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freesia-writes · 1 year ago

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Chapter 24: Revilement

During the Clone Wars, the Bad Batch is tasked with a variety of missions across the galaxy. An unexpected addition to their team throws a wrench in the mix, particularly for Tech, who finds a particular connection with this disillusioned Padawan-turned-mechanic named Vel throughout the events in this action-adventure romance. COVER ART BY @zaana!!

Master List of Chapters

Vel paused for a moment, hand hovering above the control panel. This felt wrong, but she also felt entitled to know one way or another. She pushed the data card the rest of the way in, taking a deep breath as the machine began to whir while it read the information on Tech's card. Wishing she'd been able to do this on her own datapad instead of having to sneak into the central communications center, she shifted her weight anxiously. She only had a few minutes, max, before Arthen would notice she was gone.

He'd asked her to join him for an evening soiree with his friends, around whom she had always felt self-conscious due to her awkward hobble. She was almost completely healed from her initial bedridden paralysis, but she still didn't feel worthy of all these slickly-dressed, high-minded folk. She had worn a simple, floor-length black gown, and would much rather have been in her quarters in plain loungewear, but Arthen had been even more insistent than usual. He seemed unwilling to let her out of his sight all of a sudden, and what had started as flattering affection was starting to come across as controlling attention.

A small ping brought her thoughts back to the present, and she scrolled quickly through the information on the screen. As it flew past her eyes, her heart sank. Transmission after transmission, dated throughout the last number of months, all rerouted to the same medical staff inbox. She felt a rush of emotions that were impossible to distinguish -- anger, fear, confusion, warmth, chill... She should have ejected the card and left at that moment, but she couldn't resist opening one of the random transmissions in the middle of the list.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

{ENCODED TRANSMISSION//24-4219-1249581//HAVOC2^CACHE}

GREETINGS ONCE AGAIN. CONSIDERING THE HIGHLY FACTUAL CONTENT OF MY LAST FEW TRANSMISSIONS, AND IN LIGHT OF RECENT EXPLORATION OF NAUTOLAN LITERATURE, I THOUGHT I MIGHT DELIGHT YOU WITH AN ATTEMPT AT A POEM IN THE STRUCTURE OF IAMBIC PENTAMETER, IN WHICH I DESCRIBE WHAT I FIND MOST ENTICING ABOUT BOTH YOUR PERSONALITY AND YOUR INTELLECT...

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

She scrolled down, laughing in delight and feeling a growing warmth in her chest as she began to read his description of her "morose yet intriguing start" of her time with them. But her little interlude came to an abrupt end at the whoosh of the door. She backed out of the message and pressed a button to clear the screen, but the machine was responding too slowly. She yanked the card out, slipping it inside one of her long sleeves, and turned around, crossing her fingers that one of the comm employees had simply forgot something after leaving for the night.

Not so lucky. Arthen strolled in, drink in hand, his brawny, athletic frame smartly dressed from head to toe. He had wavy golden hair cut neatly around his head and bright blue eyes that currently blazed at her from across the room. He was ruddy-cheeked and slightly sloppy in his movements as he stalked toward her.

"So you lied to me," he said, with a rusty voice that put a chill down her spine. He was nothing like his normal self. "This doesn't look like the refresher."

"I wanted to send a message..." Vel began, frantically struggling to make something up, but Arthen didn't let her finish.

"To who, Vel? Your dead parents? Your siblings, of which you have none? Your academy roommate from ten years ago?" he interrupted, gesturing grandly with his drink hand, sloshing a bit onto a nearby desk.

Dread filled her chest and Vel gripped the edge of the console behind her. The atmosphere felt as though it were about to break, and she felt an immense sense of danger. She racked her brain for options, and one came to her immediately as if sent by a friend. She closed her eyes, reaching down to that place within, urgently directing all of her energy toward getting one single idea across.

***

Hunter's head jerked up from his dinner, his fork and knife cocked at the ready. He glanced around the room quickly, not seeing any sign of her. His brow furrowed, and he stood, taking one more scan around the dinner hall before returning to his seat.

"What is it?" Crosshair asked from the bench across the table.

"I felt something," Hunter responded, "But it was weird. It wasn't something around here..." He looked at Tech, "Any idea where Vel might be tonight?"

Tech looked up from his food in surprise, cheek bulging from the bite he'd just taken, "I have a few likely locations, most of which are easily accessible, and I could possibly confirm further if we go to a data terminal. But currently, her quarters, the repair bay, or the rehabilitation center are most likely, as I believe she eats dinner earlier than us. Why?"

"Maybe we should check em out," Hunter said, finishing his drinking glass. "I've got an odd feeling."

"Are you dipping your toes in the world of spice now, Hunter?" Crosshair said, frowning through a bite, "We're in the middle of dinner. You really want to go stalk Tech's little obsession... on a feeling?"

"You finish your dinner then," Hunter said, rising to his feet and tucking his helmet under his arm. Tech was at his side immediately, helmet on, visor scanning blueprints. They turned to leave, and were shortly joined by Wrecker, each hand grasping the last bits of his dinner.

"I just didn't want to stay there with him," Wrecker said, shrugging.

"I am uploading each of the locations to these small trackers," Tech said, fingers flying on the datapad, "They will direct you to the locations she frequents. You will have to knock on the entry for the accommodations, obviously, but it should be enough for us to find her."

"Sounds good. Report in when you've got something," Hunter said, taking one of the small, round remotes. That strange sense was back again, with even more urgency this time. "Where are we going?"

"You've got her quarters, Wrecker has the repair bay, and I shall check the rehabilitation center," Tech responded, and they moved out.

The rehabilitation center was closed and locked for the night, something Tech should have realized from the start. He cursed his lapse of mental prowess, then doubly so as he replayed in his mind their conversation from earlier that day.

"The communication center," he muttered, tapping furiously on the datapad, "Of course."

***

Arthen's fingers dug into Vel's upper arm again as he gave it a little jerk to emphasize his words. She had turned her face away from him where he had cornered against the control panel, so she didn't see the splash of light as the door quickly slid open and closed.

"I told you why I blocked them from the beginning," he said, "I just knew that I loved you from the start, from the moment I laid eyes on you. You know I've got to have you."

"It needs to go both ways, Arthen," Vel said, face remaining hidden.

Tech confirmed the scene through his visor before lifting it and pulling out his blasters. He slunk along a tall row of desks and screens, approaching the two at the terminal at the end. He slipped across a walkway, stepping closer.

"I know you're in here, lover boy. So come on out instead of being a sneaky little coward," Arthen yelled, turning to face the room behind them while maintaining his firm grip on Vel's bicep.

Tech stood tall, walking out plainly in front of them, blasters at his sides. Vel was flooded with relief and somehow still churning with fear at the same time. "Your grasp on her arm is unacceptable, Arthen. Please release her."

Arthen laughed, standing to his full height and taking a step toward Tech, pulling Vel forward with him. "First of all, that's cute. Second of all, what the kriff do you think you doing in here?"

"That is irrelevant. Let her go."

"Why don't you come over here and make me? Come on, console face, drop the blaster and let's go, man to man," Arthen spat, throwing Vel down to the side. He took off his shiny jacket and pushed up his sleeves, squaring up in an immense show of bravado. Tech watched Vel crawl backward, getting some space from the approaching brute, before lifting his gaze back to Arthen.

"Alright," Tech said, meeting the man's angry charge by lifting a blaster and squeezing the trigger in one smooth motion. A bright blue flash dropped Arthen mid-run, and he landed unconscious with a few residual zaps of energy licking around his legs.

Tech tucked in his blasters and closed the remaining distance quickly, bending over Arthen and placing a quick injection in the outstretched arm before rushing to Vel where she sat on the floor, arms propped up behind her. He knelt beside her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," she said, unwilling to meet his gaze. "Thank you, Tech."

His heart did a surprise somersault at the sound of his name on her lips, and Tech moved his hand from his shoulder to her chin, touching it but not applying any pressure, inviting her to look at him with no insistence that she did. "You are welcome. May I suggest a course of action?"

"Yours is usually better than mine," she said, finally finding his eyes. The warmth and focus she saw there melted her remaining fear.

"A short visit to the therapeutic hot springs followed by a restful night of sleep in safety," Tech responded factually, right back to business as usual. Vel let out a breath that she didn't know she was holding. There was far too much swirling around her mind, and the thought of settling down in peace and quiet to mull it all over was highly appealing.

"Yes please," she whispered. Without hesitation, he scooped her into his arms, rising to his feet without struggle and carrying her out of the comm center.

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maya-kholin · 8 months ago

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Tav's Irresistible Dance

(a Baldur's Gate 3 fanfic)

Word count: 3k

Pairings: M!Tav x Astarion, platonic Tav + Gale, M!Tav x Halsin is there for exactly one sentence

Summary: Tav isn’t good at flowers and chocolate. He says “I love you” by murdering your enemies while calculating the maximum number of win conditions possible. But a communication error endangers his relationship with the very person he’s doing this for. Misunderstanding/angst, resolved by the end. (Note: Technically Tav x Astarion but Gale is there a lot. What can I say, they like nerding out about magic.)

Rating: T for brief suicide reference, swearing

Warnings: References to canon abuse, (brief/insincere) suicide threat, vampire feeding.

***

“Would you be willing to help me test a spell?”

Gale looked up to see Tav outside his tent, squinting as always in the daytime sun. He grinned and snapped his book shut. “Always happy to assist in the pursuit of arcane excellence. Hit me.”

“Okay, that’s even more enthusiasm than I expected,” Tav said with a look over his shoulder, “but I’d rather not do it here. Would you come with me?”

Tav led Gale some distance out into the woods. He pulled out his violin and checked the tuning. He’d sooner gut you than let you refer to him as a bard, but magic didn’t lie, and Tav relied on music to manipulate the Weave. “I don’t expect this to cause any pain, or have any lasting effects, but it could be… uncomfortable,” he said.

“Well, now I’m even more interested to see what you’ve come up with.”

Tav tucked the violin under his chin and touched bow to strings. “Try to throw me off.”

As the music closed in around him, Gale took note of its effect on the Weave. Enchantment, not terribly surprising given Tav’s knack for the school. But though it had the makings of a typical paralysis spell, Gale felt compelled to move. His feet moved and tapped outside of his control. He tried to force his arms to form arcane gestures, but instead, they swayed to the music. Incantations were swept from his lips, drowned out by the sound. It took him only a few moments to summon the will to resist, but in battle, those seconds would be precious.

“Marvelous!” Gale beamed. “I’m not quite sure of the benefits of modifying a hold spell in such a fashion, but it earns points for flair, certainly.”

“Do you…” Tav cleared his throat. “Do you think it would work on an undead?”

“Oh! Oh, I see. You’re wise to ask, my friend. The Weave interacts differently with undead flesh. It’s a particularly vexing problem. A hold monster spell can potentially stop a dragon in its tracks, but not… shall we say… a master vampire.”

Tav looked relieved. “Exactly. Yes.”

“I think you’re on the right track. Would you mind showing me your notes?”

Tav produced a bundle of papers. “Hope you read Under-Elven,” he said, handing them over. Lines of musical notation alternated with arcane diagrams, with notes and questions in the margins.

