#the reason the release version had so much content was because they had been working on it for probably a few years at that point

[acheronidae]

It's been established at this point that all the new story content is going to come out in short bursts at a time, calm the fuck down and be patient ffs.

Y'all are greedy and expect way more than can be reasonably done in a short amount of time, stop it.

[smokesandsonatas]

Broke mc and the rich night raven college bois! Would they spoil the mc or would they let mc struggle, delighted in doing so 👀

+++ After a long time, I'm finally starting to answer requests. I tend to combine similar asks, I hope people don't mind.

OnlyCams (Twst version of OnlyFans) Reader x All NRC students and Rollo. Reader is implied to be female. Mentions of cleavage, lingerie, and implied sugar daddy stuff. Slightly NSFW. +++

Update: Part II

Your current financial situation, compounded by the need to eat proper meals, pushed you to find a side job. Crowley had cut your budget by more than half, citing Grim's damages—an accusation your companion vehemently denies—as the reason you're struggling to eat properly. It has reached the point where you only eat once a day to quickly pay off Grim's fees to the school. Your pride is too great to ask for help, and besides, you don’t consider them ‘close friends’—acquaintances from another world might be a more accurate term. You’re not particularly close to any of the boys, or rather, your schoolmates. They are just that: schoolmates.

You tried applying at Mostro Lounge but left quickly after your gut told you to. In a foreign world where monsters, beasts, mermen, and magic are the norm, your instincts are your only trusted guide.

The rules of this world shouldn’t and wouldn’t apply to you the same way, right? Whatever society imposes on them is not applicable to you. In your world, this type of job is common, though frowned upon, but it pays well.

You refuse to eat cobwebs from the dusty ceiling of the ramshackle dorm.

In your mind, you plead for privacy as you smile at the ghosts, asking them not to bother you while you rest—just as Grim has been doing for the past two hours. Fortunately, the ghosts heed your request.

You let out a soft hum as you change into a flimsy outfit: a cute two-piece lingerie with bows in the middle, and bat earrings from one of your highest-tier subscribers. While you only show skin rather than specific body parts, your effort in producing high-quality content led to you being featured as one of the emerging models more than two weeks ago. Now, you are close to paying off Grim's full debt, and you have saved enough to afford full meals twice a day with snacks in between. As a result, Grim is much more obedient, promising to be careful as long as you continue to feed him, of course.

You have a keen eye for beauty, after all.

You count silently as you pose for the camera—an alluring sight, sensual in your pose, a work of art in every sense.

3...2...1

Snap!

+++++

He first heard the rumors from the members of the Heartslabyul dorm. As the dorm leader, Riddle is keen to know what currently preoccupies the thoughts of his card soldiers. That’s how Riddle found you—by threatening to cut off the head of one of the freshmen, who nearly pissed himself as Riddle stood seething. That incident occurred a week ago. Riddle is never one to indulge in such perverse photos, despite what his highest-tier subscription might suggest. No, he is a gentleman after all. His favorite photo is the one where you’re wearing a red silk robe that clings to your figure, with a book pressed between your two mounds. He may or may not have specifically requested that photo, and he paid you generously for your work.

Of course, he knows you have one! Cater is the self-proclaimed king of Magicam and social media, after all. The OnlyCams platform is an emerging phenomenon that has taken Magicam by storm. You just happened to get on it at the right time, and Cater couldn’t help but respect the hustle. You’re now an emerging content creator, and his favorite photos of you are saved on his phone—essentially everything. Oh, what’s that? He can’t do it because it’s prohibited? Of course, Cater can! He has been your faithful subscriber from day one.

Oh sevens, when Trey saw your sweet bakery-themed photos he will not deny that he relieved himself more than once. You keep on releasing new mouth-salivating content every other day but that still stands as his favourite. He especially loved the one where you put whipped cream to cover your nipples. What? Trey is a man and therefore susceptible to temptation.

He will never tell you that he knows, but he has been there since your first post. Ace had been a loyal supporter even from the start, he even took it upon himself to try a few gigs to support you, you know? That's what friends do right? Just don't blame Ace when he uses your pictures to masturbate as he takes his baths.

Deuce cannot believe it, but he cannot take his eyes off it either. Deuce also knows but respects you enough to not bring it up. Why didn't you told him you have perfect thighs? He is pouty but as he works his hands below his pants he cannot help but bite his lower lip. This is the third time he masturbated on your picture. His favorite? A picture of you laying down as you wink cheekily in a 'Japanese' uniform, the short skirt hiked over your thighs. The caption says it reminds you of your place back home, Deuce briefly wonders if you would let him visit to see that uniform personally on you.

....

Leona doesn't give a fuck, his thick cock out as he works his hands up and down his shaft lazily in his bedroom. You've been a very cheeky herbivore. Ha! Leona didn't realize how much of an ass beastman he is not until he raised an eyebrow as he smirked when he realized all his favorites are the ones where it focuses on your ass. He likes it when you squeeze them. Leona wonders if he should send you a message for a special offer, the price won't matter to him. What? Breeding season will come soon for the beastman, he will have no other partner than you.

He admires your skills to hustle, Ruggie could not help but sneakily have his account opened through Leona's bank, it's not like the rich prince will notice it billing him anyway. Once he opens your highest-tier content, Ruggie now understands why. You're a complete pro at this! He is not sure if this is your previous job in your world or if this is your first time doing it at all, but those thoughts have escaped him when he fucks himself into his hand in the picture of you spreading your ass cheeks.

Jack had heard about the site from the other track team members, out of curiosity, he opened an account and was surprised when he got your account in his recommendation. He will support you of course! That's what friends do! He will try to contain himself when he unlocks your content of you wearing skimpy track shorts but it's impossible as he felt himself tightening through his pajamas.

...

Azul had never heard of this website before, but dear sevens! The possibilities are endless. Pleasure work is not unheard of in the Coral Sea, but he now knows they do it differently on land. It's called porn, as far as he remembers when he picked up the word from one of the guidebooks in the Sage Island. When he realizes at first glance that you will be one of its top creators—the money will come pouring right in! Azul chuckles to himself, restraining his excitement as he bites his lower lip while staring at your latest update. The thought of being your manager crosses his mind as he gazes at your picture of spreading your legs open, the flimsy thong left so little to the imagination. Will you let him manage you? Will you allow him to experience what he sees? Perhaps you’ll seek out a partner for a collaboration, and Azul will be eager to present himself. Of course, he will refrain from showing his face—he still has a reputation to uphold—but he cannot deny that you are his guilty pleasure in this realm.

Floyd is addicted to your content! How dare Shrimpy make him so excited every day? For almost two weeks now, Floyd has been happily completing tasks assigned to him at the Mostro Lounge. Sure, he pockets some tips for himself, but fear not! Floyd thinks he deserves it. Besides, they ought to reward him for his extra hard work. Floyd giggles when he sees a notification that you've posted a new update. One of these days, he will come to see you personally—only if Jade isn’t holding him back. After all, if left unchecked, Floyd just might take you deep into the coral sea.

Jade, on the other hand, is constantly watching you—or so you thought. At lunch, in the hallway, even in the library when you’re trying to study with Grim. You can feel his eyes piercing through your soul, but for some reason, you can never quite meet his gaze. Or maybe, you’re trying to catch him staring at you just to justify your suspicions, but when you look, he’s not. Unbeknownst to you, Jade is just as giddy as his twin brother. Don’t blame him! He adores the picture where you’re actually wearing the seashell necklace he sent through your fanmail. Oh, but wait—one moment it dawns on him that others, who pay to see your pictures, will also see that picture. Hmm… that doesn’t sit right with the eel. Jade wonders if he can offer you something more. Of course, he can! The only problem is... will you accept Jade Leech's offer? Hmm…

...

Jamil heard from Kalim that you have a business they need to support, Jamil didn't even complain when all Kalim sent was a link. He was hooked since then. He is a silent supporter but will be one of the first to view and like your posts. You wore red lingerie once, and Jamil can't even stop himself from coming from that. A good stress reliever after a tiring day's work. The veins in his hands practically popping, as he grip his cock, imagining you in front of him instead.

Kalim will support you of course! Although he is quite confused why you won't accept the money he's sending you. It's just a half a million madol. It's not a dowry!... At least not close to the actual amount he will give you anyway. He will support you! He even told Jamil about you! Doesn't he get jealous? A little.. but the feeling of an overwhelming bragging right that other people thirst over you makes Kalim so proud. He chose a good future wife after all!

...

To Vil, your content is vile... but undeniably a work of art. Hmph, no wonder you're one of its top creators. You don't merely post for lust; you post for aesthetics as well. You have a keen eye for taking good photos, that much he will admit. His subscription to you he considers a form of appreciation for beauty. He notes the way you do your makeup, the arch of your back, the way your lipstick complements your complexion... Fine, Vil will hate to admit it, but your content is something he looks forward to seeing as he relaxes after a hectic day—just him alone in a fancy room with a spa-like scent filling the air. Hmmm, he wonders if he should invite you someday to a hotel soirée with him. Vil appreciates the attention to detail in your work, and he finds himself compelled to support you further. Occasionally, he sends additional tips usually a thousand madol—small tokens of his admiration for your craftsmanship. He justifies it as an investment in art, a reward for the way you meticulously craft each image and video. After all, beauty like yours deserves to be recognized, encouraged even.

He will always blush when he's near you! Epel can't help it. He may or may not have teenage fantasies about you with him carrying you bridal style as his muscles bulge from his shirt. Although Epel came from a... Traditional family perse, he does appreciate how... sexy you look! His favorite is when you're wearing silk nightwear that delves low on your cleavage.

Ah, Rook. Forever the hunter of beauty. When he heard of your content, he immediately subscribed to the highest tier! He is now only waiting for you to accept personal requests because Rook definitely has a lot of ideas in his mind. It involves you and him, in a forest, being one with yourselves and with nature! Oui! He chuckles as he palms his crotch through his pants. Rook knows that you will post something new in a few minutes, and he is right! Oh, mi amor, Rook swooned as he saw your bat earrings from the new update and the matching pink bows lingerie. The lingerie he ordered is yet to be sent to you! But they're on their way. Will you be mad at Rook if he sends an arrow with a declaration of admiration through your window right after he pleasures himself? Rook hopes you will know how much the hunter loves and appreciates your beauty!

....

Idia may or may not be one of the software developers behind OnlyCams. He was absolutely stunned when he saw that you joined the site! His hair burned a hot red with pink tips as he scrolled through your draft photos. It gives him a twisted sense of satisfaction to know about posts that others haven’t seen yet. Is it illegal to pry... or, erm, stalk the OnlyCams models? Of course, he knows that. But Idia has convinced himself that he should act as your moderator anyway—even without you knowing. Unfortunately, there are a lot of comments and private messages that are downright disgusting to read, so Idia takes it upon himself to remove them for you! The maid outfit and cat ears he sent through your fanmail should arrive in just a few days. Idia can’t wait to see you in them! He imagines how perfect you’ll look, and his mind races with ideas for what else he could send your way. Maybe a little something extra, just to make sure you know how much he’s been thinking about you.

