#i was playing on playing games but I’m super tired I won’t be able to concentrate

[yoohyeon]

Help idk what to do with my day fksbjdnsjs

[starry-nights-garden]

NCT Dream as the Demon hiding under your bed

✧ NCT Dream all members x gn!reader ✧ genre: humor, crack, fluff ✧ warnings: none

Mark:

the confused demon

does not know why he is here

one day wakes up under your bed, hits his head, crawls out and startles the shit out of you

he’s as clueless as you are as to what he’s doing here

laughs awkwardly, attempts to introduce himself and keeps switching back and forth between english and korean

????

maybe the awkwardness is the reason why you’re not scared of him when he explains that he’s a demon

“So I guess I’m supposed to take your soul?” - he figures someday

you just shrug it off and agree because ever since he suddenly moved in with you you two have become pretty good friends

also he’s very cute and seems clueless as to how a demon is supposed to behave, so you secretly don’t think he’d ever be able to take your soul

plus, you know he’s taken a liking to you and his soft spot for you won’t allow him to harm you

really you kinda just chill in your room all day and watch series or play games??

he’s more like a brother you get along with super well than a demon trying to kill you

however, when other demons find out that he’s not doing his job, they decide to do it for him

you can trust him to always hide you well and keep the other demons at a distance

he will do everything he can to protect you from them

Renjun:

the annoyed demon

has been living as a demon for so long that he’s kinda getting tired of it tbh

especially if he ends up choosing a person who doesn’t give up their soul so easily

unfortunately, you are one of those people

so when he realizes this, he just begins to dread the whole thing aksdjfölka

however, he takes his duties as a demon very seriously, and his pride won’t just let him ditch you - he has to see this through until the end

when he finally reveals himself to you, because you just will not give him any kind of opening to steal your soul otherwise, you are understandably scared at first

however, when he offers to grant you your biggest wish, you start to wonder if it’s worth making a deal with him, because surely he must want something in return?

you stay suspicious and start asking questions to figure out what exactly he is

and in the end this discussion is being dragged out so much that he simply lets out a deep sigh and admits everything lol

but since he already promised to grant you a wish, you decide to trick him and wish for him to be your loyal servant until the end of time

which, in your dictionary means he shouldn’t be able to take your soul in the first place, and in his eyes it means that he might still have a chance

so here he is, your own personal servant, who you also just made a pact with

you make him do stuff like bringing you snacks or doing your work for you at first, receiving death glares in exchange

however, at some point a weird tom-and-jerry like friendship starts between you two, and you actually start enjoying spending time with each other

he keeps joking about how he will simply murder you and take your soul while you’re sleeping at night whenever you annoy him in the slightest

but he says that with such an adoring smile on his face ???? 

technically he shouldn’t be able to do that, as it goes against what you wished for - he’s still Renjun tho, so you can never be too sure…

and no matter how well you get along in the end, he will still end up taking your soul one day

Jeno:

the soft-hearted demon

one night you wake up to him, looking all scary and threatening, on top of you, pinning you down to your bed so you can’t escape

you’re obviously scared and don’t know what’s going on

you try to scream, but no sound will come out when he covers your mouth with one hand

and then suddenly you see his features become very soft and the tension leaving his body

has a mental breakdown in the corner of your room because your eyes were wide with fear and you looked so scared and he just isn’t cut out for this whole demon lifestyle

disappears after that but realizes he’ll get in trouble if you reveal his identity, now that you know his face

so he returns one day, politely knocking on your window pane until you let him in :’)

you’re obviously suspicious and scared at first, but then he starts incoherently rambling about his worries

you understand nothing

he panics and eventually leaves again?????

he really is NOT cut out for this…

eventually he HAS to return to you though, because he’s in danger, and you’re also now in danger of being found by other demons

explains himself a bit more coherently this time and out of guilt he offers to protect you???

wasn’t he supposed to take your soul instead???

you’re not sure how this bundle of soft feelings and internal panic is supposed to protect you, but he also refuses to leave with a huge pout on his lips so you decide to let him stay for now

when other demons start swarming your home a bit after that, he makes sure to ward off every single one of them

you grow closer and you come to trust him eventually, feeling reassured that he can protect you

Haechan:

the troublesome demon

technically pretty smart, because he takes the time to observe and get to know about you first

however, when you can’t sleep and keep rolling around in bed and getting up and lying down again several times the very night he was planning on surprising you in your sleep to take your soul, he loses all patience

lets out a huge groan eventually and crawls out from under your bed, wordlessly goes to the kitchen to get chips while mumbling something about needing snacks to calm down, and then sits next to you to watch you fall asleep

obviously NOW you can’t fall asleep because there’s a stranger in your bedroom??? eating your snacks???

he does not explain anything, he just sits there grinning to himself while snacking away

only when you scream in terror that you’re going to call the police, he gets up

“Whoa there, no need to go that far.”

explains that he’s just some apparition and you’re actually already sleeping and you’re just having this hyperrealistic dream to process some kind of hidden worry??

decides that he could just have a bit of fun with you before doing his work, so he crawls out from his hideaway every other night to chat with you

eventually he also convinces you to play games with him and to cook midnight snacks together

he originally made this all a part of his plan to get you to trust him but actually?? spending time with you??? is a lot of fun??

also maybe he’s developing a little crush on you and he can’t decide if that makes it more dreadful or more fun to take your soul later on

he ends up getting really attached to you and clings to you all the time

that is until one night, another demon comes to take your soul and he protects you, ending up explaining everything to you

becomes your personal guardian and gaming buddy after that

Jaemin:

the responsible demon

one day he simply appears and starts telling you what to do??

nags you to do your homework and teaches you how to do taxes

gets really annoying when you don’t do your chores

“I cannot have you live like this.”

lists 74385723 reasons why you should keep your house clean and take care of yourself (literally who askeddddd???)

threatens you to take your soul on the spot if you don’t do what he says aksjdflka

actually very caring and means well, but just cannot watch you procrastinate on stuff that needs to be done eventually

at this point he doesn’t feel like an intruder anymore, so you just accept that there’s this supernatural being somehow supporting you in getting your life together

he also doesn’t really give you the time to figure out that maybe keeping him around could potentially be dangerous to you

either way, you actually come to appreciate his efforts in motivating you, and as he too gets more used to you and takes a liking to you, his words become more gentle

that doesn’t mean he will let you slack off and procrastinate on things that are just stressing you out unnecessarily because you keep not doing them

also has weirdly specific household tips and tricks for you??

if you attempt to cut into your sleep time by staying up too late, he will literally pull you to your bed and not let you get up again until morning kjsdflkas

forces you into taking good care of yourself, and he’s somehow both the nicest and the most annoying being you know

but as a responsible demon, he still has to do his job of taking your soul eventually

however, there’s still some time until then; after all he has to make sure you’re eating three healthy meals a day and that your tax return is filled out correctly

Chenle:

the melancholic demon

tells you in detail about how life on earth was 800 years ago

you think you’re having a fever dream when someone suddenly emerges from under your bed and starts off a conversation with “You know, back in my days…”

dude, you’re like 20, what are you talking about???

really, he’s been wandering this world for hundreds of years, not aging physically due to him being a demon

and now he’s here to take your soul - he doesn’t literally tell you that though

instead, he starts openly explaining how he’s taken the souls of many other people and how you can’t escape him anyway, due to his experience and knowledge of the human mind

basically he’s explaining to you in the most chill and unfazed way possible that he’s about to kill you, while throwing in some memories here and there, feeling nostalgic

you’re in for a very long night, because this guy just won’t stop talking and sharing his wisdom, and at times it seems like he doesn’t even care if you’re listening or not

at some point asks if you happen to have a good bottle of wine at home??? kind of like a last supper he wants to have with you??

what is wrong with him

eventually you join in on the conversation and he finds what you’re saying so interesting that he takes an instant interest in you

maybe he won’t take your soul right away?

you somehow end up talking until sunrise, and to your surprise he simply crawls back under your bed and disappears? you feel even more like you just had a very long fever dream now

however, the following night he returns to talk to you again, claiming that he had so much fun and for as long as you manage to entertain him he will spare you

obviously you feel very pressured now, maybe even so pressured that you fail to find something to talk about at all

rest assured though, he’s been in this for long enough to not let any chance to enjoy the small things in life slip away, so he always helps you out in finding a topic for a conversation

Jisung:

the awkward demon

has no clue what he’s doing

like that villain who always explains his grand plan of evil to you before actually executing it, except make it very awkward and also there is no actual execution of the plan that follows

he’s a shy bean and who even ever thought he’d do well as an entity designed entirely to take people’s souls???

and it’s his first time taking someone’s soul too, so he’s just very anxious, and what if he embarrasses himself??? (like that’s the part he should be most worried about???)

anyway, he has a super-foolproof plan (at least he thinks it’s foolproof), which already fails at step one

so one night you’re lying in your bed, about to fall asleep, when you hear something rustling under your bed

you don’t think much of it, but when you hear the noise again you decide to get up and take a look

you turn on the lights and find a person hiding there in plain sight, eyes squinting because it’s too bright and holding a huge bag of sweets in his arms

he’s very dumbfounded

eventually he holds out the sweets to you and goes “Let me take your soul in exchange for these treats!”

you start screaming, because there is a complete stranger under your bed and how did he even get there??? so he finally jumps out, slamming his hand over your mouth

“Shh!! What if someone hears us or finds out I’m here?”

eventually changes his bribe into you shutting up about him in exchange for the sweets, and also slips up somewhere in between, revealing that he is - in fact - a demon

now he feels so guilty for inconveniencing you that he’s unable to take your soul

therefore he simply surprises you every night with a new supply of sweets

he still has a lot to learn, sigh…

[strawbrygashez]

I’m gonna answer some of the ship questions from that ship ask game i reblogged a while back for Patrick Bateman x Paul bc I feel like no one would care to ask for them but I really love this ship 😭

2. Do they have a dynamic trope? (Enemies to lovers, sunshine x grumpy, etc?)

Yes! Definitely sunshine x grumpy :) I would have also maybe said enemies to lovers but Paul never hated Patrick really. I mean he did think he’s a weirdo and talked bad about him to Patricks face (without realizing it was him) but everyone thinks Pat was weird 🤷‍♀️ Plus Paul is too easy going to actually have any enemies. Sure he has people he dislikes but he wouldn’t call anyone a enemy.

