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comphy-and-cozy · 6 months ago

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down bad - mat barzal

Pairing: Mat Barzal x unnamed OFC

Summary: Mat takes a late night booty call to the next level.

Word Count: 5.2K

Warnings: Smut (18+ ONLY): Unprotected sex, oral sex (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), creampie. Mega simp Mat. This has barely any plot but has potential to expand into a universe, maybe? Masterlist

The Snapchat notification brightens the screen for a few moments, catching Mat’s eye even while he focuses on shooting down his opponent on-screen. Beau shouts a warning in his ear, and Mat emits a low curse when he gets sniped from behind.

After one more round, and after bidding goodbye to his friend, Mat’s attention draws back to his phone sitting on the table beside him, tapping to see who the Snapchat was from. His jaw pulses, just slightly, when he sees the name attached to the notification. Instinctually, he feels a gentle throb below the waistband of his gray sweatpants, just at the mere sight of her name.

The photo isn’t set to a timer, and Mat sends a silent thank you to the higher powers that he gets to gaze at it for as long as he desires. The foggy mirror is what he notices first, eyes quickly drawing to the generous cleavage exposed underneath the loosely-wrapped towel, a sliver of delicious skin dragging his eyes down to where the countertop regrettably cuts off the view he would have—of hip bones, leading his eyes down to the apex of two thighs he desperately wants to splay open.

There’s no caption, no commentary needed; the message is loud and clear. A calling that he responds to without fail despite his every effort to remain the nonchalant, professional athlete playboy. Obedient and eager, it’s almost Pavlovian the way his senses kick into gear when her messages come through.

Some might call him whipped, but he prefers the term ‘infatuated.’ He has been, ever since he got that first mirror selfie showing off generous curves clad in Calvin Klein underwear. He’d never admit it outside of the privacy of messages that disappear in 24 hours, but he had never come as hard as he did that night, hand gripping his length while his mind was flooded with images of that body, of those gorgeous lips, of the hips that looked like they were made for his hands.

Mat swipes through the photos he’s saved from her texts, for his eyes only. They’re more private, more sacred; selfies in bathroom mirrors with her top pulled down, videos showing a few specific details of her slutty nurse Halloween costume, and his favorite: his girl, perched on the edge of her bed, a Barzal jersey bunched up around her hips and revealing a gratuitous shot of her ass in a deep blue thong.

When he first matched with her on Raya, he never anticipated that he’d meet up with her, let alone see her multiple times after that. A free night in Chicago before a game, he was lying in the hotel room bed in search of his evening plans, in need of a good release. It was her eyes that drew him in first; the same eyes he stared into while she took him in her mouth later that evening. After finding heaven between her legs and climaxing so hard he saw stars, he told her he’d call her the next time he was in Chicago—and he meant it.

Since then, he returns dutifully to her bed when the Isles come to town, and he leaves the door unlocked for her when she travels to New York City for client visits as a CPA (hot and smart; a lethal combination). It’s become an excellent arrangement, the distance far enough to keep things casual, though on nights like tonight, when all he wants is to be buried inside her, he really wishes she was much closer.

Mat’s attention snaps back to his phone when he sees another notification come through with her name on it, and this time, the dark purple square has his heart fluttering. Clicking into the video, his heart leaps into his throat when he sees the same shot as earlier, only this time, she lets her hand slip so the white towel sags against her body. He’s practically panting, eyes glued to the way she teases him, until she drops the towel altogether.

He’s hard in an instant, flipping back to his Snapchat app to send a photo back of his sweatpant-covered erection.

‘Wish you were here,’ comes her reply. ‘In the mood to get railed.’

Swallowing thickly, Mat feels the twitch against his pelvis. He lets his mind draw back to the last time he saw her; thinking about the feeling of her perfect, wet heat gripping onto him, the way she moaned his name in his ear. He hadn’t gotten more than a few hours with her, hadn’t spent enough time buried between her thighs and worshiping her the way she deserved. The way he craved to. Now, with his last trip to Chicago complete and tax season in the books, he doesn’t know the next time he’ll see her—this fall, at the earliest.

The thought flits through his mind out of nowhere. He considers it for a millisecond, then with a blink, laughs it off. Fly to see her? Tonight?

No, that would be wild, though. It’d be insane.

But you have an off-day tomorrow. You could be back before anyone would notice you’re gone.

Mat shakes his head, pushing away the impulse. He opens his phone, hoping to distract himself by scrolling on Instagram. But the thought doesn’t go away; instead, it patiently nudges at the corner of his brain, lingering until he grants it his full attention. His dick twitches again, as if it knows he’s only a few steps removed from being inside her.

A glance at the airline app can’t hurt, he thinks. Just to see if it’s even a realistic possibility.

He isn’t sure what he’s hoping to see when he opens the Delta app—the perfect timed flight, or a flight that doesn’t work with his schedule. A quick search confirms the former, and he can’t help but laugh out loud at the situation he’s found himself in. Mat shakes his head, the reality of his decision sinking in: are you really about to do this?

He texts her, hoping the distinction of message type symbolizes that he’s serious. The response comes a few minutes later, and he lets out an audible groan when he sees that she’s naked, an arm draped across her breasts seductively. The caption comes next: ‘This is what’s waiting for you if you do decide to come.’

Twenty minutes later, he’s pulling on a baseball cap as he shuts and locks his apartment door, small duffel bag in hand.

Once the Uber drops him off, he briefly notes that it’s strange to be using the public entrance, used to the special business aviation sector that the team used for travel. He could’ve taken a private jet, if he really wanted, but purchasing a commercial ticket was both quicker and easier. And much, much less embarrassing.

He’s halfway through the security line when the reality of what he’s about to do hits him, and he can’t help but laugh at himself. Purchasing and boarding a flight within an hour—for a booty call. Talk about impulsive. And desperate.

The question of ‘why?’ briefly flits through his mind, contemplating his life choices. But then his mind trails to those gorgeous lips, pressed against his mouth, his neck, his—

“Sir, may I please have your ID?”

Mat blinks, coming back to reality, embarrassed that he let his imagination run wild in the middle of the fucking airport. As he pulls his wallet out of his pocket, he does his best to subtly adjust the half-hard erection threatening to make an appearance, smiling innocently at the TSA agent.

If he’s recognized by anyone, no one says anything, though he keeps his head down as he finds his way to his gate. ‘Chicago’ lines the monitor, the flight number and departure times floating across the bottom of the screen. Her last text buzzes in his pocket once he takes a seat, duffel bag seated on the floor by his feet.

The text is actually a photo that has him slapping the face of his phone against his leg, glancing around to make sure no one near him is in sight of his screen. Once he’s sure he’s in safe territory, he sneaks a glance at it again, thirsty for another peek of her completely nude body, a sizable pink dildo pressed against her pouty lips.

Hurry up, the message reads. I’m getting impatient.

Mat hopes nobody notices the way he twitches beneath the dark fabric of his joggers, willing his erection to chill the fuck out as he gets in line to board the plane.

When he lands 3 hours later, Mat’s knee bounces anxiously as he glances out to watch the plane make its way down the tarmac. A quick check on his Maps app tells him he isn’t far from her apartment, and he sends a silent prayer that he can get deplaned quickly.

Waiting is excruciating, and he already has the Uber app loaded as he exits the plane, a ride called by the time he steps off of the jet bridge. Mat’s footsteps quicken when he sees the signs pointing toward baggage claim, and it isn’t long until he’s getting into a red Toyota Camry, his driver, Todd, greeting him from the front seat.

‘The door is unlocked,’ her text read. ‘I’m in the bedroom.’

The lights are off when he enters, though the light over the sink illuminates the small kitchen just enough for him to toe his shoes off and head toward the bedroom door. Mat’s heart thuds in his chest as he nears it, nears her, fingers itching to caress every inch of her body. His dick gives another wanton pulse, like it knows its wait is almost over.

What he sees when he opens the door has him speechless—and that’s hard to do to Mat Barzal.

The room is dark save for the small string of fairy lights by her window and a sandalwood candle burning on the bedside table. Flickering candlelight casts a warm glow over the room, dancing on the panoramic photo of Wrigley Field on the wall across from her bed.

But Mat isn’t looking at any of that.

Instead, his eyes are locked on his girl, lying on the bed, gazing straight at him. She’s completely naked, save for the very sheer black lace kimono, untied in the front, revealing her bareness to him entirely. Her legs are spread in a way that he has the perfect view. The warmth of the candle makes her skin look like it’s glowing, soft and golden and delicious.

This time, his dick doesn’t just twitch. It throbs.

He thinks he might’ve let out a whimper, dropping his bag on the floor; his body moves of its own accord, approaching her bed and immediately slotting between her legs. His lips are on hers before he even realizes it, unable to deny the yearning to feel her touch any longer.

“Hi,” he murmurs against her mouth. She giggles, lips curling into a smile against his own. “Missed you.”

Her reply is a hum, hands carding through his hair, hat knocked on the floor. His lips suck, lick, and nip their way over her jaw and to the place he can feel her pulse against his lips. Mat likes the way she shivers when his breath skitters over her skin, body shuddering at the sensation.

“Can’t believe you’re actually here,” she breathes, drawing his lips back up to hers for a heated kiss. The pressure mounts, his tongue desperately seeking out the seam of her mouth; involuntarily, his hips begin a slow grind, pressed right against her bare heat. There’s no hiding or denying his own rigid erection, groaning at the feeling of finally getting some friction after hours of waiting.

“Had to have you,” he whispers back. “Teasin’ me with those pictures like that.”

She moans when his mouth makes a sloppy, wet path from her jaw, down her neck, over her collarbones, landing on her breast. Mat licks and sucks every inch of skin he touches, drinking in the taste of her nipple between his lips. “Makin’ me so hard with these tits.”

“Just wanted to see if you were really whipped enough to fly here,” she purrs, raking her hand over his scalp when he takes her hardened peak between his teeth, biting down. His cheeks warm, embarrassed at the attention to just how desperate he is for her.

But he can’t deny it, so he doesn’t. Instead, he allows himself to indulge in her body, thinking that he might as well live up to his newfound title.

“Need this pussy like I need water, baby,” he says with a sleek grin, letting his hand drift between her thighs, hissing with delight when he finds her drenched. She rolls her eyes at the exaggerated comment, though she can’t ignore the flutter in her belly at his carnal need for her.

Her mouth opens to quip back, and he revels in the way a gasp usurps whatever sass she was about to deliver when he plunges a finger into her tight heat. She grips his digits snugly, squeezing him so tightly he wonders how he’s gonna fit another finger in, let alone his dick. The appendage gives another wanton throb.

The lemony jasmine of her shampoo invades his senses as his hand continues to pump, working his girl into a slow, maddening frenzy. Her back arches upward, kimono falling open so she’s all but bare to him. The slope of her breasts, curve of her waist, soft breath of her whimper draw him into her, pulling him into her trance.