...

At first, Malleus does not know what to feel. Initially, there is confusion—are you whoring yourself out? But Lilia explains that people can only look at you, not physically touch you. However, when it dawns on Malleus that others can see your intimate, seductive photos, flames flicker along his fangs. He carries the pride of a king, and it does not sit well with him that others can see what he considers his. Still, Malleus can't help but growl. Your pictures should have been for his eyes only. He frowns, deciding that even Lilia should not see them. You don’t know this, but you’re already his. In his mind, you belong to him. Annoyance courses through his veins—this is the second time he’s broken a phone today. As night falls, Malleus finds himself brooding in the solitude of his tower. The thought of you, your image laid bare for others, festers in his mind. He clenches his fist, struggling with a mix of possessiveness and anger. Lilia suggested he could unsubscribe from you, but Malleus ignores him. Instead, he contemplates offering you wealth and power—if you choose to be by his side, of course. As if you have a choice anyway.

Sebek is embarrassed, yet hypocritical, as he can't help but masturbate to your seductive content. Part of him hates it, but the other part loves it. How dare you, human! He huffs as he angrily shuts off his phone, only to turn it back on moments later, unable to resist the allure of your pictures. On one hand, he feels disgusted with himself for succumbing to such base desires—he is a proud servant of Malleus, and he should not be indulging in such... human weakness. It's an insult to his Fae heritage! But on the other hand, he is irresistibly drawn to you, his body betraying his thoughts every time he sees your updates. The internal battle rages on, but he knows deep down that he’s hooked.

Lilia hums to himself, elated as he chuckles upon seeing your new update. Lilia has had his fair share of intimacy throughout the hundreds of years he's been alive. The concept of seduction as a barter is nothing new to him. But! Lilia can’t help but admire the way the new generation goes about it nowadays! Back in his time, Lilia had to travel to a brothel for such experiences. Now, he can just use his phone from anywhere. Yet, a small part of him is disappointed that you’re not physically present. He grins, his fangs poking out as he sees you wearing the bat earrings he sent you. Ah, they suit you so well!

Silver is ever the gentleman, probably the only one in Diasomnia—the whole NRC, who can separate the ordinary You and the OnlyCam's You. You never told him but you appreciate his approach a lot. He is subscribed to your highest tier and he always gives you tips that he got from his allowance and payment as Malleus' guard. Silver’s support goes beyond mere admiration. He views your content with a sense of quiet respect, understanding that there’s more to it than just the seduction part you're selling. For him, it's about the effort, the confidence, and the creativity you put into your work. Despite the nature of your content, Silver’s feelings remain pure. He never asks for anything in return for his support, never expects special treatment. When he leaves a tip, it’s with the hope that it might make your day a little brighter, that it might help you feel appreciated in a world you're alienated to. He is a knight, well suited to protect you should you ask him to.

....

Rollo feels as though he's sinning every time he opens your OnlyCams account—blasphemous content! His heart pounds with guilt and shame as he scrolls through your seductive photos, each one a temptation pulling him deeper into the abyss. He knows this is wrong—so wrong—yet he cannot tear himself away. The purity and righteousness he prides himself on crumble under the weight of his desire for you. He mentally recites prayers, trying to cleanse himself of the impure thoughts that flood his mind, but it’s futile. The more he resists, the stronger the urge becomes. Despite the shame that burns his conscience, Rollo keeps coming back for more, drawn to the very thing he despises. Trapped in a cycle of sin and repentance, he battles with his inner demons, torn between his devotion to his beliefs and his growing obsession with you.

[mask131]

The missing Arthurian knight - rediscovered in 2019

Well the title is a slight lie - the missing knight wasn't rediscovered in 2019, it was earlier than that, but he didn't became public until 2019.

So what's this "missing knight" about? Well as the title says. There was a knight part of the Arthurian myth, and he had been missing ever since the Middle-Ages, and he was only recently rediscovered.

Or rather, to be exact - there was an Arthurian novel centered around a knight that existed and was a famous and well-known part of the Arthurian literature in the Middle-Ages, but that completely disappeared, and was forgotten by culture (as much popular culture as the scholarly one). Until very recently.

This rediscovered novel has been a hot topic of all Arthuriana fans in Europe for a few years now - and yet I do not see much talk about this onto this website, despite Tumblr being a big place for Arthurian fans?

So I will correct this by doing a series of posts about the subject. And this post will be the first one, the introduction post presenting to you "Ségurant, le chevalier au dragon" ; "Segurant, the knight of the dragon". A French medieval novel part of the Arthurian literature (hence the "chevalier au X" title structure - like Lancelot, the knight of the cart or Yvain the knight of the lion from Chrétien de Troyes), the reason this story was forgotten by all medievalist and literary scholars is - long story short - because it never existed in any full manuscript (at least none that survived to this day). It was a complete story yes, with even variations apparently, but that was cut into pieces and fragments inserted into various other manuscripts and texts (most notably various "Merlin's Prophecies").

The novel and the Knight of the Dragon were rediscovered through the work of Emanuele Arioli, who rediscovered a fragment of the story while looking at an old manuscript of a Merlin Prophecies, and then went on the hunt for the other fragments and pieces scattered around Europe, until he finally could compile the full story, that he then published in 2019, at the Belles Lettres publishing house, in 2019.

Arioli reconstructed the text, and translated it in both modern French and Italian for scholarly and professional editions (aka Honoré Champion in France, a reference for universities)...

... But also for a more "all public, found in all libraries" edition - the famous 2019 edition at Les Belles Lettres.

And not only that, but he also participated to both a comic book adaptation with Emiliano Tanzillo...

... and an adaptation as an illustrated children novel!

Finally, just a few weeks, the Franco-German channel Arte released a documentary about the reconstitution and content of this missing novel called "Le Chevalier au dragon: Le roman disparu de la Table Ronde". (The Knight of the Dragon - The missing novel of the Round Table). The full documentary is on Youtube in French for those that speak the language, here. And in German here for those who speak German.

Unfortunately there is no English version of the documentary that I know of, nor any English publications of the actual text - just French and Italian. But hey, I'll try to palliate to that by doing some English-speaking posts about this whole business!

[frumfrumfroo]

I was reading some old Reylo posts and came across a user on here saying that even if Rian Johnson had directed TROS, it still would've been bad, because of interference from higher ups (Rey Skywalker was a consistent theme across the two scripts - but imo, I think that might've just been because they were collectively mad she wasn't a Skywalker lol).

If this isn't an annoying and tiresome question, what do you think? It's hard to speculate but I do find it a bit fun, because there's always been that 'what if' for me that if Rian had done it, maybe it wouldn't have been awful... I guess the implication here is that, was TROS always going to be bad?

I'm ruminating on it a bit because it seems like Disney has kind of segmented the SW fanbases across their shows - Prequel stuff, worldbuilding stuff, OT stuff, and now the romance/Force storyline stuff. All of these combined elements is what made SW so potent, what made something like Reylo so powerful, but it's what makes it a hard brand to sell.

What we heard was that Kennedy asked Rian to do it, but he said he needed more time to write the script and Iger/DLF was unwilling to move the release date. I'm not sure how verified that ever was, but it's the most depressing fucking thing imaginable if true. The same short-term only, immediate profit and your quarterly bonus over the integrity of the company and the franchise which has been destroying Disney as a studio over the last decade or so.

I do think the most blame for tros must ultimately rest with Iger, but it's not like that absolves JJerio from responsibility for how bad it actually is.

I have answered this exact question before, and speculated on related stuff a few times, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find that post for you.

To me, if we learnt anything from DotF being a thing, it's that there was never anyone at the wheel, plotgate was totally true, and the directors were allowed to do whatever they wanted. If Rian had been making the third film from the start, I don't think they would have tried to impose any major story beats on him. The reason it became such a shitshow was The Book of Henry came out and they realised Colin's script was totally unacceptable way too late.

And once the can of meddling was open and you're back to JJ 'no thoughts, head empty' Abrams as a workman director, the suits were basically writing epIX with Terrio's incest fever dreams as connective tissue. They kept elements from Colin's version because they were trying to save time and use as much of the work which had already been done as possible. There was no commitment to any of those ideas, it's just incompetence and with no direction or ideas of their own, they were making a reddit checklist to try to please the whiners rather than writing any actual story.

Like, none of this would have happened if Rian were involved, because Rian would have written an actual story.

SW is mythology and very few people working at DLF seem to have ever understood that or have any idea what it means. Disney has segmented it because that's what they know, they want to have different product to sell to different demographics to maximise saturation and profit. That's their business model. They don't understand the foundation, the Saga itself, and its universal appeal, they seem content to let that stay dead and focus on compartmentalising and pandering to smaller, separate audiences.

[carawenfiction]

Will we have an update soon?

Tumblr won't let me make normal posts for some reason, so the update will have to be in form of an answer to this ask smh. Anyway:

Hey everyone!

This post is long overdue, I know. I’m really sorry to those who have been worried about my wellbeing, as well as those who have been waiting around for an update for so long.

I’ve put off writing here because this “update” is something I’ve been wrestling with for a long time. But I can’t keep going back and forth on it forever, which is why I’m now letting you all know that the Shadow Society is officially discontinued.

I know that this might not come as much of a surprise to anyone at this point. I’ve tried to salvage the story by remaking it into something I’m happy with through a rewrite. But I’ve rewritten the rewrite itself more than once, and no matter what I do, I’m just not happy with the result. Rewriting something that’s already published with all the coding it involves is a lot more tricky than I initially thought it would be.

This is not a case of me being needlessly harsh on myself, however; it’s simply a truth I’ve come to realize after struggling to find a way to keep going with the story. I’ll never be fully content with it, or even content enough, unless I’d be able to completely remake and rewrite everything from scratch – and consequentially, I will never find enough motivation to continue because of how unhappy I am with it.

I’ve seen some speculation about my reason for rewriting the story and my long absence, and that they’ve had to do with comparisons to other IFs (well, you know which one). This isn’t entirely the case. While the comparisons did happen and probably still do, and while they were discouraging in the beginning, I can definitely understand where people have been coming from when making them. I talked about this more in-depth in the forums right after the release of TSS.

The main reason for why I can’t continue is that it’s not a series I feel passionate enough about to work on. My tastes have changed, and so has my writing to some degree. I’ve tried to convince myself that I am passionate about it. It’s hard to admit that you’re not when it’s been in your head for so long, when you’ve tried for so long to make this work and when you know that one part is published and that some people are anticipating a continuation. But it had to be done sooner or later.

Other reasons:

-While I don’t think that my writing style has changed drastically, I feel like it is somewhat different from how I wrote back in 2018 (which is a GOOD thing). Whenever I tried working on the rewrite or second book and attempted to emulate the writing of TSS, it just didn’t sound right anymore, and that took a lot of fun out of it.

-With everything that has happened with CoG over the past few years, they are no longer a company I want to write for.

Please know that none of this has discouraged me from writing in general. I still love doing it. If anything, this has taught me a lot about what I actually want to write and the writing process in general. Whether I end up publishing anything else in the future or will simply do so for my own enjoyment we’ll just have to see, though.