“Oh, don’t worry, I will,” Gale said absently, already analyzing the diagrams. “This is fascinating! Yes… yes, I think it can work, but it needs some alterations. Would it be alright if I made some notes and got back to you?”

“I was hoping you’d offer. Thanks,” said Tav. “One more thing. Would you mind not mentioning this to Astarion? Actually…” He shifted on his feet. “Best to keep it entirely between us for now.”

“Hmm? Of course,” Gale mumbled, barely looking up from the notes. “Now, if you added a dash of Tasha’s sinister compulsion here…”

***

Late that night, Astarion returned from hunting to find Tav still at work in his tent. The smell of alchemical reagents hung in the air as he carefully filtered something foul into a small bottle.

Tav smiled when he saw Astarion enter. He greeted him with a kiss to the forehead and slipped the bottle into Astarion’s hand. “Remember,” Tav said, “bite first, then stab.”

“I’m not sure your poisons would do much to me, darling.”

“Maybe not, but swarming toadstool has an intensely bitter taste when extracted properly.” Tav grinned. “I laughed for a tenday when I learned topsiders just call this stuff ‘drow poison.’ Still, if you’re going to be infamous for something, might as well be something that works. Are you hungry?”

“If you don’t mind…”

“Let me tidy up first. Don’t want anything spilling or catching fire.” He did so, then settled into his bedroll and extended a hand to Astarion.

Tav slipped into his meditation before Astarion even finished. He’d seen the man meditate sitting up with one eye open, so this level of trust was… well, it was rewarding.

He relaxed into Tav’s arms. It was nice being together like this, without the expectation of… other things. A very large and frightened portion of his mind screamed that it wouldn’t last, that he couldn’t really have this, but he buried himself in Tav’s scent and ignored it.

Both of them were startled to consciousness by an exuberant wizard. “I’ve got it!” Gale was shouting in the early morning light. He was brandishing a bundle of papers. “If you just apply Tenser’s enhancement to the base enchantment matrix – layer on a splash of necromancy – oh, good morning, Astarion. – then you should be able to entrap even a particularly powerful –”

Tav cut him off abruptly, taking the papers. “Thank you, I’ll have a look at this later. Did you sleep? I’m reliably informed that humans need sleep.”

“Why sleep when we’re on the cusp of magical innovation?” Gale wobbled slightly, his eyes bloodshot.

Tav plucked a bottle from his alchemical collection, checked the label, and handed it to Gale. “Take this. A sleepy wizard’s no good to me. I’ll ask Wyll to come with me today.”

“Oh.” Gale looked a bit crestfallen.

“Just get some rest. I appreciate the help.”

Astarion watched as Tav hastily tucked the papers away. He was being a little too protective of them. Was he hiding something? “What are the two of you up to?” he asked.

“Just writing a spell,” Tav said smoothly, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I don’t want to bore you with the arcane details.”

“Well, what if I’m interested?”

“I’ll show it to you when it’s working,” Tav said. “Promise.”

***

“I’m not sure your modifications are going to work,” Tav said to Gale later.

“I’m really quite confident we’ve got the Weave structure right.”

Tav peered at the notes, now covered with extensive feedback from Gale in purple ink. “Far be it from me to question the arcane prowess of Mystra’s former Chosen,” he said carefully, “but I think you’ve forgotten one key element of bardic magic.”

“And what’s that?”

“Gale… it has to sound good.”

“I’m sure it will be fine! Give it a go, you’ll see.”

Tav shrugged and picked up the violin. Unholy screeching soon filled the air. “Alright, alright!” cried Gale, waving his hands as if to brush the awful sound away. “You make your point vividly. What do we do next, then?”

“I think I can work with this, but what it needs now is more music than magic… You will let me run this by you again, won’t you?”

“Of course, of course!” “And remember. Not a word to the others. Please.”

***

“Working on a spell”? Was that what they called it these days? Did he think Astarion wouldn’t notice him constantly sneaking off with Gale? Did giving him permission to sleep with Halsin, once, mean he was allowed to dally with the entire camp whenever he liked?

And… seriously? Gale?

No. No. There were those papers, after all. And he never had the scent of, ahem, dalliance on him. Nor had he ever mentioned being attracted to Gale, only expressed admiration for his talent for magic.

If Astarion could just get his hands on those papers, he could be sure, but that was easier said than done. Tav always carried them with him, including when he slipped away with Gale.

The only chance would be when Tav was meditating, but it would be an understatement to call him a light sleeper. Astarion would have to be incredibly quiet. Good thing he was good at that.

So, one night, when he was sure Tav was as close to unconscious as could reasonably be assumed, he very carefully drew the bundle of papers from Tav’s pack.

He felt a pang of guilt. Of course it was a spell. That much was clear. But then, why the secrecy?

He couldn’t make much sense of it, unfortunately. Every other page was lines of musical notes, each accompanied by a page with arcane diagrams and drawings of magical gestures. On the first page there was an empty space where you might expect a title to be written.

Astarion could read music, and it seemed like a pretty damned good song. Lively and upbeat, the sort of thing you’d want to dance to. But that was about all he could make out. Cazador had only ever allowed the spawn to communicate in Common, except as necessary to bring in their marks. Astarion’s knowledge of Elven was… atrophied, at best, and Tav’s Underdark dialect made his head spin. Infuriatingly, even Gale’s notes were in the same tongue. Add to that the advanced nature of the magical diagrams, and he simply couldn’t make head or tail of the spell’s purpose.

He carefully returned the papers. Good news: he’s probably not cheating. Bad news: he’s still hiding something.

But the idea of bringing it up filled his belly with ice. What if they had a fight? What if they broke up? Too risky. It’s… probably nothing. Right?

***

Weeks later, Tav and Gale shared a drink in a quiet corner of the Elfsong Tavern.

“Here’s to you, my friend,” Gale said, raising his mug. “I hope you’re proud of yourself. If I were submitting this for publication at the Waterdeep Academy, I’d list it as at least a sixth-level spell.”

“I am a bit proud,” Tav said, raising his mug in return and taking a drink.

“Not that I haven’t noticed you peeking at my spellbook when you think I’m not looking,” Gale added with a twinkle in his eye. “I think I deserve some of the credit.”

Tav laughed. “Never would have learned to counterspell without you.”

“Just ask next time.”

“I did!”

“Fair enough, so you did. I just wish we had a way to test it properly. On paper, it’s flawless. But lots of things are.”

Tav frowned. “Remind me again why a summoned undead won’t work.”

“It probably will work. That’s the problem. Powerful creatures have powerful resistances. We need to test it on the strongest undead we have access to.”

Tav put up his hands. “I know what you’re about to say–”

“I’m saying you should ask Astarion.”

“You’re talking about basically controlling him with magic.”

“It’s the only way to be sure we’ll succeed,” Gale insisted.

“I admit I’d like some insurance,” Tav said.

“Exactly. And I’m sure he’ll agree it’s for a good reason.”

Tav shook his head. “You may be right, but… no. Even if he does agree, I don’t want to ask it of him. Controlling him even for a few seconds is a boundary I don’t want to cross, not after what he’s been through.”

Gale sighed. “Fair enough. We’ll just have to wing it then. Although I thought I spied a strangely intelligent ghoul the other day…”

***

Baldur’s Gate at last. After going gods knew how long without the comforts of civilization, there were beds. With sheets. Oh, they were still crammed cheek by jowl in the upper floor of a tavern, but there were substantially fewer insects, at least.

The suspicion that Tav was hiding something still nagged at Astarion. So he’s getting a drink with Gale. So what. He’s allowed to have friends.

He’d thought about the tadpole, more than once, and hadn’t Tav peeked into his mind, early on? Discovered things Astarion wasn’t ready to reveal? But their relationship was different now, and Astarion wanted to deserve trust, even if Tav wasn’t exactly earning the same.

Astarion headed downstairs, definitely to see if any of the others were interested in a drink and definitely not to eavesdrop. Even though, with his extraordinary hearing, he might happen to pick something up.

There were Tav and Gale, off in a corner, thick as thieves. Astarion tried to block them out, but his own name made his ears perk up.

“...ask Astarion,” Gale was saying.

Tav’s voice responded. “You’re talking about basically controlling him with magic.”

Gale cut him off. “It’s the only way to be sure we’ll succeed.”

“I admit I’d like some insurance,” Tav said.

“Exactly. And I’m sure he’ll agree it’s for a good reason.”

“You may be right…”

Astarion’s ears were roaring as he bolted from the dining room. Freezing cold panic gripped him. He couldn’t stand to listen to another word.

Shit. Shit. The spell was to control him. No wonder they kept it from him.

He could feel his freedom slipping away. And what was that nonsense Gale had said? “I’m sure he’ll agree”? To what? To lie down and play lapdog again for some vague notion of common good? Fuck that. Fuck him.

In his fear and rage he forgot the tadpole, the artifact. Forgot that he couldn’t leave. Knew that he had to leave. Now.

Their room was dark and empty, at least. As quickly and quietly as he could, Astarion began packing up his things. Was there anything else worth stealing, while he was at it…?

Suddenly he felt a prickle at the back of his neck, and turned. Diamond-bright eyes regarded him in the gloom. Damn that drow. Of course darkness was no obstacle to him – and he could be nearly as sneaky as Astarion when he wanted.

Tav approached him. “Babe, what’s wrong? I saw you running upstairs.”

Astarion lifted his nose in the air haughtily. “I have nothing to say to you.”

Tav’s face was composed. “I don’t know what you overheard, but at least give me the chance to fix it.”

“Don’t bother. I know the two of you are trying to – control me. Good little Astarion, as long as he’s on a leash, as long as he’s compliant. Point him at something you need stabbed, but don’t let him act out, oh no. Is that what you wanted all along? Was all of this a lie?” His voice was rising as the words spilled out. “Was all that rot about freedom just a smokescreen? Or maybe controlling me isn’t good enough. Maybe you want me out of the way. Plan to talk me into killing myself? Like you did that devil? Maybe I should make it easy for you.” He didn’t mean it, not really, but the panic that gripped him wouldn’t let him stop. What did finally give him pause was Tav’s face. Still level, not rising to the bait.

“Don’t push me away now, you damned fool,” he said softly, his voice heavy with affection. “Here. This is probably overdue.”

Lighting a candle for ease of reading, Tav spread the oh-so-familiar bundle of notes out on a desk. There were many more notes and annotations than the last time Astarion had looked, and the title had been filled in. Gale had written something that Tav had crossed out and replaced, and this much, Astarion very much could read. A Song for Cazador.

Following his eyes, Tav said, “Gale wanted to call it Tav’s irresistible dance, but I told him that’s boring and only wizards name things that way. A Song for Astarion would be strictly true but felt a little mean-spirited. So I decided to direct the meanness where it’s deserved.”

“I… don’t understand.”

“When we face him, we’re going to need an edge.” He said when, not if. “I promised you I’d help you kill him, and I meant it. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. I asked Gale to help me design a spell that could paralyze an undead, and here we are.”

He did all this just to gain an advantage against Cazador? “Why didn’t you tell me? Did you think I’d be anything less than ecstatic that you were working on a weapon to use against my former master?”

“I didn’t tell the group because we need to be flexible in our battle plan. I can’t have you all standing around waiting for me to perform a miracle. We need to do anything and everything that wins us the fight, and that means not counting on me if something goes wrong. And…” He looked sideways at Astarion. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up. To see your disappointment if I failed. Worse, to see you count on me in battle only to… lose you.” He shook his head. “I see now it was a mistake to keep it from you. I’m sorry.”