Mat can tell by the high pitch in her whine that she’s bordering on desperate for something more. Slipping in another finger, he smirks against her lips when he hears the audible squelch of his digits pressing into her drenched center. The sound has his mouth watering, suddenly quenched of thirst.

Gripping the plush, soft skin of her thighs, Mat pries her legs open—“jus’ a little more for me, sweetheart”—to make room for his broad shoulders before shifting his body down until he’s at eye-level with her waiting, wanting core. He doesn’t wait for her whimper before he’s pressing his face against her, moaning when his tongue tastes her slick.

His girl is divine, her pussy a certain, secret entrance to the pearly gates. Each lap of his tongue isn’t nearly enough to curb his addiction, the craving never satiated. Her fingers twist into the long locks of his hair, tugging and pulling him exactly where she needs him; he’s pliant, moldable, eager to please. He’d devour her cunt whole, if he could.

Unabashed moans encourage Mat to allow his fingers to rejoin his tongue, teasing the swollen nub at the apex of her gorgeous, heavenly slit. He drinks in her nectar like it’s the elixir of life, greedy and indulgent. The soft moans that he coaxes from her throat are just an added bonus.

He’s precise, paying close attention to the way she reacts to each flick of his tongue, each twist of his fingers. Between the choked gasps slipping from her pretty lips and the way her thighs tighten around his head, he knows he’s close—that she’s close.

Another long, languid suck of her clit sends her hurtling into orgasm, spine arching off of the mattress. Mat’s hand rests firmly on her hip, holding her in place even despite the way her body writhes with the force of her release; he savors the taste of her flooding his mouth.

Mat loses track of how many times he makes her come, flooding his mouth with her nectar. Three? Four? Five? His jaw aches, his mouth, chin and cheeks glistening with evidence of her arousal like he’s at a fucking all-you-can-eat buffet. He wishes Lou would let him grow a beard so he could taste her on his face for hours.

“Matty,” she sighs, and he can hear in her voice that she’s done with the foreplay. Her hands weakly tug at the cotton of his t-shirt in an attempt to draw him up to her. He obeys, pressing his mouth to her lips, letting her taste herself on his tongue; as he does, the clothed tip of his erection bumps against her open, waiting center, and she whines.

“I know, baby,” he coos, massaging the inside of her thigh with a large hand. She’s practically putty underneath his touch. “Wanna fuck you so bad I think my dick might fall off.”

“Too many clothes,” she says, voice still distant and hazy from her orgasms. Mat feels a smug sense of satisfaction at the way she weakly paws at his clothes, fingers searching for purchase in the cotton of his t-shirt. She’s right, though, and he wrenches his body from hers in favor of pulling his shirt over his head.

Heat floods her eyes and Mat watches the way her gaze falls to the cut lines of his muscle, shamelessly running over the abs and the biceps he’s worked so hard on. He’d be lying if he didn’t think of her—think of this—on the early mornings he dreaded getting out of bed to workout; the thought of her lips, her hips, her body never failing to encourage him to do one more rep. Mat knows his role, his duty, as the professional athlete: maintain the god-like physique that has her all but drooling.

And when she looks at him like that, how is he supposed to deny it?

Mat shimmies his pants off, palming his aching erection through his boxer briefs. His girl’s hand reaches up to aid him, the thin material barely a barrier between her skin and his, and he can’t help but groan at the contact.

“How long have you had this?” she purrs, stroking him leisurely. He can hardly process her words and she’s barely touched him.

“Since—fuck—since you sent me that picture.” His voice is more of a choked whisper, breath hitching in his throat when she offers him an affectionate squeeze.

“But that was hours ago, Matty,” she says, but the evil glint in her eye tells him that she isn’t really feeling sympathy for him; instead, there’s smug pride hidden behind a coy smile. “You must be desperate.”

All Mat can do is hum in response, every nerve on heightened alert as her hand drags slow, languid lines up and down his length. He knows if he opens his mouth, only nonsensical gibberish is going to come out and probably ruin the moment.

“Desperate enough to fly from Long Island to Chicago just to fuck me,” she continues musing. “I’m flattered.”

Pulling himself together—eyes closing when she gives him a squeeze—Mat steels himself to say, “Best pussy I’ve ever had. ‘Course I’m desperate for you.”

“Aww, Matty,” she says with a wry, teasing smile. “You have such a way with words.”

Impatience huffs out of Mat’s lips, doing his best to suppress a whine and a plea to please, grant him some relief. “Let me fuck you, baby.”

Her fingers dip into the waistband of his boxer briefs, tugging it down before he’s hurriedly shucking the material down his hips. “You gonna be polite?”

“Please,” he tacks on, pressing himself forward to connect his lips with hers, needing something—anything—to take the edge off. “Please, baby, swear I’ll fuck you so good.”

His girl hums, returning his kiss, letting his tongue slide into her mouth; symbolic in its action as he teases, dragging the muscle in and out in intentional, suggestive motions. He shifts his approach, letting his voice take on the sickly sweet, honeyed purr that she loves. “Know you want it, sweet girl. Bet you’re jus’ drippin’ for it, aren’t you?”

“Why don’t you find out?”

If Mat had a single ounce of resistance left in him, he’d tease her back, but he can’t draw out his own torture any longer. He lets his hand trail down her body, meeting her own that’s wrapped around his hard, bare length. His fingers brush against her, placing themselves over her hand before guiding himself toward the apex of her thighs. She smiles against his mouth, exhaling softly as his tip broaches her entrance.

“Think I can hear her purring for me,” he says, pressing his hips forward to plunge into her with a groan. A gasp leaves her mouth, hands quickly finding purchase in the dips of his shoulders. The feeling of her walls gripping him tightly nearly makes his eyes roll back in his head.

There isn’t a whisper of a retort on her tongue, his quick-witted girl rendered speechless with him sheathed inside her. As much as he loves her quick wit and feisty attitude, he can’t deny that it’s extremely satisfying to be the one to shut her up.

For awhile, he’s content to simply stay that way, feeling the way her walls flutter around him, her body silently begging for more. But then she remembers how to speak, saying, “Mat, fuck me.”

It takes a moment to ensure he isn’t going to completely ruin everything by finishing immediately, but once he does, he lets his hips tick forward, then back, then forward again. He works the pace up to one that earns a lusty gasp in his ear, arms holding himself above her, silver chain dangling between his neck and her chin.

“Squeezin’ onto me like your life depends on it, baby,” he grunts. “Fuck, this cunt is so worth the 3 hour flight. Would charter a private jet just to have it in my bed every single night.”

She hums, responding by wrapping her legs around his waist, welcoming him deeper. “Better make the most of it then, Barzal.”

And, well, when she puts it like that.

Mat fucks her slow, fucks her fast, doing his best to remember everything he’s thought about doing to her since he kissed her goodbye when he slipped out of her apartment two months ago. His voice is low in her ear, filthy words strung together between nips at her neck and sloppy, heated kisses against her mouth. She feels so fucking good, and he makes sure to tell her that—communication has always been one of his stronger points.

He presses his hips firmly against the backs of her thighs, burying himself as deep as he can go. His hands wander freely, one making a path between her neck and her breast, the other languidly trailing along the slope of her ass.

Her ass. Of course.

Lost in the euphoria of seeing her, touching her, tasting her, he’d almost forgotten about his very favorite body part of hers—the one he thought about on nights where he missed her, furiously fisting his length, that never failed to bring him to orgasm. Slowing his hand’s movements, he matches his smooth strokes to the tempo of his fingers kneading the globes of her ass.

She loves it. He can tell in the way her hips roll, grinding herself against him, a feral-sounding moan coming from deep in her throat. Mat can practically feel the orgasm building inside of her, keeping his movements careful and precise, unwilling to change a single thing; he can’t tame the desire to feel her come around him.

“Matty,” she whimpers, a hand slipping between their bodies to rub at her clit. His eyes glance down to the movement, cursing lowly at the sight. “M’close.”

“Yeah, baby? You gonna come for me? Come on my cock after I flew all this way just to fuck you?”

If she tries to answer, nothing comes out other than another moan. Her eyes squeeze shut, and he imagines the fireworks that will soon dance beneath her eyelids. Fingers stroke at her soft skin, almost as if he’s willing her orgasm into existence. He lowers his voice to murmur, “I’ve been dreaming about feeling you come all over me for weeks, baby. It’s the least you can do.”

When she reaches the precipice, her body freezes beneath him, time standing still for a millisecond as she shatters. He can almost feel the way it courses through her, the way her pussy clamps onto him so tightly he sees stars of his own.

It’s glorious. Sinfully, decadently, maddeningly exquisite.

Mat’s patient with her comedown, whispering soft words of encouragement, hips resuming a gentle motion that probes her sensitive core. She whines, pawing at his shoulder to push him away. Her voice is gentle, a soft command. “Matty.”

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he says with a cheeky smile. “Y’feel too good.”

He’s aware, though, wants to give her a moment of reprieve before he bends her over the way he wants to. So, he suppresses a huff as he pulls out of her delicious heat, distracting himself from the loss by kissing her hotly. She seems distracted, too, sighing into his mouth, enjoying the way it feels like he’s devouring her whole.

“Wanna fuck you from behind,” he murmurs against her lips. “Watch this ass bounce on me.”

Mat helps her up, allowing her to tear her lips away from his in favor of flipping over. Once she’s settled on her hands and knees, the mattress dipping slightly beneath her weight, he takes a moment to admire the view: pussy glistening with the remnants of her orgasm, framed by the globes of her perfect ass. Heaven.

“Gotta be inside you,” he says, a statement that’s more like a declaration.

“Quit making me wait.”

His eyebrow raises. “Thought we were being polite.”

“You are. I can be whatever I want,” she shoots back with a smile. His dick gives another mild twitch.

Mat hums. “Guess I better give the lady what she wants, then.”

Judging by the way she’s backing up to meet him, he assumes she’s had plenty of reload time and slips back into her. This time, he doesn’t take his time to ramp up, instead setting a grueling pace from the start, his hands gripping tightly onto her hips.

A groan, followed by a loud curse. “Think about this every damn day. You, taking it from behind like this. Bent over jus’ for me.”

Her reply is to lean forward farther, spreading her arms forward onto the mattress and opening herself to him even more. Mat accepts the invitation to drive deeply into her, hips slapping loudly against the back of her thighs. The thought of her neighbors briefly flits through his mind, but another glance back down at her ass has that consideration slipping away as quickly as it came. He doesn’t care who hears or who he wakes up; hell, he’d be fine telling the entire world that he gets to fuck her.

“Since you came all this way, you deserve a treat,” she says, twisting her head to glance over her shoulder at him. The sight of her peachy, round ass and her bedroom eyes looking up at him makes his balls tighten.