I still have the idea of a shadow-like world in my head, and maybe it’s one I will revisit at some point. Maybe there will be another version of TSS someday, albeit very different from the original one.

But for now, I can only thank you all for the overwhelming love and support over the years, and apologize for any disappointment this has caused. If people are interested, I’d be happy to share parts of the rewrite and unused ideas. The Tumblr page will still stay up at least for some time, but I will probably not be answering any asks from here on out.

EDIT: Forgot to add, but if anyone wants a genuinely amazing IF read you should check out my friend's wip here: https://uroboros-if.tumblr.com/ ❤️ Play the demo here: https://mistyriousness.itch.io/uroboros

[idleglowingpixels]

I kinda realised that Mr Komos' song, True Monster Heart follows the same beat as the Monster High Fright song, but the lyrics are like the corrupted version of the original.

Monster High Fright is about accepting

True Monster Heart is about rejecting

Kinda interesting when you think about it

AHHHHHH WHEN I SAW I GOT AN ASK RELATED TO THIS I FREAKED OUT DFGHNBGVFDSF TY FOR GIVING ME SOMETHING TO RAMBLE SOME MORE ABOUT ANON FOR REAL! (Also sorry for the late response, this post has been developing in my drafts for like at least a week now dfgfhng)

I absolutely agree with the conflicting messages between the two songs! I know the song focuses on the story of this universe's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the main verses, but the main focus of the song is that message of rejection of anything and everything human.

Also, because of the Jekyll/Hyde bits, it could represent the duality of where the story starts and ends in its interpretation of a "true monster heart." Instead of Mr. Hyde's human-ness making his heart "untrue," it was his utter rejection of & research into ridding himself of his Jekyll, as well as his hiding of the truth in the first place that caused him to be found out and exiled.

His heart being "untrue" had nothing to do with the fact he was half-human, because if it were, then Clawdeen and Komos's presence in and of itself within the school would've triggered its self-destruction. That was proven as a false interpretation by the story in the movie, so it's self-explanatory. A true monster heart is one of self-acceptance, despite one's flaws or differences. That's what Mr. Hyde, and Mr. Komos thereafter, had neglected to realize before Clawdeen proved the point.

Though, I've listened to both True Monster Heart and Fright Song a few times back-to-back, to try and get where you're thinking as far as the beat, but I don't hear it unfortunately (unless you meant the tempo of the song, then yes they do follow the same 120 beats per minute!).

The closest thing I can think of as far as melodic parallels between the songs is the chanting sections. The Fright Song chant is much quicker in the way it's sung compared to the chant in True Monster Heart, however. The whole of Fright Song's chant goes in 16 beats/4 measures, whereas True Monster Heart's chant takes twice as long at 32 beats/8 measures (I was a band/choir kid lol). It's mainly due to how the song kinda drags out the point, and it definitely feels like a nod to Fright Song for sure. Fright Song's chant is only there because 4/5 of the main ghouls were fearleaders, so it was sort of characterizing the cast before actually showing their characters in the webisodes.

---

Fun little headcanon/ramble that I forget if I ever mentioned about Fright Song, but with Holt Hyde being released in the 1st Signature wave with the rest of the the main ghouls and all, I think it was because he's intended to be the singer of the rap section before any subsequent content with the character was released (No offense but I don't think Holt DJs because he's a good singer sdfgbfds). This would line up with his current crush in canon with Frankie, as well as his former crush on Draculaura from either the diaries or books, maybe both? I forget. :'D Also I feel like Holt wouldn't hesitate to call Cleo vile immediately after saying she's charming either, he's very direct with his words. (I also interpret Jackson/Holt as bisexual because Deuce is included in the rap I DON'T CARE Y'ALL IT MAKES SENSE!)

Also I always interpreted the howl-like sound at the end of the rap as "Holt ran outta time/battery power for his music and transforms back to Jackson as it transitions to the rest of the song." It kinda works with how the beat kinda drops down with the howl, like a TV being shut off or something idk.

Ghoulia also debuted with Signature Wave 1 but she's only in like a second of the music video in the background, I figure it could've been budgetary reasons for the animation, to save on animating an extra character. Also I imagine flame-y hair wouldn't be very fun to animate in 2D, and Deuce's snakes moving on their own were bad enough I imagine to animate, so it begrudgingly checks out as to why Holt isn't in the animated bits with everyone else.

BUT I JUST WATCHED THE MUSIC VIDEO BECAUSE I WANTED TO FOR THE SAKE OF THIS POST AND THE GUY SINGING THE RAPPING BIT HAS, YOU GUESSED IT, A BRIGHT FRICKIN NEON RED LEATHER JACKET. He doesn't have the dual-toned shirt BUT IT'S WHITE AND THIS IS CLOSE ENOUGH FOR ME Y'ALL! XD

If any straws for these dumbasses can be found I SHALL GRASP THEM fr they're my blorbos :'D

[miiilowo]

I've never really watched anything about Security Breach's cut content so I'm don't know much about it. Any specific things or moments that you wish the most were actually used?

And/or, could you tell us about your interpretation of Vanny :3c, I don't have any less vague questions off the top of my head so just in general I guess-

SHATTERED. FREDDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING HELL SHATTERED FREDDY!

YOU SEE THIS ASSHOLE ?? ^^^^

there are voice lines and unused art for glamrock freddy that show vanny commanded to other glamrocks to disassemble him, and it would have turned him against gregory. Having your one failsafe source of protection and guidance (well. if you dont include him getting stuck on walls and railings) ripped out from underneath you, now hunting you? can you imagine how effective that would have been for most people?

this was the intention for the game. it wasnt an idea that was scrapped, it was cut because they didn't have enough time. this was SUPPOSED to happen. even if it wasnt scary, (which it might not have been accounting for how MONSTROUSLY BRIGHT THE PIZZAPLEX IS), it would've made the game much more memorable, the characters have more stakes, and made the game feel less empty. and can you IMAGINE the sexyman potential? Hot bear dad turns fucked up and evil??? you know the fandom would be all over this freak

like all silliness aside, one of my major complaints w SB is how empty it feels. It's fundamentally broken, and not just from a bugs perspective; The story does not work like it should, because most of the story was removed. You experience the most barebones version of the plot. The meat used to be there, but they hid it in the files never to be seen again. It's stuff LIKE shattered freddy that would've made this game more than it is, would've fleshed out the characters, the plot, and motivations. It injects some EMOTION in there, god forbid. Among the lines for shattered freddy related cut content is one of gregory crying!!!! come on man!!

They'll probably bring him back for Ruin, but it won't be the same, nor have the same plot or characterization. Just a skin slapped onto him, I imagine.

Before I get to vanny, i wanna touch on glamrock bonnie. I do think we were supposed to get more of him in general, seeing as a whole bonnie bowl minigame was cut out, but we really only got scraps hinting at a larger mystery. I'm not sure what all was cut, but it feels like it was building up to something much bigger and it simply never had the chance to be executed, which is a shame.

Moving away from him though, theres a bunch of stuff about Vanny/Vanessa (most of which i will not cover here). vanny my sweet lovely girl who was done so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO dirty

First of all, they completely made Vanessas personality do a 180 degree turn right before release. The version of her that we got is very mean, short tempered and cruel, whereas the version of her before actually cared about Gregory and helping him out of the pizzaplex; The reason Gregory wouldn't trust her, being that he knows she is also Vanny, but I'll get into that in a second. She seemed just as confused and scared as Gregory is, and while, yeah, having every female character be motherly and sweet is BAD i do have a point as to why that would have been better for her character, especially if it was a ruse she was putting on:

It makes the player want to trust her. Since Gregory never explains WHY we shouldn't trust Vanessa, it would make sense that we would want to doubt him, wouldn't it? There's cut lines that show Freddy didnt believe Gregory for a while either until he proves that something is up. The game was originally supposed to have a sort of "vanny meter"; I'm not sure how this would deplete, but whenever it did, Vanessas model itself would turn INTO Vanny, at which point she would start hunting you. Having the player witness one of these transitions after being led to believe that Vanessa has been genuinely trying to help us this whole time would be 1. scary in the same sense shattered freddy wouldve been 2. would explain why gregory doesn't trust her (he's seen this happen before, presumably) 3. would give freddy an actual reason to protect you instead of just doing it for the sake of protecting you, continuously going against his programming in rather inconsistent fashions

You can see how this was likely going to be incorporated through the trailers, (the line where shes saying she didnt want to hurt gregory, and it was 'just a glitch'), and it would also explain why shes NEVER IN THE FUCKING GAME DESPITE BEING ADVERTISED AS A MAIN CHARACTER AND VILLAIN

While I do think steel wool wouldn't have made her full evil (as much as i would love her to be) and would've made her genuinely a helpless wet rag whos scared and being puppeted around by afton, I do think this wouldve been better, because she wouldve been an effective threat and more sympathetic as a character. In the end game she still is just a helpless wet rag being puppeted around by afton but without any of the emotional impact. what fucking ever i guess

i still stand by the fact she should've been a copycat killer and afton's "i always come back" line would mean his INFLUENCE is eternal, not that HE HIMSELF is eternal, as we both know this would have been better in one thousand hundred million billion trillion ways forever

[professorspork]

I hope this doesn’t come across as like a pushy “update pls” I promise that’s not how I mean it. I’m curious at what point you feel like a multi-chapter fic is ready to post? Do you write it in its entirety and then edit chapters in between updates, write and edit it in its entirety, write most of it and continue writing the rest between updates? I’m very curious about your process since you’ve been writing some monster word count fics

I really appreciate you asking!

The short version is that I've learned over time that what works best for me is completing a work in its entirety before I start posting; above all I like posting on a reliable schedule for my audience, and I simply do not write quickly enough (or coherently enough) to do that any other way. There are a lot of reasons for that and I WILL ELABORATE ON THEM AT LENGTH:

I have several multi-chapter WIPs from the Glee days-- when I was in college-- that I never finished because I'm a delicate hothouse flower when it comes to maintaining hyperfocus, and I found a new fandom to be in before I could complete them. Back then especially, I was much less disciplined about writing sequentially: I would write parts of the story wildly out of order, focusing on whatever interested me most at the time. That means my hard drive is a graveyard of unpublished content, which sucks-- not only did I never give my audience the resolutions they were looking for, but I never got to receive feedback on parts of the story I was really proud of. I found that really dispiriting.

Going to grad school for screenwriting really helped me focus on telling a story in order, because there is literally no other way to write a screenplay than one scene at a time; it's far too reliant on momentum and consistency to jump ahead to "the good bits" and come back. I also did several projects-- writing my multi-chap Frozen&Tangled polyamory epic for a friend's birthday; pre-writing all my 2015 Cartinelli Week one shots far in advance so I knew they'd be perfect come posting day-- where I had a deadline I wanted everything Done By, which got me in the habit of writing to completion before posting. It wasn't something I thought I was going to be capable of because I'm like Tinkerbell, Finn, I need applause to live feedback is incredibly motivating to me, but having the ability to go back and change things in chapter 2 if I realized they weren't adequately setting up what I wanted to do in chapter 5, or whatever, proved to be just as powerful a motivator in a different way-- it meant I could tell the stories RIGHT, if I took my time with them. I also learned to get at least one cheerleader I could leak snippets to as I went, so that I still got the dopamine hit of the feedback even though I'm ages away from posting for real.

