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bambi-is-brainwashed · 2 days ago

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Dum Dum - Sarah

Smart. Intelligent. Sharp. All words that summarized who Sarah perceived herself to be. Graduating at the top of her class, never taking her mind off of her studies or expanding her knowledge in some interest or area. Being a smart person, however, came with a lot of stress, a lot of pressure on Sarah to perform at her best at all times. After years of the intense, unrealistic expectations that Sarah tried to hold herself to, she neared her breaking point. Desperate, she looked to the internet to find a simple way to help relieve her stress. After over an hour of scouring many different sites and blowing through articles that only offered basic tips and tricks, Sarah finally found something promising. "Bambi Sleep" it was called. Audio files designed to help the listener relax and become their best self. Although skeptical, Sarah had little choice but to try it out, praying that these simple audios would solve her problems of stress. She opened the website and put on her headphones, taking a deep breath before pressing play. With a click of a button, her mind went dark.

Sarah blinked her eyes open, laying in her chair where she had been sitting before, except for a few major changes. For one, she was completely stripped naked, and her crotch and nipples displayed a strange wetness to them. Secondly, the time had jumped 8 hours ahead in the blink of an eye. Strangely, this leap in time didn't seem to frighten Sarah, who was much more focused on her body. Did she always look this good? Her breasts seemed much fuller, her hips wider and posture perfected, contrary to the slouched, arched position that she had adapted from the hours spent studying in her chair. It didn't even occur to Sarah that the audio was starting back up, the soft voices slowly sliding into her mind while she admired her body, before a command suddenly echoed through her head.

"Bambi sleep"

Another 8 hours lost to the audios, waking up once again wet, this time a bit more aroused. Sarah giggled a bit as she shook her tits, a bit bigger than before, at least she thought they were. Her breasts now had ballooned out to a D cup, and didn't show signs of stopping. Sarah couldn't come up with a logical solution for why this was happening. Matter of fact, she couldn't come up with a solution for anything. She had so much work to do! So much to learn, so much information to process! Before Sarah was unable to take off the headphones, the sounds started up again, freezing her in place, hands glued to her head, unable to move an inch. And with her trigger, she dropped back off into a deep slumber, unable to resist as she dropped off into trance.

Before long, it had been a whole week since Sarah had begun listening to her files. Her chest had grown to an F cup, and her hair had grown out, turning a platinum blonde color and lazily cascading down her enhanced body. She began to realize how difficult it was to think, unable to even piece together simple information in her fuzzy brain, always cloudy and light headed, a bit dumber. Yet, none of this bothered Sarah. Ever since she began listening to her files, Sarah's life had become so much less stressful. She didn't have to learn, she didn't have to perform, she didn't even need to think anymore. She could let the audio think for her, dropping her deep into soft bliss, sleepily collapsing into her chair every time the audio started up. Sarah didn't even notice the audios becoming more and more suggestive, conditioning her mind more and more, dropping her into even deeper levels of trance and all the while, softening up and draining her mind of all of her memories. All of her thoughts, all of her smarts that she held so close to her. Sarah was being transformed entirely, not only physically but mentally as well, impossible to even consider resistance while in trance as she happily listened, listening as her crotch became wet, her nipples shiny from the drool spilled down her front, rubbed in circles by her hands, a good puppet for Bambi. That's right, Bambi taking full control over Sarah's mind and body, locking in all conditioning and replacing all thoughts with Bambi's. Meanwhile, Sarah slept soundly, softly moaning as the brainwashing, yes the brainwashing, filled her up with fuzzy thoughts of mindlessness and arousal.

It had been about a month since beginning Bambi Sleep, and Sarah felt absolutely amazing. She had completely forgotten all of her studies, all of her smarts, instead replaced by a pink fog that encased her mind in a soft, pink warmth that instilled feelings of helplessness and obedience. Her brain was nearly incapable of thinking, feeling deep and dumb, Bambi's voice her sole source of thoughts, weak and docile without Bambi's influence and calming words. Sarah stared blankly into nothing, foggy eyes lidded under newly bought fake lashes and mascara while she repeated her mantras out loud.

"Bambi takes away my thoughts"

"Bambi thinks for me"

"Bambi makes me a good girl"

"Bambi makes me obedient"

"Bambi controls me completely"

Deep within Sarah, under the layers of conditioning that kept her mind vacant, her glazed eyes blankly staring, a final effort of resistance began to rise up. She had to fight! She couldn't let the brainwashing win, she had to resist. Sarah winced as she tried to fight her mantras, her now bimbofied pout contorting into a grimace as she fought against the brainwashing.

"You are a good girl"

"No, I am not a good girl!"

"Brainwashing makes you weak"

"Brainwash...brainwashing doesn't make me weak!"

"You aren't in control"

"I am...uh...i-in control..."

"Give in and let Bambi take control"

"G-give in?"

"You cannot resist your own mind"

"Ca-cannot...resist..."

"Let your mind slip, turn your brain off"

"Turn my brain off"

"Bambi does as she's told"

"Be a good girl. Bambi Sleep"

Sarah's last effort was completely extinguished as she collapsed limply, sinking into her chair and feeling her mind dissipate under the heavy, soft weight of her eyelids closing, thoughts replaced with Bambi's words and deep under hypnosis. So much pleasure, so much arousal Sarah felt as she dropped, being such as good girl while she listened, accepting all of her conditioning and submitting fully to Bambi. She was a good girl for Bambi, and Bambi controlled her completely. Sarah awoke, blissfully dumb, void of thought and happily dazed, like a good bimbo should. The old Sarah was gone, replaced by a bimbofied, conditioned version of herself helplessly controlled by Bambi, obedient and constantly horny throughout her day. She kept herself edged all the time, a total dum dum as her hand involuntarily pulls out of her wet pussy and sucks her fingers clean, drooling and dripping her thoughts out of her wet mouth. Her inflated lips stimulated at all times while she listened to her files, rubbing herself against anything she could find. Against her bed, against regular objects, using her vibrator to assist in the process of edging herself dumb. Vacant, foggy eyes, the eyes of a mindless bimbo, controlled by her brainwashing while she rubbed, helplessly addicted and furthering her addiction as her dependence on her arousal grew. Before long, Sarah wasn't just a good girl, completely hypnotized and controlled by Bambi, but she was also controlled deeply by her pussy. Her constantly wet, needy pussy, throbbing at every trigger and mantra, conditioned perfectly to become aroused when obeying Bambi's commands. Sarah wanted pleasure, to be dumb and drop deep into trance, and Bambi offered all of that to her, guiding her further into the mindless, dumb bliss that Sarah loved so dearly. What a good girl Sarah had become, feeling so good, so deep, so dumb, a fuzzy, blank bimbo mind, letting everything go as she sinks further, so thankful that Bambi could give her the bliss and happiness she was helplessly addicted to, like a good girl should be.

#bambi #bambi girl #bambi hypno #bambi sleep #bambification #bimbo babe #bimbo doll #bimbo girl #bimbo hypnosis

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kazumikissu · 14 hours ago

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CRYBABY !

tutor!scaramouche x fem!reader

✧ — making you cry is part of the learning process!

— nsfw, university au, scaramouche has dacryphilia, spanking, sex with an object, humiliation, reader is the stereotypical sorority girl for the plot, not beta read | 1,378 words

no amount of pleading from different subject professors could ever get scaramouche to tutor. with pay or not, the last thing he wanted to eat on his place was a stupid student who can't fend for themselves in a field where mental strength and intellect mattered over beauty and fashion. he cared little to how you even passed the opening exams and got accepted into a high-demanding university like this, the exact same one scaramouche attends, unfortunate for his luck.

if that wasn't enough, you took the same program as scaramouche did, leading you to share a few too many classes together—too much for what he would consider his liking. you're no more than brain-dead during lecrure hours, having evaded from conversing with you one-too-many times. a no-good partygoer in his eyes, with a face caked with layers of make-up and an IQ as little as your personality.

if he could, scaramouche would've gladly ignored your existence for the rest of his years and acted like you never existed first thing. yet he could only bet on his luck for the nth time he's turned down his professor's request in tutoring you. when his phone rung to his mother's number, no longer pleading, but demanding scaramouche just for the extra points he'll get after a hell of a session with you—or at least that's what he'd like to imagine being with you for a few many hours.

after a cacophony of cursing over the line, he ends up in front of your doorstep, fingers ticking by his side as he finds himself to be less and less interested in entertaining your stupidity, all by the passing minute.

yet scaramouche couldn't find too many complaints now that this session brought you draped over his lap, teary eyed and snot down your nostrils. "how many times are you going to get this question wrong, stupid bitch?" a tone as sharp as the slap he drives against the plush of your ass, stinging your reddening flesh a prominent red. a shade addictive, the darker it gets, the better he saw it.

"s…scara, m'sorry!" drool dripped down the corner of your lips as sniffles left your lungs, the tips of your fingers quivering with an electricity that goes through your veins, buzzing with every harsh smack from scaramouche. "I don't know what… what the question means…"

words fumble out your lips as slippery as a rock in a river, tongue smooth on the roof of your mouth as you took in a heavy gulp. there was little to no mercy in scaramouche's piercing gaze, however, yet he was heavily entertained with the stupid little delight he had draped over his lap. "oh, but wouldn't this be the sixth time i'd have to explain it to you? are you that much of an imbecile?" another slap bounced against the walls of your room, cries coming louder than words with the parting of your lips.

"the only thing you're good at is opening your legs. the professor might as well make you the class whore, if he wants you to be so useful. i don't see anything that can nurture you in the brain if not between your legs," scaramouche has mocked you more times you've spoken a coherent sentence over the time he's been with you. but, unfortunately, pain came little from all your crying. rather, a show of pleasure, as it seemed your lower legs were weeping wetter than your eyes were spilling out tears.

scaramouche has never seen anything more pathetic. well, maybe his mother trying to reconcile with him after years off adding pressure to heavy his plate, but this was another category. you were another category, and one he surprisingly enjoys. "stop squirming, shitface," he hissed, brows knitted as one hand held you down, the other finally straying away from your ass, reaching for something.

a something that had your eyes widen looking back, twirling a pencil enticingly between his fingers. "what, cat got your tongue again, dumbo bitch?" that bite never left his tone as scaramouche brought his hand back, now right between your legs as you're left restrained in horror. "move and I'll drive the tip of this until the lead is flush against your thigh bone, okay? i'll make my own hole to fuck with if you don't stop pissing me off."

that threat had you frozen immediately, the air in your lungs thinning within seconds of anticipation. your heartbeat was assaulting your eardrums with every little breath you started to heave, a shudder breaking through as you felt the eraser side of the pencil trace the outer of your labia with deliberance. slowly, mockingly, as if scaramouche is taunting you—and he is.

the blunt surface pressed against the pearl that peeked between your slit, making you suck in a breath before scaramouche does it again, squishing your clit with every toe you curl from the sensation. your back arched an angle you didn't know you could curve at, the moment he pushed the slender wood into you, with the intent to seek out that spot that made your vision start to blur at the edges. well, if they weren't already.

with how turned on you got by a spanking, cloud 9 was closer to your reach with how loose your mind has gotten. and throughout, scaramouche found a sick sense simmer inside his stomach. perhaps, a sense of satisfaction… or a something that wells his ego at the sight of you so stupid. perfectly fucked-out type of stupid, and he's yet to start! "you're getting off to this? fucking disgusting." he swirled the pencil inside of you, purposely rubbing every wall and nudging at every crevice. "had the professor's known you'd be so whorish, you're better off being a prostitute than live out a life where you start business and make money.

"because, unfortunately for you, the main foundation of a company should be the founder's brains. but you? you're only a waste of meat," scaramouche's tone lowers in volume, a taunt underlying each hurtful words, meant to make you sniffle louder than the last time. make you cry more vibrantly, where your voice is bouncing off the walls, moans and cries with the sound of your pussy slick as the cherry on top. "then again, you're not so bad. you're a waste, but certainly a… pleasant looking one."

the backhanded compliment made the lower of your stomach hot, accompanied with the persistent push of the pencil's blunt tip inside you, aiming at your g-stop with impeccable precision. you always loved to flaunt your looks, anyway, what could a superflouos of talent stand for if there's already a pretty face catching everyone's attention?