“And what might that be?” Mat accentuates the question by squeezing her hips tightly. He swallows down the comment that this, here, being inside of her, is already reward enough.

“I’ll let you come inside.”

Since their trysts began, she’s made Mat relieve himself elsewhere—her chest, her ass, her face; his mind briefly flits to each, reminiscing on the mental snapshot he took each time. The thought of not just not having to pull out moments before the strongest climaxes of his life, but at the idea of finishing inside of her is enough to have his heart pulsing rapidly in his chest.

“Yeah? You want me to fill you up?” he says with a grin, leaning forward to brush his lips against her ear. The action presses him even deeper inside of her, his hips snug against the curve of her ass as he whispers, “Fuck my load deep inside this perfect little cunt?”

She nods, mouth opening in a silent gasp when he gives a particularly hard thrust. “Yeah. Wanna feel you, Matty.”

Her eyes shoot open when he pauses his movements, glancing back at him in protest when he pulls away. Both hands pull lightly on her hips, encouraging her to flip over onto her back. When she does, her eyes catch his and he smiles.

“Wanna see your face when I come,” he says with a shrug, easing himself back into her waiting core.

“Oh, he’s down bad.”

He laughs, face crinkling into a smile despite the way the burn of euphoria builds in his stomach. A hand drags down the outside of her leg, tucking her calf around his hip. “Fuck off.”

“Are you gonna come in me or not?”

“You begging for it?”

The four words dramatically change the mood; Mat watches her eyes darken as they sink in. Like he gave a secret code to have her submissive and pliant beneath him. Her voice is barely above a whisper, her lips pouty. “Please, Matty.”

Mat slows his hips, savoring the way her pussy sucks him in, greedy. He can’t help the grin that curls up on his face, watching the way her eyebrows knit together. “You’re gonna have to do better than that, sweetheart.”

“Please, baby,” she whines, “wanna feel you come in me. I—I need it.”

He hums. “Been dreaming about filling this tight pussy up for months, baby. Wanna watch my cum drip out of this slutty little cunt.”

“Please,” is her whispered plea—quiet and desperate.

“You sound so pretty when you beg,” he says with a smirk. The pace of his hips increase, balls tightening with the threat of his climax. He listens to her moans, the sound of his skin against hers, the rustle of the sheets beneath his knees. His girl’s hands tighten around his shoulders, holding onto him as she absorbs the weight of his thrusts, body shifting up and down on the mattress.

Mumbles of her name, of obscenities, flow out of his mouth, low murmurs in her ear. His rhythm starts to falter, no longer a steady metronome but a series of sloppy, uneven thrusts as Mat finds it harder and harder to stay focused.

The release starts deep in his core, bursting through with a loud groan as he finally meets his end, reveling in the feeling of spilling inside of her. It’s freeing to have no barriers between him and her, to feel her in all of her pure, whole self, the way she contracts tightly around him as her own final climax barrels through her. Mat’s vision goes fuzzy, and for a moment he’s pretty sure his soul ascends out of his body.

It occurs to Mat that he’s slumped on top of her, panting into the crook of her neck while soft, small hands trace lazy lines up and down his spine. The touch ignites his nerve endings, sending another wave of consciousness through his system. Her nails drag delicious, soothing lines onto his scalp, and he feels his throat vibrate against her collarbone in a moan. His vision gradually grows from fuzzy to just a bit of a haze when he peels his eyes open.

“Baby, that was the—”

“Hardest you’ve ever come?”

Mat blinks, fully back in reality now, shifting his head to look at her in disbelief. “How did you know?”

She chuckles, lips brushing against his ear. “You said that last time, too.”

#mat barzal fic #mat barzal imagine #hockey imagine #hockey fic #nhl imagine #hockey smut #nhl fanfiction

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reaper-chan666 · 10 months ago

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Since the poll said longer posts with multiple types of Hybrid! Readers interacting with Taskforce 141, I'll start slow, and gain speed as I go. I'll start with Lioness! Reader, Bat! Reader, and go from there! I'm sorry if it seems short still!

Lioness Hybrid! Reader who doesn't like it when people assume they're weak, since they're smaller than the male Lion Hybrids, is automatically weaker. But they've never been allowed to go into the field to prove otherwise. Instead, they get placed on desk at every base, essentially becoming a glorified secretary, and it pisses them off. Over time they become irritable, then they start becoming increasingly agitated, until it gets to the point, that they're just flat out aggressive, and get traded around to different squads since people get tired of dealing with them.

Until John Price of Taskforce 141 sees their file, and decides to transfer them over to base. Immediately, all the personnel on base is put on edge. They've heard the stories of this hybrid, and they don't want to deal with that. Within a week of Lioness! Reader transferring, Price, Ghost, Gaz, and Soap notice that the hybrid seems agitated when they aren't put on missions or on regular training, so they have a small meeting, and decide to test out the abilities of Lioness! Reader. After Lioness! Reader is tested by doing the training regimen that Ghost follows, it's clear to the four men, that while the hybrid is smaller, they're faster and stronger than they seem, so Ghost makes it a point to read up on Lioness Hybrids, and comes up with a training regimen that will allow reader to train to their fullest potential. And it works, the hybrid quickly loses the aggressive behaviors once they start training with the four men, and soon they go on missions with the boys, getting results with brutal efficiency.

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

Bat Hybrid! Reader, who is forced into military sleep schedules, and gets sick easily because of the stress it puts on their bodies. Gaz is visiting the base that the hybrid is at, and immediately notices how bad it is, so he calls Price and explains what's going on, Price then calls Laswell, and there is an emergency transfer for the poor hybrid.

Bat! Reader is allowed to set their sleep schedule to follow their bodies needs, and it starts a discussion about meeting Hybrids needs in the military, and not always forcing them to conform to things, especially not things that will cause their bodies harm, like sleep, diet, and training.

Bat! Reader, who shows their strengths once they're recovered, being able to find things in absolute darkness, flying up to around 60 miles per hour on a regular mission, to 100 miles per hour in an emergency. Bat! Reader has an amazing sense of smell, and uses echolocation to help track targets and squad members alike, and being able to accurately differentiate who's who. But that sense of smell comes at a cost. Bat! Reader has issues with strong odors, causing the guys to get better ventilation installed in the barracks.

Bat! Reader, who likes to sleep upside down at times, so Price installs a pull up bar in their room, with a soft cushion on the ground underneath it, just in case they were to fall. They tend to get anxious alone when they're trying to fall asleep alone, so typically the guys will sit in there with them until they fall asleep, unintentionally starting a bunch of break times that forces the guys to slow down and breathe.

I ran out of ideas, it's almost 6 am and I have a migraine, I'll post more when my brain doesn't feel like mush.

Give me more Hybrid suggestions, or tell me if you want to see more Snake! Lioness! Or Bat! Readers again.

Bye!

#cod #task force 141 #reaper chan's writings #hybrid reader #FANON NOT CANON #tf 141 x reader

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bluesturngold · 2 months ago

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findhelp.org is the biggest aggregator of resources in the US, and if you're in a bad way (or if something is on the horizon that would put you in a bad way) it's worth looking through

if you reach out to the american red cross or united way for something they can't handle in-house, there's a good chance the caseworker is using findhelp to locate potential avenues of assistance

input your ZIP code to filter out programs that don't service your location, then you can filter by several categories based on what you're looking for help with. not all of them will be relevant to your situation, but i live in a pretty rural area and it's got just under 1,900 program results between the 10 categories.

if you check a subcategory and don't see what you're looking for there, try other similar subcategories just to make sure you aren't missing out on something.

just based on the work i've done helping people the past few months, here are some things i've noticed:

if you have money to pay some bills but not all of them, turn off auto pay for everything, then you'll generally want to prioritize rent/mortgage and your cell phone bill if you can.

do everything you can to not lose your cell phone number, even if that means transferring it to a really cheap prepaid service. if you can't help but lose the number, please reach out to someone beforehand and let them know where you are and where they might be able to get ahold of you (i.e. by calling a local library you intend to frequent, contacting your email, etc.). i frequently speak with friends and family members trying to help someone they lost contact with and i cannot stress enough how few options there are for locating and reconnecting people. if you're using a free calling/texting app on your phone, please make note of the phone number someone can call you back at. (also, they tend to rely on strength of wi-fi signal for clear service, there's a possibility a slow public wi-fi connection could make the call choppy.)

seek help early. some programs have caps on how much money you can request (this can make getting enough money to catch up on multiple missed payments difficult), or will only help after you meet a certain need threshold (this sucks, the US is deeply broken), but it's better to know the criteria ahead of time so you can reach out to them again later. and if that's not a requirement for the resource you reach out to, even better.

a lot of programs are likely to have turnaround times longer than you would like, and very few places have different tiers of urgency. if you expect to get an eviction notice or a utility shutoff notice, start looking for assistance ASAP, because if your landlord gives you a week to pay or get out, sometimes processing your application with a resource can take that whole week.

on that note, here's a resource for getting the gist of your state/territory's eviction laws: https://www.lsc.gov/initiatives/effect-state-local-laws-evictions/lsc-eviction-laws-database just in case you're being evicted unfairly, and here's guidance on how to deal with eviction: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/housing/housing-insecurity/help-for-renters/what-to-do-if-youre-facing-eviction/

have exact dates and numbers, always keep record of the bills that are unpaid, whether it's emails, screenshots of online payment portals saved to your phone, or paper bills

it's demoralizing if you reach out to a bunch of places and they can't help. however, you should keep reaching out while you're still in a position where you can. the more people you talk to, the more likely you are to find someone especially knowledgeable who can point you in the right direction, because the people you reach out to will vary so widely in terms of expertise and ability to assist: you may reach people who are paid employees with very specific training and little else to offer beyond that, you may meet brand new volunteers who are eager to help but need time to ask others for advice, or you might talk to career employees/seasoned volunteers who can get you set on the right path even if their organization can't help personally

you should apply for state and federal resources also. some places will only help if you're turned down by the government, or government aid is insufficient, so that's always a good avenue to try first.

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noveratus · 3 months ago

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Ok, I finished it. Here is my review, I'll do a little rewrite in a separate post. Spoilers for season 4.

Boy, am I sad that TUA was canceled after just two seasons!

For real though. This was shit. Truly and utterly shit. And it is a shame too, because it had potential.

Let's make something clear: TUA started as a parody/critique of superhero shows and an exploration of what happens when a superhero team akin to the Xmen split up. It explores how the superhero life can break someone, either from being a superhero or being pushed away from that life. Yes, the ending of season one with the world being destroyed was beautiful. But it shouldn't have been the main take away. Explaining the lore should never have been your take away. People watch the show for the characters, not your bullshit lore that makes no sense with made up elements and trying to redeem an abuser.