I also found that, as a reader, I always really appreciated when authors could stick to an update schedule so I could look forward to new chapters like I would episodes of television. It's not a standard I expect from anyone, but it is something that makes me really happy-- and the two ways to do it are to either write fast enough that you're just constantly churning out new content (not an option for me, especially on the occasions when I'm actually employed and can only write on weekends) or to pre-write and then slow release. it gives me a feeling of... mastery, I guess? Like "hey everyone here's a gift I'm giving you," as opposed to writing and updating when I can, which makes me feel like I'm always chasing something (BEING chased by something?) and risking losing my audience/my own fickle concentration if I were to wait too long.

My "ONLY post after everything is done" rule is a new one, because I burned myself on rely on certain certainties, the last D/s epic I wrote (lmao can you tell this topic interests me). I worked on that for a year and was 132k in with no end in sight when I started posting, but I was part of a Kristanna discord at the time, and I wanted to seize the audience I had before it disappeared-- which is always the danger of movie fandoms, which never have as much staying power. I had hoped that because I had such a big buffer I could keep writing ahead of the updates as they came up from behind, but I tapped out at 172k when I finished the end of an arc. That kills me, because I have SO MUCH unreleased content for that story which will never see the light of day, because-- again-- I'd let temptation win and wrote ahead to The Juicy Bits instead of forcing myself to go in order.

So, two things I've learned:

Only ever outlining the juicy bits that come late in the game, instead of lovingly finessing their every word, is a great way to trick motivate myself into continuing to write in order so that I can GET to the juicy bits, full stop; if I don't exorcise them they keep haunting me and that helps me stick it out until the end

By holding stories back until they're complete, I give myself the ability to complete them because I'm able to dig myself out of holes I've written myself into. In the old days, if I got stuck because I realized the real root of my issue had come chapters earlier and that's why it's not working now, I'd just... be stuck at that wall, unable to move forward, and that would be that. The idea of going back and editing a published story for narrative content is mortifying to me and something I personally could never do, so-- this way I'm giving myself more tools and options, so that I can tell the story I want to tell and tell it right.

In terms of my actual process, I tend to work like this: my most productive time is when my ADHD meds are at full power, so in an ideal world I am writing new content from like 10am to 3pm or so, getting as far as I can in New Content. Evenings, when I'm no longer in Hyperfocus Productivity Mode, I'll go back and reread things-- sometimes chapters from much earlier-- both to entertain myself and to make edits and changes. Often, that's just moving words around here and there for cadence and flow; rarely, it's adding whole new moments or thoughts to the chapters. I try to write In Order as much as possible, getting chapters beta'd as they're completed. I'm a nitpicky perfectionist, so keeping a hold on my early chapters until everything is posted means I can change them over and over and over again without anyone knowing but me, which I love-- and those changes are getting made right down to the wire. even when the fic is "complete" and I'm "only posting" I'm still making edits; some of people's absolute favorite parts of Newsbees were added literally the night before, when it was the "get everything into AO3 and do the final pass for typos and formatting" stage. Like, Penny writing sudokus on the fly for Ruby at the hospital? Ruby thinking in Adam Font? Those were 11th hour strokes of genius.

So yeah-- that's a very long-winded way of saying that I've found writing to completion first not only makes me more likely to actually finish my WIPs, but it makes my WIPs BETTER because it gives me far, far more time with them. I know it's not something that works for everyone, but in terms of my own sense of like, duty and responsibility and goal-setting, it keeps me on track without risking Guilt completely paralyzing me-- which is what happens when I post as I go and then get interrupted.

THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY RAMBLE.

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Farewell to Magia Record...

Woah... I've been super out of the loop, so only just found out today that Magia Record is ending service and there's a new PMMM game on the horizon!

Of course, I haven't played MagiReco in... honestly years, at this point. My interest waned, other fandoms beckoned, and the size of the game was eating up a huge amount of memory on my phone. So I uninstalled it.

But way back when it first began, I was following all the pre-release info and I'm pretty sure I started within the first week of the JP version going live. It's strange to think back to those early days, when no one knew what to expect! I still remember plugging away at translating Madoka's character story out of sheer curiosity and eagerness for what new lore the game had to offer.

That time when I started playing was coincidentally right when I started a new job, and because of those early translations I posted, Magia Record became the first fandom where I started seriously posting my own content to tumblr too. It was first fandom where I actually talked to people and made friends here!

So to hear that it's finally shutting down... it's an oddly nostalgic and bittersweet feeling. The Magia Record chapter of my life ended a while ago, and I made peace with that. With the game fully gone, though, it will be like wandering past an old address I used to live at and seeing the new owners tore down the previous building and put up something unrecognizable.

Time moves inexorably onward, and the ephemeral nature of mobile games makes them all the more susceptible to it.

I might try re-downloading the MagiReco app, just so I can see it one last time to say goodbye. Depending on how my creaky ancient phone holds up, maybe I can get that transfer code and archive app working.

But even if I do get that transfer code, I don't know if I'll play Magia Exedra. As much as I feel nostalgic for the good times, I also remember my disappointments with MagiReco. I'm a lot more cynical now about the potential for ongoing service games to tell satisfying stories - heck, one major reason I got into FFXIV was because I heard it had a good conclusion where you could stop playing if you so chose.

So no, I'm not really interested in getting in on the ground floor of a brand new game these days. I'll wait and see how it turns out first.

[pretty-idol-hell]

So I am excited about the developer shift, but not as excited as I should be?

I am not too terribly confident in Magi System considering they helped develop the release version of Idol Land which was... not ideal. But then again, we don't know exactly how much they helped and, surely they are gonna do better than Takara Tomy. (I think the reason Idol Land started seemingly running out of content is that most of the content was made by Magi System at the beginning and then Takara Tomy burned through it until they literally... ran out of content.)

But I am sorry for doomsaying now that it appears Idol Land PriPara is gonna be around for a while still. At least another year perhaps, with all the work they are gonna put into it!!

I've just had to say goodbye to PriPara so many times before, maybe I am used to it. (First when the original arcade game ended, then when I had to leave Japan, then the arcade game ended a second time, then when I went back to Japan and could barely play it because it ended a THIRD time... you get the drift.) PriPara is very... ephemeral.

I am glad Takara Tomy sees Idol Land as a worthy investment. AiPri (especially the main game) seems more like it's aimed at little kids so investing in Idol Land PriPara tells me they still want to cater to their older fanbase. Especially since they are implementing a lot of features people have really been wanting, like multiple characters.

I think the only thing that would get me really excited at this point is something they haven't mentioned, though. And that is new songs. And not just songs they haven't added yet, but songs that were only on the arcade game, songs that were added after I left Japan, and most of all, songs from the actual Idol Land anime!!

The lack of songs is the main reason I stopped playing recently. Like honestly, if we just had more songs I would consider Idol Land perfect as it is haha...

[littlemessyjessi]

Buying You Candles: BTS Reactions x Witchy Partner

BTS Reactions

BTS x Witchy Partner 

For any of you wishing to read the other's in this series, please defer to my profile where you can find the link to the navi in my bio.  All my Kpop content is located in Masterlist 2.0.  

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Summary:  They buy you candles for your practice. 

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Seokjin: 

Jin's hyung energy is strong with this one.  And it doesn't matter if you're older than him… the hyung/oppa side of him is coming out and he is going to play that card.  He's this way with the members.  Imagine how he is going to be with a partner.  So yeah…  He spies the little list you have sitting on your desk of things you need to pick up from the metaphysical store next time you're there.  

"Here, let me do it. What shop is it?" 

"Jin, I can do it.  It's no big deal." 

*withering glare* 

"Ok, damn.  Chill.  You can do it." 

*bombastic side eye* 

"It's the little building beside the cupcake shop. It's called Third Eye." 

You just need to accept the fact that Seokjin is going to spoil you and you're going to have to let him.  

Because if you don't - A, he's going to pout and B, he's going to do it anyway so you might as well just accept it, write the list and let the man feel needed.   

And if for some god forsaken reason you decide to say, "Jin, I love you and I appreciate it but really, I can do it. You don't have to pick these up for me." 

Just know, that you are going to be on the recieving end of major sass, possibly his mad angry rapping skill featuring that little vein in his neck trying to pop out and then a pompous little dismissal something along the lines of:

"It's healing for me, jagi.  Now, would you really deny me the opportunity of healing?" 

So just suck it up and accept the fact that you have a very loving partner who is going to spoil you with candles and whatever else you might possibly need or want. 

Yoongi: 

This man knows how to find a good deal.   Three dollar chain? Psh. Bitch, you can't tell.  Which is why he won't hesistate to stroll up in the dollar tree and load up an entire cart with the different color glass vase candles.   He follows the 'dollartreefinds' and 'dollartreecandles' hashtags on instagram purely for this reason.  They come out with new colors?  On it.   They've released pastel versions for spring?  Add to cart.   Black candles for spooky season?  Bitch, please.   You will never run out.   And because he saved so much on candles… his baby wants a huge opal figure? His baby GETS a huge opal figure.   Damn straight. 

Hoseok: 

Hobi on the other hand.   Quality over everything.  Truthfully the dollar tree candles work just fine but you ain't gonna tell him that.  Well, you might.  But he ain't listening.  He is going IN.  He is RESEARCHING.   He's reading ALL the reviews.   He will find the best rated, top quality shop for all the candles.  He will be going in person to inspect them with those sharp eyes of his to make sure that they will in fact be up to his standards. And this mother fucker will stock you on all the basics he feel like you could ever need.  And then he's gonna want a list of wants.   And you better just comply or else you'll get attitude.  "Hobi, babe, this is more than enough.  I'm fine.  Like this is more than I've ever had anyway.  I don't need-" 

 "Jagi, I did not ask you what you needed.   I asked you what you wanted.  Now you can either tell me or I'm getting one of everything."  

"But I-"  

*Cue that sharp ass glare he has when someone messes up choreo.  

"Ok, ok.  This one.  I would like this one."  

"Great, add at least nine more." 

 "Hobi, I don't"  

*Glare intensifies and that jaw becomes so flexed you actually fear for your life with how sharp it is* 

"Ok, ok.  Well, these are the holidays that are coming up that I'd like to celebrate. So maybe these.  And the haters have been particularly nasty lately so maybe this one." 

"Good, baby.  See? Now was that so difficult?" 

You accept the kiss and thank him for his generosity but damn, homie gets pressed when you don't let him spoil you, lol. 

