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esamastation · 6 months

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Part forty-three of Shizuroth, aka, the SOLDIER General's Self Saving Shizun.

Ao3 link.

Previous parts: twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two,

"No, it was more like this? Legs bent more, and feet like this, yeah? I remember it because he corrected me on it, I had my foot aimed inside too much, and I wasn't in balance."

"Oh, yeah, yeah, he corrected me on that too…"

Kunsel looks between the two SOLDIERs, Second Class Keyes and Third Class Alme, both holding the same pose. "Okay, that's good, hold like that for a moment."

It had taken all his savings to buy a camera on short notice, especially one of the instant cameras, but it was well worth it. With it he managed to capture most of the Training Session second hand, photographing the other SOLDIERs doing what Sephiroth had taught them in that frantic session.

While the pictures develop, Kunsel takes out his notebook. "Okay, what did he say to you, exactly?"

The notebook is already full of quotes and lines from Sephiroth, some of them verified by other SOLDIERs word for word, others contested. The information and the pictures would soon be gathered into one easily distributable leaflet - already, most everyone he'd talked to wanted copies.

"When do you think it will be ready?" Alme asks eagerly.

"I think I got around to everyone - just James and Zadrian left," Kunsel says, adding final notes to the quotes. "They're out on a mission. I'll throw together a mock-up once I've gotten around to them."

"Let me know when, I'll proofread it for you."

"Will do," Kunsel says.

"Heads up," Keyes says. "It's the last batch."

Kunsel looks up to see the three SOLDIERs, the most recent ones to have been called into the labs, heading towards the lounge area. "Hey guys. Everything good?"

"I failed my affinity test," the youngest says while the others shrug uncomfortably. "I don't know if that's good or bad."

"Yeah," another one of them says, looking worried. "Does this mean we can't become Seconds?"

"No, no, the tests are for something else," Kunsel says reassuringly. "Some new thing they're trying. Everyone's going through them, and I don't think they will affect regular injections."

"Sunder passed the test, and he's having a time," Alme comments. "So I think you maybe got lucky."

"Oh, okay," the other Third looks a bit uneasy. "Um. I'm going to head out, I really need a shower. I'll see you guys later."

"Yeah," the quiet one agrees, and they head off together. The Third Class that spoke first waves them off but sticks around, looking worried.

Kunsel hums and glances at Alme. "What's going on with Sunder?"

"I don't know, but they've barely let him out of the labs," Alme says, a bit uncomfortable. "There are all these injections, and they want to keep him under observation for every one. Raiton and Decker are in there too."

"And a bunch of cadets," Keyes adds.

They're all quiet for a moment, uncomfortably aware of the fact that a lot of cadets are way below the usual recruitment age, because the SOLDIER program doesn't have a recruitment age, and trying for SOLDIER is an easy way to get to Infantry early.

"I guess whatever they're looking for, it's easier to get before SOLDIER Mako injections?" Keyes mutters.

"Or they just have a bigger pool of candidates," Kunsel agrees.

The youngest SOLDIER in their little circle looks confused. "Shouldn't that be a good thing? Aren't they coming up with, like, improvements to the program? Maybe the cadets will get better injections than we will."

There's another uncomfortable silence. "Maybe," Kunsel says slowly.

The rumours of Sephiroth going all glowy before the Incident have been going through the SOLDIER floors, and it's not exactly a secret that it was something new and incredible. The fact that the Science Department is taking bigger interest in the SOLDIER program all of a sudden is without question related.

And there's the rumour of Sephiroth having been given an extra large dose of Mako just before the Incident. Everyone knows Sephiroth's Mako injections are the highest in the program. For anyone else, they'd just give them Mako Poisoning. If the Science Department is trying to recreate what happened to Sephiroth…

That's not something you can just talk about though.

"Genesis isn't happy about it," Keyes points out.

"The Crimson Commander?" the young SOLDIER asks excitedly. "Why not?"

"Well. Because. Uh." Keyes throws a helpless look at Kunsel.

"He's just worried the Science Department is getting a bit…" presumptuous and careless and injection-happy, never a good thing for the SOLDIER program, "... overzealous with their… improvements."

"Aren't improvements a good thing, though?"

Clearly the kid has never heard of the early days - when some SOLDIERs developed Mako stones in their insides. Or the ones that had to be put down. "We just hope they take some caution," Kunsel says awkwardly in face of the kid's confusion. "Mako isn't something you should throw around willy-nilly."

"... But isn't that what Shinra is all about?"

Kunsel laughs, and he's not the only one. "Ain't that the truth," Keyes says and claps the kid on the shoulder. "I gotta go get some sleep - I've got a night mission coming up. You got everything you needed, Kunsel?"

"Yeah, thanks. Good luck on your mission."

The SOLDIERs disperse, aside from the youngest, who stands there, still confused, scratching at the back of his head.

"I don't get it," the young Third Class says. "Did I say something funny?"

"Kinda," Kunsel admits with a smile. "Don't worry about it. You're pretty new, huh? Part of the last group that passed the candidate process?"

"Yeah! My name's Zack," the kid says and offers his hand. "Zack Fair. Nice to meetcha, sir!"

"Just call me Kunsel." They shake hands. "Are you getting the hang of everything alright?"

"It's been a bit weird lately, but yeah," the new Third Class says. "Mostly me and the others have been running around in the slums, taking out monsters."

That's what most Thirds do, yeah. "And how is that going?"

"Eh, I guess it's fine?" Zack shrugs. "I mean, we were given swords and stuff, and it's not like the beasties down there are much of a challenge. I come from Gongaga, and lemme tell you - after Touch Mes, everything else is easy."

Kunsel blinks at that declaration and then snorts. "Touch Mes - you mean the… frogs?"

Zack gives him a disgruntled look. "You don't know what they do, do you?"

"Well, I've heard about them…"

"They put you to sleep and then you wake up as a frog," Zack says. "They are a menace and the worst thing you will ever fight."

Kunsel laughs. "I guess you're well prepared for SOLDIER then, having already gone through the worst."

Zack grins and then gives him a curious look. "So, uh, why were you taking pictures before? Was it for some kind of magazine?"

Kunsel looks down at his notebook. The pictures have finished developing, showing Alme and Keyes striking poses. "Kinda - it's for a tutorial I'm putting together. You wanna take a look?"

Ducklings and a puppy

#Fanfiction #ffviir #ff7 #svsss #kunsel

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zoeykallus · 8 months

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Helloo

I hope you are doing well and life has been better to you. Anyway, thanks for your work! My day gets better every time I see that you have posted something. 🫶🏼

(And ignore the fail of a message i sent you accidentally before. It‘s way too early and my phone fell out of my hands and it sent in too soon 😂)

I liked the Hc with the submissive kink where the reader wants to be dominated. I was wondering if you could do the same thing again for the regs?

My next question would be how the bad batch reacts if the reader wants them to leave their armor on during the act or if they find out the reader has an armor kink

You are of course free to decide whether you make both, only one or neither of the two requests.🤭

Aloha my dear!

No of course it hasn't on, the contrary, but I'm going on, out of spite 🤨

Don't worry about the other message, stuff like that happens to me on a regular basis 😂

I'd start with the reg request and would do the second one as well. Would you mind sending me the armor request separately? This way it won't slip through the cracks. I've been hit with new shifts for the next three weeks that make my head spin in a bad way. I'm not the type of person that works well getting up at 2am because work starts at 3am. 😅😭 Thing is, I won't lose this out if site when it's in my asks, knowing me, these next weeks will trow me out of my game, in a way it already has.

Enough whining, let's do this!

I didn't know which ones you wanted, so I picked some regs that instantly popped up in my head. I hope that's okay.

Howzer/Rex/Fives/Gregor/Cody/Kix/Wolffe/Hardcase x Fem!Reader HCs - The Submissive Kink (2)

Warnings: Strongly Suggestive/Partly Sexual Content/Mentioning Of Sexual Content/Submissive Kink/18+

____________________

You reveal to your beloved clone that you would like to be dominated by him. Here is his reaction…

AC: This is how I see these men, sorry, not sorry. 😋

____________________

Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

Howzer

It's not immediately clear to him what you're talking about. Howzer is a gentle, loving gentleman by nature, an old romantic. It takes a little moment, though not very long, for him to understand what you actually want from him.

"You want me to dominate you?"

You nod, cheeks heated, biting your lower lip.

Howzer is basically the type to grant your every wish if he can. This is no different. However, his dominance is marked by a caring tenderness. He gives you a slap on your bare ass, but caresses the spot immediately afterwards, kissing it, only to gently press his teeth into it shortly after.

