#not to mention multiple animation tools

[i3utterflyeffect]

He doesn't even know that victim doesn't know it's him. When he realizes he has kind of an "oh shit" moment of panic because now victim does know.

YEAH... THIS POOR DUDE HAS NO IDEA THAT VICTIM GENUINELY WANTS TO LIKE, TORTURE HIM.

[foone]

There exist another dimension called The Empty World. It's very much like ours, in fact it seems to have been identical up until a few weeks ago, but it always seems that way. If you go there today, it was identical in late february, and if you go there this october, it'll have been identical until september.

It's empty, as you might guess. There's no humans, and no animals bigger than a cockroach. The sky is grey, and it slowly rains ash. It's colder than our world by a bit, enough to require a jacket even in summer. The streets are empty, the cars parked neatly in their garages or in lots, but they're all empty and abandoned, their doors locked like they expect their owners to return any minute now.

The newspapers left on stands don't mention any oncoming disaster. We have no idea what the TV or internet would have said: the power is out. The power is very, very out. Not just the grid, but batteries are drained. The cars won't start, the emergency lights are out, and anything with solar panels seems to be getting less energy than you'd expect, even with the perpetually overcast sky.

It's a very silent world, like the calm after a snowstorm. Sounds don't seem to echo as much as they should, nor does sound seem to travel as far. The radio spectrum is empty except for static, there's no one transmitting on any frequency.

There's fewer fires than you'd expect. Even places you'd expect to soon catch fire without human intervention are still standing, undamaged. Campfires can be lit but with difficulty: something is keeping them from burning as they should. Even if you pour kerosene on a campfire it'll barely grow, it's like something sucked the energy out of everything.

All the locked buildings are still locked. Alarms don't sound if you break in (understandable, given the power situation), and of course no one comes to investigate. So The Empty World is your oyster: you can break in wherever you want (provided you can physically do it: some doors are pretty hard to pry open even with tools), take whatever you want, and bring it back here.

Everything resets when you leave. You always enter The Empty World like it's your first time there, like this just happened and you're late to the party... but the party keeps getting rescheduled. You can even take something multiple times if you want.

When you enter The Empty World you get there at the same relative position as you are on this world. If you're in New York, you show up in the empty New York. If you're in Topeka, you show up in empty Topeka. So you have to travel around this world to get to where you want, and you can't just appear in the middle of a bank vault... unless you break into the vault from this world. (So it's great if you work at a bank and want to steal from your employer without repercussions, but not so useful otherwise).

You don't just have to take things, you know. You can take computers and files and books and diaries. You will have to deal with recharging laptops and breaking through any security when you get back, but it's doable.

So, imagine you've just gotten access to The Empty World. What are you going to do with it? What will you take, and where will you go?

[smileysuh]

dark protector - TEASER

🌙 starring. Choi Seungcheol x afab!Reader

🔮 preview. “When I’m balls deep in your pussy, watching you writhe under me, listening to your pretty sounds- that will be the cherry on top of this birthday,” he explains. “Thank you for wanting to make me feel good, but- usually, baby, I like to be the giver.”

tw/cw. mentions of past relationship abuse/trauma/cheating, alcohol, bar fights, Cheol gets grazed with a knife, unprotected sex, dry humping, hand job, blow job, pussy eating, fingering, pleasure dom!Cheol, breast worship, dirty talk, praise, size kink/manhandling, multiple reader orgasms, groping, Cheol is a big muscled tattooed man, creampie, birthday sex, etc… I pet names: (hers) baby.

👹 rating.18+ explicit I wc. 14.2k

🍭 aus. tattoo/motorcycle au, nurse!reader, soulmates, etc…

☀️ mlist + an.  The tarot deck used in the prologue is ‘The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Guide Deck’ by Kim Krans. I had so much fun exploring a more spiritual-themed plot, the idea of soulmates and spirit guides and such :)

Seungcheol gives you the space to unwind. He doesn’t pester you with questions about the altercation with your ex at the bar, and you’re grateful for it.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” he asks finally.

You shake your head, your eyes dopping to his hands. “You’re hurt though.”

“Just bruised knuckles,” he assures you. 

“There’s blood,” you insist. “I’ll-”

“Tell me where your first aid kit is and I’ll grab it.” 

You direct him to the cupboard in your bathroom, and he returns with it, setting the case onto your coffee table. 

“How’s your shoulder?” you ask as you take out the tools you’ll need.

“Almost better, I heal fast,” he says softly.

It feels good to focus on his wounds rather than your own, and you gently clean the scrapes on his hand. His right fist is pretty badly bruised, and you do your best to treat it. Then you begin to slowly wrap his knuckles, taking your time. Two wraps around his wrist, diagonal across the top to his pinky, under the hand, to the pointer, diagonal- 

It’s a nice repetition of motions, and when you’re all done, you lift his hand to your lips, gently pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “All better.”

You look up at Seungcheol, and he stares back.

Then, he slowly moves in, carefully watching your expression. He stops just an inch from your lips, and you can feel his breath on your face. He’s waiting for you to make the final move, for you to be the one with control.

With one last look at your beautiful, dark protector, you close the distance.

☀️ to read the full fic AND 2.6k bonus NOW, subscribe to my Patreon, then click here

👹 or wait till the fic is posted on tumblr August 23rd, 2024

🔮 see what’s already available to read on my m.list

interact with this post to be tagged, priority given to reblogs/replies cuz tagspace is limited :)

[capsyst]

Here’s a breakdown of my animation.

Once I created the cave set in 3D, I retextured all of the blocks to be a wireframe so I could more easily keep the proportions correct as the camera moved through the scene. I began with a simple box person body. Not only did this help me make sure the proportions were correct but the different angles and sides of the character helped me eventually keep the characters features in the right places later. It’s very rough, but it was a good indication that I was on the right track.

Then began the tedious process of refining the animation. I did a new pass over the original animation with all the features of the character. It’s more detailed, but it’s just as rough in a lot of ways. I wasn’t trying to ensure elements were consistent frame to frame, so you can see a lot of the linework is very wobbly and inconsistent.

Once that was done I went back and did a cleanup phase. This helped smooth out all those inconsistencies and I worked on making sure the animation was smooth and flowed nicely. This became the basis for the final inks and color.

When I’d gotten far enough into working on the scene I went back to the 3D model and rendered it out in multiple passes. I did a flat lighting pass which you see here, and then a shadow pass. I combined the two in Premiere, added some color adjustments and then rendered it out to be used as the background for the final product.

I imported the finished rendered background into Procreate Dreams and began the final coloring. I’d already previously decided on the desaturated colors that would make them fit in this cave environment, so coloring was actually a breeze.

The final two elements that really brought it all together was a shadow layer and a glow layer for the torch. The shadow layer was tricky, but it definitely helps make it seem like the character is interacting with the environment.

As previously mentioned I thought I was going to import this into Procreate and animate it there since I like the Animation Assist tool in Procreate more than I do with how Dreams works. But ultimately because so much of this animation was tied to the movement of the camera I ended up animating ALL of this in Procreate Dream.

I’m really proud of my work here. If there’s anything you wanna learn more about how I worked or anything please feel free to ask, I’d be more than happy to talk about the process more!

[ms-demeanor]

Hey, if you have the time, would you be willing to help me understand whether msg is harmful or not? I'm seeing a lot of conflicting information when I try to look it up, though I understand that a lot of the basis of the (us) hate for it is just racism. In particular this paper worries me and I don't feel that I have the tools to parse it well- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5938543/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjyoJ_3-bqBAxXRF1kFHeF1DPMQFnoECA0QBg&usg=AOvVaw0i4ZlJU2xakrpbz-DMFx24

Okay, we're going to play chase the reference with a few of the links in this paper.

the [3] link there (which makes the claim that MSG reactions occur 20 minutes after consumption) leads to this paper, which is a case study of a single patient who had swelling in his throat after eating at a Chinese restaurant. That paper has only 7 citations, 4 of which were at least 30 years old (and one was 50 years old) at the time of publication.

Let's dial in to something interesting in that case study:

First of all, the case study that proved symptoms come on in 20 minutes was for a case when symptoms came on after more than eight hours. Secondly let's look at that last sentence - those two papers found that MSG consumption without solids (as in soups) was associated with more reported symptoms, right?

Well. Not completely. Obayashi and Nagamura's review found that the studies in which increased reports of symptoms were present were the ones in which it was possible to taste the difference between MSG and the control, OR in studies where the flavor of even the control was so strong that people might have thought they were being given MSG. The studies in which the MSG was dissolved in chicken stock found no significant difference between groups consuming MSG or a control.

And the other review cited there [7] did note more symptoms reported without solid food, but also noted that those results weren't reproducible.

So the root paper links to a case study that doesn't actually support the sentence it's cited in and that itself cites two papers as evidence that draw different conclusions than the authors of the case study.

That's one source chased. Let's chase another. The misused paper from the case study also shows up in the root paper.

the claim "75 mg/kg MSG significantly elevated systolic blood pressure" is supported by two whole citations. Let's see what they say. Obayashi and Nagamura are pretty clear:

That's the only observation of blood pressure listed in that paper.

What about Shimada et al.?

well, that actually wasn't what they were looking at, there were confounding factors, and the dose that produced the described results is twice what was listed in the root paper.

and actually the 75mg/kg dose in the root paper is mentioned in citation [5] in this paper and whoops, the low (75mg/kg) dose was *not* associated with increases in blood pressure:

Also. I mean. Jeeze. For an adult weighing 200lbs, 75mg/kg is 6 grams.

What did the root paper say they thought the average daily intake was?

so 75mg/kg is six times higher than the high end of an estimated average and is not enough to cause a statistically significant increase in blood pressure. Cool cool cool.

I've looked at this paper long enough now to get really mad at it.

Paragraph by paragraph, here's what this paper says:

MSG: what if it's poison?

According to multiple studies of rodents in which MSG was injected subcutaneously in juvenile animals MSG might cause obesity or neurological symptoms similar to traumatic brain injury. If humans were to get doses similar to infant mice being subcutaneously injected with MSG as toddlers it could be catastrophic.

This one guy even got a swollen throat from MSG eight hours after eating some soup once and some people who study headaches says it's more common to have bad reactions to msg in soup and he ate soup please ignore that actually the headache people weren't saying reports were more common from people eating soup.

Both animal studies with extremely high doses of MSG and a human study with broken links that doesn't appear on the publisher's website anymore suggest that MSG could do reproductive harm or at least make cramps worse possibly.

The way that people have discussed asthma and MSG in the past is really extreme and super negative but actually there's never been a connection proven there.

And actually it seems like maybe MSG prevents anemia? Neat? Possibly. ANYWAY:

what harmful effects??? You have not successfully described any harmful effects!!!!

this kind of thing shows up all the fuck over the place, look at this bit from a totally different paper:

that cites one nearly 40 year old study, two studies that are nearly 30 years old, two rodent studies, and:

and a literature review that does not reflect those findings and calls for further research because there is poor evidence for those claims.

I'm so mad.

I'm not mad at you, I'm mad that the root article frontloaded with a bunch of complicated neurological stuff that is difficult for anyone without a neuroscience background to parse (i sure can't) and then left the bullshit and misused citations for later in the paper. I'm mad that half of the articles cited in every one of these papers is skeptical of MSG as a risk or a threat and those skeptical papers are being linked to as evidence of MSG as a threat. I'm mad that this stuff is inaccessible and confusing because it doesn't need to be confusing i don't know why these people who work at universities and hospitals are writing these kinds of bullshit papers, I don't know why if you look for information about the safety of msg you get webMD "medically verified" articles that tell you to avoid tomato sauce. I hate all of this and I'm so mad and it's bullshit but here is a very long writeup on why the methodology of a lot of the studies cited in the article you linked are not ideal; this piece goes over a lot of the supposed harms of MSG with a fine toothed comb and generally finds that food amounts of MSG are likely fine and that it's probably worthwhile to do some research on MSG as it relates to fetal development but that it should pretty much be considered safe.

[elkian]

It's interesting watching the Dungeon Meshi anime after reading the manga pretty recently. There's lots of fun 'that's a surprise tool that will help us later moments' (not to mention spotted all the WL motifs!), but there's more.

Some stuff I blipped over on the initial read - partly due to the story starting out as a light-hearted Monster of the Week comedy and partly likely due to my own general obliviousness - has caught my attention.

One is how Laios engages with the other party members: when Marcille is down about not being immediately useful, he's the one who jumps in to support her, citing his knowledge of her unique skillset and the strategic value in her holding back for the moment. He has a high level of respect for his party's skills in general (I wonder if part of the monster mania is a bit of compensating for not getting to show his stuff sooner?), and a strong understanding of their synergy.

Further, as I'm watching the Living Armor episode, something has finally pinged in my conscious mind: Laios is smart. It's overshadowed a bit, I think, by his Monster Special Interest (a thing he is expected to be knowledgeable in, which also leads to the dragon expert bemoaning lmao), and his general role of being either The Weird One or experiencing Consequences of eating things recklessly. Which ig is all Monster Special Interest-related at minimum.

Anyways, combining my observation of Laios' understanding of Marcille and Chilchuck's skillsets, and how to best implement him, I realize in this episode that Laios is a very skilled tactician, and strategist. We've also seen him make detailed analyses and decent plans in the manga. I think this all ties into him being the sort of de facto party leader - not only is he strongly motivated on multiple levels, but the others trust him to analyze situations and formulate viable plans accordingly, taking their strengths and weaknesses into account. Heck, when the party gets species-swapped, he makes almost immediate note in their first battle of how quickly he loses stamina, and connects that to Senshi's behavior that he's observed in the past.

Sorry for not noticing sooner, Laios.

[oopwoop]

Playing Minecraft W/ The SpiderVerse Kids

pairing(s): Miles Morales (e!1610!), Hobie Brown, Pavitr Prabhakar, Gwen Stacy

warning(s): swearing! unedited.

i used this site to figure out/decide what type of player they’d be

i’ve been playing a lot of Minecraft recently and thought of what it’d be like to play with them so.. here you go!

Miles Morales (e!1610!)

He prefers Creative over Survival for sure, reasoning: he’s scared of the mobs and refuses to fight them

Plus in Creative it’s a lot easier for him to build stuff because he is definitely The Big Builder or The Decorator. He makes the most outrageous buildings but they look good

Has a whole world full of buildings and stuff. Like, complete towns filled with mansions

Playing with him is a lot of fun though! He’ll come up with build designs with you and you’d work together. If not, the two of you would totally mess around, building things just to blow them up with TNT or set it on fire

Miles is the one to put your beds next to each other. He thinks it’s cute, though he’ll do it without saying anything and if you mention it he becomes a stuttering mess and says he knows nothing and didn’t do it.

If you do end up playing Survival with him he will make you kill all the mobs, no doubt about it. He’ll make the base, probably trade with villagers, farm and kill the animals for food but not much else. He’s too afraid of dying

“Miles, did you put the beds next to each other? Because I know I didn’t.” You snicker teasingly, your character staring at the beds then at his character. You turn yourself to glance at him and notice his eyes are wide and he’s blushing.

“What..? What, me? Nooo.. That’s stupid why would I do that? Maybe you forgot that you did it because I didn’t.” He stumbled over his words, refusing eye contact. It was cute.

