#we did half of the murder mystery in this session

[agentleem]

Leviathan Company: First session

So, I decided to catalogue what happened in the Leviathan Company.

We start with 4 figures assembling for a job posted by the King: Sir Ivan, Anakiir, Zeta, and Lily. Local bandits were harassing a local village, and the King didn't want any of that. Upon arriving to the fear-stricken village, the party's immediate first act is to break into one grumpy dude's home, and just start chilling. Then, the bandits arrived. Ivan convinced the bandits to leave, then as they were leaving, Lily started attacking one, thus making starting the first fight of the campaign.

Now, I'd love to tell you how we won the fight, how we taught this good-for-nothing bandits what's up. Unfortunately, I can't, because we didn't win the fight. We were all level 1, there were lots of bandits, and we rolled very poorly. so, the bandits tied us up and brought us to their leader. So, what else were we to do? Why, we bullshitted our way out. We pretended to be members of a bigger, stronger, much more terrifying clan of bandits called . . . "The Futt Buckerson clan." We said that this clan can, and would wipe these from existence for kidnapping us. However, the gang would forget this, if we were released and they promised to leave the village alone. We rolled well to deceive here, so we were let go.

So we returned, having fulfilled the job after failing. There is only one problem: the DM had only planned that much for the session, so he had to improvise. When we got back, we were met by an aristrocrat named Duke VonDuke, who hired us to protect him at Baron VonBaron's party.

So, the BVB's party happened, we met some wealthy locals, stuff like that, and then the next morning, it was revealed that Baron VonBaron was MURDERED!!!! And that was the session.

[evvyyypeters-fics]

Cigarettes Off the Rooftop

Alive!Violet Harmon x f!reader

Warnings! Smut, porn w/ plot, cigarettes, allusions to Murder House plot, Violet and reader are 18+, semi-public sex, f!ngering, make-outs, semi-proofread, Katy Perry references because I had to ok—

My first full fic after a while! I actually love Violet sm. Depending on how well this is received, I might do more of these (omgilovekissinggirlsilovegirlsomgwlwcore)

The air in Katy Perry’s green grass city was surprisingly chill tonight, the breeze fluttered softly through my hair, and the smell of rain dampening the ground around me filled my senses.

“Pass me that, would you?” She rings out beside me, turning my head, I see a pale, small hand reach out for the half-burnt cigarette hanging from between my lips. Finishing the drag, I pull it between my two fingers and pass it to the girl beside me.

A few months ago, on a whim through my trip in California looking for a college, I met a strange grunge girl whose name was so fitting for such a beautiful, somber flower. I had decided to settle for a university in the area with the degree I was looking for, just so I could be near her. And it was just my luck that we ended up in the same school, coincidentally.

Now we’re practically inseparable, we’ve even started considering renting a place together in some dingy shopping strip, which is the perfect aesthetic for her Tumblr girl vibes. After a session of searching for a place, here we sit on the rooftop of a dingy old building, overlooking the city lights, and people watching. Whilst sharing a random cigarette from my pocket, and a pair of headphones blasting Morrissey, TV Girl and Cigarettes After Sex from her ipod. Occasionally some Ethel Cain too that I had introduced her to, which was met with enthusiasm.

Violet Harmon is a strange and wild girl, but despite that, there is something that draws me so close to her. We’re like magnets, polar opposites, and yet we always find a way to stick together. I guess that’s why I fell in love with her so easily.

“Oh, this bridge is my favorite!” She chirps excitedly, staring down at the ipod for a moment to catch the song as the chorus rises through the wired earbuds. My gaze quickly flicks back to the girl beside me, but I can barely focus on the song blasting in my ear when I catch a glimpse of her dirty blonde hair resting over her shoulders, her brown eyes all highlighted by the warm twinkling of the city draped by night. I watched the flaming glow of the cigarette floating before her lips, before drifting away as an invisible cloud of smoke rises and hazes over her features that I trace.

She was alluring and mysterious, despite knowing her for a few months, there was so much I didn’t know about her. I could feel it, and it wasn’t even as if she was hiding it. It was a part of her that just existed, and all I had to do was ask the right questions, but something about it felt wrong. I didn’t want to ruin the mystery of the beautiful girl in front of me, I trusted that eventually, I would know. I would know it all and when I did, I would love her even more.

My gaze ended on her bright lips, pink as a strawberry (and probably tasted like one too–). Eventually she noticed my wandering eyes and she pulled from watching the street below our dangling feet to my stricken gaze that was drinking her in silently.

“Is there something on my face?” She asks, smirking as she takes another drag of the cigarette, the flame growing and crackling as she pulls it in.

My face becomes quickly flush with embarrassment at her comment, realizing how long I had been staring mindlessly at her.

“N-No, nothing. Sorry.” I stutter out and flick my gaze away from her quickly and onto a building from farther away.

“Geez, I’m just joking, relax a little would you? I don’t mind.” She says, holding the cigarette back out to me between her fingers. “Here, take another drag, you need it.” She nods to me, and I comply, taking a slow drag of the cigarette and savoring its black coffee flavor in my mouth before expelling it slowly into the air in front of me.

Now I could feel her eyes on me, watching me as I took the puff. It made my stomach stir and flutter, feeling those bright, warm colored irises glued onto me, the prospect of them possibly admiring me sent my mind into a frenzy.

“Though, why do you stare at me so much?” She breaks the crisp silence with a more sultry tone, her torso turning closer towards me and making my heart strike with one loud beat that radiates through my entire body. “And you can’t say you don’t, because I notice, all the time–actually.” My heart practically sinks into my chest and nestles, wanting to hide itself.

“It’s just–I..” Choking the words that are filling my head frantically at a 100 miles per hour, not sure of which ones to say, or how to make sense of them. “You’re just really pretty, and I–” My eyes flickering around her finally land back onto her face and see she’s staring at me intensely with a curious, pondering look that makes her eyes look almost hungry and my whole body begins to pound with the rush of my blood.

I pause for a moment, and to my surprise, she takes the moment to carefully lunge forward and press a searing kiss to my lips. Strawberries, just like I thought. Mixed with a strong hint of the cigarette we had been sharing. It was nirvana, kissing her. Her hand reached up and held my face gently and I felt her slender fingers slide under my jawline and hold me in place. The almost burnt cigarette drops off the roof and onto the pavement of the sidewalk, letting out a final crackle before becoming trash. After a few seconds of being stunned into place, I melt into the kiss and press back into her and I can almost feel her smile when she notices the relaxation of my muscles.

I had never imagined in a million years that I would make out with my best friend, Violet Harmon, on the rooftop of some dingy old apartment building. But here I was, pulled off the edge, my legs intertwined with hers as we mutually shoved our tongues down each other’s throats. The smell of her perfume and hair wash filled my nose, the taste of her chapstick and cigarettes, it was all better than my wildest dreams, overbearing and real. I had never even considered that Violet was into girls like that, especially me. But I was proven quickly wrong, especially when her hand slid down from behind my neck, over my shoulder and rested on the small of my back, where she pulled me closer. A tighter grip on under my jaw with her other hand to guide me before her fingers traced my thigh and danced up under my skirt, causing a shaking breath to slip from between my lips. She smirked into the kiss before biting my bottom lip, pressing a soft kiss to make up for the cheeky bite.

Her fingers quickly found the damp fabric of my panties from under my skirt, my hips rolling into them as soon as I felt the warm press. She was just as eager as me, because she wasted no time to slide them halfway down my thighs before testing my swollen clit with small, gentle circles. Our kisses became more hot and passionate, hungry as we ate each other’s face, her other hand still gripping firmly between my face and my neck as I ground my hips into her hand, her hands now slick and sticky with my arousal.

A small moan passes from my lips and into her mouth when she slides in a digit, curling the finger around to find the spongy spot of heaven before dipping in another, her fingers massaging the gummy flesh with precision and purpose as she practically coaxed an orgasm out of me. For someone I had thought was completely straight and pretty virginal, she had quite the experience. But I chalked it up to: personal practice. Regardless, I was blissed out. The hungry kisses that had trailed down from my lips to my face, to my neck–sloppy and wet, to the warm press and massage of her fingers teasing my clenching, pulsing walls and puffy clit, I was truly in heaven.

It didn’t take much longer for a warm gush of come to spurt onto the concrete building beneath us, and the soft flesh of her hand. She placed an endearing and proud kiss on my cheek as she slid away her hand and licked my taste off her fingers, her eyes boring into mine with that fiery gaze I love so much.

Katy Perry was right, California girls really are, unforgettable.

Taglist (you can be added or removed at any time):

@fear-is-truth @xkaisxjazzxsingerx @lemoniiiiiii @jazz-berry @marchsfreak @colinzabelswife @dearlizzies @am3ricanh0rrorwh0re @xrag-dollx @lacucarachapisser @alittleobsessedbitch @n0tonlin3 @bellalove69420

[eriquin]

The Prophetic D&D Game

I'm going to try something new and post bits on tumblr instead of straight to ao3. We'll see how far I get. Tagging @2btheanswertothequestion because she was interested.

Now with Part 2

“All right, Hellfire club, listen up. I’ve got a new campaign for you,” Eddie said as he swept into the room. He’d arrived late and looked harried.

“Yeah, duh,” Gareth said. “We spent all of last week making characters for your Cult of Vecna run.”

“No, not that.” Eddie shoved at the character sheets in front of them all. “Put those away, this is something different.”

“What the hell?” Jeff asked. “If we’re not playing Cult of Vecna then why did you give Grant so much shit on Monday about missing it?”

“Bup-bup-bup!” Eddie said, putting one hand in front of Jeff’s face as the other dropped a lumpy canvas bag onto the table. “I didn’t know on Monday what I know now. He’s still a dipshit for missing Hellfire but that just means he doesn’t get to participate in my newest bout of brilliance.”

The three youngest Hellfire members glanced at each other nervously. “Uh, what’s going on?” Dustin asked cautiously. “What are we playing instead?”

Eddie straightened up and drew a folder from his bag. “Gentlemen! I have been struck by inspiration. This new run came to me in a dream, and I spent the past two days developing it—”

“This is why you skipped?” Gareth crossed his arms. “Dude, you’re going to fail again!”

Eddie gasped with dramatic offense and clasped his hand to his heart. “Just for that, Gareth, you pick your character last!” 

Gareth rolled his eyes. “Oh, you made the characters, too? Christ, you’re such a dictator.” 

“No more backtalk from you,” Eddie said. He flailed in Gareth’s direction with the folder but didn’t hit him. He sighed and grabbed the edge of his throne to pull it closer to the table. “And I didn’t make all the details of the characters. I just started them out. You can pick what they look like and all that jazz.” He opened the folder and took out a stack of papers to pass around.

Mike, sitting just to his left, took the stack from him. “Joe the human fighter? With a spiked club for a weapon? Huh. His charisma’s awful high, isn’t it?” 

“Just share them with the group, Wheeler,” Eddie said. “I’m going to make you all roll to see who picks first, except for Gare-bear here because he’s judgemental.” 

Mike put the stack in the middle of the table and they each picked up a character to read over. The group was quiet for a minute as they read through the pages. Lucas spoke up first. “So what kind of story is it?” he asked.

“I’m glad you asked, Sinclair,” Eddie said. He stood up and started to circle the table. “A terrible tragedy has rocked your little castle town. There’s been a grisly murder, and there’s something almost ritualistic about it. The guards have someone they suspect, but this group of intrepid adventures has information about what really happened. They know that the guards won’t believe them, and they have to act fast if they want to prevent more deaths.”

“So, it’s a murder mystery?” Dustin asked. “That sounds awesome.”

Eddie grinned down at him as he stretched his arms out over the backs of Lucas and Jeff’s chairs. “It is, and it isn’t. There’s definitely something sinister and supernatural afoot.” 

“Wait. Half of these characters are chicks,” Mike said with a sneer. 

“As is half of the population, Wheeler,” Eddie said. He looked completely unimpressed with Mike’s attitude. “What’s your point?”

“There’s only three guys to pick from, and there’s five of us. Do you really expect us to play as girls?” 

Eddie gave him another deadpan look before turning to Gareth. “Gare-bear, you’re no longer picking last. Wheeler is.” 

“Hey!” Mike yelled.

“Ha!” Gareth pointed at him and grinned. “I will admit that this sounds intriguing. You haven’t answered the question about how long we’ll be playing this, though.” 

Eddie scratched his head as he walked back to his throne. “I think it’s probably only a session or two? Depends on what you guys do with it.” He steepled his fingers and peered at his players. “So, are you all in?”

There were some shrugs and a round of silent communication around the table. “I still want to play Cult of Vecna,” Jeff said, “but I didn’t really want to start it without Grant. So yeah, I’m in.” 

“I love murder mysteries, so I’m definitely in,” Dustin said. 

Lucas nodded enthusiastically while Mike let out a very put-upon sigh and threw up his hands as he conceded that it sounded okay. True to form, Eddie made each of them roll to see who went first for picking a character. He snatched up Mike’s die before it landed and tutted at him. “I wasn’t kidding about you picking last, Wheeler.” 

“Aww, come on,” Mike said. “I don’t want to play a girl.”

Lucas had rolled the highest number. He shook his head at Mike. “To be honest, I don’t want to see Mike play a girl either,” he said. “It would probably be offensive.” 

“Point made, Sinclair,” Eddie said. “Who are you picking?”

Lucas grinned and reached across the table for one of the character sheets. “Sadie the thief,” he said. 

“Really? Not going to be a fighter this time?” Dustin asked. 

“Nah, Sadie looked cool. Kind of reminds me of someone, you know?” He picked up the character sheet and set it in front of him. 

