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#Based off recent events as you all know
mariespen · 28 days
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Who? ˳༄꠶
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jealous!Rafe Cameron x fem!Reader ༄꠶ summary: “No way am I sending my girl on a study date with another man." warnings: very very mild sexual concepts, jealous Rafe
based on this request!
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Rafe Cameron was looking right at you with a death glare, the kind of look you’d pin on horrible people who were only doing horrible things. You’d think your boyfriend would understand that being in college requires unavoidable group work, which leads to unavoidable conversations with people you would much rather not know at all. Naturally, you were wrong. Devastatingly wrong.
“I don’t get it.” He said plainly for the fifteenth time that night, “You don’t even need this class if I’m honest.”
You rolled your eyes, trying to focus more on packing your things rather than the hole he was staring into your back.
“Don’t do that shit.. c’mon baby..” Rafe said, getting up to stand closer to you, a persuading hand on your hip, “M’working so hard to give you a life where you don’t gotta work and-“
“Rafe, we’ve talked about this too many times.” You cut him off in hopes to finally shut him up.
“Well why don’t we talk about it again,” He said, a tiny smile on his face, “Like right now? Over dinner?”
“Baby you know that my group members will kill me if I don’t pull through.” You shrugged past him, walking to put your shoes on.
You weren’t wearing anything near special. Sweatpants and one of Rafe’s oversized hoodies were all that you were planning on showing off. But in Rafe’s eyes, HE would fuck you in that, so who’s to say that no one else would? Naturally, he carries a heavy bias considering that Rafe would fuck you in anything, but he says ‘that’s not the point.’
“So what, you’re gonna spend all night with people you don’t even like?” He asked with a scoff.
You gave him an annoyed nod, trying to prove your point.
“That’s gotta be like.. bad for your uh.. mental health. You should stay in.”
“Rafe stop-“ You started before getting a ping on your phone. You groaned to finish the sentence, storming off to get your shoes on.
“What?” Rafe called after you, quietly shuffling behind before picking your phone up and looking at the recent notifications.
Connor: When r u getting here?
“Who’s this?” Rafe asked, pointing to the phone with a look of pure hatred in his eyes.
“One of my group members, love.” You said, trying to stifle a giggle over how protective he was over you.
“Another man? Absolutely not,” He said, turning away from you to block the door out of your shared apartment before continuing his rant, “No way am I sending my girl on a study date with another man. Who do you think-“
You pushed past him, backpack already slung over your shoulders as you made your escape to the front door.
“Nope.” He said plainly, grabbing the back of your bag and making you look at him, his fingers tracing your jaw and holding your eyes to his.
“Rafe..” You whined, but his touch was strict.
“You’re mine, baby. Not Connor’s, a’ight?” He said, brushing hair from your face.
“I’m yours.” You repeated, standing on your tip-toes to give him a kiss on the cheek.
His eyes softened and he thought he got you wrapped around his finger, pulling away to look at your flushed face. Instead, you darted to the door when his touch weakened, hand on the knob before Rafe could get another word in.
“Love you!” You said, closing it before everything caught up to him.
The group work went fine and almost exactly like you thought. A long session and a gut wrenching feeling of exhaustion afterwards. It’s never your favorite event but there were worse things that could happen. Things like walking back into your apartment after narrowly escaping your boyfriend’s possessive hand. 
You opened the door quietly, which was already unnecessary. Of course he was still wide awake, waiting for you like a father punishing his daughter for sneaking out. He was sitting on the couch, arms crossed and scowling at you.
“What the fuck?” He asked, getting up to meet you at the front door.
You shoved your shoes off, setting down your backpack and walking closer to Rafe. “M’tired baby..” You said, making every attempt to walk past the intimidating block he made in the hallway.
“No, no no.. this isn’t how it’s gonna work,” Rafe said, using both of his hands to hold your shoulders and forcing you to stand right in front of him as he lowered his voice, “Can’t just do that baby.. a’ight?”
“Sorry..” You whispered, breaking free of his hold on your shoulders and instead pulling yourself into him, wrapping your arms around him in a hug.
You could feel the slightly annoyed laugh that bubbled from him, but you could also feel the chaste kiss that he left on the top of your head. Rafe’s soft spot for you would always shine through his anger. You let yourself melt into his arms while you contemplated falling asleep standing.
“C’mon..” He whispered into you, equally as tired from staying up and waiting for you to come back to him.
You felt him pick you up cautiously, kissing your cheek as you let your eyes start to close.
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The next morning was a beautiful Saturday, which of course was the day you woke up to about 15 messages from your project’s group chat. Somehow you managed to squirm away from Rafe’s death grip over your body to check your phone. Casual conversations relating to different parts of the project and other things that you wanted nothing to do with flashed across the screen.
Over your shoulder you heard Rafe groan and felt him reach for where you weren’t. He looked around for you, watching groggily as you typed out a response on your phone.
“Baby..” He trailed off, rubbing his eyes.
“Sorry.. group project.” You whispered, giving in and letting yourself melt back into his arms.
“At 9 in the morning?” Rafe mumbled into you, an annoyed sigh died in his throat when you ran your fingers through his hair.
Sleep clouded your mind as the two of you held each other close again. He wasn’t trying to show it, but his possessiveness and jealousy were leaking out of him like a faucet.
“G’morning princess..” You heard Rafe whisper from above you, brushing the lazy hair from your cheeks.
You groaned and shifted, trying to find the warmth in the bed now that Rafe had gotten up.
“Let’s get lunch, hm?” He asked, gently moving you to face him again.
You nodded, trying to nod away the urge to dive back under the blankets.
Getting ready wasn’t as hard as you thought it would be, just because Rafe had already bought you the perfect outfit and you didn’t have to fight off your hair as much as you normally did. Whenever you got ready, Rafe would always finish before you and sit on the edge of the bed, admiring your reflection in the bathroom mirror. Your cheeks would flush up and you could never get your blush right anymore because he somehow always had your face a pink shade of red.
Rafe grabbed your bag for you, a small purse that fit your pretty dress. He also went to get your phone from its shameful place at the bedside table because of course you had forgotten to charge it last night.
One text had lit up your screen and his eyes narrowed the moment he saw it was from Connor.
“Baby, why is Connor texting you?” He asked, walking to your spot in the bathroom and shoving the phone in your face to quickly get your attention.
You took the phone, opening the notification while Rafe watched from over your shoulder.
Connor: Hey, I have some ideas for the paper. You want to meet up to talk? I was thinking a Cafe or something.
You could feel the angry red heat of jealousy seeping out of Rafe’s body.
“I told you.” He said, taking the phone from you and staring at the message again, almost dumbfounded at Connor’s audacity.
“M’not going.” You said plainly, looking at him with a lightly apologetic look.
“Damn right you’re not.” He replied, throwing your phone onto the bed and looking at you with an angry glare staring down at your face.
You watched an idea form in his head. It was easily not anything good considering the way his lips turned up in a thin smile and his gaze moved between you and the phone in a heartbeat.
“Y’know.. I really don’t want my girl missn’ anything..” He trailed off, walking to where he threw your phone originally.
“Rafe..” You tried to protest, not fully understanding where his head was at.
“No.. I think I gotta be a good boyfriend here.” He nodded to himself before looking at you with an unforgettable smirk.
“Baby I don’t want to go.” You said, walking up to him and trying to read his cocky expression.
“You, go?” He asked with faux confusion, cocking his head to the side, “No no, you’ve got it all wrong.” 
Rafe stood up, taking your hands in his and kissing your knuckles before looking back down at you. Now it was your turn to be confused, furrowing your eyebrows.
“You think I’m stupid, baby?” He mocks, kissing your up jaw and stopping by your ear, “M’gonna go in for you.”
Whatever hint of a smile you had on your face slowly disappeared as realization dawned on you.
“I think I’ll text him right now and let him know I’m on my way. Give him a nice surprise when he realizes it’s not the pretty little girl that he wants.” Rafe said slyly, pulling back with a malicious smile.
“Then he and I can really talk, hm?”
The next day, Connor dropped the class.
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traceybrakes · 5 months
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Let's Talk About Un-ironicizing Art!
In light of a lot of the conversations i've seen surrounding Death Grips and recent events concerning them, I want to take the time to point out that this is a good time to start thinking about how we engage with art on the whole!
For a long time, the irony poisoned method of consumption went unchecked in all facets of internet culture. As an internet musician in current day, I have noticed a sharp disconnect between artists and enthusiasts/casual listeners when it comes to attitudes surrounding music specifically, though I've witnessed it permeate all forms of art in some way.
I see people who have grown scared to engage on deeper levels, intentionally severing any resonant connections or knowledge learned from a piece of media before it has the chance to take root. In short, dare to be vulnerable! Dare to enjoy something on the basis that you yourself resonate with it, and not for any other nebulous reasoning. When masses of people relegate art to a spectacle, not only do artists become more likely to be disenchanted with the passions that fuel their work, but the consumer base ultimately suffers as well. All art at that point becomes less an extension of ourselves, less a vehicle to explore our identities, and is rendered a meaningless hulking sludge, or worse, the opponent to an already shrinking and narrow worldview.
Be not afraid to be unabashedly in love with the work that inspires you. Be not afraid to have the things you love misunderstood by by some. When you engage with work new and old, make sure to do it for yourself. Making and consuming art is inherently selfish, but being selfish is not inherently misguided. Allow yourself to learn, grow, discover, and repeat that cycle until the day you die.
To speak more candidly about my own experience, throughout the course of my life, there has been art that I've held near and dear to my identity, and own journey of self discovery that I seldom find others who hold the same sentiments to. I've always found this exciting. Exciting to hold something close to my chest as something so personal, and even more exciting when I can ease up on that grip when I find someone who I can share that with. However, I've also been through the throws of how the internet tends to chew up and spit out art that generally isn't understood by the many. I've fallen victim myself to the hive mind mentality that circles some artists and the cult of non-identity around them. This off-color ouroboros of knowing all about an artist's work and simultaneously upholding this facade of vapid complacency. I've come to the conclusion that if being openly supportive and connected to an artist's work or a particular piece of work automatically renders a person uninteresting and unambiguous at the very least, then I will live happily as an uninteresting open book. At the worst times, we see this line of thinking contribute to Death Grips being mocked and belittled en masse by people who are unwilling to engage with their art before they even get that far. It's heartbreaking, to me at least to see people put so much effort, emotion, and passion into transforming culture for the better to be rewarded with a crowd that's plugging their ears.
I realize I run the risk of sounding pretentious, self indulgent, or even patronizing to an extent; I apologize because that isn't my intention, I'm hoping to see gears shift at least on a micro level surrounding attitudes towards art appreciation. Remember to dare to be in love holistically with the art you engage with! Speak of the things you love in a way that makes that clear to others, and consider your peers to do the same! You and the people around you can only be better off for it.
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… spiralling
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xmalereader · 6 months
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DI Leon Kennedy X Bunny! Male Reader
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|| Masterlist ||
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Authors note: The horny police came for me. Also expect a lot of hybrid shots.
Summary: Leon is in need of a vacation and wants to spend more time with his bunny boyfriend, perhaps start his vacation with some welcome home sex?
Warnings: Fluff, backstory, mentions of Jill and Carlos, death island spoilers-ish, NSFW, MDNI 18+ only, kissing, dirty talk, pet names, collars, mentions of heats, sensual sex, Leon’s a tease, more romantically sex then rough, reader is a hybrid rabbit, rabbit traits, bunny ears and tail.
Word count: 3.3k
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Leon wasn’t kidding when he said that he needed a vacation.
After the events of Alcatraz and going against Maria and Dylan, Leon knew that he needed a break from everything to at least get some time on his own before Hunnigan finds him another mission to take.
Once they were picked up from the island and flown back out, he returned back home with the rest of the others, making it to the airport in one piece as the all board off. Leon had already told Hunnigan that the minute he lands home he won’t be accepting any missions since his vacation starts now. Jill had reunited with Carlos an ex-umbrella agent who’s she’s been seeing for awhile now, while Chris and Claire had each other.
Leon didn’t really expect anyone to wait for him at the airport since he actually never told anyone that he would be home early. Before he could leave he’s invited out for some drinks by Jill, waving him over while the others wait for him only for him to turn down their offer.
“Leon S. Kennedy turning down a drink?” Said Chris while chuckling, “Are you still infected?”
Leon shakes his head with a laugh. “No infected, Rebecca cleared me up.” He responds back, holding his duffel bag in his left hand while he slows walks backwards and away from the others. “Besides, I’ve got somewhere to be.” He adds on, eager to get home while he gives everyone a smile, leaving them all confused and asking themselves why Leon was so eager to leave.
No one would have thought that Leon had a partner waiting for him back at home. After everything that he’s been through, no one would think that he would find someone that he would settle down with or perhaps devote his time too due to him being busy with the work and the amount of things that he goes through a daily bases.
After the events in China, Leon had given up on chasing after Ada, chasing after someone who he knew he couldn’t have and finally made the choice to move on with someone who he could actually have a possible future with. Imagine his surprise when he ends up finding a special experiment during one of his missions.
He was assigned to locate an old lab that belonged to umbrella searching for classified information that could help them for any future bio weapons that they were to stumble upon only to find a special experiment locked away in the deeps of the lab. Leon didn’t expect himself to find someone there alive still, but when he took a good look at the lab he noticed how recent the technology was used and the different types of medicine and chemicals that were used.
He had reports back to Hunnigan, letting her know that the lab he was assigned to search was still being used and had found someone still alive. He thought he had stumbled upon another dangerous bio weapon only to find a man with animal characteristics chained up to a wall, looking very malnourished and thin. What caught Leon’s attention was the pair of rabbit ears on his head along with a tail that peaked out from underneath his shirt and pants that he wore.
Leon had freed him that day and took him back to base where Rebecca exams the man and get further medical attention. Both Hunnigan and Leon were able to search through the files under the lab and found various files under the name Project Zero giving them further information about the hybrid that lied asleep in their own lab. Turns out that the man wasn’t entirely human since he was first found but a rare hybrid that hid from society, taken from his home at a young age only to be experimented on for who knows how long.
They kept the hybrid a secret in order to keep him safe until they found out more about his species and where he came from. When the hybrid first woke up he was in shock and panic, destroying the lab and fighting back whenever someone approached him. Leon had stepped in to help only to be caught by surprise when the hybrid jumped into his arms, holding onto him tightly and not letting go. The agent himself was in shock by the sudden move.