"scaramouche," his name bubbles at the surface of your tongue, forming words become a much more even difficult feat—had it been earlier when he punished you by spanking and making you read, you would've failed by a landslide. scaramouche's name was the only coherent thing you could manage out your drooling lips, and even then, it was still muffled by the sound of sex in the air. "i'm gonna… scara, 'm gonna cum," the words squeezed out your lungs the same time as your pussy clenched around the intruding object, velvet walls contracting like it's seeking for more. and more did scaramouche give, drilling the pencil fully into you after a click of his tongue.

only then did you finally feel the object kiss your cervix, causing you to immediately sieze across his lap. finger clenched inwards, burning onto the palm of your hand to the point your knuckles go white. back arching further up that scaramouche's internally impressed you haven't broken the curve of your spine yet, and the tense curls of your toes with your knees throwing at the air in pleasure. "holy shit," scaramouche grunts, pausing the movements of his wrist, fingers slipping as they kept their hold on the pencil sheathed fully in you. his whole arm was soaked beyond his bewilderment, but that quickly shifted into something else.

manifesting a smirk on the corner of his lip, scaramouche hummed. "you're really a dirty fucking bitch. but that's only good for me, yeah? let's see how much more times i can make you fucking squirt." certainly more times that you can get a good grade for your subjects on your own—or lack of thereof—but only the loud stretch of the evening will tell.

a/n; um... don't do this at home unless your pencil is clean, i guess? keep your kitty infection-free ❤️😝 i'm not actually sure if i wrote this properly so uh boombayah!!!

#kazumikissu #scaramouche #genshin scara #genshin scaramouche #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche x you #scaramouche x y/n #scaramouche smut #tutor scaramouche #genshin smut #genshin impact smut #smut

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dreamerwriternstargazer · 5 hours ago

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Something I like to note in my interaction with media is always “am I taking this as education, or inspiration?”

And that’s the important difference I believe.

If your worldview was opened and inspired by AT:LA, if you (assuming you’re a very privileged, sheltered adult I guess) learnt about say revolutions and genocide and imperialism and so on and so forth for the first time from AT;LA and it inspired you to read more articles and more reliable sources of media to gain a proper perspective, grounded in reality? That’s actually pretty great

If you refuse to interact with political content beyond a child’s show, beyond the very simplified representation of censorship in Ba Sing Se, beyond Zuko’s redemption arc/efforts in recovering from abuse, beyond the wipeout of the Airbenders and their culture, then we have a problem

Stories… are fiction, but they can teach a little, not a lot, a kernel of truth, and that is enough to serve their true purpose of inspiration.

Yes there’s such incredible skill in these stories, in Suzanne Collins’ biting and fiery allegory for the Hollywood machine (and reflection of the extremely corrupt class system + political empire of the US), in Princess Mononoke’s sincere heartfelt plea for environmentalism and balance between nature and humanity

But they are not the be all and end all. Miyazaki did not write Howl’s Moving Castle to teach you to lock yourselves out of the wider political environment around you, to passively call for pacifism as bombs are dropped by those you know, nor was it written to encourage you to condemn every leader or war started. It was written to present his perspective and personal anger over the Iraq War, writing a film he “felt would be poorly received in the US” (Wikipedia) Yes the story it’s telling you of pacifism and integrity is important, but as inspiration, it will not and should not be your guide to war. What is important here is what it could lead you to read, hell if you were as enchanted and interested as I was by this movie then it could lead you right back to the context, the reason for it being written. This could then lead you to researching the Iraq war, to learning why Miyazaki felt strongly, to look at further criticisms against the Bush administration.

That’s what it did for me. I didn’t know anything about American politics, but while studying the story for some other reasons (Heroine’s Journey related of course) I noticed why pacifism was an important theme. It wasn’t enough to get me interested, American politics weren’t necessarily linked to me (or at least that’s the default I submitted to thinking) but it opened my mind a bit. Okay huh that’s interesting, keep a note on that

It’s a note that then got added to when I read several Tumblr posts on issues with the Bush administration, then others on America and its founding. It got added to further when I learnt about Israel and Palestine, and then given some emotional, moral context as I learnt of Israel and Palestine and the atrocities occurring there and how many were likening it to what America did in Iraq and Afghanistan (since I really was too young to remember or think critically over them when they were going on)

There’s still so much I don’t know, I’m so young and even younger in my political knowledge.

What’s important is that as I grow the sources of information grow with me. Stories are important for so much, they are empowering and cathartic, a way to challenge you and inspire you, they are an expression, a call to arms, a hug around your shoulders on cold rainy days, but you cannot and should not live on a diet of fairytales and fantasies.

only reading ya or only watching kids shows is tremendously destructive to your ability to create or understand fiction (as any extremely narrow fiction intake is) but also ultimately that is not a super important skill in life or indicative of any deficiency of character

#star speaks

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local-hyena · 1 day ago

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Allright allright, I think I'm ready now...

TF2 COMIC 7

Saying "I loved it" would be an understatement. It was PERFECT, the perfect ending we deserved. It's been seven goddamn years, I honestly didn't think this issue would ever be released. I started getting into tf2 only recently, about a year ago I think. I hope everyone who've been there from the beginning are happy.

This last issue gave us SO MANY THINGS ! A TIME SKIP WITH THE MERC'S FUTURE ! I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY ALL GOT THE "THEY GOT HOME AND BUILT FAMILIES AND REUNITE FOR CHRISTMAS" TYPE OF FUTURE THAT LITERALLY ALL FANFICS ARE ABOUT. SINGLE DAD SCOUT IS THE GREATEST CHARACTER DEVELOPPEMENT POSSIBLE.

WE ALSO GOT LITERALLY EVERYTHING WE WERE HOPING FOR. WE GOT UNMASKED SPY, WE GOT PAULING'S FIRST NAME, WE GOT SCOUT'S LAST NAME, SCOUT WITH AN UGLY HAIRCUT, WE EVEN GOT PYRO'S DOG AND MEDIC'S BABOON, TOM JONES IS BACK. ALSO HEAVY HAS A BEARD NOW, AND SOLDIER AND ZHANNA HAVE CHILDREN !!

there are of course still unanswered things. However, the fact that the Administrator forgot why she wanted revenge on Mann really adds to her character and the overall story. Also, it seems that Scout still odesn't know that Spy is his father, since he introduces himelf to Scout's children as Scout's coworker... Scout's ma is also noticably absent, I do not want to think about it too much, since Demo's mother is still alive, there is no reason she wouldn't be as well. We're gonna say that she's spending Christmas with another son, since she doesn't really take an important rôle in the comic... Also, as a Medic main, THERE WAS NO MEDIC CONTENT. LIKE, I KNOW THAT THE LAST COMIC WAS VERY MEDIC AND HEAVY FOCUSED, BUT STILL. I always need more Medic content 😭😭 glad to see that Archimedes is here also !

Also, Merasmus why are you so ripped 😂😂 he looks ugly as ever.

I am so very happy that Hale and Olivia both got fired from MannCo. They are finally happy now, with Hale going back with Mags fighting animals and going on other dangerous adventures.

There is ONE lats thing I need to point out. No, two things. First, I wonder what Valve will do now. Now that Team Fortress 2's story has come to an end. What will happen ? Is the game going to stop updating ? Or on the contrary will they go back to working on it ? Is there going to be a Team Fortress 3 ? Or is Team Fortress simply going to end on this perfect note ?

Finally, the ending. It took me a while to understand that the last dinner scene was adressing directly to us, the reader, the player. When I understood that, it hit le right in the heart. I cannot say that tf2 has been à huge part of my life. Like I said, I only got interested last year or so. I don't even oike the game itself that much, online multiplayer competitive FPSs are not my preferred genre. But the story, the characters and what the community makes (yes, the funny GMod machinimas and SFM movies. The memes and the serious stuff, both of them) made me learn to enjoy this universe. I must confess something. For some time, I played Fortnight with my brother. He made me try because I kept saying that I didn't like it, but I hadnd't poayed the game. After my first game, I said that I had some fun, in the end. So, he kinda forced le to play. For... idk, a few years. I do nlt remember the dates but I started the season with the Nomad skin as the ultimate reward, and stopped when there were hoverboards, or whatever they were. I didn't enjoy it because he insisted on being super competitive and was raging 90% of the time. So yeah, I hated every second of it and I vowed to not play competitive online multiplier games anymore. Which is why I absolutly refuse to play Overwatch and League of Legends. I wouldn't say that Team Fortress 2 reconciled me woth these type of games, but after watching all the Meet the Mercs and learning more about the story, I tried playing. I was a bit intimidated as to which class to choose, but after trying out several (and being very influenced by Meet the Medic), I found out that I had the most fun while playing Medic. I do nlt have a very good aim and I tend to die immediatly when I try to shoot at people. I also discovered that, playing an online multiplayer game doesn't have to be competitive. I have 9h30 in tf2, I play very casually. I do not get mad when I die or my team loses, because in the end, I just want to have fun in my own way. So, this ending hit me right in the heart

I... I almost want to print that last panel and hang it on my wall... I know, there's nothing stopping me, but I don't want my family to question it.

Anyways. That was tf2 comic issue 7. I cannot wait to see what the future will bring for our mercs !

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anim-ttrpgs · 3 days ago

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Eureka is an absolute masterpiece of a ttrpg with so much thought and care put into it. I really can't say enough good things about it. I do want to know if you have made/plan to make any other ttrpgs? I would love to see more genres besides supernatural urban mystery from you because of how quality your work is (but it's completely understandable if you have no plans to do other things).

Thank you! It’s taken us years to refine Eureka’s rules to this level of polish, and I do think it shows! A warning to all other aspiring TTRPG designers, though, don’t make your first project something this big! Keep it short! Not “one page rules” type of short, but don’t be like us and make your first real project a full-on trad TTRPG with this many different moving parts.

If you have aspirations to make something as crunchy and fleshed-out as Eureka, maybe try to execute the concept in a more simpler “OSR” style, and then after you’ve gotten more experience under your belt, maybe made some money and/or gotten a team together, then maybe try that concept again with more crunch. Call it “Advanced [Your Earlier Game Title]”

As for the future of A.N.I.M., we are planning to continually release adventure modules for Eureka, and probably also add-ons like extra Traits, Monster Traits, etc. I would love to include some playable monsters from cultures outside “the west” too, but I wouldn’t want to half-ass them, I’d want to give them as much research, attention detail and themes, etc. that I’ve given to all the other monsters. That’s just a lot harder when the best sources aren’t always in English.

Speaking of shorter games, I already wrote a little tiny game on the side called Edge Hedge Arena.

This is a game where you google “[Your Name] the Hedgehog”, choose one of the many Sonic OCs that are likely to come up, then give them stats and battle them against those of other players using the rules provided.

Since I basically have no more rules to write for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and I’m mostly just waiting for other members of the team to finish working on their parts, I’ve partially moved on to working on A.N.I.M.’s next big game, too!

We’ve learned our lesson, it’s not going to be anywhere near the page count or crunch level of Eureka, even though you know I love crunchy games. Well, actually, it’s probably only slightly less crunchy than Eureka, but it’s about much more specific scenarios, so it’ll still overall have less mechanics. The scope is much smaller.

This is a dark comedy/satire game that kind of takes the Forgotten Realms “evil sexy matriarchal bdsm slavery society ruled by warriors who fight in lingerie” dark elf concept and asks the question of “What kind of society and circumstances would actually produce this?” (Though it doesn’t actually take place in Forgotten Realms or any other D&D setting)

And then makes the comparison to 20th and 21st century American capitalism. “No, these aren’t slaves, they aren’t chained up and are allowed to leave any time they want. But they only get food so long as they keep working, and if they disobey then can get beaten.” It started out as a joke, but we are probably going to add "media literacy" to the list of requirements alongside dice and stuff hahaha, like, the ability to understand that the world of this game is not supposed to represent the author's idea of a perfect society. We might add that to Eureka too.