“Dusty-buns!” Eddie said cheerfully.

“One time,” Dustin muttered. “You heard my mom call me that one time...”

“You’re up next. Who are you picking?” 

“I’m gonna go for the thief,” Dustin said. “Gaten the halfling. He sounds cool.” 

“I thought you’d like him,” Eddie said. He stood up and leaned over the table to watch as Jeff flipped through the four remaining characters. “What are you thinking, Jeffster?”

Jeff hummed to himself. “It’s an investigation, right? I think I’ll go with Caleb. It says he’s a junior member of the town guard... Could be useful.” 

“Excellent choice, Jeffinald. How about you, Gare-bear? We are down to three options.”

Gareth stood up so he could take a better look at the three remaining character sheets. “Did you write one up for Grant, too? Even though he wouldn’t be here?”

“No, these are just the ones I needed for the story,” Eddie said. “I actually have a seventh PC that will be introduced later in the story, if you all make it that far. If Grant wants, he can join us.” 

“Fascinating,” Gareth said. “What do you think, all? Should I pick the fighter and make Mike speak in a falsetto for the rest of the campaign?” 

Dustin rolled his eyes. “He’s going to be insufferable if you do.” 

“Hey, I’m right here!” Mike said. 

“Yeah, and he’s already insufferable,” Lucas added.

“You guys are just—”

“Well just for that!” Gareth said loudly, slapping his hand down on the table. The freshmen jumped in place. He grinned at their reaction. “I, frankly, have no problem playing a lady. I will be Maya, the lovely magic user. Both her and Natalia seem more interesting than the fighter.” He slid the last two character sheets across the table to Mike.

Everyone turned to watch him evaluate the options. “Wait, Natalia’s an elven cleric? I thought elves couldn’t be clerics.”

“DM’s discretion,” Eddie said. “A lot of those class and ability restrictions are a load of crap. Do we really think elves aren’t in tune with the gods? That’s just dumb.”

“Yeah, you know we have some house rules,” Jeff said. 

Mike as he read the sheets some more. “Wait, these two used to be married?” 

“Engaged,” Eddie said. “Separated because Natalia was too devoted to her career. But maybe there’s something to be rekindled there?” 

Mike let out a noise of disgust. “Ugh, I don’t want to play any romance in D&D. Come on.” He sighed and picked up both character sheets. “What happens to the one I don’t pick? Do they still appear in the story?”

“Yeah, they’ll be an NPC. I’ll voice them and everything.” Eddie smirked. “So make good choices, because you’ll be dealing with the repercussions either way.” 

Back and forth, Mike’s eyes darted between the two characters. “I can’t decide!” he whined. “They’re both good fighters. Natalia is smarter and has spells, but Joe is stronger and has cooler gear.”

“Jesus, just pick so we can get playing,” Dustin muttered. He was already filling in description details for his character. 

Jeff rapped his knuckles on the table to get Mike’s attention. “If you really can’t pick, just flip a coin.”

“Okay, fine!” Mike said, throwing his hands in the air. He picked up his twenty-sided die and tapped the character sheet for Natalia. “High,” he said. Then he tapped the one for Joe. “Low.” He rolled.

It landed on an eight.

“And through the power of random probability, Mike Wheeler will not be questioning his gender identity tonight,” Eddie said as Mike handed him back Natalia’s character sheet. 

“Oh, this means we have no healer,” Gareth said with a frown. “Well, at least Mike’s fighter is a front-liner and will probably die first.” 

“And mine,” Jeff said. “I’m a fighter, too.”

“You have higher dex,” Gareth said. “Get a bow, stand behind Joe the brutal over there, and let him take the hits.” 

“So are we ready to play?” Dustin asked, sounding impatient. 

“Almost, almost,” Eddie said with a broad smile that generally meant he had something planned. “Everyone familiar with their characters? Generally happy with them? Or at least comfortable?” He got a round of nodding heads and noises of agreement. His smile turned a little bit wicked as he said, “Great. Here are the real character sheets, and all their secrets. It’ll be up to you if you want to share them.”

[greymouse42]

Option-12? Cedona?? pls say more about your robot, what story are they from?

They're actually two separate characters! They're both Starfinder PCs!

Cedona was an Android Mystic NPC I took over when I joined an ongoing Against the Aeon Throne campaign — it's how I met a lot of my CA friends!

(Prior to this Starfinder game, the only games I'd been involved in were the 5e homebrew game I was running, and the EXTREMELY crunchy, tactical Path of War Pathfinder and Edge of the Empire campaigns I'd been playing since college. This Starfinder game was. SOOOO~ not that lol.)

The very first Starfinder session I played in was literally a funeral episode for another PC who'd perma-died right before I joined, and by the end of that session we were all bawling lol. 😂 Delightful, 100/10 gameplay experience but SUCH a whiplash for me, it totally opened my eyes to a whole new way of playing.

Cedona was quiet, subtle, graceful, and internally constantly terrified that her programming has been tampered with (it had been 🙃). She gave me my first taste of playing a PC whose backstory was intrinsically tied up in the plot and I've never looked back lol.

She also romanced the other android in the party towards the end of the game and they were very sweet together lol. Have some EXTREMELY old art about it (and the beach episode):

Option-12 was also an Android (Androids are like half-elves for me lol, I just really like them) but she was a mechanic!

She's from a Starfinder oneshot (turned into a twoshot...) that we as players all thought was a murder mystery, but LITTLE DID WE KNOW it was actually game of Among Us, which was the funniest "...hey hey hEY wait a minute!!!!" moment I have ever been a part of. 😂

Option-12 was gleaming chrome and dumb as a doorstop and she died way too soon, but for a brief and shining moment I loved her. 😂😂

[ritzcrackee]

fuck it every dimension 20 season ranked

1. a starstruck odyssey

... we all saw this coming. i don't even have anything to say that i haven't already sleep deprivedly rambled about to my friends. glittery space bitches go brrrrrr

2. the ravening war

AUOERGHHHHH the drama the violence the edge the politics the tragedy THE SHIPS!!!! truly just my favorite people (and matthew mercer i guess) playing my favorite character tropes. it's like they scanned my brain and generated a season based solely on what i would be the most autistic about.

3. misfits and magic

yippeeeee best friends and they like each other and are friends yayyyy

4. the seven

women <333 (but fr tho i just like watching teenage girls be messy and multifaceted)

5. a court of fey and flowers

look i just really like fae shit. fairy rainbow magic boys RISE UP 💪💪💪💪

6. a crown of candy

the little candy people are sad??? what the hell.... (no but this season started off SO STRONG!! would easily be my #1, but i feel like the latter half of the season dragged on and also felt rushed? idk still one of the top tier seasons)

7. fantasy high

i mean what can i say. a solid classic, bad kids live in my head RENT free, fig is my irl girlfriend, uhhhhh kissing them all forever.

8. mice and murder

love a good murder mystery <33. lars vandenchomp my BELOVED!!!

9. fantasy high sophomore year

sophomore year!!!! i feel like this season had some of the highest highs, but also a lot of the lowest lows. which is why it's in the middle of the list lol. the live format made it hard to follow a lot of the time, however, consider, i'm the crab king.

10. the unsleeping city: season 2

CODYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!! between him, iga, and the spooky capitalism moment, i really liked this season. i just,,, haven't really thought about it much. did not stay in my head.

11. neverafter

love the characters, love the vibe, less spooky than i had hoped? but still, as always, a slay

12. the unsleeping city

you may be saying "why is s1 lower than s2" CODY! it's literally just him i just really like cody.

14. coffin run

VAMPIRES!!! AND IZZY AT THE TABLE!!! v good season, a little bit loud for me? but otherwise good job guys 11111/10

13. mentopolis

not much to say abt this season tbh

15. escape from the bloodkeep

i have never read [insert fantasy book here] so i didn't really get a lot of the inside jokes? idk i think i was not the target audience.

16. pirates of levithan

look the zoom format just absolutely kills this season :( i love literally everything else about it but all of the players are so BIG in a way that the format struggles to capture. honestly it was a hard watch for me but i'd love to see it revisited in the dome.

17. shriek week

look i'm all for a vibes only no plot session but a vibes only no plot season? i truly could not tell you a single thing that happened in this show. also not enough hot monsters and too many hot people who are vaguely monster adjacent. absolutely HILARIOUS tho, watch it for sure but just turn your brain off. ally fermentation jokes my beloved.

18. dungeons and drag queens

i'm homophobic ❤ (this is a joke i'm gay i just didn't find it very compelling bdjfk. i don't think i was the target audience)

19. tiny heist

i'm sorry the mcelroy brothers just don't do it for me. certainly one of the dimension 20 seasons 👍

[thepatchycat]

POV: You've made a big mistake.

(Context and base sketch under the cut~)

So I was playing DnD last night with some friends, and our current situation is that we (four Level 8 adventurers) were trying to track down a murderer and ended up tumbling down a slide into a storeroom at an underground black market. Instead of doing the smart thing and retreating to investigate later with better preparation and maybe even an iota of information about what was going on, one of us tried to snoop around in plain sight. He actually did pretty okay for a while, but he ended up getting caught by the guards of whatever mysterious organization is running this black market; the rest of us came out to fight, and so did the apparent big boss of the market, some dragonborn fellow who was very clearly in charge.

This Big Bad Dragonborn promptly brainwashed me, the party druid, into turning into a giant elk and attacking an ally. Charging into a ramming attack, I crit and took out over half my friend's health, and said friend was then put to sleep by an enemy sorcerer. Down two party members (one of whom had become an active threat) and with our cleric put on the ground by a guard, our business-minded sorcerer tried to negotiate a surrender. Big Bad Dragonborn accepted and had my druid de-wild shape before returning to his side, presumably to be tied up and taken prisoner with the rest.

Our cleric, however, was intent on freeing me from the mind control. An earlier Dispel Magic had not worked, but this second one did, and my little gnome druid came back to her senses right next to the Big Bad Dragonborn who'd brainwashed her into hurting her friend. Pissed about this but lacking a high enough ceiling to bring down lightning, I decided to blast this guy with a Moonbeam.

I love Moonbeam! Great spell, can be cast at higher levels and sticks around with concentration to keep doing damage on additional turns. It also has the handy side effect of potentially revealing shape-shifted creatures, should they fail the save for it (and shapechangers have disadvantage).

The Big Bad Dragonborn failed the save.

...Needless to say, the Big Bad Dragon was extremely displeased with being revealed. Our party is now all unconscious (save for our sorcerer, who wisely followed through on surrendering). I am, not for the first time, very grateful that we have a merciful DM who makes villains* that will take us prisoner rather than killing us immediately.

*Technically speaking, we don't even know how villainous this guy is, aside from apparently running a black market. The vibes are bad but we really have no information. We just came in and started causing problems.

Anyway, inspired by both the entertaining trainwreck of a session and a very cool artbook of dragons my sister gave me for Christmas, I decided to sketch what I imagined the reveal moment to look like, shortly before my druid took a face full of noxious gas that put her to sleep :P

[kellshaw]

2023 Writer Year in Review

It’s time for a late 2023 review post where I reflect on life, the universe and my author career. I did one last year which makes a good benchmark. Let’s see how I did!

2023 Goals vs Actual

Finish the next two books in the Revenant Records series

Completed half of this. I got Feral Night out, and I’m working on the third book in the series. Not quite at the stage of getting two to three books out per year. But I’m happy with the book I released—it’s a solid improvement over Final Night (which I still think is a pretty good first author book!) Currently, I’m knee deep in the entrails of book 3. I got ambitious and I’m attempting a puzzle mystery with two POVs which is slowing me down as I work through everything. I also won’t put this up for pre-order until it’s 100 percent finished, which includes proofing covers, backmatter—the works!

Complete twelve issues of the monthly newsletter

Done! I’ve kept the newsletter going. Still writing it in character, as it’s more fun that way. (In character? Check it out!)

Submit original short stories to magazines

This did not happen. I went through my old backlog of shorts and found a sword-and-sorcery-ish story that might be worthy of magazine submission with a bit of polishing.

Write a proper Lukie-focused short as a reader magnet

Done! It’s always good when your giveaway story relates to your in-progress series. You can grab Fiery Night here as a newsletter sign-up bonus.

I would like to do a second, completely free short for a wide release and even have an idea for one. Will do this later, but not prioritize it.

Streamline my automation sequence for the newsletter

This was a bit of admin that I kept putting off, but it’s done now. Need to improve and develop the sequence further.

Engage an artist for some character/concept sketches + learn to draw

I got some done by a talented artist for my newsletter which are fantastic, but I won’t be happy with sketches until I can draw my own characters competently. This year, I did a few simple art courses at my local community college and attended a few live drawing sessions. This year, I’ll keep practicing. I also signed up for an online drawing academy by clicking on a random Facebook ad and going “Hey, that’s not too bad” (I know, I know). Was stymied also by Apple Pencil breaking, and had to revert to the less technical Graphite Pencil.

Social media, book reviews

I continue to be inconsistent with social media. I do this ad hoc posts, but a meh presence on social media. Not good at the funny meme stuff, and my book-a-year schedule means I can’t do too much around launches. I tried many social medias in 2023. I should pick something and be consistent.

2024 Goals

Okay, here we go. In 2024, I’m going to simplify my list. In fact, I had a more complicated list. Start a subscription! Work on the tabletop roleplaying set in the Vestiges of Magic world, do more drawing, and then when I got some strategic advice which was...

Write the next book... No side projects?

And that’s my core goal for next year!

Finish Revenant Records #3 - Fractured Night

Still in progress. At first it was a puzzle mystery and now it’s more about the characters. The premise is like the Shining crossed with a dark faerie tale....