It wasn’t until later that he finds out that the hybrid felt safer around him since he remembers him rescuing him from the lab and taking him out of that awful place. Rebecca was able to check up on the hybrid without any issues due to Leons presence in the room and from then on it took time for them to find out more about the hybrid and finally getting him to talk and to give them his name.
Y/n was able to tell them everything from the time he was take to the time that he was rescued by Leon. He was very young when he was taken along with his family. Being experimented on and losing everyone but himself, due to him being the youngest the scientist kept him alive the longest in order to see how he grew and developed with time.
Even though Y/n was able to tell them very little he still held a fear of being used by them and closed up every few days. They knew that they couldn’t keep the hybrid locked inside a lab forever, triggering his traumas whenever he was around the room it wasn’t until Leon volunteered to take care of him, getting Hunnigan to find him a secluded area for the both of them in order to grant the rabbit a bit of freedom without society knowing about him just yet.
When Hunnigan found them a place to stay for both Leon and Y/n for the time being until they were able to figure out more about his species and with the time that Leon and Y/n’s spent alone in the cabin he was able to find out more about the hybrid, reporting back to Hunigan and letting her be know that Y/n reacted in the same manner as a rabbit.
He had a great sense of smell, hearing, very calm and of course, faster than Leon whenever they went on runs together. His ears were sensitive to him along with his tail, having to cut holes in all of the clothes that Leon got for him. He also discovered that even though Y/n was a rabbit he was able to tolerate meat and not always relied on vegetables only eating small amounts of it before focusing back on something he can eat without any problems.
The one things that Leon never reported back to Hunnigan due to embarrassment was Y/n’s heat.
It started off with Leon’s shirts going missing, surprising the man whenever he opened his drawer or closet only to notice the shortage of clothes. He ignored it at first and simply bought himself more clothes.
The next was how much the rabbit was eating, finishing his plate rather quickly and getting seconds without needing to ask. Leon told himself that he was perhaps getting adjusted to getting proper meals again due to the amount of time he was locked away and fed very little.
The breaking point was when he noticed how close and affectionate Y/n was being towards him. He was either leaning in close to him whenever they would watch a movie together or would find the rabbit in his bed the next morning, curled up to his side without a care. That’s when Leon looked into his behavior only to find out that it all pointed towards the hybrids heat, knowing that its something that rabbit have all year round, but for Y/n it was only every few months.
Leon never reported back to Hunnigan the things he did that night with the hybrid the way he sounded and the way that Y/n’s back would arch whenever Leon fucked into him. The agent knew that he should have said something, but didn’t.
Ever since then the two have grown closer, deepening the bond that he had with Y/n until he was finally off the hook.
The Hybrid stayed with Leon after 3 years the two have gotten closer than ever and knew each other like the back of the hand. Leon needed someone that he could talk too that he can come home too whenever he completed a mission instead of coming home to an empty house full of silence.
When Leon arrived home from the airport and stepped inside his home he’s greeted by a faint smell of his favorite food being cooked along with some music playing. His lips twitch into a faint smile as he sets his bag down and closed the door behind him and makes his way towards the kitchen where he finds his little bunny cooking.
He’s humming along with the music while stirring the pot the smell of various different spices that he’s cooking blinding his sense that he doesn’t notice the familiar scent that belonged to Leon until his floppy ears perked up when he hears the sound of his familiar heartbeat causing him to turn around in surprise.
“Leon!”
He turns the heat down and rushed over to Leon, hugging the man and smiling widely as Leon returns the gesture and chuckled. “I’m back…” He breaths out tiredly, clearly jet lagged from the long flight back home.
“You said you wouldn’t be back until next week.”
Leon chuckled. “I finished earlier than I thought.” His fingers brushed against Y/n’s check, holding him close before leaning down to capture his lips into a soft kiss when the kiss is returned he doesn’t stop himself to deepen it. Y/n can feel Leon’s hand trail down his back and pull him closer he tries to break away from the kiss, but Leon keeps leaning in. “Leon..the food…” he’s able to breath out between kisses only for Leon to guide them towards the stove, reaching over to turn the knob off.
“Food can wait.” Leon finally says then went on to remove his jacket and Y/n swore he was salivating at the sight of the man’s broad shoulders and biceps now out in better view. His shirt clung well to his form and made his waist look smaller and his torso bigger and god, Y/n was about to hyperventilate. “Missed you while I was gone, missed the way you feel against me.” Leon had mumbled out, lips hovering over his as he guides him towards the living room, hands on his hips while he walks them over.
“Finally got that vacation, told Hunnigan that if she needs someone for a job she will have to bother someone else.”
Y/n whimpered, unsure what to do or say next. “Y—you—we-“
The man pounced.
Leon’s arm shot out to pin him against the large couch, getting the hybrid to gasp in surprise by his sudden strength. His ears falling back against his head while he stares up at Leon who towered over him. His skin on fire, with his back pressed straight against the couch underneath him and his insides burning for anything to happen. He could already feel his thoughts officially turn to mush and his instincts just come alive with want, please, want, want, want.
Y/n hadn’t been aware he would be so desperate for something like this after Leon’s return. He’s handled longer missions and never felt such way until now. His head was light, almost to the point of dizzy, as he found himself looking up at Leon. “Look at you, baby. You’re so ready for me. You’ve been starving for this for some time, hm?”
“Y-Yes.” Y/n groaned, face growing hot in embarrassment as Leon got closer to him, one large hand reaching down to his thighs. Leon can only smirk, leaning down close in order to continue teasing his rabbit. “Eager I see, want me to fuck you?” Y/n could moan like a dying man, “Yes.” He can feel Leon’s hands trailing down his legs, eyes roaming down his body.
The agent can only chuckle by Y/n’s squirming, knowing how much he missed and craved for the hybrid as he slips his hand underneath his shirt, fingers exploring his chest and stomach until his thumb grazed over his nipple. “I’m going to make you feel good, back blowing--”
“Leon!” Y/n whines out in desperation.
Leon chuckled and blew against his ear, “Let me finish, baby.”
Y/n was about to cry.
“I’m going to make sure that our neighbors are able to hear you from here, let them know that you are all mine and how much I missed the tight little hole of yours.” Leons hand founds its way between the hybrids legs, cupping him over the shorts he wore while his middle finger stroked over his entrance.
“P-Please.” Y/n whimpers out while fighting back a moan from escaping past his lips. “You’re cute when you beg.” Said Leon and the hybrid is quick to know what he wants, knowing that he won’t do anything until he hears him beg for it.
“Please…j-just fuck me. Please. Fuck me. God, Leon, please, please. Want you. Please!” He could paw at Leons pants if he didn’t feel like it would be too much effort to try and move. “Ok, baby, whatever you want.” And then he gripped Y/n and hoisted him up pressing himself against him. “Legs around me. Now.” Y/n scrambled to do so, wrapping them around the man’s waist, and whined.
Instantly, Leon started to move. He gave a few experimental grinds between Y/n’s legs and the hybrid nearly shrieked with joy. Then the sinful mouth found its way to Y/n’s neck and without any sort of timidness or pause latched on to it. Leon nibbled and sucked to the point Y/n knew it would leave a bruise and nearly orgasmed right then from the thought. Y/n’s fingers found their way into Leon’s hair, tugging on them and is rewarded with a bite.
“Fuck, been waiting to have a taste of you ever since I got back.” Leon gave him another bite on the neck before he lapped at it with his jaw. “How about we remind our neighbors your pretty sounds, hmm? I want to hear my name spilling from your pretty lips more but let’s just hear how good it sounds.”
Y/n broke out into a drawn-out whine as Leon positioned himself to angle right up against Y/n’s short covered cock and began to slowly, but with more authority, thrust up against it.
“Say my name.” Leon ordered.
“L—Leon.” Y/n fumbled out and gave out another cry when that earned an even harder thrust. Leon moaned out. His voice sounded like sin. “Now, lets get started on getting you filled up.” Y/n’s face grows bright red. “Gonna stretch this pretty hole of yours and make sure that my cock is the only one you need.”
Y/n released a broke, high-pitched whine that dissolved into a moan which caused Leon to start rutting against him, grinding as if they were in some filthy club, and Y/n did his best to keep up but he felt himself just losing his mind. It was like he was floating away and getting drunk. Leon’s mouth and attention was actually making him go insane and he couldn’t help but love it.
He wanted more.
The two kissed like they didn’t have enough time together, tongues battling against each other, lost in the moment while Leon works on getting the hybrid undressed. Finally getting rid of the shirt he wore and quickly fumbling with the shorts he wore. Y/n moans when he feels the cool air once Leon removes his shorts along with his boxers and Leon smiled and went back to kiss over his face, trailing down his neck, to his chest.
He licked at a nipple and growled when his hybrid lover gave a gasp. His fingers trailed up and down his side, tickling over his chest and hips.Leon went back up to the hybrids chin and began to nibble, it was one of his favorite places on his lover, and smiled to himself when he earned another little rush of air. It was adorable.
With another nip he pulled back, smirking to himself when he gave off a little whine, trying to reach out to him in desperation. “Hold on, impatient little thing.”
Leon was quick to remove the blue shirt he wore. He started to unbuckle his belt when he heard another little noise. Staring down, he smirked when he saw those eyes looking at his bare chest with clear want and hunger. “You’re staring…you can’t hide anything can you?” Y/n’s eyes snapped back up to him in embarrassment.
Leon chuckled, “You have nothing to be ashamed about. I like it when you stare.” When Y/n avoids his look he smiles with amusement and leaned down to kiss him again, barely able to resist the skin. “A-Ah…” Y/n whimpered and Leon paused a moment over the hybrids collarbone but then trailed up to the neck again, lips playing over the collar. “Baby,” Leon began to push his pants off, groaning when they came in contact with each other completely bare and with a whimper, Y/n’s clenched his eyes shut, trying to catch his breath.
Y/n bites his lip when he felt Leons harden cock graze against him and tried to keep his breathing under control. The man was large, probably larger than Y/n ever handled before, and he simultaneously felt excited. With a noise that sounded like a squeak, Y/n’s body arched slightly as those larger hands wrapped around him and pressed against his back, smoothing down till they grabbed his backside and squeezed and pushed the cheeks apart. Y/n released a silent choking sound, surprised at the aggressive grip, eyes wide towards Leon. “Oh, gods.” He moans out.
Leon doesn’t need to prep him due to how wet he already is and easily slides inside, earning a chocked out moan. It takes Y/n a few minutes to adjust to Leon’s size again after not doing it for some time before he finally grows comfortable and gives him a nod to move. Leon doesn’t need to be told twice as he began to move his hips, leaning down to capture his lovers lips into a kiss.
Y/n meets him thrust after thrust, finally breaking their kiss when he’s doing little more than gasping and panting and moaning Leon’s name over and over and over again into his mouth. Leons eyes begin to burn, he’s so overwhelmed and frantic and on fire that he’s not sure how much longer he can last. He ducks his chin to press his lips to Y/n’s flushed chest, before Y/n curses and drags Leons mouth back to his.
“I love you,” Leon breathes when he can’t take it anymore - his blood is searing through his veins like lava, he’s surrounded by Y/n in breathtaking ways he never could have hoped to be. On top of it all, amongst their slapping skin and gasps and moans. He rests their foreheads together, bringing a trembling hand up to Y/n’s face and pressing his thumb against Y/n’s cheek. Y/n swipes his tongue against his swollen, kiss-bitten red lips and flutters his eyelashes Y/n rolls his hips on Leon’s cock only once more before he’s coming, too, impossibly tighter around Leon while he’s still riding his own high. It draws a long, satisfied moan from deep in Leon’s chest that has him wondering how soon he could go again, or how quickly he could coax Y/n to hardness again.
“I love you, too,” Y/n breathes against Leon’s lips, trembling and panting and sweating. “Welcome home, too…”
That causes Leon to laugh, hearing the sudden welcome home after everything. “I am home.” Leon breaths out while claiming the hybrids lips into another deep kiss.
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beefrobeefcal · 19 days
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the BEEF | #1: Joel Miller
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Summary: no-outbreak AU, Joel has a headache and that headache wants his attention. [based on a prompt THOT up in collaboration with @strang3lov3]
Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader | Rating: Explicit 18+ (MDNI) | Word Count: 3,833
Content Warning: Smutty smutty smut smut, angry fools who want to play hide the sausage, angry joel, shovel violence against a truck, monster cock, age gap (joel is in his 50's, reader is younger), p in the v (unwrapped), rough dresser sex,
Author's Notes: welcome to the BEEF. Each P-boy has a thorn in their side that has to be dealt with. Thank you to @covetyou for inspiring the idea, and thank you @neverwheremoonchild, @strang3lov3, @rebel-held & @bitchesuntitled for their brains and eyes.
and thank you to every friendo in the Bistro - it's all for you, babies.
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Joel Miller was your street’s cranky asshole. No one dared throw a party or hold a garage sale without letting him know first. No one dared let their grass get over a certain length and the whole neighbourhood breathed a sigh of relief when he would go out of a town and not see the kids scribble with chalk on the sidewalks in the summer. He never called the cops; no, instead he showed up and berated whoever was hosting an event or engaging in an activity he found offensive. And he was intimidating. He wasn’t the tallest, but he was built like a brick shithouse. You’d lived on the block for almost nine years, and in that time, Joel had gone from being a broad, sturdy single father to a single, empty nester who lived off HungryMan frozen meals. He was a big man with linebacker shoulders and a meaty chest stacked on top of a boulderous belly. His plaid button up shirts always looked like they were holding on for dear life to avoid his temper.
And you were utterly in love with him.
Before the most recent snowfall, you’d been in your room on your bed with the window open a crack to let in some fresh air. Right below your window was Joel’s front porch, and as soon as you heard his door fly open, you grabbed your vibrator and listened.
“Get off my lawn!”, you heard him bellow at who ever had dared to approach his house.
You smiled to yourself and turned on your purple silicon friend and shoved it in your underwear.
As Joel berated the hapless victim of his temper, you nudged yourself closer to the edge. As you did, you cared less about the volume of your cries and let your noises out at top volume. By the time you came, Joel was standing on his porch with his mouth agape, staring at your bedroom window and the offending party walked away with a look of disgust.
*****
Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.
You watched as your snow shovel slipped out of your hands and hit your Joel’s truck. The one with the vanity plate ‘SM 9000’ that you had no clue what it meant. You could only sit back and watch as it fell and gouged in the paint job on Joel’s 1989 Dodge Ram pickup, your panties grew damp as you heard his front door open and slam against his house.