Silk&Dagger is about class, gender roles, different ways that forced labor can manifest in a society, and most importantly surviving all of those things.

Going forward to understand what I’m saying you have to know that in this setting, “Drow” is a title, referring to the ruling warrior caste. Most Drow are dark elves, but not all dark elves are Drow. This society is structured a bit like ancient Sparta, with a very small ruling caste of warriors, and a very large servant caste. Social mobility between these castes is possible, but rather than getting into it in detail and making this post super long, let’s just say that many servants consider themselves temporarily embarrassed Drow.

A typical “party” in Silk&Dagger is will consist of one Drow PC and any number of servant PCs working for her. There are regular chores that need to be done around the palace, which provide challenges, but scenarios will also throw major issues into the mix.

A Drow’s Reputation is everything, if the Drow PC’s Reputation stat reaches 0, that is the failure state for the entire party, because it basically means no more food. (Even the servants, for lore reasons that I also won’t get into)

So a typical scenario will be like “Somebody very important is coming to visit, but the lower floor of the palace is starting to flood for an unknown reason.” We’re going to have multi-part tables where you can randomly generate these, but we will also have more in-depth adventure modules for it in the future.

We ran a playtest the other day basically based on this scenario. The intended comedy of the game really came out as we kept switching perspectives, with the Drow upstairs having to constantly come up with new ways to impress her guests and explain away that splashing sound while the servant worked down below trying to find and plug the leak.

So, the PCs will have to deal with all that while also making sure that all the chores get done, and the kicker is, they can’t easily communicate with each other. The massive gulf between the two castes is the real enemy here, along with the behavioral expectations placed on each.

They could’ve gotten a head start on dealing with the flooding if the servant had had permission to speak earlier and could’ve told the Drow that the lower floor is flooding, but

There’s a big list of behaviors that a servant has to fulfill when interacting with a Drow, which are basically designed to be impossible to follow and just get them in trouble, and a Drow who doesn’t strictly enforce this etiquette risks losing Reputation for it.

On the other side, Drow also have to constantly embody a list of six features, which basically means acting as evil as possible, their Reputation depends on it.

One other unique feature of Silk&Dagger is that it is a two-GM game. One GM does most of the normal GM stuff, while the other GM represents the ever-present societal expectations weighing on all the characters, subtracting Reputation points and important things every time the PCs do something that makes them look bad in the eyes of this society.

There may come times where PCs will just have to take the hit to get things done, or find clever ways to make it look like they’re upholding the status quo while secretly treating each other like equals when nobody’s looking.

You can expect, like, an alpha or beta version of this game to come to the patreon in probably January or February, and maybe even itchio if it is far along enough by then. It was actually supposed to be out on the patreon in December, but some personal issues and illnesses really held it up. I am really going to try and make it less than 200 pages.

I'll end the post with one of my favorite little bits from the setting/lore. One of the reasons that Drow dress like that is because it helps them identify each other by thermal vision in the pitch black tunnels. Unique patterns of covered and uncovered skin serve as a sort of personal heraldry.

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but you can still check out the public beta on itch.io to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, etc.!

You can also follow updates on our Kickstarter page where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more, you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy earlier, plus extra content such as adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

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thebroccolination · 2 days ago

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STOLAS AND BLITZ'S CURRENT RELATIONSHIP IS A TREASURE TROVE

Helluva Boss is the ideal source material for fanworks in so many ways. Especially because of where Blitz and Stolas's relationship is right now.

One of the show's more obvious issues is the pacing, and while I don't know a ton about animated productions, it's always seemed to me like they're creating an enormously ambitious production on a pretty limited budget, so they kind of have to power through these episodes at a hundred miles an hour without the luxury of going at the slower, more nuanced pace they deserve. But that's where fanfiction and fanart can really elevate what canon gives us, because the show is creating so much potential to explore, and we have time in between episodes to play!

Basically: I love it here and this episode was a buffet of goodness.

Following Mastermind, Stolas and Blitz are discovering that despite their physically intimate relationship and their feelings for each other, they don't actually know each other.

In Sinsmas, we see Stolas and Blitz discovering so many new things about each other, to the point where you wonder what they ever talked about until you remember: sex. When they reunited as adults, they never re-learned who each other is now. Instead, they jumped past personal intimacy to physical intimacy.

And now that they're working on their personal intimacy, I love that Blitz has flipped completely from acting cold to Stolas out of uncertainty and self-defense to committing to him, unrelentingly loyal and affectionate. The way he is with Loona.

So we have them learning each other in doses:

• Blitz's horse thing

• Stolas's secret medication

• What Stolas eats

• Social norms Stolas didn't have to know when he was part of the wealthy ruling class

• Hellborn culture

• Blitz's genuine love for the company he built, not just pride

• Just how different Blitz's way of life is from the one Stolas is accustomed to

• And the real Blitz as opposed to the idealized version Stolas invented in his fantasies

In Mastermind, Stolas has that line, "Why am I throwing my freedom away for this idiot?" in part because he was still mad at Blitz, but also because Blitz has been knocked off his pedestal, and Stolas has to relearn him from nothing.

But the thing is: this idiot loves Stolas.

He's not ashamed to eat with Stolas in public, not ashamed to protect him from the other Hellborn who hate Stolas because of the trial.

He's genuinely delighted spending his time with Stolas.

He'll hunt rats in an alley just to make sure Stolas is eating what he likes.

And he champions Stolas's very first secretarial attempt in very characteristically giddy flavor.

He risks his life to save Stolas's, a flip from Mastermind.

He wraps Stolas in his own jacket to keep him warm, even though Blitz just complained about Earth's winter topside.

And he wraps Stolas in a blanket, then eats hot coals/brimstone(/whatever those rocks were) to become a hot water bottle for Stolas.

Because ultimately, what Blitz wants and perhaps realizes he wants in this episode is that he wants to be a complete family with Stolas and their daughters.

And they'll get there in part by talking to each other about what matters.

Not fighting, not yelling, not walking away, just talking to each other. About their vulnerabilities and their fears and what hurts. About their past hurts and their worries for the future.

And they've never done that at length before.

The trial gave Blitz the wakeup call he needed, and now the season is ending with Blitz completing another curve of his character arc. Does he believe he deserves Stolas? No. Does he have the family he wants? Nope! But to get there he has to make things right with Stolas, and he's (mostly) done that.

What comes next for them in season three will be up to Stolas.

Blitz has embraced Stolas, but it's not quite reciprocal yet.

So I look forward to aaaaaaalllllllllI the fic and fanart along the way. :>

#helluva boss spoilers #helluva boss sinsmas #helluva boss #stolas x blitz #stolitz #i love this show so dearly ugh the ART in that last scene

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captainthief · 1 day ago

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I want to start this by saying that I am so, so sorry that OP had experiences that made them feel so let down by the adults in their life, and that CPS is absolutely a flawed and corrupt system.

However, I’m strongly bothered by the parts of this post that imply teachers report to CPS because of *liability*. That they don’t feel responsible for the children in their care and don’t want to actually help. The truth is that mandated reporting is an EXTREMELY important part of a teachers job. The truth is that we are absolutely NOT equipped to be the sole adult who can help in a bad situation. We don’t receive training in mental health or trauma. We have no ability to investigate children’s home life outside of what they tell us. We have no way to confront an abusive adult without the possibility of the child facing the consequences.

Knowing something is going on with a kid is *terrifying*, because you want to help but don’t know how or if you might make things worse. The only things you can do are be there for the kid as best as you can, try to create a safe space for them, and report to CPS. Is there an element of liability involved? Yes, of course. Because if you know a child is being abused and do nothing you are complicit. More often you see situations where it is *reporting* which can be a threat to your job, when administration asks you to keep quiet or says there isn’t enough evidence. But that’s exactly why it’s so important that mandated reporters are protected by law—so no one can be intimidated into ignoring abuse.

There’s this perception like teachers are experienced, put together adults who know exactly what is going on and have sway over the other adults in a child’s life. This is largely untrue. We are a profession largely made up of young people, trying to learn on our feet to take care of a large amount of children, under countless pressures from many directions telling us what the “right” actions to take are. We *are not equipped to save a child*. There is only so much we can do in a teaching position and there is *so much* that can go wrong. If we confront the abuser, they can retaliate on the child. If we go to administration, they may ignore it. If we go to the police, they may say there is not enough evidence and in the process alert the abuser that people are noticing which leads back to retaliation. If we offer a safe space, maybe we can provide temporary relief but nothing will really change. CPS is heavily, heavily flawed, but it is often the best option a teacher has to actually alert someone who knows how to approach abuse and *has the ability to separate the child from the abuser*.

And no, it’s not like we wash our hands of a situation just because we’ve sent it to CPS. That’s what we’re told often—“it’s out of your hands now”. But we know that’s not the end. We offer what we can to the child. We document as much as we can as quietly as we can so there is evidence to prove something is wrong. We often don’t know *what* is wrong, maybe even if something is actually wrong or it’s just a coincidence that a child comes in with bruises in the same spot every other week. We have no way to know and directly asking a child or adult can endanger the child. So we observe, and we try to discreetly find out details, and if it seems like there is any chance something is wrong, we report to someone who can actually take steps to investigate home life. Real life is not like Matilda, where a teacher can just show up at a child’s home. A teacher getting arrested for invasion of privacy or stalking or whatever because they suspected foul play doesn’t help that child, or the 20 others in their class who might also be in bad situations.

I’ve watched a teacher break down because a court ruled a 3year old child had to leave their lovely foster family and return to custody of their abusive birth mother, who then pulled the child out of the school so the teachers who knew the situation couldn’t be alert for further issues. I’ve seen a teacher who self identified as “not cuddly or comforting” take diligent notes about anything concerning said by a child who was so wild many other teachers found it difficult to build a trusting relationship with him, because she knew there must be a reason behind his behavior and outbursts. I’ve had to take a break from a classroom to cry in frustration when I told an administrator that a child had mentioned to me being spanked by his mother and the admin pulled me aside and showed me the documentation of a previous CPS report where they concluded nothing could be done because it wasn’t illegal in our state, and that all we could do was document anything concerning and be there for him. I watched my mentor put herself body and soul to try and have meetings with a child’s family about how they could support him in ways a classroom couldn’t only for them to pull him out of school saying that our school was at fault for his difficulties and how she forever after carried the feeling that she failed a kid she desperately wanted to help. I’ve heard over and over again how many of us—myself included—were attracted to the field specifically because we were once the child who needed a trusted adult in their life and how our main motivation is to be that person to the best of our ability, but the reality is that pure effort is not enough.

And yeah, sometimes liability is a big factor. Sometimes keeping your job is a huge factor. But it’s not like it’s just because we care more about our abysmal paycheck. I’ve had plenty of kids I would willingly sacrifice my job and even my whole life to help. But when you’ve built a relationship with a kid, when you’re their safe space and whatever risk you could take has no guarantee to help their situation, the last thing you want is to get fired, because then that kid has nothing. Sometimes you have the choice between act aggressively and end up having that kid feel abandoned, or follow the conservative path and hopefully be able to be a consistency in their life for as long as possible. And that’s not even considering that we are responsible for dozens of kids who may all have complicated or harrowing situations. If we lose our position in the hopes of doing something drastic, maybe we buy that kid a bit of time but ultimately the one who benefits is the abuser. We can’t help anyone if we’re not in the picture. There are absolutely times I’ve stayed in a situation that was personally unhealthy for myself because I knew a kid needed me and I’d rather be mauled by a bear than leave a kid who’s relying on me to be their safe person.