“Mhm, okay. Y’know, maybe I did forget. I think it’s a cute idea, though.” You smirked, kissing his cheek before turning back to the screen and continued playing.

Gwen Stacy

I think she’d play Survival and only Survival, claims Creative is for the weak

She goes all out in Minecraft, fighting mobs, getting achievements, going to the Nether, all of that. She’s not afraid

Definitely The Pro or The Achiever. Like I said, Gwen goes all out

She’d forcefully make you go with her, but she’d give you the right equipment needed and pointers on how to fight. If you genuinely don’t want to fight with her she’d have you farm and trade, pretty much do the smaller necessities for survival.

Has finished Minecraft several times, got all the achievements and everything on different worlds, never gets old for her

If you got her to play Creative she’d go on a rampage, killing everything for fun. Or she’d fly around trying to find different biomes

“C’monnn.. it’s not that bad!” Gwen would groan, trying to convince you to go to the Nether with her. “I’ve given all the armor and tools you need! Just try not to die.”

“Try not to die?? It’s the Nether, I’ll die no matter what! I’m not a pro like you. I’m not the one who’s finished this game multiple times.” You gave her an incredulous look, gaping at her words. It’s one thing to not die on the main world, that was usually easy, but the Nether? Yeah right, she’s insane.

“You’re overreacting.. Plus, if I’m a pro, wouldn’t that make you feel better that you’d be with me? Not by yourself.” She chuckled, arguing her point. You just scoffed and told her to go, following in after her.

Pavitr Prabhakar

I see him playing both Creative and Survival. Just really depends on his mood. Either way he’s having fun

He’d be The Zookeeper, collecting animals like Pokémon cards for real. Within the first 30 minutes of playing he already has a house full of cats and dogs, probably three parrots flying around him and is starting an animal farm. How? No idea, he just does

In Creative mode he’d spawn them all, naming all the animals with name tags one by one, even coloring the dog collars too

In Survival he’s taming every animal he sees, using a lead to bring the animal to a fenced in area. There’s one full of cows, pigs, horses, all the usual ones. But he even has them for pandas, camels, and turtles.

He’s also one to place his bed next to you, though unlike Miles, he’s not embarrassed by it, actually stating out loud he’s doing it. No shame at all.

When he’s not collecting animals, he’s following you around. He has no idea where you’re going or what you’re doing but he doesn’t care. He’s following and collecting every flower he sees, claiming he’s gonna make a bouquet for you.

“Hey, Pav? Where’s the- woah what the hell? How do you already have a whole army of pandas? Where’d you even get those from? We’re no where near a jungle..” You questioned, beyond surprise by the sight of around a dozen pandas in a fenced up area. It was even decorated to what a panda would need, looking like a small jungle.

“Hm? You say that likes it’s hard to find them! What’s so bad about it? I think they’re cute!” He smiled brightly, his character jumping around in the area full of pandas. “I have more than just pandas!”

“How?? We haven’t even played for more than an hour! When did you do all this?” While it was probably better not to question him, you needed to know how he did it, and seeing him more than happy to explain made it all the more better.

Hobie Brown (sorry it’s shorter than the rest)

He genuinely does not care if y’all play Creative or Survival, doesn’t matter to him, he’s gonna be a complete menace either way

He’s not any of the type of players listed in the site I used, he doesn’t believe in consistency. He can go from killing mobs to farming. His main goal is to fuck with you though

He never gets you killed in Survival but he will mess around. He’ll hit your character (without a sword or anything) when you’re fighting a mob and run away. It’s like playing with a child

I can see him setting a village on fire and saying something along the lines of “they’re capitalist pigs and deserve to die” or something

All in all, he’s not much of a fan of Minecraft but he’ll play it with you if you ask.

“Hobie, why is there a village on fire? What did you do?” You raised a brow at him, staring at the slight smirk on his face. It was a telltale sign he did it, but you knew it was him either way. There’s no way a village randomly caught on fire.

“What ya mean, luv? Oh, tha’. Yeah I did tha’. Bunch a capitalist pigs, I tell ya. Jus’ doin’ my job gettin rid of ‘em.” He chuckled while setting another village on fire. You didn’t wanna know how many he’d set on fire at this point.

“It’s a game, B. And I need to trade with them, they have good stuff sometimes.” You whined, huffing at him. You know he doesn’t care and will do it anyways.

“Find another one then, luv.”

All of them!

My god is it a nightmare.. first it starts out as an argument, trying to decide whether or not y’all are playing Survival or Creative. Mainly Gwen and Miles though, Pavitr and Hobie don’t care.

After about ten minutes of arguing they decided to ask you, so whatever one you prefer is what y’all played on. Either way one of them is whining.

If you picked Survival it leads to a pouty Miles, complaining how he’s gonna die a lot, and a smiley Gwen.

Within the first day Miles has already made a small base for you guys, Pav has gathered a few animals (he pouted when it was stated the cows and such would be used for food eventually, Gwen was mining for ores, and Hobie was.. being Hobie.

It was surprising to see how smooth everyone seemed to work together for a while, considering before y’all even started playing an argument broke out. Though if y’all could work well together while on mission, why couldn’t you in a game, yeah?

Give it an hour or so.. bickering over stupid stuff is bound to happen.

If you picked Creative, Gwen is whining how it’s for losers, which causes Miles to flip her off and thank you for picking it.

With Creative there’s a lot less arguing and bickering. Though there is much more chaos. Y’all are blowing up everything or settlor on fire for fun.

It started with you all just doing your own thing until randomly Hobie brings up the idea.

“I ‘ave an idea..” Hobie says out of the blue, causing everyone to pause. You all look at him with a face of confusion or hesitation. Whenever he had an idea, it was wild or something went wrong in some way.

“Great.. you have an idea.. does it have to do with the game or real life? Because I don’t feel like blowing up a building in your universe again..” Gwen scoffed, the others nodding in agreement.

“Yeah.. I agree with Gwen.. last time you had an idea we almost got killed..” You chuckled dryly, still traumatized from that.

“Damn, no faith in me at all, huh?” He rolled his eyes. “Yea, in the game.. Don’t worry, don’t plan on killin’ y’all. Woulda done so already if I wanted to.”

That caused another pause in the room, silence too loud. Thank god for Miles for breaking it. “Okayyy… what’s your plan?”

“Well, Gwendy got blowin’ up a buildin’ correc’. Though, I meant in the game. Why not have some fun an’ blow up some shit, or set it on fire, yea?” It was a smart idea, surprisingly. Everyone agreed, just with some terms, mainly Pav and Miles.

“Sounds fun! As long as my animals are safe and out of it, I’m in!” Pavitr stated, Miles nodding in agreement, but for his builds.

“Woah, a surprisingly good idea.. Let’s do it! Let’s blow some shit up!” You poked fun at Hobie, before smiling widely. It concerned the others at how widely you smiled but brushed it off. They agreed with the idea so they must be just as crazy then. With that, buildings were blown up, forests were burnt down. It was so chaotic to the point that the game started to lag and eventually crashed, causing you all to burst out in laughter. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

I apologize for not posting yesterday, but hopefully this makes up for it! It’s longer than my normal posts. I hope you enjoy!

Send requests! Love you!

[dinogoofymutated]

So I'm warming up to the idea of Cable now with this new animation style. And now I can't help but imagine a mutant reader seeing him shirtless for the first time 👉🏽👈🏽. Maybe she's helping him treat a wound he cant reach on his back and he's too worn out to rely on his telekinesis for it. Sure she knows that he has a metal arm. Techno-organic viruses were nasty business. But she never imagined she'd get to see the stark contrast of metal and flesh up close. Just a tender moment where she gets to see him at his most vulnerable. Preferably sfw. Sorry if this is too long winded or specific. Really love your writing and enjoy what you share with us regardless if u choose this one or not 🫶🏽

SFW!Cable/GN!Reader OOOOGHHHH when I tell you I have been thinking about this since you sent me the ask!! I've been dying to write this but forced myself to follow a schedule :( I've never really been a Cable girly but this scenario has been in my head non-stop! I just hope this fic does the same to others!!! Speaking of which, I hope this isn't too OOC for him! This also might get a pt 2 with some smooching 😘

Read pt. 2 Here :)

-Ps- Heads up, finals week is coming up for me and I have a lot of essays and work to do. my writing is sadly going to slow down a bit. I don't think I'm going to close requests for now but it's not out of the realm of possibility! TWs: Can't really think of any. Gross depictions of techno-organic shit. As always, Reader written while picturing fem! but no pronouns mentioned. The reader is short in this one, sorry to all my Amazonian friends.

    Prime sentinels were like wasps. Squashing one could be relatively easy with the right tools, but it was difficult to handle multiples at once. It had been a rough day, and your ears were still ringing from the sounds of blaster fire when you got to the safe house. Your hands are shaking from the adrenaline, body exhausted from overusing your mutant powers. Bruises are forming all over you, and despite the pain and soreness, you know you got off easy compared to Cable. 

    He’s got an arm slung around your shoulder, using you as a crutch as you help him limp over to the table- although you’re sure you’re not a very good one, too short for him to properly lean on. His gun clanks on the floor as he sits, grunting as the movement sends shooting pains through his body. You can tell his left arm is aching, the techno-organic virus fighting to beat the telekinetic powers keeping them still. You weren’t the only one who overdid it today, but you also weren’t the one who had to keep a virus from eating you alive.

    Once Cable is settled, the routine starts. You cautiously make a round through the safe house, making sure blinds are drawn and entryways secured. Usually, the task was split between the two of you, being faster and safer than it would be alone- but he would take it over when you were badly hurt. It was only natural that you would do the same. You feel the sting of anxiety and worry in your heart. Cable had saved your ass today. He had done so many times, but normally the fighting wasn’t this extreme. You had been stupid, and he was suffering the consequences. 

    A series of pained grunts lead you back into the kitchen once you’ve finished, and you can tell Cable is pissed just by the tone of them. You’re facing his back when you walk in, noticing the large red stain that spans across the width of his shoulders. You try to hide the worry on your face as you approach him. He has the medkit sprawled out on the counter, sorting through the various items in it.

    “Can’t believe this thing doesn’t have a damn mirror.” He grunts. You hum in response, looking him over before examining the items on the table.

    “What do you need a mirror for?” You ask, voice coming out a little hoarse. You clear your throat, must be from the smoke earlier. Cable sends you a look, tossing his head towards his back. You mouth an “oh” before looking at him, unable to hide your worried expression. You’d seen him stitch his wounds up with his telekinesis before, when the fight was all guns and no powers. An action like that was child’s play for someone of his capabilities. For him to actively avoid it, and the way his arm seemed to be bothering him more than normal… It made you worried. It made you feel guilty. 

    You look down at the suture kit, open on the table from where Cable had unzipped it, and then look back at him, wordlessly asking. He gives you a cautious look for a moment, before it shifts into something much softer. He doesn’t bother nodding, choosing to simply take his shirt off instead.

    You blush a little but quickly get to work, grabbing a pair of gloves and pulling them on. They’re too big for you, meant to fit Cable’s sturdy hands instead of your own smaller ones. You try not to get distracted by the sight of him shirtless as you pick up what you need and get behind him. The air has shifted between the two of you, forming into something a little more intimate. Something that builds itself on words unspoken, truths that neither of you is quite ready to communicate yet.

    His back is broad and beautiful, dotted with scars and bruises. The gash on his shoulders is from a stray blast, starting at the top of his left shoulder and ending at the lower shoulder blade of his right. 

    You’re not sure if you had been ready to see the cut-off between flesh and metal.

    The cords of metal attach to the skin of his shoulder in a way that makes your skin crawl. They sprout from underneath the skin, winding against each other in a way that makes no clear sense to you. The top layers of skin are rough, keloid scarring having formed at the impasse of skin and metal. It's horrific, the way the virus has both eaten and forced its way under the skin. The top of the gash is somewhat deep, the deep inner cording revealed by the wound cutting through the top of his skin has you unable to look away despite the horror that has taken you.

   “I can feel you staring, you know.” Cable’s rumbling voice causes you to snap back to reality.

    “Right. Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” You trail off, not fully able to place the words. He sighs, and you mistake it for annoyance. You quickly get back on track and begin to disinfect the wound. Cable hardly flinches as you do so. You’re overly cautious as you stitch him up, focusing on each stitch being perfectly placed. You know they wouldn’t stay for long. Cable had a habit of tearing his stitches. You hope that maybe you’d be able to keep that from happening this time.

   You place both hands on his shoulder blades when you are done. The nerves have worn off as the pseudo-doctor in you took over. You’re trying to examine the stitches, but find that your attention keeps being drawn back to that stark contrast of his shoulder. If Cable notices, he doesn’t say anything. You glance at the back of his head, trying to gauge what he’s feeling. 

    Your left hand drifts a little. Cable shudders as your thumb gently traces that line of scarring, the metal of his arm feeling extra cold compared to the heat of his skin. You’re waiting for him to say something. To tell you to back off. To grumble and shake you off and avoid speaking to you like he used to when you first started to work together- when he was so determined not to get attached. 

   But he doesn’t say anything. Not at first, anyway. The tenseness of his shoulders slowly gives as the gentle touching morphed into more purposeful touches, working the stiff muscles- what was left of the organic ones, anyway. 

    It’s intimate. It’s quiet. It’s… nice. Part of you wishes it would last a little longer. Part of you wishes he would let you touch him like this more often. 

    Cable stiffens again as the thought crosses your mind, recoiling away from you. He stands suddenly, turning around to face you. His towering stature used to make you nervous out of fear. Now you’re nervous for a completely different reason. Part of you had forgotten about the glimpses he takes into your mind. A flicker of anxiety ignites when you realize how much he might have seen. The two of you just look at each other for a moment, his brown eyes hard compared to the softness from earlier. You hadn’t meant to think so much. You didn’t think he was horrific. It was the virus. What it was doing to him. The energy and effort it takes out of him. That was what scared you.

    Cable was used to the stares. The horror. Most recoiled at the sight of his flesh. It only made sense to him when you did too.

    But Nathan… Nathan wasn’t ready for the depth of your thoughts. The care in your eyes. He wasn’t ready for the depth of his own feelings. The ones that cause such a storm within him. The ones that cause him to be stupid. The ones that make him focus more on saving you than the goal of every mission.

    “Is this… Are we okay?” You ask. He didn’t need to be a telepath to sense the fear that has swelled within you. Most of your emotions were always written on your face. It made things easier for him when he didn’t have to search for your thoughts. That hardness in his eyes softens yet again, and he glances away for a moment. 

    “... Yeah.” Is all he says. His heart feels light when you finally smile at him, even though an underlying nervousness still resides behind that smile. You let out a relieved sigh, and he can’t bear to look at you any longer. Instead, he sits back down. He faces away from you, giving you the space to finish taking care of the wound on his back. 

    You don’t realize how late it is until you’re finished, and the mess on the counter has been cleaned and contained back in the medkit. The two of you sit together as you eat. The food isn’t great- consisting of an MRE that’s not exactly as advanced as the futuristic weapons and technology would lead you to believe. He doesn’t say anything when you lean on his shoulder, or when your breathing evens out, having fallen asleep on his side.

  The aches and pains don’t really bother Nathan as he carries you to bed, but the thoughts of you, your feelings, your thoughts… Those keep him awake longer than any wound would.