Season 2 was flawed, but it was beautiful, mostly because of Viktor and his discover of himself and who he was. I didn't really care for the other characters as much, but I still had a good time. It was fun! It was colorful! And people all and all felt like themselves, broken, messy but themselves.

Then came season 3, aka the character assassination of Allison Hargreeves, and I swear this season is just there to be there to make her unlikable, do the whole bullshit with Luther, who until that point was my least favorite character and then make you feel bad to dislike her as if she could be compared to Viktor in season 1. Viktor in season 1 was flawed, yes, but he didn't make every single decision to piss off the audience, and season 2 was all about him trying to prove himself to his siblings. But no. Allison just gets a get out of jail free card and gets everything go her way, but hey, if you ignore the shit show that was Allison's you have, well, you have what could have been an interesting dynamic between the families. It wasn't. But it could have been if the Sparrows hadn't been immediately killed.

And then we had season 4 which had the exact same issues as season 3 but worse because now, it isn't just Allison who is getting ruined, oh no, it is Fives, Lila and Diego because we need that forced romance and that stupid dreaded love triangle. And this is all this season is. A bunch of montages of nothing leading to an ending that is honestly very unsatisfying and doesn't make any sense:

A- They already were in a timeline where the Marigold was never released seeing as they didn't have any powers and yet they still existed.

B- They weren't the only source of Marigold. Maybe in this universe, but I'm pretty certain that Ben didn't drink all the Marigold. What about the guy Klaus splashed in Marigold? Did he get any powers? Christ, what is this bullshit?

C- No, no, I still need someone to explain to me why having multiple timelines is a bad thing??? What the fuck do you mean 'does this feel right?' There is a tentacle monster devouring that world, does that feel right? And that's the thing, you could fix this by saying that, instead of having multiple timelines be the issue, the issue is that the Marigold being released leads to the end of the world no matter what. Multiple timelines are a widely accepted theory, and isn't timelines bleeding into each other eventually going to fix the issue you have in the first place since it implies that they are all converging into one??? Stupidest time bullshit I've heard in a WHILE

D- This really leaves a sour taste in my mouth as does any and all endings that have 'death is the answer' as their conclusion. My dude, the whole point of the finale of season 1 was how no matter what, it's never too late, how people can still be saved, that's what they do with Viktor, it is all about healing and no we are abandoning that for what??? Getting gooed?! I hate this ending. I think that this trope needs to be killed and buried just like the characters they want to kill themselves.

But the ending is not even my main issue with this series. What is this show's issue with side characters? They just hate anyone who isn't Lila and the original Umbrella Academy. Why did we have to kill Luther's girlfriend in season 3? Why couldn't Fives have another love interest that wasn't the daughter of the people he killed AND the wife of his fucking brother? Also, Five felt weird this entire season, he lacked his quips and his mannerism and everything that made him Five, he just felt like a kid who was a genius or something except he never does anything particularly smart. He is just a completely different character, an emo kid who doesn't care about his family and is more interested in getting laid? Ugh. Back to the side characters, though, they implied that Viktor was having relationship issues in this season and yet that goes nowhere. Klaus and his sexuality is treated as a joke to the point of it being insulting and finally we have the final one. The big one. Ben and what's her face? I swear she gets like 10 lines max in the show despite being integral to the plot and 8 of them are spoken to Ben or about Ben. I've seen a lot of bad cases of female characters being just objects to their male counterparts but YIKES. That one was something. I'll talk more about this about my proposed rewrite for this season, however.

Also, Reginald does not deserve forgiveness. This is a Reginald hate account. Bro traumatized his son. The take away shouldn't be "maybe your abusive dad wasn't bad" the take away should be "your abusive dad doesn't deserve your forgiveness, get the fuck away from him, you don't need him, be with the people you love who love you back." Ah, found families, how I love you baby.

Those are my overall complaints. Everything else in this season hust felt pointless. You could have written this season to be 2 episodes long without really losing anything. The jokes were too childish, the choreography was ok I guess and the music (save baby shark, whoever decided to do that bit, I'm outside your house with a shotgun, don't worry, I just wanna talk) was the best part.

#the umbrella academy #tua #tua s4

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momentsofamberclarity · 9 months ago

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don't call me nonnie.

i know that not all proshipping is sexual, but it's still portraying pedophilia/incest positively

the bullet point lists were because i just wanted to separate each sentence into a different point because they were all sort off disconnected

the "they're just pixels" argument doesn't work because every single thing you see on a screen is a bunch of pixels if you zoom in, with that logic every image posted online is "just pixels", including actual csem

Fine, I won't call you that. But riddle me this, anon; why am I showing you more respect than you're showing me? Why have you told me to go fuck myself multiple times in place of having a discussion?

Here's the thing ... the only way you will find csem is if you go looking for it. You are not going to find csem on tumblr because it would break community guidelines. But fictional characters under the age of 18 do not count as csem and numerous child protection services have stated that those are just art.

Likewise, the only way you're gonna find fanfiction of 'kids being raped' as you keep putting it, is if you're trying to be a white knight and seek those writers out purposefully so that you can harass them like you're doing with me. Because most of the proshippers I know tag their stuff so that it can be found by the target audience and blacklisted by the people who don't want to see it.

And here's the thing about proshipping which I think is the biggest hurtle of the anti community. Proship doesn't mean 'I support active sexual predators hurting real living children'. 'Pedophile' as a term is meaningless at this point because everyone on the internet uses it to describe anyone they disagree with. You're better off using predator and paraphile. Predators are the dangerous people who don't give a shit about fiction because they have full-intent to harm others. But the majority of paraphiles? They're no-contact and/or fiction-only on their paraphilias, or they do consenting adult things with their consenting adult partners that are roleplaying with boundaries set in place for a reason.

I've been on the internet since before the term 'proship' even popped up. Back before that we called it Dead Dove, Don't Eat and Don't Like, Don't Look. 'Proship' as a term has the same meaning as those old ones, it's just shorthand. It means 'I support the rights of others to ship whatever they want in their own space regardless of whether or not I like or condone it because I don't know them and it does not involve me'. You don't like the content? You have a block button and you are encouraged to use it to curate your own online experience just like the artists and authors posting that content are.

The fact that you're still here means you're hearing some of what I'm saying and possibly having a hard time coming to terms with it. Believe me, I went through a period of morality crisis between my bpd and ocd telling me that fiction could affect reality and I thought that thinking bad things ( like intrusive thoughts ) made me a Bad Person. But thoughts are just thoughts.

So if you want to come off anon and actually have a conversation with me, I promise I'm not going to name-drop you. The purpose of this blog has only ever been about clearing up misconceptions about proshippers and paraphiles because I used to be uninformed about those topics myself until my partner and another super close friend explained them to me in a way that I could comprehend. And that is that thought crime doesn't exist. And fictional characters don't have autonomy and therefore cannot be abused by your thoughts, your art, your writing, etc.

But if we did away with fictional expression of paraphilias in a healthy artistic manner ( like KOSA is currently trying to do ), the world would be a more dangerous place for potential victims, because paraphiles and predators are always going to exist whether you choose to accept that or not. My own abusers never faced charges, only one of my partners' abusers is rotting in jail, and that is the reality of this fucked up world that we're living in. People with niche fetishes aren't monsters - most are even too embarrassed to talk about them. Active sexual predators online who hop into the DMs of minors to be creeps are a real world problem. And that has nothing to do with the proship community's philosophy of 'ship and let ship'.

#proship safe #paraphile safe #anti censorship #anti harassment #ambers.ask

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lieslab · 8 months ago

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Look after you

꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎ ꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎

Pairing: Han Jisung X gn reader

Summary: Your boyfriend thinks the two of you should break up because he's not good enough, but you have other plans.

Genre: Comfort/hurt

Word Count: 1.5K

Trigger warning: Anxiety, social anxiety, self-hatred, and insecurities.

A/N: To whom requested the people pleasing drabble, I'm currently drafting it. I said I wanted to be more active here in another post and I meant it. In the meantime, here's this while I finish that. I love Han so much and I hope he knows how loved he is.

_ _ _

“I think we should break up.”

Those words shattered your world. There was love in your eyes when you looked at Han Jisung. The moment he uttered those words, it blew out like a candlelight. A lump began to fill your throat and invisible icy fingers curled around your lungs.

“What do you mean?” You weakly got out.

The two of you were on opposite sides of the couch. Han had been off all day, but you had ignored it. When you tried to ask a few times about the strange avoidant behavior, he brushed you off and insisted it was nothing.

His sudden declaration blindsided you. It was a knife in your back. Flipping through the memories of the past few months, you weren’t sure what went wrong. You couldn’t think of anything that was different.

The two of you got along great. There had been a few mishaps here and there, but those had the potential to occur in every relationship. They were normal and they always smoothed over. Your life with Han seemed to be pretty good, so why now?

“I can’t be with you anymore. I’m sorry, but I-I can’t.” He struggled to hold back his tears. He blinked rapidly trying to hide the glossy sheerness, but it was too late.

All day he had been fighting with himself about this situation. He didn’t like the thought of breaking up with you, but he didn’t know what else to do. How were you supposed to date someone when your own brain was against you?

When you were poisoned with self-hatred and your brain was on the verge of imploding, how could someone handle loving another? When you were lulled to sleep with whispers about how they were better than you in every way. When anxiety gnawed bits of brain and tunneled its way through intestines and created gut-wrenching stomach aches, it wasn’t healthy in the slightest.

Your head spun with multiple questions. So many things were on the tip of your tongue. Despite the sudden betrayal, you managed to push out one. “Why?” Your own voice sounded like a stranger’s, shrill and high-pitched.

“Because…” The lump in his throat was starting to expand. He sniffled as his nose began to run. The maroon fabric of his hoodie wiped across his eyes. “Because I’m not good enough for you.”

The words were like a baseball bat to your heart. The spider-webbing of cracks began to inch across the surface. Your face fell as you took in Han’s appearance.

He refused to meet your eyes and kept his gaze on the floor. The ends of his hoodie sleeves were curled and bunched up around his hands. He sniffled again and squirmed beneath your gaze.

“You’re not good enough for me?”

He shook his head as a tear fell. “You-” His voice wobbled again. He had to clear his throat before he continued. “You deserve someone so much better than me. I can’t compete with what you have.”

“I don’t think I understand what you mean.”

“You’re more beautiful than I’ll ever be. You’re smart and you’re confident. You know what you want and you know what you’re doing with all of this.” He gestured around the room. “You know how to live and I don’t.”

“I-I just feel like I’m worthless. I’m always so anxious and worried all the time. You deserve someone who is confident and sure about themselves. You deserve someone who’s smarter than me. Someone who is better and someone who isn’t always so busy.”

“It’s not fair,” he managed to get out, “that I have to be away from you all the time for work. You deserve someone who’ll be around to support you all the time. I can’t be that kind of person for you.”