“Then… what were you two talking about just now?”

“We haven’t been able to test the spell on a powerful enough undead. Gale was trying to talk me into testing it on you – with your permission – but I said I didn’t want to ask. I don’t like the idea of controlling you. I don’t want to… be like him, in any way, if I can help it.”

Astarion took a breath, steadied himself. “I… see. Since you mention it, I would prefer you didn’t use me as your guinea pig, if you don’t mind.”

“Okay,” said Tav. “Then that’s the end of it.”

“Thank you. Not that I’m not suddenly extremely invested in the success of this spell,” he added, a bit of his usual rakish demeanor returning. He felt exhilarated, in fact. The idea that someone cared enough to invent a brand new spell for him? “An irresistible dance, you called it? That sounds positively delicious. Dancing like a puppet on strings… just like he forced us to do, for all those years.” He laughed in equal parts vengeful cruelty and relief.

Tav chuckled. “Kind of disgusting, right? And it shouldn’t work on just Cazador. I’m looking forward to using it.”

“Ooh, I’m looking forward to watching you, my dear.”

Tav laughed, then grew serious again. “Are you alright now? Really.”

“I really am. A few months ago I could never have pictured anyone doing something like this for me.”

“Thank me when it works.”

***

For far too long, the outcome of the battle was anything but certain. Cazador had endless minions to throw at them, and though Tav had immediately teleported to Astarion to free him from the ritual, the brief loss of his will had been all too painful.

But then, as Karlach’s axe rose and spattered yet more grimy undead blood through the air, Gale shouted. “NOW!” A practiced flick of the wrist, a tug on the Weave, to transform a possible glimpsed future into certainty. Tav nodded, and began to play.

And Cazador… began to dance.

And kept dancing.

He danced as he tried to melt into mist. He danced as Karlach cleaved through the last of his servants. He danced as Gale blasted bats out of the air. He danced as Tav advanced towards him, clicking his heels in time to the music.

“Understandable mistake to make,” Tav said. “You see, cattle don’t have thumbs.”

Looking upon his old master, Astarion felt not an ounce of pity to see him reduced to a jerking, helpless puppet. But he did feel… He looked over at Tav. “Stop,” he said. Tav nodded and ended the song with a final flourish.

And Astarion stepped forward and took his revenge.

*****

thank you for reading! in my fight against cazador I was salty hold monster wouldn’t work, so I said eff it and clicked otto’s irresistible dance. and he beefed his save for like three or four turns. I shot bats in front of him to assert dominance. it was awesome. I made it into a fic because I thought it was sweet to picture tav preparing for the fight, and then gale turned up.

dms: never let a divination wizard and a lore bard team up. “I cast Otto’s Irresistible Dance on the vampire.” “And here’s his saving throw.”

the magical technobabble is all made up and the only bits based in lore are the names Tasha and Tenser. under-elven is also 100% cope on my part because I refuse to believe there’s no linguistic drift between underdark peoples and their surface counterparts. likewise, astarion not speaking elven well is headcanon but I think I justified it pretty well.

anyways, try otto’s irresistible dance against cazador. or raphael. oh, you like to sing motherfucker? bet you wanna dance too then

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 tav #bg3 astarion #astarion ancunin #bg3 gale #gale of waterdeep #be nice I barely ever write fic #but also if I didn't warn something I should have I would appreciate a polite note

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thescions · 10 months ago

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Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis? What about blackouts or other gaps in your memory? An intrusive physical interaction? Combine all those horrors and you'll understand a tiny bit of what it was like for Thancred to be possessed by Lahabrea!

In truth, Thancred cannot remember when exactly he fell under Lahabrea's control. He can remember, however, the feeling of when it first happened: like something sharp digging into his temples while a wave of paralysis took over, making him unable to even draw breath. And then -- a push. A force that was not solid, and yet it weighed down on him like an intense cast of a Gravity spell.

He was smothered. It was like drowning in one's own aether. He didn't know what was happening and he was terrified, unable to even scream --

Flickers of recognition. Of shapes. He couldn't remember returning to the Waking Sands. He was speaking with Urianger, with Minfilia, and yet the conversation felt so far away. He didn't know the words being said and he still could not seem to draw breath. His limbs would move on their own and gods, it hurt because at first, he attempted to resist their movement, try to force them in any other direction to indicate something was wrong. All it took was one attempt, though, and he was promptly smothered once more, choked and forced silent. The Ascian did not allow him to attempt that again and casually blamed ‘his’ brief muscle spasm on not landing properly in a past sparring session.

For much of the time, Thancred was “asleep” in a sense. But there were several other occasions when his spirit would ‘wake’ -- conscious, but fully deaf and blind. Just walking or moving his lips to the words of his Ascian puppet master. He had no idea what he was doing – nor what or who he may have been touching. The unknown and lack of control of it all was intensely violating. This would contribute greatly to Thancred’s preexisting dissociative habits.

And on top of all that, Thancred would occasionally find himself able to sense the thoughts Lahabrea kept to himself. It wasn’t quite an inner monologue, but it was sense of observation – and moreover, of judgment.

How easy it is to infiltrate them. To persuade his closest friends with only a handful of memories at my disposal. Choosing so duplicitous a target has served me well.

No one suspected anything. If Thancred appeared to act off, Lahabrea was easily able to dismiss or dodge suspicions that could have been raised by individuals that knew him for years. On one hand, Lahabrea was an admittedly nigh-omnipotent Unsundered Ancient, powerful and effective. Yet on the other, Thancred could not help but feel pangs of disappointment in those that knew him the longest – even Minfilia herself. Not that he would ever bring that up with any of them, of course.

(Thancred will have just recently met the WOL in most canon-abiding cases, so he is not generally put out that they did not recognize a difference in this behavior. He primarily was disheartened by his colleagues who had been in the Circle of Knowing with him.)

But finally, finally, Thancred found himself freed of of the Ascian’s grasp. Coming out of it was wonderful, but it hurt almost thrice as much if only due to the beating the Warrior of Light had to give him when Lahabrea fought back! For all that and more, Thancred was confined to bedrest and needed extensive healing and rehabilitation for weeks after the defeat of the Ultima Weapon. It took even longer for him to build up his physical stamina and endurance again to what it once had been, and sharp, painful migraines persisted on and off for nearly a year afterward.

For this reason, Thancred is not fond of feeling suffocated or being put into tight spaces -- but he will do so, without complaint, if his role requires it. He'd really rather just avoid those sensations as much as possible. When fighting Ranjit, he was placed in a similar position where he couldn't breathe. It was a traumatizing situation he had to put himself through repeatedly during that battle, but at the very least, he was in control of the situation...sort of.

Similarly, Thancred would be less inclined to use physical intimacy as a means of gaining information for some time after ARR. It wouldn't be a permanent aversion, and of course like the Ranjit fight, sometimes he'd have to be uncomfortable in order to "win" a situation. But again, in reference to the intrusive and violating feelings associated with the possession, Thancred would be less likely to let folks into his personal bubble as he worked through regaining ownership (and working through that temporarily loss of it) of his physical body.

If the Warrior of Light ever were to, post-Pandaemonium, praise or otherwise insist that Lahebrea was a good person at his core, Thancred would...respect his friend's opinion by leaving the room and avoiding the subject. Even if he can understand and perhaps even sympathize with the Ancients' plight, there are certain situations and traumas that one cannot (and does not have to) forgive. Thancred will hold many of his grudges to the grave, even in light of new information in most cases. Especially if he or someone he loves suffered at the hands of certain individuals.

An additional sidenote: Although it was likely an oversight/scrapped idea from the writing team, we will posit that Lahabrea had to use the choker to possess Thancred because that was the only way to keep Thancred alive while also taking control of him. And he needed Thancred alive to pull memories from him so that his disguise was believable.

#thancred hc;#// been cooking this one for awhile and it's finally ready!!

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kuhakukage · 7 months ago

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Fuck, marry, kill. But describe how you would do each one and why. Choose three characters from Naruto. Three from Death Note. And another three from a fandom of your choosing.

Naruto:

Fuck: Naruko, Naruto's sexy-no-jutsu form. Because I wanted to see him squirmed under my embrace. I wanted to see him being unlike his usual confident self, I wanted to make him cry. I would make him scream out my name. I wanted him to watch as violated him and cannot do anything under the paralysis seal I slapped on him.

Marry: Rin Nohara. She seemed to be a kind person and would work well with children. I feel like she's the type who put other people before herself with how she decided to act in the manga. So much so that she's willing to pay the ultimate price of her life. I have no opinion on marriage ceremony so I'll chose base on what she would choose. Though, personally, I just wanted to elope with her.

Kill: If I could kill off permanently, Orochimaru for his disgustingly long list of crimes against humanity. I would create a Limited Tsukuyomi Jutsu where the worst thing he could think of would happen and cast it on him. Afterwards, I would seal off his regeneration technique, take away all his limbs, and buried him alive while stuck with a seal that sucked chakra and wait for him to die off chakra. exhaustion. Otherwise, I would choose Hiashi, for not doing anything to change the hyuga, but rather enable it. He chose to torture his brother after assuming he has killing intent toward his daughter. DID HE THINK THAT BEING FORCED TO SERVE SOMEONE AND DEDICATE YOUR LIFE TO A BUNCH OF PEOPLE THAT SAW YOU AS LESSER WOULD BE FUN? I would brand him with the caged-bird curse seal and use it to cause him so much pain and make him beg for mercy. I would do this until he become a vegetable after that lifetime of pain and kill him by feeding him to pigs.

Death Note:

Fuck: Halle Lidner. She's hot and blonde, so basically my fetish. She seemed like a dom, so I want to dom her. I wanted to see her defiant face as I bound her to the bed, I want to make her insult me yet can only watch as I violated her. I wanted humiliate her until she become exhausted from her effort of resisting.

Marry: Naomi Misora, I LOVE HER. SHE IS SO INTELLIGENT AND COMPETENT. I HATE THAT SHE HAS TO GO BEFORE MEETING L OTHERWISE LIGHT WOULD HAVE BEEN CAUGHT EXTREMELY EARLY. I ALSO LOVE HER IN THE BB'S CASE. Anyways, as I have said before I have no opinion on marriage ceremony and would go along her whim, which is most likely a normal wedding.

Kill: Hitoshi Demegawa. This trash is a sleazy, greedy and arrogant little pig. It decided to scam its viewers out of their money, setting up a fake cult to worship Kira and demanding donations starting at the million-yen mark. I would dropped a mountain of cash so heavy it would be crushed.

Detective Conan:

Fuck: Vermouth AKA Sharon Vineyard. Oh god, she's so hot that if I die after fucking her, I would still do it. I don't even mind if she dom me. IN FACT, I welcome it. I do wish for her to be gentle though. I liked how intelligent, insightful and bold she is. I also like how cruel she is yet also how she developed a conscience after being saved by Ran and Shinichi.

Marry: Miyano Shiho. I would love to be with her for the rest of my life. I really don't care how bossy and demanding she is. I love how serious and intelligent she is. She's also so pretty and old style. I wish to relax her attitude a bit after getting into a relationship with her. I don't think much of marriage ceremony and would do what she want. I would probably suggested a grand ceremony just because of how much I liked her.