[extrajigs]

Wanted to expand on some domesticated animals of Mirum. These are basically cat-dog birds, ranging in size from cat to medium sized dog. Still need a name for group over all, suggestions appreciated! In depth info below the cut! 

1. The OG This is the wild ancestral form, basically the wolf to the dog. They are from the grass/shrub lands of Mirum and spend most of the year scrounging around for food until the end of the wet season. Once the floods are over they pop out babies like nobodies business while feeding on the debris left by the flooding. By the time fire season rolls around their numbers are pretty scarce. They travel in little groups with multiple hens and one big buff man! But this man does not necessarily need to be a male, or a bird even! They were the first species domesticated by the chimera and the only one to leave Mirum with them.  The ‘Natural’ Breeds These are just the morphs bred into these fellas without any magical manipulation involved, so they still look relatively close to their wild ancestors.  2. The Cupid  These are purely pets, originally kept just for eggs they lost that purpose as more efficient birds came around for that. Now they just make docile lil lapbirds. Though inattentive owners will find old eggs hidden throughout the house if they’re not careful. Most of the time though they tend to stay by their owners ankles.  3. The Ruff Fluffy lil guys who make for great pest control, they’re a very sporty breed despite everything and need a lot of energy to stop them from destroying their surroundings out of boredom. Will do well with another ruff or dog of similar size, though they can be a bit of a bully in the care of a lax owner. 4. The Gallop Literally just made for running, can keep up with a chimera at full sprint and at a normal long distance run. For those with a more active lifestyle. Though they will just as happily laze around all day, just happy to be included honestly. These are also the best swimmers of the natural breeds with their extra oily coat.  5. The Dome This is a purely ornamental bird, stocky and colorful they are the most relaxed of all the birds. Most prefer chimeric company to that of other birds and have a habit of separation anxiety when not with their owner. In line with that, these are the most accepting of chimeric ‘talk’ with most quickly getting accustomed to projected commands. Though please don’t overwhelm your bird, casting the full range of sentient experience unto lesser beings CAN and WILL cause them existential distress! Not to mention your personality may displace your pet’s. 6. The Fluff  The original pillow stuffing. These guys feathers are softer than any other. Keeping a mostly downy ‘undercoat’ for their whole life. That being said these guys can get absolutely RANCID if not kept clean and tidy. Only for the most advanced and attentive of owners unless you want an unholy dingleberry beast skulking around. They also are VERY bitey.  7. Crested These are historically for eating, but have grown to be a very pish posh fancy breed. Most are pure white, thanks to inbreeding, and albeit are not the sharpest tools in the shed. But if you are looking for a bird who may just ignore your commands but love you eternal, this is your bird! 

That’s them so far, will make the magical monstrosities later. Also wanted to try a different lineart style. Thin is nice but I miss my chunky brush. Glad to have tried it though! 

[azuhrasims]

Let's Talk About Posing

A Sims 4 posing tutorial

Providing a written tutorial with images to help you learn basic posing in The Sims 4 and also various mods and tricks you can use to help your posing experience. I know there are more tricks on this out in the wild, so I don't dare call it a complete tutorial. It will, however, get you started.

Updated: August 2024

Mods I'm going to talk about:

Andrew's Pose Player and Scumbumbos Teleport Any Sim

MC Command Center 

TwistedMexi's T.O.O.L.

TwistedMexi’s Searchable Pose Player

Lot 51's Fashion Authority 

Wicked Whims or Wonderful Whims

This is a long tutorial, but it should help you with using all of the above mentioned mods to have a better posing experience in The Sims 4.

Read More--

Where to start:

Download the above mentioned mods. Place them in your mods folder. Need a tutorial? Here you go.

Download some poses! There are several resources out there. On Tumblr, I use @ts4-poses​ often.

Open your game

Congratulations! You're on the way to posing sims. The basics are very easy using Andrew's Pose Player. You can pose your sim at anytime by clicking on the sim pie menu and finding the options of “Pose by Pack” or “Pose by Name.” Personally, I don't have the brain space to remember pose names, so I always pose by pack. This will bring up an options list of poses. If you have a lot of poses, this will be a long list. If you don't have a lot of poses, obviously it will be a shorter list. Click the pose set you want and then click the pose or poses you want to have your sim complete. Yes, you can queue multiple!

TwistedMexi’s Searchable Pose Player

If you have downloaded and have multiple poses, I recommend using TMex’s Searchable Pose Player Mod. This will add a search bar to your pose option tab that you can use to search for poses instead of always having to scroll for them. This mod works well with both Andrew’s Pose Player and both WW pose players!

A List of All IN GAME Animations Names

@stargazer-sims​ made a very helpful post that let Simblr know there is a list of the animation names that can be used with Andrew’s Pose Player “Pose by Name.” Copy the animation name of the pose you want from the list and paste it into pose player. From the post: “This list was compiled by ThePancake1 and is current up to the For Rent EP.” Direct Link to the List of Animation Names

*For this tutorial, I am using poses created by @honeyssims4​.

Now, how do you stop posing? If its the sim you are controlling, just cancel the task in their queue. You can also pose sims that you can't control and are not in your household – which is pretty neat! To have them stop using the current pose in their action queue, click on the sim and from their menu, select “Stop Posing.” If you have more than one pose queued, both of these options will cause the sims to take up the next pose. If there are no other poses selected, they will stop posing all together. Sims have NO AUTONOMY while posed. They will be stuck there until you stop them.

Posing is great, but how about posing sims in a specific spot, or seated on furniture, or WITH other sims? Now you want to use the Teleport Any Sim statue. You will find this handy tool in build/buy mode located under decorations. My trick here is that if you type “teleport” into the search bar and click, it will bring up the teleporter as your first option. Save yourself some time searching the catalog, I say. Once the Teleport Any Sim statue is placed, you can click on it to have a menu with two options: Teleport Sim or Summon Sim. Teleport Sim brings up a menu of sims ON THE LOT. Summon Sim brings up a menu of sim IN THE SAVE FILE. The list size is a big difference.

Many poses will have some instructions when you download them on how to place the Teleport Any Sim statue. If you are posing two or more sims using a pose designed for multiple sims, you want to place multiple statues on top of each other in the same location. If you are posing a sim on furniture – like a couch, place the statue in the center of the furniture (unless otherwise instructed.) When the pose creators created the pose, they designed it with other sims and/or furniture in mind and planned on you having that statue in that location for the expected results.

I recommend having your game paused when teleporting or summoning sims to your statues, as live mode sims not paused will walk away in moments. Once the sim has taken the place of the statue, click on the sim and bring up the posing menu just as you did before to select the pose you want. If multiple sims are involved, you need to go to each sim and select the pose from the menu for each of them. No, the pose menu using the statue does not remember what pose group you were using. Yes, you need to scroll for it every time. Once the sim or sims are posed, then you can take your game off of pause and let your sims enter the selected poses.

Things to know while using the poses with Andrew's Pose Player; if you enter Create-a-Sim (CAS) while posed, your sims snap out of their pose. If you enter Build Buy mode, your sim will snap out of their pose. If you placed your statue in the wrong location and you need to place it somewhere else to pose, you'll have to enter build buy mode to do it and your sim will, again, snap out of their pose. Finally, some poses require accessories be used – usually located under rings, bracelets, or hats that you can add to your sim in CAS. You need to remember to add these things BEFORE you pose your sim.

This is where we start talking about other mods, to help you with the above concerns. Andrew's Pose Player and Teleport Any Sim Statue are amazing devices, but we can improve on the posing game with a little help.

*Note: Sometimes you need to allow a few in game minutes after loading into a lot before you begin posing to allow sims to finish their idle animations. Infants and horses, for example, need to finish their idle animations before they will take up a pose.

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

If you posed a sim and they were in the wrong outfit, how can you fix that without leaving the pose?

A very simple solution is to use MC Command Center. Click on MC Command center from your sim menu, scroll down to “Dresser.” From there click on “Change Outfit.” You can select any of the outfits your sim all ready has made and they will instantly change into that outfit without leaving the pose. If they are summoned in their swimwear and you wanted everyday, this is the easy way to fix the problem.

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

If you've posed a sim in the wrong spot or you want to combine poses with multiple sims and move them to the right spot, how do you do that?

This trick specifically works if you have teleported or summoned a sim using the Teleport Any Sim Statue. The statue is important as for the briefest of moments it makes your game register a sim as an object. Why is that important? Because I'm about to tell you that TwistedMexi's T.O.O.L. Mod can be used to move sims that have been summoned/teleported/posed using the Teleport Any Sim statue. *Sometimes you can use TOOL on a posed sim who hasn’t used the statue, sometimes you can’t. The statue is your safe bet.

I know T.O.O.L. can be a very intimidating mod, but I promise its easier than it looks with practice. TwistedMexi has made a few very good tutorials on the full use, Fantasims has made a great tutorial too. I'm going to try and give you a quick one just for moving your posed sims.

In this case, I have a sim posed, but I didn't line her up with the chair she's supposed to be sitting on. Lets fix that. Have the T.O.O.L. Mod installed, of course. Have testing cheats on. Now, press the shift button and then click on your sims menu. Click through the options until you find “T.O.O.L.” Click on that. The TOOL menu will give you five options. All of them can be super useful for moving posed sims, but I'm going for simple here. Click on “Toggle Active Object.” Did your sim turn green? Good, that's what we want, that shows that TOOL has her marked as the thing we want to move.

To move the sim once they are the active object, hold down the Alt key and click on the floor in whichever direction you need to move your sim. In this case, she needed to go to her left, so I clicked on the floor and gently pulled her into the desired position. Once she is in position, click the sim again to make her no longer green and no longer the active object.

Things to know about using TOOL. Once your sim (the object) is active, you can click the floor anywhere and instantly move them. Holding down the Alt key drags them with precision. If you accidentally clicked the floor somewhere without holding Alt, your sim jumped further than you intended. Or maybe that's exactly what you wanted to do. If you click another object while your sim is green and active, TOOL will think you wanted that object to be active instead and turn it green. Be careful not to click other objects while dragging your sim around, just the floor or the ground. You can make multiple objects active by holding down the Alt key and clicking on them (or other sims) and you can then  drag those objects or sims together as a unit. This is how you can take them off the lot to pose next to a waterfall in Sulani if you wanted to. You can use TOOL to rotate sims and move them up or down if you want. I really recommend watching tutorials on TOOL, its a game changing mod.

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

I've posed a sim and I forgot to add the pose accessory! Can you add the accessory after being posed?

With the help of Lot 51's Fashion Authority mod, you can. Sort of. This mod is so much bigger than an accessory adder, but we'll stick to that part in this tutorial.

@surely-sims has made an excellent video tutorial on this very trick. I learned this from her and I'm only able to share this knowledge because she did first.

The first thing I need to tell you is that, unfortunately, you still need to plan ahead. You can use the Fashion Authority mod to make an “outfit” that is just the pose accessory you need that does NOT override any other part of what your sim is currently wearing. You still need to make this outfit before posing the sim as you do still need to go into CAS – which yes, still pops your sim out of the pose. However, you can create and save MANY outfits, one for each accessory if you need, that you can then apply to any sims you have posed in the future – even if they are not in your household.

The accessory will not be a permanent part of the sims' outfit either. Once you change out of that outfit and back into it, you will not have the accessory attached. This part is brilliant!

Before you plan to use accessories on your sims with Fashion Authority, you need to go to Fashion Authority → Settings → Enable Outfit Merge Mode (For Advanced Users). This will allow you to use your accessory without having your sims' outfit change while being used. Please note, you need to enable this with each game play session.

You will need to create an accessory thread BEFORE you pose your sim. Click on the sim menu and click on the Fashion Authority tab. Then click “Create a Thread.” The next menus will ask you if it is masc or fem, age group. For pose accessories, I make them Generic Uniforms. You then get a whole menu dedicated to this new thread. I start by naming it so I know what it is when I have to scroll for it later. This one will be for a shark accessory. I then change the Outfit Merging Rules – anything highlighted in green will be forced to change when you select this outfit using Fashion Authority. In this case, my shark accessory is a bracelet, so I'm only highlighting bracelets green. I want the rest of the outfit to stay the same, we're just forcing the shark in there. Now you modify in CAS. Add the accessory and only the accessory to the mannequin that shows up in the CAS prompt. Click the check mark. You've made your accessory thread/outfit.

Now you can pose your sim. Or you can add the thread first – its up to you. Once posed, click your sim menu, click Fashion Authority. From the Fashion Authority menu, click “Manage All Threads.” Choose the thread you just made with your accessory. There you are, one posed sim with a shark in hand!

I have several threads pre-made with pose accessories and labeled so I know what they are. I can pose on the fly with whichever sims I want this way and not worry about how I'm going to get that accessory on them. The easy way to remove the pose accessory is to go through MC Command Center → Dresser → Change Outfit and select the outfit you want, even if its the on your sim is currently wearing. Click this, and the accessory will be gone – no CAS time required. Changing outfit via an in game dresser will do the same thing.

Things to know: Fashion Authority allows you to create threads for toddlers, children, and Teen-Elders.

Fashion Authority Threads are created by SAVE GAME. You can, however, now import them into your other saves so you don't need to make your accessory threads over and over again in each save. Import threads to new saves by Going through Options → Import Threads

If you enter your save game without the pose accessories installed in your mods folder, all of your Threads will be blank if you save that game – even if you load your accessories back in later. Be careful!

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

Are there other options to pose sims, or is it just Andrew's pose player?

Well, there is another option, though it comes form an unexpected source. It comes in WW. Either one. Both Wicked Whims (The R rated mod) and it's counterpart, Wonderful Whims, have a built in posing functionality that is both easy and intuitive. You will still need to have Pose Player installed – children, toddlers, infants, and pets cannot be posed using the WW posing ability. You need both.

In either of the WW mods, you are absolutely able to go through and disable every function in them if all you want is the pose player. Please keep that in mind if you don't want the additional modded game play those mods are both designed for!

There is a video tutorial up now on using Wicked Whims Pose player made by GiaXoXo2405 that is very helpful. KatVerse has a great video tutorial for posing in Wonderful Whims.

How to use WW as a posing tool. Click on your sim pie menu, click on Wonderful or Wicked. The Wonderful and Wicked menus have a tab called “pose.” Click it and select the pose you want from the poses you have installed. This posing method makes your sim vanish for a moment, don't worry, she's still there! Once the sim phases back into existence, she's posed. 

Now, you wanted her moved somewhere else? Maybe a little left or right? You can fix that right in Wicked Whims. Click on your sim, click Wicked, and then in the Wicked menu, click “Actions.” In Actions, click “Enable Positioning.” This will bring up a very intuitive positioning system that lets you move your sim, rotate your sim, even elevate your sim if you need to. Its super cool. When you sim is positioned as you'd like, Click the purple dot menu and then click “Disable Positioning.”

An extra bonus form posing sims in WW is that if you go into Build Buy mode, they will remain posed as you left them when you go back into live mode. CAS mode will still make them leave their pose though.

*Note: The positioning UI will stay where your sim originally began their pose. If you want to move your sim WAY across the map using this UI, @surely-sims​ has pointed out that you can use the TOOL mod on the purple dot of this positioning UI and move the UI itself across the map too. Neat trick!