Patrick on the other hand.. well it’s obvious he saw Paul as a enemy lol.

3. Who cooks? Who cleans up? Who’s banned from the kitchen?

Paul usually cooks. He knows Patrick will barely eat anything he makes but he cooks for them both anyways.. or just cooks for himself if he knows Pat is gonna be especially against eating whatever he makes that day.

Patrick is the one who cleans up even if they are at Pauls place and Paul tells him not to worry about it & he’s got it. But Patrick goes on about how he won’t clean up right and how he’s a slob and blah blah blah. Paul thanks him with a kiss on the cheek which makes Pat all like 😑 of course.

Neither of them are really banned from either kitchen. Patrick probably wouldn’t let Paul go into his kitchen for a while though since he thought he left heads or whatever in the kitchen but once Pauls been with him for a bit & understands Patrick’s brain more, he’s allowed in there because there is actually almost never anything concerning in the fridge or cabinets.

5. Who does what chores?

If they are living together at Patricks place, Patrick does all the chores but not like really since if something is ‘wrong’ with his place it’s getting fixed the first second he realizes it.

Paul would take care of the chore of getting groceries if he lived with him. He writes down things they both need and takes care of either going to the store to get the stuff or having it delivered.

Also for some reason I see Paul wanting to have a plant or two in the apartment & after a bunch of convincing Patrick he won’t get soil everywhere, he’s allowed to have one. He takes care of watering it and whatnot :)

6. Do they go out often or prefer to stay indoors?

Paul prefers to stay in doors because he honestly doesn’t give much of a shit about looking perfect in his co-workers eyes but Patrick on the other hand would hate for anyone to believe he’s a shut in so Patricks making them go out a couple times a week to lunch or whatnot.

Paul tries to convince Pat that he can stay home more often but Pat usually just ignores him :/ Pat usually only agrees to stay home if he’s SUPER tired or feeling more off than usual.

9. Baths or showers together? Do they like elaborate ones with bubbles and flower petals?

Baths because Patrick is weird about watching people bathe in his bath. He doesn’t let Paul add anything like bubbles because he wants the water to be clear so he can see all of him 💀

If they bathe separately though Paul would add a bunch of stuff he doesn’t really need to. Patrick is fine with just showering by himself.

10. Who drives and who picks out the music?

While they both just usually go places in cabs, if they wanna actually drive somewhere, Paul is the one who usually drives. I can’t really think of a reason why Patrick isn’t the one to often but 🤷‍♀️ Paul really wants to play his own music but I think to make Patrick less grumpy about having to go wherever with him (probably to go visit Pauls family), he lets Patrick play whatever he wants. Plus he wouldn’t wanna deal with Patrick complaining after each rock song Paul plays anyways. Not saying Paul never gets his way with music but he tries to keep Patrick as ‘happy’ as he can in certain situations.

13. What’s their opinion on PDA?

Paul is hypothetically more open to it. He’d love to be able to just hold Patricks hand when Pat needs to feel grounded in public but Patrick would be scared to death that people would think he’s gay. So they always keep their hands to themselves in public.

The closest they’ll get to PDA is they will place a hand on the others shoulder at work in a ‘bro’ way like a “Hey man how are ya 😎?” type of thing. Even though even that makes Patrick a bit worried people can somehow tell they are fucking from that, 💀 he will allow it.

14. Who does fashion shows after a mall trip and who watches & complements them?

Paul would be the one to do ‘fashion shows’ while Pat watches. Pat will mostly just poke fun at some of Pauls fashion choices and tell him he has terrible taste but there’s always some pieces he will ‘complement’ (aka tell him it’s not absolutely terrible).

Patrick only tries on things when he doesn’t really need to if Paul begs him to. Like if Paul picked him some clothes up in the mall or whatever. Patrick will usually humor him just to get him to ‘shut up.’

Paul will them smother him with complements until Patrick gets too flustered and tells him to fuck off and goes to change back into what he was wearing before 💀 unless Paul can get him to relax.

17. What does a relaxing night in look like for them?

I picture it looking two different ways.

Either they are each doing their own thing in the living room, like Paul is reading or working on some ‘nerdy’ thing like a puzzle or whatever while Patrick is organizing his own cd collection for the 10th time in a week.

Or Paul’s spread out on the couch, playing with Patrick’s hair while Pat is resting his head on his chest and while they watch some gory horror movie 🥲 Patrick allowing himself to be like that with Paul is rare but it does happen every now and then where he somehow is able to get his mind to just shut off for a bit and let Paul treat him sweetly.

19. How do they silently/subtly express their love for each other?

Patrick will show that he actually does listen and care about what Paul says and do little things to show that he does. Either it being a small thing like Paul saying he really wants a certain book and then the next day it’s on his nightstand or it’s something bigger like silently allowing himself to be more vulnerable around him.

Paul is the one to be a lot more ‘loud’ in his expressions of love but he can be silent about it too like going out to go get things for Patricks skin care when he starts running low.

20. What clothes/accessories do they steal from each other?

Patrick doesn’t wanna wear anything of Pauls but Paul will ‘borrow’ Patricks ties and watches sometimes. And if Patrick is about to throw out a older shirt because it’s not ‘fashionable’ anymore, Paul takes it from him to wear to bed even if it’s not a ‘bed’ shirt lol he just wants to wear something of his like that so he does. Patrick will say it’s weird or dumb but deep down he actually loves it.

24. Where is their favorite place to kiss on their partner? What are their favorite types of kisses?

Paul likes to kiss Patricks cheek and neck :)! He likes all types of kisses honestly. He wants to be all over Patrick and wants Patrick all over him so as long as he’s getting kissed in anyway he’s happy.

Patrick is taller than Paul sooo he kisses Paul on the top of his head!! Patrick likes rough/deep kisses because he’s a passionate love maker 😎

28. What’s something that reminds them of their partner? Do they have anything on them as a daily reminder?

They both have pictures of each other on their phones. Paul’s pictures of Patrick’s are a lot more normal and sweet like pictures of Pat asleep on him while Patricks are of Paul when they were fuckin 💀

[morphingmemories]

Sooo…. I have just learned about reality shifting in January! I used to really be into lucid dreaming/astral projection when I was about 17(2020) and have had a couple of experiences with that.. but that’s not what i’m here to talk about lol.

I am a very vivid dreamer. I remember most of my dreams almost every night. Also, I sleep on my side/stomach. (This is very important to me, but may not be important to you.) The reason why I don’t sleep on my back is because every time I do, I always get sleep paralysis/what I have now learned is called the ‘hypnagogic state.’ (I also don’t know if I somehow manifested or tricked my brain into thinking that every time I fall asleep on my back that will happen?) ANYWAY, whenever I get into this state, I can sometimes hear people talking or sometimes even see people. Then I realize hey, this doesn’t make sense and i’m actually asleep right now. But, when I try to wake up, my eyelids won’t open or I think i’ve woken up when I really haven’t.

So here’s the point: Last Sunday, I got home from a long car ride and was super tired so I decided to take a nap. And I fell asleep on my back. And I remember opening my eyes and just feeling.. off. That’s when I realized I was in this weird state (I call it the void state because that’s kind of how i’ve taken it? But if this isn’t the void state then…. I don’t really know what it is lol) Then I remembered shifting and remembered the “portal method.” So, I decided to go into my bathroom so try to create this portal? But my boyfriend was in there when I walked in and I kind of got a bit like put off about it. Like my brain for some reason was like ‘yeah we’re not creating a portal with someone around.’ Also another weird thing, I could smell perfectly. (My boyfriend was taking a shit and I could smell it. Weird. Anyways..) So I decided to go ‘back to bed’ and just affirm I guess? Which just led to more weird hallucinations and an endless waking up cycle where I believed I had woken up but I really hadn’t. So eventually I did wake up, and I was telling my boyfriend about all these weird things that happened while I was napping. But here’s the thing: my boyfriend did go into the bathroom and was taking a shit. (I know tmi but that’s just how it was.) And somehow, my soul or consciousness, was able to go in there and see and smell him? Like I explained everything I saw and he said yup, that’s what I did (ex: Closed door, was on his phone watching vids, litteraly shitting lmao.) Also in this same experience, I remember ‘waking up’ but not being able to move and trying to call for my boyfriend to help (he was playing video games) and I could feel like a pained sensation? (But the thing was. I wasn’t awake when this happened. I was still ‘asleep’.)

I guess i’m making this post to see… what this was? This isn’t my only experience with this. I had another one where my sister had taken my room since she just had a baby and was visiting so I slept in the living room. The same thing happened, I kept hearing her baby cry, and I kept hearing her and her husband talk. I would get annoyed, force myself to wake up, only to realize it’s 3 am and it’s completely silent. Then I would go back to sleep, hallucinate the same crap, then same thing over and over.

Is this the void state? I do have an astral projection experience as well (or what I believe to be one.) But this post is already super long. I know the hypnagogic state causes hallucinations and such but the thing is: I am aware of this. I’m aware what i’m seeing isn’t ‘real’ and what not. It’s like i’m existing in it knowing that whatever is happening isn’t right or “normal.” I know i’m asleep.

Anyway, I’m going to keep trying to shift. And if not shift, then at least keep getting into this state more and more and see what else I can do with it. :)

[leftoverdinosaurbones]

Chapter 2: Decisions Made in the Middle of the Night

Series: F!Reader (Dark Urge), Astarion NSFW - minors do not interact

[Act 1 & 2 Spoilers. Set in-game]

This is a darker fic I am working on, so please mind the content warnings below!

You can read it here or on Ao3 - whichever you prefer!

Content Warning: Knife play, blood, clear threats/descriptions of unaliving the OC, manipulation, dubious consent.