Kill: Misao Yamamura because he's dumb, but thinks he's smart, and has no personality. To quote Conan, "poor Gunma Perfecture." One of the most irritating things he does is in Movie 20 when all the detectives are trying to be sneaky, and this bitch just tripped and announced to the guy that he's a police, taking advantage of getting a hostage to protect himself. What kind of police does that? He thinks that he's smart even though the children are smarter than him sometimes. Even though he's a detective, he messes up a lot and misses really obvious clues. Plus, he's scared of everything, like blood and dead bodies, and he's superstitious, believing in curses and ghosts. He even ditches his job to grab lunch instead of doing what he's supposed to. And when it comes to Gunma, he's pretty clueless about it, needing locals to correct him on stuff despite being based in it. I don't know how I could choose a single method when I'm so tired of this guy. Honestly, I just wanted to push him off a skyscraper and not look back.

#menma rp #don't judge me

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self-loving-vampire · 2 years ago

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I have previously commented on how Wizardry 7 is more enjoyable if you are masochistic. Well, what I encountered tonight serves as an incredible example of what I mean.

It is a boss called the Shadow Guardian.

To even reach this boss, you have to fall down a hole (which deals damage to you) to end up in a small area populated only by annoying monsters with relatively low XP values and no loot. Once you have ended up here, there is no way out until you kill the boss. No way to go back to town, get more consumables, or upgrade gear.

But this isn't too bad by itself. The real issue is the actual capabilities of the boss. Let's count them.

1- It is undead and therefore immune to around half of your spells.

2- Besides this, it also has extremely high elemental resistances. Even if you try to use simple offensive spells it will just be unaffected by them nearly all of the time.

3- Every turn, it will blink out for a while and then blink back in before attacking. While it is out, it cannot be targeted by physical attacks and magical attacks will just miss entirely. As a result, it has a good chance of negating about half of your attacks on every turn, on top of just having a high dodge rate.

4- It can cast Asphyxiation, which deals no damage but has a high chance of dealing instant death to the whole party. You can counter this by casting Air Pocket on the first round of the fight but even that is not entirely effective. If it casts this, there is a good chance someone will die.

While death can be fixed in this game, doing so causes a permanent loss of vitality and effectively ages them by a year.

5- It summons persistent clouds of poison gas that deal damage and poison to the whole party. Poison in this game has no upper limit to its duration so if you get poisoned enough that is functionally the same as death. There are spells that "cure" poison but they really only seem to decrease the duration, which would be insufficient even if you only had to cure one person rather than the whole party. If it casts this you pretty much already lost.

6- It can cast Lifesteal, dealing something between 600 and 900 damage and healing itself... This is a game where your characters will probably have between 30 and 100 HP by this point. Even your tankiest character is automatically dead if it does this.

7- It also has normal touch attacks that deal just a bit of damage, in the 10s or so... But it also inflicts the deadly paralysis debuff...

And also it has a high chance of permanently turning the target to into stone. Let's see what the manual says about that.

So... It carries the same permanent damage as death and might in fact be worse.

Literally anything it can do during its turn is reload-worthy if it goes off, and at the same time you can't meaningfully hurt it beyond just hoping that your melee characters will manage to hit it for damage in the single digits maybe thrice a round if you get lucky (and probably less than that).

I didn't struggle very much with Dark Souls or Elden Ring, but I acknowledge the strength of this adversary. I will not give up.

#long post

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waterfall-ambience · 1 year ago

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If you’re still doing the OC ask game, can you do 2 for Avery, 6 for Luna, and 16 for Riza?

2. What are your OC’s food preferences (flavors/textures/spiciness/calories/ when and how they eat) and how did they get that way?

Avery is a really easy person to feed because he’s not picky at all. Having grown up on Perpetua, he’s been exposed to and found an appreciation for a lot of different cultural dishes thanks to how the members come from all sorts of backgrounds. That, combined with being raised with Minerva's ‘everything in moderation’ + ‘try anything at least once’ approach to food, it's hard to find stuff he absolutely will not eat.

Flavour generally matters more to him than texture, and he doesn’t think too much about calories unless something looks/sounds insanely calorically dense.

That being said, if asked to pick from a menu, his choices would be a little boring. He might take the spicy option (now that he has a ‘resistance’ to a capsaicin, he WILL reap the benefits because it’s more fun that way).

But he’s also equally likely to pick the ‘default’ or ‘classic’ option because he’s not picky to the point where he doesn’t have strong preferences for almost anything (unless, say, he’s going for some kind of ‘vibe’). He’s also liable to order things with the expectation that someone else might want to sample from him.

6. What would STOP your OC from Doing the Right Thing in a tense situation?

The boring answer is ‘nerves’ or ‘he suffers from analysis paralysis when trying to figure out the best outcome’.

In an ideal world, Captain Luna is a perfect moral paragon and nothing would stop him from doing the Right Thing except the gods themselves. He always strives to do the Right Thing, and sometimes he can’t for whatever reason, be it nerves, or stretching himself too thin when trying to figure out the best outcome. Maybe the cost is too high, or he has to focus on the big picture rather than personal impact, the needs of the many vs those of the few. Even if the Right Thing is not achieved, what matters is that he tried and that he retains his personal innocence.

But of course, the world is not ideal, because the man is more than capable of holding a grudge. Even if the grudge is justified (see: that with the Wither King), he’s not immune to the catharsis of watching a bastard go down in cruel and sometimes unusual ways. He tries to hold off on it, because he recognises that a hard punishment that doesn’t really do anything to address the issue is just an excuse to torture someone, but dang, does it feel good, especially if he already hates them.

It's unlikely that anyone would ever find themself in this situation, considering that Luna finds forgiveness to be more beneficial for all parties involved, but god help you if you manage to seriously cross him.

16. How strong or weak is your OC’s Impulse control? What’s the worst thing that happened because of their Impulsivity or inability to be so?

Riza's impulse control isn’t great, and she’s prone to doing things on a whim if she has the energy. Usually it’s mundane, little things, like deciding stay up late to watch a slasher film, painting her nails a different colour, cropping her shirts, scaring people with her invisibility powers, nabbing stuff from stores because she thinks it’s funny (technically shoplifting, but ‘everything on Perpetua is an art piece so it doesn’t really matter’). Y’know, little things.

Though despite all of this, she doesn’t come across as particularly impulsive (not like Icarus or how some other members more obviously are) because she generally tends towards laziness. She doesn’t usually go around pocketing random things, but it’s less due to an absence of an urge to do so, rather than thinking about it and subsequently deciding not to.

Riza's impulsivity hasn't really gotten her into major trouble yet (maybe just Alice being disappointed in her + making her work more), but that just might be because Alice doesn't let her in any important control rooms with levers and big red buttons.

#globeland perpetua #asks #thank you!! sorry this took a while ive been a bit held up with life rn (and it takes a while to come up with answers im happy with LOL)

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sudoscience · 1 year ago

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[This has been in my drafts since August 2020. I don't want to delete it, but I've long since forgotten where I was going with it. I'm going to post it just to get it out of my drafts. It's obviously not finished since I don't appear to have reached any conclusions, but maybe someone will find it interesting/useful?]

I feel like it's been a while since I've posted anything of my own, and since most of my writing concerns Deltarune, I thought I'd shake things up and discuss Undertale instead. So, let's unpack Asriel's statement that, "Chara wasn't really the greatest person" and what, if anything, that can tell us about Chara's moral character.

Be forewarned that this will involve a discussion of the exact manner in which Chara died. To put it very lightly, it was not pleasant. Frankly, it's something I wish I could unlearn. (TW: Suicide)

Whether or not Chara was evil is obviously still a hotly contested issue, and Asriel's statements about them play a key role in arguments on either side. Asriel is the one who tells us they weren't the greatest person, but I feel like something many people overlook is that a lot of the canon surrounding Chara is relayed to us via Asriel, either directly or through the True Lab tapes, and Asriel's biases should be taken into account.

Consider that Asriel's last memories of Chara were not happy ones. First, he watched them die, but that doesn't do it justice. They didn't die quickly and peacefully—they suffered. They were likely in extreme pain, probably for several hours, and Asriel saw this. His best friend chose to do this to themselves, and Asriel had to be there in order to absorb Chara's soul. (You can't see this, but I'm actually having a really hard time just thinking about this, so imagine how bad it would have been for Asriel.)

It's strongly implied by the tapes in the True Lab that Chara committed suicide by poisoning themselves with buttercups, which is not a peaceful way to go. Symptoms of poisoning include bloody diarrhea, excessive salivation, colic, and severe blistering of the mouth, mucous membranes and gastrointestinal tract. Contact with a wounded plant causes itch, rashes or blistering on contact with the skin or mucosa. Ingesting the toxin can cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness, spasms, acute hepatitis, jaundice, or paralysis. We're told directly by the game that they died the day after becoming ill; it could be they poisoned themselves at night and died that morning, or it could have been even longer, but the point is that there were likely several hours between the initial onset of symptoms and their eventual death. (I'm serious. I had to take a break from writing this because it's too emotionally draining.)

So, after Chara's death, Asriel absorbed their soul, and the two of them crossed the Barrier, where they were attacked by the humans. Asriel tells us that Chara was the one who wanted to use their "full power", and Asriel resisted. We aren't told much more than that, but I can't imagine Chara and Asriel held a calm and level-headed debate about the issue while they were actively under attack. Given the urgency of the situation, it was probably a rather heated argument, and both parties likely said things they would have regretted. Then Asriel died, that argument being his last conversation with Chara.

#if you know where i was going with this please tell me because i don't #undertale #asriel #chara #undertale analysis #tw suicide #my post #cleaning out my drafts #wish i could go back to when i could write long posts about undertale...#i miss the way i felt after playing undertale the first time #coincidentally there's another post in my drafts expressing that exact sentiment #but since this post is from aug 2020 that means it was only a few months after i had first beaten it

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mt-lowercase-m-derogatory · 2 months ago

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I've rewritten this into the style of HP Lovecraft. Because reasons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZLYDChmfO4 for where I've narrated and captioned it!

The most unfortunate of dating stories, I must recount, is the incident involving the shoe.

During my high school years, my closest friend was under strict parental supervision, forbidden to engage in courtship without the presence of another couple to oversee his actions. This was no pure case of progenitor protectiveness, as madness seemed a marked feature of the family line. Much like ichor from a stone, the unreasonable can precipitate no reason.

In my junior year, after a rather dispiriting breakup with a quasi-girlfriend, I eschewed the notion of dating, much to the dismay of my friend: He had found favor with a young lady he had encountered within a house of law. He persistently urged me to re-enter the social arena of dating, not out of concern for my well-being, but to further his own romantic endeavors. After weeks of resisting his incessant entreaties, I was finally worn down by this proposition: he would arrange both date and expenses, so naught but my attendance would be required. In hindsight, I should have declined. An event premised on absurdity of such sort could hold no kindly fate in store. And yet, he managed to further complicate matters.

The arc of his moral descent remains obscured to me: whether sinking desperation or an eager plunge brought his measures about, it is immaterial. He contacted a girl from his religious congregation - a girl profoundly besotted with him - inviting her to a romantic outing. The implication that he would be her partner remained unspoken, but not unbroken, as I was informed me he'd found me company for his plans. I would not learn of his transgressions until weeks past the event; I would have stopped this travesty had I known of it, and I would scream that solemn vow to even God and all His Angels - and likely will with my dying breath.