Wicked Whims Specific Notes:

If you would like to use Wicked Whims and still have access to Fashion Authority or MCCC while posed, you need to click the following: Wicked → Settings → Sex Settings → Other Settings → Vanilla Interactions Switch.

Wicked Whims also has a built in functionality that can act like the MCCC Dresser trick I mentioned above. This is called “Instant Undress.” To enable this outside of sexual acts, you need to click the following: Wicked → Settings → Sex Settings → Cheats → Global Instant Undressing Switch. After activating this, you can click Actions under the Wicked Menu, Instant Undress, and have the option to remove accessories, change outfits and so on.

If you have access to and are using the PATREON release of Wicked Whims, there is a camera mode you can use to take candid images of sims with full control of the camera location and no camera needed. This comes with the SimHub functionality that appears to be only for Patrons at this time. You can have a sim take posed photos of themselves by clicking “Naked Photo (Posed)” – these will be the in game poses that you can sort through. If you would like to take photos of your sim in custom poses, you need to click “Naked Photo.”

To unlock the ability to take photos of sims who are dressed (not just nudes), you need to click the following: Wicked → Nudity Settings → SimHub Settings → Non-Naked Pictures Switch AND Unlock Camera Movement (Experimental) .

Many thanks to @surely-sims​ for telling me about these neat Wicked Whims features!

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

Any Other Useful Tips?

Screenshot Tricks and Composition Workshop. This is a frankly amazing Sims 4 “edutainment” stream-made-video made by the even more amazing @surely-sims​. This video covers how to pose, a number of posing tips and ticks, and how to make a screenshot tell a story all by itself. Friends, if you want a more in depth idea of how to pose and make lovely screenshots, watch this video. Really. Seriously. GO DO IT! She taught me even MORE things! The Video: Screenshot Tricks and Composition Workshop

Camera Position Hot Keys and Tab Mode. Did you know you can set a hot key to save a camera position? If you need to go in and out of Tab mode while posing and you want that camera angle to remain the same, you should try saving the camera position. Its useful for all kinds of screenshot tips.  @surely-sims​ spends quite a bit of time talking about this and various uses in the above video if you need ideas or demonstration. @pictureamoebae​ wrote a lovely tutorial about tab mode and camera position hot keys to get you started.

Organizing Poses. Poses always seem to show up in the most random order in the posing list. Did you know you can organize them? Using Sims 4 Studio, you can open each pose package and change the name of the pose – that name section inside the package? The poses in your game show up alphabetically based on that. This only works for in-game poses, not CAS poses! This player has made an awesome tutorial on how to organize your poses.

Clickable Worlds. If you enjoy using the T.O.O.L. Mod to move sims into wild photo opportunity places, awingedllama has created a mod that allows you to click anywhere in the environment around you. You could combine this with T.O.O.L. mod tricks to move your sims to all kinds of places for photo shoots. Clickable Worlds

Special Effects. This one is a silly note, but maybe not well known. If you own Get Famous, there is a fun special effects machine that allows you to have everything from confetti, fall leaves, money, all the way to  meatballs falling from the ceiling. Its a fun addition you can use for your own sims photo shoots. To do this, you need the ceiling part called “Plumbob Pictures Home Special Effects Machine.” The controller is called, “Effectively Effective Stage Effects Control Desk.”

Another option to get easy modded access to special effects is to use Ravasheen’s Side FX - Visual Effects Player.

The ISO Love Photos Camera. You DO NOT NEED a sim to be a photographer to use this camera. Meaning, the sim you have posed? They can take the picture of themselves. I set this camera up on a tripod and use it all the time. It does not need to be on a tripod, but keep in mind it will take photos at whatever height its is sitting. If its on the floor, you get floor shots. If its on the coffee table, you get coffee table height pictures.

The Photographic Memory Photo Spawner Mod. You can make those nice in game photos you just took into pictures you can hang with tape or tacks, calendars, paintings, even cross stitch images! This mod is super fun for game play images and having you sim family spread all over the walls of your house.

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

That covers everything I know at the moment. I would love to read if you guys have additional tips and tricks. Please feel free to reblog this if you think others could benefit from this tutorial. I hope YOU benefit from this tutorial!

[writers-potion]

Hi! I just wanted to ask if you have any world building tips? I'm considering making a whole society and culture about a species that live on a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Now for context, In my story, Earth doesn't know for sure that aliens exist, there are three characters that are going to be focused on in that universe are basically the first scouts that were sent after their society recently discovered Earth. Two on the planet and one stationed in a nearby celestial body which is where their "base" is, Their goal is to gather intel without alerting humans.

In terms of trying to imagine their biology, would it be good to first imagine the environment and climate of their planet and then address how their bodies adapt and deal with it or vice versa?

I'm also a bit worried about making them too humanlike in terms of their way of thinking since I thought they'd likely be very different from us without any chance of one influencing the other before the story.

Could I use certain myths and legends about non-human creatures as inspiration for the race of sentient beings I'm trying to come up with?

This is a lot so thank you so much if you do answer and I'm sorry if I asked too much of you. Have a nice day!

Inspiration for an Alien Species

For non-humanlike alien characters, look into pre-exising creatures and try tweaking them:

Take a historic/extinct animal and change it. 

Take two animals/insects/bacteria and combine their features. Tweak them until you land on something original.

You can start with a human, and add/subtract features. 

Use mythological creatures – they should offer a good source of intelligent nonhumans! Research about the kind of terrain these mythical creatures live. 

You requirements of how intelligent the aliens are, and what their primary activities are will also determine what physiological features you give them. 

Are they intelligent enough to use tools? What kind of machines? If they are to navigate complex machinery you need to give them arm-like appendages like tentacles, etc. 

What do they like doing most? What kind of sports do they play, and what kind of body parts would they need for that?

What do they eat? How do they eat? 

How do they reproduce?

Are they “pleasurable” to the typical human, or are they “disgusting” or “monstrous”?

Here are some features you could work with:

lead claws (for poison)

quil shooting

mantis arms

fire breathing (hydrogen also works as a flamable if you don't wanna use ethylene)

acid sptting (add venom sacks at the nose to squirt the acid) WARNING make sure the creature is immune to the acid, add a mucus to protect it from its acid.

multiple heads

forked tounge

electricution

bioluminesence

geovores (feeds on rocks)

whip tails

infared vision

gas (if you have seen poppy playtime chapter 3 catnap did this, if not than just imagine a creature breathing accept breathing out deadly gases on command)

Camoflouge

beaks

mandibled and/or multiple jaws

Alien First, or Planet First?

The choice between adapting your alien to the environment or adapting the environment to your alien depend on which of those your worldbuilding depends on. 

If your story is about an asteroid slamming into Earth and there happens to be life on it, the environment is more important. 

If the story is about a human girl befriending an alien, the alien is more important. 

Since you mentioned that your aliens are visiting Earth, your aliens (and how they navigate in a spaceship/Earth) seem more central to the storyline – you can think up of the alien you want, then build a planet they would thrive in. 

How to Differentiate Them 

Religion

Human religions provide (1) an origin story for the world and humans and (2) provide meaning to an essentially meaningless human existence. But what if your aliens have the ability to see far into the past and into the future? God as a Creater wouldn’t work in their world. 

Religion as a response to their physiological needs. E.g. An alien species that have to hibernate would value the God of Warmth the most. 

Religion as a response to a hostile envrionment. What elements of nature do your aliens fear the most? Are they agricultural? What’s their main source of energy? 

Language

Human language is mostly dependent on sound and vision. What if your aliens only communicated via touch, taste or smell?

Based on their habits and social organization, come up with a list of alien vocab. 

French musician Jean-François Sudre created an artificial language called “Solresol”. His language has seven syllables to match the heptatonic musical scale. However, a writer could convert the notes into the seven colors of the rainbow and use Solresol as the basis of a color-based alien language.

What body language do they have to express emotions?

History

Come up with a rough timeline of alien world history. Outline major wars, technological developments, major pandemics, artists and politicians. 

Given their history and culture, how would they view humans?

History repeats itself. 

Art

Standards of beauty are dependent on biology. Scientists say that the faces humans find the most attractive are the most likely to be healthy and fertile.

What standards of beauty would your aliens develop?

What sorts of biological advances would they look for in a mate?

What kind of art would aliens develop if they saw heat, rather than light? 

What about aliens who communicated via smell? 

What kind of art would a race of sentient trees create? Could you create art if you were immobile?

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* . ───

💎If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 

💎Before you ask, check out my masterpost part 1 and part 2 

💎For early access to my content,  become a Writing Wizard 

[vilevampirez]

long list of funny things abt my experience doing emote commissions for mike

first of all I wasn't expecting to get commissioned at all (my commissions weren't even open, I just made an exception for mike) let alone by MIKETHELINK of all fucking people, so I had nothing prepared. I had no portfolio, commission sheet, nothing. I had never made any twitch emotes, so I had no examples to show either. meaning that when barbmine showed up in my dms asking if I took emote commissions, first I lost my fucking shit, then I panicked and rushed to find the most recent emote-like illustrations I had, including animation, and the most recent animation I had on hand happened to be a viewtiful joe one lmao. the animation in question 👇

(the usernames on the watermark aren't even accurate anymore..)

I have some experience taking commissions but they'd always been for friends of mine, this was my first time getting commissioned by a real "client" and the client was fucking mikethelink tazercraft of all fucking people . I know he "found" me through Mine, she sent me a dm first asking for commission info, saying she would show it to mike later. the thing is that when she said that she also implied that she was in touch with other artists too, so I was like "oh ok I'll send my stuff but I probably won't get chosen lol" and then a few hours later I got two twitter notifs, one saying that mr. thelink tazercraft was now following me and another was his DM. to say I almost had a heart attack would be an understatement

later I found out Mine had made a tweet asking for artists to reach out/people to rec artists for mike's twitch emotes. that post had around 40 comments. many people had been recommended more than once. I wasn't mentioned by anyone once, and in fact, I had no fucking idea that post even EXISTED until way after the fact. I have no idea how I ended up getting this job

mike happened to contact me on a day where I was severely sleep deprived. our entire business conversation took place while I was half-panicking, half-almost-passing-out. I don't know how I survived

at many points during our conversation I gave a lot of leeway for mike to give up on commissioning me, implying multiple times that he would be better off commissioning a different artist. and it's not because I lacked confidence (though a bit of that too, of course), but because of my lack of experience. I was very open about that to him, so many times I expected him to second guess his decision to commission me. unexpectedly, he was really insistent. I think partially he didn't want to go through the trouble of finding and contacting a different artist, but also I guess he just liked my art that much (??!?)

I definitely undercharged him lol. it's not that I don't value my work, it's just that I was absolutely not prepared for any of this shit to happen and didn't have enough time to think

I use adobe after effects for animating mike's emotes. I already knew how to animate (though I had never animated anything big), but I had never used after effects before. I even told mike this before accepting the commission, but he just said it was easy and I could totally do it, and I was just like "fucking hell. fine". and look, I know my limits, I knew I'd be able to learn after effects with relative ease. if I thought it'be too much for me to handle, I wouldn't have accepted the commission. it just that to this day I'm still shocked that mike commissioned an artist who HAD NEVER USED THE TOOL NECESSARY FOR THE COMMISSION HE WANTED.

due to the point above I was pretty apprehensive about animating the emotes, but now I'm glad I got this opportunity bc it reignited my passion for animation that had been dwindling for a long time and I've been learning a lot while working. also with every new emote I figure out how to use a different feature of after effects and it makes the job a little bit easier

before giving my payment information I came out to him to avoid confusion with my legal name being different from the name on my socials. he was very chill about it and always used the right name and pronouns for me whenever he mentions me on stream

fun fact: I was reached out to by another big (brazilian, not in qsmp) youtuber for a commission but I had to refuse because I had too much on my plate already (still do..)

my favorite emotes are the devil one and the nerd one

I made his twitch avatar and banner too! I'm really proud of the avatar. the banner was absolute hell

I'm a lurker (and nowadays a vod watcher since I've been busy w/ uni work) but I do watch every single one of mike's streams, so just know that I'm always seeing you guys use the emotes :3

[sgdlr-asdfghjkl]

Link Click Musical Masterlist 🔍🌟

#音乐剧时光代理人# <- 'Time Agents Musical' main tag, pictures tab - shows majority of stage pictures in chronological order, updates from official Encore Musicals show up here too.

Tips: 1) Visit the OP's profiles! They usually post more than the one photo you can see in a thumbnail. And it's easier to browse & save pics through the profile.

2) Even though you can scroll the pics tab indefinitely, without a weibo account you won't be able to easily access older posts, as they'll get buried under the user's newer posts (there's a roundabout way mentioned in my guide). So I recommend to visit this tag frequently, if you wanna be sure nothing is hidden away 🔍 Daily or once in a 2-3 days will be enough imo, it's not very crowded tag ^^

3) ⬆You can also check videos in this tag, the orange tab has 10 most recent clips from the musical (other one has the most popular ones).

接着奏乐接着舞Musicals (Encore Musicals) <- official profile of a theatre that runs LC stage, they post the cast schedules, photos/behind the scenes clips, whenever new actor debuts, there's a special guests or a cast member has a birthday. They also report when an actor goes on a health break. Tip: all LC actors can be found in the pinned post (you'd need OCR 'image-text' tool to copy their names from pics though)

Encore Musicals Bilibili account <- theatre's official profile on a major cn video-sharing platform (more bts clips)

动画师lan <- bonus link to studio LAN profile, that's where they post the mysterious animation frames~

校医来啦 <- profile of a chief producer of LC Musical, Chen Xiaoyi

兮兮兮辞_ <- profile of an executive producer of LC musical

Metablue赛博蓝 <- bilibili of a music producer, she did videos about working on LC musical songs

🌟Actors

✨cast visuals promotional photos here✨

their personal weibo profile & actor specific hashtag (the 'diamond tag', you find the most stuff here)

Lu Guang

Wang Minhui - @王敏辉Black 王敏辉

Wu Yihan - @音乐剧演员吴以瀚 音乐剧演员吴以瀚

Guo Hongxu - @郭虹旭_GHX 郭虹旭

Du Guangyi - @杜光禕 杜光祎

Zhu Hanbin - @Keb_朱涵彬 朱涵彬

Yin Haolun - @殷浩倫Monster 殷浩伦

Yang Haoran - @YANGHRAN 杨浩然hr

Cheng Xiaoshi

Cai Qi - @超级蔡淇 超级蔡淇

Shu Rongbo - @舒荣波-Bobi 舒荣波

Ji Xiaokun - @原来是纪晓坤啊 纪晓坤

Teng Chunpeng - @滕春鹏tcp 滕春鹏 (cw: heel injury pic is the only post on his @profile ><, just visit the tag)

Ding Xingchen - @D丁星辰 丁星辰

Cao Muzhi - @曺牧之 曹牧之

Bai Zhuoming - @丿日亻卓钅名 白倬铭

Wang Yifei - @王逸飞_V 王逸飞

Jing Yanqiao - @井彦乔JING_ 井彦乔

Guo Hongxu - @郭虹旭_GHX 郭虹旭 (yes, he plays both)

Qiao Ling

Cai Lu - @蔡璐_Katherine 蔡璐

Deng Xianling - @邓贤凌邓阿凌 邓贤凌

Wu Hanglu - @吴杭律 吴杭律

Feng Xinyao - @冯鑫垚smile 冯鑫垚

Qiang Dongyue - @嘀嗒_强东玥 强东玥

Zuo Yiping - @左一平儿 左一平

Qian Anqi - @钱安琪麦麦 钱安琪

Yan Lehuang - @闫乐湟乐乐 闫乐湟

Lu Hongbin/Chen Xiao

Zhang Jiahao - @张嘉豪music 演员张嘉豪

Li Zexi - @李泽熙Zenith 李泽熙

Xu Fangxing - @阿星-许放星 许放星

Zhi Bowen - @智小少总是不靠谱 智博闻

Zhou Bobo - @就叫我波波好了 周波波波波波

Zhang Zhiwei - @张智伟_

Song Yuanming - @教练 我zen勒想打球！ 宋元明

Gaoer Jinbaoyin - @高尔金宝音 高尔金宝音

Lin Zhen/Chen Xiao's mom

Hong Guo - @红果其实是洪果 音乐剧演员洪果

Liao Jingyuan - @廖婧媛LJY 廖婧媛

Guo Zhenyan - @郭珍艳Miki 郭珍艳

En Yu - @恩妤Ura

Shen Tian - @音乐剧演员沈恬 音乐剧演员沈恬

Yu Mengying - @于梦滢yummy 于梦滢

Zhu Jiayan - @朱佳艳Rio 朱佳艳

Zhang Ruishu - @_张睿姝_

Zou Ziyue - @-Zou醉是子月 邹子月

A few actors for supporting cast don't have a tag bc they seem to be newbie actors and/or have very small online presence

Tips: 1) Without a weibo account you can scroll through the actor's tag only up to abt 45 most recent posts. The actors perform in multiple plays (duh) so non-LC photos will show up too.