You gathered your thoughts trying to come up with a response. Sucking in a deep breath, you shut your eyes before you reopened them. You shook your head, “no.”

“No?” He echoed.

“No. You don’t get to dump me because you think you’re not good enough for me. You don’t get to be the person who decides that because that’s not fair.”

“But, I-”

“Your brain might work against you, so I’m here to tell you that it’s wrong. I will sit here and combat every awful thing it says even if it takes me hours. You want the truth? The truth is that I love you and I will always love you.”

“You don’t get to see all the good about yourself. You don’t see how much you make me happy. You make me want to live. You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met inside and out. You write the most amazing songs and I love the way your brain works.”

“There’s something magical about you, Han Jisung.” You sniffled and sat up a little straighter. “So no, no we’re not breaking up because you can’t get rid of me that easily. If I let you go and if I let you believe the things your brain was telling you about yourself, what kind of person would that make me?”

The tears filling up in Han’s eyes finally fell. Nobody had ever said anything like this before. There was nothing, but fierce determination in your eyes. You were ready to do whatever it took to change his mind.

“Why do you care so much?”

“That’s what you do when you love someone, you fight their battles with them. You support them through thick and thin. You love them despite their flaws and their scars. You’re like my sun and I will not let you leave me alone in the dark. Do you hear me?”

His bottom lip quivered. He pawed at his eyes again and smeared tears along his cheeks in the process. The metaphor touched something in his heart. He was about to break down crying when you crawled across the length of the leather couch to close the distance between the two of you.

You wrapped your arms around him and pulled him into your chest. You were expecting him to break down due to the intense emotions, but he didn’t. He sucked in shaky breaths instead. Warm salted tears coated your chest and soaked in the fabric of your t-shirt.

You placed your cheek along the top of his head and began to rub his back. “No matter what happens, I won’t let you go. I won’t let you fight this alone. I’ll always be here when you need me.”

He didn’t speak and he didn’t have to. You already knew everything he wanted to say. He made it very clear in the way he squeezed his arms around your waist and clutched you tighter. He held onto you like you were a raft in an ocean and in some ways, you were.

Floating on an ocean of insecurities and being pulled away by the tide of abhorrence of oneself. It wasn’t up to everyone else to fix you, but a little self-assurance never hurt anyone. It was easier to breathe when the people around you helped support you.

Anxiety was always a challenge. When you couldn’t control everything and the future was too scary, everything fell apart. Shredding you from the inside out, too much awareness, you were doomed. A constant weight on your shoulders, a constrictor squeezing your lungs, and non-existent bugs burrowing into your stomach.

Self-doubt could be isolating. In a world full of social anxiety, when everyone was against you until proven otherwise, life was hard. A constant inner battle of turmoil and high-strung emotions that left the affected person exhausted.

Going outside felt impossible at times. You never knew who you could trust. They say that even salt looks like sugar and it couldn’t be more true at times. Getting to know you was one of the hardest things he had ever done.

To muster up the courage to approach a stranger and start a conversation. To some, it seems so silly. Conversations are a part of everyday life. The truth is that you can’t get very far without being able to communicate with others.

For others, it is the bravest thing in the entire world. A measly ant-hill to some can be Mount Everest to others and there’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone has different battles and life has an array of challenges for everyone.

Despite everything, you wouldn’t let go of Han. Not now and not ever. Love was something you didn’t take lightly. Sure, it wasn’t a marriage, but it felt like one to you. You gave your everything in romantic relationships and you wouldn’t stop now.

You clutched Han tightly and you wouldn’t let go. You’d sit here with silent reassurance as long as you needed to. You wouldn’t let his anxiety win this time. You wouldn’t let it push you away. You’d stay here until the end of time if he’d allow it.

Right here, wrapped up and intertwined with each other, there was nothing like it. As far as you were concerned, this was your home. Han Jisung was your home and there was so much love inside your home.

| ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ |

Masterlist

Taglist, and inbox rules

#stray kids #stray kids fanfic #stray kids drabbles #kpop fanfic #han jisung #han jisung fic #han jisung fanfic #han jisung stray kids #stay

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3mcwriting · 2 years ago

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Any Fan's Dream, Part 7

Any Fan's Dream Masterlist

Synopsis:

When you look around and see Avengers Tower in front of you and Peter Parker beside you, you wonder how the hell you managed to get into the MCU.

Taglist: @secretly-sirens, @zeeader, @imdoingathingmom, @x-theolivia, @ainsley-official, @huntress-artemiss, @hoohoohope, @ourgoddessathena, @wiintaersoldier

Sorry if I missed anyone, please just message me again and I'll add you.

Rhodey stood across from Sam, gesturing as he talked, "Secretary Ross has a Congressional Medal of Honor, which is one more than you have."

Sam's arms were crossed as they debated. "So let's say we agree to this thing, how long is it gonna be until they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?"

"117 countries want to sign this. 117, Sam, and you're just like, 'Nah, it's cool. We got it'."

"How long are you gonna play both sides?" Sam asked.

Your eye darted back and forth between the two of them, feeling panic begin to build in your chest as it played out exactly like in the movie.

You tore your gaze away from the arguing men and looked at the woman was seated beside you on the couch. After the Secretary had left, everyone had moved to a living room in the Compound, you were on the couch, seated next to Tony who was laying down with his hand on his face. Nat had moved to sit next to you in the unoccupied space.

"You sure weren't afraid to speak your mind." Natasha said, "And your opinions seem clear as to what side you're on."

You shook your head, "I'm not on any side. I just want you guys to stick together and get the respect you deserve."

Vision's voice grabbed everyone's attention. "I have an equation."

Sam turned to look at him. "Oh, this will clear it up."

"In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially." Vision continued. "During the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate."

Steve, who had the Accords opened in his hands, spoke up, "Are you saying it's our fault?"

Vision looked around, "I'm saying there may be a causality."

You wrapped your arms around yourself, listening as he went on.

"Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict...breeds catastrophe. Oversight...Oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand."

"Boom." Rhodey said, feeling that his point had been proven.

Natasha looked past you to the man laying down, "Tony, you're being uncharacteristically non-hyperverbal."

"It's because he's already made up his mind." Steve and you said, simultaneously.

You knew that line. Of course you knew that line.

If you didn't find a way to change Tony's mind, then they would split.

Tony glance at you, then directed his gaze toward Steve. "Boy, you know me so well." Tony got up from the couch, and began to walk to the kitchen which was only a few short paces from the living room. "Actually, I'm nursing an electromagnetic headache. That's what's going on, Cap. It's just pain," he grabbed a coffee mug, "discomfort. Who's putting coffee grounds in the disposal? Am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?"

He tapped a tablet on the counter, and you winced when you saw the image projected.

"Oh, that's Charles Spencer, by the way. He's a great kid, computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA, had a floor-level gig planned at Intel for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul, before he parked it behind a desk. See the world."

You could see the haunted look on Tony's face, one that told you, 'people are dead. And it's because of us.'

"Charlie didn't want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn't go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where? Sokovia."

You watched as Wanda looked down, the way multiple of them ducked their head in guilt.

"He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. We won't know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass." Tony took a drink from his coffee, "There's no decision making process here." Raising his voice, he said, "We need to be put in check. Whatever form that takes, I'm game. If we can't accept limitations, if we're boundary-less, we're no better than the bad guys."

"You are nothing like the bad guys." Heads turned to face you, eyes directed on you. It was a bit intimidating, having the Avengers stare at you, but you didn't regret your words. "There will always be someone who needs saving, but nobody can save everyone. The deaths are not your fault. Please," you looked at Tony. "You've saved the world. Multiple times. Yes, people died, and yes, that is horrible. But that doesn't mean you give up, you keep fighting for a better tomorrow and one day there will be one. You are heroes."

Steve nodded his agreement, "Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don't give up."

"Who said we're giving up?" Tony questioned.

"We are if we're not taking responsibility for our actions. This document just shifts the blame." Steve asserted.

"I'm sorry, Steve. That is dangerously arrogant." Rhodey interjected, "This is the United Nations we're talking about. It's not the World Security Panel, it's not S.H.I.E.L.D., it's not Hydra-"

"No, but it's run by people with agendas, and agendas change."

To your dismay, the debate took a far-too-similar path as it did in the movies. Even with you trying to keep them together, trying to make them see all the ways they helped the world, you weren't sure that you had managed to make any difference at all.

At the end, Tony had told you that he would be driving you back to the Tower. The drive back was awkward, filled with unspoken words and lingering questions. You found yourself looking out the window the entire drive back, unable to look at Tony lest he see the water beginning to pool in your eyes. To distract yourself, you watched in the rear-view mirror as the self-driving car you had taken earlier, followed the two of you as the ride went on.

It was hard, knowing that your insignificance in your previous world had still managed to wind up in this world. You were lost, how were you supposed to keep the team together when everything was trying to pull them apart?

Tony dropped you off at your apartment, and when you bid each other goodbye, you couldn't help but notice the tension between you two. You hated it because only days earlier you were hanging out with him while the two of you enjoyed music and each other's company. You entered the apartment, grateful for the key "your" mom had given you, glad that you wouldn't be seen breaking down in tears in the hallway.

After locking the door closed behind you, you ran to your room. You shut that door too, happy that "your" parents were working so they couldn't question your actions.

You collapsed on your bed, curling into the blankets in a search to find some form of comfort. You lip trembled, thoughts spiraling.

How were you going to keep them together? Was the team supposed to stay together? What happens if you you're just as useless in this world as you were in yours? What happened if you changed Civil War and they stay together and you end up screwing up Endgame? Actually, you probably didn't have to worry about that based on how little your choices seemed to affect anyone. You were insignificant. Everyone was going to hate each other because you couldn't do fucking anything.

Your eyes had begun to well up, but they finally spilled over, cascading down your face. The trails of water left paths showing your sadness, your frustration. Your body shook with sobs, your breath quickening.

"(Y/N)?! (N/N) ARE YOU OK? (Y/N)!"

Peter's voice interrupted your sobbing, sometime while you shifted around on the bed, you had butt-dialed Peter.

You tried to calm your breathing so you could respond, but that just ended up choking you up more as more cries spilled out of you.

"I'll be right over."

You didn't even hear him, had no clue he was coming over until Peter had burst into your room.

He hurried over to you, forehead creased in concern, "(y/n), what can I do?"

You tried to say something, anything, but your breathing had only gotten faster and your sobs were choking you and you needed air you needed to breath-

Peter's concern of making you uncomfortable was shoved aside when he saw you descend into panic. He grasped your hands in his, causing you to look at him through wet eyelashes, vision blurred.

"(y/n)," Peter tried to keep his voice calm and even, even as his worry began to spiral. "I'm right here. You're ok. Try to relax. Slow down your breathing."

You tried to follow his directions, but his words weren't able to penetrate the poisonous words you had thought to yourself earlier.