Start the 2024 web serial, do a chapter a month

I completed a web serial last year, which I’m sitting on until I get more material out to launch a series with it. (Having launched a series on the fly, my next series will have a bit more material ready to go before I launch.) This will be in my newsletter and on my website. I’ve got about four chapters done. The premise: a woman seeks the help of a supernatural assassin to avenge her murdered daughter, but the assassin she needs to help her has retired....

[roadtogracelandx45]

Night Terrors| B. Barnes

This is the first time I am really writing Bucky Barnes, and I am kind of blaming this on watching The Falcon and The Winter Solider in full yesterday.

Lennon is going to be my oc from the later part of Only Fools Fall In Love.

word count:

Only Fools Fall In Love masterlist

Summary:  It had been weeks since Lennon had seen Bucky, he had left her apartment after accidentally knocking the wind out of her when she woke him up from a nightmare and having a meeting with his court-appointed therapist, he returns to the Dakota where Lennon moved back to after her father’s death to try and make things right with her. Bucky Barnes/Lennon StarkMentions of Bucky Barnes/ Hannah Stark Steve Rogers/ Bucky Barnes

Rated M for borderline smut and PTSD

Set before The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. 

***“

What about Lennon?” Doctor Raynor asked, dropping her pen back onto the notebook,  Lennon Stark was the one person that Bucky seemed to be open about talking about without being completely guarded. She had supposed that it was because the heiress had come with him to his first appointment and sat in for a little bit before going out into the waiting room and staying until he was done.  “You haven’t talked to her in weeks either. Ignored calls and messages.”

 “We are fine.” He returned as he slouched down in his seat, they weren’t fine, they were the furthest thing from it. After his last session, he went over to her apartment as he had weeks prior,  and they had fallen asleep watching a movie, he ended up having a nightmare that woke up Lennon who tried to wake him up from it only for him to react and throw out his metal arm into her and it sent her flying across the room and crashing into the table, breaking their leftover dishes and a vase that had the flowers he had brought.  She had called after him and even got as far as the elevator that shut as the doors slid shut to take him down the lobby.  Annoyed with the half answers, Raynor picked up the pen and went to start making notes again on the pad of paper.

“I hurt her.” He finally said, “I didn’t mean to, I had a nightmare that woke her and she went to wake me up. And.” She dropped her pen and watched him, it had been clear that Lennon had brought him a lot of peace and hope. And since the first time since Hannah died, love. He just hadn’t realized that latter part yet. “I think she is a lot stronger than you think she is.” Bucky shifted again in his seat and looked at the screen of his phone, his heart clenching painfully. She had taken his phone and messed around with it after he complained about not being able to work it. And when she handed it back to him, she had changed the background to the picture of them at the New York State Fair on one of the Ferris Wheels. 

“Go see her Sergeant, it will do you some good.” He nodded in agreement, she was right, seeing Lennon would do him some good, it usually did.

**

Thankfully, the doorman at the Dakota when Bucky showed up with a brown paper-wrapped bouquet and a plastic-covered brown paper bag full of Chinese food takeout, let him in with a knowing smile and, she hadn't left in three days.  And that worried him, normally Lennon was on the move, constantly working sometimes well into the early morning, perks she had told him of being the CEO of Stark Industries. She had taken more on after Tony died so Pepper could be at home more for Morgan.  

Shaking his head, he pressed the button for the floor that she had lived on for most of her life, feeling out of place like he had every time he had visited the building. She had been quick to tell him the history and how her mother and her parents lived there, and how John Lennon, her mother’s favorite Beatle and fellow resident had been murdered outside. It had been a big thing that kind of marked more mystery and interest around the building. Why she just didn’t stay in Stark Tower or at the compound was beyond him.

“Len?” He called out once the elevator doors slid open, the main living part was quiet.  A hair-raising scream came from the bedroom causing him to drop everything and go running into the bedroom, Lennon was tangled up in her bedsheets, thrashing around drenched in sweat. 

“Lennon! Baby!” He raised his voice to be heard but not to scare her awake completely. “Baby, it’s okay, wake up.”

“No! Bucky!” Lennon screamed before she sat up straight, her eyes landing on Bucky who was near the bed and the tears that she had been holding onto came down her cheeks. 

He clambered onto the bed and pulled her onto his lap. 

“I was back in Wakanda.”  

Her sudden absence had been covered by saying she needed time in an in-patient mental health facility in upstate New York when she was really in Wakanda overseeing his recovery.  And that’s when they first really started falling in love. And for the first time since Hannah, he was happy and guilty, because of the feelings he had for Steve and the hurt he knew was coming towards Steve. And he knew that Lennon had feelings for Steve and was guilty about feeling the same feelings toward Steve. 

“In that battle when Thanos.”  Bucky hushed her and pressed a kiss into her dark hair. She hadn’t been far from him and Steve when Thanos snapped his fingers and Bucky faded to dust. 

She had rarely talked about the 5 years that she had spent with Steve and Nat at the compound or of her father's return or of the 9 months leading up to her half-sister Morgan’s birth. Or what happened when her father snapped his fingers and killed Thanos .  

 “I lost my dad all over again.” Her fingers clenched at the metal arm that was curled around her waist, trying to pull it tighter around her.  Careful not to go tight, he tightened his hold on her.

 “I lost Nat, and Steve again. You. I lost you.  Again.”  

“Doll, you aren’t going to lose me.’ He promised as he moved back slightly to look at her and used his free hand to wipe some of the tears away. “I shouldn’t have left after I hurt you.” She shifted to fully face him, her fingers threading through his hair.  “I wasn’t mad, or scared, I was worried about you. I remembered that look.” Her fingers rubbed against his scalp, “Steve had it, Dad had it. Uncle Rhodey has it. Sam has it.” “You have it. After Wakanda.”

“No, no.” she muttered trying to pull away from him, “I don't want to talk about that.”  He pressed a kiss to her mouth and held her closer to him, ‘We don’t have to talk about it.’ She nodded and fused their mouths together, she needed to be close to him.

Instead of thinking, Lennon decided to go with feelings and she pressed her hips down against his hardening dick, her lips finding first his lips and then his jaw and neck, nipping at the flesh. Groaning, he lifted his hips to meet hers.

“Baby, we should stop.”  His metal fingers were already pulling at the material of her t-shirt tearing the material softly.

“I don’t want to.” She returned pulling back softly, “I want this. Please.” He nodded his head before fusing their mouths together, in the past when they got going like this, one of them stopped it.

Her not feeling ready, him for feeling guilty.  She had been Steve’s before his and he had a hard time shaking it up until Steve said it was okay and he wanted them to be together. And he wanted Bucky to take care of her. Lennon broke the kiss briefly to remove the rest of the shredded shirt, her hands reaching down to pull his shirt off.

“Needy much doll?” He teased as he pulled his shirt off and tossed it on top of the shredded T-shirt.

“Buck,’ She started resting her hands on his shoulders, “Shut up and fuck me.” He laughed at her choice of words and rolled them over so she was on her back and he was resting between her legs. He had been floored when her great Aunt Hannah used fuck for the first time hours after they met and she slipped and fell in the mud. And surprised him even more when Lennon told her father ever so politely to fuck himself when she was helping him and Steve escape in Germany.  

 “Your wish is my command princess.’  

[bardicbeany]

In the spirit of talking about my ttrpg OCs more on this blog...

A post about some of my recent (and semi-recent) characters!

I've been in a Blades Against Darkness game for awhile now. I've talked about my two characters from this game before, but for a refresher my primary character is Almera, who's playbook is The Widowmaker. After coming back from the dead Almera has been struggling to control a near insatiable thirst for blood. She's also been hiding patches of gray, decaying skin from the closest person the party has to a doctor who would absolutely try to help her if she knew about it. My secondary character is Sage, and her playbook is The Chosen. Sage is specifically a Chosen of Maloch, the God of Debts. When she isn't out in the wastes with the crew she works as an ink maiden tattooing people's debts at the Bank of Maloch.

Another campaign I'm in right now is a Numenera game! I haven't played Numenera in years so it's fun to be playing it again. I'm playing Zel'Voryn, A Subterranean Seeker Who Abides in Crystal. She initially was supposed to be a jack, but seeker ended up being a better fit for her! Last session Zel unlocked a mysterious old box containing a crystal that connects her to an artificial intelligence named Radykai who's stationed on the moon. While Radykai has a great wealth of knowledge, it's yet to be seen exactly how trustworthy he is.

I recently finished up a co-op two player play through of the Jurassic Park inspired game Clever Girl. My raptor was Katana, the fierce leader of the pack who sought revenge against a human who had wronged her. A fun little thing we did for this game is that we gave all the raptors in the pack bladed weapon-themed names like Halberd, Claymore, Zweihander and Dagger! I wanna write up a more in-depth post about what happened in this game at some point.

Over the course of a week and a half I played a game of Alone Among the Stars. It was my first experience with a solo journaling game and I had a whole bunch of fun with it! I initially didn't plan to write my entries with a specific character in mind, but about half way through my explorer became an actual character: Luna! From finding a giant mosaic of flowers on a moon to helping a pair of injured aliens near their crashed spaceship, Luna encountered so many cool things along her journey. This is another game I wanna talk more about!

A character I've had for a while but haven't talked about here is Branwen, a character from a Dungeon World game that used the Unlimited Dungeons rules. Branwen's playbook is The Wizard but she's basically a necromancer. She has a spooky undead prosthetic arm and the arm once belonged to her husband. She's out for revenge against the people who murdered her husband. Until Branwen I'd actually never played a necromancer-type character in a ttrpg!

Last year I played in a FATE game and my character was Brooke, a river selkie posing as a fisherman. That game is unfortunately currently on hold while the GM works to convert the game over to a different system.

If you have any questions about these characters or any of my other OCs feel free to ask me about them!!

Any character(s) in particular you want to hear more about?

[cryptid-wizard]

Some fun moments from our current dnd campaign:

- Npc murders another npc in the prison cell with us

Npc: I didnt kill that guy

- we are being chased by cultists and es dont have weapons

me: can i turn this metal stick to a weapon?

dm: you need a forge and smithing tools

me: i have smithing tools

dm: and the forge?

fire genasi: i got this

fire genasi: *hair is now burning*

me: *hurried smithing sounds*

- we escaped the cultists

paladin: ok what now?

dm: the npc who killed that guy says he knows a place

me: wait the other prisoners are still with us?

dm: yes

paladin: and the did nothing when the cultists attacked!?

dm: yes

- we find a mysterious puddle left behind by a demon

druid: i wanna drink

dm: you pass the con check, nothing happens

druid: i drink again

dm: you have a mouth on your knee now

druid: cool, extra space. i drink again

dm: your stomach and lungs merge together

- demogorgon appears and starts attacking the town

the party: looting time

- demogorgon and a dragon are fighting

the party: nope

paladin: how can we escape

my duergar: *diggy diggy hole intensifies*

half the party starts digging in a cave for a tunnel to our freedom. the other half are searching the cave for anything useful. they find a secret tunnel. we escape.

- currently the party’a two mods are escape and loot

- druid has problems due to stomach and lungs merging. we take them to a vet in disguise a cow.

vet: i suggest you cut this one now before the meat gets inedible

paladin: we want to sell for more later tho

vet: well let me check again then

*puts on gloves*

*druid cow noises*

- me: i want to climb that wall

*fails check*

*starts falling off a cliff*

*thiefling saves me*

this has happened 7 times in one session

[semi-imaginary-place]

more 13 sentinels 60%-?? spoilers

Kisaragi: oh yeah kidaragibot got put into sentinel 16.

Ogata: so natsuno has the d-code key and is calling the kaiju and 426 izumi is protecting her. Moral dilemma time ogata. Wonder how yakushiji got involved.

Amiguchi. Wow he had to deal with kurabe being so weird didnt he. Yeah ida has control issues, took away kisaragibot's free will because she wasnt happy to see him and is now torturing robot izumi for answers. This dude is like a case study for bad ethics technology. 13 sentinels goes hard. Was not expecting to spent my afternoon torturing someone for information. Like as the player i actually have to go and in gameplay inflict pain on this incapacitated person. You didnt lock the door before your torture session? Izumi's right ida's like incredibly self centered its all about him. Oh so 426 as been running around in kisaragibot for a loong time. ... Then the kisaragibot sekigahara met was also probably 426.

Takamiya: nurse morimura calls tamao(bot) tamao but by this point they should be taken over by 426, does morimura know or not? Probably goven she gave yuki the note. Yuki... You are confronting the very dangerous mass murderer conspiracy plotter bomber alone? Without a gun? At least get ei or something to back you up. Ah good it was a trap, because some of the characters here would be stupid enough to do this alone. Another hard to parse conversation. Izumi accuses morimura of derailing the interstellar project to save her own ass, sacrificing 15 lives. Morimura claims the 15 will live happier lives thus way, that "we" can make it out alive. Izumi: denied their future without every knowing why. Oh yeah if the city just ends where the hell in grandma tamao who is suppose to be out of town visiting family?

Kurabe: hold up are you saying the entirety of kurabe's story happens after yuki confronts 426/erika aiba/tamaobot/izumi juro. That really recontextualizes the story becuase that pushes natsuno's story way back and amiguchi's forward. So nurse morimura + yuki + siu trap 426 and shoot him a bunch, he jumps into the river but crawls to the shrine, ei shoots him some more and leaves him for dead when kurabe finds tamaobot with 5 min left and 426 infects kurabs's nanomachines creating shiba.