Summary: Here we have two people who definitely make each other worse.

Additional background: Astarion is a vengeance Paladin & the durge is a rogue. Not super important for the overall plot but good context for this chapter!

In Pursuit of Power Chapter 2: Decisions Made in the Middle of the Night

(Chapter 1 here)

“Are you awake?” Astarion asks, wiping a damp cloth over his face, removing the traces of his nighttime hunt.

You clear your throat to break up the thick sleep that coats your throat like honey, hoping it won’t betray your answer.

“Yes.” The lie tumbles easily out of your mouth.

Astarion rolls his eyes, running his hand through his hair to fix his perfectly soft curls.

“Well, I’m not sure lying prone on your bed roll counts as keeping a watchful eye during your shift. But as long as you are awake, I suppose.”

You push yourself up on both of your hands, shooting a glare in his direction.

In reality, you’d only recently been able to doze off. You’d barely managed to scrap together a few moments of rest as your mind raced. You’ve been consumed by everything that has happened since last night, when the butler paid you a visit and ordered you to kill Isobel.

The memory of it made you bristle. You weren’t against the bloodshed - of course not. But the thought that he could come into your camp, uninvited, and make demands of you - you clenched your jaw, grinding your teeth together at the audacity of the thought. He wouldn’t even tell you why Isobel needed to die. Instead, he spouted some tired excuse of innocence. You have no problem with killing - you relished it - but it will be on your terms. You will not be used as a mindless machine for others.

Earlier in the day, you also learned the meaning behind Astarion’s scars. He’d been uncharacteristically silent since Raphael explained their purpose, and Cazador’s intentions: to perform the Rite of Profane Ascension. If Cazador was successful, he would kill Astarion in the process. When you all returned to camp yesterday evening, Astarion retreated silently into the woods. Now, he is back for the first time since hearing of his potential fate.

“Since we are both up, why don’t we get some training in?” you offer, watching Astarion continue to preen himself.

Astarion let out a sharp, mocking laugh.

“Training? With you? And what could I possibly stand to learn from you that I haven’t already mastered in 200 years?”

“Honestly, your hand-to-hand fighting leaves much to be desired. You rely on your greatsword too much.” You sneer back at him, pride wounded. His attitude was off; his words cut you more than usual.

“Fine,” he huffed. “Let’s get on with it, or else you’re going to pout about it all day.”

Anger blooms within you, like tongues of flame licking up your insides. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. You want Astarion as an ally - with his current attitude, this could lead to more of an explosive end to your relationship.

Instead, you kick your feet out of your bedroll and march past him, grabbing a standing torch. The pixie’s blessing keeps you safe (enough) from the shadows, though you can hear strange noises echoing deep within the trees. Astarion follows you silently, several paces behind, stalking. You feel the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

A small clearing opens up, just wide enough for both of you while leaving little room to retreat. You both place your torches on either side of the clearing, the small flames providing a faint glow across the clearing. You unhook your belt and place it, along with your daggers, neatly on the ground. You dig around your bag to find a pair of leather gloves to slip on to protect your hands.

Astarion takes a lap around the clearing, flexing and releasing his muscles. Light and shadows from the torches dance across his skin as he moves. You close your eyes and look away - you can’t be distracted before you’ve even started.

“Okay. Let’s start light as a warm-up and work our way up.”

“I don’t need to warm up,” Astarion responds flatly, his back towards you.

Your eyes couldn’t roll further back into your head. “Fine. I’ll just match whatever pace you need. We can start when you’re ready.”

You ease into your stance, knees slightly bent with one foot leading. Your eyes follow his body, tracing the movements of his shoulders, his back, and the position of his hips as he moves to face you.

Your eyes lock with his; narrowed and focused. A heartbeat of stillness passes between you.

You slip under a fist flying towards you, landing a counter kick across his abdomen. You send a quick flurry of punches his way before he responds in kind. You block two punches to your face, stinging your arms, while he slams a hook to your open body. Wincing, you wrap your hands around the back of his neck and bend his body towards yours. You offer up two swift knees to his chest before pushing him away for distance.

Astarion looks at you from across the clearing, pulling his shirt up and over his head. A light sheen of sweat is coating his skin, glistening between the shadows of the firelight.

Fuck. You bite your lip and shake your head. He knows what this does to you. You clench your fists and ready for another round.

Your bodies clash again and again, meeting fists with flesh, ducking or blocking attacks that were too slow, landing painful kicks whenever someone was vulnerable for a moment too long. Eventually, your breathing becomes labored, giving away the fatigue building up in your lungs.

Astarion dances around you, peppering you with high shots, forcing you to bring your arms up to protect your face. You don’t notice as he brings his hand back to land a devastating blow to your diaphragm.

The ferocity of the punch surprises you - your muscles contract violently as the air flies out of your lungs. You clench your stomach as you fall backwards, kicking away from him.

Astarion is on you in an instant. He pushes your shoulders against the ground, and pins you down with his shin pressing across your hips. You reach up to his chest to try to push him off of you, still gasping for air.

His laughter rings with something else, something cruel. Pity? Disappointment?

He pulls one of your hands away from his chest with ease, stretching it out wide next to you. He steps on your wrist with his free foot, pressing it into the ground. Pain sears through your arm but you squeeze your lips together, unwilling to give him even a moment of your pain. You’ve suffered more than this.

He repositions, sliding his leg off your hips and releasing your arm from under his foot. He sits heavy on your stomach, a leg on either side of your body, keeping you motionless on the ground. You writhe underneath him, bucking your hips in a feeble attempt to knock him over, but he doesn’t relent. He gathers both of your wrists in one hand and pins your arms above your head.

“Do you know how easy this was for me?” He whispers, lips ghosting your ear. Teeth bite down into your earlobe.

You don’t know how to react. You know you’re a good fighter - but he is better. And he is looking at you like you are prey. You should be scared - and a part of you is - but your body is betraying your fear.

“I’ve killed bears with my own two hands. Did you think you would have anything to offer me?” His tongue drags along the skin of your neck. You feel your chest rising into him as you turn your neck to give him more access. Stupid.

A whimper escapes your lips as he pulls his teeth across the skin of your neck, pausing where he normally takes from you. You wince, embarrassed.

Astarion laughs against your skin before pulling away, reaching for something nearby. He is back at your neck, pressing something cold and sharp against your skin. With your own dagger?

“It would be so easy to kill you right now,” he muses. “I could slice your neck with one cut, right across your throat.” He drags the tip of the blade slowly across your skin. Waves of electricity ripple through your body, wrapping tightly in your core.

“I’d have one last, delicious meal from you before I left you for the shadows. No one would ever see you again.” His pupils were blown, eyeing you like easy prey. And you were.

“And would you deserve it? Possibly.” He brings the tip of the dagger up to your wrist, and pulls it down the skin of your arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake. You squeeze your legs together, needing some form of friction between your thighs.

“Do not think I am unaware of your manipulations. I have mastered the art myself.” He brings the dagger back to your throat, firmly pressing it just under your jaw. His voice is hard, and his gaze is cruel.

With his free hand, he reaches behind to unbuckle your pants. He pushes them down, and plunges two fingers between your folds. He pulls them back out, admiring how wet they are. He shoves his fingers into your mouth. You wrap your lips around them, sucking compulsively as you run your tongue up, down, and between his fingers.

“See how, even now, just moments from death, you are still so hungry for me? Wet for me? Hanging on my every word?” He removes his fingers from your mouth and wipes your spit on your shirt.

“This is why I am not threatened. I let you play your little games. I’m not worried, pet. I’m excited.” He presses the blade into your neck, blood pooling along the edge as it pierces your skin. You let out a gasp, involuntary tears pricking at the edges of your eyes.

He cast the dagger to the side and let go of your arms to lick up the blood from your neck. In this moment, you saw your small window of opportunity. You trap one of his legs with your foot, holding firm across one of his forearms to ensure that he can’t catch himself. Summoning all that is left of your willpower, you bridge you hips up and into him, and roll him off of you and onto his back.

Astarion quickly jams his knee into your chest while knocking you over his other leg. Your back slams into the ground, locked into the same position as before.

“Ah!” He laughs, a smile pulling at his lips. “I knew you still had some fight left in you.” His hand wraps around your throat, squeezing tight. You struggle to drag in enough air.

“As..tar..ion…” you gasp through ragged breaths.

His lips come crashing down on yours as he loosened his grip. He took from you, his tongue demanding entry to what you willingly gave. Your body keened up towards him as your fingernails bit into his back.

He broke the kiss after a few moments, looking down at you.

“We will be a most formidable team. Like I said, we are cut from the same cloth, two souls walking along the same path.” He stood up and stepped away from you before extending a hand to help you up.

His eyes softened as he looked you up and down, seeing the damage he inflicted on your body. The parts of him that you recognized glittered gently before they were swept away, buried behind his mask.

“I’ve made a decision. I am going to stop Cazador from doing the ritual. I will take his place, and ascend instead.” He took your hand in his.

“And you are going to help me.”

[bvannn]

Weekly Update September 22, 2023

I’ve been all over the place this week but I think? I’m getting myself back together? Obviously the big news was that internship, I’m very excited for it, but because it’s next semester and not this semester it does leave me in a weird waiting game position. I was really hoping I’d be able to drop my bio course this semester because I’m terrible at bio but it is what it is, and if I have to get through one kinda crappy course to get the the internship, so be it. I also got the okay to go donate plasma again this week, so I can earn some more passive cash. I’m hoping to earn a spot at the chem stockroom too, but the delays with the internship may have cost me that opportunity. I’m still doing what I can though.

I’ve got a few drawings done this week, I want to do more but I am still battling exhaustion. I’ll try to get more done passively but I’m hitting a bit of art block in the way of just drawings, unfortunately. Maybe I’ll take a crack at inktober, but I don’t really know if dragging out my old ink pens and brushes would be worth it. I could do a non ink based one like artober or whatever but that just kinda feels like a copout. I’ll try to either pull together a comic or something in the way of OCs maybe, but I’m still prioritizing other projects.