Peter began to panic as your sobs only got worse, he didn't know how to help you. Was he supposed to hug you? Give you space? Ask how you were doing? Distract you? Questions swirled within him and he could feel his own breathing quicken, but he forced himself to relax because you needed him.

He wrapped his arms around you, holding your shaking body. Your arms draped loosely at your sides as you cried. He rubbed your back, knowing that that helps him relax so he hoped that it would work for you too.

He talked to you softly, hoping to get you to calm down your breathing. "Ned and I built a new Lego today," he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say, but continued to ramble. While he did, he kept on rubbing your back with one hand while the other hand grasped your limp hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

The two of you stayed like that for a while, time lost to both of you. At some point, he had moved the two of you. He was sitting up against the headboard, you beside him. Your arms were wrapped around yourself in a desperate search for comfort and he pulled you closer and wrapped his arms around you in a hug, arms encircling you to shield you from the world.

Your breathing had slowed, but your sobs were still pouring out of you frequently. There were just too many things you had to think about, so much you had to change. Your thoughts drifted to Infinity War, when Peter would disappear in front of Tony's eyes, crying that he didn't want to go. That only made you cry harder.

"It's okay, I'm right here." Peter said. He continued to try to calm you, to try to make you feel better because it was breaking his heart to see someone so amazing break into pieces.

He's right here. You repeated in your mind, right now, everything is fine. I need to make sure it stays that way.

You forced yourself to calm down, telling yourself that you were strong and you could make a change. That, along with Peter's continued rambling helped center you, thoughts not falling to hell but managing to stay anchored to Earth.

It took you a while, but eventually you were able to stop your crying, the occasional hiccup was the only thing remaining.

"Thank you, Peter," you managed, voice raspy. You wiped your face, trying to dry it with the soft blanket beside you.

"Anytime," Peter told you honestly. "Do you...do you want to talk about it?"

You were ready to refuse but...

Telling him about the Avengers splitting up wouldn't reveal any otherworldly knowledge. You could ask for help, couldn't you?

You worried what the unforeseen consequences could be, but in the moment, you needed to talk to someone about it and you just prayed that your choices wouldn't come back to haunt Peter.

"The Avengers-" you stopped, hiccupping. "They're fighting. And I'm worried that they're going to break up."

Peter's eyes softened. He knew how much you cared about the people on that team, how much you idolized them and adored them. It was clear now why you had broken down, he knew a little about your home life. Your parents worked often, and while they loved you and praised you, they're jobs kept them away from you. In high school, you had a large group of friends. You had surrounded yourself with good people, and they had filled in that loneliness in your home-life.

But when you graduated and a vast majority of your friends left to explore the world before college, pursuing their dreams, you had stayed behind for your internship with Tony Stark. You had won the internship after winning a contest at your school. That internship included schooling and at the end of it you would receive a degree. You had been undeniably proud of your friends, but that pride didn't dissuade the loneliness from creeping back within you when they had left.

Peter had met you when you were a senior and he was a freshman, you had tutored him through a couple of classes. He had always been intelligent, but you were smart on a whole other level. The way you looked up to the Avengers, he looked up to you. After his tutoring was done, the two of you had kept in contact and he was happy to say that you were a good friend of his.

The Avengers were like family to you, and with the possibility of that family splitting up, of course you were upset.

"What can I do to help?" Peter asked.

You thought about it, wondering if maybe, just maybe he could help you think of a solution.

"I have to keep them together," you stated. "But I don't know how."

Peter nodded. "I'll help you in any way I can."

And then he smiled at you and it was real, and kind, and determined.

You just couldn't stop the faint smile that rose to your face as he asked you questions, brainstorming with you. The two of you stayed there for hours, tossing ideas back and forth and although you were stressed about the upcoming events, you were happy for the person who had been thrown your way to help.

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worriedvision · 2 years ago

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Here is part 2 of this fic! It's the one where Alhaitham and Reader were friends since they were young and there's a bunch of feelings that get tweaked about. I'd recommend reading the first part because it would bring the background to this part! I was planning on this being the last part but of course I had to leave it was a multiple ending thing because it would start to get way too long. Be patient, they'll come soon!

You decided to sign up for one of those speed date programmes. It was risky, and you heard the eligible bachelor's were downright creepy or some form of red flag, but you wanted to find someone that you could be with. Since your last conversation with Alhaitham, you never saw him in his usual spots. You knew he was trying to avoid you, and it just solidified that you ruined any chance of keeping the connection you had with him.

Your speed dates didn't go well, but neither did the other people looking for men. You land up making good friends with quite a few people, bonding over the stories you had of the guys at the speed dates that objectified their "potential trophy" as one man stated. As great as it was to make friends, and finding hobbies through them, you still yearned for a lover.

You couldn't stop thinking of him, and you thought getting someone to be a rebound would somehow help.

"Kaveh, why did you gather us here?" Cyno asks, Tighnari nodding in agreement as he looks over for a response.

"I want you two to sign up for that speed dating-"

"Hold on, none of us need that..." Tighnari trails off, Cyno crossing his arms and looking away. "What's this for?"

"Fine, I'll explain." Kaveh sighs, sitting down. "I've noticed Alhaitham sulking around the bar at the time the speed dating is taking place. If I was to guess, it has something to do with one of the people there."

"I would rather not find out how much strength he has by testing his jealousy." Tighnari protests. "He's a fully grown man, surely he knows how to make a move."

"...you two better keep the rest of this to yourselves, got it?" Kaveh asks, continuing before he can get a rejection. "I overheard a confession from his childhood friend and all-time crush. Trust me, it's obvious from everyone but them. He rejected them, explaining he wasn't interested in a relationship for the reason of needing to maintain one."

"I'm still not...oh." Cyno realises, sharing a look with Tighnari. "How about we both go along together. That way, if Alhaitham does try something, it'll be two against one. Not that I think he'd try that in public." Cyno suggests, Tighnari finally accepting it.

There was one day you couldn't go along to the session, work particularly hard, and the next session you saw Alhaitham with one of your friends. It was clear he was there as a successful match. As much as you didn't want to admit it, it hurt to see him courting someone after he told you he was emotionally unavailable for social reasons.

"Good evening." You hear a deep voice say, waving you over. "Care to join me?"

You decide to take a seat in between Tighnari and Cyno, the seat Cyno patted. You made friends with them, finding it nice that you were able to talk to them without looking for the chance to get away.

"Oh, _!" Your friend exclaims, hugging you before ordering a coffee. "The one time you weren't here, a handsome man came in!"

"I'm happy to see you've got someone." You smile softly, knowing for a fact Alhaitham was staring at you. They walk back after getting their coffee, Alhaitham engaging in conversation once again.

"Still not over him?" Cyno asks, you nodding. "Don't force it. From our conversation, I can tell you don't need to do speed dating to find someone."

"I have to agree with Cyno here." Tighnari hums out, taking a quick glance. "He's certainly moved on quicker than you have."

"I mean, it was one sided." You brush off. "It only makes sense that he was able to move on. Maybe after my confession, he decided to give romance a chance." You shake your head, groaning out. "I shouldn't be telling you two about my failure of a romantic life."

"I find it quite interesting." Cyno reassures. "Well, if you are interested, feel free to join me at a table any time I'm here. Due to work, I can't come often." Cyno nods, leaving for his work after waving goodbye to you.

"Oh, that's so sweet of you!" You head your friend exclaim. Looking over, you can see Alhaitham with a small gift for his date. Alhaitham responds with a simple 'I know', which does actually go well, before walking out with his date - walking them home.

"He isn't worth crying over." Tighnari grumbles, turning to you. "I think Cyno is a better match for you. And I'm not just saying that to be a wingman, I know Cyno is better with these things." Tighnari reassures you, taking his leave after finishing his drink.

The bartender looks over the moment the door closes, and they decide to throw in their opinion for free.

"The whole time Alhaitham's date wasn't looking at him, he was stealing glances at you." The bartender states. "He was here the time you weren't, and I think he was looking for you."

"So he's decided to use a friend of mine to find out where I am?" You raise a brow, thoroughly confused. "He wouldn't do that."

"Whatever you say... Just saying, he looked bothered when you were talking to your new pals."

#gender neutral reader #genshin impact imagines #angst #tighnari #cyno #alhaitham #alhaitham x gender neutral reader #alhaitham x reader

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cog5 · 5 months ago

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Ludo-Labo

Running and playing pre-written adventures, I don’t think I always clue in to what makes an encounter effective, not “in the moment”, anyway. I’m too focused on the moment itself to parse why what’s on the page is translating into a good time. After reviewing the text, post-session, one key ingredient seems to be whether or not the text is providing enough information to telegraph danger to players. It’s not something I always do consistently well in my own writing, but it’s something I’m more mindful of lately.

For example, I’ve just completed edits on a hazards table, where players encounter a room full of crates filled with dangerous chemicals in a laboratory setting. Originally, I focused on the hazards themselves, describing the effects of the chemicals, and what happens when the players are already exposed to the danger.

We're talking about room #5 here.

On the second pass, I made sure to include simple details, to alert the players to potential danger, or a way for them to react, or avoid the danger, even if they were unsure of the specific outcome.

Let’s have a look at each.

Chemical Hazards (1D6):

Incendiary Tar: A dark sludge slowly expands, creeping into adjacent rooms. The slightest spark will set the mud ablaze. This one is fairly visual, easy for players to spot. There’s nothing really to tell them that it is tar, or that it is flammable, perhaps an odor could be written into this, to make it clearer. But the fact that the tar expands slowly gives players time to react, even if they do throw a fireball at it.

Explosive Reaction: Chemicals stored here are marked as highly volatile, the slightest impact will cause a violent explosion. Here, the danger is much more sudden, explosions happen fast! Big warning signs filling the room are easy to notice and avoid. Perhaps the players could use this knowledge to their advantage, setting a trap.

Noxious Gases: Spending any time in this room will cause one to become light headed, intense nausea is soon to follow. While not immediately evident, the gradual sickness helps to alert players to a more severe outcome, allowing them the chance to escape the area.

Acid Puddle: Recklessly treading through this room, the soles of one’s boots will be eaten away after a few minutes. This one is probably the least telling, and speaks more to the GM than the players, leaving more work for the GM to make it fair. I’ve not explicitly written what the hazard is here, or how it might be noticed. But the stakes are not as high either. It takes some time for the acid to take effect, and, at worst, they are out of a pair of shoes. Still, I’ll admit, it’s the worst of the bunch.

Oxidizing Vapor: A pungent, yellow cloud fills the air. All metal will rust after a few minutes of exposure. A tell that’s a bit more overt, featuring sight and smell, to alert players in multiple ways. The stakes are higher here, strolling through this room is likely to damage a players armor and weapons, making them less effective overall.