2) Imo the most optimal method, so the limits won't stop you is: go to the main 'LC musical' tag and see what's new. Check schedule for the cast lineup in a recent performance. Go to the actors' tags to see what's new.

3) Sometimes there are 2 performances on a same day, with different actors. So don't be surprised if you find mixed lineups under one date.

4) Mostly QL and Lin Zhen's actresses post behind the scenes photos on their personal profiles. Don't bother looking up the guys accounts, unless it's a holiday or their b-day >< From what I remember, only Wu Yihan posts abt his cat. Zhang Jiahao and Zhou Bobo post selfies sometimes. Ji Xiaokun posts his own photography (he's good!).

5) Google translate, however broken, is enough to translate the captions, so use it for context✨Ppl sometimes give their reviews titled 'repos' from the stage they've seen 🙏

6) You'll find more musical related clips under the actor's tag, than in 'LC musical' main tag. It's usually in an actor's fancam, but not always. Useful when you like an actor or there was a particular moment you want to see from a different angle🌟👌

7) The clips tab (one in the middle) under the actor's tag has no time limited access. You can browse and watch the videos without issues!

______________________________________________________

I'll try to add missing tags when the actors debut 💪 And if you find any mistakes or a broken links, please let me know 🙏 For those who read it all, here's a present ;>

光时 <- bonus Shiguang ship tag, they're just like us fr (but way more horny on main), there's lots of art, from cute fluff to nsfw djs >>

OKAY that's all I have🎉

[felixcloud6288]

With the Reddit API change about to take effect, I want to mention a few things that I've seen that are likely to change or go away.

First of all, there's multiple bot accounts used for moderation, user tools, or plain fun. Everyone here loves haiku-bot. Reddit has u/haikusbot which does the same thing. The API change means it won't work anymore. There's also u/RemindMeBot which you can ping to set reminders. One useful bot due to repost karma-farmers always being an issue is u/RepostSleuthBot which can scan Reddit to see if a post has previously been uploaded. There's also u/SaveVideo which can create downloaded video files of posts. So the API changes mean losing a lot of user tools.

Then there's site specific bots like u/Roboragi which posts links to anime/manga sites for people. r/lotrmemes is filled with tons of bots of various lotr characters (and Robert Baratheon) and the bots will have full conversations in the comments. So the API changes means an end to a piece of some subreddits' culture.

And finally there's u/automoderator. This is a major tool used by mods to manage the subs. u/automoderator is used across multiple subreddits and has various functions per sub. One simple task is to check if a poster has a certain minimum karma, thus preventing spammers from casually brigading a subreddit. It can also auto ban users who post to certain subreddits which keeps out certain political views (or maybe two subreddits are just having silly wars with each other). Also, it can auto-comment important messages to posts.

So this change is going to destroy a lot of the internal charm of the site and it will also open the flood gates to bots, scammers, and all sorts of horrible things that mods can only barely hold back, especially on the huge subs, political subs, and any minority support subs.

[nesaluvstherecoms]

𝐆𝐨𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐢𝐱.

ᴍᴀɪɴ ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ʀᴇᴄᴏᴍ ᴄᴏʟᴏɴᴇʟ ᴍɪʟᴇꜱ Qᴜᴀʀɪᴛᴄʜ x ʀᴇᴄᴏᴍ ᴍᴀᴊᴏʀ ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀʟ ꜰᴇᴍ. ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: Feelings of grief, mentions of injuries.

ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ ʟɪɴᴋ

。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔: 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐄𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭

The only sound that echoes through the medical wing room is the continuous buzz of the white lights above. It goes on and on and on, nonstop. And the more it continues, the louder it rings in Miles’ ears, piercing painfully through his brain. He hates it.

The stitches on his face burn, the wounds still swollen even with the fluid draining that the medics did on them. The gauze pads that cover them are uncomfortable and dry against the raw skin, secured awfully tightly by bandages and adhesive tape, adding to the burning sensation on his face. Miles’ heavy eyes remain unfocused, staring blankly at some random corner of the room. If only Prager was there. He would’ve stitched his cuts so carefully and soak the gauze pads in cold povidone-iodine to keep the cuts disinfected and cool his burning skin. He would’ve carefully placed freezing cold gel pads against his now dark purple almost black bruises, relieving some of his pain. But Prager is not here anymore is he? His body is probably rotting somewhere, decomposing in the cursed icy waters of Pandora. He’s now just another name, fallen in battle, soon to be forgotten. Miles hates it.

His swollen eyes try to move somewhere else around the room. That horribly bright white light blinds his vision, hurting the sensitive retina of his sharp, golden eyes. The buzzing gets louder.

Everything hurts. His skin, his flesh, his muscles, his nerves, his bones. Everything hurts. His heart. Everything hurts.

Was this all for nothing?

No, he doesn’t think so.

Why is he even doing this?

It’s his purpose.

He is a living tool.

He is the Colonel.

He’s living another man’s life.

No, it’s his life.

He’s suffering the consequences of another man’s actions.

No, those are the consequences of his own actions.

He has opened his heart for another man’s child.

No, that’s his own child.

He’s not that man.

Right?

The buzzing of the lights above him gets louder. His breathing is slow, shallow, too exhausted to even inhale long enough. His heavy eyelids hood over, blurring half his vision. The sheets and blankets placed over him yesterday to counter the hypothermia he was suffering, now feel awfully hot against his exhausted body. He wants to remove some of them, to relieve himself from this heat that has enveloped his form, causing him to sweat profusely. He tries to raise his bruised hand to pull them off, but he can’t move his arm. It remains still on the bed, taking IV fluid from multiple needles sticking into his veins.

He is completely naked underneath. The medics stripped him bare from his wet uniform before treating his wounds and stuffing him in the covers he’s currently in. He was shivering uncontrollably, the hypothermia getting to him as soon as he stepped down from his mountain banshee. The animal kept screeching as people rushed him towards the medical wing, trying desperately to follow but the soldiers sedated it before it could harm anyone. The rest is a blur to him. He doesn’t remember much. Just fragments of doctors erratically moving around him. It might’ve been the painkillers. He’s not sure.

The heat gets worse. He starts sweating harder. His body feels sticky underneath the covers. The buzzing continues.

His eyes feel so heavy. Maybe he should go to sleep again. He’s still absolutely exhausted. The medics said he might be suffering internal bleeding from all the equipment on the Sea Dragon crashing into his body as it was tipping over. He wants to laugh at the absurdity of his pathetic condition. Colonel Miles Quaritch reduced to a bloodied and weak mess. But no expression takes form on his face. It’s just blank. He closes his eyes. He wants to sleep. The heat doesn’t let him.

The card scanner on the other side of the door beeps, and soon enough a gentle hiss is heard from the doorway. Slowly, Miles opens his exhausted eyes again. A human doctor and two human medical assistants step in, making their way towards the large Recom sized bed he is laying on.

“Colonel Quaritch.” The doctor greets, a polite smile on his lips. “How are you feeling, sir?”

The assistants quickly move over to check his condition, observing how much IV fluid he has absorbed and the information on the monitors he is strapped to. Miles doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have the energy. Instead, his heavy eyelids slowly shut close again. Being met with silence, the doctor nods slowly, looking away and pulling out his datapad. One of the medical assistants leans over, finally pulling away one of the blankets covering him, relieving some of the heat from his body. The doctor begins checking over the data on the screen. As he is scrolling through the numbers, with his eyes remaining on the device at hand, he opens his mouth to speak again.

“We weren’t able to tell you yesterday, since you fell asleep shortly after being treated, but we have good news for you to make you feel better, sir. Your Lieutenant survived. The teams that were sent over to the scene were able to pull his unconscious body out of the water during the CASEVAC. He is currently being treated in another room. His condition is stable.”

Miles opens his eyes. He looks upwards, tracing the patterns on the ceiling above him. CASEVAC? Teams? But as the last sentence leaves the human doctor’s mouth, a gentle wave of relief washes over Miles, lifting some of the suffocating, heavy weight on his chest. Lyle is alive. He’s alive. The buzzing of the lights stops.

Y/N’s right leg bounces rapidly up and down beneath the conference table.

“The numbers are still going. We haven’t recovered everyone from the water and wreckage yet. But one thing is for sure, most of the fleet have been killed.”

“And the natives?”

“Very aggravated.”

“How much equipment have we lost?”

“Until now we have estimated to about five billion dollars worth.”

“Bloody hell.” Riley huffs out.

Y/N squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, disappointment weighing in her chest like a brick. They have been in this conference room for about two hours now and each detail mentioned gets worse and worse. She sits back and listens as Ardmore, ALPHA, operators from other departments and scouts continue on discussing. The tip of her tail moves slowly below her, adding to the rapid movement of her foot while she leans back on the cushioned chair with her right elbow on the armrest and her balled up fist against her right cheek. All this, just because of one man’s incompetence.

“How about amrita sourcing?”

“We have halted it momentarily as we rack up the numbers. We have to redistribute quotas to the remaining Sea Dragons to make up for the amrita sourcing we are losing with Captain Scoresby’s fleet.”

John who is sitting next to Y/N, slowly turns his eyes to take a look at her through the corner of his vision, taking in her reactions. But Y/N’s face remains stoic, just listening carefully to every detail being said like she has been doing for the past two hours. He wonders what is going through her mind. But before he can ponder on it more, Y/N shifts in place and opens her mouth. As soon as her voice gets to the ears of the people in the room, it falls dead silent and all attention turns to her.

“How about Colonel Quaritch? What was his testimony?”

Her question hangs in the air for some seconds. The operators who were investigating the scene and its circumstances exchange panicked eye contact with each other before one of them clears his throat and replies.

“Colonel Quaritch’s condition is pretty serious. He remains under intense supervision in the medical wing so therefore we have not had a chance to speak with him yet.”

The rest of the people in the room turn towards Y/N for her reaction. Her eyes narrow down at the man, clearly displeased by his answer. An uncomfortable feeling pits at the bottom of his stomach as the Recom’s alien eyes pin him in place.

“I see.” Is all she says before gesturing with her gloved hand for them to continue. The others exchange brief glances before the meeting then proceeds again as before. As people go back to discussing, Ardmore’s eyes land on Y/N, giving her a look of curiosity to see what she’s thinking. The Recom’s eyes turn back at her, with almost slitted pupils and a spark that has started to brew over until it is time for it to snap. Ardmore holds eye contact with her second in command for a few seconds before she turns her eyes forward again and sighs. Quaritch has a storm coming his way.

To say that Y/N was incredibly disappointed and angry, would be the understatement of the century. But to still be entirely fair, Y/N understood Quaritch’s side to some extent. He had been given only one Sea Dragon for only a week to get this mission accomplished. He had no exact idea of his target’s location, and his knowledge of the sea environment was limited. Even from her judgement, this could lead anyone to desperation. However, an officer with the rank and experience Quaritch has, would be wise enough to not rule out the possibility of letting this mission go, for the sake of preventing collateral damage and losing human lives in the massive amount that his actions caused. An officer with his expertise, would also know that chasing one target is not worth sabotaging said mission, after finally managing to get the upper hand. Not only that, but still managing to get your target to fight you one on one to death, and not only still failing to kill said target, but almost dying yourself, that’s just purely appalling. His squadron are all dead except for one operator, an entire Sea Dragon is completely destroyed along with billions of dollars of all the equipment and amrita vials that were in it, the entire fleet of said Sea Dragon are almost all dead, the sea natives are now incredibly hostile and aggravated and that’s hundreds maybe even thousands of them, a prisoner who spent months in base learning everything from the inside is now on the loose, apparently those whale things have now learned to fight back, and amidst all of this; Jake Sully is still alive and in a safe place along with his savage bitch and his demon spawns. Well fucking done Miles Quaritch. Well fucking done.

Y/N strolls irritated through the halls of the Ops Center, with John, Riley, Fernando and Oscar following behind. People open the way immediately without even blinking twice, not wanting to get in the way of the Recom General who has just stopped fuming after reading the newest report on her desk that morning. And who could blame her? Only the loss of that Sea Dragon and its entire equipment catalogue is catastrophic, let alone the amount of human and Recom lives lost. This is the biggest tragedy that the RDA has suffered since boarding, and bodies are still being pulled out of the water and wreckage.

John keeps an eye on Y/N as they walk, studying her expression. With the years the team has had with her as their commanding officer, they know what’s about to go down. Quaritch and Ardmore both better start appreciating the final moments of peace they are getting right now because they will be their last.

。。。

Quaritch’s tail can’t stop moving behind him. His body is tense, shoulders flexed and ears folded back. He takes a deep sip of carbon dioxide from his Recom Breather, trying to ground himself by filling his lungs with the much needed gas. The atmosphere in the two story hall is calm for the moment, humans pass below him, paying him no mind as they prepare and calibrate the Holofloor for the upcoming meeting that he has been dreading for the past week. Quaritch is about to face General Ardmore and the Major General for the first time. Since the battle at the Three Brothers, he has yet to give his side of the story and explain his actions. But having read the final report on the aftermath of said battle, even Miles Quaritch knows that he is in deep shit. As he was reading through every line on the document, it dawned heavily upon him how carried away he had gotten during that battle. The desire to kill Jake Sully had completely blinded him and all thought processes were thrown out the window. Though, he doesn’t fully understand why himself. Now he is left with no team, no equipment, no mission and worst of all; he has to cover for his ass in front of the two officers that command the entirety of Bridgehead and the RDA.