We NEED better systems to help kids in need. Better resources, more understanding, more options, all of it. But blaming the teachers doesn’t do anything, because we try our best with what we have and do as much as we can behind the scenes—the kids will never know half of the things we try to do for them, because it’s more likely to keep them safe if they don’t know. As things are right now, that usually means mandated reporting and it’s one of the few things that has a freaking stones throw of a chance of helping. Go after CPS and corporal punishment laws and the foster system and education reform all you want, hell, I am *begging* that you do that because it is so, so important. But don’t blame the teachers, because for every apathetic old crone there are a dozen others who care desperately and wish with all of our hearts for a better way to be there for the kids that need it.

Maybe its just me but I think its really fucked up that the only way teachers can "help" a child is with cps and the fucking police. I think its really fucked up that they're constantly talking about "tell a trusted adult" when sometimes you just don't fucking have one. Because all of them were bad options. I think its fucked up that my, and many many many children's only fucking options have been tell someone and put everything in danger or do nothing and continue on in silence. I think its fucked up that even without saying it I had to start understanding that no matter how kinda a teacher, or counselor, or school staff member was to me at times, that they would never put me over them being held liable or their job. I would never be that important. They get to pat themselves on the back while I get put in handcuffs and put treated like an example of what not to do as if im not even there. I think its really fucked up that at a certain point it will never matter how nice a teacher is, no matter how many "I know it sucks...." or "I'm sorry but it's my job..."s or "I don't want to have to do this..."s you get, because its always the same fucking thing. Your a liability, and no adult is going to risk their job with a child that they could easily just hand to someone else more 'qualified' to handle.

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saintsenara · 2 days ago

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This is too hopeful, but is there any chance Regulus was never invested in Voldemort's cause and always had grandiose ideas of taking him down from the inside? That the Voldemort-fangirl cutouts on his bedroom were actually research of patterns of activities?

This is the first thought I had when I read the book as a teenager, and maybe it's a simplistic and immature assessment - but what made sense to me was not the rosy idea that "he was good all along", but how I saw his potential relationship with Sirius.

I imagine Regulus did not have a happy childhood because his best friend was the house elf, and the Black home sounds like a horrible environment, even if you toe the line to do your best to live up to the name's expectations.

I just imagined him as a quieter younger sibling who wanted to prove himself smarter than the boisterous outspoken older sibling by approaching the situation completely differently. Failed dismally, obviously.

But again, I was a teenager, and I read many different meta pieces on Regulus, including some of yours (I think). Just wondering if you think there's space for this interpretation.

this is very cute, anon. the teenage commitment to wanting to see the best in a sad-eyed boy is universal, and i respect it enormously.

but no. it's not what's happening here.

regulus serves two very interesting purposes narratively.

the first is that - across order of the phoenix and half-blood prince - he serves as the narrative parallel to draco malfoy: someone whose interest in the death eaters is inextricable from his perception of his role as a pureblood son from an extremely class-conventional family; someone who wants to be perceived as important in contrast to a rather more impressive family member; someone whose blood-supremacist beliefs are completely sincere and whose support for voldemort is completely genuine, but whose understanding of how voldemort intends to achieve his aims is hopelessly naive; someone who gets in over his head and then panics; and someone whose relationship with voldemort is seen by harry as entirely subordinate.

[he never assumes draco will succeed in his mission, for example. nor that draco will be able to outfox voldemort in any way. why he pities him is because he thinks draco's going to be murdered by the dark lord any minute, but he also views this as - essentially - a skill issue, which wouldn't be a problem for him...]

but in deathly hallows, regulus' narrative purpose shifts. the revelations about his turn against voldemort become the dress rehearsal for the reveal of snape's true loyalties at the end of the book - he's someone who had a damascene conversion when voldemort threatened somebody he cared for, gave his life to bring the dark lord down, and did so in a clandestine way [i.e. by ordering kreacher not to reveal what he'd done] in order to protect the surviving member of the family he loved from voldemort's wrath.

[although the idea that kreacher was his best - or, indeed, only - friend isn't actually stated in the text. regulus is implied to be someone fairly lonely by the narrative - the photograph of him as seeker (the only player who acts alone) follows harry seeing the photograph of sirius and his friends - but all we ever learn about his relationship with kreacher is that it was kind. and, indeed, that it was similar to walburga, narcissa and bellatrix's treatment of him - which hermione says, and kreacher doesn't correct her.]

regulus' second narrative purpose - along with his parents - is to underscore that blood-supremacy is a mainstream political view.

the series dispenses with this in deathly hallows, when voldemort's malevolence becomes much more singular and the conflict narrows to the final confrontation between good and evil, but prior to this book it's clear that the death eaters' political rhetoric is just speaking the quiet part out loud. pretty much everyone thinks that being pureblood is better and there are too many muggleborns knocking about being annoying, they just don't say it.

orion and walburga don't support voldemort because they're uniquely immersed in dark magic. they support him because they're mainstream and conventional and conformist - while sirius, the family's free-thinker, is none of those things and therefore not a voldemort fan. the same thing is being implied by them supporting voldemort as by vernon reading the daily mail - that they're small-minded and conservative, but not radical. vernon would be horrified by a radical right-wing terror group who sought to destroy the status quo he values. orion and walburga pivoted away from voldemort because his violence became similarly radical.

regulus joins the death eaters, then, due to convention. he wants to prove himself - absolutely - but he wants to do so within a social structure he's familiar with and which he and his family value. his doubts about voldemort clearly begin when it becomes apparent to him that voldemort wants to destroy the wizarding social order and build it anew.

and his best parallel here is percy weasley.

percy is - by far - the most conventional of the weasleys. his estrangement from his family in the latter half of the series is meant as a criticism of this conventionality - percy believes what he's told and doesn't think for himself and conforms to the group and so on - and his estrangement from his family is also clearly intended by the text of order of the phoenix to provide more context than the surface-level narrative is able to about sirius and regulus' relationship:

"I'm just s-s-so worried," she said, tears spilling out of her eyes again. "Half the f-f-family's in the Order, it'll b-b-be a miracle if we all come through this... and P- P-Percy's not talking to us... What if something d-d- dreadful happens and we had never m-m-made up?"

percy gets written a lot by the fandom as someone who was a secret resistance fighter during the thicknesse regime. i'm afraid i've always thought this is nonsense - not because i think he was a death eater [i don't!] but because i think his position, as someone who clearly doesn't like to go against the crowd, would be to keep his head down and try to get through the war without rocking the boat.

his decision to fight in the battle of hogwarts is him rejecting his earlier conformity and taking a stand. so is regulus' decision to turn against voldemort. and the implication of the text is that both of these decisions are reasonably abrupt "shit or get off the pot" moments.

and this is why the narrative considers them impressive.

the central theme of the series is choice - and, specifically, the choice between what is right and what is easy. the narrative wouldn't care about snape if he'd always been a double agent, it cares because he had once sincerely believed in voldemort and then chose to do the right thing and reject him.

in the text's eyes, then, regulus' choice to sacrifice himself to defeat voldemort is actually much more impressive if we assume he was a loyal death eater than if we assume he saw through voldemort straight away. and notwithstanding the moral question, i also think it's much more interesting.

#asks answered #asenora meta #regulus black

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futuremrscameron · 2 days ago

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academic rival pogue!reader

content warnings: micro aggressions, child endangerment (obx plot), past drug use, rivals to lovers, light misogyny

academic rivals with pope. she’s one of the few people that can really piss him off.

on an academic scholarship at kildare academy and gets harassed for it

“you know it’s really just charity they’re doing letting you come here. they need at least one pogue to make them look diverse.”

bethany leans against her locker across the hallway glancing over every so often barely trying to be subtle about who

“wow that’s a big word for you. you learn that on sesame street?”

“bitch.”

“see you later bethany.”

she and pope push each other to be better and keep each other on their toes. she helps him out with clues from the pogues’ treasure hunts before she knows what’s going on

“i mean what else could it mean.”

“did you never take english lit? the curtains are blue for a reason pope.”

“oh that’s so helpful thank you for your input.”

“did you try looking in a

the only girl in a house full of boys (her father and twin brother)

pope’s complete opposite in every way but academically, she parties, smokes, drinks, and on occasion does coke

“yo rafe!”

“matilda.”

“fuck off.”

“ooh that’s no way to talk to someone that wants something from me.”

hates that pope uses his intelligence to help the pogues with their schemes, she sees it as a waste and thinks he should invest all his brain power into his academics

she definitely fell first. didn’t know how to handle her feelings so she was nicer to him and he was a little scared. why was his rival suddenly being nice to him?

he realized he liked her after she hugged him when he returned to outer banks in s3

“for a genius you sure act like an idiot. do you know how many assignments you missed? don’t scare me like that again asshole.”

“you were worried?”

“no shit heyward.”

“do you like me?”

“wasn’t it obvious?”

gathers homework for pope when he’s absent and drops it off

“i brought your homework.”

“isn’t kildare county high an hour away from kook academy?”

“just take it heyward.”

pope doesn’t realize she likes him until she tells him how much she missed him during his time on poguelandia

study dates at each other’s house that usually turns into making out

the heywards love her, think she’s a good influence on pope unlike his hooligan friends (little do they know)

academic rival!pogue helps pope study for his GED and apply to colleges in and out of state

she’s worried that pope won’t want her when she tells him she’s not a virgin

does not get along with jj but knows how important they both are to him so she would never make him choose

graduates top of her class at kildare county academy

loves cleo. she thinks jj is scum and the other pogues are idiots but cleo? she’s an angel. she’s a thief? who cares. she’s killed people? good for her. she truly believes cleo can do no wrong and might have a tiny crush on her

worries about long distance dating when she goes to brown but is reassured by pope constantly keeping in touch whether it be through phone calls, texts, or actual handwritten letters

very possessive but pope finds it hot

could’ve solved half of the pogues’ problems if they came to her

#academic rival!pogue reader #pope heyward x black oc #obx fic #academic rival!pogue #pope heyward x black reader #outer banks #academic rival pogue #pope heyward x reader #obx #academic pogue rival pogue reader #pope x black reader #outer banks moodboard #pope heyward

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mehilaiselokuva · 22 hours ago

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actually am i allowed to be angry about christian missionaries/general influence erasing so much finnish history and folklore. because i kinda am. i love learning about not just the finnish language but finland itself as a person with mainly nordic (finnish included) heritage looking to reconnect with their culture, and i felt like stumbling across a barren, black crater where rich history once stood

sorry if this is too off-topic/heavy for this blog i just saw that one ask you answered and saw red :p

Hi!

I am angry as well. There must have been so much culture and folklore lost during Christianization out here! I did a presentation about ancient Finnish traditions for my English class, and my (British) teacher wasn't even aware of what happened to the Finnish and other Uralic cultures in this area. Many of my Finnish classmates were unaware of ancient Finnish culture as well. (Unfortunately, that was expected, since people here aren't aware of cultural history that wasn't taught in school! Not many people know what Karelian culture is about. Not many know about the traditions of the Sámi or the Romani here. etc etc)

I feel like the study and preservation of culture, in general, is very important as it's so easy for the dominating population to kill the cultures of smaller populations. We could also put more effort into preserving languages and cultures and teaching languages to the young generations regardless of how "useful" the language is! While we cannot reverse time and stop our culture from being erased, we can still put time and resources into preserving languages and cultures of the world to possibly save them from this fate! Maybe with research and raising awareness lets us rediscover culture that was lost!

#“yeah karelian culture... karjalanpiirakka being eaten in an orthodox church... uhhh and umm”#“yeah finnish culture is fundamentally christian”#“i went to see a REAL sámi shaman on my arctic husky ride trip #STOP STOP STOP READ A BOOK PLEASE #finnish #langblr #language #suomi #suomitumblr #“i wish i could learn more about cultures” *does not learn more about cultures*#we can all help preserving cultures from being forgotten some of you just won't #but yeah i wish they didn't erase our culture back then #yeah i love REAL ANCIENT FINNISH NORSE RUNIC TAROT worshipping A GREEK DEITY

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littleslaywrites · 2 days ago

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pas de deux- the prince and sugar plum | spencer reid x bau!reader

pt 4 of pas de deux - based on request by @kakamixoxo

summary: spencer brings your students (and you) gifts after their performance of the nutcracker

word count: 1.2k

cw: f!reader, fluff

After your week of subbing, your friend had asked you to help teach the little ones their dance for The Nutcracker. She knew you wouldn’t be able to resist, especially after the girls had begged you to visit them again. They were all just old enough for their first year in The Nutcracker as the gingersnaps, and you had been enlisted to be their first introduction to the show.