Namjoon: 

Now, does Namjoon believe in this stuff? No.  He doesn't.  He's an aetheist.  However, you do and it's important to you.  So he takes this VERY seriously.   This is important to you and you're important to him so he would never DARE to roll his eyes at it.   Like Hoseok, Namjoon his does his research.  He's not likely to go all in like Hobi but Namjoon does know the holidays you choose to celebrate or what you're typically going to do in a week or whatever.  His research however consists mostly of what the corresponding candle, color and scent or whatever would be.  He prefers wandering into the small witchy shops, definitely having a look at the book section.  He'll often pick up something occultish.  Even if he doesn't believe he does find it interesting and entertaining.  And he knows that you'll definitely want the book once he's finished with it.  Then he'll make his way to the candle section, pull up the notes on his phone and choose from there.  He sometimes cross references with whoever is working there but often times he gets more joy out of it knowing that he learned enough about something that you do to pick correctly.   You're unsure whether it's his research or his intuition… but often times he is actually spot on.  Also, if you EVER dont let him watch...he will so sad. and dramatic.

Jimin: 

Now, Jimin's approach to buying you candles is based heavily in observation.  He prides himself on how open, safe and vulnerable you are with each other in your relationship.   He's often present when you are doing workings or journaling or even shopping just as an excuse for the two of you to spend time with one another. And Park Jimin is a very observant man.  So he notices shit.   He takes stock of the fact that there are only two green candles left on the shelf and one gold one.  So he makes  a note to order some more for you because he knows you use those often in prosperity workings.  While he's at it, he might add in a figural dollar sign candle as a surprise for you to try.   The little pink birthday candles that you use for peace in friendships are down to about two in that little box.  He's picking you up some on the way home from work one night because he knows you like the ones from that supermarket the best.  You've been talking about ancestor work?   He texts you to let you know that a package is about to be delivered today so you need to be there to recieve it.  You open it and it's got not only white candles but also figural family candles as well. It's in the details for Jimin.  This mother fucker pays attention and provides based on what he sees.  He doesn't just pick blindly.  Even if he doesn't believe.  He knows you do and he wants to show you that because it's important to you… it's important to him. 10/10 if you ever try to tell him that he doesnt have to do this... will sit you down for a talk and shame for even thinking he wouldnt take care of you.

Taehyung: 

Taehyung wants to know everything.  He's probably going to ask a lot of questions.   He's INVOLVED.  And he's quite sweet and endearing.  He may not have been raised in it and he might not connect with it on the level that you.  But he's still present and participates.  He likes to learn and he loves learning from you.  So while he might do his own research… he much prefers you to be his teacher.   He's likely going to come home one day with a basics kit.  A little of everything.   What will surprise you is that it's doubled.  He's gotten one for himself as well.   What's amusing is that this little shit pulls out a damn Gucci candle and wants to know if that can be his working candle.   You just have to smile and kiss his cheek. 

"I mean, it's an expensive choice to make for your working candle, babe but yes, that's fine.  If you connect with it, that's all that matters.  For the record though, you can just as easily use a white pillar candle from the dollar tree.  It can work just the same." 

"I really like this one though." "That's fine.  If you vibe with that, then go with that.  What you connect with the most is gonna make it the strongest." 

"Ok, Gucci it is." 

You smile at his expensive yet endearing choice. 

A week later… you too have a Gucci 'working candle'.

Because obviously you're a liar and a Gucci candle is far superior.

Jungkook:  

Ever the frugal king, Jungkook is likely to come back with no telling what that he's swiped from hotel rooms for you.  He's always bring you those little teabags because 'You can use these for herbs, right jagiya?"  and if he's lucky enough to come across a room with tea light candles or incense or anything like that… ha.  Man RUNS for his suitcase!  I mean, BURSTS through the door.  "Jagi, you're going to love me so much right now."   Proceeds to empty the entire front pocket of his suitcase out.   Dozens of little scented tea lights that he has wrapped in cling wrap or put in little baggies.  "This one got a little melted but you can still use it right?" You just pepper him with kisses because oh, that man of yours is so sweet and considerate.   10/10 you PROUDLY use them in your workings because yes.  That energy.  *chef's kiss* Bonus if you use them in lust magic. when you tell him this... he makes it a personal mission to acquire something useful everywhere he goes,

.

Hey loves! I'm back! Welcome to Kenny's Comeback! It's the Goddess Era yall!

Love, K

@thickemadame

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[thejockout]

Update: It's been a while!

Hey all. Been quite a bit since I've been active here; lot of life stuff going on that's contributed to that, but most of it's resolved now and I'm planning a pretty active return to the scene imminently. I've got some announcements on that front that I'll try to keep brief, but I think anyone who's enjoyed my content in the past will be happy to hear them.

First and foremost, I'm going to be returning to file-making soon (end of 2023 or early 2024) with regularly scheduled releases. (My precise schedule is TBD, but I'm aiming to be release either once weekly or once fortnightly depending on how much of a backlog I can create.) I've got ideas/concepts for 20 files written out atm which would amount to either 5 months of weekly releases/10 months of fortnightly releases once written and recorded. But obviously some of those ideas might not work so well in practice/I'll obviously come up with new ones along the way too, so that number's in flux. I'm going to try to write and record ten before launching any of them, so that I don't leave a huge gap between them again. But I think you guys'll like them, there's something for everyone in what I'm planning to make. There'll be content like what I've made before, but sfw and nsfw, attending a variety of kinks I'm into.

Included in these releases are going to be updated versions of my more popular, previous files. At the moment, the files I am planning to remake are Chill Out, Bro; Blink's Good Boy; All Pups are Good Pups; and The Bigger You Are. Some of these I want to remake for reasons of audio quality, but others I straight up want to rewrite portions of to bring them more up to my current standards. I've run out of space on Soundcloud and a premium account is expensive, so I'm racking my brain for a better storage alternative. At the moment, Soundgasm is an OK backup, but I'm also considering just straight up trying Youtube/Tumblr's own audio system/Patreon's audio system on a free basis to see if they work alright. Speaking of which...

To support this expanded venture, I'm also going to be opening a Patreon + selling specific, exclusive files either by subscription to said Patreon or via platforms like Gumroad and other appropriate audio file vendors. I don't plan for all my content to be locked behind a paywall, of course. I'm planning some kind of dual channel release system where I have a certain amount of files that will be free, and then others behind subscription. But for those who don't like the idea of monthly subs, I'll be putting my Patreon-exclusive files on a third party purchase platform like Gumroad, Ko-Fi, or another suitable alternative. I appreciate that all my files previously having been free will make this annoying to some, but I am flat baroque... and realistically, each file being 4-10 hours of work (dependent on complexity) means that I really want to be seeing SOME income from this if I'll be putting a lot of time in. That's why at current, the final announcement I'm making is that:

I am now taking commissions. I've done 3 commissions in total at this point and had been keeping quiet about it while I didn't know what I was doing with the Jockout account generally, but I am now available to write and record custom hypnosis files for listeners. I'm hesitant to provide a flat rate because the cost of a file usually does come down to its complexity/length, but somewhere in the ballpark of 50-80 dollars is what I'm currently valuing the time spent on a file at, unless you want something crazy simple or crazy complicated that'll price outside that range. I'm in a Euro territory, so 50 dollars amounts to about 4 hours of minimum wage work here, which is pretty low for the amount of time a good file takes; but I appreciate that high barriers to entry are going to put people off, and I feel that way myself when commissioning. You can DM me here if you want to discuss a commission idea.

All in all, I'm pretty excited with what I hope will be the future trajectory of my page. I'm having fun learning more about hypnosis/exploring new ideas in writing, and I hope you'll all enjoy the fruits of that too! 'Til next time :)

[the-harvester]

Is there a possible place where we can read the original chapter 2? It's been driving me nuts missing such an important part of the story. Vore doesn't scare me and I quite enjoy being psychologically horrored :). It is quite often referenced and I feel like Hema's reaction is very out of pocket due to missing this scene as a relatively new reader :b

Apologies- but the original version of chapter 2 will never be available again.

We haven't talked about it- but there's a reason that some scenes have been edited. We're very slowly working on something on the background!

I suppose the cat is half out of the bag, so guess we'll let it out here: we plan on releasing a 'remake' of The Harvester! Every arc up until the ones we haven't written will be re-written and condensed down to tighten the storytelling and characterization, made with our improved writing skills over the past 9 years!

In that same ballpark, we'd be toning down a lot of the V*re content in the chapters, only including it [in much less detail] where it's completely necessary for tension or storytelling.

We've kept quiet on this project because it's going to take a long while to accomplish- and because we knew some people may not like it. But, we wanted to tighten up the story and refine it to its full potential now that we've had a lot more time to hone our skills!

The old [current] version of the story will not go away once the re-write is done, but the 'new' version will be the ""official"" one!

[ontheoddoccasioniwritestuff]

Star-crossed in the Crosshairs (John Price x Reader)

Chapter 6: Hint of the Century

Fic Summary: This mission is the pinnacle of your efforts for the past three years. Your whole team and yourself have worked countless hours, slaughtered hundreds, risked life and limb for scraps of intel, and now it all boiled down to pairing up with another taskforce to get this job done and dusted. An unexpected spanner in the works comes in the shape of your former best friend, now also a Captain and somehow resurrected from his KIA status, John Price.

You can’t afford to let feelings - old and new - get in the way of your purpose. No matter how much you’ve missed, wished for, loved him, and no matter how much he might feel the same.

Content warnings: Usual COD content (violence, torture, death, guns), mutual pining, back from the dead, friends to allies to lovers, Reader is GN, some use of Rory.

Chapter 5 // Masterlist // AO3 Version // Chapter 7

There were two main reasons behind “Nerve” becoming your nickname around base twenty years ago: you had a lot of it, and you could get on anyone’s. As you rose through to the rank of Captain, you attempted to sever your nerves and burn them so you couldn’t feel anything anymore. But you’d just exposed their ends. Sometimes you were grateful, because your humanity made you a better soldier, reminded you of why you did this fucking horrendous job. However, today, it meant you were exposed to more pain from anyone who noticed and exploited it. You didn’t think Price would be one of those, using his history with you to call you by your name, expose you on the battlefield and in front of the Sergeant you’d reprimanded for feelings you also had. For the love of God, did he have no pity?

Your heart was hammering, sending your breath out of sync with the rest of you for a few seconds before you regained command of your senses.

“Anyone got eyes on Čiernik?” You asked down the comms as you shot down yet another of your opposition. These guys were coming out of the walls, you could’ve sworn.

“Negative, Cap. Taking the top level now,” was your reply, from Chance still leading your charge.  

Meeting the barrel of Bravo team’s leader’s gun, you let Ghost lower his weapon instead of pushing it away whilst you replied, “Block the stairways, and get me eyes outside. He’s not getting out of this building unless it’s with us.”

Four more spots were cleared before you made it up onto the roof-terrace. A vacant table and chairs sat beneath an obsolete umbrella. A gentle breeze blew as you surveyed Nemšiná, still as soulless as it was when passing through. It inspired a dull pride that your work was finally paying off. All those yearsČiernik spent building his arsenal and you were ploughing through it like toy soldiers beneath your boots.

You heard Bronze over the wind picking up and blustering around your gear, “Sierra-7, this is Sierra-10. Building is cleared but no sign of Čiernik.”