On the day of reckoning, my frugal preparations proceeded with minimal fanfare. I donned my favored attire, comfortable yet sartorially offensive: shorts of basket ball, flops which flipped, and a Baja hoodie. Though it afforded me great comfort, it rendered me a spectacle of eccentricity.

Upon arriving at my friend's abode, I collected him and his date before proceeding to my own. It was at this juncture the farcical nature of the evening began to unfold. As I approached the door, my date's initial exuberance turned to disappointment, then disgust, and finally, anger. Unaware she had been deceived as to her prospective partner, I felt my wardrobe and its levity had been unjustly maligned.

Seconds passed in mutual appraisal afore the door was slammed in my face. The terror my friend radiated mixed with our baffled paralysis for the eternal heartbeats before the door once more opened.

Her father, a man of imposing demeanor, invited me inside, explaining that his daughter was upstairs and would require some time, which we would use to talk. We did not talk. We did sit. He sat across from me, meticulously cleaning a pistol - a gesture I could not decipher as either a threat or merely the manner in which his age and sort of man was to indulge in fidgeting. My offer of aid in this cleaning was rudely rebuffed, and so I simply observed, judging his skill to be middlingly adept.

When my date finally descended, her fury was beyond my ken, though not beyond my recognition. Attributing her ire to my appearance, I endeavored to compensate with chivalrous gestures. Having escorted her to the car, her father called me back to the door, leaning into the most sacred margins of my personal space to issue a warning: "Whatever you do to her, I will do to you."

True bewilderment, in its most elevated form, consists not of lacking rationality, but of Reason overwhelming all else as it did in that moment. Three such truths this bestowed me: Firstly, and to the detriment of the patriarch's character, his passable display of pistol maintenance had indeed been a threat. Secondly, even I in the midst of my 'tism intuited that no romantic overtures were fated to occur. Could he truly believe in a triumph of passions between myself and his daugher, or even one… of lusts? Only then did the third and least welcome line of deduction sink in: was this man threatening my person with a bout of the fucking? In my throes, I gave my only response:

"I can't get pregnant."

So thinking to express his machinations for a farce, I felt protected by my confidence in the separation of spheres: the Veil between our world and the Omegaverse would preclude the patriarch's work from coming to fruition.

In that instant, the nature of insanity was forever clarified to my interlocutor: One does not turn insane when, for a single instant, comprehending the vastness of truth - it is the following moment that renders the mind to shards, when one has to fall back to mundanity, forever altered and yet uncomprehending of oneself. I, however, had countless experiences with such esoterics, and my bearings returned in time to make a vehicular escape while the father was yet regaining the function of speech - though what he lacked in alacrity was more than compensated for by the volume and pathos of the words he left in our wake.

In our era of blessed darkness, ignorant to mobile communication technologies that might have called her home, my date merely felt a moment of perplexion before her scowling could grace the deserving party and myself once more. We attended a display of improvisational comedy, an experience the others felt to be marred by my anxious, uncontrollable laughter.

Following the show, my friend suggested a walk in the park, a proposition soundly rejected by my date. Knowing what fate had already befallen her, I felt a great sense of mercy and released her a safe distance away from her home.

Left to chaperone my friend and his date in a park, I climbed a rope tower 30 feet in height, seeking a natural panopticon with which to distance myself without forsaking my duties. However, my friend, oblivious to my intentions, intruded upon my tower of solitude, followed by his date. The mercy I had shown that night was not bestowed to me, as I sat there while their sappy and sopping affections occured well within audible distance, and my powers of dissociation revealed their value once more. When some collegiate members of our age cohort began shaking the spire my tormentors and I sat upon, the opportunity to flirtingly soothe and comfort was not lost on my friend, motivating me to descend and engage with the rude accosters of our unhallowed peak.

After resolving the disturbance to raised middle fingers, I returned to my car, the day's chaos finally overwhelming me. Soon, the students felt a whim to climb up, prompting the core duo of our uncomfortable tricycle to climb down and return to the car, where my heart was hardening to a conclusion. I might not have been able to salvage the memory of that day, but I could brighten its ending with an indulgence of righteous pique. Instructing my passengers to avoid any untoward endeavours, I set out for the tower and began pilfering the shoes left by the college students in their ascent. Then, I realized that the appearance of theft would undermine the purity of my motives. As such, I returned only the right shoe of every pair, gave myself a 100-foot head start, called out "nice shoes, assholes" and punctuated my escape with a diminutive jig.

To all who might heed this caution: college students are swifter than one might anticipate. Despite my head start and their descent from the tower, I found myself a mere five seconds ahead by the time I reached my vehicle. I flung the door open, glanced into the backseat, saw no one, tossed the purloined shoes to the back, and heard two "ow"s as confirmation of our collective's completeness.

My friend and his date emerged moments later, having been engaged in… peculiar activity in the backseat, invalidating my singular request. They clambered forward to inquire about the origins of the shoes, whereupon I confessed to my act of larceny. They responded with noncommital well-wishes, which I accepted with the tact befitting my education: "Speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?"

And at that point, for the first time in his life, I believe my friend was actually embarassed.

bad dating stories time: the shoe incident

so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.

at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.

he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?

and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.

but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.

i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?

(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)

and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.

i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.

that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.

i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.

anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.

i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.

we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.

he was okay at it.

eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.

soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.

realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:

"i can't get pregnant"

which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.

still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"

and then i was in my car, and i drove away.

if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.

and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.

WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.

we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.

do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.

and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.

then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.

and then they started making out.

i was close enough to hear it.

i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.

so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.

now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.

so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.

about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.

my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.

my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.

they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?

and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.

#writing #babylon #lovecraft #me being very funny and “:3” about it

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sahhr-studiesmed · 5 months ago

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JOURNAL ENTRY - 20 June, 2023

In ten days I have my send ups that will be starting. Basically they are exams. The entire next two months are just exams.

These days I write my journal entry out and don't post it because I couldn't. There is so much to say but I'm having trouble saying just about anything but there is so much to say I want to say but it's as if my words have been locked away and someone took the key away. I've been struggling with that for a week now. Nothing was helping and all I did was doom scrolling as the worst case of executive dysfunction and task paralysis took over me. The kind where you keep telling yourself to get up but your body won't get up so now you are screaming in your head and your body still won't move because moving feels that hard.

Knowing that you need to be doing something else but aren't doing it even though you want to do it. It's the worst feeling ever and this feeling persists very strongly.

I am a bit of the opposite of other people or am I completely misidentifying my feelings. I cannot say. when everyone seems to be bothered and working hard— even those that never did before. I'm not worried about myself at all— as my worry isn't translating into any action at all. Rather I feel these specs of harsh anxiety and they go away just as suddenly as they appear. Perhaps because I know there is not much I can do at this point. Other than doing as best as I can.

Back when I was preparing for NEET ( the qualifying exam for being a doctor in my country ), at one point I stopped caring if I would make it or not. My point is that all I did was do as much as I could and left the rest to God. I did as much as I could by fighting for as long as I could- till the end. What happened after the end was what the god wanted for me. It's not always easy to accept things so I pray. I pray that things go my way and that God is listening because he needs to. People pray to god and I think I have my daily arguments with God. Fights perhaps? Anger perhaps? There is everything. Reverence and anger but the faith I believe remains. Faith that things might not go my way and it really fucking sucks but I will fight the fight because that's my responsibility. That it is my responsibility and no one else's, not even gods. So I fight god because that is why my and his connection is like. He's my friend but we have our falling offs and reconciliation. And I know God is not for everyone but this is what it is for me.

But coming back to people— if people are studying around me, I can't seem to study as well. If people are only sitting around me and I'm the one studying. I can do it. Is this the curious case of body doubling? Or just a severely low self-esteem? Or perhaps both?

I'm envious of those whose heads and minds work with them and not apart from them. I was going to write the word against instead of the word apart but I don't think my mind wants to work against me. It made me sad just as suddenly as it had appeared. I feel sorry for my mind— because it tries to work with me.

So it makes me envious because— why do they get to be normal and me with the extra struggles? I wish I was the normal one or perhaps a little more extraordinary because that's what it feels like— that to belong to this place I need to be more than myself and more like others. It's shitty.

Perhaps there are fifty other people here with the same thoughts as mine and I don't know about them and perhaps there are none. I will never know.

Today I made myself get up and eat breakfast, lunch and dinner properly. I hadn't eaten anything properly for the past three days. Just one meal a day and that too not food. I also made myself attend a few classes today. Just for the sake of it. Tomorrow I might not go. It really depends. I also studied today after I hit another slump.

I downloaded a pomodoro and used that. It was an app I had deleted earlier and now I got it back. I felt the resistance and I'm immensely slow as compared to my counterparts but I'm waking at the snails pace. I haven't turned into a rock yet. I might tomorrow. I don't know.

I'm trying to survive because I can't die. Not like this.

" If winter comes, can spring be far behind? "

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emptymanuscript · 6 months ago

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https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4681639-james-comey-donald-trump-on-election-interference-case/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

“I wasn’t sure that I would have [brought the case] when I read the indictment, but now having seen the case, I’m not sure — after investigating it — how they wouldn’t bring it,” Comey told NewsNation’s Dan Abrams on Wednesday. “They had a much stronger case than I imagined.”

This hits me funny and I am not entirely sure why.

The obvious element for me is: well, that’s why you perform the investigation instead of assuming you know the answer.

And maybe that’s the deeper element? This idea of assuming we know what we actually don’t. Including myself as no exception, there is a profound lack of humility in the US. We simply assume that we know the situation and therefore have the answer. Neither of which we have actually invested that much time, energy, and thought into. We just know. It’s obvious.

Sure we CAN change our minds when the right evidence comes along but that start position often means we simply don’t ever get access to the information we need because we neither bother to look nor accept someone’s alternate opinion that might clue us in to better information.

I think I count as a highly informed voter. Though that hits right at the problem. How do I know? How do I measure? How do I verify? What even is the definition? Why is it even a good thing?

While I assume that high information is better than low information in order to have less false assumptions, I am aware of a study that says people who access information less often can actually end up with better comprehension of the information they have in the long run. People who consume news nearly every day like I do, tend to know more details but end up staring at individual trees rather than grasping the truth of the forest. Or something like that. So is high information voter even a good thing to be if it is true? I don’t know.

I feel like it is a legacy thing more than a momentary thing. The point isn’t to be all wrapped up in the moment but to use the moment to find predictive patterns. That it’s sunny today doesn’t matter as much as realizing that days in May tend to be sunny so that’s an appropriate expectation in general while also noting the aberrations such as it has been unusually cool and cloudy this May so I have to actually look this year instead of just assuming I know what the weather will be like.

All 3 levels are important: Long History, Current Trend, Right Now. As is the meta category of how they interplay with and comment on each other. Get too caught up in any one of them and you’ll miss crucial information about the others.

I feel like we, culturally, tend to get caught up in Current Trends or some sub-category of that. Like if you just bluntly asked me about our political parties I would have the knee jerk response of Republicans: Bad, Democrats: Decent, there is no Good. That doesn’t have much to do with anything I am reading specifically today. And has nothing much to do with anything prior to 1960. It’s just the current trend I see. And it’s therefore necessarily full of holes and lacking in specifics.