He grips harder, dominant positions are also no problem, but he will never be too rough, no matter how much you ask him to, that's just not in him. Taking you from behind and pushing you into the pillows, no problem at all. The occasional slap, the one or two gentle bites, also no problem. Blindfolds and gentle bondage games are of course no problem either.

But he will never really hurt you, even if you ask for it, that is against his nature. Don't try to argue with him about it if he doesn't want to get too rough, that might actually scare the gentle Howzer away.

Rex

His right eyebrow twitches up silently, and he looks at you scrutinizing.

After a silent moment, he asks, "You want more dominance? In bed?"

Your nod makes him blink, then he smiles.

"So my beauty wants her captain in bed, not the gentle lover?"

Another nod from you, and you feel your ears getting hot and an expectant tingle spreading through your body, at his reaction.

Rex has the command tone down, easily. In a firm, deep voice, a promising rasp resonating in his tone, he orders you to undress for him and present yourself to him. He eyes you, asks you to do certain poses, to display yourself to him, while he undresses himself at the same time.

Quite a while passes without a touch, only with commands and covetous looks. But then, quite abruptly, his strong hands take hold. Rex is overpowering, but never too rough. He can grip you, and he knows exactly how.

He presses you against him, or clamps you between himself and a piece of furniture, creating an erotic illusion of helplessness. But don't worry, you are always safe with him. Let yourself fall, Rex is very good at taking the reins, in fact he has secretly had this fantasy one time or another.

Fives

He is up for any fun, including this one. From him, you can ask almost anything, as long as it is hot, and you enjoy it. Dominant poses, harder gripping, command tone, or even degrading words or actions, everything is in there.

Bondage games? No problem.

"The plush handcuffs or the real ones?" he asks.

"The real ones," you say, biting your lower lip.

He raises an eyebrow, "Oh, I see, someone needs to be punished."

Tied to the bed, or just hands behind your back, or a gag? Toys to go with it? Anything goes.

Within the bounds of consent, anything is doable. Role-playing games too, of course. Have you ever played with the imagination in your mind of being the helpless prisoner of your clone soldier Fives? Tell him about it. Though he may be surprised at first, he loves games, especially ones that are erotic.

He already has a very special interrogation in mind for you that will make your thighs quiver.

Gregor

Your sweet, giggling soldier, is anything but a killjoy. Every suggestion will be given a try. However, even if he is an excellent soldier, he is not suitable as a heavy-handed person in a relationship.

Dominating is definitely possible, but he has limits, playing with pain is taboo, he just can't bring himself to do that, that would kill the mood for him, no matter how much you might want to try that, he just can't consciously hurt you.

But don't worry, he can grab, and he's not too shy to push you into the sheets and take you properly, even if he might seem so shy in everyday life. To push his cock between your lips while he has a hand in your hair is also no problem, however, even if this makes him almost unbearably horny, he also pays very close attention that everything is fine with you.

Gentle bondage games, blindfolds and the like, are of course also no problem.

With a giggle he says, "Sweetie, today my wish is your command".

Cody

He behaves very similar to Rex. Command tone just suits him. The commands he may give you in the bedroom, however, are his favorite. Or also in the living room, or the kitchen… or the bathroom, in fact he already took you in the hallway pressed against the dresser.

He knows you like it. Right when he entered your apartment, you can see it in his face. He needs to let off steam, and you are only too happy to be the outlet. But don't worry, everything remains within the framework of mutual consent.

He pulls down your pants and panties, pushes you, not exactly gently against the dresser. One hand immediately goes between your legs and caresses your instantly moistening pussy, his teeth gently bite into your neck, while you dutifully take off his cod piece and free his cock. Shortly after, he takes you from behind, your body bent over the small dresser in the hallway.

Such scenes and others are not uncommon in your relationship, from the moment you tell him that you enjoy it.

Kix

"What?"

Kix looks at you uncomprehendingly. At first, he's a bit perplexed, doesn't really understand what you're getting at. But you finally say it a little more clearly.

"Oh, that's what you mean," he finally says, eyes wide.

After a brief pause in which he visibly thinks, he says, "Okay, sounds like fun. But are you sure?"

Your eager nod elicits a wry grin from him. Kix is very cautious at first, but also very curious. He likes to implement your suggestions with you, and soon he has ideas of his own that he contributes. Doctor/medic games are also included. For one of your role-playing games he even stole a new stretcher from the medbay on which he straps you occasionally. Of course, always after consultation with you, that goes without saying.

You both don't lack ideas, or fun. However, he has a hard time with dirty talk for a long time. The first few times he can hardly say some sentences without blushing, even though he's not usually one to mince words, somehow that's really sweet. But Kix learns, and quite quickly.

Wolffe

He looks at you and his gaze is so penetrating and yet very hard to interpret that at first you just stare back.

"You want me to dominate you in bed?"

You nod and say a little meekly, "Yes, I think I'd like that".

"Hmm," he hums and asks, "Are you sure you know what you're getting yourself into?"

You blink and almost want to say no, it happens so quickly that you suddenly feel very small under Wolffe's gaze, even if he doesn't always mean to. But you nod again and say, "I think so. You love me, don't you?"

"Of course," he says almost sternly, as if he resents that you might question that.

"Then I'm sure we can find a way for both of us to enjoy it."

And you do. Wolffe is very engaging, almost overwhelming, but in a fantastic, erotic way. Very quickly he knows how to move within your boundaries, to carry you through his dominance to submissive, erotic heights that you could hardly imagine until then.

Dominant poses, bondage, degradation, erotic punishment, everything is in there. Wolffe is strong and he likes to use that. It's incredibly hot to feel that power when he pushes you into the pillows or against a piece of furniture and shoves his cock into your pussy. The hand on your neck, which never really squeezes but always rests firmly enough so that you don't forget its presence, does the rest.

Hardcase

He is a talker, he often has a big mouth, but he is actually a playful, gentle soul. To deny you a wish is not in him, he loves to make you happy, then he is happy too.

This also applies to your lovemaking. So your suggestion will meet with open ears and interest from him.

"Dominate?"

You nod.

He gives you a smug look and plays it cool.

"Sure, that's what you want?"

You know him, you know he's acting right now. But you play along.

Playing coy, biting your bottom lip, you nod again and say, "Yeah, babe."

But Hardcase isn't as cool as he acts. However, he tries very hard, yet the beginnings are bumpy, he asks you way too often if he's hurting you and keeps destroying the mood that has been created. He also doubts one or the other idea in the beginning, tying you up in a helpless position looks sexy, he admits that, yet at first he feels like he's taking advantage of you somehow.

It takes a bit of patience from you to make him understand that this is what you want. But don't worry, he'll get the hang of it and actually find it a lot of fun

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meabh-mcinness · 1 year

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Peppermint

(Alternatively known as 'Pest Control')

Living in the human world had meant learning tips and tricks to keep pests at bay while still enjoying small luxuries. Such as using lavender to deter bed bugs the one time you bought and forgot to clean a comforter at a thrift store, or peppermint around windows and doors to keep spiders outside. You hadn't known, of course, that such tricks could apply to pests in the Netherworld too. You couldn't decide whether you were happy or not to discover they did in fact do so.

TW! There is technically a torture scene in here? A character gets a bottle full of peppermint oil to their face, which is known to cause skin irritation and rashes on humans when used too much, and does slightly worse due to him rather special heritage and lack of exposure to it. Also light descriptions of gore, or at least I think it falls under the gore category? Maybe?

Also, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY AND UNHOLY, DO NOT TAKE THE PLANT AND OTHER FACTS AT FACE VALUE!!! I am not a trained botanist nor biologist (I haven't even started my college courses yet!) and everything in here is based on research I've found in books, oral stories, online research, and personal findings. ALWAYS check in with professionals before using or consuming something you don't know about. I use some of the things in here because it's what I grew up with, BUT it does not mean it's actually true or safe. Please take caution in the things you use!

Also, the MC in this is a tad bit of a hater of insects, which in no way reflects my views. So if you're like me and actually find the bug world terribly fascinating, you may not like some of this. Hopefully, you enjoy the rest, though! Also, there's some Shiida X reader, and Balam x reader if you squint, really hard.

The taking down of one Atori had been both incredulous and laughably easy for you.

In hindsight, you supposed it wouldn't have been as easy if you hadn't known a little bit of basic human world biology and been a bit of a hoarder.

In the human world, spiders and other bugs are a bit of (read, incredibly) a hindrance. You understood they were needed for the ecosystem to thrive, and you did enjoy a fair few (snails in particular were very cute, for example), but for the most part, they were an annoyance in your daily life. When they weren't posing a danger, that is.