Liquid Nitrogen: A pale mist wisps across the floor. The air becomes colder upon approach. Exposed skin will become frostbitten within seconds of stepping into this room, joints will seize soon after. Pale mist on its own might not be much of a warning, depending on where players encounter it, but given that this is an indoor area, that should put them on alert. If that’s not enough, the addition of increased cold as players approach should make it especially clear that this is not a normal room.

I could probably keep editing forever, but at the moment I’m feeling good with my progress on this kind of thing. Being able to identify that things could be better is a good place to be. I’m willing to bet that it means things will be even better on the next adventure.

I'd love to see some good examples of telegraphed danger in TTRPGs, hit me up with your favorites!

#ttrpg #dungeon23 #ttrpg maps #dnd #indie ttrpg #ttrpgs #osr #drawing #ttrpg art #inkdrawing

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uninformedartist · 1 year ago

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Legit feels like Viv can’t get a grasp on the lore of her own show. She just can’t commit to an idea. The idea of hell having rings/circles is not new. It’s been out there since the actual Middle Ages and it pretty standard. But Viv both does and doesn’t want to use the particulars of that mythology?

If Viv wants to do her own thing entirely that’s cool but it honestly feels like she can’t decide if she wants to be “accurate” to biblical mythology (not that Dante’s Inferno counts as biblical, it’s bible fan fiction) but also doesn’t really care about being consistent??

It’s just really hard to be invested in the world when the creator can’t seem to give us a clear or well thought out idea of how that world works :/

Exactly. It has always been a problem with Viv and building lore for her projects. Biggest to me was her Zoophobia universe before helluva, nothing really makes sense in that world it feels more like a bunch of OCs that have no business interacting with one another crammed into 1 world.

Like comparing the plot description and the characters in Zoophobia it makes no sense especially the character Damian the devil's son like does hell exist here, a demon realm, the antho characters, then you get actual animal characters, humans, beings that resemble humans etc its a complete mess. The lore/characters/world building is all over the place. It also became more convoluted as time went on eventually leading to it ending.

Its a cycle the repeats itself now in Viv's recent works like helluva and maybe Hazbin. She wants to create something new but the projects she works on has lore behind it (demonology, biblical lore etc). She tries to create lore, a universe and something "nobody has done before" but it falls flat because she is like I always say not a good writer. It was seen in her Zoophobia comic, now helluva and Hazbin potentially. If you reject the foundations of building a believable universe with its own unique lore, the foundations of storytelling and valid criticism you won't succeed. You can't expect much lore and world building from Viv because she denys every chance to better her work, whether its listening to criticism, or personal growth in bettering her writing. She is stuck in the perpetual cycle of clinging to the past. Her characters are designed around the trends of tumblr/internet past which leads to their designs don't match up to their character descriptions at all, she writes a lot of tropes/characters that are fanfiction in nature which isn't bad but as seen in Helluva it became detrimental to her story (this is seen in Stolas as he was 1st an antagonist but is now... whatever he is now).

In closing what you say is all true anon, everything is basically layed out for Viv in terms of lore and world building but she refuses to make a coherent world/lore. And thats because she's sees nothing wrong with her writing, to her her writing is flawless and devoid of any criticism (as seen by her multiple twitter threads). Its beating a broken sack but it is what it is, she isn't willing to change anything even if its at the cost of her shows lore.

#vivziepop critical #helluva boss critical #my post #spindlehorse critical #anon answered

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sophieinwonderland · 1 year ago

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Today We're Talking About Ethics and Dual Relationships!

One more thing that bothered me was an anecdote DIDadoseofreality mentioned where they engineered a scenario that allowed their student, who they were also the therapist of, to talk about trauma in front of the whole class.

Now, in this anecdote, they're sure to make it clear that they asked their student if he was okay participating in this exercise. And the student had allegedly expressed a desire before to be able to talk about his trauma in a way that wouldn't make him feel foolish. So they present this as doing the student a favor.

And maybe that is how the student perceived it.

But... this is also a really uncomfortable power dynamic where your therapist who you share privileged information with is using that privileged information in your classroom to pressure you into sharing traumatic events with all your classmates.

And while the student allegedly gave consent for his teacher/therapist to blog about it the incident later, his therapist is his teacher.

There is a huge power dynamic in play there for pressuring a patient into waiving their HIPAA rights.

And while I sure do hope the teacher/therapist had the presence of mind to at least use a pseudonym for their student/patient and that their student/patient's name isn't actually Zac, it really doesn't matter because anyone in that class or told what happened by people in the class could stumble upon the blog post and now know that Zac's in therapy with their teacher.

Because after describing this event in the class in detail they also thank Zac for letting them tell everyone what Zac did Monday. Which, for a post made 4 days ago, places this incident multiple people know about on October 30th.

Unless some of the details were falsified beyond the name of the students, I'm going to hazard a guess and say that there was only one class anywhere where a student participated in an exercise that followed the exact sequence of events described on that blog, including Zac's specific trauma, on October 30th 2023.

...

I tried doing further research to find out if this was common or if it was even ethical. What I found first was a Quora thread with a bunch of different opinions. Well, the same opinion mostly but from different people.

I wasn't clear on dual-relationships or how they worked, so I decided to do further reading and came across this article. (Since I'm not one to just trust Quora at its word when there are better sources to be had.) Here are some excerpts.

This is not a simple "all dual relationships are bad." There is clearly nuance to this.

But if this relationship could impair their objectivity or competence in their role as a therapist, then they're supposed to avoid that relationship.

Now, one answer in that Quora thread described an example of a therapist-professor relationship working well for them with proper precautions and going to extraordinary lengths to keep those lines separate.

This is clearly not how DIDadoseofreality behaved though.

They used privileged information to influence how they treat their student in the classroom, got their student to open up about a traumatic event in front of everyone, then while having power over their client in their dual relationship as a teacher, they got their client to waive their HIPAA rights and allow their story to be posted on the internet for all to see. And potentially reveal to their classmates that the student is seeing their teacher as a therapist.

These are massive ethical violations.

I frankly would not trust them as a therapist OR a teacher.

If I were Zac, I would be shopping for a new therapist because mine could clearly not be trusted to keep their dual relationships separate.

If I were DIDadoseofreality, I would be looking for a colleague I could recommend Zac to for the same reason. I would also promptly delete my post describing the events of October 30th before a student or someone connected to me in real life identifies me and reports me for what are obviously ethics violation as both a therapist and a teacher.

#syscourse #psychiatry #psychology #therapy #mental health #therapists #pro endo #pro endogenic #disability rights #hipaa #hipaa violations #mental illness #trauma #sysblr #multiplicity #disability #neurodivergent #ethics #ethics violations

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barilleon · 2 years ago

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Three "P"s for Writing NPCs

I’ve been thinking a lot about NPCs, especially within the context of fifth edition (which is where most of my freelance time is spent). Much like a playwright, adventure writers have multiple audiences. The playwright is writing for a director, actors, and eventually the play’s audience. An adventure writer is writing for the game master and the table of players that the GM is running for.

We want a character to be memorable, but so much of that memorability for players won’t have anything to do with us. It’ll be in the voice the GM uses, potential quirks or mannerisms, or a situation created by the die.

For example, one of the most defining features of Knives Out’s Benoit Blanc is his voice, which is all in Daniel Craig’s portrayal. The original screenplay had something else in mind entirely.

Like a playwright, our job as adventure designers is to understand our NPCs as smaller parts of a larger machine. They serve a purpose and are grounded in the reality of the world we’ve built. But they also have to have some kind of pull to them that compels a GM to use them in the first place.

Now, an actor will spend hours upon hours reading through a script, highlighting lines and analyzing their beats and subtext. A GM won’t do that. They need to embody multiple characters in a session, so hey don’t have the time to do a bunch of dramaturgical work to understand every NPC in the adventure.

I say let the GM handle things such as mannerisms, personality, and quirks of speech. As writers, we should be giving our NPCs three things:

A Purpose

A Place

A Pull

Purpose

This is the most important, in my opinion. If an NPC doesn’t have a purpose in the story, they become frivolous, and they’ll likely slow down play. Here are some examples of game-related purposes:

Giving a quest

Teaching a skill

Offering aid

Acting as an obstacle

Showing your players what to do by example

You can also give your character more narrative-focused purposes as well, like:

Reinforcing a theme

Acting as a foil for a PC

Forcing your players to consider their actions

Illustrating consequences of a potential course of action

The best NPC I’ve ever written was S.A.M. for MCDM’s The Workshop Watches (which you can read for free!). S.A.M.’s purpose was very clear, considering it’s not just an NPC— it’s also the dungeon!

S.A.M. acted as the major obstacle for the party throughout the adventure. But on a narrative level, S.A.M.’s questioning of the party’s actions is meant to call the players to do the same. S.A.M.’s arc as a SMART Lab-turned-bipedal robot reinforces the theme of the adventure: how do we define personhood, and what rights are inalienable to those who have it?

Place

A “place” in the story is how the character is grounded in the world. A good character fits into the world you’ve created, because the circumstances of that world have allowed that character to exist in their current form. This connection to the world helps inform the NPC’s decision-making process.

D&D 5e often uses the “Personality, Ideal, Bond, and Flaw” system to give an NPC a place. When players pick up on one of these four traits, they can leverage them to get what they want from an NPC (thereby fulfilling the NPC’s purpose).

S.A.M.’s place in The Workshop Watches is as a curious observer. It does not understand itself or the outside world, and therefore it is bound to make a lot of well-meaning but deadly mistakes.

You can think of the “place” as the stakes this NPC has in the current story. Your NPC might have a son who is fighting in the current war. Maybe they’re a farmer who resents the culture of adventuring that has made their home too volatile to grow crops. Maybe they don’t care if it’s a noble king or a tyrant or the Devil Himself who sits upon the throne so long as they have enough food to take home to their dog.

Pull

“Pull” is something that makes the GM interested in digging into this character. I’ve found the more invested I am as a GM in the NPC I’m playing, the more my players respond to that character. Also, since GMs are players too, as writers we should make NPCs that they are interested in playing.

So how can we make an NPC that excites a GM? What is the “pull” that’s going to work for this?

I like to use the word pull because the thing that grabs me most about a character is tension. The character may want something that conflicts with their place or with their purpose. S.A.M.’s purpose is to stop the party from getting to the deepest part of the lab, but S.A.M. also wants to be helpful and make new friends (who just so happen to be interested in exploring the lab). S.A.M. wants to go out and see the world, but its place is in the lab. It doesn’t know how to exist in the world. It doesn’t understand basic concepts like, “people die when they are killed.”

