt to further the Gabriel/Grace relationship. It’s meant to be bickering friends who secretly love each other. And she is this tsundere character who says she hates Gabriel but actually loves him, and proves it by going to great lengths to help him.

But Gabriel and Grace don’t interact much in this game. Gabriel deliberately keeps her distant from his investigation and later justifies it with wanting to protect her, and it’s just annoying as she clearly could be very helpful to him. Grace on her part has this truly embarrassing bitchy jealousy drama with Gerde, a woman who Grace thinks is having sex with Gabriel but she actually isn’t. It’s pointless and the worst part of this game’s writing by far.

Yet there are far more interesting parts of this game’s writing that make me actually love it.

I’m gonna spoil the reveal of who the werewolf is, because it’s obvious from the moment the character enters the story. The story saves the reveal for the beginning of chapter 6, the game’s final chapter, but it’s obvious from the get-go. And I need to reveal it to discuss Gabriel’s storyline properly.

It’s Friedrich von Glower, the leader of an aristocratic hunting club. He is very well played by actor Peter Lucas. He portrays him with both charm and menace, and his dark-haired features are perfect for the part. He is a charismatic presence that dominates the game. The performance does however make it very obvious that he is a werewolf. Yet he is a fascinating character, and a large part of what makes this game so appealing.

Werewolves in this game are immortal. They can be killed, but can live on for centuries otherwise. Grace’s research reveals his extensive backstory stretching back to the 1700s. In the present day, Von Glower has used his experiences as a werewolf to develop a pseudo-darwinian philosophy about how humans will become stronger by getting in touch with their basic animal instincts that modern civilization suppresses. The members of his hunting club are all rich and basically use this philosophy to become better capitalists or lawyers by being ruthless in their actions. It’s a perfect ideology for these rich people, as it justifies them doing terrible things to earn more money.

Yet that’s not the purpose of the philosophy for Von Glower. He is lonely as an immortal werewolf. He wants a companion to join him, and has tried throughout the centuries to find that person. It’s clearly not just friendship he is after, it is romantic and sexual companionship. He is also either gay or bi, and tries to find that companion in other men. The purpose of the club with its philosophy is to prepare a person to be turned by Von Glower and become his werewolf companion.

Grace’s research into his past reveal that he once loved and turned the king of Bavaria Ludwig II. This lead to Ludwig’s suicide after over a decade of suffering.

Once von Glower meets Gabriel, it is love at first sight. He is overly friendly to Gabriel considering they just met and is clearly flirtatious. It’s obvious that he has designs upon Gabriel. And Gabriel seems to genuinely return his affections in some way, even if it is not as openly erotic as it is from von Glower’s side. Gabriel at least is receptive to his flirting. It’s perhaps platonic, but he clearly quickly comes to trust von Glower. Von Glower is obviously a sinister werewolf from the minute he enters the story, yet Gabriel seems oblivious. Is he in love? Maybe.

There is also Von Zell, who was the sole member of Von Glower’s hunting club that he choose to turn. Yet he was dumped by Von Glower after Von Zell’s turned out too violent and strange for Friedrich’s tastes. Now he plays the role of the bitter ex-boyfriend, fiercely jealous of Gabriel.

The Gabriel/Friedrich love story speaks to the themes of the series very well. Gabriel’s story in the first game was about his struggle with his baser instincts. He starts as a lust-driven womanizer, and he has to develop into a “schattenjäger”, a brave fighter against supernatural evil. And now von Glower represents a new temptation for Gabriel to abandon his duty to fight against evil and fall back into his lust-driven ways. Werewolves is a good fit for that kind of themes. Except, the temptation is queer this time around.

This type of story is of course homophobic on some level. The queer character is a villain who must die in the ending. Yet Von Glower is somewhat sympathetic in his loneliness and his feelings for Gabriel seem to be genuine. He is a complex villain, and the relationship between him and Gabriel is complex and engaging. It’s no more homophobic than your average queer monster horror story, and us queer folk often appreciate those despite their flaws.

And this is a story that speaks to me beyond the queer themes. I love German history. And you get to dig into it in this game. In the first game, Grace’s function is that she would do research on Gabriel’s request and then present her findings the next day. And now that you get to play as her, you get to do that research yourself.

I’ll grant that other people might find her parts of the game exposition-heavy. It’s literally reading book chapters at some points or interviewing people for more exposition. But I find werewolves and the Bavarian king Ludwig II to be fascinating subjects. So I was greatly entertained by all this. It’s part of why I found this game’s story so rich.

Ludwig II was gay or bi in real life, and so it makes sense tying him into this game with a bisexual werewolf (who was Ludwig’s boyfriend and who turned the king), as silly as that sounds. It works. His struggles with being turned into a werewolf by von Glower ends up being mirrored by Gabriel’s relationship with von Glower in the present day.

And the game includes the other fascinating bits of Ludwig’s life, such as his extravagant castles and his relations with Richard Wagner. The game lets you explore Neuschwanstein and try to find the score for a lost opera by Wagner concerning werewolves. It’s so fun if you are interested like I am. And you get to hear parts of that fictional opera and the composer Robert Holmes does do a decent Wagner imitation, albeit with a synthesized orchestra. The music overall is good, but it stands in the shadow of this fake Wagner opera. It’s so many interests of mine converging at once.

That is why I love The Beast Within. It is not a perfect video game. The game’s writing and presentation is definitely flawed. Yet there are many virtues. It’s a solid point-and-click adventure that tells a campy but well-written queer werewolf story that takes on German history and culture in an intelligent way.

#my writings #gabriel knight #the beast within #adventure games

12 notes · View notes