To keep such annoyances at bay, you had taken to making 'herbal potions' that smelt good to you, but that most bugs hated. Even taking to wearing it as hairsprays, body oils, and lotions to keep them away from your person while working your various jobs or just going out and about. The added health benefits you gained from soft, clear skin and full, shiny hair were merely a nice bonus you wouldn't complain about.

It had been incredibly easy to squirrel away unwanted seedlings from farming gigs or dumped herbs that had fallen on the floor from your serving jobs. The thrown-away herbs were the hardest to save, but you always felt so proud to see the cuttings growing tiny roots after a few weeks in water-filled cups. Such plants were then cleaned and went through various lengthy processes depending on what you wanted at the time.

Lavender oil to spray on and around your bed, because you failed to clean one comforter from a thrift store, basil lotion to repel mosquitoes, and large amounts of various types of mint along with others. The mints were mostly used to spray around the doors, windows, and the general perimeter of your tiny home, to keep bugs from invading in the first place. You even used the extra for your hair specifically, both to promote growth and just because it smelt nice.

You had even just finished a fresh batch, of newly sealed vials and bottles in your old, patched bag to transfer when Sullivan had invaded your home and essentially kidnapped you. Granted, you had willingly gone once he motioned to a bound Iruma, but still. You had been non-too-pleased when you discovered Iruma's parents had sold both of your souls to the demon, vowing revenge if it was the last thing you did.

Regardless, because you had this batch and no bugs to use them on (Opera did an excellent job of keeping the mansion pest free, and that was assuming the Netherworld even had those kinds of bugs, to begin with), they had been delegated to strictly hair product use until you ran out.

It had been rather surprising, and humorous, for you to find out that this world had a similar-smelling plant. That apparently only high-rankers and rich folk used, due to how difficult it was to grow and harvest, along with how volatile it was, and its rather fond taste for flesh.

A misunderstanding had eventually arisen that you were as, or at least close to, as powerful as Sullivan was and simply hiding your rank when Suzie-sensei had asked how you acquired the oils. Your confusion, briefly forgetting that you were not in the human world any more, led to you confessing that you simply used to grow them from cuttings before crushing them into oils and pastes yourself, and how you were quite sad that you no longer had access to them due to moving in with Sullivan. The awed and calculating looks everyone had given you had lasted for days until the Battler party, and Iruma took centre stage again with his "fireworks".

Although you could still hear the occasional whispers about how powerful you must be to have Sullivan as a father, and, the quickly rising through the ranks, Iruma as a son. You quite often wanted to bang your head on a wall when you heard those because of that one slip of a mistake. Especially when, for your birthday, after bemoaning the fact you were running low, the Babyls teachers had banded together to get you a couple of cuttings from the actual Netherworld peppermint plant counterpart, the Geagpian.

You had quickly understood why others feared it so much. Smelling almost disgustingly minty up close, it rather reminded you of a stinking corpse lily in looks. If a stinking corpse lily was far smaller, had sharp teeth surrounding the inside of its petals and sentient vines covered in sharp hollow thorns filled with paralysing venom and grew multiple flowers along a tall cactus-like stem. The three, foot-long cuttings they had given you had apparently almost eaten Robin and a couple of curious students in the few days they were hiding it from you. When one of the Geagpian tried to do so again, your rather firm smack on its creeping vines only cemented their ideals of you being powerful when it quickly drew back again. Despite your apprehensive feelings about having such a dangerous gift, you had almost cried that they had tried to be so thoughtful.

The Geagpians were then lovingly planted in a corner of the mansion's outer garden, far away from the other plants, where you happily took care of them. The nauseating in-your-face mint smell, a small comfort of your old home. Not that you wanted to go back.

Now, though, a year into your stay here in the Netherworld, hunched over Sabro and the first years, checking them for serious injuries, as Shichirou fought Atori, you were rather glad that you had a few of your original hair oils left. And even happier that you had a full bottle in your pocket thanks to Shiida.

(You glanced up when a sudden shadow crossed over the table you were sitting at in the teacher's break room. One of the newest teachers, Shiida, you thought her name was, staring at you before flumping down in the seat next to you. You blinked in surprise before internally shrugging and going back to the book you were reading.

It was as obvious as the two moons in the night sky that the girl was bad at social interactions, and as a fellow 'no social skills' person, you could understand how hard it could be to make friends with your new co-workers. If this was her attempt to break out of her mould and make new relationships, you were most certainly not going to stop her.

You sat together in relative silence, the occasional flipping of a page in your book, the sound of fabric as she shifted, or another teacher wandering in briefly to say hello, being the only sounds to interrupt your peace. Over the course of your break, however, her shifting increased. Hands wringing together, bottom lip pulled between her teeth as she seemed to contemplate something. Taking pity on the poor girl, you slid a silk ribbon bookmark, a gift courtesy of Kalego who had been annoyed at the constant crinkling of the random papers you had shoved in between the pages, and closed your book.

"Is something bothering you, Shiida-sensei?" She startled, turning towards you with wide eyes and the slightest parting of lips. You gave her what you hoped was a comforting smile, "While I'm not certain I can help, I will certainly try."

"Your scent..." she said suddenly. You paused in surprise, not actually expecting an answer beyond 'I'm fine'.

Then your thoughts took over. Your scent? Had you forgotten your perfume today? You had been in a rush having woken up late, but no, you were certain Shichirou would have said something if you had when you joined him for a jointly taught class this morning. Or even one of the students, they weren't exactly known for keeping their mouths shut after all. (The one time you switched up scents just to try something new, everyone demanded to know if you were courting someone. That had taken forever to clear up, and you hadn't worn anything else sense.) Demons, it turned out, were especially blunt creatures by nature. Rarely talking with constant double-wording that humans so favoured unless they were especially manipulative, or a member of the succubus battler.

"It....smells good... What is...the scent?" A faint blush was appearing on her face, and she appeared to be about five seconds away from bolting. A giggle left you before you could stop it. She was actually very adorable, wasn't she?

"Oh, is that all? It's a Geagpian mixture. I grow and make it myself."

"I see... Atori-san hates it... I like it." She nodded to herself, "Where...can I find?" You blinked in surprise. Atori hated the scent of your hair oils? That explains why he always avoided you, even taking positions as far from you as possible when you had to share space in meetings. Your first meeting made exceptional sense now.

When you had first met, Atori had attempted to greet you from behind, only to get a face full of your hair when you turned around. You had assumed the rather violent reaction of his body jerking and entire face seizing up had been because of the surprise at a rather hearty amount of hair suddenly in his face.

You had long since wondered if you had offended him somehow with the hair slap, but everyone had drawn blanks because Momonoki had done the same thing only a few hours later, and much harder considering the absolute length of hair and speed she had done it with, and he was still perfectly fine with her. Though, you considered it a blessing in disguise the longer you watched him. There was just something about him that creeped you out, especially after Shichirou confessed that he was certain they were hiding something.

"I can give you some of mine to try if you would like. I have a couple of extras since it lasts for three-four years in a bottle, and I've just pruned mine to be able to make more." And hadn't that been a pain to try and figure out? You couldn't ask any of the teachers at Babyls what parts to make into the oils since they were under the impression you already knew, and most breeders were rather tight-lipped in their secrets in fear that you were a competitor.

Well until Opera decided to get involved, and then you had not only which parts were safe to use but also formulas for the best things to mix with them and brand-new equipment to get started.

"Although I'm surprised you would want to smell like me if your friend hates it."

"Friend...?" Ah, right, you had forgotten that was a human word.

"Friends are people who enjoy spending time together and help one another, but in a non-romantic or familial sense. Like how Iruma, Alice, and Clara do or Shichirou and Kalego. It's like allies but stronger, if that makes sense. If you want, we can be friends?" You held out your hand towards her and were rather reminded of the scene from the first Harry Potter film.

The longer she stared wide-eyed at your hand, the more you started to worry you would end up like Draco. Spurned before even being given a chance. Until slowly but surely her hand rose up and took yours. Eyes alight in wonder as she looks fixedly at your joined hands.

"Not friends...with Atori...forced...companionship....coworkers on various jobs...no one else....to really talk to..."

"Well, now you can talk to me!" You declared brightly, a large smile gracing your face. "Whenever you want to spend time together or need some help, just come to me and I'll be there."

"Can we...pet chicks...?"

"Of course! I'll even ask Shichirou if he knows of any petting zoos around here, and we can visit to pet lots of animals if so. And to cement this newfound friendship, how about I bring a bottle of my hair oil tomorrow to give you after the exam? As a way to celebrate our obvious winnings as well."

"I would...like that."

"Then it's a deal!")

Looking up from your position, fingering the bottle in your pocket, your mind racing with what to do. You had three terrified students, two of which were injured, and at least one deranged intruder. Potentially two if he and Shiida were working together. And wasn't that a sad thought? Your possible new friend could actually be an enemy in disguise.