Shinonone: i dont like ryoko on a personal level as a person but i do think she's a more interesting character than yakushiji who is also primarily romantically motivated (fuyusaka and hijiyama avoid this by being interesting in their own rights). Wow its been years since I've seen a yandere character. Ryoko while pointing a loaded gun: i don't mind you using me but i draw the line at you liking another girl. There are so many things wrong with you the lesbians on tumblr would love you ryoko. Oh the 15... its tamao and okino. I forgot to count tamao last time. Ai hijiyama was in the 2064 fight too? Miura and kisaragi i wonder who else i should make a list some time. Read her mystery file and hey is this the first confirmed kill wow she really did shoot ida dead good for her.

Area 2-5 finally died on intense because i didnt know they had armor so half my team couldn't damage and the ones that did were like single target so i got swamped. I did it... Everyone's half dead but im through

Natsuno: bbbbbjjjjjjjjjjjjj shinonome's whole thing is loss of identity and memory but bj miura lost his human body then his sentinel body then got a hardware downgrade to a cheap drone, had 72% of his memories deleted, and the rest fragmented and and inconsistent, also got repeatedly tampered with. Baby professor chihiro: d-code attaches to the part of the brain where memories are stored and must be physically severed to be removed. Hey isnt that what the dd-426 virus thing does so 426 izumi was trying to remove d-code. I wonder if the magic gun was giving d code back... i need to recheck the mystery files... Ok yeah 426 gave natsuno the d code but also infected the sentinels withe the thing that severs d-cods(and usually kills the pilot) was that all just to control who the pilot was?

Miura: oh 72% stuck in sentinel 17. Natsuno ends up piloting 17 in the final battle though. I'm still not clear what the sectors are physically like are they different parts of a giant spaceship, on different planets, etc. 2188 miura says they have orbital positions but what are they orbiting and are the 3km diameter disks attached to anything?? Nanomachines somehow ended the world? Welp mystery files confirms that the sectors are virtual and i am malding. And there's also space colonies thats the confusing part. There are 5 physical space colonies called sectors and also the virtual reality the game takes places with 5 eras called sectors. If sectors are "virtual residential districts" why would there even be the matrix that amiguchi and takemiya sneaked into. I guess because its recreating the space colony satellite. It's just a weirdly physical constraint to put on something that doesn't have the constraint. Like the virtual spaces/3d models of the sectors are connected but they dont have to be. But then also why are the kaiju there well i guess since project ark is carrying just dna they do have deimos on board or the capacity to build them so the data in there...

Hijiyama: bro... 2188 hijiyama in thicc, but not as thicc as nurse moriyama. 2188 okino literally put humanity in a kaiju survival videogame. Wow that was the most overtly romantic scene yet good for you vanillaware. Hmm i remember from the 2188 miura prof takemiya log earth is lost but the final 2188 hijiyama log something happened to the space colony, a fight broke out? Whether energy should be allocated to project arc or to life support (of the orbital space colony?). He's so stupid, did not have any plan about how to distract nurse morimura (though tbf not sure i could have done better). Scratch that i could have done better. Actually now that i think about it why did the 1940 deimos stop attacking the mainframe (or any of the other destroyed sector's kaiju). There should be a ufo in each sector underneath the school (unless I'm misunderstanding something). Or maybe they stopped because they captured the ufo? Okino says once the deimos contact the mainframe it triggers the shifter which teleports civilians... Somewhere. ...he just eats like 5 yakisoba pan and downs 3 sugary drinks ah youth... I was misunderstanding, deimos successfully reaching the mainframe causes all the people to disappear in the sector. The d-code key being in 1985 means its the last sector to be attacked. The deimos are being manufactured in sector 1 (2105?), So it is a closed system i wondered if the deimos were coming from outside the pentagon but instead they're being shifted around. Whats up with the satellite tomi saw. Mystery file time: yeah kts sooo confusing that the space colony sectors are 1-5 too like 2188 hijiyama died in sector 4 but he didnt die in the 1984 sector 4 of the game. Okino is also a brain surgeon because of course they are , implanted a linking component into hijiyama and miura, wonder what that is.

Finishing off quite a few more stories. With Miura's so they're breaking into a government facility to steal the sentinel wonder how they pull it off. Ogata and takamiya clear.

Natsuno. Wait wait a new pilot will reset a sentinel's stored memory. They need sentinel 17 to retrieve the data logs. But to retrieve the data logs and sentinel 17, it needs a pilot. I can think of 2 solutions that dont involve deleting bj. First find another scout unit or like a usb or a laptop or whatever okino was using or capture one of the droids. Second transfer sentinel 17 to 1944 miura thus keeping the id the same. ... ... And that's how the writers killed my boy.

Sekigahara: siu wanted to show him which log? I dont remember. Oh at the very begining? Didn't that have a recording of himself? Oooohhhh ei was the assassin 2188 gouto hired. 2188 morimura chihiro was a leader in nanotechnology and former executive of the company shikishima absorbed. Morimura's interstellar project was used as part of the justification for buying newman. And this was a cover to move money somewhere else (where?). Morimura continued to work on the interstellar project and this threatens to draw attention to 2188 gouto's illegal finances so he called a hit on her. So morimura alone led the battle of 2024, ida was busy pretending to be dead. Now tht i think of it i havent seen the ida of 2188 yet. Ooooh thats how morimura and ida "went back" 16 years when all shifts are 40 year intervals, the worlds were destroyed in year 16 and recreated setting back to year 1 (or 0 depending on how we are counting). Good use of dramatic irony since the audience knows from the start that ei does eventually agree to operation aegis and gives up on resetting. So ida was probably the one of the other end of sekigahara's communication device. One thing that isn't adding up is ida's role in 1984. He's playing dead for morimura but head of siu and in contact with shinonome and takamiya. If he's ordering sekigahara around why is he sending the black suits after him, like could have eased off a little or sent them on false trails. Wow im so happy ryoko kills ida.

More mystery files. There it is! Nanomachone infection! Thats what caused the end of the world! Somehow... wait not just an infection there was a whole ass nanomachine war. The loops/eras/sectors are specifically the years when the compatible are born, they are created the year they are born and are destroyed when they are 16. When did the izumi murder spree happen then? Oh i see several loops ago morimura and izumi skipped being reset izumi killed the compatible, morimura killed izumi but he escaped death somehow, morimura died getting ida to safety. Ida went to sector 0 and and waiting out the reset and found the younger morimura who had also skipped a reset and now i think these are the ida and morimura that show up in the game... I think

Was just about to say of idas dead i wouldnt put it past him to make an ai of himself he is the android engineer. So before losing his memories ei switched sides and decided to back operation aegis. Aaaahhhh sealing the terminals cuts the city off from universal control, there's the key info. And universal control controls everyone except the compatible so sealing the terminals leaves only the 14 (idk whats up with tamao she got dropped out of the plot) and everyone else disappears. What is up with that satellite! If it's orbiting the real world how have... Kisaragi .... Amiguchi(?) Interacted with it! Damn all the info bombs are dropping in ei's route. 2188's prof morimura sold nanomachines on the black market to fund project arc that is what kickstarted the nanomachine infections that doomed humanity and Earth. 2188 sekigahara bombed the power generators and took out life support for orbital sector 4, is this what led to the fight with ogata, izumi, hijiyama, and okino? Yeah it was the nanomachine infection that wiped out humans. And baby chihiro was the one that killed nurse morimura! Wait if sectors restart the year the compatibles are born why is baby chihiro a different age or is she a newly made clone she probably is i dont remember. My question is how did ei remember morimura in the alley? He should only remember up to the backup not anything after it or am i thinking about this wrong. What is up with that satellite!! Anyways the whole system has become so unstable that there wouldn't be another loop after the current one anyways because sector 0 would be gone or something.

Back to the mystery files. the real world satellite is orbiting around a planet which means the "facility" (sus) that "houses the entire world" (sus) must be nearby to be able to receive data from it. If sector 4 gets taken over all data will be wiped including sector 0. "The lives that everyone has experiences through time would cease to exist for good" what is with that phrasing?? What does that mean?? Oh right sentinel 17 was on a satellite was it the real world satellite morimura is sekigahara's story was talking about?

[detectivereads]

D&D intro

Hi Everyone,

Recently I have been getting into D&D, I love listening to other people’s campaigns stories and watching animation.

Recently some co-workers of mine invited me to play, I was so happy I could finally have some lessons about D&D. I was always scared with the character sheet (that sheet is intimidating) that I wasn’t making it correctly.

So, before we had episode 0 game the DM invited me and the other player to have character creation session. I ask questions that I saw in videos that new player should probably ask for a new player what the best class for is them.

Is there a certain race that I should play.

What Class is good for a first-time player to use?

These were the two big questions I remember asking. The DM said that the game is a homebrew, and they gave us handouts. The DM recommended a rogue for a first-time player and I looked over the races and thought Half Elf was an easy race to play.

So, I took the advice from the DM and picked an easy class and race for a first-time player.

I made a rogue half elf; her name is Sage Morton. Now I have watched videos on what not to or what would make other players upset if I did this in a campaign. (I will try not to do that)

 So as much as I tried not making Sage a Mary-Sue character with a sad back story (but that is hard to do).

I am going to run the backstory of Sage to the DM, but the DM and the other player knows that Sage is an investigator, and her mentor was arrested for a crime that they didn’t commit. So, Sage’s first case was to get evidence to free him or at least cast doubt on someone else, she had enough evidence that would get her mentor out of jail but before she could get back, the city guard (or people in power) pushed to expedite an execution and her mentor was killed before Sage could get back.

This painted Sage’s view that there is no justice in the world, only truth, so she seeks out the truth in all her cases. (to the point of badgering and annoying other people) (If you are curious about what happen to Sage’s parents her dad was an elf and her mom was human and they both died in a plague, when she was 6ish, so she has a few memories of them but not much and that’s when she met her mentor Urghat Redspear, a half orc).

I tried not to make Sage a tragic hero (that even though she had her parents die and her mentor was pretty much murdered by a unknown person) Sage is not going to go the whole Batman thing (I don’t want to play her a dark brooding character), but I want to play her as a PI detective where she will take on any case for a price, but she will give the client her 110% and won’t stop until the truth is exposed.

Sage however, does have a flaw that no doubt will get her and her party in trouble she is a clepto , when she thinks there is evidence that is important but the investigation is under the jurisdiction of a shady person she will “borrow” it, she also is book crazy she loves mystery stories the best, if she see a book either a mystery or it has a pretty cover she can’t help herself.

I picked the alignment of Chaotic Neutral. I figured that I would start out with something easy (I am not going make Sage chaotic evil, but I will look at where her actions take her).

 I’m going to keep the other player and the DM hidden out of respect (I will ask if I can refer to them as their character. I’m going to ask if I can write about the campaign (In case something was to happen to any us I can defer to this more backup for backup, I can remember it and have it elsewhere) as we go on before I post anything, but I will write about Sage since she is my character.

In short, I want to post this as sort of a diary to keep track of Sage and other Player’s adventure (this is my first D&D session and I want to remember the good times.) I can also for future me to defer of if I made mistakes or I had my character do something that I want to avoid doing in the future.

Now during the Character Creation, the other player (I will refer to both Coworkers as DM and the player’s character name) made a female Tiefling paladin who is an oath breaker, her name is Wittr Ravendark. Confirming with Wittr they said that they based the character off of Amaya from Dragon Prince (I love that character she soooo cool!!!) I didn’t want to ask to many questions because I wanted to be surprised. Hopefully I will be able to log in to our adventures soon. I’ll wait to post Wittr’s story until after episode 0 so Sage can hear it first.

But in hindsight these posts that I will write here, is going to be more like a log. So, we can keep track of what happened in each session. I'll try not to embellish and write what happened during each session.

[inkydiamonds]

YOOO THIS IS SO COOL

A few questions- which of these characters are PCs and which are NPCs? I got a bit confused at times. Oh also I was a bit confused about the hags reproducing part

BUT IZUMI GETTING HYPNOTIZED OOO. I love that that's so cool. One time I would love to play a character who gets possessed, even though it's probably not happening any time soon in this campaign. Another one of our PCs might tho bc there's something weird going on with him 👀

ANYWAYS my campaign

--

We got our PCs (mostly not on Tumblr):

Me, playing a dwarf monk named Sully

Blue @blue-rhapsody playing a rouge tiefling named Anawrete

A barbarian half-orc named Mal (she's a sweetie I promise)

An elf ranger named Silen (he. He gets into situations)

A "human" sorcerer named Alloces (chaotic evil)

An actually human wizard named Hans (addicted to gambling)

And, finally, a new addition who's joining TODAY: a human warlock named Paul (a divorced single dad). Why so many humans? Idk. Paul's actor wouldn't have chosen human but Paul is a reoccurring character who Mal's actor used to play bc we got to make gambling ocs every time Hans went gambling.

And of course we got our lovely dm! He makes me go insane <3

A couple of silly things about our campaign: first one is that our group meets every other week, right? Well turns out there's a WHOLE DIFFERENT GROUP which meets on the other weeks- and exists in the same universe as our group, where their actions can influence stuff that happens for us. We have No idea what they're up to, because we don't even know the members personally and have no way of contacting them. Our dm is being very mysterious about it. Additionally, our campaign is set up in a way where each of our PCs have a weird amount of information that only they and the dm know. Our characters are mostly assholes because it's funny, so they are not telling each other. So we know our backstories and anything that those influence about the world, and also anything our dm decides to direct message us during the session, which is sometimes a lot lol. Lots of information, and a fair bit of deception between players. Blue in particular has some crazy thing she's planning, and I'm absolutely not ready for it.