Growing up, winter doubled as nutcracker season. You’d danced almost every role by the time you graduated college, knowing the show inside and out. Your friend briefly showed you the choreography, simple to accommodate for the beginning dancers.

Teaching them was a little easier than their regular classes. They understood the excitement of joining the older dancers in a “real” show. You could also coax them into behaving with your own stories of your own past performances.

The girls kept asking for a visit from Mr. Spencer, and after a month of begging, you finally agreed. They had been working hard, so you told Spencer to come by after work. When he walked in the door, the girls cheered, even more excited to see him than you were.

“Can Mr. Spencer learn our dance?” one of your students asked.

“If he agrees to behave,” you say, always looking for a way to tease him.

The simple steps turned out to be just right for him, and he quickly perfected the skips and little hops. Even the girls were excited about his success, encouraging him in the same way you did for them.

“Maybe I could perform with you,” he joked at the end of rehearsal. Your students were less enthusiastic about this idea, concluding that he was too tall to blend in with them. As he left, he promised that he’d come see the show. This was perfect, as you could use it as leverage for them to focus whenever they got distracted. You’d remind them that they needed to perform their best as “Mr. Spencer would be in the audience,” which would always make them concentrate.

As you were in the studio, Spencer read the book the ballet was based on. When you were in bed that night, he told you all the differences he found between the show and the origin. You listened intently, savoring his bedtime story. He was truly interested in everything you were passionate about, wanting to learn about everything related to you.

Eventually, opening night arrived. You opted for a short green dress, and Spencer decided on a red tie to create a festive color scheme between the two of you. Knowing how much you loved the gifts he gave you after all your performances, he’d gone out and bought all your dancers small nutcracker ornaments.

“You look amazing,” he says, kissing you after he’d parked the car outside the theater.

“It feels weird to not be the one performing,” you say.

You never imagined you could be more nervous in the audience than backstage, but sitting in the theater, you couldn’t help but worry for your girls. You could only imagine how they felt, never having stepped on a stage in front of so many people before.

Sensing your jitters, Spencer grabs your hand. “They’ll do great,” he says, squeezing, “considering they had a fantastic teacher.” You smile, lightly kissing his cheek.

The performance goes smoothly, your girls remembering all their steps. Once their part is over, you’re able to relax and enjoy the rest of the second act. The ballet feels like watching a replay of your life, from your first role en pointe as Clara to your last role in college as Sugar Plum.

You rest your head on Spencer’s shoulder during the pas between Sugar Plum and the prince. It seems like the music has taken on another life after you met Spencer. You could always feel the love written into it, but now you understood how it felt to experience it yourself. Spencer feels the same, imagining the two of you as the characters. Even if he couldn’t dance in the literal sense, he’d mastered the routine you had together.

At the end of the show, you make your way to the stage door. When the young dancers see you, they all make a run for you, capturing your legs in a hug. Next, they see Spencer, holding the bag with their gifts in it.

“I’ve got something for you all,” he says, crouching to meet them at their level. “I always get Miss y/n a gift after her performances, so I thought you all should get something, too.”

He pulls out the tiny nutcrackers, and the girls thank him and pull him into a group hug. “Consider this an official apology for distracting you all during class.” The girls giggle, all trying to convince him that he wasn’t a disruption and that he should visit more often.

“Did you know that, according to German folklore, nutcrackers are said to bring good luck?” he says as he hands each girl their ornament.

When all the girls have their gifts and have left to find their parents, Spencer grabs your hand and leads you back to the car.

“I told you they’d do well,” he says as you climb into the passenger seat. “I know you weren’t actually performing, but I still got you something.” Reaching to the backseat, he pulls out a gift bag and hands it to you.

Inside is a record of the music from The Nutcracker. Spencer knows you collect records, both of your archives merging when you moved in together.

Next is a pair of earrings, shaped like little nutcrackers. “I thought you could wear them when we come for closing night,” he says.

“They’re perfect,” you say, “The girls will be obsessed.”

Last is a small white box containing cookies in the shape of snowflakes. You take a bite right away. “It’s good,” you say through your full mouth. Spencer smiles, reaching for one himself.

“I think we should make this a tradition,” Spencer says, taking your hand.

“I like that idea.” You rub your thumb over his as he drives home, light snowflakes waltzing down to the windshield.

“I wish I could’ve seen you perform in it.”

“You know, I’m sure my mom has videos of all the shows,” you say.

“I’d love to see that.” You glance at him to see his bright smile. Love fills you as you see his genuineness, fully interested in watching some old home videos that haven’t been touched by anyone but your parents.

That night, you call your mom, who promises to mail the tapes to you. You put on the new record, letting the music bring back memories of another life. You used to wonder if you’d made the wrong career choice. You’d given up the opportunity to dance professionally after college, choosing a career in the FBI instead. That choice haunted you for a while, but as you stand in the apartment you share with Spencer, you realize where your decision had led you. Ballet will always be a part of you, but it’s not what put Spencer in your life. Looking over at where he sits on the couch, you thank your past self for bringing this life to you.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #matthew gray gubler x reader #mgg #matthew gray gubler

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elderberries-and-honey · 6 hours ago

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Dear Gladys,

I have been home with Beth and my sisters for a little over a week now. Mostly, I have been working on my cross-stitch; Beth says I have some of the best embroidery skills for a girl my age that she has ever seen! I suppose this shouldn't have shocked me so much, since Ms Hoffman always complimented my skill, but it seems to mean more from Beth since she is so good herself.

Beth told me that when she was a girl, she was very poor, and she sewed all of her and her sister's clothes by hand. She says this is why she often makes mine and my sisters dresses; she calls it 'a habit she never grew out of'.

But even though I love my needlepoints, my hands grow sore and sometimes I just can't stand it anymore when the needle keeps biting my fingers! So, I cannot imagine how Beth does it for so long. If I was ever rich, I think I would buy a sewing machine instead.

Beth and I have worked in the kitchen together before, but now, she says, I should learn more since it will be good for me as a wife. She has been teaching me to bake all sorts of things, and of course, I thought of you and your family!

First, we started with bread, and she taught me to knead dough by hand, which I did not realise was such hard work! I think I will savor every bite of the bread from your bakery from now on.

After I mastered the bread well enough, we moved onto some pastries, and I liked that a whole lot more. She has taught me how to make Papanasi, which is my father's favourite dessert. Next week, we will make Kissel, since the big cranberry harvest is this Saturday afternoon. Though I am not too fond of them, I am still excited anyway.

Something to know about Beth, is that she is what my mother calls, 'very devout'. My mother says this is why she respects Beth so much, because Beth practices her beliefs everyday, not just on Sundays like some people.

And so, Beth and I have started to read the Bible together at least a little bit everyday. But reading with Beth isn't like it is in church at all; she actually makes it fun! When we're finished with our daily passages, she even lets me ask all sorts of things about our reading, and never, ever sighs impatiently. I think this is what my mother means when she says Beth practices everyday because most grown ups I know do not like it when you ask so many questions.

I think Beth might be the kindest woman in the entire world, and I must say, if we all must become grown ups someday, I hope that I am like her.

Goodness, I miss you so much; it feels like it's been years since I've seen you, rather than a week. I hope I receive a letter from you soon, and you simply MUST tell me what is going on with everyone in class.

Sincerely,

Flora Belle

Thank you again to @antiquatedsimmer for the bible pose pack who without this scene would still just be fever dream in my head. Be sure to check out my lovely friend's other pose packs here!

#she says she hopes she's like beth....#then starts reading the bible before bed 😉#ts4 historical #ts4 decades challenge #ts4 legacy #ts4 storytelling #ts4 gameplay #decades challenge #generation 01 #the baudelaire legacy #1890 #florence baudelaire #beth herbert

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justbelievinginmagic · 14 hours ago

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im(mortal) - part 2: daydream.

pairing(s): vampire!enhypen ot7 x fem!reader, jake x reader focus for this chapter. series summary: Seven souls struggle with the bitter dregs of eternal life. As they hide amongst human society, they try to discover a cure for their curse, decade after decade, century into century. In their investigations, they find more than they could imagine brewing including a strange magnetic pull towards a human woman. Will they be able to find their humanity once more or will their world crumble beneath the weight of immortality? glimpse: In this modern-day university hall of over one hundred students, there was a lone heart beating louder than any heart that Jake had ever heard in his immortal life. Who's was it? warnings/tags: Inspired by Enhypen's MVs lore, Vampire AU, sort of Soulmate AU, College AU, heavy science fiction inspiration, ot7 x reader but not poly ot7 (but some are really close tbh), 3rd person POV, use of YN, Ni-ki written as Riki, mature topics, vampire typical themes, vampire lore, blood, biting, canon typical violence, descriptions of blood & sounds of blood, bloodlusting, stealing blood bags, mentions of illnesses, secondhand embarrassment from YN, obsessive tendencies from Jake, let me know if there needs to be more tags! word count: 5.7k first chapter <- -> next chapter series masterlist

One thing that never got easier was the sound. Some of the seven could block them out, but, like tinnitus, it’d ring back into focus. Loud. Overwhelming. Ever-present. As the decades crawled forward, there was only more noise. The electricity humming, the world buzzing and dinging and swooshing, the bones creaking. The gurgling, the beating, the rushing, the squelching of beautiful, wonderful, tempting blood.

Never-ending.

Jungwon had gotten good at ignoring a majority of it, but, when surrounded on all sides by humans in the large university lecture hall, it was distracting. Students talking, their hearts beating, their stomach grumbling, their phones and tablet and laptops dinging and humming and whirling, the pencils scratching, the shoes squeaking, the fluorescent lights buzzing. It was a lot to block out while still focusing on the lecture at hand. That was a big reason only a handful of the seven blood-brothers attempted going to college in person. In fact, most of them took advantage of online college courses instead. Jay and Riki could never survive around such commotion – for different reasons.

Heeseung sat beside Jungwon, spinning a pen around his long fingers repeatedly. Jake was a few rows in front of them. A collection of girls whispered and swooned nearby, pointing at Jake as he adjusted his hair. They could hear their whispers clear as day.

Jungwon smiled fondly. It was the same routine. A routine he was starting to like. He had grown to like routine now. He liked its stability.

The professor droned on about something he had already learned decades ago. His Google document on his laptop didn’t have any notes from the session; just an email opened up with this week’s shifts at the hospital. Not many hours, all in the graveyard shift he noted. Good. He was tired of missing his day-classes when he got scheduled during the day. A medical student like him was always busy but c’mon, he’d lament. A notification popped up in the corner of his laptop. A message from Jay: Sunghoon got dinner.

Relief trickled through his veins. Their stash of blood was running low these past few weeks. Jungwon couldn’t sneak anything from the hospital with the rising cases of a new mystery illness plaguing the country. He hadn’t heard much about it other than the rise of blood transfusions in the hospital. There was something brewing said doctors under their breath. A sickness that they didn’t understand.

So, the seven didn’t have their recent easy way of getting dinner. Not without suspicions rising or questions being asked. They had other ways than Jungwon sneaking a few blood bags. It had been decades, a century of needing this vitae. They had other ways. Not as easy but still other ways. And, their leeching (pun intended) off of the hospital would return.

After all, there was one thing that they learned in their decades of immortality: life goes on. Things evolve. Illnesses come and go in a blink of an eye. Plagues crash through society like waves of an uncontrollable ocean. It ebbed and flowed. Life came and went.

They didn’t need to worry about that, of course. They learned quite quickly that illnesses didn’t affect them. Nothing really did. Everything could be solved with blood. Hunger; blood. Injury; blood. Exhaustion beyond sleep; blood. Blood, blood, blood.

That’s all that matter for them, to them. An ever-constant need, an ever-constant haunt.