Took another crack at music today, got the start of some drums and a guitar bass going, I’ll need to add an actual bass guitar and figure out some song structure but I’m getting close to going somewhere. Whatever it is probably won’t be very good because it’s a first try but once I get good and find my style I can always remaster it or whatever. Once I’ve built up some confidence I can take a crack at the other project I want to do. I don’t know if what I was doing on drums was even right but I can look at another little feature with komplete kontrol later to see if any of the samples there would help. I can also redo stuff as I go. Or maybe I’ll celebrate being able to donate plasma again by buying one of those fingertip gloves they make for archery, but instead I’ll use it to play guitar without slicing my untrained fingers. Or one of them grip training things, so I can learn those Van Halen style hammer ons. I need a fidget thing for plasma donation so it’s be useful there too.

Animation is going well. Jon is done for shot 1-3, Emile is almost done. Only reason I’m not finishing him tonight is because I’m tired. I forget if shot 1-4 or 1-5 or which one was the super prop heavy one I’m not looking forward to but it’s probably fine. Really I’d like to do an animation clip or something with my OCs after getting some music done but that’s a ways off. That’s why I want to do more with music but we’ll see how much time allows for that.

Waiting for internship and surgery is hitting hard so I might be in a bit of a slump for a while but I’m going to try to keep getting stuff done.

[parageist]

oh boy

1. yes very much fortunately

2. my family when we opened presents together

3. yes i am a normal human who experiences many emotions, one such being regret. a lot

4. no YOUR insecure!! haha….:ha…

5. single i guess?

6. either when i’m a crusty decaying grandma in my sleep or like sacrificing myself for something action movie hero girl style

7. candy cane

8. yea, lacrosse when i was in 7th grade. you’ll never guess what my number was (hint: it’s 69)

9. yea

10. i don’t think i’ve ever had a physical fight with someone but i have had verbal arguments that made my blood boil to the point where i wanted to punch someone but i’ve never punched someone or been punched

11. kinda

12. i don’t think so

13. there’s always someone evil out there to hate

14. yes

15. yes a cat and dog but our dog has some behavioral issues so we won’t be able to keep her here for long :(

16. tired. stayed up until 4 am watching kwite videos and having an anxious doom spiral and then got like 4 hours of asleep. but hey i got some cool gifts for crimmy.

17. no that sounds disgusting

18. only if they crawl on me without me knowing or they like jumpscare me but once i notice them and realize what’s going on i’m chill. carry on little guy.

19. maybe

20. their house

21. eat, sleep, yiik, repeat😎

22. only if i could somehow dedicate 100% of my time to caring for them

23. nope

24. science. i also really like art but i never got the best grades in it because the grading system for art is stupid. fuck you

25. yes

26. sleep

27. yeah. unintentionally (if that even makes a difference)

28. nope

29. yea

30. i could go on for hours about everything wrong with the world but right now im grumpy because my eyes are super dry. one of the side effects of vyvanse and sertraline (medications i take) is making your eyes really dry for some reason. it also doesn’t help that im on screens a lot. also doesn’t help my crippling medical anxiety about my vision lmao

31. my family, pets, and friends

32. ourple

33. no but i have anxiety that makes me constantly afraid people are gonna backstab me

34. i don’t remember the one i had last night but a couple nights ago i had one where it was like this sci fi drama about this astronaut living alone on an asteroid and he finds this weird crater with a bunch of junk in it, such as this mysterious egg-shaped backpack. then i was with my friend in the woods but my dog was also with us and she kept shitting in front of random people in the forest. then me and the same friend were playing some ttrpg based on the sci-fi drama mentioned above but all the minis were these weird multicolored lego trains from the 60s

35. my mom and sister

36. yeah

37. forgive obviously.

38. probably, but a lot of my pre-2020 years were great as well, though that’s just because i was young and things seemed easier lmao

39. 14

40. nope

51. wait what the fuck why does it skip al the way to fifty one. Screw You?! jk… uhhhh i guess pizza or ramen or something

52. i mean technically yes. things don’t just spontaneously happen out of thin air. but i don’t believe that things happen for a future reason. like, a building falls over because it’s affected by gravity, but it’s not like it falls over because it wants to crush anyone inside it. i may also be confused about the difference between cause and reason. everything has a cause but only decision making creatures do stuff for specific reasons

53. be anxious over my own thoughts for like an hour before eventually succumbing to sleep deprivation

54. in what context? cheating as like in a relationship? cheating in a game? cheating in life?

55. i eat babies and kick puppies��jk i don’t bite. im just Silly

56. 0… unless you count the imaginary people im arguing with in my head constantly. i am a veteran in mental fisticuffs

57. don’t gatekeep peoples love for not being “true” enough but also i think sometimes people fake their love for some reason

58. thunderstorms and windstorms are always the coolest, but rain and snow are the most calm and relaxing to me.

59. yes. the way it silently falls upon the land, turning everything into a blank white, absorbing sound and heat itself. it’s super disco 😎

60. maybe for the legal benefits but idk

61. yes

62. a lot of things :3

63. already did 🏳️‍⚧️

64. unconsensually? then yeah that wouldn’t just be hard, it would be impossible. but im also not just gonna ask people im not dating to kiss them. unless i know they’d be okay with it

65. im bisexual. this question means nothing to me. 😎

66. wtf is this whole “opposite sex” thing. my tumblrinas are of all genders and im constantly saying the most mentally unwell things and they still follow me so yeah :)

67. my dad??? but if you mean talk as in like, casual, non family talk, then uhhh idk. i don’t really know the genders of a lot of my friends i just see them all as being Fellas

68. myself😁

69. the hopeless romantic, childish part of me wants to. but idk. perfection doesn’t exist

70. my parents and sister. or like if my death would save multiple random people

70 horrible questions ... Fuck it

01: Do you have a good relationship with your parents? 02: Who did you last say “I love you” to? 03: Do you regret anything? 04: Are you insecure? 05: What is your relationship status? 06: How do you want to die? 07: What did you last eat? 08: Played any sports? 09: Do you bite your nails? 10: When was your last physical fight? 11: Do you like someone? 12: Have you ever stayed up 48 hours? 13: Do you hate anyone at the moment? 14: Do you miss someone? 15: Have any pets? 16: How exactly are you feeling at the moment? 17: Ever made out in the bathroom? 18: Are you scared of spiders? 19: Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? 20: Where was the last place you snogged someone? 21: What are your plans for this weekend? 22: Do you want to have kids? How many? 23: Do you have piercings? How many? 24: What is/are/were your best subject(s)? 25: Do you miss anyone from your past? 26: What are you craving right now? 27: Have you ever broken someone’s heart? 28: Have you ever been cheated on? 29: Have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry? 30: What’s irritating you right now? 31: Does somebody love you? 32: What is your favourite color? 33: Do you have trust issues? 34: Who/what was your last dream about? 35: Who was the last person you cried in front of? 36: Do you give out second chances too easily? 37: Is it easier to forgive or forget? 38: Is this year the best year of your life? 39: How old were you when you had your first kiss? 40: Have you ever walked outside completely naked? 51: Favourite food? 52: Do you believe everything happens for a reason? 53: What is the last thing you did before you went to bed last night? 54: Is cheating ever okay? 55: Are you mean? 56: How many people have you fist fought? 57: Do you believe in true love? 58: Favourite weather? 59: Do you like the snow? 60: Do you wanna get married? 61: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby? 62: What makes you happy? 63: Would you change your name? 64: Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed? 65: Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? 66: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex who you can act your complete self around? 67: Who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to? 68: Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? 69: Do you believe in soulmates? 70: Is there anyone you would die for?

[rottenbrainstuff]

Bg3 playthrough - House of Grief (it all comes together for my tav)

Spoilers!

Some notes first: I’ve been noticing lately that I’ve got some annoying bugs happening after patch 6… I can’t say they 100% for sure never happened before the patch, but I know they’re happening a lot now - quite often, the incidental companion dialogue as we walk around won’t load the audio - words will appear above their head, but there’s no spoken lines with it. More annoying - sometimes my character gets stuck in conversations. I’ll go to talk to an NPC, it seems like the conversation is going to start, but nothing happens: we all just stand there with the game frozen and no way to back out or go forward.

I thought it was so neat that Jaheira and Minsc had dialogue with Sarevok, and I never bothered to check what the conversation was like if you don’t bring them along - it’s much longer, if you’re a durge, and I probably should have done that instead. Oops!

It ALSO looks like I was supposed to have a cutscene with Jaheira after my bhaalspawn reveal dream at the beginning of act 3, but it only triggers if Jaheira is actually in your traveling party - simply being at camp isn’t enough.

Act 3 NPC names are the worst. It’s like they got tired of naming people and just picked random jokes or food related names. In a way it’s funny I guess, but mostly I don’t really like it. You guys are the ones who chose to fill the city to the brim with NPCs, name them properly if you’re going to do that.

You used to be able to pray every day at the tabernacle to get your buff. It seems that with patch 6, it’s now a one-time deal. I guess that’s less annoying for most players, but I actually liked doing my daily prayers. Every single time, Bhaal got mad at me, and I liked having my daily little “fuck you dad, you’re not the boss of me” moment.

Ok now the main event - I finally did the House of Grief. Yet another little callback to the older games, yet another pain in the ass act 3 fight. I really rely on summons now to help me pad out the fights, I don’t think I’d be able to win any of these otherwise. It was super neat meeting Nocturne and the little memories she had to share, but I wish I could see what the encounter is like if Shadowheart had the noblestalk. I was never able to get her to take it. She won’t just consume it directly, and I never had any options pop up in dialogue if the mushroom was in my inventory or hers or whatever. No matter what I did it never worked. Oh well!

Hey what do most people decide to do with Shadowheart’s parents? I don’t see a lot of discussion about it because I’m not usually hanging out in those corners of the internet.