How do I explain the plot? No fucking clue at this point, but I'll give a broaaaadd overview:

We've had 6 4-hour long sessions and I like to split them into 2-session long chunks:

-The Atticus Meyers arc

-The Murder Mystery arc

-The Invasion of the Order of the Five arc

I'm just gonna explain the first arc rn bc SO MUCH has happened. Sully doesn't do much crazy this arc because I'm busy establishing her as being asocial and grumpy asf :)

In the first arc, we were told by the Priori of the Shipbuilder's Guild Alora Windshear (Priori is like leader, and each Priori is in an oligarchy of guilds that lead Tirazia, the city-state we all live in) to figure out what happened to her informant Atticus Meyers- because last time she met up with him, she secretly did a divination spell on him and it was actually someone else in disguise. We all went to this bar where they usually met up, and with enough charm spells, alcohol, and convincing we figured out where this imposter came from- the Leatherworker's Guild.

At the same time, a different group of the party was distracting this elf named Marcus who seemed to be listening in, while Anawrete was getting drunk bc she felt like it. We also did Operation: Bottle Liberation in which Anawrete and Hans stole a very expensive bottle of absinthe because Anawrete wanted it lol. After a detour where half the party led Marcus around town, we all met up (minus Marcus and the fake Atticus) to go to the Leatherworker's Guild.

At the Leatherworker's Guild, we were absolutely not subtle and a fight rang out as we searched for the info we wanted. Sully and Hans found damning notes of schemes against Alora in an office, and we successfully defeated the guards!

After that, we did a lot of miscellaneous things. Hans decided to go gambling, and we all made gambling OCs (ft. PAUL!!!!). And he won big with a mechanic which he hid from the dm and totally took him by surprise. Meanwhile, Alloces decided to summon his shadow familiar, but he needed money to do so and Hans had taken his while he was sleeping, so he asked Silen for a loan in exchange for a favor. Silen agreed, and the two summoned his shadow. At the same time, Anawrete was getting information from resident criminal associations of Tirazia, which I honestly forgot what info she got. Alloces's shadow followed her, and watched the interaction. Sully was busy doing work and being asocial, and Mal was just vibing mostly with Anawrete (other than when she briefly left).

But back to Silen and Alloces for a second, because Silen immediately decides to cash in his favor, and asks Alloces on a date (????????). Alloces for some reason agrees, even though he's an absolute edgelord and does not like Silen at all. They ask Sully for good restaurants near here while she's working, and she is so confused but gives him one. And then comes the worst date in the history of dates! Absolutely horrific, they are so awkward around each other and absolutely horrible for each other. Silen accidentally asks for a table for one. Alloces orders raw octopus tentacles for the both of them. Silent thinks the date is going GREAT. Alloces is in his own personal hell. They start talking about their backstories and it's just. Pix it's so awkward you don't understand, we're all fucking DYING LAUGHING, absolutely props to both of their players because HELPPP.

Anyways. After the date, a tiefling-dwarf named Sten approaches them because they look like mercenaries, asking if they want to help solve murders which occurred at his church for a reward. They (or mostly Silen) agree, and the group meets back up.

In the off-time, Mal has found picture books, and sat down to Sully, who was reading her prayer book. She is very excitedly telling me all about The Rainbow Fish, and then Silen and Alloces arrive to explain that they've volunteered us for a murder mystery.

So that's it for the first arc! I also got some stuff I am hiding which I cannot say bc Blue is here reading this (hi Blue. Hiii) but most of Sully-specific stuff happens in the later arcs (mostly session 6, absolutely insane).

Do you have any art other than the one you posted today? I have 5 million pieces, I'd love to show you any if you like!

Also, what's your favorite moment of the campaign so far?

I didn't know you were a dm, can I ask about your campaign? :00 /np

Yesyesyesyesyes you can!!!! I can't share too much behind the scenes (as much as I'd love to) BC Alien will most likely see this n Munts may see it too- Putting this under a cut purely BC this is so long bc ive ended up infodump sm-

So, it started w each character getting a letter from someone they know, an old friend for Hecate and Nivaira, and Izumi's half sibling, called Ammon. (All 3 letters were from Ammon just to be clear-) Ammon invited them to his house, as well as 3 others. Eventually, Ammon made it clear that she wanted the group (all 6) to locate an amulet, but that they couldnt SAY where it was bc. Evil can hear. BC you see, Ammon, who is a divination wizard/wild magic sorcerer had been studying the amulet, and got a dream that a great evil was looking for her and got scared. So ran away. The other 2 NPCs also left. There's a lot of plot holes but shhhh-

Anyway the party found the amulet, and the party discovered that Relania, one of the others summoned by Ammon, decided to try and take the amulet, resulting in a big battle which ended with Relania tied up and. Somehow escaping. She's still loose to this day.

The second adventure had the party meet a little girl called Ruby, and her mum. Ruby's mum was exhausted from lack of sleep so told Ruby to go to her granny's house in the woods (no this isn't a werewolf adventure). The party were asked to accompany Ruby, to ensure she got to her granny's safely. The party decided that because this nice little old lady lived in a SCARY part of the woods, she was evil. So stalked Ruby's granny, Winnie. They went down a whole rabbit hole of nettle/false nettle like plants n then decided Winnie was a night hag. And then Ruby's mum died. And so Hecate (the group's researcher), decided to see if there's any way of discovering if someone was killed by a night hag post death. There is! They just needed truesight. Noone had truesight. So, they put up a notice on the community board and hoped someone followed it.

Meanwhile, the Banducci Carnival was coming to town, and the group went to the carnival that night while waiting for the post to be found. While visiting Madame Banducci, the fortune teller (and owner of the carnival), Izumi got a lil. Hypnotised. Although he acted as normal until later :)

The next day, a cloaked figure with a kitsune mask appeared to use truesight as per the notice. They called themselves "Bob" and had an awful deep southern American Etomian (the name of the country "Bob" is from) accent. "Bob" did cast truesight on the body of Ruby's mum, and yeah, it was from a hag. And then "Bob" revealed herself to be Bella Banducci, daughter of Madame Banducci. Who then got Hypnotised!Izumi to steal the amulet for her, and give it to her. The rest of the party didn't notice.

The party went back to Winnie's house, to confront her, but. Ruby and Winnie were gone. They party then discovered how hags reproduce and then went "oh shi-" as they realised exactly what had happened.

Eventually, Hecate, who was in charge of the amulet, realised it was gone, and something happened that I don't remember and eventually Bella appeared like "heyyy I've got the amulet you idiots and I'm gonna sell it BC my mom wants me to but idc who to, so you guys give me 500gp and you can have it <3" the party managed to persuade Bella to join them (she hates the carnival), as they do a 500gp bounty (to retrieve an object)

THE CURRENT ADVENTURE!

The party follow the bounty to Sirraux', an expensive artifacts shop, ran by Monsieur Sirraux, a tiefling. It had the object the party needed to retrieve - a dwarf's magic pickaxe - buutt Sirraux didn't wanna give it up. In exchange, it asked the party to collect a sample of an interesting flora on an island far away. It got it's dwarf assistant to bring the party to the island. It was an island that Nivaira knew very well :). It was also infested with mushrooms. Currently they just got to Nivairas hometown, where all the people have been turned into evil myconids (evil mushroom ppl). Fun times!

There's also Eiwin Tamiel, an important NPC who hasn't been adventure relevant yet but will be! Just you wait for the Christmas special!!! He's a human cleric (???) and works in a small artifact / trinket shop. They're also definitely crushing on Ammon <3 Who is definitely not crushing on him back <3 I ship them sm- they write notes to each other in celestial and arghkejrjfkwf i cant share all the cute info bout them bc. Spoilers.

ANYWAY if you read all that well done, I'm impressed-

Now tell me bout your campaign :DDD

[vvienne]

XICHENG FIC RECS

hold my hands by Snooze (Chiruka)

Transplanting a core into a new person isn’t without repercussions. One year after the events at Guanyin Temple, Jiang Cheng found himself once again faced with the possibility of losing everything he had. Reconciling with his brother, learning to let Jin Ling go, and dealing with his blooming emotions toward the First Jade of Gusu — will Jiang Cheng accomplish what he wants before time runs out?

it all passes someday by screamlet

A week before the anniversary of Wei Wuxian’s death, there was a commotion outside Lan Wangji’s house.

*

Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji over the years.

The Unlikely Expression of Love by manamune

When everything has settled, when everyone else has moved on with their lives and their friends, Jiang Cheng has a realization which shouldn’t actually be a surprise:

He’s lonely.

Indigo, lavender, and violet (I don't wanna be red) by ohwhatevrewhatevr

It, in the pale colors of the late morning, is the closest to perfect Jiang Cheng will ever reach. He strokes Lan XiChen's hair and presses a light kiss to where his ribbon and hair meet. The sky is a pale blue, and the pastels of flowers and clouds are spread out through the window, a brilliant world waiting for them, them in the gentian house, safe from stronger breezes - there is the clutter of birds fluttering and chirping outside. It is a warm, perfect, spring morning.

Jiang Cheng and Lan XiChen have been together for an year. In which, no one ever really gets over things, Jiang Cheng has the misfortune of interacting with his brother, the juniors help out with the proposal, and there's a marriage.

Altitude by starknjarvis 

When Jin Ling lures Jiang Cheng to the Cloud Recesses under false pretenses, he finds himself out of place among this new family Wei Wuxian has formed.

Lan Xichen, at least, seems pleased to have his company.

Perhaps there is still a chance for Jiang Cheng to make amends and move forward.

[Modao Zushi Online] GLITCH REPORT: My Brother Got Chased Down And %$@*$&@ By Gusu Dungeon Boss??? by oh_fudgecakes

Modao Zushi Online is a virtual reality MMORPG. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are top ranking players in its new server, currently tied with their arch-nemesis from their previous server, Wen Chao. In an attempt to defeat him, they take on the Gusu Dungeon Boss, Zewu-jun, to win the reward of a legendary weapon. Ever the cheat, Wei Wuxian tries to take advantage of a glitch to defeat the seemingly undefeatable boss. It backfires. Jiang Cheng gets fucked by a boss monster.

He can't get enough.

Meanwhile, Lan Xichen, the unwitting staff member in charge of controlling Zewu-jun, absolutely did not sign up to be pulled into a secret virtual reality fling with a player. Mod Ji, who has to deal with Wei Wuxian's incessant glitch reporting of his brother's sex life, is long-suffering.

Mulberry by xxdz

Jiang Cheng grits his teeth and pushes harder. He feels like torn silk, the embroidery needle sinking in again and again and again; patiently, desperately, endlessly trying to make something beautiful out of something broken.

Jiang Cheng builds his sect, learns embroidery, and raises his nephew.

we can raise a little family by lanyon

“Well, brother,” says Wei Wuxian, leaning against the outside of Jiang Cheng’s chambers. “I had heard that you and Xichen went on a night hunt and came back with a baby, which is not the order I’d choose to do things in…”

In which Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen acquire a baby of unknown origin, and are the very last to know what it means.

Beyond the Impossible by Silverine

Summoned by Lan Qiren, Jiang Wanyin goes to the Cloud Recesses to drop his nephew Jin Ling, expecting to discuss relevant matters with his old master. Instead, he's asked to take with him no other than Sect Leader Lan himself, all the way back to Lotus Pier. If the reason why he accepted such an outrageous task is indeed a mystery, he's about to be surprised by how this entire trip, their encounters, and his warm company, suddenly feel fated.

Incrementally by xxdz

Jiang Cheng is trapped in a day on repeat where he begins by waking in Zewu Jun’s bed at dawn and ends by dying painfully at dusk.

It’s getting very irritating, and he has the sneaking suspicion that his chances to solve his own murder are rapidly running out. Soon, his death will be much more permanent.

All in all, worst birthday ever.

Audience of One by WinterDreams

“Then let an established star go first,” Lan Xichen interrupts again before Lan Wangji can give a stubborn reply. Both men twist toward Lan Xichen, and he smiles at Wei Wuxian’s tilted head. “If I publicly date a man for awhile first, your engagement shouldn’t receive as much backlash.”

Or, that AU where everyone is famous in some way or another, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have been dating in private for years, and Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng pretend to date publicly for their brothers' sake.

A Bit of Ruthlessness by jirluvien

When Jiang Cheng hears that Lan Xichen went into seclusion following Jin Guangyao’s death, it’s almost as if he can see the grabby hands of a restless ghost, reaching out for something to keep him company. For something warm and living and devastated. And as history has proved time and time again, the Lans are perfect victims when it comes to giving in to ghosts.Yeah, no. Not on Jiang Cheng’s fucking watch.A story about grief, determination, unexpected friendships, abandoned watchtowers, and letters. So many letters.

All Tied Up In You by Clearpearls

Yet again, the night had come to this:

Jiang Cheng on the floor, kneeling, Zidian wrapped around his wrists.

Alone.

Thank You, and I'm Sorry by Hamliet

Jin GuangYao might be dead, but his story is not. Taking advantage of the chaos he instigated, someone makes an attempt on the life of the young new leader of the Jin Sect. When Jiang Cheng takes Jin Ling to the Cloud Recesses to have him study while he attempts to work with Wei WuXian and his husband Lan WangJi to eliminate the threat, he encounters a mourning Lan XiChen, lovestruck teenagers, and a persistent corpse--and both pairs of brothers find themselves struggling to move on.

saturn's rings (don't be a heartbreaker) by iskendaris

Set after the seige of burial mounds, Yunmeng rebuilds as they hold the first Discussion Conference at Lotus Pier. Sometimes the night is a gift, a refuge for loneliness. "So stern, Sect Leader Jiang," Lan Xichen murmured, "So glacial... What will it take to melt that icy exterior? What can I say?"