For the past week he has been pondering on what to say and the more he thinks about it the more he realizes that he has no valid excuses. Facing Ardmore alone will prove to be challenging, however he has been able to persuade her before so chances are he can do it again. On the other hand, the Major General is still an unknown mystery to him. From what he has gathered from the people on Bridgehead, General F/N L/N is also a Recom, who commands her own squadron of highly decorated and skilled Recom officers. She is always busy, doesn’t smile much, talks only to people she deems worthy of her attention, and spends her time in strictly two locations; either the battlefield or her office. From the troopers who accompany her and her team in missions, he has heard that she has no remorse when it comes to killing Na’vi and will turn the barrel of her gun on anyone who stands in her way, even her own soldiers. So for her to take time out of her day and come and interrogate him about his failed mission, it means that he really fucked up. But if his logic is correct, if he manages to convince Ardmore that it was all just a big accident and get her to give him another chance in pursuing Sully, then General L/N won’t really have a say in it. Right? She’s second in command after all.

As he continues thinking to himself, the sound of footsteps heavier than a human’s behind him catches his attention. He turns around, eyes slightly wide as the large and buff frame of the other male Recom gets closer to him with a warm smile.

“Colonel.” Wainfleet greets softly, nodding his head once in respect. At the sight of his right hand man, alive and well in front of him, a gentle warmth fills Miles’ chest. He smiles, opening his arms.

“Hey. What’re you doing here?” He asks softly as he hugs him, both men wrapping their buff arms around each other’s shoulders in a tight and comforting embrace. Lyle’s own soft smile doesn’t leave his face, patting Miles’ shoulder firmly as they part, giving it a gentle squeeze, and careful not to hurt any of his bruises. Their arms remain holding each other, large and bruised hands grasping each other’s veiny forearms. The Corporal’s face is also bruised, with a stitch on the upper left of his forehead. But it’s much less wounded than Miles’ and it looks like it’s healing well.

“I heard you were gonna report to the Generals today. I came to back you up, Colonel. I am the only other Recom who was there and survived after all. It’s only a matter of time before they called me in too.” He replies, squeezing Miles’ shoulder again as he speaks before they both release the grip they have on each other. Quaritch’s eyes look down, his head nodding once.

“So it’s really true then. They’re all dead.” He says in a low tone, confirming the worst case scenario that he had been afraid of for the past week. Wainfleet lowers his head, his ears pressing back against his head before he nods sadly.

“Yes, sir. I’m afraid so.”

Miles nods one last time in understanding, deciding to push the feelings of mourning away for the time being, before he looks up at the Recom in front of him with a sad but proud smile.

“Well, all that matters now is that we’re alive and well. Welcome back, soldier.” He says, grabbing the back of Lyle’s neck playfully and squeezing it as the other man chuckles, the deep and raspy sound resonating from the base of his throat.

“Thank you, Colonel.” Lyle replies softly, eyes staring into Miles’ with ambition and the confident glint of determination. “We won’t let the deaths of our brothers and sisters go in vain.”

The Colonel nods in return.

“Yer damn right.”

The doors of the Holofloor hall slide open with a loud hiss. Quaritch and Wainfleet part, turning towards the sound as the people in the room immediately start scrambling, setting up the giant device below their feet. Ardmore’s boots thud loudly on the ground as she enters the room, followed by her assistant, her right hand man, and six Recombinants that Quaritch has never seen before, while the large doors slide closed behind them. The Colonel and his Lieutenant straighten their postures as the RDA’s Expeditionary Force Commander approaches, face stoic and withered lips already pressed tightly into a thin line. The Recoms that follow her are large, with a strong, buff build and all dressed in a black Special Ops uniform, wearing full gear and all armed to their teeth. Quaritch and Wainfleet eye the way every inch of their skin is covered in thick layers of protection, black carrier plates with various equipment strapped firmly on their chests, boots laced tightly on their feet and tails wrapped in a semi-thick layer of military-grade black adhesive camo tape. At the sight alone, Quaritch and Wainfleet realize how little uniform they themselves are wearing compared to these Recoms. Their feet and shins are still exposed the same way they have been for months, their tank tops leave their arms bare and a good portion of their necks and collarbones exposed, and the sight of the other squad’s tails wrapped tightly in that camo tape sends an uncomfortable chill down their own tails. Large Recoms, armed to their teeth, with deadly faces and a proud glint in their eyes; these must be General L/N’s men.

Ardmore finally walks up to what’s left of the Deja Blu Recoms, taking her time to take a deep breath and ground herself before she has to deal with Quaritch yet again.

“General.” Quaritch greets firmly, saluting her and giving her a nod of respect as Wainfleet follows suit.

“Save your breath. You’ll need it.” Is all Ardmore replies with, making her way over to the people controlling the Holofloor to check if they have all the material ready. Quaritch and Wainfleet exchange a baffled stare, as Ardmore doesn’t even spare them a single glance. The other Recoms follow suit, dispersing through the Holofloor and doing their own thing. The atmosphere in the hall soon turns anxious. People start fidgeting as they wait for Y/N’s and the rest of the Recoms’ arrival. The technicians commanding the Holofloor are ready and are checking the material and footage of the battle with Ardmore next to them. Quaritch takes a look at the analogue watch on his left wrist. It’s almost time for the meeting to start, but General L/N doesn’t seem to have arrived yet. He lowers his wrist and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, praying silently that she will not show up and he will have to deal with just Ardmore today. However, the loud hiss of the large doors sliding open a few feet away, throws all of his hope out the window.

“Oh my, am I the last one to arrive? How embarrassing.”

Y/N’s smooth voice is teasing and filled with hints of sarcasm as she leisurely enters the hall with a smirk, scanning it with her amber eyes behind the round mirrored shades sitting on the bridge of her feline nose, the last four Recoms of her team following behind her. Quaritch and Wainfleet, along with everyone else turn towards her and her men, watching as they make their way to the Holofloor while the doors slide closed behind them.

“You’re just in time, L/N.” Ardmore speaks up, raising her eyes briefly to give her a glance, before turning her attention back to the screen playing the footage she was going over with the technicians.

Miles’ breath catches in his throat as soon as his eyes land on the woman approaching. From all the Recom and native women he has seen throughout his life and the memories from his predecessor, none seem to compare to the Major General. Her form is mind blowing beautiful, lean and toned with the perfect amount of plump that fills her in the right places. Her hips sway almost hypnotically as she walks towards them, with a long and elegant tail, wrapped in the same black camo tape, that sways behind her figure like she’s teasing. She is also dressed the same as her men, black uniform hugging her body and gear strapped tightly on her chest, hips and thighs, digging into the plump flesh. Her lean waist contrasts the curves that the gear accentuates, emerging between her carrier plate and modular shooter’s belt that’s loaded with pouches and different pocket storage bags. A rigid holster is strapped to her right thigh, holding a .40 caliber United Ballistics Zarkov-33, as the adjustable straps of the holster dig tightly into the mouth watering plump of her inner thigh, making the flesh swell between the openings.

The first thing Quaritch does is immediately remove his eyes from her form, disciplining himself internally to stop ogling at his higher up and show her some respect. Has he really gone so long without interacting with an attractive woman that he’s almost losing it? However, as he turns his eyes away and moves them to look at Wainfleet instead, his face almost loses color. Lyle is staring. Hard. His eyelids are frozen in place and his mouth is slightly agape as he shamelessly stares at Y/N without even realizing it himself. Quaritch clears his throat in his direction, and that seems to snap Lyle out of it as he straightens his posture and forcefully removes his eyes from the General, turning them to look back at Quaritch. The expression of “Fuck, she’s hot.” is plastered all over his face, and Quaritch squeezes his eyes shut in disappointment. He can’t believe this is really happening right now. Sometimes he forgets that when outside of the battlefield, Lyle does most of the thinking with his dick.

Y/N finally gets on the Holofloor, leisurely and slowly walking up the steps as if to test Quaritch’s reactions. The four Recoms that walked in with her stand behind her, lining up next to each other and taking ready formation, at attention for anything she might need. The Major General is now standing a few feet away in front of Quaritch and Wainfleet, moving one gloved hand up to remove the mirrored shades from her face. The sharp V1R receptors in the nasal cavity of Miles’ sensitive feline nose immediately capture the sweet scent emitting from her smooth striped skin as soon as she’s within range. His mouth waters, saliva pooling at the top of his tongue and he doesn’t know why. This has never happened before. Her scent holds something familiar but he can’t put his finger on it. Quaritch swallows thickly, before raising a toned arm and saluting her firmly.

“General L/N!”

Wainfleet follows suit, saluting her right after his Colonel. He is in no better shape. His sensitive nose has also captured her sweet scent and it brings back memories of his predecessor, listening in on the male Avatars he would escort into the forest, as they talked about the scents of the women and how much it affected them. He remembers huffing in amusement, mocking them internally for acting like dogs in heat, like savages. But as he stands there, nasal cavity slowly filling with the scent of this woman, who is his superior no less, making his tongue overflow in saliva, he understands. Quaritch reaches forward in Y/N’s direction for a handshake, his ears folding back in respect.

“Good evening ma’am-“

But as soon as he moves even an inch near her, all of ALPHA have drawn their weapons in a flash. John, Fernando, Riley and Oscar, being the ones nearest Y/N, have taken out their combat knives and have put their arms in front of her protectively, clutching their knives in a reverse knife grip with the cutting edges of the blades facing Quaritch. The rest of the team have all drawn their guns and are now aiming at his head threateningly, their stares hard and piercing. Ardmore who is watching behind the controlling panels of the Holofloor, tries to hide her grin by pressing her lips in a brief pucker, while Quaritch stands in front of Y/N and her men, baffled, with his open palm in front of him and ears pressed against his head as ten large Recombinants threaten to take his life right on the spot. Wainfleet stares shocked at them as well, one hand having instinctively moved on the gun strapped to the back of his left hip, to protect his Colonel.

“DO NOT APPROACH THE GENERAL WITHOUT PERMISSION! STEP AWAY, NOW!!” Riley yells in a threatening, loud and harsh tone, staring daggers at him. The people in the hall stare with wide eyes, the atmosphere having quickly turned tense. Quaritch raises his calloused hands up to the sides of his head to show them that he means no harm and takes a step back, looking at them with a still puzzled face. What the fuck just happened? Y/N chuckles, now having removed the shades from her beautiful face as the sound resonates from the base of her throat. She carefully clasps them on a small pocket on her left upper arm, and raises a hand to signal her team to stand at ease. The men and women exchange a few glances between each other before lowering their weapons, but maintain their threatening stares on the pair of Deja Blu Recoms. Miles swallows thickly again. Her eyes are so fucking beautiful.

Y/N’s pupils trail up and down Miles’ form, taking her time to take in every detail on him. His form is large, with muscular broad shoulders, as expected of a Marine. His biceps and triceps bulge out under the bruised skin of his buff arms, with long, thick veins that decorate his large hands and bulky forearms. A tattoo of an eagle is placed over his left lateral triceps, the black ink contrasting against the blue of his striped skin. His body comes down into a trim and lean waistline, as expected of a Na’vi but the sheer exercise that he seems to have put it under has made it a bit thicker, abs almost visible under the thin RDA standard issue military tank top. Her gaze moves lower, to his legs. His thighs are thick and muscular, tight against the fabric of his cut out camo pants and the leather of the holster strapped to the left one. Speaking of the cut out, his lower legs are still exposed like the last time she saw him, the soles of his feet planted on the cold glass of the Holofloor. His calves are thick, muscles strong and bulging out from all the running and movement he has been doing through the forest these past months.

Y/N’s eyes then travel up, raking over his collarbone and neck, to his face. Even though it’s still bruised, stitched and swollen, a small feeling arises in the depths of her chest as she stares at his features, just like when she saw his hologram on her first day on Pandora. He’s really fucking handsome. But even with these thoughts in her head, Y/N’s face shows nothing but stoicism. Under her gaze, Quaritch suddenly feels exposed, his mind racing at 100 mph to figure out what she’s judging on him.

“United States Marine Corps; General Orders and Knowledge for Tests and Inspections; Leadership Traits of a Military Officer. Number nine: Bearing: “You earned your uniform and everything on it; wear it with pride. Carry yourself with dignity and correctness. Master yourself before you try to master others.”” Y/N states, giving his form one last up and down look before her amber eyes trail up towards his own, looking through long lashes straight at him for the first time ever. “And yet here you are, a high ranking officer wearing a uniform with cut out pants, a tank top thinner than paper that leaves the entirety of you arms, neck and collarbone exposed, and walking on my floors with bare feet. Why are your toes out in my base? Where is your decency? Don’t you know any better?”

Quaritch’s eyes are so wide that his eyeballs look like they’re about to pop out of his skull at any second now. This woman might as well have just called him a whore for the lack of uniform on his body. Wainfleet’s mouth hangs open briefly before he composes himself and turns to stare at Quaritch, baffled. The rest of the Recoms in the room grin at each other, watching as the so called Colonel stands there, caught off guard. Quaritch clears his throat.

“I… uh- It was part of a strategy-“

Y/N raises a gloved hand to shut him up, turning her eyes away from him, unamused.

“I’ve heard enough.” She comments, walking towards the center of the Holofloor and saluting Ardmore, before turning towards the rest of the room. She opens her arms wide and brings her palms together into a powerful clap that echoes throughout the space, bringing all attention and heads towards her direction.

“Okay, anyone who is not part of this meeting; scram. The rest prepare your material and let’s begin.” She announces loudly. The people follow suit immediately, some leaving and some scrambling to get the footage and reports ready. Quaritch squeezes his eyes shut, taking in a deep breath to ground himself. This meeting hasn’t even started yet and it already went downhill. Ardmore was right, he really is going to need his breath for this. As the place empties out somewhat, and the ALPHA Recoms take seats, Y/N turns her head towards Quaritch and Wainfleet, her hair and neural whip braid moving with it as a sickly sweet smile plasters on her soft lips, promising the duo nothing but hell for the next few hours.

“Let’s begin, shall we?”

Quaritch takes a deep sip of carbon dioxide from his Recom Breather.

“Disaster. Absolute disaster. Hundreds of people dead, an entire team of Recoms gone, billions of dollars of ships and equipment wrecked to the point of no return, extremely aggravated natives, a prisoner who knows almost everything on the loose, and your target is still free. What the hell do you have to say for yourself?” Y/N presses, walking through horrific holografic images of the wreckage and bodies being pulled out of the water, being projected from the Holofloor all around them. Ardmore watches with her lips pressed tightly, arms crossed over her chest as she observes the briefing going on in front of her. Lyle’s ears press low against his head, looking over at his Colonel with a worried expression on his bruised face. Quaritch swallows a thick glob of spit that has pooled in his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion. His brain races to find an answer to dilute the situation and defend himself, but all odds are currently stacked against him. His actions caused this and he must face the consequences.

“I…” He trails off, pondering carefully on his next words. “I lost control of the situation-”

“Really?” Y/N frowns, cutting him off and crossing her arms under her chest. “You lost control of the situation? Well no shit, but that’s your best excuse?”

Quaritch clenches his jaw. His eyes remain down, refusing to look at either of the Generals. The tip of his large tongue pokes out briefly to wet his dry lips, but he immediately regrets it as the bottom left corner starts stinging painfully, reminding him of the busted bottom lip. He clears his throat and his eyes look up at the Major General.

“I had everything under control. But somethin’ went wrong and I lost the grip I had on the situation. I swear everything was going according to plan but they had advantages on water that I didn’t think were possible.”