I played through the encounter once. The parents were requesting, specifically, over and over again, that they wanted Shadowheart to free herself from the curse.*** You have the option to let Shadowheart decide what she wants to do, and I’m always interested to see what the characters are set to do by default, so I took that route, and Shadowheart chose to kill her parents like they were asking. It’s a very very touching and emotional scene, her parents say they will always be with her, you can choose to give her a hug during her cut scene, very satisfying tie-up. It felt like I made the right choice.

But then I went back and ran it again just to see what would happen if I made different choices, and it made me change my mind. I know her parents are able to articulate clearly and unambiguously that they want her to free herself from her curse, and I know, being a parent, I 100% understood where they are coming from. For sure. But just because you think you want something, that doesn’t mean it’s actually the best thing to do. And you know what… I think… my poor tav’s really been at a loss for most of act 3, and all the backstory he’s learned about himself. He kind of feels disposable. It’s the reason he agreed to Raphael’s deal: his soul is void to begin with, so it doesn’t even matter.

But I think it was the conversation with Sarevok that really cemented a positive course of action for him. Sarevok told him a little more about his position in the bhaal cult, and kept repeating over and over how I was made for murder, how I was perfect murder. And I think… the whole point of the game clicked in my brain. You know, it’s in that song, “I Want to Live”. That’s the whole entire point. For EVERYONE. All the companions. Each one has to find the reason to fight for their life, their own life, sometimes figuratively and sometimes literally. Each one is learning to want to LIVE. That’s the whole entire point. No noble but pointless self-sacrifice. No throwing yourself away, no fear, no hiding, let’s fucking LIVE. And I think it has all clicked especially for my resisting durge, who now wants every single one of his actions to be a big “fuck you” to daddy. My tav was made to murder: now he’s going to save everything, aggressively, passionately.

So Shadowheart’s parents want to give up now - I don’t think my tav is going to let that happen.

***plus I mean… I think another issue is that the curse is a bit vague. What exactly is the drawback? Shadowheart gets pains in her hand occasionally? I feel like that’s not a huge deal. Maybe if the curse had been described more, had more awful things attached to it, it would be a harder choice.

If you tell Shadowheart not to do it, you can talk about how - sure there will be some pain to figure out how to live with - but that’s life, life involves pain sometimes. Shadowheart will say that she doesn’t want to just give up now that she’s come this far, and laughs that it’s her parents that she gets her rebelliousness from anyways! They’ll figure it out together.

No one expresses any regret if you make this decision. Her parents come to your camp and stay there and talk about how happy they are. Shadowheart has someone who can actually tell her about her childhood and fill her in on her old memories. She still has a cutscene where she cries, but this time she cries about feeling like she doesn’t deserve to be anyone’s daughter. You don’t even get a CHOICE to hug her this time, you just do, and then her parents appear to comfort her as well and you get a great big family hug. Amazing. I’m so happy with this choice. My camp is very very fully now, with all my companions, and also Mizora, and Yenna, and Volo, and now Shadowheart’s parents as well. I like it. Wish a certain old Hellrider was here too, bet he’d have fun helping Yenna with her soup. Sigh.

So again I haven’t seen much discussion, but I wonder if there’s any discourse about what to do with Shadowheart’s parents. I don’t even want to look and see - I’m afraid I’m going to see ableist discussion about how Shadowheart’s mom is better off dead and should be put out of her misery and I don’t want to risk putting that in my eyeballs.

Hey. I saw some interesting discussion about Dammon and how his character is a bit more morally complicated than he appears. Dammon is a lovely guy of course, but he also very conspicuously is the only tiefling who misses something about living in the hells: he enjoyed working with all the infernal machinery - but don’t forget - it all runs on souls. In Baldur’s Gate, I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all that his forge is RIGHT next door to the Devil’s Fee. Honestly I kind of like this aspect of his character, makes him more interesting, to me.

Feeling good, feeling JOYOUS, my poor old tav feels like he’s finally got a clear direction. Next up is taking care of Orin!

[ash-greytree]

343i seems to be moving forward with Unreal as their main engine, according to reports from Jason Schreier. This leaves me worried about the future of Infinite, because it feels amazing. I know that you can make anything feel like anything with a game engine, but I worry that a Halo built on top of UE5 won’t have the same feel that Halo Infinite does.

I also don’t like how the solution is switching to Unreal. Given, Xbox does have a dev team super proficient in it to give 343i some help in the form of The Coalition, and that could help give 343i an edge in enabling them to make custom stuff for UE5 that makes future Halo games have the same feel, but that doesn’t mean that Unreal Engine swallowing up so much of the game engine market is a good thing.

The switch to Unreal has me worried about the future of Forge as a tool, as well. I guess you can make Forge: Unreal Version but I’m not sure anybody at 343i wants to do an undertaking in making a new Forge mode for a long-ass while, or ever again.

All in all I’m tired of worrying about the future of my fav franchise and seeing people punching down on it and 343i nonstop. Halo is special to me and I wish that the franchise and its fans could have *something* to celebrate. I guess continued development on Halo Infinite to bring new maps, modes, seasons and stuff is something that can be celebrated while we wait for more news about future UE5 projects? But in the meantime, bad feels all around when I was just starting to get hopeful again. Just gonna keep playing Infinite for the time being.

At times I wish that I could just do what other people seem to be able to do and just play the game/games I like nonstop and not pay attention to any news surrounding them that’d make me anxious about its future.

[faeriekit]

CLOSE ENOUGH.

*(This was originally an unbirthday gift for biblioteque on discord! ...and I forgot their tumblr username! So!)*

When Clark is young, he doesn’t know any different.

“Be careful, Kal,” Mama says as he toddles around the house, her hands on his hands, his feet on her feet. They march together, Mama and Kal, as they go around the farmhouse. “You’re going to be big and strong like your father. You gotta be gentle.”

“Gen’le,” Clark gurgles, the word barely English.

Pa laughs from his place on the table, newspaper in hand. “And smart, too!”

Father snorts through his cup of coffee. “There was no possible alternative. Kal-El will be exceptional, as expected of his house.”

“Well,” Mama says cheerfully, cutting Father a look through her glasses, “Maybe he’ll get lucky and won’t be as big-headed as you.”

Pa laughs, and Clark laughs loudly and openly with him; Father smolders into his coffee, and the morning passes.

Clark doesn’t know a lot, when he’s little.

He knows that he hears a lot, so sometimes there are things he’s not allowed to be in the room for: Father puts him to bed with a song and long stories of the science of the stars when Mama and Pa have tense words about money; Mama puts Clark to bed when there are strange men in the cornfield, and Pa stays downstairs with the hunting rifle; Pa or Ma or Father or whoever puts him to bed when the rest of his parents have heavy-breathed and strained ‘alone time’.

“I think Pa’s sick,” Clark says from his tucked-in place in bed, half-listening, playing with his bear’s plush limbs while his parents make noise elsewhere. They sound kinda strained, like they’re working too hard. Pa says that’s not good for you.  

“…That’s not what’s happening,” says Ma, too tired to talk.

Clark pats her hand. Ma sounds like she feels bad too. They move onto sharing a story while Father and Pa make noises down the hall, and eventually Clark gets to sleep.

Clark doesn’t think much of his family when he’s little; it takes going to school to find out that he’s different than the other kids in Smallville.

He’s different from a lot of other kids.  

“I have two names,” Clark tells Chloe at school, before Pa and Ma and Father tell him not to. His second name is a secret. Clark doesn’t know why, but he listens, and stops telling people why Father calls him Kal.

“How come you only have one Mom and one Pop?” Clark asks from the swings, Mike on the pair beside him. His feet pump back and forth as they swing. “Aren’t they lonely?”

Clark tells Tom “I’m not allowed to go outside of town without Ma or Pa,” even though it was super nice to be invited to watch the game with Tom’s family. Clark wrings his hands. “Father says it’s not safe.”

Eventually, Father and Ma and Pa are able to tell Clark the important things—that Clark is special, but not better than anyone else; that Clark is different, in ways that might scare people who don’t already love him; that what Father does is private, and is nobody’s business.

To be fair, Clark isn’t certain what Father does.

Father works in the attic, with equipment that beeps and chimes and hums and doesn’t need to be plugged in. He writes in a language that Clark only sometimes understand, and when Clark reads the results aloud, Father always corrects his pronunciation. The screen for Father’s work is clear and bright. There’s no static, like there is downstairs with the television, and when Clark runs his fingers through the screen, they don’t touch anything at all.

“Don’t touch that, Kal-El,” Father says simply, reading triangular words across the screen. Clark guiltily pulls his hands out of the screen.

“What is it?”

Father’s voice rumbles from his chest, his fingers never still on the keypad. “Weather results. I calculate the predicted weather for the next few weeks on the second of every calendar month.”

Clark peeks. That’s why he can’t read it that well, then: he doesn’t know any weather-words. “I thought that weather reading is super hard, and that you can’t tell what the weather is all that well?”

Father’s lips quirk upwards. His typing continues. “With inferior equipment, yes. With a little more experience and better tools, however, the accuracy improves significantly.”

Clark tells Eliza that a tornado is going to touch down at four on March 28th, since his Father told him so. Eliza, with her brown pigtails and hand-me-down play dress, puts her hands on her hips and calls him a liar.

Ma and Pa watch Father haul equipment out into the storm to take notes from their spot in the window, only for the shape to start funneling right before their eyes.

The tornado touches down at 4:00:23pm.

Eliza ends up owing Clark all her tooth fairy money—almost a full four dollars and seventy-five cents.

Ignoring my 15+ wips to invent new, worse wips is my passion. Don't look in my documents folder. Seriously. Do not.

[taurielxaela]

I need to get more writing done, but lately I’ve been cold and really tired?? It’s certainly not that I haven’t thought about it at all. Whenever I’m not focused on something else, my thoughts drift back to my story. New scene ideas, character motivations, etc. Just having trouble getting these thoughts down. There are a few plot details I need to figure out and it would be easier to write this next book if I could make up my mind beforehand.

I’m going to blame the weather. Yep. I just feel like if I’m not writing ALL THE TIME, then I’m slacking. I read manga and play games to take in other stories and find inspiration. I don’t read books as often as I used to so this is my way of broadening my horizons when it comes to taking in other styles of writing. Surely that’s still a worthwhile endeavor?