“Copy that, Sierra-10. Begin reconnaissance.”

There wasn’t any sign of Shepherd either, you noted. Despite the obvious collaboration and the fact that this was Shepherd’s property, you’d yet to find something here that indicated he had ever been to it.

“Bravo team, Sierra team. We are all clear, but Čiernik’s location is still unknown. Search the place for intel and any signs as to where he might’ve gone.”

Maybe he was hiding in the walls.

Bravo team dispersed beneath your feet, back down the levels to the rest of the rooms, leaving just you with Ghost to sift through the room that connected to the stairwell to the roof. There was nothing besides the cabinet that covered one of the walls entirely but the contents of the cabinet were plenty. Ghost handed you a file labelled “Expenses 2022” and you began to sift through the most recent of entries – Excel spreadsheets mostly with precious little annotated after they were released from a printer.

A flare of ache arced through your side and you pressed against it as tenderly as you could.

“You alright?”

Your head swung round to face Price with all the calmness you could manage, “Fine. How’s the head?”

“Still a bit stiff.”

You snorted at his Hot Fuzz reference, spying behind him a laptop bag tucked at the back of an open cupboard. Ghost met your gaze then grabbed it down. You offered your black box from your pack, but instead he passed the laptop over.

“Ghost, a word?” Price nodded behind him. The two men trailed off, leaving you to get started on loading up the laptop. It would at least be a bit faster seeing if it had anything useful than the paper copies. Tapping in your key, the loading screen popped up, ready to transfer all its contents to your server.

Only one pair of steps returned to the room, and you could tell who by the gait and weight.

“Where’s Ghost?” You asked without turning.

“Coordinating on the second floor.”

“We don’t need two Captains in one tiny room.”

“Not even when I’ve got you a present?” You were hoping it was intel, but you were still receptive of the ice pack he crushed and tossing over, which you caught one-handed, “Chance said you ran into a sledgehammer?”

“If anything, it ran into me,” You snipped back. A sigh crawled out your mouth as the instant coolness spread through your shirt and onto your sore torso. Allowing yourself the luxury of slumping, you leant your free hand on the desk beside the laptop, staring at the loading bar filling up at a snail’s pace. “Ta.”

“Don’t mention it,” Price moved beside you.

“You find anything else?”

“Nothing interesting.”

As you plugged your black box into the laptop and began unlocking it, you noticed Price’s hands as he pressed both nearby to lean in at the laptop screen. His watch was off and so were his gloves, revealing on his wrist what – to any other onlooker – appeared to be a shit tattoo of a shit firework. The faded fuzzy diagram of a nerve cell, ripped straight out of a biology textbook and inked onto his skin forever, made your gut twist.

“You alright?”

A shiver passed across from your right shoulder to your left. You pretended it was caused by the icepack.

“Peachy keen,” You tore your stare from his tattoo and focused on not clocking yours, Sick with hypocrisy, imagined Crash downstairs still torturing herself over what you’d said to her.

“I want you on the first floor and update me on the status of the teams. And don’t call me Nerve again.”

Price’s hands pulled his gloves back on, settling onto his gun, “Of course. Sorry. You know what they say about old habits.”

Fuck’s sake, you couldn’t help but love him, whether he called you by Nerve or by name, whether he was here, abandoning you, or ordering you to leave him for dead. Blinking rapidly, you checked the progress on your black box whilst flicking back another tab in the “Expenses” folder over the sound of his boots hitting the stairs.

A pattern under “Properties” caught your gaze: Nemšinian postcodes and house numbers, one after the other, listed with their worth in the following column and a serial number in the next. Your black box was almost complete; you’d be able to sort those codes in a few minutes.

“Sir, we’ve got incoming on all sides from Nemšiná. Five group, and they brought their night vision this time.”

Folding up the laptop and slotting into your pack, you replied, “Bravo team, head to the east; Sierra team, go to the south exit. That’s the closest to the outskirts and we can take whatever heat they bring.”

As you scaled down the stairs, a shot fired through the wall in front of you. You ducked out of the way of the second and third shot, then saw the empty handgun slide through the open door. You burst in to take out your hostile and was greeted by a sight: one of Sierra team on the ground, a trap door beside a wardrobe and scuff marks on the floorboards, and two open French windows – to the balcony you’d seen Čiernik lounging on just an hours before.After finding no heartbeat in your comrade’s neck and ripping off their tags, you glanced out of the door.

Čiernik was shimmying down the damn drainpipe and already halfway to the ground. Ahead, you saw his reinforcements coming through the front gate.

Over the ledge, you followed swiftly after, using the brickwork to aid your descent. A quick assessment of the drop failed you and you cursed at your knees’ response to dropping down onto the patio.

Shots fired from your twelve and one tore through your left bicep, shredding apart the muscles and blood vessels. Ducking behind a giant cement plant pot (that housed a palm tree of all things), you clung to the wound, shuffling until your back hit the vehicle before you ripped off your belt and wrung it around, pulling it taut. Another shot caught your ear but what got your attention was the hiss of air and the collision of gear and a gun with the concrete.

In the open back door, Chance was face down. She wasn’t moving for cover or to retrieve her weapon. Rolling onto your front, you dragged yourself along the grass, smearing the jade blades with scarlet as you crawled to the nearby planter. Your hand waited until the gunfire was aimed at the upper floors to clamp down on the toe of her boot and haul her across the patio. Her neck was narrowly missed by another bullet just as you got her completely in cover, where you flipped her onto her back and revealed the blood pooling fast on her abdominal, soaking her uniform. As you pressed down to slow the gush of blood, staining your hands red in the patio light, you felt the air stirring then whipping around you, the telltale breeze from a helicopter flying overhead.

“Chance? You hear me?” You spoke loudly, bent over to reach her ear, then you addressed your team, “This is Sierra-7, by the front entrance with Sierra-4 -gunshot wound to the stomach, require urgent assistance.”

A shadow darkened over the wound. You looked up just in time to see an armed masked unfamiliar a few feet away, his automatic weapon aimed directly at you.

“Found them.”

The butt of his gun smacked against your cheekbones, sending you sprawling onto the dusty ground. Disorientated, you were yanked up by the scruff of your neck and dragged away from your teammate. Arms trying to reach back for Chance, your legs Bambi’ed beneath you, unable to push you into standing. At the gate, you were held still only for the amount of time it took them to threw a sack and yank the drawstring tightly around your neck. Then you were tossed the back of a vehicle and, as it swerved off to the right, you wheezed out a breath and lost total track of your consciousness.

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

AN: OOOOooo! We've reached the halfway point of this fic. Can't wait for MW3 to come out and ruin my life (as if it didn't do enough of that the first time). Thank you to the folks sending me their thoughts and theories; you've really helped keep me writing. Especially those about the callsigns, the parallels of Price + Nerve versus Gaz + Crash. I've given you some more theory fodder this chapter plus this hint: Captain Price's Access Code.

Taglist: @mockerycrow and @entertain-my-lvst

[floaromaxtowns]

For the fandom edition asks, can I ask for G, I and Q <3

Ask me: FANDOM EDITION [Accepting]

G - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it

OKAY SO I started shipping all the way back in 2006-7 when Youtube was the new hot shit around, and I was an itty bitty kid on early internet. Whom had Pokemon and Sonic as her main big interests at the time. I'm forever thankful for those old as fuckkkkkk tribute videos, with the biggest bops from that era. Although, I'm unable to pinpoint which ship I stumbled upon first, so I consider I started shipping them at around the same time: Rival Barry/Dawn (Twinleafshipping) and Shadow the hedgehog/Tikal the echidna (Shadikal).

FUN FACT- I have been SO long into Twinleafshipping that when I first saw it, Barry had YET to receive his official name for either Japanese and English versions. Gen 4 had YET to be released in the west, and we still didn't even know all the pokemon species introduced in it. So, the fandom nicknamed him as Damion, and for the longest time that's how we called him by. Until his official name was revealed.

And my very first queer ship was Alucard/Richter Belmont from Castlevania. That was mindblowing for sb who lived in a country, where even to this day same-sex couples and lgbtq topics are treated as a taboo.

I - Has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why

I got into Tumblr all the way back in 2015 BECAUSE of my hyperfixation on League of Legends, and by 2017 I was done with the entire franchise. I can't say I blame tumblr entirely for me falling out of love with LoL, there were a number of factors that caused me to distance myself from it (the fact I had stopped playing the game altogether, bc my computer couldn't run it anylonger). But I can say that LoL's fandom is already infamously toxic as it is, and on Tumblr that shit becomes unhinged. And I'm certain that since the inception of Arcane, that fandom must have got even worse.

The only reason we don't hear that much about it nowadays is bc, there is now actual competition for the prize of 'the worst community'. Genshin Impact somehow managed to speedrun those levels of toxicity and unhingedness.

It was through LoL's fandom on tumblr I first saw the lengths, some not-sound of mind individuals are willing to go, to """defend""" their ships. It was the first time I saw anyone receive genuine hate and death threats, just bc they didn't sign up to the popular and most wide spread ship. And I heard through a friend of mine who is still into LoL, that side of the community truly became the worst, thanks to Arcane. Bc now you got a bunch of motherfuckers who never touched the game, wanting to weight in on shit from ppl who aren't interested in the animated show.

Im gonna spread hate on League of Legends, Arcane and anything else related to it LOL

Q - A ship you’ve abandoned and why

It's really difficult for me to drop any ship... At all. So much so, I don't recall dropping any ship in my previous fandoms (Pokemon/Star wars/Castlevania). I may not focus on some ships as compared to others, but that's mainly due to me likely having folks to talk about another ship. But I'm still most definetely a shipper.

As such, I think the very first case of me genuinely dropping a ship happened in the Saint Seiya fandom LOL. I've mentioned it a few times, I shipped Sha.ka/M.u for maybe at most 15 days. It was literally the very first ship I came across, and I genuinely loved how pretty ppl's works for the ship were. Then, the more I dug into StS' lore & content. The more I realized how this couple has little to NO actual substance to offer (by which I mean those two characters literally barely interact with one another, in the entire series).

It actually took me awhile to find out about Aldebaran/Mu, and when I did...

Nevermore looked back at it since LOL.

My theory as to why that ship is massively popular bc most of its fans likely are going off their really vague memories of watching the show, in their childhoods. And solely bc those characters look really good together (I'll give it that, their aesthetic is nice. But that's all you get bc LOL). And they feel entitled to crapping/disrespecting other ships, just bc popular ship brainrot behavior uwu.

[beesincognito]

Perfect Strangers- part four: The New Stranger

Viktor x Fem!reader, Jayce x fem!reader (NSFW)

I realize I forgot an important tag when I first posted this! This is the only chapter with Jayce/reader unless you chose his ending.

part three part five        (start here!)

Takes place before Arcane and works its way there, did my best to combine the different versions of lore.

(you and Viktor meet on your first day at the academy and bond over being habitual, awkward loners. The story revolves around class issues and a sense of belonging mixed with lore and Arcane plot. The story will split at some point and you choose which ending you want to read. Kind of self-indulgent... Based on interactions in platonic and romantic relationships with the men in my life.)