One character I loved in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist was Fel’rekt Lafeen, a good-aligned drow gunslinger who serves in the mercenary group Bregan D’aerthe. In Fel’rekt’s story I saw a trans drow who had found his family in the mercenary group. He is fiercely loyal to his found family, but sometimes his job causes him to act against his alignment, something he resented. As a transmasc dude, the themes around Fel’rekt resonated with me, which is, I believe, why players at my table always end up taking a liking to Fel’rekt. I was pulled to his story, and it makes him seem more real in my eyes and my players’ eyes.

Using This as a GM

When I run a major NPC for my tables, I take note of that NPC’s Purpose, Place, and Pull and use them to build out the parts of the character that are my responsibility to build. These responsibilities include creating mannerisms, voice, and speech patterns and improvising their decision-making.

I run S.A.M. like a stereotypical robot: stilted speech with alien inflection, no contractions unless it learns them from the players, and a large vocabulary from the corpus of academic texts it must have been trained on.

One of the quirks I give Fel’rekt is mirroring (something I do with my guy friends). He is always trying to mirror the mannerisms of the other men of Bregan d’Aerthe. He uses expressions he learned from Jarlaxle and his friend Krebbyg. I always describe him doing the same or similar actions as any of the drow he happens to be with. One day when I run Dragon Heist I hope he’ll find a player character to bond and look up to enough to mirror.

Final Thoughts

There are a few other tricks we, as writers, can communicate our NPCs without entirely stepping on our GM’s toes or making them read a ton. Good character art is one of them. Character portraits are just as much a tool for GMs as words.

I try to write art briefs for character portraits that will communicate personality just as much as appearance, which was the case for Bard-Core Brawlers. The portraits for Trifling, the all-girl punk band, showcase the individual styles and personalities of the band members. And Leonardo Boia knocked it out of the park; these pieces help focus my portrayal of the characters just as much as the descriptions I wrote.

Another thing I’d like to see in NPC writing is barks! Like video game barks. Open your NPC’s section with a short quote, maybe an opinion they have on their place or something that demonstrates their pull. I really like how some of the abilities in MCDM’S Flee, Mortals! packets have names that could effectively be used as barks. Queen Bargnot’s abilities have names like “Get in here!” and “What are you waiting for?” This signals to the GM that the queen says these things when activating these abilities, which is delicious flavor baked into the stat block.

#ttrpgs #dnd5e #my blogs

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crimeronan · 1 year ago

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I feel like I would consider myself polyamory agnostic in a way, like I would maybe like for it to happen but I often fear that I don't have the ability to manage even one partnership, let alone multiple relationships, since I am often. So tired. I often find myself idealizing the "late" stage of a relationship when everyone already has settled into what to expect of each other and knows not to take it personally if someone falls asleep mid movie, for example. All this to say, how do you handle your relationship structure as a disabled/chronically ill person? Do you have any advice/thoughts on how it works for you? (I feel like perhaps you have posted about this before and I am just forgetting...)

oh this is a really good question! i'm not sure how relevant my life experience will be to you, particularly given that i started dating all three of my current partners before becoming disabled/crippled. but i am happy to share!

first off -- i 100% get romanticizing the late stage of relationships, sometimes you just need things to be chill and flexible. but i also don't think that this stage necessarily Needs to be reserved for Late Relationships?

like.... the older i get, the more upfront i've decided to be about my needs, especially with new people. granted, a lot of the people i meet these days are either disabled themselves or Get It -- my social circle is mostly queer spoonies in their 20s and 30s + much much older retirees that i hang out with at the local pool.

some people prefer not to be so open so quickly about their limitations, it is hard and scary to be visibly disabled, harder still to ask for help & admit that you might be inconvenient / a burden / take up extra space. this USED to be me until i said. eh. fuck it. after a certain point, wounded pride is just a mental construct

basically, like. when i'm online these days, you'll see me be clear about my limits with strangers - i'll say that if i stop replying to chats or asks, it's not bc i hate you, it's bc i'm tired or forgetful. that i can't guarantee responses to ppl, even people i'm already friendly with. that if my mood is bad or my pain levels are high, i won't engage in much social interaction at All. that my capabilities fluctuate wildly depending on the day and that i cannot be relied upon for consistent scheduling or posting or creative output

i'm similarly open with people irl. it helps that i'm often using mobility aids when i'm talking to people. the mobility aids sorta strip the possibility of pretending not to be disabled. it's kinda the elephant in the room. but it means that i can be like, "as you can see, i am very crippled. i may need flexibility with any plans that we make. due to being very crippled."

if people get upset by this or simply don't have the capacity to deal with it, that is fine! that's not either of our faults, no one's done anything wrong, we're just not in the right circumstances to mesh. i don't get hurt by that personally. i've honestly found that it saves SO much time and hassle and potential drama/heartache to set expectations right away. the only other option is to exhaust myself and end up failing to meet expectations regardless and losing the friendship after burning up a bunch of energy and social bridges. painful and bad!

so like... i can meet a new person, and if they're cool with My Whole Deal, then there's no waiting period before we're familiar enough for flaky behavior. i can be like, "i'm not sure i'll be able to walk tonight, is there a place to sit down at the event?" or "i'm flaring a little, is it okay for us to be kinda flexible about tomorrow's schedule?" or "hey, i'll get back to you as soon as possible i promise, i'm just fogged TO SHIT today [peace sign]" from day 1. it's great

i'm not saying that you Have to do this; i am aware that it breaches like seventeen laws of general social etiquette. i'm just saying that i have met many people who are totally chill about this! as long as you're chill and respectful of the other person as well, you can do whatever you want forever

that was not even relevant to the initial ask, so. AS FOR MY PARTNERS.

i actually don't find that my illness makes it harder to navigate my relationships at all. like i mentioned, i've been with all three partners for Many Many Years now. we know each other Extremely well, we're all extremely turbo autistic, we all have blunt communication down to a science. so saying "i'm not up for doing [x thing] tonight, can we take a rain check?" is super easy.

in fact, my partners can basically intuit a flare from just my physical movements and tone of voice, even before i say a single word. we are VERY familiar with each other.

.....and, alright. after fighting the urge to longpost i've decided to put the rest under a cut. YOU'RE WELCOME 4 THE RETURN OF YOUR DASHBOARDS. "why didnt you put it under a cut so much earlier" read my posts boy

anyway. click readmore to hear me expand upon just how fucking incredible and awesome and kind and generous and loving my People are

there ARE some ways that the illness has made it more difficult for ME to be the kind of partner that i want to be -- for example, i often lack the energy to provide proper emotional support during stressful situations, i have a shorter threshold for pain/irritation than i used to, i can't give 100% of my energy anymore and there have been times when that has resulted in hurt feelings in my partners.

(there have been far more times, though, when nobody's feelings are hurt and it's literally fine.)

in every case where feelings DID get hurt, we've talked stuff out and fixed it within like an hour. bc we all trust each other and know that we don't WANT to hurt each other's feelings. i never ever Ever say things with the intention of wounding my partners, and they know that. they never say things with the intention of wounding me, either, which is why our very blunt "hey, you need to change something you're doing" convos go so well. there's no need to tiptoe, it doesn't hurt me to know what they're thinking or feeling or needing.

sometimes things are just hard and shitty and we're all doing the best we can. this is just part of adulthood i think. especially adulthood in late stage capitalism, etc. the Biggest key to my polycule is that we are all much happier as a family than we would be without each other. the relationships are about as wholesome and healthy and non-toxic and openly communicative as they can get

the Other key aspect when dealing with my illness is that.... being polyamorous has actually been... SOOOOOO MUCH BETTER than being 1) alone, OR 2) in a monogamous relationship EVER WOULD BE?

it is Extremely Stressful for my family to deal with me being this sick. i am aware of that. but i haven't had to bear the brunt of it. not only do they support me, but they also all communicate with and support each other. so no one person is bearing the entire weight of the stress or pain or fear. and i don't have to comfort people over my own symptoms, which most disabled ppl i think would agree is.... exhausting

when i'm too fucked up to speak aloud, let alone support my partners the way i usually do, they ALWAYS have EACH OTHER as a safety net.

this safety net has been beyond vital for me personally, too. round-the-clock care from a single partner is insane and exhausting and leads to unraveling tempers. but when you live with two partners who can help cover your chores and cook and make sure you don't die of your Symptoms (TM)? that's much more doable.

it's HARD, bc literally everyone in the house is disabled to some degree, but it's doable. (it being hard is part of why my QPR is going to move in with us soon. extra hands!)

a few weeks ago, rafi (partner of 7ish years) went on a short vacation to visit family in california. and justice (QPR of 3ish years, best friend of 8ish years) booked an impromptu next-day plane ticket to come stay with me and vi (partner of 11ish years) while rafi was gone. because i was Very Sick. i was flaring horribly the whole time she was here, and she made meals and cleaned and ran errands and picked up medications and returned phone calls and lay in bed with me watching low-stakes tv shows and made sure i didn't stroke out without anyone there to help.

this meant that i basically got to stay in bed the whole time, which was very very Very needed. and vi -- who has a bad back -- wasn't unduly taxed with Literally All of the household upkeep in rafi's absence.

the same principle has applied when i've needed my partners to help cover my share of bills or my household chores or my errands or whatever. since there are three other people involved, the Immediate Support Net is much wider than in a monogamous relationship. especially bc all three of them have their own familial and friend support networks to reach out to!

having more people around is actually awesome for me. i don't feel like i'm expending a lot more energy than i would in a monogamous relationship, but i AM receiving a TON more support and care and love than would be possible in a monogamous relationship.

i guess the conclusion i'd make is: no man is an island, humans are hardwired to build large social support groups, and in a good relationship, you'll receive At Least as much as you give. right now i'm receiving a SHIT TON MORE than i give, and i do often feel pretty bad about it despite knowing it's not my fault.

but these people have chosen to be my family. and if they ever want to stop choosing me then they absolutely can. and if they need more from me or they need something Different from me, then they'll literally just tell me.

(i know they will literally just tell me because all three of them have literally just told me in the past. they're three people i can implicitly trust to say things like "hey, this thing you said made me sad / was unhelpful" and "hey, i'm really stressed out about [x thing], can we make a plan to deal with it?" and "hey, this situation is pretty serious and i know that you don't want to face it but i really need you to. i will take on whatever i can for you and support you the whole time")

so: yes it has been hard to some extent, managing three relationships while also being sick. but it is also a wonderful setup with a million unthought-of advantages & i am much better cared-for and much better AT caring because of it & i fucking Shudder to think how horrific being sick would be without them.

i love my family so much.

#long post #replies #polyamory #this barely scratches the surface bc it's just a few examples of how our dynamics work but hopefully it is clarifying #polyamory is an advantage that has saved my Entire Ass. my partners are wonderful.#all relationships do take work but my three relationships don't take So Much Work that there's no benefit you know #the work is really easy. it's just. you take care of me when i need it and you can. i take care of you when you need it and i can #that's literally it. it's not a hard symbiosis to maintain #autoimmune tag

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