I also have a love/hate relationship with sites like Ko-fi and Patreon. Being able to share progress updates and behind-the-scenes stuff between book releases can be a great way to show that yes, I am doing things. At the same time… I feel guilty if I can’t make as much progress every time? Should I post more?? Find more things to share?? I don’t get a whole lot of feedback on my posts but I’m super grateful to every person who has supported me so far.

My love for the story I’m writing keeps me going even when all this stuff is stressing me out. Forcing the words won’t make the book any better. One day at a time, I guess!

[holdinbacksecrets]

hi i have a request maybe svt + taking care of sick s/o ( any member you want I honestly love reading your work so I’m just here with random requests:] )

hi! thank you for the request. i’m so soft for seventeen these days😭 i hope you enjoy these 🤍 (all 13 members for you, nonnie!)

seungcheol: he showed up in the middle of the night after you texted him bc your ringer is different from everyone else’s and set at a louder volume: “i didn’t mean right now.” “you sent me a list of all your symptoms and expected me to stay home?” brought throat coat and the cardigan you always steal from his closet. ignores your protests and gets into bed with you, coaxing you to his chest. you’re absolutely freezing, teeth chattering, and he rubs your back until the two of you fall asleep. stays the next day for as long as he can, and texts periodically for updates. will ask what you’d like him to bring over that evening

jeonghan: draws you a bath and hangs out in the bathroom, watching you relax. helps you wash your face when you start to get tired. warms a towel in the dryer to wrap you up in once the water has cooled, and you’re ready for a nap. dotes. all the doting. is proud of himself for finding a sweatshirt with his face on it for you to wear. goes to the grocery store while you rest

joshua: his boyfriend energy was made for this. his presence alone could heal, but he takes it to the next level with his dedication and the love radiating through every caring action. makes your balcony super cozy with fairy lights and soft blankets so you can breathe the fresh air and have a break from your stuffy bedroom. is the first person in your life to ever apply Vicks on your chest. carries you to the bathroom after you had a fainting spell and is terrified to leave you alone after that. literally won’t leave until your friend arrives, taking over during his schedule. worries about you the entire time he’s away. has to be calmed down by his members

jun: cooks the tastiest, most comforting bowl of rice porridge you’ve ever had. that alone is enough for you, but he brought over some fun card games if you feel up to playing. talks to you until you fall asleep with your head in his lap. moves so carefully when he has to leave for a schedule, not wanting to disturb you. you hadn’t slept the night before, and he was waiting for you to finally drift away. looks at you adoringly before sneaking out

soonyoung: lasts about an hour or two before he’s sneezing too… but when he stays in good health, expect him to stick to you like velcro. if he’s out of the country, so many facetime calls. convinces a staff member to facetime with you and show rehearsals. orders food to your apartment and reminds you to drink water. texts throughout the day for temperature checks. is amazing at being present despite the distance and making you feel lovedlovedloved

wonwoo: probably moves in with you for a week and reads in the other room once he’s off work for the night until you come in, with a blanket cape and a searing headache. takes a break for cuddles

jihoon: he feels bad for being so busy and afraid of getting sick, but still takes it upon himself to put together a little tote bag like a sick partner starter pack but better. soonyoung threw in a tiny tiger plushy much to his dismay, but he knows it’ll make you smile, so it’s left untouched. let’s himself in at the crack of dawn to drop it off. writes a sweet note and leaves it on the counter

seokmin: he hates that you’re sick but loves being able to take care of you. is very maternal in his ways. probably has a reminder set for your medicine and gets you up and moving every few hours. has a party in the kitchen making soup. might sing a little too loudly before remembering you still have a slight headache. his kisses nearly make everything better

mingyu: there’s nothing cute about being stuck in the bathroom, throwing up, and only finding bouts of relief when you rest your cheek on the cool tile. but he’s not grossed out or worried about getting sick. probably brings a book into the bathroom and reads to you or sets up a drama on his laptop. always keeps your hair out of the toilet bowl

minghao: takes you to the doctor’s office and the pharmacy afterwards. imagine him watching you at every stop light and continuously checking in throughout the car ride: “are you comfortable? i can adjust the seat for you. is it too hot? are you cold again? i have a jacket in the ba-”. “watch the road, hao. i’m comfy.” reminds you to move slowly, and holds your waist while you walk together. offers quiet encouragement and temple kisses. you’re a champ

seungkwan: he’ll pamper the hell out of you. brings extra pillows to the couch if that’ll make you more comfortable. bought a lavender and chamomile scented candle bc it’s a relaxing combination. does your laundry and loads the dishwasher. hangs out in the living room with you, but wears a mask bc he cannot afford to get sick “i’ll love you from the other side of the couch, sweetheart”

hansol: definitely brings you soup from his favorite hole-in-the-wall place and a new box of kleenex that are supposed to be the softest ones. you probably fall asleep with your head on his chest. empty bowl on the coffee table

chan: calls his mom and asks her so many questions. writes down her golden advice on the back of a random receipt in your kitchen. “i’ve got this. your recovery is safe in my hands.” his confidence is endearing, and you’re just happy to have him around. watching him revisit the receipt throughout the day, repeating her words to himself as he prepares a remedy or meal, is adorable and makes your heart swell

[peachycoreroo]

i was thinking, what about boys from haikyuu losing game and taking their anger on their s/o in bed to the point s/o is saying safe word, crying? if that's too much, just make them really angry, hurting s/o with words.

i was thinking about Suna, Kita and maybe Shirabu?

characters: suna rintarou, kita shinsuke, shirabu kenjirou

genre: smut, slight angst, fluff at the end

word count: 1.8k

warnings: fem!reader, angry boys, established relationships, spanking, one (1) face slap, choking, vaginal penetration, oral m!receiving, usage of ‘whore’, ‘bitch’ and ‘slut’, heavy degradation, semi-public sex, pretty harsh words are said, safe word is used

authors note: uuu this is my first darker piece for hq, but it does end in fluff!! i tweaked it so it fits the timeskip, but just a friendly reminder that this is pure fiction, your favs love you and would never hurt you<3 here's a link to my masterlist

pt.2: kuroo tetsurou, oikawa tooru, tsukishima kei

suna rintarou:

it wasn’t often that your boyfriend resorted to pounding the living shit out of you immediately when you had sex, usually opting for teasing you till you couldn’t take it anymore and begged him to fuck you or took the reins in your own hands and rode him till you were both shaking from overstimulation.

this time, was bad though.

the japanese national volleyball team just lost the finale of the olympics, resulting in them only getting the silver medal. no matter how amazing the second-place sounded, it still hit hard to miss the big gold by a hair.

just like how hard suna was currently hitting your ass, as he fucked into you in the empty changing room of the team. you only wanted to check on him when you saw how dejected he looked as he left the field with the team, when the tall brunet just ripped down your clothes and bent you over, fury dancing in his greenish eyes.

you knew how hard rintarou and his teammates worked for this. it was only natural they couldn’t celebrate. losing is still losing, no matter if you’re getting a medal.

“f-fuck, rin, it hurts”, you wailed, tears already streaming down your face from the full-force slaps that were delivered to your sore ass cheeks. being bent over with only the locker in front of you and sunas’ hands on your hips as a leverage to not fall face first on the floor, slowly took a troll on your tired body. it also didn’t help that your legs were barely able to keep you up with how powerful his thrusts were.

“shut the fuck up and take it, worthless whore”, he growled furiously, thrusts only increasing in speed, and a hand sneaking to your front, wrapping itself around your neck. the cruel comments that usually caused your cunt to flutter and eyes roll back, suddenly made your heart sink.

you knew he was angry at being defeated by the opposing team and not at you, but you couldn’t stop the heavy feeling in your chest, or the tears that seemed to multiply at his cold remark.

when the adjustment of his hips caused him to hammer his fat tip painfully against your cervix and his hand tightened harshly around your throat, your knees gave out and you tried to scream only for nothing to come out of your mouth.

“useless, fucking bitch, can’t even stand upright. why do i even keep you around?” he aggressively huffed, not paying any attention to your comfort. you couldn’t take this anymore.

your body went completely limp, as you whispered a small, choked ‘silk’, not even being sure if he heard, when his mind was so clouded by rage.

but he did. and his heart painfully clenched when he recognized the hurt tone in your voice, instantly letting go of your bruised throat and ceasing his thrusts.

guilt filled him as he pulled out and finally looked at you to see you sobbing uncontrollably, arms wrapping protectively around your form as if you were afraid of him hurting you.

“hey… hey, y/n, sweetie, look at me.” suna’s gentle tone had you looking up at him, your vision blurry as your pained expression met his tender one.

“’m s-sorry i couldn’t help you, r-rin’. ‘m sorry y-you lost”, you stuttered out helplessly.

here you were, crying and in pain, but still thinking about him. the brunet was sure he didn’t deserve you.

“no, i’m sorry, pretty. i got carried away”, the tall volleyball player whispered softly, his large palms cupping your cheeks, “i love you and i never want to hurt you. please, forgive me.”

the guilt etched into his handsome face showed you just how bad he really felt, your lips lifting in a small smile. “’s ok, rin’. i love you too.”

the tall male breathed out a sigh of relief as he embraced you tightly and kissed your forehead. suna rintarou would never get carried away like this again. that, he promised himself.

kita shinsuke:

when kita got home, all dejected and upset because some assholes decided to trash grandma yumie’s precious crops in the darkness of the night, you opened your arms with love and understanding. what you didn’t expect however, as you asked how you could help, was to end up on your knees with your boyfriend abusing your throat for what felt like hours.

your knees were aching from the uncomfortable position on the hardwood floor, throat painfully contracting around his thick length as he pounded your mouth as if it were your cunt, jaw hurting from holding it open for so long.

you felt like you would pass out any minute, and while normally kita would immediately sense any of your slightest mood shifts when you were being intimate, he didn’t this time.

where there was usually a caring boyfriend who wouldn’t take his gaze of your face and always asked if you’re doing okay, was a guy who had a far away look on his frowning face, only using you as an outlet for his anger.

the white-black haired male was almost scarily quiet, only occasional grunts and growls escaping his lips. your gurgling and gagging sounds as he hit the back of your throat with every forceful thrust were painful to listen to, and you couldn’t wrap your head around your boyfriend not realizing what he was doing to you.

as tears streamed down your numb face, you weren’t able to stop your teeth from grazing his fat cock, your throbbing jaw not cooperating with your brain anymore.

kita let out an animalistic growl as he pulled out of your wet mouth at once, a sudden slap to your tender cheek startling you.