So… what? What do we DO about that? Is it even a problem? Should we do anything about it. Generally, we don’t seem happy as a society, so that seems like a really good reason to self examine. So I figure we should. But that could also be analysis paralysis.

I also note that I am HIGHLY resistant to engaging in political discussion even with people I like where I know we disagree on which letter makes you bad vs decent. Which means I am also hoarding information instead of giving it in addition to resisting an avenue of information.

And tomorrow I will have dinner with the guy I wanted to leap over the table and attack the first time I met him so it’s probably a good idea not to over focus on this idea. Pro-tip, good relationships are not encouraged if you enable a fight with your mother’s boyfriend’s eldest son. Just keep repeating that. Peace in the home comes first before trying to inflict it on everyone else. XD.

And I should shut up now. But it does still ping around in my brainy pan that this deserves thought and attention. We I should work on this somehow. Just dunno how so much.

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tree--hugger · 2 years ago

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Week 13- Nov 29 2022

Risk and Waste Management

Risks are a natural part of life that all beings must contend with, every action has some degree of risk. And although we cannot know the exact degree of risk each action has, we can assess and make judgements to act accordingly. Diseases are probably the most lethal risk humans face because they are always present, aren’t easily detected and are spread easily and in many ways. Individuals who are most at risk for diseases are those who live in unsafe conditions, don’t have access to clean drinking water or clean bathrooms. And because they already don’t live in sanitary environments, when they do get sick the viruses and bacteria are even likelier to cause death. Even if they don’t cause death, illnesses can cause long term effects such as blindness, weaker immune systems, paralysis and other forms of disability. Viruses and bacteria are also dangerous because they can evolve to become resistant to vaccines and medications, leaving people even more vulnerable. The flu, HPV, and HIV are three of the deadliest diseases that largely effect developing nations. Exposure to toxic chemicals can also be very harmful, especially to children. Toxic and non-toxic chemicals are found in most manufactured products and in the environment, they are all harmful to a certain extent but are fatal in various quantities. There is little scientific knowledge on the toxicity of chemicals, how much of them are deadly and how they affect humans, yet they are still widely used. There are even risks we undergo from our environment, other people and those we put on ourselves. Because of so many prevalent risks it’s important to implement risk assessments and management to educate and can act accordingly. News coverage also tends to overamplify matters that do not need to be which creates unnecessary panic. Then when there are serious risks, people may not take them as seriously because there are so many other things they are being told to watch out for. The harmful consequences are ignored, either because people do not know, they believe the risks won’t affect them, or because they prefer the benefits over the risks. That is why education, medical resources, clean and sanitary conditions, and funding for research are extremely important to global health to reduce disease risk.

Excess waste in the environment is also harmful to humans because it contributes to climate change and air pollution. In nature, waste is not produced, all resources are cycled so that they are either used or they transform states. But when human processes create waste out of materials, they are an unnecessary waste of natural resources that take up too much space and pollute the environment. Incineration, landfills, and open dumps all attempt to deal with an influx of waste from society, but even this produces waste we must contend with. Management and reduction of waste help offset the amount of waste that sits around. Lessening how much we consume in the first place would decrease the flow of materials, but this would require combatting consumerism and capitalism that has been ingrained into people. We could find a use for trash so that it can be viewed as a resource rather than a byproduct that has no purpose. Then not only would we limit effects of waste since materials would not just sit around, but it would also have economic value. Promoting reducing, reusing, and recycling are the first steps to changing how we view waste and finding new ways to have closed loop cycles where no waste is produced. This cannot happen until is made accessible to all people, the industry is supported, and buying recyclable goods is made a priority for both businesses and individuals.

wc: 617

Q: How can reduce reuse and recycling be better integrated into society

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princepipper · 6 months ago

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AAAA okay I will talk about my idea because drawing is proving to be hard when it is so hot in my room and I don't feel comfortable enough to focus.

I made up a Skyrim AU for Pip and Gabe!! I have thoughts about what race(s) they would be, how they'd meet, and some general story. Please read more if you are interested, and I will be drawing some things for this AU at some point. :^)

THIS IS GONNA BE LONG!!! SORRY!!!

Gabriel

Race: Imperial/ Wood Elf

Choice of Weaponry: Daggers, poisons

Best skills: Sneak, Speech, Pickpocketing, Lockpicking, Light Armor, One-Handed, Archery

Notable titles/ occupations: Member of the Thieves Guild, later becomes the Guild Master + Nightingale

Favourite Equipment: Daedric dagger with Absorb Health + Paralysis enchantment

___

Gabriel is a mix of Wood Elf and Imperial, his father being an Imperial and mother being a Bosmer. Gabriel inherited much of his father's appearance, the only real signs of his mixed race being his elf ears, slender-build, and animal affiliation abilities.

His family is a bit broken, due to the fact that his father is part of the Imperial Legion- not as a fighting soldier but as a politician, one who has great support for the Thalmor. His mother came from Valenwood, and her family was not one favoured by the High Elves. During a purge, she was only able to survive because of her engagement to Gabriel's father, which granted her some amount of protection from their judgement. Gabe doesn't know much about the details, but it is assumed his mother's family was eliminated by the Thalmor, leaving a deep grudge and bitter resentment within her heart. With so much conflict present even before he was born, it's safe to say that Gabe did not have a healthy home life, and was quick to leave when he was old enough to fend for himself.

Gabriel spent a portion of his youth travelling, and his methods of survival usually included thievery. He is light on his feet, able to move both quickly and quietly to steal from others without even being noticed. In the rare times he is caught, Gabe is capable of defending himself with the use of daggers, poisons, or mere wit. His persuasion and bribery skills are high, though he often prefers to keep to himself and stay away from others. With these talents, Gabriel eventually was led to the Thieves Guild in Skyrim, quickly fitting in without much trouble. With his parents in Cyrodiil, he felt very little attachment to anyone in his life, which only assisted him when it came to being a thief.

___

Pipper

Race: Nord

Choice of Weaponry: Sword and shield

Best skills: One-handed, Blocking, Heavy Armor, Alchemy, Restoration, Alteration

Notable titles/ occupations: The Last Dragonborn, Thane of Whiterun

Favourite equipment: Nordic amulet with 100% Resistance to Diseases + Fortify Healing Rate (This item was a gift from Gabe)

___

His way of life changed when he eventually met Pipper, who accidentally managed to not only ruin his mission a the time, but injure him in the process. Gabriel recalls waking up on a bedroll with Pipper sat nearby, having taken the time to heal his wounds and cook a meal as an apology. Gabe was initially annoyed at her for what had happened, but he had a hard time staying angry at her due to her cheerful and comforting demeanour. Not to mention the fact that she was quite talented with alchemy, and offered to make him any potions or poisons he could ever need. Gabriel admittedly was not very skilled at that sort of thing himself, and he supposed that she could be useful to him at the very least...

Naturally, the more time they spent together, the more they bonded. Pipper might have been a soft-hearted girl, but she certainly didn't show that in battle. Unlike Gabe, she preferred to charge headfirst into combat, hitting hard and heavy to win her fights. She was not one to fall victim to recklessness, however, and proved rather smart when it came to analyzing her opponents and finding weaknesses. It was funny, Gabe being a sneaky thief and Pipper being a respected warrior, but the two got along very well and spent time questing together, learning more about each other as they went.

It eventually became clear that Pipper was not just a strong nordic fighter, but a Dragonborn, which was revealed during a dragon attack in Whiterun. Gabe had not been there at the time, but instead ran into Pip when she was on her way to meet the Greybeards at High Hrothgar. He was understandably skeptical of her claim to be Dragonborn, but quickly believed her when she demonstrated her Thu'um.

Destiny led the two of them down different paths, Gabriel taking on the challenges of the Thieves Guild and unrooting the corruption and deceit caused by Mercer Frey. Pipper meanwhile was caught up with trying to handle being Dragonborn, and being tasked with protecting the world from Alduin. Ultimately, the two of them helped each other when they could, and when all was said and done, they found one another amidst the settling dust. Gabriel, Master Thief and leader of the Guild, had taken his oath to the Daedric Prince Nocturnal, and become a Nightingale. Pipper had finally destroyed Alduin once and for all, and decided to use her powers to establish harmony where she could, ignoring the requests of The Blades and hoping to find peace between mortal-kind and dragons.

In the end, Pip and Gabe settled for the most part, building a home in the south-eastern hills of Skyrim, not far from Riften and Ivarstead. They of course still attend to their own business, but after years of fighting, it's nice for them to have a place to rest and enjoy each other's company in private. 💕

Some other notes:

Gabe's Bosmer blood keeps him immune to diseases/ poison, and allows him to call upon wild animals to aide him. He doesn't use this power very often, but at times he can be found in the woods with crows and ravens surrounding him.

While Gabriel is talented at bribery and persuasion, he struggles greatly with personal charm. Pip sometimes teases him, finding it funny how he can be sharp-tongued in business but a stuttering mess in social functions.

Gabe hates taverns and inns. He only stops in to buy food, but never stays long- the noise from the bards and drunkards piss him off.

Pipper isn't as talented as Gabe when it comes to thieving skills, but is actually pretty decent at picking locks! She only really does so when in dungeons with locked doors.

Pip has a lot of friends in Skyrim, especially in the Whiterun province. One of her favourite places to visit is Riverwood, where she will spend lots of time by the clear waters that flow from the lake. She enjoys fishing, but doesn't actually eat fish.

Pip enjoys cooking and camping, and often shows exasperation at Gabriel's tendencies to eat literally anything when out in the wilderness (from raw meat to insects...) He can't cook well at all, so he enjoys the meals he is served when Pip is around.

I have so many WIPs and ideas, but also like... what if I just had a new idea for a drawing and did that instead...

#pip talks #pipper #gabe #skyrim au #???#idk if i'll cling to this au but rn i LOVE it so. tag

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flurrys-creativity · 3 years ago

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Hey flurry, for the milestone event can I ask for a Jackson as a Incubus au where the reader summoned him to help her by "having a good time" due to stressful situations in life and also exes not being able to satisfy her needs? Thank you and I hope your having a great day or night.

I’m so sorry it took me so long... it was just... a loooot of smut..... :scree:

Anyway let Incubus!Jackson please you tonight :D

Si vis amari, ama (If you want to be loved then love)

Pairing: Jackson Wang (Got7) x Fem!Reader; Genre: SMUT, Incubus AU, basically pwp, a teeny tiny bit of fluff; Rating: nsfw, 18+, MDNI, Warnings: mentions of stress, masturbation, using toys, summoning an incubus, sooooo much sex, various positions, nipple play, oral -> both receiving, multiple orgasms, nipple clamps, choking, riding, cum soaked panties stuffed into the readers mouth, overstimulation, creampie, doggy style, chains, anal, double penetration; Wordcount: 5.025

Summary: Stressed, loaded with work and not satisfied with your needs. That was your daily life. So in a spurt of desperation - even though it was supposed to be a joke - you summon an incubus and live through the best night you ever had.