You turned around, raising your hands, trying to look like you were de-escalating the situation. “Joel, I-“
“The fuck’re you think you’re doin’?!”, he bellowed, stomping towards you.
As he yelled and flew into a tantrum over your shovel’s sins, you couldn’t help the stupid, lovesick half grin blooming on your face.
“… and you ain’t got no respect for no one’s property and…”, he stopped, took a breath, and looked you over, face twisting in a confused rage as he tried to figure out why you were looking at him as if he were a can of tuna and you were a cat watching him being pulled open ever so gently.
“The fuck is wrong with you?!”, he yelled, stepping forward, trying to scare you to no avail. He huffed and stomped his foot, trying to snap you out of whatever trance you were in.
You sighed and tilted your head, loving the attention he was finally bestowing on you, not caring that your reaction was essentially dumping gasoline on a house fire.
“Fuckin’ disrespectful shit…”, he snarled as he grabbed your arm and dragged you towards his house.
“Joel? What’re you doing? Where we going?”, you asked with a big dumb grin on your face then wincing at the harsh grip he had on your elbow. Your boots slipped and skidded on the icy walkway and you tripped heading up the stairs.
“Fuckin’ clumsy dumbass…”, he grumbled, shoving you through his front door and slamming it behind you both.
You looked around his entry way, noting the ugly wallpaper and the stale cigarette smell lingering. You crinkled your nose, and he turned around, his frown deepening into a scowl.
“Boots off!”, he barked, harshly motioning to your feet.
You didn’t miss a beat and toed them off quickly, kicking them into the wall. His jaw clenched as he watched the dirty snow clumps slide slowly down, leaving wet patches on his yellow-turned-brown floral wallpaper.
His eyes snapped up to yours, expecting an apologetic look. Instead, he was met with…
“Why the fuck you lookin’ at me like a love sick puppy?”
Joel was enraged. You didn’t run away or beg for forgiveness. No. You stood in his entry way, kicking your boots and making a mess, looking like he was David Cassidy or Patrick Swayze. You smiled back softly and that was the last straw for him.
“WHAT IN THE FRESH HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”
You could have cum right there. Joel Miller was yelling right in your face. You’d gotten off by listening to him lose his shit at anyone trying to fundraiser or collect donations who had dared knock on his door but having a front row seat to a live performance was better than you could have ever imagined.
Joel watched your lips part and your brows twitch as they furrowed and your head tilt back slightly. He heard your breath hitch between his furious growling breaths, and his eyes slid down your parka-clad frame and he swore he saw your thighs clench.
His eyes went wide as he realized the effect he was having on you.
“You fuckin’ dirty little shit…”
The whimper he received in response made his cock twitch in his WalMart Levi’s. He sucked in a harsh breath and swallowed hard. He hadn’t had a woman look at him like that since he went to the strip club with his brother for his bachelor party, and he knew she was looking for a hefty tip. But you – the only thing he could think of is that you were trying to find a way to get out of paying for the damage your shovel caused. There was no waythat you were actually interested in him in that way. No. No woman had wanted to fuck him since before his daughter, Sarah, had been in junior high. He was a fat old asshole and you… you weren’t.
“Joel…”
Your soft voice pulled him back and the frown he carried all but left his face, being replaced with eyebrows to his hairline and his mouth open in confusion and shock.
“Joel, I… I’m sorry about your truck.”
You grabbed the zipper to your parka and pulled down, opening it to reveal your great aunt’s knitted sweater with a loon on it. Joel’s widened eyes swept over you and his brows furrowed.
“The hell you up to?”, he croaked, trying to sound intimidating.
“It’s warm in here”, you respond, tossing your parka on to, but missing completely, the stair banister.
His mind was racing. You actually seemed to be coming on to him as you stepped closer in your mismatched socks. You looked up at him through your lashes while your hands slowly slid up your legging-clad thighs and up to the hem of your sweater. He watched as you pulled it over your head slowly, getting it stuck for a moment, revealing a worn out white t-shirt with a faded image of a marshmallow peep and the slogan ‘Holla At My Peeps!’. He took another step back and you tossed your sweater at him, and he stumbled back, falling onto his recliner.
“Jesus, woman!”, he hollered, ripping your sweater off his head just in time to see you standing above him.
“You know how hot you are?”, you asked, leaning forward over him.
He froze. He must be dead. Or asleep. Or maybe he slipped when he stormed out the door to yell at you and hit his head. Or maybe he was drunk. Maybe he took a NyQuil tablet instead of the Omega 3-6-9 fish oil pills.
“The hell is wrong with you?”, he sputtered out, looking at you wide-eyed.
You didn’t answer. You only leaned forward, nudging your nose against his and letting out a breathy giggle. He tried to speak again, but his words got lost in the high pitch grunt he let out when your knee came up and nestled in between his thighs, pushing against the considerable bulge that had developed.
His hand involuntarily gripped your wrist that was supported on his arm rest, and he sucked in a deep breath.
“I know exactly what you need, Joel Miller.”, you cooed, tongue jutting out and licking your teeth, trying to sound seductive. “You need a good fuck.”
His mouth hung open in shock. You grinned wildly and kissed the tip of his nose before nipping at his bottom lip and tugging it between your teeth.
Joel let out a groan and closed his eyes, the hand on your wrist moving to your t-shirt’s hem and slipped underneath it. You nudged your knee against his crotch again and kissed him, tasting no-name waffles and burnt coffee.
The kiss seemed to break something in Joel. This wasn’t a dream, or an antihistamine induced hallucination or a concussion - this was real. You, his hot, young, stupid neighbour was crawling onto his lap and shoving your tongue down his throat.
He grunted lowly and pushed you back, looking up at you with dark eyes. You tried moving forward again, but his hand held you back.
A whine emanated from your throat, and he shook his head. “I’m not fucking you-“
You scoffed and he shushed you.
“Oh, hush and lemme finish, you loony shit!”, he huffed. “I was sayin’ that I'm not gonna fuck you in this chair; it barely holds my weight and if you’re gonna be bouncin’ on me, this fuckin’ thing’ll screw the pooch.”
You shrugged your shoulders, irritated. “Okay, fine. Then where?”
“My bed, you nimrod!”, he snapped with a scowl, then grinned. “Got a nice mattress with good lumbar support.”
*****
You had followed Joel to his room and were pleasantly… let down. You weren’t sure what you were expecting, but the beige walls and the picture of a horse above his non-exciting bed were not what you had thought he would have. What surprised you was the essential oil diffuser plugged in on his bedside table, giving the air a fresh lavender smell.
The fact that the rest of his house looked like a rejected concept for an early nineties sitcom and his bedroom looked like a bed and breakfast that had no theme, for some reason, made you want him more. This man and his lack of consistency. You needed him in you now.
Grabbing his arm and turning him around, you pulled him into a desperate kiss; teeth and tongues, fighting for real estate in each other’s mouths.
“Get naked, sugar.”, he grunted as he broke the kiss with a lopsided grin. He unsnapped his shirt, revealing a grey, stained undershirt, its ribbing pulled tight and stretched over his belly while his mouth and surrounding patchy facial hair glistened with your saliva.
While he wasn’t being that polite, he wasn’t being mean. That was a problem. Even with how mundane he’d revealed himself to be, it wasn’t enough. The residual dampness that made your panties stick to your core was a result of him yelling at you out front, and that goodwill your pussy had shown was slowly drying up.
Joel’s hands began to make quick work of his belt and stretch denim jeans, but he noticed you not moving to do the same.
His hand flapped at you in an urging motion, “Make with the no clothes. Can’t fuck you with them on.”
His eyes narrowed as he noted your lack of movement, and he paused. You began to see signs that Joel was getting mad, and your mind flipped through every situation you’d witnessed him lose his shit in.  What was it that would set him off quick? You weren’t about to throw a block party in his room, nor were you a religious group knocking at his door early on a Saturday. Then it clicked.
A devious grin broke out slowly on your face as you sat on his Temperpedic mattress and crossed your arms.
“Make me.”
“You indignant little shit…”, he growled, clenching his fist.
A flutter in your lower belly. More.
“Come on. Make me.”
“You fuckin’ tease… Fuck you!” His eyes were filling with fire.
An almost painful need bloomed in your core. More!
“Fuck me yourself, coward.”
He sputtered and guffawed, eyes wide in rage.
“You fuckin’ shit! Bangin’ up my truck and actin’ like a needy Jezabel just to fuckin’ tease me like this!”
You could have cum right there, between the iron grip on your wrist and his loud belittling.
You couldn’t stop the giggle that erupted, and he snarled. He grabbed your hand and yanked you up off the bed. You truly thought his back was bad enough that the effort of getting you up alone would be too much, but he shoved you against his dresser, then slamming his weight into your back. You whined, feeling your pussy clenching on nothing.
“You’re such a shit!”, he grunted, grabbing your elasticized waistband, and yanking your leggings and panties down on one side while your hand went to the other; the two of you awkwardly working towards removing your barrier.
When they were low enough on your legs to step out of, you clumsily did so, then tried to turn around to help Joel. He wasn’t fast enough, swearing under his breath as your hands lifted his belly to access his strained button fly. His mouth was on your neck, sucking and biting like a dog on a window while a steak was being grilled just on the other side.
You pushed his jeans down around his hips and they pooled around his ankles. He kicked them off and bit down on the crux of your neck and shoulder as your hand cupped and felt up his hard cock.
Jesus. Oh fuck.
Joel was hung. Like unreasonably so. You’d had your fair share of men slamming their pork steeples into your wet cunt, but none of them could even hold a candle to the monstrosity that sat heavy and covered in satin in your hand. You planted your hand on his chest and pushed him back, needing to get a peek at what Joel was packing. You immediately looked down, seeing the Wile E. Coyote faux-satin boxers protruding out in an impressive, and frankly intimidating, bulge.
“Oh shit...”, you breathed out, contemplating on whether you truly needed to do any serious sitting for the next week, or if you could maybe just get away with laying down at work.
His hand snapped to your jaw, forcing you to look him in the eye, and he gave you a dark smile, “Showed up to a gun fight with a knife, sugar?”
You didn’t have time to respond because Joel shoved his hand between your legs and harshly began rubbing your clit.
Your eyes fluttered and rolled back. Joel watched, an approving sneer on his face.
“’S fucked up … you like this?”
“uh…. Uh-huh…”
“You’re a lunatic…”
You smiled lazily. “You’re fingering a lunatic… w-what’s that say about you?”
He paused then huffed out, “That I’m fingering a lunatic, you moron.”
You let out a throaty laugh that bleeds into a moan as Joel shoves two thick fingers into your hole, slowly dragging them out before plunging them back in.
“You’re a sick little shit… you seducin’ and teasin’ an old man, an’gettin’ me all wound up… Neighbourhood headache… that’s you. Fuckin’ shit up and walkin’ away with a smile on her dumb face.”
“’M close… don’t…. don’t stop…”
His fingers kept the slow languid pace going as he leaned in and harshly whispered, “Unlike you, sugar, I don’t like to leave people disappointed.”
His eyes never left you, watching your every move. Every involuntary twitch and shudder, every flutter of your eyelids and breath leave your parted lips. He could feel it around his fingers and see it on your face that you were feeling everything intensely and now that he had you like this, he wasn’t going to let you go without making sure you weren’t going to pull this shit again.
Joel was many things, but a man who could let things go was not one of them. He was tired of hearing you cream and cry on whatever silicon thing you were shoving into yourself through your bedroom window as he lost his shit on someone; tired of seeing you make eyes at him while you sat in your front yard as he grumbled at a neighbour for the state of their lawn. He was still furious at you for once letting your hand - your soft, sweet, tender hand - linger on his when handing him his mail that was accidentally delivered to your home, forcing him to sit in his shitty recliner and try to finish with his calloused, rough, and hard hand. He never came.
You were going to pay for that. He’d promised himself that for almost five years and now here you were, on your way to being a muppet with how his hand played in your pussy. Joel’s time had come.
You came, moaning, on his hand as he watched, his fingers still moving in and out of you, and his thumb took up the task of tending to your twitching clit. Your face twisted and you cried out, trying to push his hand away.
Your tongue felt thick in your mouth and a moan seeped out. As you rode the wave, he yanked his hand out and grabbed your arm, throwing you onto the bed.
“Goddammit, you’re such a pretty shit.”, he grumbled, reaching for your ankle, and tugging your ass to the edge of the bed. You tried sitting up on your elbows, but he shoved you back down with his body weight.
His weight. Good god, he felt heavier and better than you ever thought he could as he pressed you down into the mattress.
But he got up off you, trying to wrangle your ankles and pull your exposed pussy to just the right spot to save his back from being strained. You tried sitting up again, wanting to have some sort of control over the situation, but Joel growled and grabbed your hips, and, in an impressive feat, flipped you onto your front all while grumbling about what a pain in the ass you were.
“Can’t even fuckin’ be considerate enough to stay put…”
You heard him spit then grunt, figuring he was priming that fucking meat wagon between his legs, and you let out an impatient huff.
“Knock that shit off!”, he snapped, flicking you on your ass cheek. “You just came, nimrod. You can fuckin’ wait!”
“Yeah… but I wanna cum again!”, you whined out with a smile, trying to not laugh at how irritated he was with you.
“I bet you do… but you’re on my time, and I am a patient man, sugar.”, he crooned lowly, snaking his hand up your back and to your hip. You squirmed a bit, but his hold kept you planted in place, and his other hand held his cock as he nudged it against your opening.
The smile on your face dropped as his huge member pushed in; your mouth opened, and out came a gasp followed by a choked moan.
“That’s it… Jesus Murphy…  not even fuckin’ your throat and I got you to shut your mouth…”
Yes, you knew Joel was huge. But it was just an abstract concept up until that moment. Now that he was shoving his massive dick into you, you felt like the universe’s mysteries were now clearly laid out. You knew what religion was right, who shot JFK, how they made the moon landing look real…
Nothing in life would ever surprise you again because you were being split open by this grumpy, fat man. You were being ruined by Joel Miller.
He grunted as he pulled back and then slammed into you.
“Tight little snatch, sugar… takin’ me like a champ.”
You couldn’t respond. Your brain had melted and left your skull empty, and you were unable to do anything but breathe loudly and moan, “S’too big… too big…”
Joel snickered and grunted, snapping his hips and shoving himself deep. You wriggled and squirmed, simultaneously needing him stop and to fuck you harder. Your head began to feel faint, and your core squeezed him, forcing a groan out of him.