Though as you watched Shichirou smack down Atori with a giant fist made of vines, you could at least be assured you wouldn't have to attempt to fight. Shichrou had it well in hand, and eveidently he thought so as well as he turned back and gave you a nod, hellphone already in hand to contact the others.

You started to turn back to the students to get them ready to be transferred when you noticed movement out of the corner of your eye. Whirling back around you saw it again. Thin shimmering strands of something were protruding out of where Atori's body lay before. You dared a glance at Shichirou who hadn't yet noticed, back still turned to the danger.

You cried out his name in panic, right before a multitude of the strands poured out and wrapped around the fallen demon. Shichirou whirled around and you both watched, stunned, as the strands seemed to undulate, as if something was moving underneath. Were...were they healing him? No, your eyes darted about the shapes, counting each one and cataloguing how they move.

It wasn't healing Atori, it was changing him.

You risked another glance at Shichirou who was still standing there surprised. He wasn't doing anything, why wasn't he doing anything? Strike, burn, crush, something before-!

The threads tore apart, and your gaze was forced back to the suddenly mutated body before you. Atori stood slowly, shakily rising, his body with that came equipped with two extra sets of limbs. He hadn't just changed slightly, he had metamorphised. Like....like a bug, you suddenly realized. A giant spider that had been humanized.

Your hands flexed around the bottle in your pocket again. Should you? Could you? There was no guarantee it would do anything, and even if it did, you only had one shot. One shot to make this work when you were lucky to throw something straight on your best days. But would it even work, or would you just be in the way?

Shiida's words rang in your mind, "Atori-san hates it". If that were true and really what reason would she have to lie about that of all things? If he really did hate it and that was before the change, then maybe...just maybe.

You forced yourself out of your thoughts right as Atori started to bring his hand up. Your hand clench around the bottle harder, bringing it out of your pocket as your body moved to exit the egg shaped shield Shichirou had thrown up in the beginning. All thoughts focused on your task, it never registered that you shouldn't have been able to leave it all, and yet your body flowed through like it wasn't even there.

You had seconds, Atori's hand already at his mouth, lips forming an o-shape as if blowing. You saw it in slow motion as more threads, webs, spurred out and flew at Shichirou’s face. Sliding past him, you ducked underneath, far from the splash zone, and continued on your way. You could already see Atori starting to turn to get away. You were so close, just a little more, and there! Hand whipping out, you felt the bottle leave you, flying in an arch right towards its target.

Smack!

The bottle struck the side of Atori's head, glass shards flying as the liquid poured out directly onto his skin. His loud screech of pain echoed across the courtyard, pausing in his retreat to use his multiple hands to scratch at his face. You watched horrified, scrambling backwards again to get towards safety, as Atori fell to his knees, screams never fading. You felt large hands grab at your arms and almost panicked until you saw the tale-tell sign of green gloves. Shichirou.

You let yourself be pulled against his chest as he jumped further away from the still screeching demon, more vines being produced to wrap around Atori's body once more. This time staying there to hold him in place. With Atori's arms held in place and no longer covering his face, you finally saw what damage you had done. The entire right side of his face was bright red and bulging, some areas far darker than others, an obvious sign of where the oils had hit first and stayed the longest. His left eye, that was still open, rolled about its socket manically as if he couldn't focus it at all.

Once a considerable distance away, Shichirou put you down, but still hovered about directly behind you. You stood frozen, still staring at the carnage you had wrought on the spider demon. Completely ignoring the gargoyle behind you as he tried to check you over, a rant about dangers spilling from his lips, your eyes stayed locked on Atori. Adrenaline making it, so you couldn’t take your eyes away from the possible danger. It wasn’t until Shichirou forced your head to look at him that you finally took your gaze away.

“Are you alright?” He asked softly. Were you? No, you were not alright. Your senses, still so high-strung, still screamed of danger. That turning your back was perilousness. All of your inner instincts clamouring and fighting to rip out of you and take care of the threat. Or at least run away.

To run...run? Run! Your entire body jerked forward instinctively, Shichirou's arms wrapping around you, his wings bursting forth in a flurry of feathers ready to block whatever was coming to your back as he lept away again. Your hands clutched his shirt tightly, eyes scrunching shut in fear at being so exposed and not being able to see the danger, much less attack back. Pulse racing, you waited for the attack to hit.

Only, it never did.

There was a loud cracking noise, that rather reminded you of bones snapping, and a pained yowl by the time Shichirou touched down again. Most of his body stayed tense, but the arms holding you loosened just enough that you could look to see what happened. Turning around, the first thing you noticed was Shiida, with a rather more exposed outfit than you remembered seeing her in this morning, lowering her leg back toward the ground. Stepping on top of a knocked-down Atori, a spray of web trailed from his mouth to fall only a few inches short of where you had been. She easily dug her heel into his back, exactly where you assumed his wing roots were...

"You will....not hurt....my friend," Shiida growled, digging her foot further into his back. His body spasmed out of instinct, but it was obvious to tell from the way his body had fallen, she had fully snapped his spine.

"Shiidaaaaa..." Atori growled out, "How… could you?!"

"Friends help...one another...when needed... You...threatened friend... I end...the threat," Shiida explained before locking eyes with you, "I help...my friend."

My allegiance lies with you.

Your eyes teared up from all the emotions stirring in you like a cyclone, the most prominent being relief and something akin to affection blooming across your chest. You understood her message and nodded at her with a watery smile.

A wall of fire surrounded the four of you, followed by what appeared to be a wall of flower guns crawling up the side of the building, Ifirit-sensei and Suzy-sensei. You heard the door to the side of you slam open and the pounding of footsteps as more and more teachers filed in as backup.

Your body almost collapsed from the amount of relief that flowed through you, and if Shichirou’s arms weren’t still holding you close, you probably would have. You and the others were safe, there was simply no way Atori could take on the entire staff of Babyls if he had issues with two, technically three, of you. When the heavy pressure of Sullivan’s aura arrived long before you saw his tall, lean form, it merely confirmed what you already knew.

Atori would not be getting away this day.

"Hey, Shichirou?" He hummed in response, Shiida walking closer to you guys after finally getting off of Atori’s battered body, and Sullivan got to work questioning him. "Do you know of any petting zoos around here? Specifically, one with chicks?"

The crazed look he gave you was more than worth the slightly hysterical laugh that left your throat as he went about checking your head for injuries.

Cross posted on Wattpad and AO3!

#mairimashita manga #mairimashita! iruma kun #mairimashita iruma kun #mairuma #welcome to demon school spoilers #welcome to the demon school #welcome to demon school! iruma kun #welcome to demon school iruma kun #welcome to demon school #mairimashita iruma kun spoilers #mairimashita! iruma kun x reader #balam shichiro #balam sicirue #balam sensei #balam shichirou #balam #shiida #atori #welcome to demon school iruma x reader

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comicaurora · 2 years

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Hello Red! I'm happy to say you've inspired me to start drawing comics, but the biggest issue I've encountered is that it takes actually forever. I'm always really happy I did it when I'm done but it's hard to convince myself to start when I know a couple panels is gonna take me days. So I was wondering if you had any advice regarding streamlining the process for time efficiency or keeping up motivation for long projects, and, if you remember, how long a page took you when you first started vs how long it takes now?

Hoo boy. Yeah, I can help out with that. The very first page of the comic took me, if I'm recalling correctly, a full week. No other projects or pages, just this.

A lot of work went into details that are frankly impossible to see, though I am still glad I did it, both as a learning experience and because I felt like I owed it to Vash to do it some justice before I squished it in twelve pages.

Hell, if you look closely, you can even see the cavalcade of little visual errors I missed because I didn't have it in me to do a seventeenth cleanup pass after a week straight of drawing tiny houses. Getting faster meant I'd have more energy left to polish the pages and get them looking nicer.

The process of getting faster has been kind of a fits-and-starts situation. Drawing that many humanoid figures over and over again eventually means you just get better at the parts you're less sure of, so the process of lining the pages has gotten rather faster since I don't need to burn as much time getting the character poses and lines right. Currently, depending on page complexity, I can fairly consistently get 3-5 pages fully lined in one night. Backgrounds have also gotten faster, and I tend to do those in large batches, sometimes filling out entire chapters with location backgrounds and skyboxes because the scene location isn't going to change and that makes it easier to keep it consistent.

Initially my backgrounds were both more complicated and worse-looking, which is a bad combination.

I ended up deciding between chapters that painstakingly lining a bunch of background trees probably wasn't worth the effort, and worked on finding a shortcut that would work better. I ended up doing something a little more lineless, a shortcut I initially discovered because I didn't want to plug in my drawing tablet and was playing around with things I could do with just my trackpad.