“As the sleep paralysis we know to date couldn’t be explained in ancient history, the myth of incubi and succubi came to life”, you mumbled under your breath as you typed the words for your academic assignment. Your gaze flickered from the keyboard back up to the screen, rereading what you just typed. You tapped your left index finger on the keyboard without pressing it too hard, thinking over the structure of the sentence. You sighed deeply and deleted the whole sentence again. There was no way you could bring up ancient myths in your scientific paper.

You ran your fingers through your hair and opened the website again, where you drew some of your information from. The word ‘incubus’ was highlighted, indicating it linked to a different site. Tempted, you reached for the mouse and moved the cursor over the highlighted word until a small window with a preview of the site opened.

“The first mention of an incubus was in Mesopotamia”, you read aloud, clicking on the link to open it in a new tab.

Your scientific assignment was forgotten for the moment, your mind too interested in the myth of such a creature.

“While some researcher muse the appearance of incubi and succubi could have to do with either a sleep paralysis or to cover up cases of rape with close relatives, others work hard to prove the existence of these creatures.” You scrunched up your nose in disgust. ‘Even back then the human race was rotten to the core’, you thought to yourself and silently wished incubi were in fact real rather than knowing how awful humans had been time and time again.

“Incubi take the form of human males, coming for women in their sleep. The woman is unable to resist the supernatural powers and gives herself to the demon of lust almost willingly. Should a woman be able to resist the power the state of paralysis is forced on her, making her obedient.”

You clicked your tongue in annoyance, not really liking what you were reading.

“Those assumptions are based on the stories told over time, making the incubi and succubi into lustrous monsters that only wanted to satisfy their needs.”

A low hum escaped your lips as you stopped reading. You remembered in one of your history courses that the history was often based on the stories told by the stronger countries and they would always want to justify their wars. For a moment you wondered if the stories of incubi could be the same, since only humans told them and back then especially women weren’t allowed to intercourse with anyone else but their husband. The stigma of being a whore had a grave impact.

You shook your head and scoffed, regaining your composure again. Why would you try to make a myth logical? Your eyes shortly glanced at the open tab of your research paper, knowing you had to continue writing it, but your mind immediately refused to do it.

With another sigh, knowing the stress of turning in this paper will bite you in the ass later, you turned your attention back to the website about incubi.

“Since incubi are a type of demons, humans are able to summon them with a little practice. Though before deciding to do such a thing one must be aware of the possible outcomes. While incubi are only demons of lust, it has been said that frequent visits of incubi can lead to health issues, mental instability and even death.”

You raised an eyebrow questioningly, reading through the instructions of summoning an incubus. “Demons of lust”, you mumbled and tapped your lower lip in thought, “with their experience the sex must be out of this world.” A smirk played over your lips at the thought of having a partner who was actually able to fulfil your needs.

None of your exes have been able to do that so far. They finished too fast, were only focused on their own pleasure or too inexperienced to do shit even if they tried.

Additionally you were tired of using toys, wanting to feel the real deal again. Of course the toys were great and made you cum but you missed the weight on top of you, the hot kisses in between and the wandering hands.

You sighed and read the incantation, repeating it several times in your head. There was no way you could actually summon a demon of lust. Though the imagination to get satisfied by an incubus in all the ways you wanted and needed, made you wet and horny.

You glanced to the bottom corner of your screen to check the time, seeing it was already way past midnight. “That’s it”, you mumbled and shut your notebook, deciding you had worked enough for today, “there is a vibrator with my name on it waiting for me.” You halted momentarily, realising how sad that actually sounded, before you shrugged with your shoulders. You were too horny to care right now.

After your usual routine of brushing your teeth, changing into a tank top and a slip, and closing the curtains in front of your windows, you crawled into your bed. You moved your thick blanket to the end of the bed and exchanged it with a thin sheet to cover your form. You then rolled to your nightstand, where your mobile phone was to turn on some music.

It always felt nicer to hear the sensual songs instead of the vibrator, which you pulled out of your bottom drawer. You ‘hid’ all your toys in that drawer, even the ones that were supposed to be for couples.

Once you had turned on your back again and closed your eyes, you started to imagine someone being with you. Brown tousled hair, perfect to run your fingers through, thick eyebrows over dark eyes that almost appear black, a straight nose and high cheekbones, lips twisted into a sinful smirk and a jawline as sharp as a knife. You shivered at the mental image, focusing on more of the body you wanted to be there. Strong, muscular arms you would love to have wrapped around your throat, a well formed chest and stomach with a small, dark trail of hair leading to his dick.

You moved your hands along your body, slipping underneath your clothes, while you imagined those hands belonged to someone else. While one of them stopped at your breasts and toyed with your nipples until they were hard, the other slipped into your underwear, circling your clit until your body involuntarily shivered from the sensual shocks it gave you.

With your fantasy consuming your mind and body, you didn’t even need to get some lube. Your slip was already soaked and stuck to your core. You grabbed your vibrator, which you had placed next to you and rubbed it over your entrance. Not being able to tease yourself any longer, you pulled your slip to the side and pushed your vibrator inside of you.

The slight stretch made you moan in pleasure. You didn’t waste anymore time and pushed the little button at the end of it, turning the vibrator on. With a few more taps on the button you turned it to the highest function, arching your back from the satisfying feeling.

Your breathing became uneven within a minute. Soft moans escaped your lips more often than a simple breath, while a thin sheen of sweat covered your skin. The tingling in your lower stomach became stronger, spreading throughout your whole system - from your toes to the tip of your ears. Only a little bit more for you to snap and cum.

You imagined the man over you, groaning into your ear while pounding into you relentlessly. “Cum”, you whispered, imagining it wasn’t you commanding you but the man instead. You whined softly, eager to finally let go when one vibration hit perfectly. Your legs spasmed from the pleasure while you groaned in satisfaction.

The wave came as quickly as it left again. You turned the vibrator off and pulled it out of you, rolling to the side to let it drop to the floor next to your bed. You would clean it tomorrow after a good sleep, feeling too spent to get up now.

You rolled on your back again, your muscles relaxing while you took deep breaths. “Good one”, you mumbled with a smile, before drifting off into a deep slumber.

Though your rest wasn’t as calm as you had hoped for. The stress of college, the loneliness and your unfulfilled desire haunted you in your dreams. You found yourself in front of your notebook again, reading the same website you had before you went to sleep. Amused that you were somewhat able to control your dream, you leaned closer to your notebook and scrolled through the page until you found the incantation.

“Ego vocare te. Creatura in tenebris. Implere mea necessitatibus et voluptatem desiderium meum. Ego tibi pro nocte. Sic accipe corpus meum, mens et anima. Ego vocare vobis, incubus.”

You turned around in your dream, hoping your imagination would actually create an incubus but your room stayed empty. You turned back to the screen, reading the words over and over again without anything happening.

Discouraged, you slumped in your chair and threw your head back, looking up to the ceiling. Not even in your dream you were able to summon an incubus.

That was when a face suddenly appeared in your view, a grim expression staring down at you. “Wake up.”

You jolted up in your bed, hand immediately clutching the front of your tank top from your heart beating rapidly. It took you several minutes to calm down again and when you did you dropped back down to your mattress, running your hand through your hair. “What a strange dream.”

“Reality, sweetheart”, a dark voice spoke up.

Once again you sat straight on your bed, looking around in the dark with wide eyes. You groaned when someone turned the little desk lamp next to your notebook on and shielded your eyes. You barely noticed someone turning around in your chair and staring at you.

“Who are you?”

He clicked his tongue. “Shouldn’t you know? You summoned me, sweetheart.”

“Summoned you?” Confused, you lowered your hand and stared at the stranger, who oddly resembled your vision of the man you used while satisfying yourself.

“Usually the human is awake when they summon me. The audacity you have to call me in your sleep. I appear in all my glory, ready to start whatever wishes there are, only to be met with a sleeping person.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You better be! So, I can smell your arousal, sweetheart. What do you desire from me?” He stood up from your chair and walked over to the end of your bed, eyeing you up and down. “I’m here to fulfil all your naughty little dreams. You can call me Jackson.”

“Jackson”, you whispered, still not fully processing what was happening here.

“That’s a nice beginning, but I prefer to hear my name screamed or at least moaned”, he smirked and placed his hands on the mattress, leaning closer to you. “So where do you want to start?”

“Start?”

“Oh sweetheart”, he shook his head with a soft scoff, “first time summoning an incubus? Let me run you through it. I am said incubus and I live feeding from lust and desire, which is why I pleasure the person that summoned me until I feel full. If I notice though that something could affect you negatively, I will stop and leave. Otherwise I am here to do every kink you have. The whole night.”

“What about your pleasure?” You asked, starting to understand the opportunity you had in front of you.

“Hm, nobody has cared for my pleasure so far.” Jackson formed a little pout on his lips, while thinking over your question. “I do feel pleasure while having sex with humans. I think, I don’t mind how.”

You looked from him down to your lap, where your hands tightly held on to the thin sheet you had used to cover yourself. You nervously bit down on your lower lip. Were you supposed to just tell him what you wanted? You’ve never been this direct. Just the thought of telling him to fuck you sideways or something like that felt strange and foreign to you.

Jackson smirked, seeing the hesitation in your behaviour. He crawled like a predator over the bed until his face was mere inches away from yours. He raised one hand to grab your chin and lift your head to face him. “How about I just start and once you feel more at ease you tell me what you need?”

You nodded, feeling immediately relieved after his suggestion.

Right after your nod, Jackson closed the distance between you and kissed you roughly, his lips moving against yours as if he wanted to devour you whole. When you wanted to pull back and gasp for air, Jackson only followed your movement and shoved his tongue into your mouth, playing with your own tongue and licking against your teeth. His hand moved from your chin down to your throat, his strong fingers gently pressing down on the sides, cutting your blood flow.

You started to feel dizzy and ecstatic at the same time, feeling your arousal from before returning full force.

Jackson bit down on your lower lip, pulling a small whimper out of your mouth, before he leaned back and observed you with his dark eyes. “What an interesting reaction”, he smirked, seeing your half lidded eyes, open mouth and saliva glistening lips. “You like being choked?”

“Y-yes”, you breathed as soon as Jackson lifted the pressure on your throat, the blood quickly streaming into your head again.

“I’ll remember that, sweetheart”, he whispered into your ear, lowering his head to breathe in your scent, his nose slightly grazing your sensitive skin on your neck. “Your desire smells so sweet”, he groaned, taking another deep breath that sent shivers down your spine. His hands wandered to the hem of your tank top and played with it before his fingers touched your bare skin. He moved his hands up along your torso and pushed your top upwards as well.

Once your top slipped over your head, Jackson threw it somewhere into your room and quickly cupped your breasts. “Gorgeous.” He kissed you again as he played with your nipples. He only needed a few twists for them to get hard.

You whimpered softly, relishing in his touches all over your body. Your breath hitched when he pushed you back into your pillows and nearly ripped the thin sheet away from your body.

Jackson’s eyes hungrily roamed over your form. “I’ll take my damn sweet time with you”, he said with a teasing grin on his lips. “You better be prepared for a long night.”

Your eyes widened in surprise. Would he really be able to please you a whole night? You wanted to ask him that exact question but literally choked on your words when Jackson pushed your legs apart and latched his mouth onto your soaked underwear.

He grunted lowly as he licked over your panties, getting a first taste of your arousal. “That’s what I like.”