“you asked how to help and you’re doing exactly that, but can’t even do that for me, huh?”, he spat almost hostilely.

the hurtful words, the harsh slap and the rage painted on his usually calm and kind face made your heart ache, as you sobbed out a ‘peach! shin’, please! peach!’

kita suddenly felt as if he awoke from a hypnosis, when he heard you cry out your safe word. as his -now clear- gaze fell on you, he couldn’t help his chest from painfully tightening. you only offered to help, and he’s gone and hurt you like never before.

falling on his knees in front of you, he pulled you into his strong arms, rocking you both side to side as he apologetically murmured ‘i’m so sorry, angel’ and ‘i love you’ over and over again into your messy hair.

“m’ okay, shinsuke. just wanted to help", you sniffled against his chest, making kita close his eyes out of pure shame that he did that to you.

“let’s get you into the bathtub and i’ll cook your favorite, how does that sound love?”, he whispered softly, as if afraid that any of his next movements would make you break.

the next few weeks you barely got to do anything, kita shinsuke always glued to your side and immediately taking over any task that was thrown at you.

shirabu kenjirou:

being a med student was fucking exhausting. shirabu had spent months writing a very important thesis about certain brain tumors on newborns, only for his professor to give him a c. something about it not being detailed enough.

“fuck you”, shirabu spat as he was sitting in front of the fire place in your shared apartment, throwing all 80 pages of the “not detailed” dissertation into the fire.

“ken’? what are you doing?”

“burning this fucking nightmare. ’m gonna drop out, fuck this shit”, he almost growled furiously. coming up behind him, you wrapped your arms around his neck from behind, leaning down to ask lowly: “you want a better way to deal with your anger?”

that’s how you found yourself bent over his lap with your panties dangling at your ankles. the spanking wasn’t new, your boyfriend being super pissed while doing so, was.

the first few slaps went as usual with you clenching around nothing and enjoying the rubs to the tender flesh shirabu hit a few seconds prior. after, it suddenly went downhill.

all at once, the soft caresses ceased to a stop, his calloused palm from years of playing volleyball coming down on your ass with full force and the copper-haired man spewing some of the most degrading stuff you’ve ever heard.

“fucking slut, getting off to this. you like it when i use you to let out my anger? i’m having a hard time while you’re just being a horny, selfish fucktoy”.

at the last sentence, you froze. did he really think you were using him? you only wanted to help, but his cold words continued. “gonna beat your ass till it’s sore and aching, you won’t be able to sit without remembering what a useless fucking girlfriend you were while i needed support.”

the logical part of your brain knew, that your boyfriend didn’t mean it. the anger got the best of him, and he just threw around accusations like he wished he could do at his asshole of a prof.

but the bigger, sensitive part of your brain convinced you that he meant every single hurtful word. you weren’t even hearing what derogatory stuff was spilling from his lips anymore, vision blurry and ears ringing from the pain you felt in your chest as well as your ass cheeks.

was this your fault? was it wrong to try and help? maybe you should’ve given him some space.

a particularly hard spank brought you back to reality, suddenly tasting the salty wetness of your tears seeping into your mouth as you cried out a loud ‘pumpkin!”, trying to push yourself out of his lap and landing on the floor with a loud ‘thud’ as his hands instantly let you go.

shirabu could only look at you wide-eyed when he saw how you were choking on your sobs and crawling backwards, just to get away from him.

“please don’t hit me anymore!”, were the words, that would haunt kenjirou for the rest of his life. he could feel himself tear up when it hit him what he did to you, his precious girlfriend, just because he was angry at a prof.

“baby, i- please i would never hit you like that on purpose, i- “, the male felt his throat tighten up and with a quiet sniffle he embraced you tightly, craving the warmth of your body. “forgive me, i love you so much, please don’t go.”

as you started to calm down, your arms wrapped themselves around him, wanting to be close to him as well, because no matter what, he was your biggest comfort and you still loved him.

“’m not going anywhere, kenji’. just… please don’t do that ever again”, you murmured against his temple.

“never.”

[springfallendeer]

Its not 100% what you asked for but its nearly 2k words so here we go :D

“A scavenger hunt! A scavenger hunt! A super-duper superstar scavenger hunt! What will you find? What will you see? Well, nothing but little ol’ me!”

Your eyes skim the sloppily written note that you found taped outside the door of the daycare. Its obvious who wrote it at first glance. The Daycare Attendant. A sort of soft, tired sigh escapes you as you crumple the paper up and stuff it in your pocket. You aren’t even surprised to find the note. The animatronic loves to play games. Both of them do. As hired help dumped in the daycare, you’re often the one dragged into those games. Whether you like it or not. Normally, you’d be happy to play along. But you’re in a bad mood today.

Not for any particular reason. It’s just one of those days where you woke up and decided that everything was going to piss you off. So you aren’t quite in the mood for the antics right now. Not like there’s much a choice. When they get up to these games, there’s no real choice but to play. Unless you cry or start screaming, like a child. And you can’t be bothered to throw a tantrum right now. So you reluctantly pry the doors open to make your way into the daycare, hoping to find the animatronic in question.

No dice. They aren’t anywhere in your line of sight. You sigh again, leaning back to try and think. The crinkle of paper alerts you to the presence of another clue. You turn around to read the next note.

“Looking? Looking? Look for me~ I hide in places hard to see. Places where my red eyes glow. You know where I like to go~”

Your eyes skim the next note. An annoyed frown makes its way to your face. They’re both in on this little game they’ve decided to play. Which is going to make it all the more difficult. You won’t be able to just switch the lights off to coax the other one of them out. So you really don’t have any choice but to play along. So you take the hint. Moon likes dark places. There aren’t many areas like that in the daycare. Not really. When the lights are on, the only places dark enough for him to be are in the play structure. Specifically in some of the slides.

So you very reluctantly start to climb up the slides in question. You know which ones they are. There’s only one or two that lack the transparent covers that allow light to enter. You don’t see hide or hair of the animatronic as you go looking. The only hint of you having gotten close is the sound of bells jingling. But when you try to find the bells, they quickly fall silent, which only annoys you more. Why is such a big animatronic able to move around so fast? Weren’t the bells supposed to make them easier to find?

Apparently not. But you manage to find the next note in one of the slides. You grab it and fall backwards out of the slide so that you’ll actually be able to read it. You discover a dollar taped to the back of the note and furrow your brows.

“Silly! Silly! I’m not here! Sorry friend. But hey, I have an idea. You know what I think? I think that you could use a drink!”

You groan softly, reading the note. The daytime attendant thinks he’s being oh so clever. You crumple the note in your hand after prying the money off of it. Then you grumble to yourself. Yeah. Okay. A drink would actually be nice. Free Fizzy Fazz was nothing worth getting grumpy over. So you make your way over to the vending machine, knowing full well that you’re going to find another note there. Or so you thought. Try as you might, you don’t find any note stuck to it. Not on top, not on any of the buttons, not on the sides. There’s genuinely no note.

Did that mean that the game was over? Was the whole point supposed to be getting you to have a drink? For a moment you step back as if to walk away. Again, the bells chime. You twist around to try and spot the animatronic, but nothing. Again, you heard them, but they’ve slipped away before you can spot them. No doubt they’re cheating. They’re probably using their wire to fly around. You can’t help but roll your eyes as you put the money in the machine and get your drink. Turns out you were wrong. In reaching into the machine, you find the next note.

“Thirsty, friend? I know I am. I know it’s strange. But I have a plan! Just one more step. Just one more climb. Hurry friend! We’re out of time!”

Your brows furrow as you read the note. You sigh. This note didn’t even give you a hint. Do they expect you to just spend all day running around the daycare looking for them? You take a long drink of the Fizzy Fazz. There wasn’t much choice, was there? You skim the note again. Something about being out of time. There’s a couple of clocks set up throughout the daycare. Were there more notes waiting? You continue to sip your drink as you make your way over to the first clock. There’s a note.

“Nope! Not here! Try again!”

You grumble to yourself. Annoyed. Not at them. Not fully. You’re annoyed because for some dumb reason, their little game is starting to put you in a good mood. More so when you lazily kick over a stack of play barrels only to hear the animatronic utter a quiet “Clean up! Clean up!” from their hiding place. A smirk tugs at your lips as you turn in the direction of the voice. An equally quiet “oops” sounds from the nearby play structure, followed by the jingling of bells. Alright. Game on.

You abandon the little note game and start to chase the bells. As long as they’re in the play structure, they can’t use their cable to go anywhere. You duck under the plastic bars and start to make you way through. There’s a flash of yellow and red in the distance as the animatronic ducks behind the nearest play wall. More bells. You dart your way through to try and catch them. But alas, they’re gone. You groan softly to yourself, annoyed at having lost them. You were so close!

A spot of white on the wall catches your attention. You move close so that you can read it.

“Nice try~ :)”

Oh. That cheeky fucker. They came prepared for mishaps like this. You climb your way out of the play structure. Alright. If they wanted to play, you’d play. So you make your way over to the nearest pile of barrels to knock them over. Then you wait. A soft smile tugs at your lips as you feel the seconds tick by.

“Oh no! Clean up! Clean up!”

You start in the direction of the voice as soon as you hear it. Again, they’re hiding in a play structure. So you make your way inside and start to chase them down. More ringing of the bells. More of them dodging you come every twist and turn. But the chase doesn’t last long. Mostly because the power abruptly cuts out. You hear a faint “Oops!” just before everything goes black. Your hands instinctively grasp at the frame of the play structure. Sun must have accidentally unplugged something. There were some wires high up out of reach of children that could get tangled up on him.