“I am not asking you what they did, I am asking you why you failed so horribly.” Y/N replies, staring him down harshly. “I don’t want to hear bullshit of them having weird connections with nature, I want to hear why you, as a high ranking officer on this base, with the appropriate expertise and thinking skills, could not deescalate the situation, retake control of the circumstances and put the lives of the people under your command over your target.”

Ardmore remains silent as things unfold, with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Quaritch has embarrassed her to an extent she did not think was possible for someone his rank, and Y/N’s condescending stares of “I told you so” made it even worse. Not only is she embarrassed but she is fuming as much as Y/N about the losses they took, so for now, she has decided to remain silent and let Y/N rip him a new one.

Quaritch swallows down again, clenching his jaw tighter. Before answering, he inhales more CO2 from his mask.

“I did as much as I could. My team did as well. They saved as many human lives as they could. But some things were just out of our control. They had the upper hand and we realized that too late.” He explains firmly as he puts the mask down, trying to get Y/N to understand his perspective as well.

“No. You had the chance to retreat. And you didn’t. You reeled Jake Sully back in and forced his hand into killing what was left of your team and the remaining people on deck. You could’ve retreated with the two daughters you had hostage and we would still be having some of our people, Deja Blu Recoms and two high value prisoners. But you didn’t. And I want to know why.” Y/N replies, not buying into what he’s saying for even a split second. Quaritch grinds his teeth slightly, his tail swinging once behind him. This is the first time he has met this woman and she is already at his throat like no one else ever has been. But he doesn’t really blame her. He would have reacted the same if he was in her position. Wainfleet’s anxious eyes remain on his Colonel.

“I… I thought I could accomplish the mission, finish what I went there for.”

“And why didn’t you?”

That catches Quaritch off guard. He thinks for a moment, brain working to figure out the answer to her question. Why didn’t he? Then he remembers. He doesn’t want to tell her about how Sully’s batshit crazy wife almost killed Spider, and how Miles Quaritch at that moment realized that that boy is his deepest weakness. But how is he supposed to come up with a believable lie and tell it to this woman’s face? Even Wainfleet doesn’t know what happened, no one does really. It was just him, Sully, his woman and spawns, and Spider.

Now everyone is looking at him for an answer. Wainfleet senses that something is wrong so he jumps in.

“The odds were really stacked against u-“

“Did I say you could speak?” Y/N cuts him off, her voice raising in tone as she holds up a pointer finger in his direction before snapping her head to glare at him. Wainfleet’s ears press harder against his head.

“No ma’am-“

“Then why are you still speaking?” She continues, her own ears folding back in irritation. Wainfleet shuts his mouth at that, lowering his head down.

“Everyone here barks when I tell them to bark and that includes you.” She finishes with Wainfleet and turns back to Quaritch. “So, let me rephrase my question. You had two of his daughters hostage. You reeled him back in. You had the upper hand. How did you end up losing that advantage?”

Quaritch clenches his jaw. He must think his answer carefully.

“His wife was there, pointing her arrow at my head. It was either my life or the girl’s.” He lies, with a firm voice and confident eyes, hoping Y/N won’t see through it.

“And what exactly was stopping her from firing the arrow?” Y/N asks, raising a brow, unimpressed. That starts to irritate Quaritch.

“I don’t know. Probably didn’t want to kill someone in front of her youngest daughter.”

Y/N narrows her eyes at him suspiciously. It does make sense, no one would want to let their child watch a dead body drop, especially the Na’vi who are known for their empathy. But still, there’s something that doesn’t sit right. She brings the mask of her Recom Breather up to sip some much needed CO2, before continuing to question him.

“And then you managed to get Sully to fight you one on one.” She says, letting go of the mask. Quaritch nods.

“Yes ma’am.”

“And why did you let him go? I mean all that charade couldn’t have been for nothing.”

Quaritch takes a deep breath. This is gonna hurt his pride, badly.

“I didn’t let him go. He managed to choke me unconscious.”

That sentence hangs in the air uncomfortably. Multiple pairs of eyes land upon him, staring him down judgmentally. The ALPHA Recoms are the ones with the worst stares, piercing through him like an array of needles. An uncomfortable silence fills the space. Y/N raises both her brows, blinking rapidly. The fuck did he just say?

“Say that again?”

Quaritch squeezes his eyes shut briefly. God fucking damn it.

“We were engaged in close quarters combat, underwater, as the Sea Dragon was flippin’ over. He managed to get me into a chokehold, and the lack of carbon dioxide from that, adding to the lack of air underwater for several minutes; I lost consciousness.”

Another moment of silence passes. Then, Y/N presses her palms together, and brings them up so the sides of her pointer fingers press against her soft lips. Her beautiful face looks almost flabbergasted.

“Let me get this straight. You; Miles Quaritch, Colonel of the RDA, with the mind and expertise of an excellent long-timer trooper, and the strong and trained body of a twenty year old Na’vi; engaged in close quarters combat with Jake Sully; a wounded and exhausted jarhead Avatar that went AWOL more than a decade ago, who is pushing thirty four, who has had a litter of spawns and inhabits the build of your average dad; and you still lost?”

Quaritch remains silent. His eyes are now fixated hard on Y/N as each word of that sentence leaves her mouth, almost glaring at her but holding himself back. His lips are pressed tightly into a thin line, ears folded back and displeasure plastered all over his bruised face. Does she really need to rub his face in it? In front of all of these people? What is her damn deal? He wets his lips again, tongue raking over the skin, this time avoiding the busted corner.

“Indeed, ma’am.”

Silence falls yet again. Quaritch feels the uncomfortable prickles of humiliation slowly crawl up his neck. The judgmental stares of the people in the hall still fall on him, almost burning into his striped blue skin. Ardmore hasn’t changed her expression, remaining silent with her arms folded. Y/N on the other hand still has the sides of her pointer fingers together pressed against her lips. Her head is lowered a bit, her elegant eyebrows are furrowed in sheer disappointment and her golden eyes look up at him through long lashes with an expression that nearly pities him. Wainfleet who is standing by Quaritch’s side, has his head lowered, avoiding eye contact with anyone at all costs, finding the Holofloor glass beneath his bare feet safer to look at than the people in the room.

After a few more minutes of suffocating silence, Y/N lowers her hands and plants them on her hips. She brings her Recom Breather mask up again and takes a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut to ground herself before she loses her fucking mind. How the fuck was a man this incompetent given the rank of Colonel? She opens her eyes again, swallowing the saliva that has pooled in her mouth, and nods slowly in disappointment, pupils glued to some random corner of the Holofloor while she lets go of the mask. At this moment, not being able to handle the pressure and embarrassment anymore, Quaritch speaks up. But this time he turns towards Ardmore.

“Ma’am, I swear on my life, this was just a huge miscalculation on my part. It will never happen again-“

“You’re damn right it won’t.” Y/N’s voice cuts him off. He turns towards her again and this time he is met with a soul piercing glare that freezes him in place. His cropped ears press against his head, eyes widening and tail stiffing. Y/N raises her head, taking a few steps back slowly. Her combat boots thud on the Holofloor, the sound echoing through the silent hall. Slowly she turns around, turning her back towards Quaritch and Wainfleet, and walking to the center of the Holofloor.

“Well, I think that by now it is clear to all of us that this situation was entirely caused by Colonel Miles Quaritch’s bad decisions and actions.” She says out loud, making sure everyone in the hall can hear her. “Just like I predicted would happen.” She adds, turning her head back to give Ardmore a cold, cocky stare as she says the sentence. Ardmore clenches her jaw, looking away, defeated. Y/N’s lips stretch into a victorious grin, before she turns her attention towards the room again. She starts walking slowly around the Holofloor.

“Now that the situation has been concluded and the culprit has been identified, then it is only fair that the appropriate measures are taken. That means, that Colonel Miles Quaritch…” She states, stopping her movement to stare long and hard into Quaritch’s eyes. “Needs to be reprimanded.”

Quaritch’s jaw clenches tightly. He holds the eye contact with his superior, his breathing pattern getting faster. Y/N smirks lightly, breaking the eye contact and slowly walking to the edge of the Holofloor, facing her own team.

“So, before I make my decision. Would anyone like to chime in?” She asks, her tail raising up in an arch behind her. Quaritch balls up his fists at his sides, the veins on his forearms popping out. Is she being fucking serious? She’s asking for people who are lower in rank than him to decide on a punishment for him? No, this isn’t about briefing anymore. She’s trying to fucking humiliate him. The ALPHA Recoms on the other hand, exchange some knowing glances between them, hiding their smirks. Oh how they love their commander.

“Based on the severity of the situation he caused, an order of censure should be the right reprimand.” John speaks first, deep voice echoing through the room.

“Adding on to that, a forfeiture of the allowances and benefits he has on this base should be ordered. We all saw what happened when a single Sea Dragon was put under his command.” Fernando continues.

“Aside that, a reduction in rank seems the most logical course of action. We cannot afford a Colonel that makes these mistakes. And adding on to my suggestion, some time in correctional custody in the brig will do him good.” Riley adds, throwing a condescending glare in Quaritch’s direction.

“I believe extra duties should be given ta hem. I’m sure ya can think of some appropriate tasks tha’ he must perform ta make up fer hes mistakes.” Scott continues, looking at Y/N as he offers his suggestion.

“I would say that an order of restriction is more appropriate in this case.” Henry speaks up, one gloved hand holding his chin as he indulges in the topic at hand after some moments of thought. The rest of the team turn towards him. “He did not cause any problems for us when he was still roaming the jungle. Well at least, minimal problems. But the second he was given access to an area where Jake Sully was present, he went off the rails and crashed. I believe that an order of restriction that excludes the areas that the fugitive Avatar is deemed to be, would be a good addition after Colonel Miles Quaritch serves his punishment. He will have a better chance to focus in his missions if he is restricted in a certain area and banned from going near Jake Sully.”

Y/N brings her Recom Breather mask up to her face again, before nodding at her team once, proudly. Just as she thought, her team are as sharp as ever. They didn’t fail to identify any of the punishments she has in mind. The Recoms exchange smiles, looking at each other just as proudly. On the other hand, an additional vein has popped on Quaritch’s neck with each suggestion from the ALPHA Recoms. Wainfleet’s cropped ears are almost flattened against his bald head, eyes wide as he stares between his Colonel and the other Recoms. These people are animals.

Y/N finally turns towards Quaritch again. She slowly walks in the duo’s direction, stopping a bit further away.

“So, thanking my team for their feedback, even though some were harsher than what’s fit for this case,” She throws a glance in Riley’s direction before turning back to Quaritch. “Here’s what my reprimands are. And these are final.”

The entire hall is now listening with open ears as the intriguing play before their eyes is finally concluding. The Recoms, Ardmore, the humans in the room, and Wainfleet and Quaritch, stare at Y/N, waiting eagerly for her to continue.

“I have three temporary punishments for you, and two reprimands that will remain in place until you cease to exist in this organization. Punishment number one is the same as what First Lieutenant Álvarez suggested; your benefits on this base will be forfeited until I decide to give them back to you. This means that your authority on this organization will be reduced. I will not take away your rank, however your control on our air, land and sea troops is no more. Every decision and every order you want to give to our soldiers, our employees, and our personnel from now on will have to be approved by me until I am satisfied with your performance. Punishment number two and three are what First Sergeant McCaskill suggested. Both of these punishments are extra duties, but they differ from each other as much as they are related. The first one is undergoing additional knowledge and specialization training. It is very clear to me that you are used to how the RDA was operating in the time of your predecessor’s death. However, today that is not the case. The RDA no longer works on private administration but on full military administration and command. That means that you will no longer break the United States Marine Corps’ rules and regulations, like you have been doing for months on end. You will undergo additional training where you will relearn every single sentence on the USMC Manual and the USMC Handbook, because you have clearly forgotten everything. Adding on to that, you will identify and highlight every single rule and regulation from these documents that you have broken until now, and write a finalized report where you explain in detailed paragraphs how you broke them, why you broke them, what you should have done instead, and what the USMC says that the consequences for each one of them should be. This report will be handed to me when you are finished and based on my satisfaction, the second punishment will be lifted if I find that you have done a good job. The second extra duty and your third and final punishment, is that you will undergo additional physical training with Second Lieutenant Riley Jones, until I am satisfied with your performance. Lieutenant Jones is responsible for training our troops, therefore he will have no trouble refining and polishing your skills in combat. You almost lost your life engaging in close quarters combat with a middle aged Na’vi and I will not have that. So, these are your three punishments. They are temporary and can be lifted whenever I find it appropriate for them to be lifted. The better you excel in your extra duties, the sooner you will find yourself out of these punishments.”

“Now, on to your two reprimands. Unlike your punishments, these are permanent and will remain in place until you are retired or dead. The first one is what Captain Keller suggested; a formal order of censure. This will be put in your personnel file, detailing your actions and the consequences you caused at the Three Brothers, and will remain there permanently. It means that no matter if the authority on base changes, decisions regarding you will be affected by this event. Your second reprimand is what Master Gunnery Sergeant Davis suggested; an order of restriction. From now on you are restricted within areas that I approve, and if you step out of these areas it will be considered trespassing and you will be disciplined for it. You are banned from entering an area within a thirty mile radius from Jake Sully, whether that be by foot, by vehicle or by animal. To ensure that you will follow this order, I will have the science department design a tracking chip that will be implanted into your body. Your Lieutenant as well will undergo this procedure. All of my Recombinant operators have tracking chips in them, and that will include you two as well. It’s simply standard procedure that you have been excused from for way too long. With that being said, I’m sure that you have already been informed that you and your Lieutenant have been moved from General Ardmore’s primary command and have been put under mine. This means that from now on I have the same commanding authority over you as General Ardmore does, and you will be coming to me first instead of her. And with that all being concluded and hopefully understood, this meeting is now over and your punishments and reprimands take effect immediately. You start training first thing in the morning. Everyone is excused.”

The hall starts buzzing at the final sentence, personnel and people already standing up to head back to their respective tasks. The images and footage of the aftermath at the Three Brothers, projected from the Holofloor disappear as people start leaving and others entering through the large doors.

Quaritch stands there, frozen in place and unblinking. His brain is scrambling, trying to process the array of punishments that the Major General just laid upon him. Forfeited benefits, extra duties, a formal order of censure, and an order of restriction. She can’t be serious, can she? This is all just a big, bad joke, right? The color from Miles Quaritch’s face has been drained. Wainfleet stands there, eyes almost bulging out of his skull and mouth nearly agape. His ears are so far back that it’s cutting the blood flow of said cartilage, and his pupils move to stare at his Colonel. Quaritch’s jaw looks like it’s about to pop out of its sockets, his eyes glued onto Y/N as if trying to shoot lasers at her. Y/N in question stares back at him with eyebrows raised, challenging him to dare and say something against her words.

Ardmore who has now started walking towards the direction of the door to take her leave, walks past them without another word, followed by her assistant and her right hand man. As she passes, Y/N, Quaritch and Wainfleet nod at her in respect, straightening their postures. She stops briefly in her tracks, turning her head to look up at Y/N.

“You did well L/N.” Is all she says, before turning her head forward and continuing to where she was heading. Y/N nods once in respect, with a polite smile on her soft lips.