It was simpler, faster, not too jarring, and it meant my clearly-lined foreground figures were more naturally visually separated from the distant background. Win-win-win.

For the style of coloring I do, I tend to shade before I add color, though this is a shortcut I didn't figure out until something like chapter 6. This process is also pretty fast, all things considered, though I've had a lot of practice doing this kind of cel shading which is why I can hammer out a lot of pages' worth of shading quite quickly.

I like working in batches of about one scene, often broken up into subgroups of 4-6 pages at a time, so I can't give a front-to-back turnaround for an individual page - but I also think this kind of assembly-line process has sped up the process overall and makes it more fun for me, because I can storyboard basically as far in advance as I want to, which in turn makes it easier for me to motivate myself to keep going, because I know there's all kinds of good stuff I'm looking forward to drawing down the line. There's some good shit I'm excited for in Chapter 21, and bursts of enthusiasm on the storyboard end of things often translate to enthusiasm on the page-finalizing end which makes it easier to slog through even the tedious bits.

As a bonus, working ahead means the story's got a better chance of making sense and having good pacing when it's read back as an archive. Another win-win.

Overall the greatest optimization tool I can recommend is just working on the project. There's no better way to identify the parts that feel unnecessarily slow and could be changed, or the parts of your art you're unsure of that need polish to get more speedy. If you're planning on publishing the comic anywhere, I recommend building up a buffer beforehand - something like the first chapter (or in my case, first three chapters) will give you a very good sense of what parts need more practice or improvement as you move forward. And it is genuinely easier to motivate yourself to continue if you have an audience giving you positive feedback and/or panicking at what you're doing to their darlings.

#asks #art stuff #writing stuff

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echonidae · 1 year

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a buncha headshot portraits! three out of five portraits, i'm finishing up the last two c: the sketches here are from way back in august/september, and i fiddled with them for some weeks on end trying to make Something out of them, then proceeded to frustratedly shelf the lot of them away. so it's nice to see at least these three all finished up now :') and they were really nice to work on too ;v;

but ohoho okay, this is a lot of announcements in one single post, so bear with me a moment :3c here's a tl;dr first: 1) headshot portraits as a new commission option maybe? :0ccc 2) commissions are opening again on monday, jan. 23rd! 3) separate commission info webpage for reading convenience (particularly for folks on mobile) 4) commission rules changes: payment in full & upfront, rather than half-and-half 5) two-slots-per-person rule will be no more and folks are free to send as many orders as they want, but any ones after the second will go into the queue instead 6) also a small change with unoccupied queue slots

the rest is under the readmore :')

so, i've been thinking about adding this sort of portrait as a commission option!! fairly simple compositions but fully rendered (because i darn love painting so much; cellshading is nice and all, but coloring it all in one layer is just... heart-eyes), on the big 2600px to 3800px canvases as well c: and i'm thinking of pricing commissions like these at 28 USD (feels like a good price but i'm accepting feedback on that — the point was to add something that's just straight up fully-rendered, but for the lower end of the pricetable, and the limitations of a headshot portrait feel fitting enough on both sides ;v; )

also portraits like these are fairly quick to draw, so the turnaround time would be fairly short! add to it that 1) these are fun, 2) i could use focusing on just the face and expressions rather than elaborate poses and all, 3) portraiture lighting my beloved, and 4) these are painted, and don't take forever to figure out or paint. :D but yeah, let me know what you think of the headshot portrait option!! would you folks be interested in something like this? :0c

and now hold on a moment, i have more things to say!! xD

commissions are reopening monday, jan. 23rd, at the usual 5pm BRT (UTC -3:00)!

6 active slots (previously known as regular slots; can't believe it's taken me years to figure out a better way of calling these orz), as well as another 24 slots on queue. these will remain open until further notice; money's tight right now, hence the lack of closing date :')

there should be plenty of slots either way tho, so no rush at all! but i apologize for the super short notice orz

also, i went and got all the commission info on a separate webpage on wix instead. here you go!

should be easier to access and read through stuff, particularly on mobile — or at least i sincerely hope it is, please leave me feedback if you can!!! let me know if you encounter Problems, i've looked and combed through every bit of these four (4) pages but i might have missed stuff still, pretty please let me know if you run into any Issues! ;-;

but yeah, the website has all the rules and info and all the different options as well, with extra examples and all. on monday, you'll also be able place orders directly through there, i made a little form and all c': technically the form is already there but pls don't send requests yet, i can't reserve slots ahead of time!

also also, and these are the last things i've got to say, i promise (and thank you if you've read this far!),

a couple commission rules are changing!

1) from this new batch onwards, i'll be charging commissions in full & upfront instead of the half-half system i'd been doing up until this point. the exception is if an order exceeds $80 USD; for those ones we'll return to the half-before-sketch + half-once-finished situation instead!

but how's that? :0c i hope this is alright, but please let me know if this would make commissions just... unaffordable ;o; i do really like the half-half system, and i'd rather keep it, but it's either this or raising prices, and i don't think i can do that yet :T either way, please let me know your thoughts on the matter!!

2) the only-two-slots-per-person rule will no longer be in effect, so go ham with multiple orders if you wish on monday — the caveat is that i'll still be working only on two orders at a time per person, so if you order three things, the third one will be placed at the end of the queue c:

looking back i could've... done this from the beginning. orz it should be more convenient to send multiple orders if you have 'em!

and finally, 3) if the queue list hits its closing date with slots still available, folks who have already ordered and would like to get in the queue again can go on and grab those empty queue slots if they want, instead of being limited to two slots per person per batch, and then having to wait for an entire new batch.

i opened this exception for the last round of commissions (thank you once again to the folks who wanted repeats ;-; ) so i thought i should just make it into a proper thing instead, since it does make sense to do it anyway — the queue list is purposefully filled with a ton of slots, then left open for weeks on end to make sure everyone interested can get their orders in, so letting folks claim those remaining slots after the deadline sounds fine ;v;

that being said, there won't be a deadline for this monday's batch, so this bit technically doesn't change anything xD but i thought i should mention the New Thing #6!

and that's it! that's all!

while i'm pretty set on most of these (specially the full-upfront-payment bit — again, money's tight orz), i'm still definitely open to feedback, and to change things if something doesn't work for you folks!! please do share your thoughts on it, or send a note if you'd rather!! and let me know if you have any questions too ;v;

i apologize for the super short notice again (and for cramming all of this into a single post) orz i'll be sorting things out until 5pm on monday, and getting these last commissions posted as well c:

thank you again for reading all of this orz and please don't feel obligated to reply to all the points if you have thoughts on only a specific one, i'd rather hear a little feedback than none at all ;o;

all in all, hope at least these portraits look nice, they were fun to work on :') Oliver, Owen and Steffan (previously known as the Swordsman/the Warlock — yup he's got a name now!); i'll get the other two of Matthew and Coriander done and posted!

thanks again folks, have a nice friday! ;w;

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retphienix · 2 months

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I haven't played too much today thus far since I'm confined to solo queue and solo play today (oof) but some opinions on some of the adjustments.

Short version: Looking forward to much much more and thoroughly enjoying what I've tried on difficulties 4~8 range (I don't like soloing helldive since I feel tunneled to stealth and jack of all trades loadouts- so not bothering)

Punisher: MUCH better place than it once was and arguably is just where it should be in terms of how primaries are balanced. It does it's job and does it well as an ammo stable slightly harder hitting but slightly more accuracy demanding Breaker. I think I love it? But I am still holding out for the pseudo med armor pen of the slugger once I get that thing (bought it while typing this).

Heavy Laser: MUCH more fun and useful than it was. I actually never considered the "intended use" the devs claimed for pre-patch, it was a damn poor version of a Machine Gun- infinite ammo or not. But as a medium armor pen weapon it definitely shows a lot more promise and effective utility in a loadout.

But.

It kinda still falls into a middle ground between "swarm clearing" and "heavy targeting" that's a bit awkward- definitely has potential in a squad but not something I would recommend to anyone playing solo like I was.

It instantly melts through any medium armor targets like hefty bugs or most bot targets, but it's still entirely useless against heavy armor and as such struggles to tickle chargers outside of post-charge which is the same period of time when literally any weapon can tear them down so- it has found "a place" but that place is strictly medium armor clearing and slight ammo efficiency buff to your other weapons. DECENT buff, definitely needs some more in my opinion- perhaps a complete rework of lasers in general would help as some have posed that "heat" weapons should melt off armor with extended contact. Purely hypothetical, but that'd do it.