Pumping, rushing, thud-thudding, thu-thumping, beating, pulsing blood. Taunting.

Jake’s head throbbed already. He wondered if it was hunger striking him harder than usual (he hadn’t drunk as much blood lately, waiting for their newest batch) or if it was the bright fluorescent lights overhead faintly flickering. He tried to pay attention to the professor’s ramblings – a lecture on some historical event. The presentation on the projector flickered and flickered. Did the humans notice it, he wondered?

Ugh, everything bothered him today. It made his anxiety climb and itch under his skin. Like a match temptingly close to a sandpaper pad, brushing and teasing against the rough surface. He felt his palms sweat. His body buzzed. The noises were louder.

Louder.

There was a louder heartbeat that caught Jake’s attention. It was racing, louder and faster than anyone around him. A faint crinkle of his brow creased his forehead. He had never heard such a loud heart. It was magnified, almost to a too brash amplified beat. Immediately, Jake found it annoying.

No, it was not annoying; it was alarming.

His fingers fiddled with the edge of his ribbed sweater, taking slow breaths. In through his mouth, out through his nose like Jungwon had advised long ago.

Thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud.

He felt this loud heartbeat like it was his own heart’s pulsations. But his heart couldn’t race like that, couldn’t beat like that. It couldn’t. It hadn’t in a long time. Jake’s gaze flickered from the professor’s slide-show to glance back at Jungwon and Heeseung.

The eldest vampires, not in age but in rank, stared back at him. If anyone else had caught their gazes locking, they would say it was eerie. A magnetic quality almost. They locked and steadied on one another despite there being three of them. There was a quiet understanding between the three that most humans never experience. Their eyes spoke to one another with no words or facial expressions.

‘You good?’

It was a simple thought that pressed into Jake’s mind. Thoughtful and careful much like the man who ‘said’ it. Heeseung was no emotion-reader (like Jay), but Jake’s mind was racing like a river. He could only pick out a few things in its rush. ‘What the fuck?’ being the loudest thought.

Jake nodded minutely, quick and near impossible for a human to detect. Just a little twitch if anything.

‘You don’t hear that?’ Jake projected.

Heeseung’s brow rose questioningly. There was nothing. Nothing he could tell at least. Things were ordinary. Annoying and overwhelming but ordinary. He shook his head. It made Jake’s brow crinkle into a furrow. He turned his head to stare at the professor once more.

“This signified a change in society – the first pandemic in modern times, and yes,” the professor drawled. “The 1910s are considered modern.” No one chuckled in the hall. “It sent shockwaves throughout everything. Culture, technology, gender-roles, war – when things are turbulent, people get scared.”

Thu-thud. Thu-thud. Thu-thu-thud. It was distracting.

Thu-thud. Thu-thud. Thu-thud-thud. How could they not hear it?

Thu-thud. Thu-thu-thump. Jake’s hand rose to his mouth, fiddling with his lips. His sharp teeth ached.

He glanced over the crowd. Who’s heart was it? Who was it? Was someone wildly nervous? No, it wasn’t racing like that. He’s heard all sorts of heart beats. Nervous, happy, afraid. It was just loud, quick, and… tempting. He could imagine the hot, pulsing blood coursing through the mystery person’s veins. Burning hot. Fast and quick and sweet. The way it’d pour into his mouth like a waterfall, never enough no matter how fast it spilled into the maw, into his own veins.

‘Dude.’ Heeseung broke through Jake’s daydream, scoldingly.

Jake’s cheeks burned hot, embarrassed his hyung heard his blood-lust fantasy. His entire body felt hot actually. He shifted, uncomfortably. His hand went to shove his hair out of his face, sweat beaded at his hairline. He heard a college girl nearby swoon. “He’s so hot,” a whisper to another burned in his ear. They were sitting only a few seats away, but it was hard to catch it from the hummingbird heart that bellowed over everything. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu--

Then, in through the double-doors of the lecture hall, the heart came not barreling into the room but creeping in, quietly. So quietly he was shocked her heart could be that loud and yet look so unaffected on the outside (other than having a pretty bashfulness dusting her cheeks red.) He bit down, jaw clenching painfully. She’d be delicious he knew it. So tasty.

YN thanked God that this was a lecture class – she was pretty sure the professor didn’t even know her name. Anonymity was liquid courage. A single student among a hundred. She could sneak it. Or so she thought. When everyone’s eyes zoomed in on her, she couldn’t help but pause. A flare of fight or flight, a want to hide. Her fingers curled around the metal push-bar of the blue door behind her. Her eyes tried not to lock with anyone’s as she tried to find an open seat anywhere in a hundred-person hall. Darting over the first row, the second row, no, no, no open seats.

“Late and disruptive,” the professor crowed out as he paused in his lecture.

He put a hand on his hip as he turned and stared at her as well. He looked down his nose at her, all sharp lines with the projection of the slide-show casting shadows over his face. Her mouth dried up as she clung to the door a bit tighter. Jake’s mouth watered as her heart skyrocketed in her chest. How was that even possible?

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“Find a seat or excuse yourself from my class before I kick you out,” he barked.

Her eyes widened. Damn, what a dick.

“Sor-sorry,” she bleated out again as she rushed in front of the class.

Some students laughed, snorting in their hand; most stared off into nothing, wishing to be in their dorms’ beds. A late-class always made students creep on the edge of sleep. The last rays of winter sunlight trickled in through the high ceiling windows at the back of the lecture hall.

Her boots, still caked in cold snow from outside, clanked against the concrete floors. Chunks of ice were left on the steps as she began to ascend quickly. The professor refused to continue until she had sat. Her ears burned. Except for her hurried footsteps, it was so quiet.

She was so loud in Jake’s ears; his eyes were stuck on her. Her heart was beating a thousand beats per second into a metaphorical megaphone. He would be worried for her health if she didn’t look so utterly normal. Well, normal-ish. Her face was a rosy color – cheeks flushed with blood and heat.

His tongue salivated. His canines ached. He wanted to bite her reddened cheek, draw that blood to his lips – that tempting heart could fill his mouth, his maw, his heart, his veins.

‘Jake.’ It was a warning tone, gentle and deep in his head; Heeseung was still poking around in his brain. ‘You good?’

It felt like water was dosed over his head, and still he felt holt. Shame, guilt, hunger: they all clashed in his stomach like some sort of boiling pot. He blinked and glanced away from this human woman. It was hard to look away as she hurried past. He tried to block out the images of taking the woman into his arms, biting her. Biting, biting, biting. He raised a hand to brush over his neck, shifting in his seat. His gaze flickered to his brothers, two wide saucers of brown-red eyes. Searching for support as his anxiety roiled in his chest. Heeseung’s gaze was steady on Jake, not even glancing over at the woman who hurried past the rows of students. Clunk, clank, clunk.

‘Do you need to leave?’

The thought pressed through a flurry of blood-lusting thoughts and guilt-ridden rambles, all jumbled in Jake’s head as he stared off at them. Almost unseeing. Jake breathed out, unsure. Why? Why was her heart so… tempting? None of the other students tempted him so. Just. Her.

Jungwon’s eyes followed her for the trio (because, of course, Heeseung had kept him in the loop with Jake – a strange case of telepathic telephone). His eyes lazed over her form as she settled down into an empty seat, a row behind Jake. She was pretty, he’d admit. But nothing drew him to her. Not even her heart beat. Her bag was slung to the ground with a clatter, and her hair fell around her face in a curtain as she pretended to search through it for her notebook and pencil. Hunched over, she tried to hide from the world for a second. Waiting, in the terrible silence of the large hall. A cough echoed from somewhere. Finally, the professor spoke once more, and she let out a shudder of a breath. Her eyes shut.

Cheeks red and heart pounding, YN thought maybe she shouldn’t had come to class at all; skipping wasn’t too bad of a sin, and most students did it with these types of classes; she was good with attendance usually, so, really, where was the harm? All this led to was humiliation at the hands of a professor who didn’t understand public buses getting delayed.

YN took a few deep breaths, a hand going to rub at her forehead before she tugged out her notebook and a stray pen. Popping back up in a flurry of hair, she watched as a handsome man hid his gaze, turning to face the professor who had begun his lecture once more. God, everyone was looking at her, she thought as she buried herself in her jacket and buried her attention into her notebook.

Jake took a deep breath. He had gotten caught staring. Ignore her. Ignore her heart. Ignore the heat that seemed to radiate from her. Ignore her. Ignore her. Ignore it.

Slowly, her heart slowly fell into a calmer rhythm, but it didn’t seem to quiet. In fact, Jake swore it grew louder and louder. Like a ticking clock, like a pendulum swinging back and forth, like a metronome counting in a siren melody. Like a deadly monster calling his name and his name only. His blood-brothers didn’t feel her pull. When he glanced back at them, all Heeseung did was give him a questioning look. A careful look. Ever the older brother.

‘I’m okay.’ Jake thought in a mantra. ‘I’m in control.’

He was sure Heeseung doubted him; he wasn’t sure he trusted himself.

Class crept slowly by – the rest of the hour-long lecture feeling longer by how the professor droned on and on in the same monotone. It felt like an eternity with her heart in his ear. It wasn’t a squelching thing he realized. It was soft and thrumming and tempting. He flashed between daydreams of sip, sip, sip, sipping her blood from her throat to daydreams of being done with the class and running home to hide himself in his bed.

He was so lost in his thoughts that Jake didn’t notice the professor wrapping up class. The humans stood from their seats. His blood-brothers had stood from their seats. She hadn’t left. That’s all he could focus on. Her heart. Her heart was thudding and thudding in his ears. In his heart.

He stared off. Daydreaming of a girl he didn’t even know the name of. Just her heart.

YN sighed out as she stared at her incomplete notes. Only half a class worth of notes penned, and she knew this professor didn’t share his slides on the online portal. Cruel. (That was the real reason she had come late; this teacher hated technology.) Glancing around her row, suddenly, she felt invisible. Students push past her knees as they shuffled out of the row, yawning and texting and itching to get out of the lecture hall.

She needed the notes from the beginning of the class … glancing around, she debated just waiting until next class, but then she spotted him.

The cute twenty-something year old that had stared at her earlier, dressed in an inviting over-sized soft-ribbed sweater with dark long hair, sat in front of her, still. He hadn’t shifted – almost frozen like a statue. Maybe he was asleep? Some kids had learned to sleep sitting up in her multi-hour classes. She paused. Well, she could wake him – that’s only polite. And maybe he’ll be polite back and let her copy his notes.

Nudging his shoulder with a lithe finger, she asked. “Excuse me?”

Jake took in a small miniscule breath as he was jolted out of his daydream. He knew it was her. Her heart had become a melody, a tempting one but one that he fell into like the waves of an ocean, deep and dark and tempting but strangely soothing. She smelled nice. Like perfume, like detergent, like iron-blood. He licked his lips; his mouth was so dry and yet so salivating. Slowly, he turned and offered a small smile, tentative and gentle. His fingers fiddled with the hem of his ribbed sweater.

“Yeah?” his voice nearly cracked and he wanted to hide into the walls.

Oh, he was cute. His eyes were a pretty brown-red like lit firewood in a camp-fire. His hair was tousled effortlessly. His smile he offered her was bashful, soft, fleeting. But it was radiant. He was so cute. Swallowing quickly, she blinked.

“Hi, sorry, can I take a picture of your notes from the beginning of the class?” she asked.

Her heart had jumped. He had heard it. He swore he could almost feel it. His body felt aflame. Her features were so pretty. His eyes licked over her cheeks, the same cheeks he had wanted to bite earlier. His heart jittered and he jumped a bit to shift his notebook between his palms.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, of course,” he stumbled out.

The heart smiled brighter. “Thanks.”

With ease, she took a quick snapshot of his notes with her cell-phone. She squinted at his notes – there

“Sorry-- uh, sorry for the bad handwriting,” he apologized, flicking to the next page.

“No, no, its fine; better than mine,” she told him.

“I doubt that,” he teased. “Mine looks ancient.”