*warnings: sexual content*

Word count: 5,077

******

It had been a few months since the incident. Caston left for Noxus even though you didn’t press charges. Part of you didn’t understand the loss you felt when you got the news he would be returning to Noxus to finish his studies. You missed him in a strange way that made you hate yourself, nothing made sense when he crossed your mind.

    Wondering if things could have been different plagued your mind that first week before Viktor convinced you to seek counseling.

    Grief of this nature was new to you when you poured your heart out to the school counselor. You talked about the guilt you felt for letting your relationship get to that point, but they always managed to reason with you, making sure you didn’t spiral down that pathway of self- deprecation.

    You still lived like he was around the corner, waiting to scold you for every little thing you did. It stopped you from interacting with Viktor sometimes. When your relationship with Viktor felt strained, you kept a barrier in your mind that reminded you he was just a friend. He wanted nothing physical from you like Caston and that was all you chose to believe. Believing he was only a friend took the pressure off of your interactions and you were able to try and heal by interacting with people outside of the friendship as recommended by the counselor.

    The most confusing part of the entire healing process was how starved for affection you felt, especially at night when your fantasies flourished and you were left alone to satisfy yourself. Asking Viktor to give himself to you for your own selfish needs was out of the question, regardless of how readily he probably would have dropped everything to give you what you craved.

    That evening you laid awake in Viktor’s bed, listening to him work on an essay. The scratching of his pencil made your body itch. Every swipe of his hand across the paper made you imagine them gliding across your skin instead which you scolded yourself for. Jeopardizing your friendship because you were desperate for touch was ridiculous.  

    When the need grew too dire you rose from the bed, leaving all of your things where they were strewn on his floor by the closet.

    “I’m going to bed, Viktor,” you leaned over him at the desk.

    He didn’t look up at you, instead he scratched a line through an entire paragraph of notes, “I thought you were already asleep.”

    “In my own room tonight,” you explained, giving him a quick awkward side hug from where he sat.

    “Oh, sounds good. Sleep well,” he gave you an encouraging grin as you waved goodbye and clicked his door shut.

******

Alone in your room at last you wasted no time hopping into bed and shooting your fingers down between your legs. It didn’t take long to feel the unsatisfying release of your body, still aching for something more. You resolved to finally open yourself up to people more in hopes of reeling someone in, even if just for a night.

    It embarrassed you how much you wanted it, but it wasn’t like anyone could read your mind so you just tried to sleep. Promising your body you would start the search in the morning without seeming too desperate.

******

Weeks passed without any luck, but your desire came in waves that allowed you to forget about it long enough to miss it when things felt stale. However, that morning it was back in full force.

    Lewd thoughts plagued your every waking moment in the mid summer heat. Viktor had been painfully absent from your company and you were bored, attempting to entertain yourself between classes. Thinking about sex passed the time, but you pushed all imagery of Viktor from your mind since he had become off limits when you wanted to preserve his friendship. Instead you imagined a faceless man, something selfish for yourself to picture a muscular partner just ravishing your needy body despite the hot weather.

    You sat in the lecture hall, fanning your hot face with your eyes focused on nothing. Letting an imaginary evening play through your head when other students begin filling up the seats around you.

    “Mind if I squeeze by?” asked a tall, handsome classmate. He was fit, staring down at you with green eyes that popped against his tan skin.

    You didn’t recognize him. Understandably so when the lecture halls were always so large and classmates rarely interacted aside from who they would happen to sit next to that day.

    “Oh yeah… sure, sorry,” you straightened your back, pushing yourself against the back of the seat and closing your legs so he could pass after shaking your head to break the daydream you had been lost in.

    Suddenly the decision to wear a shorter skirt that morning felt more exposing than you were comfortable with. You tugged at the hem when the stranger sat next to you, tucking his book bag beneath the chair and pushing it back with his heels. Avoiding the obvious method of turning and staring, you gave him a side glance. His square jaw made him look like a well chiseled statue.

    Feeling the heat overwhelm you again as you break the awkward glance that makes you return to the useless fanning with a scrap piece of paper.

    “Hot right?” you heard him jest into your ear, making your skin prickle from the movement of his arm against yours.

    Instead of saying anything back you gave him a sarcastic head shake which made him smile. You took note of the tiny scar scratched into his eyebrow. Lowering your makeshift fan bashfully, you attempted to begin taking notes when the professor dove into the lecture. The semester was already half over and you had been doing reasonably well in all of your classes without bothering Viktor too much with your questions.

    It was the last class of the day which meant by the time the lecture was over the sweltering sun would have set and that alone made you eager to pay attention. Actively focusing in class always made the time fly by.

    The grip you had on your pen loosened for a second and it was tossed from your grasp when you tried to fix the hold your fingers had lost. It clattered to the floor between your classmates' feet. When you were about to bend down to pick it up you were beaten to it by him and he silently handed it to you with a smile. It gave you butterflies. You wondered how you never noticed him before as you resumed your notes. The realm of dating had been closed off since the incident with Caston and Viktor was off the table as of recently. It was your only logical explanation for only noticing this classmate now.

    Finally the professor called for a break about an hour and a half into the class. It was the halfway point before dismissal and most of the students had begun to lose focus from the heat. Windows and doors were propped open to let the early evening air replace the body heat that had been trapped.

    You stood to stretch, sighing at the relief of your back cracking.

    “What year are you?” the classmate asked from where he had remained seated despite the recess. He was checking his notes.

    “Junior,” you joined him, resting comfortably in your seat since he sounded so nonchalant about small-talk. “You?”

    “Same,” he answered, whatever products he used smelled overly masculine and it made your thoughts wander. “What’s your name? I’ve seen you a few times, but you know, lecture classes and all.”

    “y/n. To be honest I never really venture outside of my comfort zone much when the classes are this big.” you glanced at your notes, realizing how disorganized they looked compared to his. “What about you?”

    “My comfort zone?” he asked, letting you read his notes which you gratefully accepted.

    “No, sorry I meant your name.” you clarified, trying to be polite and remember social etiquette by reciprocating questions.

    “Jayce,” he answered, giving you a charming grin he must have given all the ladies.

    “Jayce?” you prodded, feeling more comfortable to pry.

    “Talis.” He took his notebook back once you were done copying bullet points you had missed during the lecture.

    The name sounded familiar, a business partner of your parents and a prominent house in the city.

    “As in ‘House Talis?’” you questioned with raised brows.

    He confirmed it with no shame or hesitation the way you would when mentioning your own prominent family. He asked for your family name which in turn gave him raised eyebrows when he made the connection as well. It was a given that two industrial families would work together at some point in their long line of work for such a large city.

    “I’m guessing transportation and machinery isn’t where you wanted to end up?” he asked in reference to your crunched nose when you had answered him about your family.

    “Long story, let's just say I’m trying to accept it,” you watched the professor step back into the lecture hall, straightening his robe as he walked across the stage.

    “I understand the pressure,” Jayce nodded, noting the blush on your cheeks when the conversation had reached a natural standstill.

    You both continued taking notes when the lecture resumed. Making comments here and there about the topic and the class as a whole.

    The room finally began to cool. Living in a city by the ocean had its benefits when the buildings blocked the sun early on, letting the heat dissipate to a reasonable temperature before the height of the summer.

    Towards the end of class, the professor allotted time for questions and answers before dismissal. Since you were never one to raise your hand in class, you decided to pack your things early and return to your daydreams, but this time you had a distraction at your side.

    Jayce noticed you were eager to leave and packed his things as well to chat with you quietly.

    “What’re you doing after this?” he asked, leaning towards you to whisper in your ear.

    “Getting a drink and maybe straight to bed, I’m beat. This week was brutal,” you chuckled when you remembered how hectic the assignments had been.

    “Could I take you out?” his voice was low against your skin and it made your spine shiver with anticipation.

    You leaned back from him as you nodded to accept his proposal, giving him a ridiculous grin at the thought of having the first date in a while. It made you nervous remembering Caston and how charming he had seemed in the beginning, but something about Jayce was different. There was less build up, less peacocking in his socialization.

    Every student that raised their hand to ask a question began to irritate you when you started to feel impatient. Being calm on the inside was never something you specialized in. From Jayce’s perspective you must have seemed so composed so it didn’t matter. Eventually class was dismissed, the sun had set completely and the lamps had been lit in the courtyard and on the streets to welcome the nightlife of the yawning dusk.

    Jayce walked at your side, he towered over you, keeping in time with your shorter strides instead of having you keep up with whatever his casual pace might have been. He turned out to be quite the gentleman as you both left the academy district together to find a lounge to start the evening.

    “We don’t have to do anything fancy,” you insisted after passing your regular city café.

    “Right, but I thought you had more than coffee in mind,” he grinned, placing his hand on the small of your back to guide you past the corner of the block.

    He was right, after all the stress you were under, a stronger drink wouldn’t hurt. With Viktor you would both avoid going out to get drunk since it was poor for his health, but since you were without him you thought it was a good idea. Letting Jayce lead you through large metal framed doors that led to an extravagantly decorated hotel lobby. When you gave him a confused face, questioning his idea of a drink, he assured you there was more to see. There was a wide entrance off to the side of the lobby that opened up to an equally extravagant cocktail lounge.

    You had never been there before since you never had a reason to visit a hotel in the city you lived in besides your first week in the academy district.

    Jayce gestured for you to take a seat at the bar with him after turning in your school bags with an attendant, waiting for you to be seated before joining you.

    “This place is nice,” you smiled, taking in the sights and listening to the piano play from the center of the room.

    “Right? I never see many other students here except the week after exams,” he followed your eyes, paying attention to what caught their fancy.

    Jayce wanted to entertain you, the dark circles under your eyes told him the story of many sleepless nights and if he could make one evening interesting, it was worth leaving his own comfort zone. You hadn’t expressed an interest in his family prowess the same way most others had, instead he felt a kindred understanding of wanting to be part of a family name, but still be an individual with personal ambitions.

    He ordered two drinks, his was clear and yours was darkened over ice. It was sweeter than what you were used to stealing from your parents' private supply as a younger girl. Anything you had tried as an adult was in the realm of wines ranging from all kinds of prices.

    “What is this?” you asked, having waited for a natural pause in conversation since you missed what he asked the bartender when he had ordered. “And no, I don’t usually drink so I don’t know much,” you sassed him when he looked at you in surprise.

    “Well it's ‘dark and stormy’,” he teased you with his perfect smile, offering you his glass by sliding it towards you.

    “Dark and stormy, just like my life,” you joked, receiving a pity laugh from Jayce for the nauseatingly bad joke, before taking a tiny sip from his glass and tasting the subtle bitter liquid. Your nose scrunched at the flavor, letting a quiet laugh out as you slid the glass back towards him.

    Settling into conversation, you discussed school briefly before he began asking you questions about your life before the academy. He listened intently when you described how life had been for you being raised on the outskirts of Piltover. The life of your family and the rules of being allowed to belong with meeting conditions of success surprised him.