Stick to unsafe-charged railguns for heavy stuff, if you're so inclined. (or any other option, I'm just pointing at the recently-brought-in-line-but-still-extremely-effective option)

Flamethrower: 10x more fun and effective, still demands team play or it slacks. The thing does nearly immediately kill anything in its flames that isn't heavily armored. Not sure what people claiming it does well against chargers are on about- unless they mean in team play where nothing else is involved.

In a "literal 1 v 1" with no distractions I think it'd do alright- it acts like the arc thrower in just "doing damage" and not super caring about the armor, but just like the arc thrower it's not an armor destroying monster- it takes TIME to kill the charger (10~ shots of an arc thrower can do it and I find that far more reliable than using a flamethrower).

But, I was solo and dealing with swarms AND chargers, so maybe in that 1v1 scenario it can melt their health bar reasonably, I can't say after 1 field test.

Now, the flamethrower does not in any way need to be an armor killer, I'm just mentioning it as it's one of the two things I tested against. It's MILES better against adds now, but it's not magically a charger killer- it just "can" do the job. Good buff! Still holding out that they implement some CC to fire damage so that enemies are staggered/scared by flames!

120kg barrage: Eeeeh. It's definitely 300% better than it was, for reference the 120 and 380 were fucking useless prior- their gimmick of "A barrage of explosions over a HUGE area" just didn't serve a real purpose in gameplay- not to mention they didn't even, you know, "barrage" an area, they kinda just went "This 9000 square feet area? We're gonna drop... hmmm.... 3 fire crackers in there randomly. Hope that helps!"

NOW, the 120 is actually pretty nice at softening up some objectives because it actually stayed near the intended target area. I tossed one onto 2 different egg batches and saw it genuinely soften up the area- nearly solo'd one 40~ egg batch on its own while killing a lot of the enemies in the area and even knocking out a nest or two I believe. It ACTUALLY serves a nice purpose of "slightly big area getting softened up".

Now, the utility of that depends on what other strategems people bring, but I know my preference for such things would pick something like the orbital barrage for its spammable cannon spray over this thing- but at least it WORKS now- I can see this actually helping!

Shield backpack: It's still insanely good. I genuinely think this is "almost" the perfect nerf because I can't say I think it's entirely overpowered anymore, but I can say it's still an incredibly versatile "get out of jail free" card that skips staggers and damage more often than it doesn't.

I genuinely think increasing its recharge delay in and out of "shield break" did well to make it no longer a borderline invincibility tool that you feel obligated to have at all times on higher difficulties- opening the way to more backpack options in my opinion. Kinda.

Because I said "almost". It's still an insanely useful tool and I still can't rightly say I'd prefer a backpack weapon over it, but perhaps I'm being a coward for disliking sudden slows from hunter tongues. In truth, that's a skill issue now ain't it, I simply think until we have more options to avoid stagger/slow or "ignore a damage source every now and then" like the shield does- the backpack will remain HIGHLY valuable to almost-if-not-certain overpowered degrees.

Still a good nerf in my opinion.

Liberator Concussive: It just got a name change don't go expecting anything. It's still bad and nothing changed beyond getting a much better name.

Railgun: I don't use railgun like at all, but I know what it did (and used a handful of times) prior to the patch and I have seen/heard what it does post patch. Sounds like it now HAS to overcharge to unsafe ranges to accomplish the same thing it did pre-patch in safe.

So like.

That means it's literally the same as it was pre-patch except you have to put some skill, timing, and positioning (to have time to charge) into using it, lol, sounds like a good nerf to me. If you want backpack-less armor pen with ammo to spare then it's still the tool to pick, you just have to use unsafe all the time now which seems more than fair when every other weapon has to be used intelligently to succeed. lmao

Breaker: It literally lost 3 rounds and some max ammo, big whoop lol

Still need to test the 380 and I plan to run the railgun for a few 7-8-9 runs to get a real feel for this new "actually try" era of railgun, but overall I like most of what we got adjusted.

Oh, and the spray and pray, but I'm not holding my breath much. I mean it's DEFINITELY gonna be better than the unusable state it was in, but it's also just not the weapon I'd strive to use much anyway so I'll certainly test it but I don't expect much.

I'm still looking forward to MUCH more in terms of balance adjustments, as I think many are, but I enjoyed what's here.

Also armor works now. It's underwhelming, but I'll be completely honest, I kind of expected as much because speed > armor in 90% of games so I figured armor would get fixed and still not really impact higher difficulty play much.

Maybe later adjustments will make it matter more? But for now it's still "Be fast, bro." and that's fine enough.

#helldivers 2 #RetPlays

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reasonoptional · 4 months

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Hey how's it going, handsome?

Can you put together your top 5 Sanderson's oeuvres? Can be top 7, if needed, but no more than 10. Okay, 15 tops.

Or bette

This is hard to answer, because I just love his stuff the Cosmere so much. First, why the cross-out?

The Alcatraz series didn't make much of an impact. I suppose it would have been so much better if I had read them in 8th grade, but he hadn't written them then. I mean they're funny, but it's just not my thing (plus, my mom was a librarian, and she's definitely not into world domination. That I know of)

Same for the Cytoverse series, I suppose. I really did like one aspect of it (the humans' position in the universe, won't get more spoilerful than that), but on the whole, reading it when younger is better.

But now on to the stuff I did like and read several times, in order:

Warbreaker: the first book of his that I've read, and a great intro to the wider Cosmere, even if you don't know what that is. The one thing that struck me from the beginning was how scientifically it approaches magic, without lessening it. All the characters are sympathetic and multidimensional, even the psycho murderers. Plus, the god Lightsong is one of my favorite characters ever, up there with Sam Vimes from the Discworld. Gotta love a god who's skeptical of his own religion.

Elantris: Hooked on the first page, and the premise is fantastic: there is a city where (certain) people live like gods, surrounded by light and harmony and power, forever. And then ten years ago it all went to shit, and now Raoden needs to fix it, while his intended wife has no idea he's dead (it's complicated), and the militant religion from the neighborhood empire is stirring up a whole new batch of shit.

I had written several paragraphs about each of the Mistborn series (The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages) but then decided that it's too spoilery, so I'll just put the whole first series as a whole: an evil power threatened the world, and a hero rose up to challenge it. He failed, and now, a thousand years later, the bad guy is still emperor of the planet. A crew of magically empowered thieves decide to rob him. Features well-rounded, fucked-in-the-head characters, a complex magic system, two more magic systems in the sequels because of course it does, warring gods, shape shifters, and a surprisingly tender love story.

Yes, we've had Mistborn, but what about second Mistborn? Well, Sanderson has got us covered, v with the Wax and Wayne series (The Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, The Bands of Mourning, The Lost Metal): three hundred years after the conclusion of the first series, most of the characters have become mythological/religious figures, and the world has progressed technologically, so where the first one was fantasy-standard medieval(-ish), the second is roughly Victorian-level, with the protagonist Wax (a descendant of one of the original heist crew) being a law keeper out in the wilds and a less-than-perfect gentleman in the city. Since the world's deity situation changed, it follows that we get a brand new magic system. As per the norm, great characters (including a very well written and well-treated neurodivergent one), more secrets, more immortal shapeshifters (Soonie pups are this world's Teddy bears, inspired by a dog-shaped one from the first series (who is still around and amused by the toys)) and also there's Wayne, who according to Sanderson was not written; he just showed up one day, stole a hat and started making bad jokes.

Mistborn: Secret History answers up some of the questions the first two series pose, and clarifies very little. But we do get to see the Lord Ruler being condescending post-mortem, and somebody gets punched in a very satisfying manner.

Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell: admittedly I read this only because of the title, but it was worth it: an exploration of what kind of people live in a grim world, where the souls of the dead wander about mindlessly... until you break the Simple Rules, and then they kill you. Strong female protagonist, gloomy world building.

Sixth of the Dusk: a story about colonialism from the native perspective, about self-reliance as an individual and as a people, and the toll it takes to live in symbiosis with a telepathic bird. Confirmed to take place late in the game, as the colonizers came in magically powered starships from the planet Mistborn takes place on.

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter: another love story, with pleasant characters, intricate world building (twice), complex plot that Painter doesn't know is supposed to have a bad ending. Brando Sando stated that he wanted to write about having a bullshit 9-to-5 job in a magical universe, and this was the result. Features Design, a lovely young lady who is neither young nor a lady, and everybody seems surprised by it (despite the fact that she repeatedly points out she is not human)

And the best for last, the Stormlight Archive (The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer, The Rhythm of War, and not soon enough Wind and Truth). A huge series, almost halfway done, and huge in scope and complexity. Dozens of viewpoint characters, none of whom is mentally fine (with one exception, but Adolin is also getting his trauma in future books, mark my words). Incredible world building (again), complex magic system (again), several plots going on at the same time (again), less-than-perfect deities (again), and an interesting exploration of gender roles, not in the way you imagine (oh you like reading? You're either a woman or a pervert). The main point of the series so far seems to be that magic will solve problems, but you have to solve your problems yourself. Oh, and Shardblades are confirmed to exist because Sanderson wanted big-ass anime swords.