"Nothing. There's nothing you can say or offer."

reciprocity by jukeboxhound

There’s a pause before Lan Xichen says, in a tone that’s a little more neutral, “I would like to paint on you.”

“…What?”

“Of course, if you say ‘yes’ but then change your mind at any point, for any reason, you need only say so and I will stop immediately,” he adds.

Well, silver lining: Jiang Cheng is feeling much more awake than he was a moment ago.

Talent Hunt Crew Finds Angry Guy Shouting On College Campus, Recruits Him For Vocal Projection Abilities by oh_fudgecakes

Jiang Cheng, resident Angry Guy and heir to a conglomerate empire, has never been the apple of his father’s eye. Quashed under the shadow of his brilliant brother, the music prodigy Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng sees his chance to turn things around when he is recruited by the All-Stars Lan Talent Hunt. One problem: he can’t sing to save his goddamn life.

As he struggles to develop his nascent singing abilities, Jiang Cheng finds himself sucked into the whirlwind drama of reality TV, helped along by his adoring siblings, his irritable vocal coach Wen Qing, and strangely enough, the unfairly attractive host of the All-Stars Lan Talent Hunt, Lan Xichen. Somewhere in the glare of the stage lights and an unexpected first love, Jiang Cheng stumbles upon the thing he was searching for all along: the courage to dream — and to attempt the impossible.

Marginal Costs by ohwhatevrewhatevr

“You think you know what you want, Er-Ge,” A-Yao says. “But you should consider what you’re willing to give first,” he says wryly, taking Lan XiChen’s chess piece with slim, skilled fingers.

Lan XiChen looks up at A-Yao’s concentrated expression and the hint of contentment on his face that he is special enough to be allowed to see.

“It’s not just one decision, but the lead up to many more. One decision decides what else you’re going to have to pay, and each time you have to ask yourself, ignoring the sunk costs, if this time it’s worth it as well.”

When his sworn brother looks up at him with those clear, amber eyes, waiting, Lan XiChen feels the pull and gives in: he asks.

“Are you happy being in love?”

(First half is two sad sworn brothers talking, internally mourning how unfortunate their other sworn brother’s death was :/ and second half is when a mopey boy in blue meets an angsty boy in purple whilst chasing a demonic cultivator, and a lil bit of sexy dual cultivation happens.)

Somewhat Tender by theherocomplex

There is no defense against kindness; it has always undone him.

I didn't expect you to be lonely (too) by bettydice (BettyKnight)

Jiang Cheng's life is a mess, he's a mess, and he doesn't miss his brother at all. So when his sister gifts him ten sessions with a massage therapist, who turns out to be someone he was crushing on for a hot minute as a teenager and is still as hot as ever... yeah, that might as well happen. It won't have to mean anything.

This feels intimate to Jiang Cheng in a way that's probably very inappropriate and maybe even pathetic. Nobody touches him like this, right where he’s hurt the most. There's no one who handles him so gently, so carefully.

It's the gentleness that's his undoing, he thinks. He would be able to deal better with it if it was painful.

Life for Rent by yodasyoyo

“Yeah well. You’re not taking me seriously. This guy is my soulmate!”

“Soulmate.” Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

“Just because you don’t believe in them—”

“I believe in them!” Jiang Cheng says. “I’ve never denied they exist.”

“Just last week you said that it was an evolutionary quirk that had been used by greetings card companies, movie makers, and corporations to exploit lonely and vulnerable people.”

“And I stand by it! That doesn’t mean that soulmates aren’t real. Just incredibly unlikely and probably pointless.

-

Or:

Xicheng vs Soulmates. Fight!

Halfway Around the World by theherocomplex

Normally, Jiang Cheng would be seething, jaw clenched tight, if someone sounded like that while they were talking, but — Lan Xichen has the trick of always making you feel like you're in on the joke, whatever the joke is. That you're laughing together.

Whelmed by yodasyoyo

For months now Jiang Cheng’s been idly fantasizing about how it would be if something were to come between Wei Ying and Lan Zhan. Mostly those daydreams have been simple enough — they break up (probably because Lan Zhan is boring or Wei Ying is annoying), Wei Ying is sad for a couple of days (Jiang Cheng’s willing to allow some space for feelings, he isn't a total monster), but then Wei Ying realizes he’s better off, he gets over it, and Jiang Cheng gets his brother back.

Unfortunately the fantasy version of events has only proven partially true, so far. They've broken up. Wei Ying has been sad.

Now weeks have passed, though — and Wei Ying is still sad, every. Single. Day.

It’s like Jiang Cheng's stuck in a looping GIF, and it’s driving him insane.

Or:

Jiang Cheng plots, Lan Huan pines, and, unfortunately for Lan Qiren, Wangxian are inevitable.

[latte-fairytaekwoon]

𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝑲𝒊𝒔𝒔 (𝑲𝒊𝒎 𝑯𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒋𝒐𝒐𝒏𝒈) 𝑹𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅

Part Two

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐆𝐨𝐭𝐡/𝐄𝐦𝐨! 𝐊𝐢𝐦 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐣𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐠 (𝐀𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐳)/ 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 (𝐅𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞)

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: 𝐒𝐦𝐮𝐭, 𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭, 𝐅𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟, 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞 𝐀𝐔

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 𝐀𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐡𝐨𝐥/𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞, 𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲, 𝐧𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞/𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐞/𝐝*𝐜𝐤 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬, 𝐧𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲 (𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠), 𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 (𝐟𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠), 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐣𝐨𝐛 (𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠), 𝐩*𝐬𝐬𝐲 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲, 𝐮𝐧𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐱 (𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧).

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: 𝐅𝐚𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐊𝐢𝐦 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐣𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐠, 𝐘/𝐍 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 𝟓𝐊+

𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @hanatiny @vocalyunho @galaxteez (payback you little bitch)

✽+†+✽――――✽+†+✽✽+†+✽――――✽+†+✽

Awoken from her daydream, Y/N grumbled when her best friend shoved his notebook in her face.

"Earth to Y/N!" He shouted as he ruffled her hair with the object in his hand.

"Mingi! What the hell?" She complained as she pushed the notebook away.

"I've been trying to get your attention for the past 3 minutes. Are you even listening to me?" He questioned her.

"I am!" She interjected.

Giving her a quizzical look, he crossed his arms.

"Really? Then can you tell me what the answer is?"

Ripping the notebook from his hands, she looked over the equation that filling half the page, squinting at it every now and then before ultimately admitting defeat as she slowly handed it back to the genius sitting next to her on the bench.

Rolling his eyes, Mingi let out a small sigh as he began packing up his belongings, deeming it useless to continue his semi-tutoring session.

"Don't give me that look Min, not everyone is a cute nerd like you that can solve an advanced calculus problem in mere seconds."

"Ok! Although that may be true.." He held up a finger as he paused to fully zip up his bag.

"You're pretty smart too Y/N."

She gave him a small thankful smile at his comment.

"You're problem isn't that you're dumb. Your problem is currently standing right over there."

She hesitantly tilted her head to where his head gestured at, knowing fully well what she'd see. But as soon as she caught a glimpse of the black combat boots, her eyes stayed fixated on the figure reclining against the lamppost. Her eyes trailed up his ripped black skinny jeans, up his torso which was covered by a striped black and dark red turtleneck, its sleeves peeking out of the black studded leather jacket layered on top, until they landed on his nonchalant gaze. His eyes were looking down at his phone, the input connected to the headphones that were currently resting on top of his dark ash grey head. That was how one would mostly find Kim Hongjoong: lost in his own little world, blocking out the rest of his environment with a click of his music playlist, no doubt filled with bands like Linkin Park, Breaking Benjamin and MCR. Y/N wasn't going to lie, more than once she often thought about playing a G note near him just to see if he'd react or not. Thinking about him actually reacting to anything made her giggle on the inside.

"And there you go again!" Mingi's voice yelled in her ear.

She was so startled by his piercing scream, she actually fell over and hit the pavement kinda hard. She winced as she felt a pain on her derriere.

"Ow. Ow. Ow." She groaned as she began lifting herself up.

Out of nowhere, a pair of arms scooped her up and helped her stand upright.

"You all right?" The person asked.

"I think so. Thank you for-"

Her words got caught on her throat as a pair of dark brown eyes looked at her, black eyeliner smoked out to accentuate the shape of his eyes and make them look more intense than they already were.

He smirked at her before looking over at Mingi and nodding at him.

"Yunho sent you the invite right?"

Although he was quite familiar and somewhat friendly with Hongjoong, Mingi still had a hard time talking to him, so he merely tilted his head down in a half nod.

"So you're coming or are you going to stay home again and study for any surprise quiz Professor Nam might try to give us?"

Mingi poked his bottom lip out, somewhat offended at being called out like that. The dark male let out a soft snort.

"Seriously Mingi, going out once in a while won't hurt you. You don't even have to get fucked up if you don't want. Just come hang out."

Turning his attention back at the girl silently admiring him, he flashed her a wink.

"Bring a friend if you want too."

Bringing the headphones up to cover his overly pierced ears, he shoved his hands into his pockets and walked away in that usual way of his that made several people think he was on his way to commit a felony or crime.

Y/N watched him leave until he was completely out of sight, and even then, she still stayed staring at the corner he turned. Leaning in, Mingi stared at her with widened eyes.

"Your middle school phase of liking Andy Biersack copycats is really showing Y/N."

She scoffed and pushed his face away from hers.

"Shut up, you act like you didn't have your own infatuation with Hayley Williams."

Mingi stiffened, his ears turning slightly red at the memories.

"I got over it didn't I?"

"I don't know? Did you?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him teasingly.

"Some friend you are. And here I was actually thinking of taking you with me to the weekend bash Yunho and his friends invited me to."

Y/N looked at him in disbelief.

"First off, why would they even invite you? You're not even a part of their clique. Second, even if they had invited you, you wouldn't go. You're too uptight." She accused him.

Squinting his eyes at her, Mingi cleared his throat.

"For your information, I got paired up with Yunho, Hongjoong and Jongho once for a group project and we actually keep in touch since then."

Y/N dropped her hands to the side, a loud slapping noise made against her thighs.

"When was this?"

"Around the time you went to that trip with your parents back home." He answered.

Her mouth dropped open.

"And you never told me this because.....?"

Mingi rolled his eyes.

"Because you would have teased me or would have said something about a nerd, a jock, a teacher's pet and an emo goth, whatever hell spawn demon he is, in a room together and actually getting along."

"I mean, I get them getting along, not so sure about a boring old prick like you though." She stuck her tongue out at him.

Mingi held his fingers up, threatening to flick her forehead if she continued, but Y/N flinched away.

"You ass. And here I was actually thinking of going and taking you so you can hit on your dream boy." He expressed as he began his walk back home, already deeming it late to stay behind on campus grounds.

Following suit and placing herself on his left, Y/N uttered out.

"He's not my dream boy..."

"Really? Then why do you keep drooling over him and looking at him with googly eyes about to pop out of their sockets?" He inquired.

"He's just.....he's just a complex character. Full of mystery and shrouded in this dark aura that I want to get past and see what's behind it...."

She hesitated even though she was supposed to be answering a question. She felt kinda stupid for thinking like that, making Hongjoong seem like some type of enigma when in reality, he could just be a normal person like all the other people that walked past her on the streets. Her friend didn't judge her though, owing some of her curiosity to her psychology major and passion. Slumping an arm around her, he playfully nuzzled his nose against her cheek, making her emit a half-whine half snort hybrid sound at his antics, trying to release herself from his grasp.

"You're so cute. Now come on. I have to take you shopping."

Not even bothering to ask if she had plans or needed to be somewhere else, Mingi linked hands with her and pulled her with him as he speedily walked in the direction of the nearest mall available.

"Explain to me why that is necessary Einstein? You always hated going shopping with me." She nearly tripped trying to keep up with his long strides.

"Because if you want to win emo boy's heart, you at least gotta start looking like his type." He called back at her.

"And what exactly would his type be?"

"Just trust me and leave it all to me."

✽+†+✽――――✽+†+✽✽+†+✽――――✽+†+✽

Y/N wasn't sure about trusting Mingi anymore as they made their way through a dense, misty and dark forest, the only illumination available being the moonlight that casted a blue tinted beam at their surroundings. Her head whipped with every strange noise that came from bushes or behind a tree. It was kinda chilly and the light breeze that whooshed past them had her legs shivering, making her regret wearing the distressed black shorts and fishnet tights under an oversized Scorpions tshirt that covered most of the shorts, making it look like a no pants look.

"Mingi? Are you sure about this?" She was only thankful of her purchase of some Dr. Martens 1460 black boots which helped her not fall or trip easily on the dirt road.

Mingi, who was an even more scared baby than she was, was fumbled with the sleeves of his pullover hoodie.

"Yeah, Yunho sent me directions and it should be around here somewhere..." He tussled his hair back, trying to hear or distinguish any sound.

"Are you sure he didn't send you to his murder site?" She asked, looking around for any suspicious thing.

Right at that moment, a figure jumped out in front of them, causing both of them to start screaming in terror. Mingi in particular, pushed Y/N to the side and began running in the opposite direction.

"Well dang, he didn't even let me yell boo or something."

Y/N recognized the buff male in front of her as Choi Jongho, the running back of the football team. Giving her an apologetic look, he helped her up after Mingi accidentally pushed her onto the dirt. As she dusted the dirt off, Jongho looked at her band tee.

"Scorpions?" He pointed at it.