“Well, I wish you a nice evening and the next time I see you I expect better performance.” Y/N tells Quaritch after Ardmore leaves, still challenging him with her eyes to try and dare say something. Quaritch remains silent, having decided that the best course of action is to shut his mouth before he says something that he will regret deeply. He only nods once respectfully, fists clenched at his sides. Y/N grins, taking a sip of CO2 from her mask and giving him one last look from top to bottom before slowly, teasingly, turning around and starting to walk away as well, her long tail flicking slowly behind her as if to add on to his nerves.

“Ma’am.” Quaritch and Wainfleet farewell politely at the same time as she takes her leave, followed by her team who quickly are short on her tail. Quaritch’s jaw remains clenched, waiting for her to finally leave so he can get a grounding breath in.

The doors slide open for Y/N to leave, but just as she’s at the exit she stops. Turning around briefly, her amber eyes fall on Quaritch’s form yet again, looking at him over her shoulder.

“And enough with this tree-hugging savage crap. Go put on some goddamn clothes.”

With that, she’s gone. And so is her team, one by one until the only Recoms on the Holofloor are Miles and Lyle. Miles’ eyes are glued on the now closing doors, right where Y/N left from, and his lips press together. His glare is filled with anger, coursing through his veins and burning through his body.

You know what? He actually fuckin’ hates this damn woman.

Title explanation:

Fire for Effect – Military term indicating that the adjustment/ranging of indirect fire is satisfactory and the actual effecting rounds should be fired. In this case it holds its euphemism meaning for the execution of a plan. The plan in question is the punishments and reprimands that Y/N had been brewing inside of her, just waiting for the right moment to lay them down upon Quaritch, therefore “firing for effect” on him when she indeed does so.

End of chapter notes:

I hope ya’ll liked this chapter because I have read so many articles from the USMC handbook about rules and reprimands for this-

Additionally, I lied. The way Toddy got in Y/N’s office will be revealed in the next chapter lmao. ʅ（◞‿◟）ʃ

Also pookies, keep in mind that tiny detail of how Y/N’s scent affected both Miles and Lyle more than usual. And how Y/N lingered her stare on Miles for a bit too much. 👀

ᴘʀᴇᴠɪᴏᴜꜱ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɴᴇxᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ

[therhythmafterthesummer]

https://www.tumblr.com/therhythmafterthesummer/723756900577099776/i-dont-know-if-you-have-a-anon-or-not-but-id

Thinking about this….. if you done this…. would you share 🥹🥹 pretty please 🙏🥹

Always ready to read your any of works 🥹🥹

Hope you’re having a good day or have a good day

i gotchu, bb.

thanks for sending this ask. hope y'all enjoy !

Pairing: Werewolf!Chan x Human!F.Reader (one of the main pairings of my WereRoomies series. you don’t really need to read any other instalment to understand/enjoy this piece). | Word Count: ~2k | Themes & Warnings: fantasy/supernatural AU · smut · roommates to ??? | this piece takes place before these two got together · allusion to the reader being chubby · self-pleasure (both parties are getting off, but not engaging with each other) · voyeurism · improper use of supernatural abilities · Chris’ inner wolf won’t shut up · mentions and hints of: fingering, knotting, breeding, etc · Guilty & Moping Christopher · self-loathing

minors do not interact.

Chris would’ve never thought he’d be this weak. He was usually very good at ignoring this attraction he felt. A couple of months of you living here with him had practically trained him for it. However, a handful of nights a week, it was almost impossible to ignore.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, really. It was only natural that someone your age would indulge in one of the most primal needs an animal could have, and, of course, like a proper human, you had tools to deal with all that. 

The first time it happened, he almost dropped dead right then and there. It took him a moment to notice back then. He was so sleepy he thought he might’ve been hearing things, but, after a few moments of that faint buzzing sound resonating through the walls, the first quiet moan gave it all away.

It was almost embarrassing how quickly he started to get hard the moment he realised you were a few steps away, getting off. Chris had covered his face and ears with his pillow in a desperate attempt to not hear. Having enhanced hearing didn’t make it okay to eavesdrop, especially not during such intimate circumstances.

That night, he had to stop his hands from moving multiple times. He refused to get off to the sound of your quiet whines, to the buzz of the toy… He refused to even start imagining the scene you’d be painting in your room. He tried to distract himself, watching cute videos on his phone, or putting his headset on to try and muffle the sounds travelling through your shared home.

He’d succeeded for the most part, but after you were… finished, he heard you going through the motions of leaving your room, going to the bathroom, and then back to your room… He needed to drink something, his mouth was dry and his senses were on edge, plus, a cold shower was more than needed, considering his traitorous cock just wouldn’t go soft.

He had to wait almost twenty minutes to leave his room, just in case you were still awake. Honestly, the moment he stepped out of his room and went into the bathroom, he was almost winded by the smell of your scent in the hall. It wasn’t your fault, it probably just lingered there from when you had walked through here earlier, but, God, it wasn’t helping his problem one bit…

Regardless, Chris had been able to keep himself in check that night. No boundaries were broken, and that was enough to ease his mind.

However, even if he’d succeeded, he wasn’t really prepared to deal with this on the regular.

Every night he heard the buzz, it was a night spent in agony. Sometimes he’d just stay in his room, headphones plugged in, playing a game on max volume. On other nights, it’d be so incredibly difficult to hold himself back from doing something he’d regret, so he’d just leave the flat altogether.

He’d go to Changbin’s, or Minho’s, or Jisung’s, or anyone’s, as long as he got to be away from you and your goddamn scent and the alluring sounds coming out of your room.

He should’ve known that this couldn’t last. Chris was bound to break, and the tortuous workday he’d had today, coupled with just how incredibly exhausted he was, seemed to have lowered his inhibitions enough for his hand to mindlessly find its way to his crotch as soon as he heard that godforsaken buzz.

“Oh, shit…” Chris mumbled under his breath, leaning his head back against the headboard of his bed.

What was he doing?

Well, he knew what he was doing, but why was he doing it?

Using his supernatural hearing for this was beyond creepy, immoral, you definitely didn’t deserve it. But, God, how could he not do it when you sounded just so… pretty?

He couldn’t think straight, not when sparks of pleasure were running up and down his spine with each stroke of his hand, not when he tightened his grip just right. If you were to have your hands on him, would you hold him like this? He’d be more than delighted to show you what he liked. He just knew that you’d be able to perfectly mimic the pressure that made him dizzy, that you’d work him up diligently, that your hands would feel a hundred times better than his did.

Chris could hear the faint buzz in the distance, the quiet whines and sighs, the muffled moans… He could picture it all in detail. You, sprawled on your bed–that bed he himself had laid on many, many times before… platonically–legs spread, a hand on your breast and the other holding a toy between your legs. 

What toy were you using? Was it a dildo? A bullet? One of those trendy suction ones? He selfishly hoped it wasn’t a dildo. A dildo wouldn’t be enough for a girl like you, he was sure. His fingers would be much more suitable. He’d prep you so well, stuff you with as many of his digits as he could, touch you however you liked to be touched, using the bullet or the suction toy on your sensitive clit…

But he wasn’t there right now. You were on your own, playing with yourself and your toy. His mind really couldn’t decide on which one it would be, the mental image he had kept shifting between devices. The only thing that was a constant was the look on your face, all blissed-out, with your eyes closed and your mouth slightly agape.

Would you be teasing your nipples? Rolling them between your fingers? Pinching them? If you weren’t, he’d gladly do it for you. God, the soft flesh would just feel incredible in his hold, he just knew. The sight would surely be heavenly.

Lick, suck, fuck, perfect tits just for me…

After spitting in his hand, Chris brought it back to his aching cock, smearing the saliva all over himself before he tightened his grip and pumped. Oh, how he wished it was you. Your hands, your mouth, your cunt, or even your thighs… He’d take anything you were willing to give him, he just knew you’d look so, so gorgeous while you choked on him, while you took him in any and every single one of your holes…

His spit and the pre-cum spilling from his tip helped lubricate him, each stroke produced an obscene squelching sound that just joined the quiet sounds you were making in your room. The buzzing increased, your whines became more frequent, and Chris just sped up the motions of his hand in response.

What if he just barged out of his room and went straight to yours? Would you let him take you? There was a small, very idiotic part of him that believed you would. You’d open your legs further, let him settle his body between them, and plunge himself right in while he kissed you. You’d be so warm around his cock, tight while you adjusted to his size, he was simply salivating at the thought.

Perfect, perfect cunt that’ll take her alpha’s cock like it was made to… mine, for me, for my cock, for my knot… to be stuffed to the very brim with my pups…

Chris’ chest was vibrating slightly with his contained growls, the thought of kissing you, fucking you, claiming you, and scenting you in one of the most obscene ways possible had his instincts on edge. His inner wolf wanted you, of course he did. He was just another part of Chris, who was already absolutely crazy about you. Every single part of him knew just how well you’d take anything he gave you, how well you’d do for him.

His logical mind wouldn’t let him leave his bed, though. He’d risk too much by acting purely on his wolf’s instincts. Instead, he just sped his strokes, matching the rapid pace you seemed to have set for yourself. Was your toy at top speed? Or was there still more? He wanted to find out. He wanted to be the one to use it on you, to have you moan his name in his ear and squirm under him.

Just the mere thought of you saying his name got him so, so close. There was nothing more that he wanted right now than to have his pretty roommate crumbling in bliss, he just knew he could make you feel so incredibly good if you just gave him a chance.

Pleasure mate, satisfy mate, scent, mark as mine, mine, mine, mine, mine….

All of a sudden, the quietest of moans left your mouth, and you started gasping for air. He could practically smell your scent, floral, fresh, aroused, satisfied…

Oh, he was so doomed…

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” Chris mindlessly swore under his breath, speeding the movement of his hand, thrusting into his grip as the telltale signs of his orgasm clouded his senses.

Biting down hard on his bottom lip, he let his climax wash over him. His cum was warm, thick, and creamy since he hadn’t unloaded for days now. He had to make a conscious effort not to growl like the fucking horny dog he was while he got the expanse of his torso drenched in his release. It felt like he was coming for an eternity, and, by the time he had milked himself dry, all noise coming from your room had stopped completely.

Chris heaved a sigh, and his ears started ringing. This was just what he needed after such a long, strenuous day at work. He felt his frustrations quickly evaporate, replaced with the rush of endorphins only a good wank could release into his system. He laid there, panting, his head lolled to the side as the bliss of his orgasm relaxed his muscles, and for a moment, he felt like he was floating, even sleepy.

He was deep in bliss, light, satisfied…

But then, dread started to seep in.

“Oh, God, what’ve you done, you fucking idiot?” Chris reached for his discarded shorts on the floor and used them to clean up the mess he made. When was the last time he came this hard? There was so much cum…

What a waste…

“Shut the fuck up, dude”, he shook his head, like that would eliminate the thought.

How was he going to look you in the eyes tomorrow? You were his roommate. His female, very much human roommate that had trusted him enough to move in with him, and this was how he acted? By secretly listening in to you pleasuring yourself in the privacy of your own room? You had no idea what he was, that he was capable of doing this at all, so of course you would go ahead and make all the noise you wanted within those four walls. It was your right, but he had to go ahead and be disgusting about it. How could he do this?

His skeleton almost jumped out of his skin when he heard the door to your room open, only to hear the bathroom door closing a few seconds after.

Would you be just washing your hands? Or would you be washing your toys as well…?

Chris shook his head again. He had a serious problem…

With a sigh, he plopped on his bed, and decided to wait until you were done so he could go to the bathroom himself and clean up properly.

Squish, knead, hold tight… Must cuddle mate, make sure mate’s satisfied, happy…

He flicked himself on the forehead, right in the middle. He was capable of keeping his instincts in check, goddamn it. Why was his subconscious slipping like this?

As he laid there, staring at the ceiling, with the phantom of your scent lingering around him, he figured it was time to accept that he was incredibly attracted to you. Physically. Enough for him to become a desperate mess and lose his composure just at the thought of you masturbating a few metres away from him.

He knew, of course. He knew since the very first moment he saw you. But this was odd for him. Chris typically didn’t feel attracted to people in this way just out of nowhere. The fact that he’d known you for a couple of months already seemed to have made everything so much worse. You were nice, funny, kind, and, quite possibly, the most beautiful person he’d ever seen… He, very clearly, had a crush on you. What was he going to do about that?

When you finally retreated to your room, he didn’t dare leave his bed. The last thing he wanted was for you to start worrying about whether he’d heard you or not.

He heard you, alright, but you didn’t need to know that.

After twenty or so minutes, he finally made his way to the bathroom, and your scent still lingering in the room almost made his eyes roll to the back of his head.

Flowers… Fresh flowers… Mate’s scent…

While he cleaned himself up, Chris tried his best to ignore whatever instincts were running rampant deep inside him. His inner wolf was a horny idiot that was making him do stupid things whenever you were concerned. But, by association, that meant that he was a horny idiot who had just had a mindblowing orgasm thinking about his roommate. Thinking about you.

When he finally tucked himself back into bed, he couldn’t help but feel like he was the absolute worst person on earth. You didn’t deserve this, for the disgusting, horny werewolf you didn’t even know was a werewolf to be disrespecting you like this. He needed to do better.

But, God, why did you have to be so pretty? And so… his type? He was sure he didn’t have a type before he met you, but the more he had to be around you, the more he realised you were certainly his type.

Soft mate, squishy mate…

Sighing, Chris laid on his side and reached for one of the spare pillows on his bed. His senses were immediately flooded with your scent. That was when he remembered you’d laid your head here earlier today. No wonder he could smell your scent so vividly. 

Your smile had been so big when you’d started talking to him about your day… The memory had his heart skipping a beat, and his stomach sank. 

Hugging the pillow tight to his chest, he curled himself into a ball under the covers.

Kind mate, perfect mate…

Once again, Chris ignored whatever fuckery his instincts were trying to tell him. He reminded himself that you were his roommate, essentially a friend at this point, and as such, he was supposed to protect you and make you feel safe. It didn’t matter how pretty your moans were, how he wanted to get drowned in your scent… None of that justified what he’d just done. He couldn’t break your trust like this ever again.

Chris certainly needed to do better. So he swore he’d never ever do this again.

He just won’t do this again…

…Right?

© therhythmafterthesummer 2023. all rights reserved. do not repost or translate my stories.

Author's Note: aaahh, this was so much fun to write. ngl, i'm kinda tempted to write a drabble with this scenario again, but after our dearest, prettiest pack mum has already found out about Chris' condition... special thanks to @notastraykid for providing her valuable insight, opinions, and ideas💜

tagging everyone that wants to be tagged in my wereroomies instalments. if you don’t want to be tagged in little ask responses like these let me know ! If you want to be added to the tag list, you can fill in this form. be aware that you must have an indication that you’re an adult in your blog if you want me to tag you in my works

@comet-falls · @princelingperfect · @iadorethemskz · @kileidoscope · @maknae00 · @compersian · @dundullresident · @vitrealisbunny · @yeetfellx · @minnysproutgriffinteddy · @oiminho · @binchangf · @leedunno · @luxsonny · @shutupandstoptalking · @akimi-youngblood · @mamieishere · @straylightdream · @4kwp · @bintificreads · @seo--changbin

in purple: can't be tagged. if you see this, please check your visibility settings or i'll have to remove your user from the taglist, and won't be able to tag you in any future stories. if you've been removed and want to be re-added, you can either DM me or send the form again.