White Sand and The Dark One are both graphic novel series, but I haven't read them yet. But they're probably very good.

As for the non-Cosmere works, The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England is hilarious (and scifi).

[edit the next day] I completely forgot about the Reckoners series, which should tell you everything you need to know about my feelings towards it.

#brandon sanderson

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alltimefail-sims · 1 year

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I dont want to sound rude but I wish youd stick to 1 project. I followed months ago and u seem to work on a lot of different things

This ask is over three weeks old; sorry to the sender that I've just gotten around to answering it.

First and foremost: I'm going to spin this a positive way and say thank you for being interested enough in one of my projects to follow me and inquire about my posting timeline. There are a handful of stories on simblr that I read and personally adore, so it's flattering.

With that being said, this is my hobby. I think of myself as a storyteller first, and I hope everyone who follows me can enjoy and value that enough to look past little editing errors and random (or slow) rollouts. It's kind of crazy to even be getting an ask like this because I do have a good amount of followers (thank you if you follow me, that's awesome), but there are MANY blogs that have a way larger following than me and I cringe when I think of one of them receiving a message like this. Good content takes time. If we're being honest, even subpar content takes time honestly lmao. I think everyone on here is sharing their sims and their stories for the love of it, for a creative outlet/stress relief, and/or for community engagement. Adding a timeline to something like that feels kind of unnecessary, imo. Plus, with the new pack coming and the infant update, I've been wary to go into any of my important saves. I can't afford to lose anything or have anything corrupted, and I'm not going to dive into anything when I know the game is about to undergo a massive amount of updates (and I'm going to have to wait on lots of mod and cc batch fixes most likely anyway).

Since we have opened this dialogue, in the spirit of honesty I want to add that this does kind of sound rude. We both know someone would never ask this off anon. It's just a peculiar demand to make of someone you don't know, and that's probably why you chose to approach this topic with anonymity, right?

Although, I will admit this ask poses a fair assessment: I absolutely do work on other things, whatever I feel like working on in the moment! I get new ideas every day. I'm sure I am not the only blog operating this way? When I really care about something though (like my Strangerville story, for example) I am extra meticulous about it. I'm not going to put out a story I love and am proud of in a half-assed way. I have a lot of learning, world building, and writing to do before that's even remotely ready to roll out. But I am doing my best, and I've shared details throughout the process because I'm excited about it. On the other hand, there are some projects I might try out but they just don't work. For instance, I hated doing the Bachelorette Challenge. It was extremely boring to me, and as much as I LOVE when other people do them, nothing exciting was coming of mine. I feel bad about that a little because I got some wonderful submissions, but this is my blog and I'm going to give myself permission (as everyone should) to only do what brings me joy or what I feel is worth my time. I haven't fully canceled it, but it's on the edge of the chopping block for sure. It's just not my thing, and that's okay. This is a hobby, and I want to spend my time on projects I love. I know follower count is always a big discussion on simblr for some reason, but that's not really why I'm here and I don't feel it is fair of followers to demand one type of content just because they followed for a specific reason.

Sooooo TLDR, I have to keep running my blog the way that works for me. I'm going to work on things as I want to and as inspiration strikes (that might mean I'm working on 5 WIPS at a time). I don't need a perhaps well-intended but nonetheless unnecessary performance review. I do appreciate you giving me an opportunity to explain this, and I ask for opinions frequently, so feel free to share them when that time comes. ❤

#I am all for fair criticism but I can't work under the stress of an anonymous deadline on my hobbies lmfao #I'm sorry I hope this came off nice as I'm not trying to be an ass #thank you for your ask!#atfs ask #anon

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yaldabaothadeez · 1 year

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Making Stable Diffusion draw animu monster girls, quarterly update

The state of the art has improved significantly since I last payed any serious attention to this stuff.

Firstly, models. There's been a lot of time now for people with more VRAM than sense to make a wide variety of models fine-tuned from the original SD 1.4 and 1.5 (and to take weighted sums of those models and tune them more etc.)

The handful of anime models I've been playing with, compared to the old NAI leak or Anything V3 that I was using 3 months ago, certainly seem "better" - in that they produce more consistently good results - but as a consequence they seem to have much stronger ideas of what images should look like, meaning that half the time you're fighting against the model's biases, and you're much less likely to get the, uh, emergent behavior that was half the fun of the thing.

Far more significant though, are the proliferation of various extra networks (that I'll collapse down to just calling "LoRAs" here) that are much cheaper to train and can be applied "on top of" any model sufficiently similar to the one they were trained on. There seem to be about a dozen of these being released every hour. As you might expect, these are 80% anime, 40% porn and 20% furries (non-exclusive), but some of them are extremely Relevant To My Interests.

Cute girls after the break.

(All images technically SFW in the Internet sense, but some of the models I was working with had a very horny training set - don't actually read this at work. I also didn't spend much time on these, I wanted to see what was possible more than I cared about making them look good. You could do better than I have)

Let's start with the easy one. There's at least one anime harpy LoRA out there, and it gives pretty good results if you don't get too ambitious

we actually reliably get bird feet and wings instead of arms, so long as you don't get too ambitious with the posing (i.e. anything other than out to the side), and it's very keen on that "legs turn human halfway up the thigh" thing.

Of course, now that you have a model biased towards making harpies, you can prompt it to do less conventional stuff. Here's a harpy that's more harpy than "anime bird girl"

(girls will say they know a place and then take you to a rotting deer carcass in the woods) - I'm really fond of this one, but that's because it appeals to all the things wrong with me.

You can also de-emphasize "bird wings" and "feathers" to get other wing-armed ladies

There's a pretty good centaur LoRA too

(more data for the "dog wearing trousers" question)

but these represent the best of a batch of generations. You still get lumpy horse bodies and the occasional horse head sneaking in. Supposedly you can use this for other sorts of animal-bodied people, but it's a struggle, maybe I'm using the wrong models.

Lamia/naga are a work in progress - you're still rolling for tail topology, but it's much less likely to be a disaster

Not pictured here are the various attempts at a spider-girl model. Those are still to busy to be anywhere near reliable enough.

But the fun thing about these LoRAs is that there's nothing stopping you loading several at once. I call this one "I read a Planescape manual at an impressionable age"

And here's a horsebird

horse-snake, however, didn't work too well for obvious reasons

A few more adorable carrion birds I had left over, as a treat

#ai artwork #monster girl #harpy

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yunojeyes · 2 years

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Let's Bake! JaeHyuck Edition

The Neo's have been begging Jae In to bake another treat for them so she decided to recruit her whiniest complainer Hyuck to help her bake this time.

Pairing: Jeno x Jae In ft.Hyuck

Let's Bake JaeJae vers.

Genre: fluff, idol au, NCT 24th member oneshot, JenoxJaein

Masterlist: here

Fic recs: YuuYuu2

a/n: Please note that all of this is fictional and the personalities of the characters are made specifically for the story! Please do not copy the story and post it elsewhere or on Tumblr!

Please don't try to imitate this recipe because it's made up! Don't attack me if you prefer to call pain au chocolate as chocolatine.

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

"ASSAA I GET TO FILM WITH JAE INNIE ALONEEE!!" Hyuck squealed as he smooshed his cheek with Jae In's. Jae In crossed her arms huffing as her cheeks heat up because of Hyuck's excessive rubbing. "We're not alone Hyuck, Jeno is here too" Jae In mumbled as Hyuck bites her cheek softly. Hyuck ignored her grumbling as he continues to kiss her cheeks and rubbing his face on hers. Jeno takes his phone out to take a picture of the scene in front of him before pulling the collar of Hyuck's sweatshirt and tossing him away, wrapping his own arms around Jae In's waist and breathing in her sweet scent. Hyuck pouts, wrapping his arms around himself before smiling at the camera, "Hey guys, welcome to the best episode of Let's Bake, today I'm the assistant baker!" Hyuck announced as he clapped his hands together.

"Today we are going to bake sleeping bear pain au chocolat or chocolatine, however y'all call it, Hyuck who's been my whiniest most annoying complainer thoroughly enjoyed the apple pie hearts Jaemin and I made in the previous episode of Let's Bake, which is why I have recruited him to help me bake this time" Jae In said as Hyuck nodded while pumping his fist in the air excitedly. "Hyuck is actually a great cook so I hope he can put his skills to use today." Jae In said, "Aww how sweet~" Hyuck said as he caressed her hair, Jeno grumbling with a pout on his face. "Baby Jeno has also joined us today because he misses me so much." Hyuck said as he caressed Jeno's nape who squinted his eyes at Hyuck.