It was ancient. He’s had decades to change his handwriting, but it always remained this too loose cursive script. Like a doctor’s handwriting, it was indecipherable at points. He knew it. Yet, he still flushed at her words – face hot, heart hot.

“It’s pretty.” She said instead, her hand reached out to flip to the next page.

Her heartbeat filled his senses; maybe that’s why he felt so hot. Like his body was mimicking the way her heart rushed.

“I’m Jake,” he said. Sharp teeth gleaming.

“YN,” she smiled. Blunt teeth shining.

Her hand outstretched first. At the barest touch of her skin against his, he felt like he had been struck by lightning. Like every cell in his body became bubbling hot and freezing cold. Like he was stuck in the mansion, sitting in a tub of icy water before it became scalding hot. His atoms rearranged, electrified.

He pulled his hand away quick, jolting back and tugging his notebook with him. She let out a little sound that had his eyes flashing to her face.

She was pretty. So pretty, this sweet heart. His gums ached. His heart raced. Her heart raced. Their heart raced. He had to leave. He had to. He had to.

“Sorry, gotta go,” he excused lamely before stumbling out of his seat, fisting his backpack in one hand, and pressing his notebook to his chest with his other hand.

“Oh-okay,” YN barely managed to get out before she was alone in the emptying lecture hall.

Two pairs of red eyes watched her from the top of the lecture hall before, in a whoosh, they were gone.

“What was that all about?” Heeseung prompted, catching up to Jake easily. His hair was tousled by the teleportation, an unearthly shudder to his locks like it moved in slow motion. Like it was catching up with the world around him.

Jake’s face felt hot, his hands felt hot. His entire body felt hot. Scorching, hotter, hotter. Out of control.

“Nothing,” he mumbled out. “It was nothing.”

“Didn’t look like it,” Jungwon commented from behind the duo. He kept his gaze solidly on Jake’s form.

“He could hear her heartbeat over all the others,” Heeseung gossiped. “YN, right?”

Her name felt like a taunt and Jake swallowed against the burning in his throat as his gums ached; his teeth were painful to the brush of his tongue.

YN, YN, YN.

Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.

“Jake.” His name sounded like a scold.

“I know,” he bit out, eyes shutting tight.

In his anger, his own fangs nicked his lower lip. A drop of red blood formed there. He licked it up and felt a burn in his throat. He could still hear her heart. How could he still hear it? He could still hear it pounding in his ears like it was his own heart in his chest. How? They were far from the lecture hall now, passing a bus stop. Sweat prickled the back of his neck.

“Do you need to stay home for a while? We don’t want ano–,“ Jungwon continued.

His cool, collected words were cut off as Jake turned suddenly, stopping in his tracks. His eyes were flaring red like ruby gems; his teeth sharp and glinting in the orange sunlight

“I don’t remind you of every mess up; I said it was nothing!" Jake snapped; a nearby lit-sign extinguished with a pop of sparks. Some humans nearby yelled in fright.

Jungwon’s dark red eyes were stoney as he stared at Jake. The fuming man huffed and puffed before he looked aside.

“This doesn’t make me think its nothing,” Jungwon countered, glancing over at the broken sign. His face was a blank canvas, almost detached looking as he walked towards Jake.

Jake’s breaths were shuddering. Jungwon paused beside him. His voice low as he spoke to him. Jake shut his eyes again, a hand raising to rub the bridge of his nose. He could still smell her. Like she was following after him. What the fuck?

‘I don’t mean to bring up the past.’ It was a fleeting thought from Jungwon.

Heeseung looked between the two, watching as Jungwon whispered to the other. It was an effort to give one another privacy with their impossible senses, harder with Heeseung’s powers, but it was possible. Like now. Jake replied back; his fangs sparkled in the setting sun. Dripping in saliva, dripping with sweet venom. When there was a lull, a barely shared look between the two men, Heeseung cleared his throat, shouldering his backpack over his back.

“C’mon, let’s just go home.” He slung his arms over the two, brotherly. “You’re probably just hungry.”

They walked away from the humans chattering about the sudden burst electrical light.

“We’re home,” Jungwon called out, slinking his backpack off his shoulder.

Heeseung and Jake followed in after him; Jake pushed past the pair and up the stairs with heavied footsteps.

The grand mansion was different to the mansion they grew up in. It was larger than the orphanage for one – each man had their own large room, though few of them were decorated. In fact, if you walked around the mansion, it had a strange feeling to it. Like it was the mimicry of living. Perfectly staged. Slightly empty.

Heeseung liked this mansion despite the fake feeling he felt walking through it. It was better than his previous home. Before Jungwon had gathered them to live together once more, in this day and age, they had been scattered across the world like lost pieces of the same puzzle. Some stayed together and others had strayed off alone. Riki and Heeseung had wanted the same thing at the time. Freedom. Or what they thought was freedom.

Their apartment had been dirt-cheap – but also dirty. Peeling, molding baby-blue walls taunted him like a specter. Two small single beds took up the majority of the damp room. A large window took up one wall, looking over the city (if one could look past the coat of grime it had). There was a radiator that hummed a high-pitched shrillness more often than not separating their beds. Eventually, there was an old television, new at the time and something the pair of them splurged on with the little cash they made, shoved against the far wall next to their shared closet. The floor was often covered in books or notebooks or sometimes trash. Boys being boys, or just him and Riki being free.

This place was far better. Clean, large, and clean. His room was more decorated than most of the blood-brothers. He clearly liked it here more.

Heeseung padded into the living room and plopped down on the too-firm settee, sighing out and stretching. At least here, the ever-present sounds of hearts’ thu-thumping and gurgling and sloshing were quieter. All of their heart beats were similar, familiar, and easy to tune out. They often didn’t hear each other now. Was it familiarity? Was it fate? Was it that they were inhuman and therefore equal to their senses? They didn’t know. Just that each of the vampires’ heart rates were slow, almost sludge-like as their strange blood coursed through their veins at a snail’s pace.

The noise of the television was a different story; Heeseung’s tired eyes flickered over to Riki who was biting into his lower lip as he played a video game on the flat-screen TV. It was some new flashy vampire game with too much gore and with a screen so dark that humans couldn’t play it in bright-light. Meanwhile, Riki could see every pixel if he focused too hard.

‘Hey.’ He greeted Heeseung with a single thought; his eyes didn’t tear away from the screen.

Jungwon walked past the living room, past Heeseung and Riki, into a kitchen. Now, if anything looked like a staged space, it was the kitchen. Fake fruits sat in a basket, plates were sitting in a cabinet, dustied and unused.

Jay was there, sorting through their fridge. Handfuls of IV bags were in his arms. A negative, O positive, A positive, even an AB were among the labeled. Patiently, he reorganized their refrigerator by type. Sunghoon was sat on the nearby counter; face mask and baseball cap discarded beside him. He was suckling on an IV bag quickly, almost chugging it. Sunghoon always struggled with the taste of blood, even decades later.

“Hey,” Jay nodded at Jungwon.

“Hey; good job,” the oldest vampire yet youngest among the three nudged Sunghoon’s knee with his hand. “You didn’t get caught?”

Sunghoon’s brows raised in a challenge at Jungwon, playful, as he squeezed the rest of the blood into his mouth.

“Not that I know of, couldn’t sense anyone nearby, and Jay took care of the cameras.” Sunghoon commented, smacking his lips before tossing the IV haphazardly to his side.

“Good,” Jungwon hummed again. “Anyone else eat yet?”

“Riki devoured three of the new packs; I had one; Jay?” he looked towards the man finishing organizing the fridge.

He raised up two fingers. “Old stock.” He added.

“Where’s Sunoo?” Jungwon asked Sunghoon.

Sunghoon leveled him with an exasperated look. “Room. Where else?”

Jungwon sighed out. It had been two weeks of this. Sunoo isolated himself often throughout the decades, growing lost in his mind and its illusions. He’s recalled stories of him and the boys that had never happened. Spoke riddles of a princess, talk of a land far away from theirs. Jungwon worried for him more often than not.

Grabbing two older blood bags, he thanked the two before treading through the rest of the mansion. The long hallways felt endless at times, but Jungwon liked it that way. It felt endless in a way that the manor they grew up in didn’t. Their whole world had been in that stupid, tiny house. That stupid burnt to a crisp mansion. Now, they had all of this. Or at least, Jungwon had all of this. It was his mansion after all. He owned it.

“Sunoo,” he called out as he walked down wainscoted hallway. Dark cherry wood and white painted walls encased him. One door on each side. A music room. A painting room. Finally, Sunoo’s room at the end of the hallway. “Dinner-time.”

Jungwon knocked once before entering, shutting the white door behind him.

“Dinner,” Jay called from the doorway to the living room.

“In a minute,” the youngest called. Riki hadn’t moved, his eyes locked on the television. His in-game character bit ruthlessly into a human. Screams and garbles noises came from the speaker.

“Not for you. You drank three bags in two minutes,” Jay retorted. “Hyung.”

Heeseung nodded from his spot.

“I’m still hungry,” Riki said. He didn’t complain, just stated.

“Where’d Jake go?” Jay asked ignoring the youngest, his gaze flickering upwards. He could feel the turbulent emotions like a tremble in the air. Like static electricity clinging to the back of his mouth. A calm before the storm.

“Attic,” Sunghoon called, half lying on the couch. His laptop was perched on his stomach; some notes about velocity and speed and weight shone on the screen. Heeseung didn’t understand most of it – he favored the arts while Sunghoon favored this. Science. He said it helped. Helped what he wasn’t sure.

But, of course, Sunghoon would know where Jake had gone off too. He was skilled with knowing where everyone was.

“He good?” Jay asked, more towards Heeseung.

Heeseung sighed but revealed what had happened. “There was this girl in our history course.”

“Oh, a crush?” Riki teased, laughing as he paused his game finally.

“No, not like that,” Heeseung defended, brows furrowing. “It was weird. He was like obsessing over her—”

“It’s a crush,” Riki teased, dangling his controller in between long fingers. He stretched out on the couch, kicking his now-long limbs into Heeseung’s lap.

“No,” Heeseung scolded, nudging the younger’s legs off his lap. “He could hear her heartbeat louder than the others.”

“What?” Jay laughed a bit, concerned.

“Weird, right?” he countered. “Jungwon’s worried.”

“I got that, but he’s always worried,” Jay replied, crossing his arms as he leaned against the doorway.

The boys laughed at that.

Jake could barely hear their laughter from the attic. No, all he could hear was her. Her heart. He could feel it in his chest still, his heart thudding more ferociously than ever before.

A hand rose to press against his bare skin, shedding the soft sweater and his button up shirt. Staring into a mirror, he looked at his chest. His heart thu-thumped, thu-thumped, thu-thumped. Faster than ever. His eyes flared a hot red - almost a burning orange. Sweat dripped down his back.

He hadn’t felt this way ever. Maybe when he was young but that had been so long ago. Things were different now. They were all different now. Older. Physically and mentally. Controlled.

Control. He had everything under control. His heart beat hummingbird-quick. Uncontrolled. A vein in his neck pulsated. Control.

Breathe in, breathe out.

He laid back against the spare bed, his skin sizzling at it met the mattress. A burn of his silhouette haloed into the fabric. Smoke pillowed around him.

Breathe out, breathe in.

Her heart, his heart, was beating, still. His heart...

He had to see her again.

Something had changed today beneath the setting orange sun. Just like that night under the blood moon.

Running through the forest that night as boys upon the brink of manhood, they never realized how far their prison had been from civilization. Many nights were spent in those woods.

Dawns that bled a burning red sun, dazed in their fury and hunger. Angry at what they have become – because they had become something different. Their stomach cramped even with their gulps of red vitae. Their teeth were sharpened like wolves. Their eyes red, inhuman. Nights that felt endless in a cold blue, gnashing teeth and icy tears. Their path was formed by fear. Their unity was all they had those nights and days.

Hazed by time, many of them can only make out bits and pieces.