Your eyes rolled into your head, feeling his tongue against your heat. You whined softly, wishing Jackson would remove your underwear and eat you out directly.

As if he was able to read your mind, the demon pulled your panties down your legs. He bundled it up and scooted back up to your face. “I know exactly what you want”, he purred and licked over his lips, “next time I want you to say it though.” He glanced at your bundled up panties and smirked. “Maybe getting a taste of yourself will help you get bolder. Open up!”

You reacted instantly and opened your mouth, not even flinching when he shoved your panties into your mouth. You felt the stickiness of your own fluids before you tasted them. Still trying to process that new feeling, you weren’t prepared for Jackson to move back down to your core again. You yelped, muffled through the fabric, and instinctively wanted to shut your legs.

Jackson growled and pushed them apart, holding them down with an iron grip while he continued to lick and suck at your entrance. His eyes darkened when he saw you arch your back and heard your loud moans over the wet noises from your pussy. “So fucking slick”, breathed against your core and pushed two fingers inside, curling them in a come hither motion.

You twitched underneath his ministrations, feeling the build up inside your lower body way sooner than you anticipated. Your breathing became irregular and you simply chased the feeling of his lips around your clit, how he sucked and played with it until you weren’t able to think straight.

“Do you want to cum on my fingers?”

The vibrations against your lower lips let you spiral down into the abyss of pleasure and lust. “Yes please, yes!” You cried through the fabric of your panties, wishing to come undone for him.

“Then cum.”

You didn’t need more to burst. Your whole body shook in pleasure while Jackson worked you through it. Once you came down from your high again your body grew limp. No man or toy had made you feel like this before.

“Don’t relax just now”, Jackson teased. He pushed himself up on his knees and snapped with his clean fingers. In an instant his clothes disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving him completely naked before you.

Your eyes wandered down to his middle and you immediately salivated seeing his thick cock. You leaned on your elbows to take a better look and instinctively spread your legs further apart. You wanted this dick inside of you. You needed him to fuck you into oblivion.

Jackson lowered his hand, covered in your slick juices, and started to rub himself. He watched your reactions closely, pleased with what he saw. “Take those panties out of your mouth and tell me what you want.”

You followed his orders immediately. “I want you to fuck me.”

Jackson snickered. “What a naughty little mouth of yours. I can’t wait to make you do all kinds of things with it.”

“Yes please.”

“So obedient.” He smirked and leaned over you, still rubbing his length with one of his hands. “How bad do you want it?”

“Very. Please, Jackson, please. I need you inside of me.” You closed the little distance between your faces and kissed him, snaking one arm around his neck and pulling him down with you.

That’s when he aligned with your entrance and pushed his thick cock inside of you. He grunted deeply into your mouth, loving the feeling of your walls around his length. Jackson slowly pushed himself further inside of you until his hips were flush against your own. He then started to pull back out and push into you again. With every push he became faster in his pace.

You broke the kiss as you became a moaning mess, your nails running over his back as you couldn’t control yourself. You threw your head back and let Jackson trail kisses along your neck. Even louder moans escaped your throat when he started to nibble and bit at your skin.

Jackson bit into your neck, marking you as his own. He traced the bite mark with his tongue in satisfaction before he kissed every inch of skin he could reach. All that without losing any speed. He continued to fuck into you as if there was no tomorrow. Jackson moved one of his hands down to your lower stomach, pressing down on it to feel his own dick hit against it. Satisfied he fucked you deeply another idea came to his mind.

He pushed himself up a little and grabbed your legs, pulling them onto his shoulders before he leaned back down a little. With the new position he was able to hit even deeper than before, making you scream in pleasure.

You approached your next high even faster in that position, begging Jackson to make you cum again.

“Not yet.”

You were on the verge of crying, wanting - no - needing to cum soon. The coil inside of you tensed almost uncomfortably, sending constant little shocks through your whole body.

“Now!” Jackson growled and locked eyes with you. “Cum now!” He held you closely, refusing to let go of the current position. He closed his eyes as he shot his load inside of you, grunting when your pussy started milking his dick empty. “I’m gonna fill you up the whole damn night.”

You whined when Jackson slipped out of your heat and whined even more when his fingers stuffed his cum back inside of you, rubbing over your sensitive core.

“Do you need a break?”

You shook your head, breathing through the overstimulation. This was the best night of your life and you wouldn’t let it go to waste just because you felt a little sensitive.

Jackson smirked. “Good choice. How about you use your mouth this time?”

You perked up, your gaze flickering down to his still hard length. God, yes you wanted to choke on his dick. You were about to get up and out of your bed when Jackson stopped you again.

“On a few conditions.”

“Conditions?”

“I want you to hold my cum inside of you and no touching.” He cocked an eyebrow to test your willingness to follow his demands.

You swallowed but nodded nonetheless, crawling out of the bed and getting onto your knees in front of him. You looked up to him, seeing his tousled hair and superior look in his eyes. You licked over your lips, accepting the silent challenge he gave you. Blow his mind.

You licked over the tip of his dick, tasting the mixture of your juices on your tongue. With every lick you got bolder and soon enough you pushed your mouth down his length.

Jackson grabbed your hair and pushed you even further until your nose got pressed against his body and his dick hit the back of your throat, making you gag around it.

Tears welled up in your eyes - a reflex you couldn’t control. You looked up to Jackson and nearly melted underneath his lustful eyes. You moved your tongue around his dick and slowly started to bop your head, hoping to give the demon the same pleasure he gave you.

The same pleasure that you still felt. You mewled around his cock and pressed your legs together, feeling the need and want inside of your pulsating pussy again.

With every deep sigh, moan and grunt from Jackson, he drove you more and more crazy. You wanted to touch yourself, wanted to push anything inside of you to feel simply used.

“You got any toys?”

You hummed around Jackson’s dick, not daring to stop giving him head despite the question. Instead you simply pointed at the lowest drawer of your night stand as you continued to suck him off.

“Show me.”

You felt the heat creep up to your cheeks before you leaned back and let go off his dick with a loud pop. You glanced at Jackson, wanting to make sure he really meant it, before you shuffled over to the drawer and pulled it open, revealing a bunch of various sex toys.

Jackson laid on his side, watching with mischievous eyes as you pulled several toys out of the drawer and placed them on the floor. He rubbed over his hard cock, imagining all the things he could do to you with those toys included. “Give me the clamps.”

You didn’t even hesitate reaching for them and handing the cool metall over to the incubus. You watched him with wide eyes as he inspected the toy, tracing his fingers over the clamps and the chain connecting them.

A satisfied smile played over his features and Jackson beckoned you to crawl onto his lap, leaning back against your headrest. Once you had straddled his lap, Jackson’s free hand cupped one of your breasts, his thumb toying with your nipple. He looked up to see your reactions, grinning wickedly when your eyes already rolled to the back of your head and soft whimpers escaped your lips. Jackson raised his other hand and tightened the clamp around your nipple before he moved to your other breast repeating the same.

You mewled when Jackson tugged at the chain, arching your back in pleasure.

“This is going to be interesting”, Jackson murmured with a smirk. He grabbed his dick with one hand and guided your hips with his other. Jackson tapped against your skin and motioned you to sink down on his thick shaft.

Both of you moaned when he entered your tight walls and spread you open. You quickly held on to his shoulders, needing his strong form to stabilise yourself.

“Once you’re ready”, Jackson told you in a husky voice, nodding down to your joined bodies.

You nodded as well and slowly started to grind your hips. As soon as you felt bolder you lifted your hips and pushed them back down as fast as possible.

Jackson grabbed your ass cheeks and guided your pace, enjoying how you simply followed his lead without complaint.

The room filled with the sound of skin slapping against skin again. You started to get out of breath but the pleasure you felt was worth it. Feeling Jackson’s dick rubbing against your walls still felt incredibly hot and you easily lost yourself within this feeling. So much you nearly forgot the nipple clamps. Until Jackson leaned forward and caught the chain with his teeth, sucking the metall into his mouth and pulling at your nipples with the action.

You immediately came undone again, slumping down against Jackson’s form in exhaustion. “I’m sorry”, you whispered, feeling somewhat embarrassed by coming so fast.

Jackson caressed your cheek, pushing a few strands of hair out of your face. “I don’t think I can accept that. I have a punishment in mind, are you up for that?”

You nodded. Even though you felt slightly tired, your own desire outweighed it by miles. Still, Jackson had to help you move around a lot. He placed your hands on the headrest before he chained your wrists to it. Jackson then spread your knees apart and pushed your upper body forward until you were properly bent over.

You breathed through your nose, the pulsating pain from the nipple clamps slowly clouding your senses. You didn’t have the energy to turn your head and look behind you. Instead you waited impatiently, wiggling your hips from side to side until Jackson slapped your ass.

“This is a punishment, my dear”, he chuckled lowly and rubbed over your warm skin.

You squealed in surprise when you felt a lubed finger protruding into your ass, stretching you. The feeling was strange at first but soon enough you enjoyed that as well, sighing deeply with every movement.

Jackson grunted under his breath, his dick growing impatient. He grabbed the lube and rubbed it all over his shaft, shuffling closer to your ass and lining his cock up. Jackson leaned over your body, pressing one hand against the headrest and holding the chain of the nipple clamps inside his other hand. He pushed deeper into you, moaning and grunting the deeper he got. Once he was flush against your ass, Jackson took deep breaths. “Holding up alright?”

You mewled and nodded, not able to speak from the sensation.

“You think you can take more?”

You swallowed harshly, your mouth feeling suddenly so dry. You fantasised about it before and just the thought drove you to your edge already. “Yes”, you breathed and shut your eyes.

You gasped loudly before you clenched your teeth, hissing more than breathing when Jackson pushed your vibrator into your pussy.

Both of you groaned when he turned it on and the vibrations spread throughout your whole body. Jackson slowly moved his hips as well, trying to match the vibrations.

You cursed underneath your breath over and over again. The coil inside your stomach tightened with every thrust from Jackson. Your legs started to tremble violently while your insides spasmed slightly, too overwhelmed from all the sensations.

Jackson used the chance and shifted his hand from the headrest to your neck. He pushed your upper body further down and pressed his fingertips against the side of your throat, effectively cutting your blood flow.

You felt delirious, hearing Jackson’s voice as if he spoke through clouds. The only word you successfully registered was his order for you to cum on his cock. He didn’t need to say that twice. Your vision went black, dozens of white spots popping up at the corners. You didn’t even feel your body anymore but as soon as you came down from your high all your muscles turned to jelly. You weren’t able to hold yourself up anymore and you felt too spent to even care that the handcuffs cut into your wrists now that you weren’t holding yourself up.

Jackson quickly took care of you, removing the toys and placing you more securely on the bed. He stood up and got some wet wipes and cleaned you up, murmuring soft praises whenever you whined. Once he finished the cleaning he draped a blanket over your naked form. He looked at your peaceful face, thinking you were already asleep when he leaned down and placed a kiss on your temple. “Thanks for summoning me.”

“You’re free to stay, you know?” You opened your eyes lazily and turned to look at him, smiling softly when you saw the light blush on his cheeks. “The cuddling after is sometimes just as great as the sex before.”

Jackson cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so?” He smirked and even though his words didn’t match up he already crawled behind you and wrapped his arms around your body, pulling you against his form. “We’ll see about that.”

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