You start to feel your way around the structure. Not so much looking to catch the animatronic, but looking to find your way out of the structure so that you can find a way to get the lights back on. Or so that had been your goal. Up until you accidentally stumbled upon the nighttime attendant. His red eyes light up the area. You see the wire in his hand. Yeah. He managed to accidentally unplug something. If not for the fact that you had just spent over an hour trying to hunt him down, you might have been concerned.

But now’s your chance. You rush over and wrap your arms around the animatronic.

“Gotcha!” You blurt out, almost excitedly, as you proceed to cling to Moon. He in turn jolts slightly, dropping the wire as he shifts ever so slightly to catch you. An awkward laugh escapes him as he realizes that he’s been caught.

“O-oh! You caught me~” Moon chuckles, almost sounding bashful. You assume he’s just embarrassed over having lost the game. The weird little game hide and seek that they had used to make you run all over the daycare.

“You bet. Now give me my prize!” You reply, boldly, staring up at his bewildered face. A faint laugh escapes you as you notice his reaction. “What? Nothing? You make me run all over the place looking for you, and I don’t even get a prize?” You tease. Honestly, you don’t expect anything. You especially don’t expect him to wrap his hand around your face to pull you up as he leans to press his mouth against yours. If you were a machine, you would have rebooted. Hell. You were a human and you were almost positive that you needed a second to restart. A shy laugh escapes him as he pulls his face away.

“There. Prize~” Moon purrs, awkwardly looking away from you. You don’t have a response. Not immediately. When you do respond, its not even with words. You just sort of dramatically reach up to wrap your fingers around his face. He doesn’t resist you as you pull him back down so that you can kiss him properly. Just a short, sweet kiss. Then you let him go. And you stare into his eyes. He stares back at you, not saying anything. Neither of you say anything, because neither of you know what to say.

Do you tell him you liked it? Do you tell him that you want to do it again? You aren’t sure. A lot of emotions have come bubbling to the surface. Emotions that you had never really been fully aware of. But now you are. And you’re afraid. Because you don’t know what’s going through his head. At least not until he wraps his arms tighter around you so that he can hold you close as he dips his head down again. A third kiss. This one more passionate. You relax against him. Without uttering a single word, he tells you how he feels.

In returning the kiss, you tell him you feel the same.

Watering Hole

Idk. Bored. Funny idea, lmao.

Y'all are thirsty. Reblog with a thirsty request in the tags. If I like what I see, I'll reblog back with a drabble containing something to satisfy your thirst.

[mcyt-agere]

Helo :) can u do a cg! Karl x little! Reader.. Like reader is streaming and they get hate comments and they almost regress while streaming and karl helped them end stream...sorry if it don't make sense kinda feeling small rn :)

am too :) is cute

~~~~~~~~~~

End Stream

cg!cc!Karl x gn!little!reader

Warning(s): mentions of hate comments and involuntary regression

~~~~~~~~~~

You quietly hum to the music playing in your headphones, tapping your fingers on your desk to the beat as you wait for your game to load.

“Where’s Karl?”, you read out of your chat with a little smile.

You glace down to your phone, checking the time.

“He’s doing some work right now.”, you reply, waiting for the bar to continue filling.

It’s taking a bit longer than you had anticipated for it to load, but it gives you more time to talk to your chat.

“Chat, look at the new sweater I got!”, you suddenly remember, looking at the package settled by your feet.

You hold up the pastel sweater, displaying it for your viewers to see.

It came a little bigger than you had intended, but nothing’s wrong with a big sweater.

It’s also super soft, so maybe slipping it on isn’t such a good idea.

However, you slide the new sweater on anyway, grinning at how it fits.

The fuzzy material and oversized attire within the first few seconds are already making your brain a little fuzzy, but it’s nothing you can’t handle.

You’ve repressed this tiny fuzz before, so you’re not overly worried about it.

You hear Karl’s office door open, and you realize because of the time that he has finally decided that he should probably eat something.

“Guys, I-“, your comment you were going to make fades away as you notice the influx of negative comments.

Most of them are concerning your appearance, spurned on by the new sweater.

The slight fuzz in your head grows tenfold as you try to ignore the hate, but you know you won’t be able to hold it down much longer.

As Karl roams through the kitchen trying to find something to eat, he hears something strange on your stream that he has pulled up on his phone.

You’ve let out a shaky sigh, masked as annoyance at your game that won’t load.

Karl knows you a lot better than all of your viewers, and he knows the real reason for that little sigh.

He watches you for a few more moments, noticing the distant look in your eyes.

His mind races as he tries to think of a good excuse to have you end your stream, but he knows you won’t put up much of a fight no matter what he comes up with.

Besides, the excuse is more for your chat than you.

You know you need to end your stream, but your devotion to your audience will outweigh the thought of ending.

Karl abandons his task of finding food, making his way to your office.

The door to the room is open, but he knocks on it anyway to get your attention.

You open your mouth to greet him, but he lifts his finger to his mouth to silence you.

“Chat, I’m stealing (y/n.) They’re all mine, no argument. Bye guys.”, Karl rambles a bit as he clicks a few buttons to end your stream.

The second your screen goes black, Karl watches as you visibly relax.

“Tanks.”, you murmur, fiddling with the sleeves of your sweater.

“You look so cute. Did you just get this?”, Karl tries to distract you from the guilt he knows you’re feeling from having to end your stream.

“Mhmm! Dis mornin’.”, you grin as Karl inspects the sweater.

“It’s so soft!”, he coos, feeling the fabric between two fingers.

You start fidgeting in your seat, tired of Karl just looking at you.

“Color?”, you give him your best pleading look.

Karl thinks about it for a second before shaking his head.

“We both need to eat something first. I know you haven’t had anything since lunch.”, he murmurs, taking your hands in his.

You have a momentary debate whether to argue with him or give in, but you know Karl won’t appreciate you arguing.

Besides, he did just do you a pretty big favor ending your stream for you.

You nod, letting him pick you up and take you to the kitchen.

“Nuggies?”, Karl offers, taking a package of chicken nuggets out of the freezer.

You nod with a lopsided smile.

Karl sets you on the counter while he prepares the nuggets, watching carefully to make sure you don’t teeter off of the edge.

“Cuddles while they cook?”, he offers, holding his arms out for you.

“Mhmm!!”, you nod, allowing him to lead you to the couch.

“I love you, baby.”, Karl presses a kiss to the tip of your nose as you rest against him.

“Luv you too.”, you reply, giggling as Karl’s cheeks tint red.

Karl runs his hand up and down your back as he grabs the remote to turn on your favorite show.

You’re glad he helped you end your stream; this is so much better than streaming.

[frenchiesimgirl]

Some points I’m tired to answer to in flows of DMs:

Many asks or DMs we get as creators are about how to create CC or mods. And it’s really really cool players are so interested in creating their own content and have many great ideas. Sure we can provide some help to some point, or share few tips and tricks or resources, but it’s ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE to teach someone how meshes, textures, tunings etc etc work from A to Z in DMs! Which leads to the 1st point:

Stop being lazy, and READ!

If there are absolutely fantastic tools to help you creating your own TS4 content and making the process easier/faster, there’s no way that without reading tutorials and just by dropping an ask or a DM you’ll be suddenly flowed with all the knowledge about how the game works. Explaining step by step the whole creation process, texture formats, meshing etc etc is insanely time-consuming (btw be super grateful to all the simmers who took the time to share tutorials!) and it’s impossible to be exhaustive via messages. So imagine when you have to repeat all this to 5,10 or 20 different persons... Knowledge is NOT a magic thing which happens by snapping your fingers, you have to work, search, READ, and LEARN. The creator you’re contacting can help you finding the good resources, give you some tips when facing a specific problem, but there’s absolutely no way they can do all the learning and reading for you and in your place.

Sims4Studio is a good place to start learning, there’s plenty very good tutorials there, and most of the issues/questions you’ll face have already been answered there. There’s also Discord servers for creators like Creator Musings.

Know how to use your tools/softwares!

Another point is many people wanna create CC without any knowledge of texture editing or 3D softwares (or modding without any knowledge of Python scripting). Same as 1st point, there’s no way to make you a Blender or Photoshop/Gimp pro via some DMs. You betta work, honey!

Yes it takes time, you won’t be a pro in 2 days, but you’ll feel so happy each time you’ll improve your skills. Have fun in the process of learning, try things, experiment. Making mistakes is how you’ll learn to master your tools and softwares. Same as 1. , there’s plenty tutorials on the Internet depending on the softwares you wanna use.

CC creation or modding isn’t rocket science, but it doesn’t mean it requires no skills at all!

Start with small and realistic projects

The “I wanna create a super complex mod but I know nothing about modding” or “I wanna make a complete hair, outfits etc collection from scratch with no knowledge of Blender or Photoshop”, no, not realistic at all.

Start small, and take the time to do it well! For CC just try a nice recolor for example. Then, once you understood how textures and texture editing work, you can try a retexture (and create normal and specular maps). And create more and more complex things as you’re improving your skills.

(We all started somewhere, my first CC and mods were absolute trash, so don’t feel bad if you don’t succeed at the beginning, that’s ok).

If you start with too ambitious projects you may get easily frustrated to not be able to achieve them like it was in your mind. So stay realistic and take all the time you need to improve your skills. Keep your more complex ideas/projects somewhere in a folder, and go back to them once you’re ready :)

And the most important thing: HAVE FUN!!!

That’s just human nature, learning is much more easier if you’re enjoying what you’re doing. Don’t do a creation because it’s “trending” or because the community asks for it if it’s not your cup of tea. Use your own ideas, don’t be afraid to think outside the box. This is a super creative community, open to very diverse styles and ideas.

Find what makes you happy. Do things you wanna play the game with. Put your heart and personality in your creations :) It may sound cheesy, especially when it comes to a bunch of pixels or scripting, but it is what it is.