He began to snap his hips faster, panting and grunting like the fat kid in gym class being forced to run a mile. You whined and squirmed, trying to get your knees under your body to be able to push back against him, to get him deeper, but he grabbed your calf and bit your leg right above your sock with a growl then groaned, “Stay… stay put… don’t move… jus’lemme… lemme finish…”
You let out a yelp than melted into a moan, throwing yourself into another orgasm. Joel’s thrusts became hurried and more erratic. The high-pitched whine that ripped out of Joel sounded like a dog begging for table scraps as he shot his load into you.
He collapsed onto your back, both of you panting. After what felt like hours but in reality, was only about 30 seconds, Joel had gone quiet. You nudged him, hoping to god he didn’t die from a pussy-induced heart attack. He grunted and struggled to push himself up off you, then flopped on the bed next to you. You rolled over onto your back and looked at him. His cheeks were flushed, and his brows furrowed; his wispy salt and pepper hair stuck to his forehead and his eyes were closed. He was still breathing heavily through his mouth. You smiled, feeling a fulfillment you hadn’t since you’d convinced your parents that it was your sister who broke the CD-ROM drive in the family computer even though it was really you. Cuddling into his, your fingers drew heart shapes in his sweat coated chest hair.
Now that he’d fucked you, you wanted to clear the air as it were, and make sure he wasn’t going to make you pay for any damage to his truck. “So…”
Joel grunted in response, one eye opening and looking at you.
“I was just wondering… what’s your licence plate mean?”
He sighed and closed his eye again. He said the meaning quietly and at first you weren’t sure you heard him right.
“What?”
His cheeks flushed a little harder and he rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a huff.
“ShagMaster 9000.”
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TAGLIST: @theywhowriteandknowthings @toxicanonymity @harriedandharassed @neverwheremoonchild @rebel-held @beee-haw @nevergoingbacknowshine @idolatrybarbie @v4vayha @lalocitos @xdaddysprincessxx @deathsholywaterr @heareball @lyssramscal @wintrwinchestr @nerdieforpedro  @southernbe @starkeydaviss @noxturnalpascal @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog@vabeachazn @clawdee @iamasaddie @jennaispunk @tightjeansjavi @rubyfruitjungle @lilmizmoz @strang3lov3 @pedroshotwifey @harryleatherfit @bitchesuntitled
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Hey! I’m back with a request!
So, imagine witch reader goes to a goetia party ( lu-Lu asked her to for him) and she brings Alastor. But bro tries to leave, so after the party, she drags him to the woods, ties his legs and hands and use him as a bait for hunting wolfs or something like that as punishment.
Thanks for reading
You guys sure do love the witch reader- So do I!
Original witch reader - introducing to Coven - Careful What You Wish For - Pretty Little Doe
Warnings: panic attack, angst (sorta comfort at the end), power imbalance, not proofread, let me know I missed something.
Say You're Sorry
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*Lucifer called in a favor of you. Go to a goetia party in his stead.
*You decided you would go and bring your little doe to keep you entertained. Parties tend to bore you afterall.
*Unfortunately the same was true for your doe and he decided he would leave you there.
*Without even asking for permission!
*Good thing you had recently obtained some information regarding his death.
*Mauled by dogs?
*How fun it would be to recreate the event in hell...
---
"I will no longer tolerate this treatment! You are not in possession of my soul-!" Alastor struggles as your shadows bind his hands together, "Release me this instant!"
The shadows push him against the tree.
"'You won't tolerate this treatment?' I've been far too lenient with you."
Despite all his futile thrashing, your doe ends up bound hand and foot against the tree.
"You look so adorable! If only I could keep you like this all the time!" You ruffle his hair.
"I don't quite comprehend how this is fair- hmph!"
You cover his mouth with your hand.
"You do remember the feeling of dogs tearing into you, no?"
Alastor pales. He's a whole lot quieter now.
"I'm refreshing your memory, darling. I've heard the wolves in hell quite enjoy the taste of deer demon flesh."
You take your hand off his mouth.
The smile on his face is held up purely by those green stitches you are yet to understand. His chest heaves up and down, those eyes of his widening in a such a lovely manner.
"You- this- isn't necessary! I can be- I can-" Alastor swallows his pride with a smiling grimace.
"I can be good. For you."
His gaze stares up at you, searching, begging to see pity in your eyes.
Your lips curve upward in sadistic amusement.
"Prove it."
Then you fade into the shadows.
--
The deer keeps his eyes moving, his ears twitching, searching for any danger in the vicinity.
He'd been stranded there for what felt like hours.
Thinking about a way to leave, to run away.
His instincts that his deer half held urged him to flee, or hide, or anything! Something! Not stay tied at the base of this hellish tree!
Snap!
His head snaps to the sound. His breathing gets more ragged.
Then a low growl comes from the bush some feet away from him
Tears prick the corners of his eyes as he pathetically attempts to scoot away.
His hooves make contact with the ground but are tied too tight together to successfully stand.
The bush shuffles.
Then the wolf leaps for him.
The demon shrinks in on himself, ears pressed flat against his head as cries out, "No!"
...
The attack never landed.
"N-No- No- Please don't let-" the tears roll down his face, " I-I don't want- please-!"
"I'm- I'm sorry! I-I wont talk back- I-!" He chokes on his own gasp for air.
He sputters incoherent sentences, trying to breath properly again.
It's almost enough to make you feel bad over the whole ordeal...
You materialize on the ground next to him. "I... I apologize-"
He falls into you, clutching his bound hands onto the fabric of your clothing as he weeps out his own apologies.
You gently bring your hand to pet his ears.
"I didn't realize that you would be so sensitive about your death, my precious doe..." You laugh softly, "I wouldn't mind burning at the stake once or twice more!"
You clear your throat when the demon clinging to you doesn't laugh.
"I'm sorry, Alastor." You whisper.
...
"I'm sorry."
---
Next!!!
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popquizhot-shot · 8 months
Text
EVERYTHING IS FINE- Miguel O’Hara x fem!reader
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this is it. angsty asf. bittersweet ending it’s sad people. tw: infidelity. based on my most recent post. please comment i’m literally begging you and tell me how you like it<3
In the depths of your heart, you already know. Your Miguel is not yours anymore.
You remember the stolen glances between him and Dana where you pretended not to notice the palpable tension between the three of you amidst the throng of about ten other people in the house.
It was a nice dinner that you’d planned, after spending almost a week away because of your actual job as well as your little side gig that was being a part of spider society.
But fifteen minutes into the little shin-dig and you get a call from none other than your boss. Not the nice one who showed you the ropes when you first joined and provided you with hours of mentorship. The bitch that was a variant of your husband was currently floating above your watch as you glared at him in the bathroom.
“We need you.”
“Not today.”
“It’s an emergency.”
“It’s always an emergency.” you roll your eyes.
“Look this was unplanned, you think my life’s aim is to torment you?”
“Kind of.” you nod and he groans, “Give me twenty minutes.”
——
At the end of twenty minutes, you storm out of your house as quietly as you can, yes it’s an oxymoron but you’re pissed off.
At Miguel, at your husband, at yourself.
Your mother always said that you were one to pity yourself, even when every bad thing that happened was the result of your own actions. All your life you’ve disagreed, but now you think that maybe your mother was probably right.
None of this would have happened if you’d just said no. No to Dana making her way into your marriage to her guy best friend and co-worker.No to the variant of him with fangs and red eyes and No to your own urge of fucking things up because you wanted to see what happened. If maybe what your heart felt was wrong. That there was nothing wrong with you and Miguel, that he still loved you.
You let out a shaky breath and open a portal from an alleyway behind your apartment building. The purple hue reflects onto your face. No, you weren’t a spider. Just a traveller that stumped your boss and changed his perception of everything he knew about the multiverse.
The man himself nodded at you as you stepped onto the platform he was standing on, looking back to the holo of what looked like a rogue Doc Ock, Goblin and another Spiderman.
“What, now we have evil spidermen? Isn’t that breaking the canon?” you raise an eyebrow.
“That’s the thing. There’s no canon event broken. He was meant to be a villain. Yet, I’ve never heard of him, or of this universe.”
You look at him like he’s just told you that he used to be a stripper in college and all his money came from his side-gig, “I’m sorry, what? The all powerful Miguel O’Hara with the pixel suit doesn’t know of the existence of a universe?”
“You’re being real helpful right now.” he grumbles.
“Thank you, I knew you’d appreciate the help.”
——
The house is quiet when you walk in, evidently everyone has left. The kitchen has been cleaned and the lights are off.
He’d always been your biggest supporter. Always so humble even though he had a high position and a fat paycheck, always telling you to let him help you. Doing some of your work for you when you were busy.
The bedroom door creaked a little as you enter, the sound of your loves breathing makes you crack a small smile. His hulking figure curled up and moving up and down. His face slack.
God he was so beautiful.
You shed your clothes and go through your night routine as fast as you can. Brushing your teeth and scrubbing your face. Cursing the pimples that always make their way onto your forehead at the wrong time.
The mattress squeaks as you get on, slowly wrapping your hands around his body. He stirs and looks up at you, his eyes softening. He’d been drinking, you can tell. He hasn’t looked at you like this for a while.
“Hi.” his hands cup your face and you smile softly as you kiss his rough palm. Your own covering his.
“Sorry I disturbed you. Thank you for cleaning up.” your hands mirror his actions, thumbs caressing his cheekbones.
He answers you with a soft kiss. And then another. And his hands are travelling down to pull you to him. Engulfing you as he hides his face in the crook of your neck. Your hands move to play with his hair as he drifted back to sleep.
You close your eyes and pretend that everything is fine. That the lipstick stain on his shirt in the laundry basket wasn’t the same as Dana’s.
———
“Are you fucking dumb?” O’Hara seethes, as he disinfects the gash at the bottom of your neck.
“It’s just a graze, i’m fine.” you grumble, “it’s not like anyone’s gonna care if i die.”
“No, just shut your mouth. Stop talking like you’re some martyr. There are plenty of people here who would miss you.”
“Miguel, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.” you chuckle, “i get it-
“No, you don’t. actually, you don’t get it. the woman i loved died, and she’s gone and i’d do anything to have her back, and you’re so convinced that if you died your own fucking husband wouldn’t want to die too? Stop acting like you’re expendable.” his eyes glow and yours widen, “This may come as a surprise to you, but people care.”
You gulp, “Sorry.”
He grumbles under his breath as he sprays the wound with bacta so it heals faster. Apologising when you wince.
You look at his concentrated face that is focused on wrapping the bandage around your shoulder and the bottom of your neck. His face is mere inches from yours. He is the splitting image of your husband, save from the red eyes and fangs. But this close you can see the differences, his eyebrows are a tad thicker and his ears are smaller.
He is harder and his words are sharp. Your love is soft and quiet. Mean when he has to be, but kinder. More open.
More loving. Yes. He’s more loving and he loves you.
You look away and focus on the ceiling. You don’t see his eyes watching your face. Eyes filled with sadness and want.
——
“Dana, here. Have some tea.” you pour a cup for the woman sitting next to Miguel at the table. At your spot.
Is it toxic to think that maybe you want her to choke on her tea?
She’d started to carpool with Miguel a few months ago , seeing as they worked together and were on the same team, it was more efficient and made more sense.
You didn’t want to seem like a toxic wife so you nodded and agreed, because you were secure in your relationship with your husband.
“Thank you.” she says your name with a wide smile as she sips the tea, “Amazing, as always.”
“I know right, she makes amazing tea.” he smiles at her and raises an eyebrow. Dana snorts.
You look between the pair trying to hide their smiles, “Did I miss something?” an awkward smile makes its way onto your face.
“Inside joke, you wouldn’t get it. It’s a scientist thing. I don’t think your writer brain could handle it.” Dana waves you away as if you’re a fucking waiter and you bristle.
But what drives it home is that Miguel laughs out loud when she says that. His hair flops onto his forehead and Dana fixes it for him, her hands running through this hair.
You fight the urge to break a plate on her head but you know it’ll be fruitless. Because your husband will take her side.
Maybe you’re just being dramatic. Maybe the tears you’re trying to hide as you make breakfast are unwarranted and you can’t take a joke.
Everything is fine.
You call out to them from the kitchen, telling them you’re going to be late and his voice is brighter when he says, “Okay, honey.”
—————
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, boss.”
“You look dead.”
“Your eyes bags suggest the same.”
“You’re hilarious.” O’Hara smirks
“Thank you.” you take a sip of the beer he’d passed.
It was late, far past dinner time. And the both of you had taken time to go over the record of what anomalies were most common and key weaknesses in most villains.
“But seriously, are you okay?”
You gulp, “Tell me about your wife. Please.”
He blanches, and then looks at the tears welling up in your eyes.
“Well, where to begin?” he turns to face you, “She…was a writer, she had her own business. She loved sunflowers because they faced each other when the sun wasn’t in the sky.” he smiles sadly, “she was terrified of frogs and dead fish. And she hated onions. The pickiest fucking eater.” he shakes his head and chuckles.
“She sounds sweet.” you know she was variant of you, Miguel had shown you the web of life and in every universe there was version of you that made their way into his life. It was beautiful, honestly.
“She had short hair, and her smile. God, it could make anyone’s day better.” he rested his head on his hand and looked at the hologram shining in front of the both of you.
“She sounds like a dream.” you reply.
“She was.” he nods.
“Hey would you mind bringing up a live of my house?” you ask.
“Why?”
“Humour me, will you?”
He grumbles and a hologram showing your universe pops up, on the screen is your living room. And Miguel freezes when he sees the scene before him.
He sees himself kiss Dana. The version of him who is married, is kissing his co-worker. He’s taking her in his arms and nuzzling her nose. He’s pecking her cheeks and tickling her like she’s his wife.
Like he’s in love with her.
“I love you.” his voice echoes throughout the room. And Dana says it back.
His head whips to look at you. You don’t look surprised, rather, you look defeated. You breathe out like it’s a finality. Your beautiful beautiful eyes transfixed on offending scene in front of you.
Before anything else happens, he shuts it off. Immediately turning to look at your frozen form, “Hey, you with me?”
You shake your head and smile. Eyes still fixed onto where the hologram was, “I’m fine.” Tears fall down your cheeks as your mouth quivers, “I’m okay. Everyday he comes back around this time. And they carpool. I told him I’d be late today. Just after I made them tea and they laughed at an inside joke amongst themselves.”
His eyes widens, “Oh honey.” his moves to hug you and you let out an ugly sob, “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“I knew it.” you say into his chest, “I’m so fucking stupid.”