He uttered a small 'cool' before signaling her to follow him. Turns out, they were actually not far off from the location, which was actually an old abandoned 2 story summer house that resembled more a barn to her than an actual living space. Cars were all parked out around the area and music was blasting from speakers connected to who knows where. People who hung outside were either vaping their Juuls and chugging back bottles of Smirnoff or Mike's Hard beers, some already halfway to being wasted while others simply held it in their hands, hardly taking a sip as they scanned around trying to find someone to go back home with.

"Don't worry about Mingi. I'll go get him......eventually."

Hearing him snicker, Y/N was actually more worried about herself than Mingi. She only agreed to come because, as surprising as it was, he encouraged her to and knowing he'd be there by her side, being the only person she could stick to cause she did not know anyone else, gave her a little bit of courage. But not anymore after he just totally ditched her and left her alone in God knows where.

Seeing her shift around uncomfortably as they passed through a crowd of wild jumping people, Jongho laced his fingers in hers and brought her over to a more quiet side of the place, where 3 other people were standing around, chatting amongst themselves. Once the two huddled up close to each other saw Jongho and a mystery girl they'd never seen before, they began nudging and whispering among themselves, one of them chuckling under his breath. Hongjoong could already guess what his friend's conversations was about, but he simply rolled his eyes at their behavior and lustful gazes.

Until he turned his head and saw who it was next to Jongho. Then took out the red vape in from his lips and made it a point to exhale the fumes onto the younger member's faces.

"Yah! Hyung! What the hell?" His friend with cat like eyes remarked as he coughed and fanned away the cancerous smoke.

"Just cause you don't care about contracting lung's disease at an early age, doesn't mean San or I want any part of it." The other said.

"Wow. I'm impressed you actually know what contracting means Wooyoung." He smiled amusingly at his younger friend, who was not very pleased with his little joke.

"Hey guys! While trying to retrieve Mingi, I made a new friend." Jongho greeted them like a happy bunny as he held up his hand which was still holding Y/N's.

Hongjoong's eyes narrowed down at where they connected, an eyebrow raised at their physical contact as the hand that held his vape pen began fidgeting it rapidly between his fingers. Jongho of course was oblivious to the anger burning through Hongjoong's stare while Wooyoung and San caught on pretty quick and began debating whether to laugh or step in before bottles were thrown.

"Ok, so where is Mingi now?" San asked him.

"He ran off." Jongho shrugged.

Not wanting to miss the opportunity, Wooyoung pushed himself in between them both, effectively separating them as he pulled Jongho away.

"Great! Now we gotta go find him before he gets lost."

Looking back at Y/N, he waved.

"Hi! I'm Wooyoung, I'm bi and goodbye! You seem nice. Hopefully there's a next time."

Y/N blinked at the flamboyant boy's introduction and exit, wondering if it was planned or-

"No he didn't actually mean to rhyme. He's cute but too dumb to make up a poem on the spot." San answered the question on her mind.

Looking back at Hongjoong, he smiled mischievously.

"Hongjoong definitely can. He's into dark poetry and that Edward Pie guy. Have him recite something to you."

Hongjoong fumed at San who merely patted his shoulder and placed his cup in Hongjoong's hand before sauntering off with the other two.

"Edgar Allen Poe you fucking moron!" Hongjoong yelled as he lifted the cup up, tempted to throw it at him.

Y/N held her hand to her lips for a brief instant, trying to suppress the smile threatening to form across her lips. Hongjoong sighed as he stared down at the contents in the cup, swirling it around casually before holding it out to Y/N.

"Want some?" He offered.

"Umm....sure?"

She didn't even know why she accepted it. She'd never drank before in her life and for all she knew, it could have been laced with something. But not wanting to look like a little priss, she took a deep breath before trying to gulp down whatever alcohol was inside. It burned down her throat and she spat some of it back in the cup, unable to hide the cringing expression at the strong liquor.

"What. Is. That?" She questioned as she wiped the liquid that was on her chin and lips.

Hongjoong snorted as he responded that it was straight vodka, making Y/N feel embarrassed to have let him see such a spectacle from her.

"You're not much of a drinker are you? Or hardly one right?"

Her sheepish look was a dead giveaway which had Hongjoong laughing slightly, his lips parting slightly. Y/N was not only surprised to hear him laugh for the first time, but was intrigued when she saw something metallic on his tongue, making her wonder if he was chewing on something. Noticing her curious gaze, Hongjoong's lip curled up at one corner.

"Oh. That's just a piercing."

He had no qualms and simply stuck his tongue out to let her see the silver bar that was plunged through his tongue, each end having a round ball.

"Wow.....that's impressive." She couldn't deny it was extremely attractive.

Hongjoong himself was just attractive in general. Standing there wearing his usual leather jacket, a black tshirt with red letters, and a red turtleneck peeking out from the top, covering his neck. His usual preference for ripped black jeans was not missing, only this time, he added a little flare by having a piece of red plaid fabric chained around his waist, making it look like a half-skirt look. It seriously made him more hotter than he already was.

"Yeah I know. It's even more impressive when I put it to work."

Pushing himself off the wall he was leaning against, he stepped closer to Y/N, one arm propping against the wall in front of her as he looked at her with hunger and desire in his eyes, those eyes that were once again covered with smoked out eyeliner, only this time he added a hint of red that really made them stand out more and seemed to lure you in and see deep in his soul.

"Wanna experience it first hand?"

She was so lost in his eyes, she almost didn't hear him, until she realized what he meant.

"Here?" She mouthed and gestured around them.

Hongjoong threw his head back and laughed.

"Obviously not here. I'm not like those people outside who are probably already getting to 2nd base in front of everyone."

"Oh....." Now she really felt her cheeks flush red.

Hongjoong patiently tapped his black colored fingernails on the concrete wall, waiting for her answer. She seemed to be debating withing herself so much, until her eyes fell on the patch of skin that was showing when his jacket sleeve rose up, letting her catch a glimpse of black ink that probably went up his arm.

"Listen, if you don't want to that's fine. I know when no means no-" He began to assure her.

"Ok." She quickly responded, interrupting his speech.

"Wait- you're serious?" He slumped his arm off the wall, quite shocked she'd agree.

She nodded. "Yeah."

When it was now Hongjoong who was standing quiet, Y/N giggled and leaned in.

"I mean...if you don't want to-"

She had no time to finish the sentence and his hands gripped her waist and pressed her against him, his breath fanning over hers, the strawberry scent of the vape pen still lingering in his mouth.

"Trust me, I've wanted to for a long time."

✽+†+✽――――✽+†+✽✽+†+✽――――✽+†+✽

As soon as the door to Hongjoong's room in the dorm clicked shut, the tension in the room seemed to thicken. Y/N gulped slightly as she realized this is really happening. Not that she didn't want it to, but to actually have Hongjoong standing in front of her, his eyes already undressing and fucking her, while his bottom lip was caught in his front teeth, was definitely not a reality her brain was fully convincing. It wasn't until Hongjoong's thumb grazed her bottom lip, making her exhale a tiny gasp, that it fully dawned on her what was going to happen.

"Don't worry babydoll. I promise you'll get breathless after I'm done with you."

Wrapping his hand on the back of her neck to tilt it slightly upwards, his lips came down and covered her own, pressing against them before slightly parting and covering them once more. He started out slow before turning it more intense, nipping down roughly at her top lip in an effort to get her to open her mouth for him. When she did, his hands cupped the sides of her jaw, thumbs pressed against her cheeks to keep her face from moving as his tongue poked out and slipped inside her mouth. A muffled moan protruded from her throat when Hongjoong rolled his tongue over hers, his tongue piercing grazing the roof of her mouth. He then began swirling his wet muscle around her own, letting her feel the cold metallic jewelry that was sending shocks down her body. When his hands released their hold on her face, they only did so to glide down her torso before snaking down underneath her shirt to cup the back of her shorts, his fingers digging into her ass cheeks, nails lightly raking across the exposed skin under the ripped hem.

Feeling like things weren't going fast enough for how needy she was growing, Y/N ran her hands across Hongjoong's chest, going up to his shoulders and sliding his leather jacket off them. Getting the hint, Hongjoong let it fall to the floor and soon his graphic tshirt followed suit, leaving him in his tight fitted red turtleneck that practically clung to his skin, his pectoral muscles that were well above average for someone his size perfectly outlined. As eye catching as it was, that wasn't what caught her attention. What kept her eyes trained on his chest was some weird thing poking out suspiciously.

He chuckled as he knew what she was curious about.

"Oh. That my dear doll, are another pair of piercings I got."

Y/N nearly drooled as he lifted his shirt off, not only revealing the hidden 11 abs he owned, but the arm sleeve tattoo that went from his wrist to a little bit above his right upper arm. On his left side, there was no tattoo on his arm, but instead on his ribcage. But the thing that made her squeeze her thighs together were the black colored metal pieces that were lined across his nipples. Unable to help herself, her hands reached out to touch them, but Hongjoong quickly stopped her.

"Ok doll, before you get ahead of yourself, at least one article of clothing has to come off your body." He smiled cheekily at her.

No hesitation, Y/N soon discarded her own shirt, tossing it somewhere on the room, leaving her torso covered with only her black lace bra that didn't exactly cover much.

"Fuck babygirl, where you hiding that all this- Oh, oh my!"

Hongjoong nearly fell back on his bed when Y/N pressed her face against his chest, her tongue darting out to lick around his pierced nipples. He swallowed as he collected himself, trying not to get too turned on as her tongue played around with the piercings, sometimes nipping at them. Hongjoong arched his back slightly, letting her take as much of him in her mouth as she pleased. The nipple that wasn't being made out with her mouth, was being pleasured by her hand, pinching and gently tugging at it.

"You can go as hard as you want."

Giggling darkly, he took her free hand and placed it on the erection poking out in his pants.

"I'll have you know I enjoy a little pain."

Making her squeeze down on it, Y/N could feel something odd, which prompted her to poke and grope him more fiercely. Wanting to satisfy her curiosity, Hongjoong unzipped his pants and pulled them down mid thigh to let her admire the last set of piercings he owned:

A Jacob's ladder running up the base of his dick and an ampallang pierced through the head.

"Holy shit...." Whether she said it out loud or not, Y/N didn't care. It was the most erotic image she had ever seen and she could not believe that in mere minutes, it would be inside her, no doubt destroying and tearing her walls apart.

Leaning in, Hongjoong sloppily kissed and sucked her jaw and down her upper neck.

"You're free to play with it as you wish doll. I got them for more than one reason. And that's one of them."

Not needing to be told twice, her hand wrapped around the base of his erect cock, her thumb running across his slit. Hongjoong hissed slightly when her hand began pumping him slowly, purposefully applying pressure to the silver metal adorning his length. Taking advantage of the his hazy state, Y/N returned to her previous task of playing with his nipple piercings. Hongjoong threw his head back at immense pleasure he was feeling, loving when Y/N would squeeze him a little to harsh or bite roughly at his nipples. He felt more intoxicated and high being painfully pleasured by her hand and mouth than with any THC chemical he'd ever introduce inside his system.

Without realizing it, he instinctively began bucking his hips up, wanting to chase the release that was building up inside him. Knowing what he wanted, Y/N lifted her head up and sucked on his neck, speeding up her hand movements.

"You gonna cum for me Joongie? Gonna cum all over my hand? Make a mess and soak my fingers with your dirty cum?" She taunted at him.

Unable to hold back especially after her dirty teasing, with a mutter of curses, he spilled himself all over her hand, some of it splattering onto her fishnets. Once he regained his senses, he looked down to find her looking at him with a shit eating grin.

"Heh......don't think you're in charge here doll. This is still my territory."

Swooping her up, she let out a little yelp when he tossed her onto his bed, immediately crawling in between her legs. After getting rid of his pants and briefs, his hands gripped on her belt loops to pull her shorts down. His eyes scanned her body, trying to decide on something. He hummed softly as his hand pressed down onto her clothed heat.

"I'm not going deny it, those fishnets do look remarkably sexy on you....."

With mock pity, he sighed. "Oh well."

Y/N gasped in horror as he tore a hole right in the crotch area, leaving the rest untouched. Opening his desk drawer, she widened her eyes when he took out a pocket knife and flashed it across her face.

"Relax doll. I like pain, but knife play isn't really my thing. On me or my partner."

After ordering her to stay still, she watched as he carefully cut on the sides of her lace panties, just enough to carefully slip them off her body without having to take off her tights. Although in any other situation she would have instantly closed her legs, she didn't feel like doing it this time. It turned her on and made her feel sexier to instead pry her legs open, letting Hongjoong peer down at her glistening folds that he caused, her hands running themselves down her chest as she bit down at her lip.

"Fuck! You're practically drenched already Y/N." Hongjoong cocked an eyebrow at her.

She only giggled before reaching behind her to unclasp her bra, slowly pulling the straps down before flinging it behind Hongjoong, letting it join the other pile of clothes scattered about. Hongjoong instantly became hard again, but as much as he wanted to bury his pierced cock inside her and fuck her senseless, there was still one thing he really wanted to do.

Positioning herself in between her legs, his hands gripped the back of her thighs. Looking back at her, he sent a wink her way before attaching his mouth to her soaking heat, causing her to jolt up at the sudden sensation. Knowing exactly how to get her head spinning, Hongjoong slid his tongue up her slit, making sure to drag the metal piece across her folds. It was unlike anything she felt before. Hongjoong already was demonstrating his powerful tongue skills, but the piercing just added a whole new sensation that had her shivering. She couldn't contain the moans spilling out her mouth when his tongue slipped inside her hole, her noises only turning louder when he flicked his tongue in a particular way that made the round metal tip thump against her clit. Hongjoong especially loved doing that little maneuver of hitting her clit with it.