They hid. They hid for quite some time. Inside an abandoned hunting shed with a single mattress in the corner on the floor. There was the smell of rotten blood and animal fur. Some of them argued about going back – they’d die out here they said. Blood vials were downed sparingly, shared between the brothers as they sat on the bed. Huddled but not cold. They were never cold.

Riki remembered their fangs glinting at one another in anger. Sunoo remembered chasing Jake down in the woods one day after he fell into a fit of tears.

Jungwon remembered offering his neck, his wrist, his veins to his brothers once their rations dwindled. The pierce of fangs ached more than any needle did but he didn’t cry or whimper. It was his sacrifice.

During those dusks to dawns, they learned more and more about themselves. Their talents were more than speed or telepathy or freezing time. It was teleportation. One moment they could be in the shed; the next they were perched on a tree branch. It was immortality. Their bodies were flexible, able to bend and face the world with a resilience. It was hearing. They could hear the doe running through the forest away from a predator, away from their violence.

Sunghoon discovered the strangest one – transformation. Shapeshifting. Transfiguration. It wasn’t in anger or fear or any emotion when it had happened. He simply felt it. Tingling at his fingertips, tingling in his toes. Like a live-wire beneath his skin. His head threw back, staring up at the starry night. The deep-azure sky far above him seemed so free, seemed far from their reality. Optimistic. He took a breath in - of upturned dirt, of fresh dew, of aged-pine. And when he breathed out, he became something else.

A flurry of bats took his place. Spiraling up and away from the ground he stood on, flying high, flying free. Flying away from the forest.

In his discovery, Sunghoon had found their key to their future. A line cutting through the forest. A road. A way to civilization. He returned for his brothers and took them forward. Day broke as they walked the fine line.

For so long there had been only two constants in their lives since they walked down that road and into society. Their unbreakable bonds and their unstoppable hunger for blood. But Jake knew in his blood, as it raced for the first time in a century, that there was a third constant: you.

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constantlybrainrotting · 23 hours ago

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i lied, put your clothes back on. i'm going to keep talking about the dance studio au (side note, currently writing this as i am at the studio i teach at lmao)

on today's episode of brainrot, i tell you about the different specialties of the characters i chose to teach and why i chose them, as well as some random facts about them as teachers!

Silco Lane-Shimmerson (ZDC)

STYLE INSPIRATION: Ballet/Pointe | Contemp

Silco mainly teaches ballet, pointe and contemp to both the full time comp kids and the part-time comp kids. I chose ballet/pointe for him because he is seen in canon as an overall precise and focused person, with little room for error, which are qualities usually seen within those styles. While he loves a good classic ballet routine, i think his specialties would lie within contemporary ballet, a style i see as more Zaun fitting. he would've learned the vaganova method growing up, a method known to use and value flexibility, strength and endurance, a method i believe that holds values that are pretty in line to Zaun in the show. due to his proficiency in contemporary ballet, i think it would bleed into him really enjoying contemporary/modern as a style. he would definitely be a harder and tougher teacher overall but the kids, especially the younger ones, love his upfront personality and makes him one of the more favoured teachers at the studio. He makes a lot of the kids enjoy ballet despite it being not well liked for many kids which is a FEAT. Silco is known for his intense choreography and it pays off since they are usually winning pieces (in contemp because anyone who judges a ballet dance judges so dumb no matter which way you go). He grew up with Vander at a small local studio and ended up joining and teaching at the Greater Piltover Ballet Company (GPBC) for a couple years before opening up a studio.

Vander Lane (ZDC)

STYLE INSPIRATION: Lyrical | Acro | Open

Vander doesn't actually teach all that much in comparison to many of the teachers since he also runs a cafe part time that is attached to the studio but is an overall favourite among the full-time competitive dancers. I chose for him to teach lyrical, acro and open because acro and open can be very powerful movement wise, which we see in Vander in the riots on the bridge and makes a lot of sense in that front, i decided to however also have him teach lyrical to bring out his softer side, which we see in the show when interacting with the kids. He teaches lyrical and acro to all of them but teaches open to the senior and inter teams. he's the type of teacher that brings in goodie bags for each holiday season and will tell the most insane stories during class time at random of him, Silco and Benzo over the years (ex. "fun story about spotting, when I was in the Piltover Ballet with Silco we learned from this woman who used to throw chalkboard erasers at us if we didn't spot our turns lol" "WDYM CHALKBOARD ERASERS???" "anyways back to your turns-"). He creates the most visually moving pieces ever and you wouldn't expect such softness and fluidity from that large of a man but by god does he do it well. oh and his acro routines?? SO visually stunning. this man has an eye for creating the most stunning pieces in all of his routines and they are consistently getting special awards for artistry at competitions. He also joined the GPBC for a brief stint with Silco before going to open up a small cafe on which Zaun Dance Movement was built upon.

Sevika Vann (ZDC)

STYLE INSPIRATION: Hip Hop | Acro | Open

Sevika is the one woman army of ZDM and Silco's right hand woman. She's the one picking out costumes (only Babette is aloud to help she does not trust those men), unpacking costumes, bedazzling, the whole works (dw she is compensated GOOD). I have her specialty as hip hop because she is a notably strong fighter and with the way she moves when fighting, she moves fluidly and sharp which are common notables in hip hop. She teaches the whole slew of comp kids hip hop and does tech classes with them. Her hip hop style is heavily mixed with Zaun break dance/street dance and allowed for the studio to become known for their unique style. She also teaches the part time kids acro since Vander is busy with the cafe and does some of the open small groups for the full comp kids. Her general stylization with her dances is heavy hitting and focuses on strength. She is a tough teacher but she does have her moments of roasting the shit out of her students to their delight. she loves a good banter and to be able to do that with her students will always be meaningful to her. She actually met Silco and Vander during a convention before they opened the studio, with her attending both their classes (Vander jazz and Silco contemp) and they took notice of her technique. Silco asked her to join the team the year they opened and with nothing else lined up for her at the time she agreed.

Babette Furlan (ZDC)

STYLE INSPIRATION: Jazz | Musical Theatre

I couldn't resist not putting Babette in this au she would be a riot omg. Babette teaches jazz and musical theatre because this woman would THRIVE in it. she owns a brothel in the show okay she would just love the theatrics of the two styles and would definitely go towards a more fosse style of jazz. she's been around a hot minute so she's very well known in the dance world and has won many awards for her choreo so it was down to pure luck that Silco ran into his old dance teacher whose home studio was closing and she was looking for a new studio to teach at. she creates choreo made to entertain the masses so it's very theatrical, loud and with the funnest costumes ever. she's also pretty well liked in classes and teaches all levels and ages.

Smeech Citrano (ZDC)

STYLE INSPIRATION: Tap

I LOVE ADDING THIS FUCKASS INTO RANDOM AU'S OKAY SO HEAR ME OUT!!! Smeech is the tap teacher because no.1 the way h moves in fights is great for tap and no.2 he has cybernetics in the show and metal meets metal shoes yknow!! this man is my favourite to figure out because he has beef with SO MANY of the kids, even the ones he has do solos/duos/trios and the only reason hes still employed is because hes the only good tap teacher in Zaun. the kids hate him but his routines place good so its a win-loose situation for them all honestly. his style of tap is steampunk ambience music with complex and/or fast steps with weird timings.

Cassandra Kiramman (PDC)

STYLE INSPIRATION: Jazz | Lyrical | Open

i have Cassandra teaching jazz, lyrical and open for a few different reasons. the jazz style appeals to her more intense side that we see when she busts in cait's room with a gun. she tends to lean towards the jazz-funk style more and her choreo is upbeat and fast moving. her lyrical becomes the opposite of that in fact and tunes into her softer side that we see when she talks to Caitlyn or Tobias. she uses traditional lyrical with it's softer and flowy lines of the body creating almost constant movement that draws in the audience. her style of open brings the two together which i think is important for her character. there tends to be sharper movements within but still allows for the flowiness to come through. her teaching methods can get intense at times but overall shes a good teacher and she's the kind to always have you do it full out with the music. she took over the studio after Heimerdinger's decision to step down and retire (for the most part lol) and has improved certain areas of the company since. before she had taken over, she was both a student and a teacher and had graduated from the GPBC's teaching program for lyrical and jazz. she's pretty hands on with her studio so she teaches both full time and part time competitive teams in her 3 preferred styles and is at the studio almost always. When she took over the studio, that's when a initial reach out to ZDM was made... she got one half in good faith at least!

Grayson Menea (PDC)

STYLE INSPIRATION: Hip Hop | Contemp | Acro

i couldn't NOT include miss Grayson so i have her in some of the more intense styles like hip hop, contemp and acro! she's got an overall pretty intense job in the show and i wanted to really bring that forward with the hip hop and acro, but show her somewhat softer side through with the contemp. her hip hop choreo is really sharp movements and lots of isolations, and her acro can be similar, with the placed movements and intensity. her contemp choreo is a lot more softer with the movements but still brings in that intensity through intentional and well placed moments of movement. she had actually grown up dancing at a smaller studio on the outskirts of New Piltover and close to Zaun so she learned hip hop very similarly to the Zaunite style of hip hop. she ended up doing a brief stint in the military and after a shot taken to her shoulder she was discharged. she decided not to return and was offered a job by then owner Heimerdinger to teach hip hop, since she was recommended by a mutual friend. she agreed and has thrived ever since. shes an overall pretty tough teacher when teaching but outside of that shes a wonderful person to be around and gives advice to the kids she teaches. she takes on more of the full time kids but does do some teaching with the older part-time kids.

Amara Saffioti (PDC)

STYLE INSPIRATION: Ballet/Pointe

Amara just looked like an older ballet teacher idk what you guys want from me, i went off pure vibes from her tbh. in any case, she is a true believer of classical ballet, plateau tutu's and all and is a no-nonsense but kind teacher. she uses the English (RAD - Royal Academy of Dance) method when teaching and she teaches the full scale of comp kids. she has a tendency to use music from different ballets and doesn't really branch out in that regard but her choreography is gorgeous. she also single-handedly puts on the nutcracker with her students every year and when Cassandra tries to help she shoos her out of the classroom. she was the first employee of the studio and she claims she will stay until she dies because she genuinely enjoys teaching so much.

Shoola Junot (PDC)

STYLE INSPIRATION: Tap | Musical Theatre

Shoola was also a very vibes based choice but i did think that a good musical theatre would help her be less cold in a way. for Shoola's tap style, it is a lot of quick tapping and lots of movement around the stage. she also has a habit of picking the shiniest of costumes for the kids which they love! i had a harder time finding a musical theatre style i liked for her but a classic simple musical theatre is where she is happy. her choreo still has those fast movements that she loves, just not as shiny costume wise and she loves to pick from older musicals. shes pretty well liked among staff and students but can seem quite cold due to her quiet demeanour outside the studio. she was originally a student at the studio and after graduating was asked to teach while she attended college to get her degree in engineering. she has another job outside the studio in a mechanical engineer position. she has also single-handedly upgraded the tap technique at the studio which is insane behaviour tbh.

Bonus! Cecil Heimerdinger (PDC)

STYLE INSPIRATION: Musical Theatre

thought fuck it, might as well add in the yordle! so Heimerdinger was actually a musical theatre geek and loved kooky theatre music so much he opened a studio mainly for that. he quickly learned he needed more variations of dance styles so in came Amara! tbh he had no clue wtf he was doing but they got an increasing number of wins with their routines so he said fuck it we ball ig. when he decided to give up the studio, he asked Cassandra and thankfully she said yes! while yes he was retired, he knew he needed SOMETHING to do so he took over managing the front desk (his multiple degrees came in handy) and does guest choreo work for Cassandra in his favourite style... musical theatre!

#arcane #arcane au #arcane competitive dancer au #zaundads #vanco #arcane silco #arcane vander #sevika arcane #heimerdinger #smeech #cassandra kiramman #i had to look through so many dance videos to get the ZDM styles right and it took like...30 mins to get PDC's styles smh #sevika is exhausted lemme tell you #heimerdinger is there for the vibes tbh #i love adding smeech into random shit and giving him beef with everyone tbh

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