His hand pats your back, “You’re not stupid.”
“I mean, I know i was busy, i know i wasnt always home. But I tried, i fucking tried. WHAT IS SO WRONG WITB ME?” the dam breaks and you let out a wrecked shout of agony that breaks his heart into two, “Why wasn’t I good enough?!” your body shakes violently.
“No.” he says firmly, taking your face in his hands, almost squeezing your cheeks and forcing you to looking at him, your hands fly to cover his, “ You are good enough. You are enough. Listen to me. That fucking idiot doesn’t know who he just lost.”
“But-But if i wasnt so busy-
“If he had a problem, he should’ve told you. He’s a fucking pussy.”
Your words are silenced when he shakes you once, hands still holding your cheeks, “You are the most perfect person. And the both of them will pay. I promise that, cariño.”
His arms wrap around you to engulf you as you hide your face in the crook of his neck, rapid breaths slowing. His pulse beats and you can feel the vibrations on your own skin.
You close your eyes and pretend everything is fine. Because you’re in his arms.
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15minlatewithbatbucks · 10 months
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It's forty minutes into the latest state of the company press conference and Bruce has had to mute his mic entirely to avoid being turned into a meme AGAIN for sighing too much at his own event. For all that he's spent almost 20 years coaching his own children on not making scenes, he's really not much better. It's hot and he doesn't want to be here. His ribs hurt. He's tired. He's hungry. He's every excuse Dick or Jason have trotted out over the years.
(Tim understands company manners and can almost always be trusted to stick it out as long as he's allowed to vent his frustrations afterwards. He's recently taken to smashing ugly thrifted dishes. Stephanie and Damian have been collecting any ceramic not entirely pulverized and turning them into pavers for Alfred's garden.)
(Bruce gave up after Tim. He really only needs one kid to tag along to social events. If the kid start to outnumber him they start getting IDEAS.)
His distraction is why it takes two very rude repetitions of his name for him to take notice at the young reporter pushing his way to the front. Lucius stands, cutting off the project manager currently presenting and speaks into the mic.
"Please keep hold all questions until the end of the presentation, thank you."
"Mr. Wayne," the reporter tries again and Bruce waves away Lucius's further protests.
"Can I help you?" He asks, smiling with the full force of Brucie Wayne's charm behind it. It's been awhile since his last scandal, but if the press is inventing drama then it's less work for him.
The man holds up a photograph almost accusingly. He reeks of gotcha journalism.
Bruce squints towards him, unable to fully make out the contents of the photo. Dick may have been right when he gently suggested Bruce add glasses to his Brucie Wayne persona but that was a hill Bruce was still willing to die on. It was bad enough he had to have a prescription COWL.
"What do you have to say about the presence of your adopted son, Timothy Drake at the illegal mob in Robinson Park last Saturday?"
"Drake-Wayne," Bruce corrected because Tim hyphenated, damn it. He was the first of his children to let Bruce tag the Wayne name on and it mattered, damn it. "Wait do you mean-"
"How about reports of him kissing a man while there?"
"A blond man?" Bruce asked, finally giving up and crossing to take the photo for himself. "Oh. No, that's his boyfriend."
There was a beat of silence before Bruce realized his mistake. Just as the reporters began to squall, he dropped the blurry photo and began to speed walk off, phone suddenly in hand.
Through the podium's microphone, the gathered reporters heard one thing as Bruce evacuated the immediate vicinity.
"Tim? Don't be mad."
---
Despite Bruce's best efforts, he becomes a meme.
---
Immediately following the bombshell that Timothy Drake-Wayne had a boyfriend, social media blows up, clamoring for more information. They're ravenous for it, desperate. Tim doesn't have a personal social media presence but they stalk his professional accounts religiously. Bruce does have personal social media, but he maintains radio silence.
In the end, a Gotham based "influencer" stumbles across Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne getting donuts at Kosher Donuts and Co. Dick is personable, as always, and stops to speak with the young woman briefly.
"Yeah, Tim wasn't mad," he laughs when asked. "Just disappointed. But man, he knows how to milk it."
"Bruce is in the doghouse, huh?" she asks, full of false sympathy.
"A little bit," Dick says as Damian mumbles, "Titus would never share."
"But," Dick continued. "Tim's spun it so Bruce is on the hook for like, half a million in donations for local LGBT charities. Tim says it would hurt less if he sponsored a new shelter too, so that's something to look forward to."
"That's a lot of money! Where's it all going?"
"Oh you know," Dick says and gestures vaguely. "A lot of different programs."
"Yeah? Anything you personally want to see done with the funding?"
"Drag story time," Damian answers before Dick can. He looks intense. "But not for children. For dogs. In the shelter."
---
A day later, Tim breaks the silence. He goes live on Bruce's Instagram.
"So the problem was that Bruce thought the reporter was saying I was being unfaithful," Tim explains. "He totally forgot I wasn't out to everyone yet. Bruce was just worried because he's already told me if I break up with my boyfriend, he's not uninviting him from any future family events."
"Luckily, I was in fact just kissing my boyfriend at PRIDE. Just because people got shifty with the permits at the last second because of protestors doesn't make it an illegal mob. If you wanna hear about Wayne's and illegal mobs, talk to Dickie about his younger years. Nothing I do can compare."
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destinysbounty · 4 months
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As any self-respecting Zane stan, of course I've seen Decoded. And of course I loved the sweet but subtle character moment of him being bashful and awkward when Jay brought up the statue.
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For the longest time, I've always interpreted this moment as Zane being his typical humble, bashful self. And while I'm sure that's true to an extent, recent events from Dragons Rising have led me to consider an alternative interpretation.
If I may bring your attention to this quote from DRpt2:
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"Zane had impressive shoes to fill. No one could live up to him, maybe not even Zane himself."
I dunno. There's just something about the fact that Zane's own legacy has outgrown him, that he's overshadowed by the memory of his past self, that rather than a testament to the love his friends and community have for him he instead sees the statue as an insurmountable burden he can never hope to live up to...
Which brings me to yet another blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment from the Shadow of Ronin video game (I know it's canon-ness is debatable, but hear me out for a sec)
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While everyone is gathered around Nya and speaking to Borg via hologram, Zane is...gone. He's off in the distance, standing at the base of his statue, just...staring at it.
God, and when you add this all up to Zane's Ice Emperor baggage...yeah.
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campbell-rose · 4 months
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Alastor Redesign
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Omg there’s like over 70 people following me – guys I'm o///O flattered and flabbergasted. 
Anyway, onto today’s main event, Alastor. I hate Alastor’s og design, I hate his twig waist and his shoulder pads and the way you can’t see his antlers next to his ears, and his bow tie ugh viv please and his HAIR what even is that??? Not even mentioning that nothing about his design is really like a focal point. There’s no one thing that’s particularly interesting. At least before this he had that cathedral window looking cross on his undershirt that I found interesting. Nothing about his says he’s from the 1930’s other than dialogue. 
I wanted him to be in greyscale because that’s the coolest aesthetic, and colored photos weren’t a thing until way after the 30s. Recently I saw jjk, and Jogo’s teeth threw me because at some points I thought he was just straight up toothless. But then when I started this design, that colored tooth look spoke to me. Initially his teeth were yellow to look gross like he never brushes them, but then I was like ‘ayo wait, he’s literally a cannibal’, thus his vibrant red teeth to really pop against his greyscale. Initially his undershirt was white, but I feel like that was too much contrast and white is typically innocence, so by instead having a deep red it shows he’s just straight up bloodthirsty underneath his formal appearance. I also considered it being black, but then he looked like a pastor, and I wasn’t too much of a fan of it. The idea of the red on his design is that it leads your eye down his design to take it all in, with his face being the focus. I gave him glasses because I like the way it obscures his eyes a bit and I imagine they do the anime thing where they glow and hide his eyes. I liked Viv’s idea of sinners having marks where they died, and I slicked his hair back to show it off very prominently. His antlers are larger, I gave him cute lil deer ears. Also, under his suit he is lowkey buff. I feel like a serial killer should at least look physically capable of taking someone down not whatever the fuck viv’s nasty twig men can do. Like, in that comic with the cute sheep girl, when Alastor goes demon mode his body looks so snappable I just wanna like grab his waist in my hands and break it like a twig. I also tried to keep his design simple as if this were for animation, I know pinstripes are complicated and so are antlers but other than that I tried to keep his design basic. 
If I were to rewrite him based solely on the pilot, I honestly wouldn’t change a thing. Alastor is a decent character, his voice actor gives him life, the radio filter is cool, and nothing he did made me want to break my screen (ANGELDUST). The only thing I'd change would be his position in hell. Like, viv’s hell is so wack and I hate it, she’s got the princes, then the goetia and the overlords and then sinners and blah blah, it’s a lot to keep track of, not even mentioning the rings and circles thing. I think Alastor should have had dealings with hell as a human, maybe he routinely did sacrifices or something, and he made a deal with the archdemon Alastor and when he died like... uuhhhhhhh. Maybe through connections he’s gained more power? Idk, I just know I hate the idea of his dying and then having like the bestest most powerful demon powers despite not being hellborn. It’s got this mary sue stench. I’ll figure it out, maybe, who knows. 
I’m not gonna start rewriting since there’s nothing to go off of and alter yet, so that’s gonna have to wait until the show actually drops before anything concrete happens lol. 
Also the sheep girl is a sinner that reoccurs in the show now so sorry I don’t make the rules, you can’t give me a cute sheep girl and try to take her away, I’m gonna redesign her and shove her into the plot as someone looking for redemption at the hotel
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qqueenofhades · 3 months
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Hi! This question has been noodling in my head for a few weeks, and I’ve been really curious to hear your opinion. I’ve appreciated your very thoughtful commentary on the ways the online left in particular have hurt the real and concerted efforts that have been made to navigate through the Gaza war in support of Palestine. I’ve seen a lot of outrage online about Biden bypassing congress in order to make another emergency weapons sale to Israel, which does indeed read as counter to helping to the Palestinians facing endless and indiscriminate violence. I understand that you might not want to answer this ask, because the work that you already do in your life offline and the work that you do here on tumblr to respond to and explain these issues is exhausting enough. Thanks so much for your time and your thoughtful contributions! It’s always really helped me remember to slow down and think critically about the media I consume.
Because you have asked this thoughtfully and in good faith, I will return the favor and give you a careful and extensive answer to the best of my ability. However, obligatory top-of-post disclaimer that I will disable reblogs at the first hint of any wankery in the notes and I will not answer any follow-ups or secondary asks at this time (unless I decide to do so, but I engage with this topic sparingly, judiciously, and only in small doses, so don't count on it).
First, let me say that the moment, I disagree with substantial portions of how Biden is handling the two main foreign-policy crises (Ukraine and Gaza). In regard to Ukraine, I think he's backed off, taken his foot off the gas, and otherwise given Republicans ammunition to keep delaying or watering down a new aid bill, is refusing to disburse military aid packages from the $4 billion of funding remaining that was previously approved by Congress, hasn't sent long-range ATACMS and other critical military hardware that might bring the war to an end sooner, and is not (as of the moment, though recent reporting suggests this might change) pushing hard enough for frozen Russian assets to be transferred to Ukraine for military and/or humanitarian financial assistance. However, I am also aware (unlike, it seems, much of the left-leaning internet) that I am basing these judgments only on my personal impressions, on what is reported (or not reported) in the media (which has plenty of its own problems) and otherwise what is formed in my role as an ordinary American citizen without any kind of special, classified, high-level, or government access. I know nothing more than any of you, and I also know that a lot of what goes on behind closed doors does not appear on Political Twitter and/or the Washington Post or the Guardian or Daily Kos or whatever other aggregate sources of information I or any left-leaning person typically consumes. So it's highly possible (and this is my cautious academic instinct speaking) that I do not, in fact, have a full picture of events. There are also contributing factors that Biden cannot simply handwave aside, even if he did, say, dip back into the $4 billion pot in the meantime. Congress will need to pass a new funding bill for Ukraine aid and the MAGA Republicans have been enthusiastically blocking it to the point where Putin's cronies on Russian state TV praise them effusively for it. We all know about the Republicans and Russia's mutual love affair. So.
The same goes for Gaza, and even more because we have already had reporting about how the Biden administration is walking a behind-the-scenes tightrope in a number of seemingly impossible tasks: keeping the war from spreading to a larger theater, pressuring Netanyahu to dial down, y'know, the rampant genocide (when Netanyahu notoriously doesn't like Biden, was very close with Trump, and would be happy to keep the war going in order to boost Trump's chances of being re-elected and save Netanyahu himself from his own criminal prosecutions), and pursuing a complex policy toward the state of Israel that does not follow the antisemitic Western Online Left's fever dream of "Israel suddenly disappears overnight and falls into the ocean and all Jews die or disappear." We have had multiple credibly sourced reports about this. Blinken is back in the Middle East right now trying to keep the war from spreading. The US under Biden has criticized Israel's essentially empty policy document for post-war Gaza as not being remotely feasible (because it's so vague) and gone so far as to voice support for a two-state solution with Palestinian self-determination (which is itself quite radically different from previous administrations). However, they have also vetoed UN ceasefire resolutions and other essentially meaningless political theater (the UN as a whole has been ruthlessly exposed in the last few years for being completely useless) that are easy to gin up outrage about, and that's what the internet focuses on, rather than any of the other complicated actions taking place.
All of this is to say that no, in fact, I don't blindly support everything the Biden administration is doing in regard to either Ukraine or Israel right now, but I actually have a sense of real-world perspective about it and understand that there are certain immutable realities that we are working with and which will not be erased by some absolute jackasses yelling at Biden in a historically black church at the commemoration of an anti-black terrorist attack. Likewise, as I've said it before and I'll say it again, and as plenty of other people have noticed and pointed out, the Western left is using this as an orgy of pseudo-revolutionary fervor that focuses on using Hamas as a proxy for their own fantasies of violent uprising against their own governments. Because while yes, anti-zionism and antisemitism are two distinct things and represent different aims and goals, it's become more or less irrelevant in allegedly pro-Palestine Western leftist spaces. It's just increasingly rabid, accelerationist, and nihilistic antisemitism all the time, or the obvious usage of "Zionist" to mean "Jew." It's not good. There is no concept of actual restorative justice for Palestinians or other people, such as Ukrainians, Syrians, Uyghurs, Taiwanese, etc, either undergoing genocide or facing the threat of it, because Western leftists have latched onto this cause solely as a stick to beat the Democratic Party with and have no actual moral interest or concern in stopping genocide elsewhere in the world or repudiating it as a method overall. They just want the state of Israel (which they characterize as a "proxy state for white western colonialism" despite the many, many things historically, religiously, and politically wrong with that statement, because it means it now Contains the Right Buzzwords to Oppose It) to be destroyed altogether in the name of "opposing colonialism," but it really seems to be all about opposing Jews. Hmm.