    “So either way you need to find some way to survive,” he watched your eyes glaze over while telling your story, the heaviness of your chin on your palm was evident in the way your cheek scrunched against your fingertips.

    You nodded, waving your opposite hand in the air dismissively when he had reached towards it in the vein of comfort.

    Once your drinks were gone and a couple hours of conversation passed by, you had both grown more at ease. Allowing him into your personal space when he leaned towards you, making scientific theories sound scandalous the way he discussed it with you so closely that you could feel his breath tingle against your neck. Occasionally you would feel his hand touch your side gently when he would wrap a slack arm around you.

    Testing the waters with Jayce, letting yourself place him in your daydream from class, you touched his thigh casually when you had both laughed about something inconsequential about your professor.

    The tension was palpable between the two of you when neither of you mentioned his hand on your waist or your fingers grazing his inner thigh as you were both tucked away at the bar where no one else could see your wandering hands. You both continued talking, letting the lingering touch speak for itself silently between the audible words that passed through the air.

    It was still early in the evening for the beginning of the weekend and you hated how tired you were beginning to feel. You weren’t even buzzed. Despite how sober you still felt, you let him kiss you so gently. Apprehensively letting it linger with heavy eyelids. They stayed closed when he pulled away, a smile left in the wake of his kiss. His thumb gently ghosted against the scar on your lip, wondering what was the story behind it.

    “We should go,” he whispered, humming a laugh through his nose when your only response was a dazed nod as your eyes lazily opened. “Would you want to, um…?” he tilted his head and held your arm, stroking his thumb over your bare wrist as a hint.

    “Definitely,” you answered right away, catching on to what Jayce had in mind since it had been on the forefront of your own mind for days. Just as you had been open to the idea the day you arrived at the academy, you were desperate for relief.

    He took your hand, collecting your school bags at the door before heading back into the lobby. You stopped him from walking up to the desk attendant.

    “I thought you’d want a room,” his face was flushed, “I’m sorry if I misunderstood,” he nervously held up his hands in defense.

    “No no you didn’t,” you assured him, “we just don’t need a hotel room, that’s all.”

    He followed you out into the quiet street.

    “Want to come back to my room?” he offered when you were closer to the academy district where your dorm was deeper past the patron owned laboratories and apartments.

    “Um, mine is fine,” you felt safer knowing your neighbors had your back last time something went wrong in your dorm. Jayce felt safe, but you never knew when it came to strangers even if the evening had gone so well up until that moment with his fingers laced through yours.

    Jayce followed you through the walkways between the towering academy buildings until you reached the dorms. You hoped you wouldn’t run into Viktor as you both crossed the first lobby and into the privacy of the elevator where Jayce pulled you close. His chest hummed as he kissed you again, holding your body up towards him with strong arms. Making you giggle when he dusted your sensitive neck with his lips.

    The hallway was clear of people, even opening your own door made you nervous thinking you would find Viktor reading at your desk, but it was empty. It was one of those rare weeks that you had managed to spend most of your time in your room since Viktor was so busy.

    Jayce stepped in behind you, wrapping his arms around your stomach from behind and kissing the side of your face when your bags landed with a thud by the door.

    You lazily flicked the switch on your desk, clicking the light off since you always left it on as a bad habit. It made you feel more comfortable with just the dim light of the window giving the room a moonlit glow compared to the harsh hot light of the desk lamp.

    His confident hands worked away at the buttons of your uniform shirt, eagerly pulling away at your clothes before you turned around on your heels to do the same for him. Even in the dark room you could make out how fit his body looked when his chest was exposed. It made your heart race with excitement.

    The bed creaked beneath your weight which you happily ignored, feeling his hands trace the lines of your body and his lips as they kissed your inner thigh. You let him press his tongue into your entrance, tasting you with a groan. His hips ground into the sheets with need when you came after he had taken his time eliciting desperate reactions from you with his fingers and lips.

    “Do you have-?” he started to ask, but was cut off when you pointed to your nightstand as you panted. He leaned over you and searched your drawer, you felt him rub against your trembling leg. His fingers twitched as he tore the condom wrapper open when he felt you take him into your hand.

    A moan bubbled from your chest, arching your back and raising your legs when he pressed into you gently. The stretch he gave made your eyes roll back with pleasure and you held onto that initial feeling when he sweetly kissed you, breathing in every sigh and moan that escaped you.

******

Viktor was filling empty spots on his shelves with books that had been abandoned at various places around his room by the both of you. Letting you use his room whenever you wanted was better than living completely alone, so a little extra clutter was of no concern to him. Absentmindedly placing your clothes into his hamper felt routine, natural for him to do for you even when you insisted you could do it yourself.

    Cleaning his dorm was brought on by a much needed break from his latest school project that had his mind in knots just trying to finish it on time. The work was practically done, otherwise he could not fathom taking a real break.

    After an hour of rearranging and reading through notes to organize them properly, he found a small stack of books that were yours. He remembered they were ones you had been looking for frantically the day before and they ended up being kicked under his desk behind other piles of books.

    He missed you, wondering what you must have been up to since you gave him space to work for so long instead of poking in to visit. Looking for an excuse to see you was hard, but there were the books on his desk, egging him on.

    Without much internal debate he was out the door with the books in hand and headed to your dorm just as he had many times before.

    When he reached your door, instead of knocking he paused at the sound of your laughter. Assuming you heard something on your radio that tickled you, he raised a knuckle to knock, but froze when the muffled voice of a man he didn’t recognize moaned your name. That could not have been from the radio. His heart rattled in his chest, making his stomach turn and knot up with an old familiar jealous feeling.

    Not wanting to hear anymore as it was an invasion of your privacy he went to the common room on your floor. His body trembled, the shaking in his leg was persistent and painful when his imagination raced with images of you with another man. You sounded safe, not in any form of danger he would have to intervene on. If anything, this was a good thing for you and he tried to respect that despite the ache in his chest.

    Many other male students passed through the hall since Viktor sat in the lounge. He imagined which one the man could be, but eventually lost count since students were constantly going out due to it being the first night of the weekend.

    He anxiously waited, hoping you would just walk down the hallway yourself and happen upon him sitting there reading instead of hoping one of the men passing him was the man that had been in your room.

    The wait felt like hours since he didn’t pay the time on the clock any mind.

******

You groaned out Jayce’s name against his thrusts, telling him how good he felt when he hooked his arms under your legs, squeezing your thighs. The sight of you in the dark made him swoon, from the bounce of your breasts with his thrusts, to the pose of your arms above your head and your hand bracing yourself against the wall. He watched your face relax with pleasure as your toes curled over his shoulders when your stomach tightened.

    When he started slapping against you harder and more audibly you knew he was close. The slick wet sounds of him sliding in and out of you filled the room with your moans until he pressed into you roughly one last time. Panting chuckles from you both followed when he slouched over you to give you another kiss after he pulled out. Your spine shivered from the sensation. He removed the condom, tossing it into the tiny trash bin off the side of the bed and rejoined you in the sheets, feeling him completely melt into your side.

    You laid there, comfortably for a long while, enjoying the rise and fall of his body with his deep breaths when he fell asleep before you.

    Sleep dared your eyes to finally rest when a gentle knock came from your door which you had forgotten to lock. All traces of tiredness left your body when you realized Viktor was the only person who would come to your door and you both had grown used to letting yourselves in on occasion. You ignored the confused and concerned face Jayce gave you when you launched up from the mattress, pushing him off of you to grab your robe from the foot of the bed.

    “y/n?” he whispered, propping himself up on an elbow.

    You shushed him and asked him to not say anything in a barely audible whisper. When another hint of a knock came from the door you panicked and rushed over to Jayce, throwing the blanket over him and telling him to stay put. You cracked the door, light from the hallway made your eyes hurt, and poked your head out.

    Viktor looked down at you in your disheveled robe, noting how messy your hair looked. A few of your books were tucked under his arm as he leaned on his cane. It was strange to him that you kept the doorway so narrow when you had always either let him in or let the door swing wide open. It confirmed his suspicions.

    “Were you sleeping?” he asked to feign ignorance, handing you your books which you took with one hand awkwardly and placed them on the desk just past the doorway.

    “Uh yes, sorry I took so long to answer the door,” you lied, knowing full well he would most likely see right through you.

    “Are you alright?” he felt your forehead with the back of his hand, “your cheeks are flushed.”

    You waved your hand in the air dismissively, there was no way he didn’t have some clue. It made you anxious thinking about him finding a stranger in your bed and you wished he wasn’t so observant. Despite the visible factors, he most likely could smell the sex in the air if he tried hard enough despite how tightly you held onto the doorknob.

    “I’m alright, just tired,” you tried to laugh despite his furrowed brows, “I’ll see you tomorrow okay?”

    Viktor nodded, letting his cool fingers caress the hot skin of your cheek before dropping his hand altogether with one quick glance into the darkness of your room as he began to turn away.

    “Please take care, y/n,” he let you rub his arm when you tried to reassure him as his mind finished putting the pieces together in opposition to his denial. “Goodnight.”

    “Goodnight,” you responded, your voice low with the tightness in your chest. The door clicked shut when you pushed it closed.

    Watching him walk off filled you with unwarranted guilt. You weren’t dating Viktor, so you couldn’t figure why it felt as if you had just been caught cheating despite your feelings. He had never outwardly expressed his own feelings towards you and after years of maintaining unspoken boundaries you had been desperate for affection beyond a tender touch here and there.

    “Is everything alright?” Jayce asked, pulling the blanket off of him and holding it open so you could rejoin him.

    “Yeah my friend was returning my books,” you explained, “I guess I look like a hot mess.”

    “So why did I need to hide?” he tucked into your side, kissing your neck when you settled into the bed.

    “I don’t know. Hook-ups aren’t something I really want broadcasted,” you lightly scratched your nails across his back.

    “This was your first time,” Jayce guessed.

    You hummed a mhm in response, feeling him give your body a squeeze.

    With the door locked this time, you felt safe enough to start to fall asleep with Jayce. You knew he wasn’t going to leave for the night and the thought of getting to wake up to him as well comforted you. The idea of waking up alone after the night you had was enough to make you cry in your delirium.

    You heard him say something about meeting up with you again if you wanted, which you gave a yawning agreement. His tender touches finally lulling you to sleep.

******

When morning came, Jayce woke you gently. Caressing your cheek when your eyes squinted up at him. Greeting each other with a kiss, he offered to take you out to breakfast which you gladly accepted. You snuck him out of your dorm, keeping an eye out for Viktor as you went to a campus café that was further from the one you usually visited.

    You knew you would never find a sweeter guy to have a one night stand with so you savored every last moment with him. Pretending you were a couple when he laced his fingers with yours or held your thigh from under the table.

    “I’ve got class in a bit,” Jayce groaned, “still need to stop by my apartment too.”

    “Don’t be late on my account,” you chuckled, sipping your iced tea.

    “I’d love to see you again some time,” Jayce leaned in and kissed your cheek.

    Nodding your head instead of making any real promises now that you were thinking clearly, you watched him leave. He waved at you from over his shoulder with a grin.

    You told yourself you would never meet up with him again.