When she felt herself about to burst, Y/N's hands clutched the sheets underneath her.

"Hong-Hongjoong I'm gonna- Aaah!"

The fire pooling in her lower abdomen broke free and rushed down, sending burning sparks up her body as her body trembled at the sensation. Pressing a hand down to hold her still, Hongjoong lapped up her her juices, moaning on her clit, the vibrations only serving to make her more sensitive to any move he made on her body.

When he felt she was ready, he swiftly sat up and positioned his pierced member at her entrance. Making sure to prep her, he got out a bottle of lube out of his drawer and poured some onto the tip of his fingers, spreading it around before inserting two fingers inside her. It had a slight cooling effect that made Y/N hum in pleasure, her mouth going slightly agape when he inserted a third finger, scissoring her out and overall making sure she was stretched out enough.

"Patience doll. I don't want to cause any unnecessary pain....."

She let out a whimper when he withdrew his hand and slapped her clit.

"That much." He finished.

Propping herself on her elbows, she kept her gaze in between their legs. She let out a cry when Hongjoong's head slipped inside her, the round tips of the ampallang piercing stretching her hole in a delicious burn. Next came the metal ridges that scraped against her lower walls, it was an absolutely exhilarating experience. Hongjoong himself let out a groan when he fit himself inside her tight and warm cavern.

"Jesus babydoll. When was the last time you had a good fuck?" He gripped her hips, trying to keep himself from moving just yet.

"Too f-fucking long." She disclosed, her head falling back against the pillow in a disappointed look.

"Well don't worry babe. I'll make sure to fuck any name out of that brain of yours, you won't even remember your own."

Snapping his hips up, he began a rather hard and fast pace, making sure to angle himself so he hit her g-spot. Y/N's hands held onto his arms, choked breaths and screams coming out of her mouth as she began drowning in the immense pleasure he was giving her. The way the metallic piercings raked against her walls every time Hongjoong thrusted in and out of her was indescribable. At first it felt strange and slightly painful, but soon it became addicting, almost to the point of being overwhelming.

Hongjoong took notice of the way her lips parted whenever the ladder piercing grazed at a particular spot.

"You're enjoying this my angel? Like being fucked by my pierced dick?"

Licking his hand, he dropped it down to spank her throbbing and swollen clit, grinning almost sadistically when she shrieked out at his pleasurable torture.

"Do you just enjoy being used like a dirty little hole? Isn't that what you are in the end? Just a filthy hole for me to fuck as I like?"

The corners of her eyes began spilling out tiny droplets of tears as his hand continued his assault on her clit, slapping it until it turned a bright shade of pink. Feeling the intensity build up yet again in the pit of her stomach.

"Hongjoong! I'm gonna cum!" She warned him.

Snaking his hand to grip her neck, Hongjoong sped up his thrusts, fucking her in a frenzy, sending her into a mental state of pure euphoria as he cut off part of her breathing. Y/N shut her eyes as a violent orgasm ripped through her body, her body thrashing and quivering under Hongjoong's. With clenched teeth and furrowed eyes, Hongjoong completely shattered on top of her, spilling himself inside her clenched walls that were milking him past his breaking point. Releasing his grip on her neck, he collapsed on top of her body, his hands spread out to keep himself from dropping all his weight on her.

"Oh my god!" He panted harshly as he tried to collect his breath and thoughts.

She was in no better state than he was, hair all disheveled, pussy still throbbing and her chest heaving up and down as her mind went blank. She only came to her senses when she felt Hongjoong get up and go out of his room, leaving her confused.

Did he regret it? Did he not enjoy it? Was he going to ask her to leave?

It turns out it was none of the above since he came back with a packet of wet tissues.

"You ok?" He asked, looking at her with concern.

After being reassured that she was fine, he plucked out some of the tissues and began wiping between her legs and thighs.

"Ok, these gotta go."

Hongjoong ripped more of the already destroyed fishnet tights and got them off her body, letting it hit the floor.

"Not like I would have used them again." Y/N agreed.

After cleaning both her and himself up, they both stayed quiet. Clearing her throat, Y/N made way to get up.

"Guess it's my cue to leave.."

"Wait don't go!"

Grasping her wrist, he pulled her back onto the bed, making her slightly straddle his lap. Looking up at her with such tender eyes, he offered:

"Stay the night. I don't want you to go just yet."

He said it with such a pleading tone that Y/N didn't have the heart to refuse his request. She just allowed him to place her beside him on the bed, his chest pressed against her back as one of his arms wrapped around her. She closed her eyes and slowly began drifting off to sleep. She was halfway gone when she felt Hongjoong wrapped something cold around her neck. Opening her eyes, she reached up and felt leather on her skin.

"What's this?" She questioned as her finger toyed with whatever was dangling from the device.

Hongjoong smiled fondly at the black choker strapped around her neck.

"Don't worry about it. Just wear it for me..."

His hand traced the red heart pendant dangling from the choker, the letters 'KHJ' engraved on the center of it.

"So everyone can see that you're all mine now."

✽+†+✽――――✽+†+✽✽+†+✽――――✽+†+✽

[sandbees]

Fallout

Warning: Mentions of blood, violence, and friends-to-enemies

This is my 500 follower special :) a word of warning, this is going to be very angsty, unlike my other works. So be warned!

=_=

Those four were always inseparable, everyone thought. Despite the chaos they brought, they brought smiles to everyone. You’d never find one without the others.

Which is why Trey and Riddle found it odd to see Ace walking into the kitchen alone.

“Ace?”, Trey had said, “Did the Track and Field club have a last minute meeting?”

“Eh? Why are you asking?”

“Oh, it’s because you usually come here with Deuce.”

At the mention of his friend’s name, Ace’s expression changed. He narrowed his eyes as he gave a frown.

“Why should I care if he has a club meeting to attend?”, the redhead scoffed, “What he does doesn’t matter to me anymore.”

Without any more words, Ace left the kitchen. Riddle and Trey give a glance to each other, though they say nothing. It was not unusual for the ADeuce duo to have small fights and act like the other doesn’t exist. They’d make up eventually.

=_=

“Grim?”

The cat in question gave a low growl, as he slid into Jack’s room. Grim smelled of sadness and fear, the wolf beastmen noted. That was certainly unusual, for the boisterous cat. That...made Jack worry.

“What? I just wanted to crash in here for the night.”, he said, curling up at Jack’s feet.

“I...see.”, Jack’s ear twitched, “How come you aren’t with Yuu?”

“I just didn’t want to see them.”, Grim said as his tail curled around his body.

Jack’s expression flickered to reflect worry, “Is that all?”

“...yes, that’s all.”, Grim stated quietly, before laying his head down, “Now be quiet, I’m trying to sleep.”

Jack stayed silent, pondering the sudden change in Grim’s behavior. Yuu wasn’t someone who would...act mean or lash out at people, especially not Grim. Jack worried that something bad had happened to Yuu or worse.

Though, rationally it was nothing more than a little spat they might have had, and Grim was being overdramatic (as usual). Maybe Jack was overthinking things.

=_=

Grim didn’t come with Jack to go to school. He had stated that he would go to class by himself. (Unusual; why would Grim willingly go to class?) But when Jack mentioned that Grim should meet up with Yuu, the cat became more insistent to go to class early.

Something was wrong, Jack could tell. Maybe last night’s worries weren’t nothing. He wanted to know more, which would be easy since he sees Yuu every day at Main Street with the rest.

Which is why he found it odd when only Epel and Sebek were present.

“Where’s the others? Shouldn’t they be here already?”, Jack asked as he approached the two.

“They should, but we haven’t seen them at all.”, Epel answered, frowning, “I expected Ace or Deuce to be late, but never Yuu. They’re always on time.”

“Maybe Grim kept Yuu back!”, Sebek said, “He must have wanted them to get tuna for him!”

“No, that isn’t possible.”, Jack shook his head, “Grim came over to Savannaclaw last night.”

“He...he what?!”, Sebek shouted, “Why would he stay with you?!”

“I don’t know, but judging by his actions and his scent...something must have happened between Yuu and Grim.”, Jack sighed.

“His scent?”, Epel repeated, “What does Grim’s scent have to do with anything?”

“Well, you see-“

“Hey guys!”

The three turn their heads to see Yuu smiling at them. But...there was this air around them that seemed anxious. They had been walking quickly, as if someone was following them.

“Oh, good morning Yuu.”, Sebek greeted, “How are you?”

“I’m doing well.”, Yuu said quickly, “By the way, can we go to class now? I was hoping to get to class early you see-“

“Shouldn’t we wait for Ace and Deuce?”, Jack interrupted, “They should be here soon.”

“We don’t have to worry about them.”, Yuu said in a strained voice, “Besides, I don’t think we want to see each other.”

This got the group’s attention. It was as clear as day that Yuu did not want to see Ace or Deuce. The question was: Why?

“...Does this have to do with Grim staying over at my dorm?”, Jack asked.

“...”

It was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. Gradually, Yuu’s face fell into a look of annoyance.

“He stayed over at your dorm? Did he say anything?”

Jack flinched at the sudden coldness in their tone.

“No, he just slept for the night and left early.”

Yuu nodded, “Then...that’s fine. But, I don’t want to stick around and wait for the other two. You can, if you want. I won’t force you to.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. Something was definitely up. The four were usually glued to the hip, but seeing Yuu act so...indifferent about the other three gave a bad feeling in his gut. Sebek and Epel must have had the same idea.

“What happened yesterday?”, Epel asked, “What did the three do to get you so mad?”

“....I don’t want to talk about it.”, Yuu said, “Just- I don’t want to be friends with them anymore. I never will be.”

CRASH!

The noise was so sudden, that everyone jumped at it. It came from behind them, a large sound that sounded like food splattering.

Behind them, was Deuce and Cater. A trey of what was presumably backed goods smeared onto the ground.

“Oh shit.”, Epel whispered.

The look in Deuce’s eyes made Epel shrink away and closer to Sebek and Jack. It felt out of character of the bluenette - having such a murderous look on his face.

Yuu stood their ground, glaring at Deuce.

“How nice of you to join us.”, Yuu stated, “But I’m going to class.”

“Oh, fuck off.”, Deuce snarled.

Cater, poor guy, visibly moved away from Deuce, shock written on his features.

“Whatever you say.”, Yuu waved their arm half-heartedly as they walked away.

Deuce growled, before he walked in the opposite way of Yuu...before he turned around and passed the group, because he was actually going in the wrong direction of the school.

The group were left in complete shock and confusion. Yeah, something was up. Seeing the two act so hostile towards each other in mere seconds of seeing the other raised a lot of flags.

“Uhm, Diamond-Senpai, right?”, Jack recalled, “What was that about?”

“Ah, if I knew the full story, I would’ve done something about it.”, Cater snapped out of his thoughts, “Deuce-Chan just came up to me and Trey yesterday and asked to help him make an apology cake. We happily agreed and I went with him to deliver it. I didn’t know it was for Yuu...I honestly thought it was for Ace.”

“Eh? Is Deuce mad at Ace too?”, Epel asked.

“I would assume so, Ace seemed particularly annoyed when he came back to our dorm yesterday.”

“Hm, this seems like a mystery that’s waiting to be solved...”

“I guess we have to go ask them individually to figure out what happened.”, Sebek said, “School is almost in session, so the best time is to ask during class.”

“Right.”

=_=

Cater was worried. About Deuce, Ace, Grim, and Yuu. It was evident that something happened yesterday, that caused them to be hostile with each other. He’s noticed how they refuse to be in the same room of each other outside of class - how uncomfortable the other three of their group had looked when the rest of their group was divided.

He sighed, as the last bell rang. Cater knew he’d have to bring it up with Riddle and Trey. Maybe they could intervene with Ace and Deuce.

As he turned the corner, he noticed a rather big crowd next to the Heartslybul mirror. Unconsciously, Cater took out his phone, ready to record whatever drama was happening.

Did he expect Deuce and Ace to be full on brawling on the floor? No, not at all.

He could only watch in silent shock as he recorded the whole fight. He should intervene, as their senior. Make sure they don’t get seriously harmed and get Riddle and Trey-

Deuce grabs Ace’s head and smashes it against the floor. A sickening crack echoes as Ace screams. Cater almost drops his phone.

Oh god, there’s blood dripping onto the floor, he has to-

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!”

Riddle storms into view, red in the face. The crowd of students part way for him to pass by. Trey is next to his side.

“Trappola? Spade?”, Riddle looked at the two first years, “What on Earth were you thinking?! Fighting in the corridors, I-“

Riddle fell silent. He must have noticed the blood leaking from Ace’s head.

Cater pushed past some of the students, going to meet with the two Heartslybul dorm leaders.

“I’ll take Ace to the infirmary.”, he offered, “I don’t know much but...I did get some recordings.”

He inwardly cringed at saying that. Seriously, what was he thinking?! He shouldn’t have recorded the fight and stood by.

Riddle slumped his shoulders, “Please do, Cater. Trey, please take Deuce to my office.”

The redhead turned to the body of students, “The rest of you - back to your dorms! This “fight” is over!”

Cater hoisted Ace over his shoulders. Ace groaned, looking very much out of it. Deuce scowled, though he passively followed Trey to the Heartslybul mirror.

Cater hesitated, even as the students began to leave the scene.

This was so uncharacteristic of the two of them. Since when did Deuce throw punches to the point of causing someone to bleed? Did Ace escalate some teasing to a full on brawl (no, Ace can annoy someone, but he would never poke a bee’s nest intentionally)

As Cater dragged Ace down the halls, he wondered if the fight was a climax of something much more bigger - something that started with Yuu denouncing their friendship between Deuce and Ace.