Simply put, Biden is not ever going to pursue a policy of "let's totally abandon Israel tomorrow, never sell it any weapons or allow it to defend its own civilians, and agree that Hamas is actually a good representation or advocate for the Palestinian people" in the way a number of Western Online Leftists seem to think he should do. There is still the fact that Israeli civilians do exist and that Hamas has continued to launch missiles at them daily, inconvenient as that fact might be for the Hamas fanboys (and fangirls) who now populate much of what passes for Western leftist discourse spaces. (Either that or they don't care, because in their view, Israeli civilians are fully acceptable collateral damage by virtue of simply living in Israel in the first place, which -- yikes. Fucking yikes. That is all.) The number of people professing to be lifelong leftists who are Just Shocked at all the antisemitism, or thinking that any and all antisemitism is just artificially introduced into leftist spaces by bad-faith right-wing/Nazi psyops either has not spent any actual time around leftists, or (more likely) simply does not listen to what they openly say. The antisemitism is virulent, constant, and only getting worse. On the most basic level, regardless of the other difficulties around the founding of Israel as a state in 1948 and the fact that doing so on some of the most bitterly religiously, politically, ethnically, and culturally contested territory in the world for over two thousand years was always going to be a massive clusterfuck, the fact of its immediate post-Holocaust creation simply cannot be ignored the way many Online Leftists do. Israel exists because of the worst antisemitic mass murder in recorded history (and that's a high bar). That fact must be incorporated into any actual discussions about its right either to exist or to protect its own civilians. But this gets turned into "Israel exists only as a puppet state of white western colonialists" which is just bad on so, so many levels.
The collective Western Online Leftist feeling seems to be that Hamas are innocent and wronged freedom fighters who are begging for a ceasefire and the cruel Israelis aren't granting them one. This is not true. Hamas has rejected multiple ceasefire opportunities, and continued to launch missiles and retaliatory attacks, because they are terrorists and they do not want or represent any serious opportunity to negotiate in the framework of western liberal democracy. They are treated as helpless woobified blorbos by much of the Western leftist-leaning internet. They are not. In that case, Biden bypassing Congress to sell Israel weapons (which was just something like 100 million of artillery shells, which is not nothing but still not a huge systematic thing like, say, Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal) is not great. I do not support anything Israel is doing to Gaza. It is abhorrent. However, there are reasons for Biden to provide some limited amount of weapons to Israel without congressional approval that do not automatically and mindlessly equate to BIDEN SUPPORTS TOTAL GENOCIDE IN GAZA!!!!!!1 Especially when as I've said, the Online Leftists only care about stopping genocide when it fits their political self-righteousness, and absolutely not at all the rest of the time.
This is representative of the fact that Western Online Leftism has now completed its all-out descent into blind Noam Chomskyism. Chomsky has never met a "leftist" or "anti-Western" genocide he couldn't deny, excuse, or openly cheerlead (going all the way back to the 1970s and Pol Pot/the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and going up to the minute with Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine). Noam Chomsky is the leftist Henry Kissinger. His ethics and morals are equally abhorrent, he's just as willing to justify total genocide in the name of advancing his preferred political ideology, and while there were (justifiably) celebrations and gloating memes across Tumblr when Kissinger finally bit the dust, Chomsky's beliefs are replicated with slavish adoration in many other Tumblr spaces and spread in some form or another to the rest of the website, which now takes them as leftist gospel (and let's not even talk about Twitter). This represents my absolute frustration with the fact that Western Online Leftism has devolved to such a degraded, mindless, useless, and malevolent level that "cheerlead for any anti-western/Leftist TM terrorist group or state" is taken to be the be-all and end-all of their moral philosophy. Someone remarked that ISIS peaked too early; if they were still at the height of their powers today, they would have a legion of devoted white so-called progressive Twitter users shilling earnestly and angrily for them, and Christ, isn't that the fucking truth.
I know we live in a hard, frightening, complex, and difficult world, and it's hard to sort out what our moral responsibility and action should be at any given time, especially since the answer is always so frustratingly partial and incomplete. Nobody of basic good sense and decency wants to see Gaza leveled while the Israeli state continues to apply a number of violently cruel collective punishments even outside the actual daily bombing of civilians. But for the love of god, let's get rid of the idea that the continued mindless violence doesn't benefit Hamas (because it does; unsurprisingly, sympathy for their cause has soared in Gaza) as much as it does Israel, or that Hamas is some kind of benevolent peacemaker that is being thwarted by the cruel imperialist US/West. And going back to the incident that prompted you to send me this ask: white leftists have often and repeatedly demonstrated their withering disdain for black people, Democratic voters, "mainstream" Americans, and anyone else doesn't buy into the twisted tankie fantasy land where getting rid of Biden would somehow be a massive coup for social justice (by getting Trump, now openly announcing at every turn that he will be a dictator, back into office! Very praxis, much justice. Wow.)
In short: if you, a white person, stand up in Mother Emanuel AME -- one of the most sacred sites for Black churchgoers, who are indeed often heavily Democratic voters -- in the middle of a remembrance service for victims of white supremacist terrorism, after the Black pastor has asked you not to protest inside the church out of respect for the Black community coming together to relive its trauma -- just so you can heckle Biden and feel good about yourself, then Jesus Christ. You don't care about restorative justice for people of color, or literally any justice at all, much less "stopping genocide." You just want to use them as props for your Chomsky cosplay revolutionary fantasies and your sense of self-righteous superiority over literally everyone else, regardless of the real-world consequences. So I have no hesitation whatsoever in telling those people to get fucked. Often and repeatedly.
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bucket-hat-lando · 18 days
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Red Bull Rumors (MV)
Summery - max is already dominating the new season but can only handle getting asked about Christian so many times before he snaps mid interview
Disclaimer- this is a fictional story based on events that have been talked about recently
Enjoy 🧡
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Max season was off to a great start already winning Bahrain and now Saudi Arabia he had Y/n it was perfect so perfect until his last media duty for the Saudi GP
Max was already fed up with the Christian Rumor questions before the race weekend started he just wanted to focus on the race and making his team proud. Y/n was with him heading to his last media duty occasionally stopping to say hi if she saw another drivers girlfriend.
As they approached Will for the sky sports interview y/n took her spot behind the camera kissing max before he starts . Everything was going pretty well Will asking the basic questions like “how does it feel to win the first two races of this season?” and “what did you think of Norris overtaking in the beginning “? Max as usual did his “maxsplaining” y/n laughing quietly while listening.
She tunes out the rest going on her phone liking tweets about today until her attention is brought back when she hears Will ask Max “How are you handling this weekend with all the Christian allegations?” That’s when she sees max’s face and body language change his face goes stone cold and body rigid and y/n knows these are two signs that Max is going to freak out.
Before she could stop the interview Max is already going off on Will saying “ THIS IS ABOUT RACING CAN WE PLEASE JUST FOCUS ON THAT WHY DO YALL NEED TO KNOW EVERY LITTLE THING.” He shouts at Will before storming off and grabbing y/n hand tightly walking with his head down to the motor home.
Once inside Max slides down the wall and y/n can see the tears building up in his eyes but not letting them fall so she sits next to him and pulls him into a tight hug bringing his head against her shoulder and that’s when it happens Max Verstappen the man dominating everyone breaks down in her arms while all she can do is rub his back and whisper in his ear “I got you it’s ok “ “just breathe”
After a few minutes of coaxing him max lifts his head and looks at her face red eyes puffy holding her hand as if he’s afraid she’ll disappear and says “ I can’t lose him y/n I can’t i don’t think i can trust anybody more than him.” She looks at him softly before replying “ Baby you’re not gonna lose him everything will blow over and be back to normal soon and until he gets back just know I’m always in your corner and we will get through this together. “ She grabs his face kissing his forehead nose and mouth then whispers “ You will never be alone I promise baby.”
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veone · 1 year
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GSHADE 3.5.0 Cracked Tutorial Feb.2023
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‼️Update:3/2023‼️ Due to gshade somehow being online again! You can still install the program with this tutorial but to avoid the update to version 4.2 notification keeping you from proceeding-Download the program from mediafire and then turn your pc to airplane mode and continue the process below! Note that when you turn your internet back on that your going to get the notification still ignore it. That what I’m doing.
Alright with the recent events regarding the development team of GShade figuratively going under and the current version of this program available being far from perfect. It would be lovely to back to a version of GShade that doesn't have malware, the changes that disabled the depth of field effects, and the removal of some older shaders. So here's a tutorial on how to install 3.5.0 of GShade. It's the version that we as a collective switched to all those months back, when GShade popped off in the community. Also the version I used to take this picture and got from @toskasimz who sent me the files. She's the reason why I have my pretty pictures back. It took a long time to get my preset to look like this and the modern versions of Gshade and Reshade don't have the shaders for this anymore. The suggested skill level for this is basic knowledge of how to install Reshade/Gshade and knowledge of where to find the game Bin file and Program Files on your pc.
Note: This version is before the code that shut down your PC, if you manipulated the code of the program, was introduced. Use at your own risk. I personally have no issue with using it. I'm using my laptop I do school work on and I have no money to buy a new one so that's my assessment on how safe it is.
To start download this media fire file. It's a Rar file. Unzip it.
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In the unzipped version of this file, you should have a folder that's highlighted below called GShade.
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Inside that file are two folders. Program Files-G-Shade and TS4 Bin Folder. These folder names correspond with where the contents of these will go on your pc.
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Alright inside the folders you should have the following content in the Program Files-G-Shade
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Inside the TS4 Bin Folder, you should have the following contents inside it.
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Place the GShade folder from the Program Files-G-Shade into your computer's Program(x86) file. This may have a different name based on your computer.
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Next Place the contents of the TS4 Bin Folder which should be the G-Shade configuration file and the folder of GShade-Shaders into your Bin folder. (note I have gshade installed already so you won't have the extra files before installation.)
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Now go back to the Program(x86) file on your PC and go into the G-shade folder.
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Double Click to run the program.
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This is where you gonna need to pull your Reshade/Gshade knowledge. You just install the program as normal to the game. I will say I don't know if this will work with other games.
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Alright, this is what you should be left with after installing G-Shade. Everything transferred to the Program Files with the exception of this folder. Leave it be and go to the Program Files file on your pc.
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Once in the Program Files folder double click the GShade Control Panel.
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You should get the following screen Go to the Installations tab. Delete this file path. This is a very important step. It's not gonna work if you don't reinstall the program. Delete it and click Add New.
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Install the program as viewed above. Click Next and set up your screenshot folder.
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Click No on viewing the guild. You should have a control panel on your desktop. You can go in a convert you reshade presets if needed.
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Alright if everything was done correctly open your game. It'll take a moment to load and when it does you greeted with the following screen on start-up.
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Ignore the yellow text on the top. It says that your effects are disabled because it's not online. It works I could be misinterpreting what "effect" means but my shader work so I'm not complaining.
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And there you go. Installed, and works perfectly. Don't update it. I don't know what it'll do. I have not tried. I will upload an edited version of my preset later this week or tonight. I have to tweak the color of the fog and make a decent post. Enjoy! I am open to helping under this post and in dms!
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2K notes · View notes
mythicalviper-fr · 8 months
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FR Skin Contests and You (and Me)
Let’s talk about festival skin contests.
This post will be 1) about win conditions 2) my breakdown on my wins/losses. Before we start, please know a lot of this is guesswork, and based on my own perspective. Still, I hope this will be useful for some people ^^
***August/888 and I (but August mostly as it’s his idea) will be hosting an event encouraging new artists to join festival contests on 8/8. It will have a lot of tips and references to help get you started, so please keep an eye out! 
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When it comes to skin contests, people generally enter for one of three reasons: 1) for fun 2) because it’s seen as a milestone of skinmaking, or 3) out of a desire to push yourself to the limit knowing you’ll regret it like a Sunday hangover– but I hope that’s just me.
In my two years of participating in skin contests, I’ve seen a lot of artists join with a lot of excitement, only to give up or drop out because they aren’t winning. Some blame it on skill, others blame it on the staff, and some blame it on fellow competitors. 
Here’s what I will say: like any contest, winning the festival skin contest is based on a combination of luck, knowledge, and skill. Just like any contest, there is a strategy to it and there are win conditions that you have to fulfill if you want a chance at winning. Some artists find these win conditions quickly and are able to adapt and cultivate the skill needed to pull off a win. Some are aware of these win conditions but do not yet have the skill to pull off a win. And some aren’t aware at all. A loss is usually (but not always) a result of not fulfilling those win conditions, or not fulfilling them as much as another artist. 
So, let’s talk about these win conditions.
The Biggest Win Condition: Breed Variety
In my opinion, the biggest factor that makes or breaks an entry is breed variety. Over the past ten years, there's been a consistent trend of staff picking one winner per breed/pose, though there are occasional outliers (most recently, two Aether M for Brightshine, but previously also Undertide M and Spiral M). This means whenever you submit a skin, you’re competing against artists that also submitted the same breed/pose. 
For those who aren’t aware, breed variety has been dropping in contests, along with the number of submissions. The result is that there are very few submissions for less popular breeds. Take a look at Brightshine 2023 - the majority of the submissions were Aethers. But even if there ended up being three Aether wins, that meant none of the other Aether skins made it in. 
I want to explain this with numbers. Say Aethers (M&F) made up 60% of the Brightshine 2023 submissions but could only make it into 2 or 3/16 of the winning slots. That’s 60% of the submissions eliminated from making it into the remaining 13/16 slots. Where would the other 13/16 skins come from, if staff were to stick to their trend of 1 breed/pose skin per festival? The flight breeds - Imp and PC might take up 4 more slots. But that’s still 9/16 slots that need winners and only 30% of the submissions to pick from. Additionally, ancients will generally make up at least 40% of the winning submissions, if not 50%. That’s why having 100 submissions might mean there aren’t a lot of winners the staff could pick, and why there weren’t any Fae skins for Starfall 2022 or Spiral M skins for Mistral 2023. 
I tested this theory with F Ridgeback submissions. I mainly focused on three breed/poses that I saw as the least submitted - F Noc, F Bog, and F Ridgeback. I went with Ridgeback because it was the base I liked the most. The result? Out of the 22 contests I’ve entered, I won 5 with F Ridgeback. That’s a 25% win rate with one breed/pose alone. If we factor in wins I’ve had with these three poses combined, that’s 8 wins or a 36% win rate.
Drawing on an unpopular breed/pose is a good way to make sure you don’t have too many competitors (and also show some of the more unpopular breeds some love). This is particularly true if you’re a newer artist like I was. I started doing art in June 2021, so I knew there was no chance I could outcompete better artists on the same breed/pose. 
Of course, choosing the right breed will not always net you a win - you still need good skin composition and skills to catch the staff’s attention, which is what we’re going to talk about next.
Statutory Win Conditions: Flight Themes & Colors
When it comes to making a skin for a festival contest, I always recommend people look at the apparel, lore, and familiars for that flight, because these items are usually the closest to what’s canonically considered a flight’s aesthetic. A lot of the entries I’ve seen win are based off of the fest fams or match a fest apparel.
There are exceptions. The game aspect of the Lightning Flight isn’t canon, but we’ve had hivemind and gaming skins win. Why? Maybe that contest only had a total of 12-15 breed/poses submitted, maybe it was just the best executed skin for that breed/pose, maybe a staff member just really liked it. However, generally winners will match the flight’s canon aesthetic.
The trend of skin contest winners also suggest a favoring of elements that are placed on the dragon’s wings and head (leaves, vines, fairy/insect wings, gears), or accent/tattoo-like effects that involve gradient, sparkles, or abstract smoke (see 888’s 2023 brightshine win). Skin compositions that are balanced (elements throughout the body, as opposed to just one part of the body) see a higher win rate. Skins that have lower accent coverage tend to see higher win rates when they’re gradients/accents (linings on the dragon, runic/circuit effects) or when they’re concentrated on an easily noticeable/central part of the body (like the wings, or the dragon’s back).
In the end, knowing what to draw really comes down to research and knowledge. Before each contest I would review all the past winning entries and try to glean what staff did or didn’t pick. I noticed that staff didn’t tend to pick whiteout or body morph skins, and they tend to pick skins with higher coverage. I also checked past festival winners to see the color theme for each contest. There are some contests during which colors that aren’t necessarily the flight’s colors are still picked, and there are contests that haven’t seen a festival skin which didn’t match the flight’s colors. Like any contest, there’s always going to be a small bit of luck involved.
Ultimately, while I can’t speak for the staff, I do think there are win conditions that need to be fulfilled. You need to have a basic level of art skill. You need knowledge on skin composition and colors. Then, of course, you need to know which breed/pose to choose.
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I hope my analysis helps a little when you’re entering your next contest, or that it made for an interesting read. If you just came here for general tips and tricks, that’s all I have for you - you can also scroll all the way down to see my final thoughts on contests. But generally, just keep trying different things, doing your research, and making sure you’re sticking to the flight theme.
For people who want it, here’s my breakdown on each series of contests that I’ve entered, and reasons why I think I won or lost. 
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Personal Analysis - Brightshine 2021-Brightshine 2023
I’m a very competitive person and more importantly, I love to compete. So the moment I found myself capable of making skins, festivals were on my radar. I studied what previous artists did, what techniques and designs seem to win the most. What skills did I need and what skins caught the judges' eyes? More importantly, what bases did I feel confident with and could perform the best on? As soon as I felt like I understood the contest, I entered Brightshine 2021 with about 2 weeks’ worth of art experience.
Then I proceeded to lose four contests in a row.
So, what happened?
Brightshine 2021 (loss)
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Sometimes unearthing your old art is like watching an old video of yourself in your cringey teenager phase. But knowing why you lost is important in understanding how you can win (and what to absolutely not do again).
For Brightshine 2021, I submitted a Guard F design with two recolors. At the time I only had the skill to draw lanterns and filigree, so I went “that’s Light enough” and did exactly that. Although I would say my theme was (kind of) on point, it was my execution that was lacking:
Issue No. 1: Colors. In review of previous Light winners there’s a umber/gold palette or gold/sunlight palette that appears to be the meta. There have also been cases of red or purple winning even though they aren’t used in official Light items, and some rainbow entries. While one of my recolors followed this scheme, it fell short because–
Issue No. 2: Composition. Skin composition is the balance of elements and how well each element pulls their weight in a piece of art. In my Brightshine 2021 entry, most of the base was left bare. Artists like August are really good at skin comp where their entire piece looks tied together; mine was far from that.
Issue No. 3: Quality. If you compare my Brightshine 2021 submission to my 2023 one, you’ll see what I mean. My art style relies on rendering, or applying lighting and shadows, to bring out each element. Basically I need rendering in order to win. This isn’t necessarily a requirement for you; some artists do lineless, others do painterly, and others don’t render at all, but overall the art style should have a specific level of quality that rendering brought out in my art.
In short: wrong colors, bad lineart, skill issue, no skin comp - overall it was a piece of art not even its creator could love. (I tossed the psd in the recycling bin and hit delete. Except looking in the database now apparently I printed it, so now I have to live with the shame of its existence.)
There is one takeaway that I got. By the time the contest ended there were no other Guard F entries. I realized then that had my art been better, with the breed/pose’s lack of competition, I could’ve had a shot at winning the contest. 
Thundercrack 2021 (loss)
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Alright, 2021 Myth thinks, I’ve learned my lesson from Brightshine. The skin composition was not good. That means I should put more stuff on the base and I’m sure to win!
Have you ever just looked in the mirror and realized you, yes you, are the most punchable thing in the world?
In all fairness, the skin comp of my TCC entry did improve. Like Brightshine, I did a single design with two recolors on an unpopular breed. Improvements I made: additional elements to the skin aside from the one big element on the wing, and a color palette that matched the flight. Of course, I wished my theme of hivemind/code also matched the flight aesthetic, but just like my love life, the only thing my submission matched with was loss and disappointment.  
Issue No. 1: Design. Upon reviewing past winners, very few featured fake apparel or clothing. As mentioned previously, staff do not appear to favor whiteout or body morph skins, and prefer elements that adhere to the dragon (like wings) or add to the dragon (like bones/feathers).
Issue No 2: Technology. For my entry, the circuit patterning on the wings did not take resizing well. I drew this on a 750x750 canvas and the resizing blended the many circuit lines into a single line. This isn’t a program issue. It was a lack of understanding of how resizing works.
Issue No 3: And we’re still here with my biggest problem: skill issue. Art is not a skill you learn in two months. I did learn to render, but not well enough. I wasn’t good enough. Yet. 
Starfall 2021 (loss)
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So… fun fact! During all of this I was writing my thesis. As in, I was writing my thesis after not writing my thesis for a year. It was stressful. I don’t have much to say about this contest because I did this skin as a meme for the sole reason that somewhere in my 3 am sleep deprived brain I thought “Emergency Portal-col” was hilarious.
I did not expect to win and I didn’t. Still, I did notice more and more that certain breeds just weren’t submitted for contests. Ridgeback F, I noticed, had anywhere from 0 to 1 submission for each contest while M pose generally had 0. Same for Nocturnes. 
Riot of Rot 2021 (loss)
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By this time, 2021 Myth had given up on the “one big element + some other accessories” idea. It hadn’t worked for Light or Lightning and it wasn’t going to work. So I thought, what if I just went for the accessory elements? My ROR skin featured the spider lily, smoke, and sparkles. I also started experimenting with dark gradients on the limbs of the dragon, which I’d noticed in winning fest entries.
Gradients and sparkles help with skin composition. Especially if you’re a newer artist who can’t pull off more complicated effects. Oftentimes a skin looks empty in certain parts, but adding elements to those parts would make things look messier. That’s where gradients/sparkles come in. However, I lost because:
Issue No 1: Composition again. While my elements tied together well, I had no main attraction other than the empty void that was the center of the Ridgeback wing. I essentially did a background scene and didn’t add a main character for it. This made me think that maybe my “one big element” skin comp idea was still worth a shot, but I needed a different take.
Issue No 2: Aaaand skill issue again.I was still bad at rendering, and sometimes skill is just why you lose. Not because you don’t have good ideas or because your execution was bad, but because you do not yet have the skills to defeat your competitors. You can do a really good looking skin, but if someone else in the contest did an even better looking skin on the breed/pose, then you’re not going to win.
Gala 2021 (win)
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Losing four times in a row was pretty discouraging. But here’s another important element to skin contests: consistency. The frequency of your submissions should result in a win so long as you fulfill all of the other win conditions such as good composition, understanding of the theme, and the basic level of art skill required to win. 
For the Gala, I realized that wings would be the best big element to put on a base while tying in all of the other elements. This is probably the most complicated skin I’d worked on at that time. But because I’d learned minimal rendering, because my skin composition was actually good, and there was no competition for Ridgeback F, I won. For the very first time.
Trickmurk 2021 - Starfall 2022 (6 wins 2 losses - 12 skin designs submitted total)
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Here, I’d found my strategy. As long as I kept to the theme and made sure my skin comp and rendering was good, I would win. Especially because I had no competition. Again, breed variety is a huge issue in skin contests, because people - particularly the really skilled artists - are more likely to go for a breed that they like or is popular. As a newer artist, I was well aware that there was a 100% chance I’d lose if I tried to fight anyone for the same breed/pose. (And part of knowing the win conditions is also knowing artists you definitely are not winning against.) 
3/6 of my wins during this time was F Ridgeback. The others were: F Coatl, which had no competition during Trickmurk, and F Nocturne, which had no competition during Wind and Arcane’s fests (but competed against my will to live because this is a terrible base to work on).
But relying on unpopular breed advantage was about as reliable as internet connection in a college dorm. 3/6 of my wins were ridgeback but that meant all of my losses were also ridgeback. On top of that, the number of Ridgeback submissions peaked at one point to 5-6. I was still winning, because I had the skill to beat my competitors. But I had to up my game. My skins had to be more elaborate, closer to the theme. I began submitting two designs per competition, which was… going to be a problem for me later.
The idea behind submitting two designs per competition is simple. Instead of just relying on one unpopular breed/pose to net you the win, now you have two shots at winning. 
My goal that I’d made during this time was to either win 11 in a row or to win once for each holiday. This was to keep my motivation. Keep in mind I was also writing my thesis, so I really needed a goal to go towards, especially when I committed to doing two designs per contest. 
(I defended my thesis successfully in May 2022 and graduated with high honors!)
ROR 2022 - Brightshine 2023 (7 wins 1 loss - 16 skin designs submitted total)
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Here’s where I found another niche in the skin contests. Flight-breeds. These are breeds that belong to each element and surprisingly - they don’t actually get that many submissions. Seeing Starfall 2022’s skin turnout as an Arcanite was tough. When it came to reviewing Starfall 2022, anyone would’ve won as long as they submitted a good quality Fae skin that didn’t break the rules or stray too far from the theme and had a skin composition that the staff liked. 
I decided to put my theory to the test with Earth, Ice, Wind, Water, and Nature. Are you surprised there were only three Snap F submissions for Earth, one Tun M for Ice, two SDM for Wind, and something like two Undertide F entries for Water? I was. Especially with Undertides because the breed had been released only five months ago. By noticing the flight-breed meta, and having the time, skill, and experience to make skins for those breeds that fit the criteria, I was able to win.
At this time I started straying away from my “one big element + smaller accessories” composition. My art had gotten better so I was able to expand my designs. Wavecrest 2023 was the biggest show of that, and I’m really proud of my entries for that contest. It was essentially a turning point in my art style… but it did take a lot more time and effort. From that point on, my skins were hitting 90+ layers and taking me at least two weeks to draw.
The last skin contest I entered with that art style was Brightshine 2023. By the time the contest ended, I was pretty sure winning would take a miracle or a relationship with god that I did not have. The competition for Imp M was difficult, and I was pitting my submission against artists who had far more experience and skill. I had some hope for my Ridge F entry, but again, relying on unpopular breed advantage is, well. Not reliable. 
I lost. It was crushing, because not only did that mean I lost Brightshine three years in a row, Brightshine was the last contest I needed to win to fulfill either one of my goals: winning 11 in a row or win once for each elemental holiday. However, losses happen and it sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. I simply lost to a much better artist, and I am okay with that. 
Final Thoughts
Heart-to-heart time. 
I know some people become discouraged because they don’t think they have the skill, or they compare themselves to other artists. I felt discouraged for the same reason. After losing so many contests in 2021, I thought I would never improve. I would never be as good as artists that started long before me, or even some that started after me but learned so much faster. 
I still think that’s true. I have a long way to go and I may never catch up to these other artists. But here’s the thing about art: it’s a skill that constantly evolves and you cannot see that evolution unless you keep trying. And you need to keep trying if you want to win, because you aren’t going to without reaching the right skill level. 
The hardest truth about competitions is that you can’t expect to win just because you tried. If everyone could win just by participating – that contest isn’t worth winning. There are no stakes so there is no value. But when you put in a lot of effort and time, and you win? That win is something that will stay with you. That is a worthwhile win - because it was hard and because you lost so many times.
Sure, the staff could let everyone who enters win. Maybe winners should be judged solely on participation. Maybe that would make more people happy. But would you really be happy to win, knowing there’s no chance of losing? At that point, would being a festival contest winner mean anything?
In the end, a contest is supposed to be fun. Throw everything I’ve said out the window if that’s made contests un-fun for you. Most, MOST importantly, you should join the competition because you enjoy it. If you’re joining just to win, and you take losses very hard, and participation becomes a chore - then that is never going to be worth the toll on your mental health.
Take it from someone who took it too seriously. Drawing two skin designs monthly was taxing (remember it was taking me at least 2 weeks per design), and by Nature 2023 I had severe burnout. When Brightshine rolled around, I sat down for 11 hours to finish my Imp entry, because I knew I wouldn’t have time for art later. By the time I finished, I was running on about five hours of sleep and a very unhealthy attachment to caffeine. 
Then, three days before Brightshine, I was diagnosed with tendonitis. 
I started feeling discomfort in my arms/wrist since March, hence why I stopped releasing public skins. But this is effectively the worst arm related injury I’ve had, and while drawing is not the main cause, doing so for 11 hours straight didn’t help. My left arm has minor pain. My right arm is swollen and in a brace. This could’ve been avoided by taking breaks and doing exercises. But the lack of proper precaution led to injury. (And yes, I drew my Bogsneak TCC 2023 entry with a mouse for this reason. I could not use my tablet pen so… circle and line tool it was. But I had fun ^^)
I hope my analysis of the contests will be of some use to you. But please do not hurt yourself, mentally or physically, in competing. UMA artists make around 3kg per run of skin, so if you are entering contests for the prize, that’s not the best use of your time and energy. When it comes down to it, you are going to be doing free art for the site, and that is never worth injuring yourself for.
As a final note, thank you to the FR staff for allowing artists to participate in the site. My art experience is purely derived from skins and contests have encouraged me to improve myself. Thank you also to my friends who cheered me on along the way, the many wonderful artists who gave me tips on line weight, coloring, and rendering. And of course, many thanks to August for being the best cheerleader I could have. I would not have made it to Brightshine without him as a competitor and fellow artist. 
(However nothing you do will make me like Gaolers and that is a hill I will die on.)
Happy almost-Flameforger’s everyone! Here’s to the next fest cycle.
732 notes · View notes
happilykrispypirate · 9 months
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The Mistake
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Pairings: Mattheo Riddle x fem! Nott! reader
Warnings: Swearing, fighting, mentions of sex, every detail of a probably awkward looking makeout shesh and my shitty writing.
Summary: Pansy invited Y/n out to a local bar with Blaise, Pansy then decided it would be a good idea to invite her brother and his best friend.
A/n: This is based off of true events that have recently happened to me and I am unsure how I should process it or how I really should be feeling about it. I know how I should feel about it, but I don't. So, writing fanfic is my only coping mechanism at this point.
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"Alright, everyone got everything?" Pansy asked as she and Blaise walked hand in hand with Y/n right next to her into the bar.
"Yeah, my brother said they would save us a table so long," Y/n said as she searched for her brother. She saw them, finally, at the way back near the bathrooms.
Good, she thought, I'm going to be spending my whole evening in there listening to Pansy rant about how annoyed she is with Blaise and how in love she is with Mattheo.
"What's up, fuckers," Y/n greeted.
"What's up, you little shit," Theo smiled as he hugged his sister.
"Hey Matt," Y/n greeted as she gave him a hug.
As soon as everyone greeted everyone, they all sat down. Y/n knew it would be awkward if she was third wheeling with Pansy and Blaise, so she's thankful her brother and Mattheo decided to join.
"So, how pissed are you two?" Y/n asked as she looked between the two boys.
"I'm good, but he's gone," Theo said pointing at Mattheo. He was staring at Pansy.
The two of them met a while back on Y/n's birthday. Even then she and Blaise were a thing, she knew it was a disaster waiting to happen.
Blaise, of course, doesn't know anything.
"As always," Y/n said laughing, and shifting uncomfortably as the seat she was sat on had to be shared by two other people.
"Y/n, I need to go to the bathroom, come with me," Pansy said as she suddenly pulled her away.
Here we go...
"I can't do this," Pansy said once they entered one of the bathroom stalls.
"I knew this would be difficult for you," Y/n said as she slid down the door whilst Pansy sat on the toilet.
"I don't want Blaise, I want Mattheo. I mean, we've been talking for hours almost every night, he makes me feel, I don't know, special?" Pansy said as she sighed and held her head in her hands.
"Maybe you should just leave Blaise, if Mattheo makes you happy then go for it," Y/n said.
"At this point, I think he might like you more than he likes me, and I'm totally fine with that, if you want to go for him, do it. As long as you're happy," She said.
"Dude, I don't even know the guy, and he doesn't know me either. Besides, I highly doubt that he'd ever want to do anything with a chubby girl who hasn't even had her first kiss yet," Y/n said, trying to make her best friend feel better, when she only made herself upset.
"You're beautiful, stop saying those things," Pansy said, "I do think I need to talk to him though."
"I'll try to get him over to the bar inside, whilst Theo keeps Blaise distracted," Y/n said, "I just hope you're sober enough to talk to him, I know you've been drinking long before you even got here."
"I'm severely tipsy," She said giggling as she headed out the bathroom.
Pansy quickly told Blaise that she was going to go pay for the drinks they'd bought so far. Y/n just disappeared to find Mattheo, he was talking to someone else.
When she finally got him away, she told him to follow her into the bar, and that Pansy wanted to talk to him.
She stood off at the side, looking at the two talking, not hearing a thing they're saying because of the music. She looked away when he grabbed her face and kissed her. Making sure that Blaise couldn't see them, and also not wanting to feel the lonely feeling that she feels whenever her friends tell her they've kissed someone.
After a few minutes, she walked back to them, "Listen, as cute as this is, we need to head back to the table, Blaise will get suspicious," She said.
"Right, Matt, you head out first, we'll come after you," Pansy said. Mattheo smiled at her lovingly before walking out.
Pansy hooked her arm around Y/n's, "Holy shit, that was the best fucking kiss I've ever had," Pansy said excitedly, only earning a light hearted chuckle from Y/n.
When they got back to the table, Y/n saw that the space where she had previous sat had grown smaller. Leaving her no choice but to sit next to Mattheo who had the whole seat to himself.
His jacket was on the table, and without thinking she laid with her head on top of her arms on the jacket.
"Oi, wake up," Theo said once he saw his sister laying on her arms.
"I'm awake you fucking dickhead," She said rolling her eyes. She noticed from the corner of her eyes that Mattheo was looking at her.
"Hey, leave her alone," Pansy said, and she just chuckled as she saw the two starting to argue.
"Wow," She heard Mattheo say when he was looking at her.
"What?" She asked confused.
"You're really beautiful," He said.
"You're really drunk," She said shaking her head.
"If you say so," He said causing her to roll her eyes.
"Focus on one girl, please, I'm not worth it. Focus on Pansy," She said.
"I'm trying to but, Blaise is getting in the way. I mean look at her, she's beautiful, but it's a big turn off that Blaise is with her," He said rather loudly.
Blaise heard this and he glared at Mattheo.
"Shush, he might hear you," Y/n whispered turning to him, she didn't fail to notice how his eyes kept trailing down to her lips.
She instead turned her head to lay on his shoulder so it looked a bit less suspicious.
Mattheo then put a hand on her leg and rubbed circle's on her thighs. She didn't do anything. She knew she needed to, but she couldn't.
She then moved away from him, noticing Pansy's look.
After a while of them drinking, Y/n had moved back to her previous spot. She was talking to her brother when she saw that Mattheo was trying to tell her something. She couldn't hear him over the music so she got up and moved over to their side to sit between her brother and Mattheo.
"You okay?" She asked once she sat down.
"Yeah," he said nodded.
"Alright," She said, before yawning, "Jeez, I'm going to fall asleep."
"Now, sleep here," Mattheo said patting his shoulder.
Y/n knew she shouldn't but she remembered what Pansy had said earlier: if you want to go for him, do it.
So, she laid her head on his shoulder and he placed a hand on her thigh while he laced his other hand with hers.
"I think we're going to go and sober her up before we head home," Blaise said referring to Pansy who was way past drunk.
"Alright, I'll see you in a bit," Y/n said, pulling away from Mattheo completely, before they walked off.
"Hey, Theo, please go talk to Pansy for me," Mattheo said.
"Alright," Theo said before getting up and leaving them alone.
Y/n laid her head on his shoulder again and he rested his head against hers.
Next thing she knew Mattheo tilted his head and placed his lips on hers whilst holding her face.
What the fuck are you doing! She internally screamed at herself as she continued to let Mattheo makeout with her.
She didn't expect the tongue at first but before she knew it he swirled his tongue around hers. She didn't move her lips, unsure that if she did that she'd be doing it right.
The position he held her in was awkward and painful for her, so she pulled away from the kiss and sat up straight.
"Holy fuck," She said, "You were my first kiss."
"Let me be your next one as well," He said before attacking her lips again. The same happened this time, just as it had before.
Only this time when she pulled away he hugged her tight, he moved her hair away from her neck and started kissing her on the neck, making sure to leave a hickey.
She then quickly realised what was happening so she pulled away again.
"I can't do this to Pansy," She said as she held her face in her hands.
Mattheo put an arm around her and pulled her close. He kissed the side of her head, her cheek, her nose.
Before she knew it, he was leaning in to kiss her again. When their lips met she, for some odd reason, glanced to the side and saw Pansy looking at them.
"Fuck," She said as she saw Pansy run away. She immediately stood up, "This was a mistake."
"What happened?" Mattheo asked.
"Pansy saw us," She said.
"Shit," He said.
-The next part I wished would've happened because it would've made this whole situation a whole lot better-
Y/n quickly ran after Pansy.
"Wait!" Y/n said grabbing her arm.
"How could you?" Pansy yelled, tears running down her face.
"I'm sorry, it was a mistake," Y/n said, tears threatening to fall.
"I don't ever want to speak to you again," She spat before walking away.
Y/n took deep breaths, trying to contain the tears, when her brother walked up to her, "What happened?" He asked.
"Mattheo kissed me and Pansy saw," She said, Theo had known about Pansy and Mattheo ever since it happened, "And now I have no ride home. And my best friend hates me."
"No, you know what fuck her," Theo said, as he took the crying Y/n into his arms, "You're single, Mattheo's single and Pansy is technically in a relationship with Blaise, because they've slept together, more than once and they're always together. You're not wrong, she is."
She knew he was trying to make her feel better but she, in some way, regretted Mattheo's being her first kiss. She knew it was a mistake.
Mattheo came running to them, "What happened?" He asked.
"Pansy saw you two, and told Y/n she never wants to speak to her again," Theo said.
"Fuck, Y/n I'm so sorry," Mattheo said.
Y/n looked at him and slowly shook her head, "It's not your fault," She said, before she looked at Theo, "Can I maybe get a ride home?"
"Sure, you're just going to have to sit on Mattheo's lap," Theo said.
"Oh fuck," Y/n groaned causing Theo to chuckle.
"You're never going to live this down," Theo chuckled.
-
Y/n sat on Mattheo's lap looking out of the window. She hated the fact that her brother's car only has 2 seats. Yet she didn't mind it one bit.
Mattheo kept staring at the bruise on her neck, he felt proud of himself when he knew he shouldn't be.
He wasn't going to lie, he's liked Y/n since he met her. Pansy was a distraction, and it obviously didn't work.
When they arrived at Y/n's apartment Mattheo followed her up the stairs to her front door.
"I don't think it was a mistake," Mattheo said, catching her attention, "I've been wanted to do that, ever since I met you."
"Really?"
Mattheo nodded.
"Took you long enough," She said.
Mattheo rolled her eyes and leaned in and kissed her again.
It was a mistake at first, but mistakes make good stories, and good stories, have a happy ending.
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edens-pen · 1 year
Text
"i find myself running home to your sweet nothings"
summary | it’s always a rough day for katsuki. hero rankings and PR nightmares every time he opens his mouth. but he gets to come home to you
pairing | bakugo katsuki x fem!reader
word count | 840
warning | soft!domestic katsuki, fluff.
a/n | this is very literally based off sweet nothings by taylor swift, so you can listen if you want the full experience. also, i haven't posted in two months, so i'm sorry if this sucks. <3
[ 18+ | minors, blank, ageless blogs dni ]
katsuki drops his bracers at the door with a heavy sigh. he's only just got his boots off and tucked in the corner, when he hears your voice calling him from the kitchen.
"'suki?"
he feels the smile pulling at his lips entirely unbidden.
the soft notes of that song that's been stuck in your head (and by extension, his) plays from the speaker in the corner.
"hey honey," you smile, leaning up to give him a kiss when he's in range.
he'll never be able to explain how that title makes his heart clench. he couldn't verbalize how every title he's obtained has not mattered until you gave him that one. pro-hero, number 2, explosive, dynamight.
your title feels so intimate on your lips, reducing him to the man who would fall at his knees for you.
not a pro-hero or number 2. not a ticking time bomb or a hot-head.
just your honey. your husband. yours, yours, yours.
"how was your day?" you ask, still stirring the pot as you turn the stove down.
"it was alright," he mumbles. in truth his day was rough, and he's not ready to talk about it, and he knows you can tell by the way you reach your free hand out to swipe your fingers along his cheek.
you smile up at him, pinching his cheek. "you wanna wash up? dinner's almost done." when he nods slowly, closing his eyes against the feelings of your fingers, you give him a little laugh.
in the bathroom, he works with the skin care products you left on his side of the counter, the dry winter air has been harsh on his quirk and his skin.
he thinks back to the agency, to the hero rankings, to the disapproving stares of civilians when he lets out loud curses and swears. the scolding he received from his manager today. the article comparing his pros and cons against the number 1 pro hero deku.
the water runs over his chest as he tilts his face into the stream, still trying to catch his breath from the incredibly long week he's had.
by the time he's toweled off and dressed in his sweats, the tension has worked it's way up into his back and across his shoulders.
"katsu?" your voice rings out and he's immediately following the sound back to the front door. he snorts when he sees you trying to push his bracers into the corner near his shoes. "how the hell do you put these things on for hours at a time? oh my god."
bakugo only laughs when he picks up both bracers with ease, your shocked gasp ringing out in the hallway.
"you're so strong, katsuki."
and that's it. your praise comes so easy. the fantastic feats that he performs still awe you. even something as simple as his above average strength elicits cheer from you.
it doesn't matter that he does it everyday, or that it's expected of him, you treat every act like it's the most incredible thing you've ever seen. and bakugo tries to fight the blush creeping up on his cheeks when you say these things.
even after all these years, he hasn't gotten used to your praise.
you're quickly setting a plate in front of him, taking the seat right next to him. recounting the events of your day, catching your boyfriend up on your workplace drama, and your recent purchases is enough to take you both through dinner.
by the time you've got him laid on the couch, your favorite candle is lit in the middle of the coffee table, and you two are talking softly.
his head rests on your chest, his ear pressed right over your heart. your fingers work softly against the ache in his shoulder, somehow finding the right spots to touch. these are nights when he needs you to take him down and you always do so with ease. he groans softly at the tender strength in your touch.
"i like the way you sound."
and there you go again. how do you split him open with a just a few words?
"its so pretty. especially when you talk, and when you laugh, i think that's my favorite sound."
you're calling him pretty. like his body isn't a fucking live wire ready to go off when he sweats. like the natural production of his glands don't cause explosions. like people aren't out there wondering if he should be a villain because of the force of his quirk.
of course the power thrumming through his veins is nothing compared to you. to the person he is when he's resting between your legs, letting you pet and coo at him until he's pliant and soft.
you bathe him in compliments, your adoration of him washes the shitty week off his skin and coats him in a thick layer of your love.
his prickly edges become rounded and soft against your gentle touch. refining him to be composed entirely of your sweet nothings.
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