"I came here because I know Jae In needs moral support when dealing with you." Jeno said as he kissed Jae In's forehead. Hyuck tsked as he rolled his eyes, "Yeah right, I'm the one who needs moral support seeing as I'm the one that has to deal with your pda." Hyuck said as he grabbed Jae In's arm, clinging unto it. "Anyways, unto the video, we're going to bake the sleeping bear pain au chocolate first, for this you'll need, dough, you can use pre-made homemade dough or store-bought dough, if you want a dough recipe you can tag me on Instagram or twitter for it. You’ll need 4 chocolate squares for each pain au chocolat, since we'll be making a mass batch, we need at least 100 chocolate bars, a bear cookie per pain au chocolat, 2 eggs and powdered sugar which is optional." Jae In said as Hyuck and Jeno posed with the ingredients as she listed them off.

"First thing we need to do after washing our hands is to flatten out the dough with a rolling pin, I'll leave that to Hyuck, Jeno-ssi please cut the chocolate bar into pairs while I preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius." Jae In said as both Jeno and Hyuck saluted her before doing their jobs. "Hyuck... what are you doing?" Jae In asked as Hyuck stopped rolling the dough. "I'm doing what you told me to do." he said as he looked at her like he'd done something wrong. "Yeah, but why isn't there flour on the dough, how do you think you're supposed to roll it smoothly if it's sticky?" she asked as she powdered some flour unto the dough, pulling the sticky dough on the rolling pin and kneading it as Jeno laughed at Hyuck's embarrassed face.

"Oops.." Hyuck said as he headed over to Jeno, hugging him from behind. "Hyuck, you can help Jeno, he has a lot of chocolate to cut anyways." Jae In said as she wiped her hands to ruffle his hair to which he smiled cheekily before skipping to Jeno to help him cut the chocolate. Jae In washed her hands before rolling the dough with the rolling pin. "Now cut the dough into large rectangles, whatever size you desire, then place 2 pairs of chocolate unto the dough, one on top and one on the bottom then put a bear biscuit on the one on top since it's gonna be the bear's pillow, then place the flap on the bottom to overlap until the lower body of the bear biscuit, then using a fork, press on the sides to seal the dough but not until it goes through the dough, just do it gently." Jae In guided Jeno and Hyuck through the procedure as the camera shows her demonstrating how to create it.

"Yahhh it's so cuteee!" Hyuck squealed as he placed his sleeping bear pain au chocolat on his palm to show Jae In who smiled at his excitement and towards the camera. "Good job Hyuck, how about you baby." Jae In said as she caressed his hair, he looked up at her with his signature smile, "this is fun" he said as Jae In giggled, kissing his nose as he scrunched his nose. "Jae Innieee what do I do now" Hyuck whined as he cuddled into her side, "You can apply egg wash unto all of them." Jae In said as she removed Hyuck's arms around her waist and sat on Jeno's lap as Jeno wrapped his arms around her waist. Hyuck like an excited child applied the egg wash unto all of the sleeping bear pain au chocolat while Jae In smiled watching him like his mother.

"Okay done!" Hyuck said as looked up from his work to see Jae In smiling at him, "okay so now we need to wait for 20 minutes." Jae In said as she placed the trays in the oven and set the timer. "Okay now that the pastries have cooled down we can add some powdered sugar unto them with a sift." Jae In explained as she gently sifted powdered sugar unto the pastries. "Cha, now you can eat as many pastries as you want while I package the ones on this tray for the members." Jae In said as Hyuck and Jeno ran to the pastries and took a bite of them before groaning in delight well, except for Hyuck who pretended to pass out. "That tastes so goodddd noona!" Hyuck said as teared up, "Are you crying Hyuck?" Jae In laughed as she saw him wipe his tears.

The room was filled with satisfaction as everyone enjoyed the pastries, Jeno cuddling Jae In in gratitude and awe as chewed on the pastries. He fed her as she packed the pastries, not letting Jeno or Hyuck help her because she didn't want them to touch the packaging with their buttery fingers and potentially stain the notes she'd written for the members.

"Thank you for watching this episode of Let's Bake JaeHyuck edition feat my baby Jeno, let me know who you'd like to see next on Let's Bake, I'm thinking either Taeyong oppa, Yuta oppa or Johnny oppa, I hope you guys enjoyed watching, see you next time, bye!" Jae In said as she waved goodbye at the camera with a smile on her face, Jeno and Hyuck waving goodbye along with her as they bowed in a straight line, "감사합니다, 사랑합니다 (thank you, we love you)" they said as they smiled each of their signature smiles.

original work of: @yunojeyes

#yunojeyes #nct au #nct #nct 2020 #nct fluff #nct dream #nct reactions #nct 127 #nct 24th member #nct imagines #nct haechan #nct jeno #jenoxjaein #Lee Donghyuck #lee jeno #lee jeno x oc #Han Jaein

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littleeyesofpallas · 3 years

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I was going to do these at random but then i got it in my head to stage these as an alternative first round of fights like in the manga, even though we really didn't get to see most of those play out...

To start i feel like the most obvious match up that we missed out on would've been Zaraki fighting Driscoll: For one Zaraki works around the bankai theft by not having one, and his whole made for battle/blood knight character type plays directly with The Overkill. Kind of like in his fight with Nnoitra, it'd make for a great emphasis on what Zaraki's actual strengths are; not that he simply fights and kills people, but that his supposed infinite potential comes from being pushed to his limits and learning to adapt and overcome new opponents. By contrast Overkill only gives Driscoll more power based on killcount, even if the people he slaughters are weak and he doesn't learn anything from fighting them.

So, the fight could start with the two of them both hacking their way through waves of faceless low rank goons to draw a parallel, but in the fight itself Zaraki's emphasis would be on drawing on meaningful fighting experience even with no bankai, while Driscoll would rely on a stolen bankai and a superficial killcount. There could be a fun moment where in a fit of desperation Driscoll tries to boost his power by squeezing in extra kills, targeting more weaklings, and lashes out at Yachiru, but she deflects his attack all on her own, he's shocked and confused, and in the moment of hesitation Zaraki lands the finishing blow.

Much less thematic, but I feel like Bambietta, with The Explode, would've made for a better counter measure to Byakuya's Senbonzakura. She could've opened the fight with her projectiles and Byakuya would got through his usual routine of fighting at a distance and being dodgy and precise with his blocks and counters, until suddenly he'd realize there were less petals than before, and Bambi could explain how every time he "blocked" her Explode projectiles they turned some of his thousands of blades into bombs and blew up. And she'd taunt him about how many blades does he have left and how long can he keep up defending himself while sacrificing his petals. He'd smugly use his bankai to summon up its crazy number of petals and ask if her explosions can keep up with so many petals, but then we'd get the reveal and she'd seal it away. Then Byakuya would have the moment of stark realization where he has zero petals to fight with. And then he'd get blown to hell and back before ending up in basically the same situation he was in with As Nodt in the actual manga shoved into the back of a bloody crater.

Similarly I don't think there's too much thematic resonance in this match up but I like some of the kind of obtuse dynamic they could have. it's never properly addressed, but we do know that Candice is technically one of the newer Sternritter, as she's said to have less control over her Vollstandig when hers is involuntarily prompted. Giving her lightning theme I like the idea that maybe she's something of a prodigy herself. Obviously not as young as Hitsugaya, proportionally speaking, but a fast learner and someone who rocketed up the ranks of the Wandenreich as a genius technician of Quincy skills. Hitsugaya could have a little back and forth about what it means to be a genius, and the difference between instantaneous intuition and carefully practiced talent. It would prompt his bankai and how real power comes from sober self reflection and not self aggrandizement, but then she'd take advantage of his weather gathering, like he used with Tier, and use it to amplify her lightning, get one good hit in, Hitsugaya would brush it off and ready a counter attack, and she'd seal his bankai.

Also room for some kind of banter with Rangiku, I'm sure. Probably with her calling Rangiku old and starting a whole cliche back and forth over that.

Meninas deserved more love, and screen time, and a real fight to herself. I feel like the best way to really illustrate her schift as The Power would've been to have her, and not the early unrevealed PePe, be the one to fight Jidanbou. Not that the gate guardians even make much sense being involved when the Quincy didn't invade through the four gates, but still... I'd love to see little Mini just arm wrestle Jidanbou and/or the other gigantic gate guardians into submission effortlessly. Have Komamura show up with his bankai as the one thing even bigger than the gate guardians. And then Mini steals it, instead of Bambietta, and gets into a raw strength beatdown with Komamura himself as the biggest of the captains.

I'm still mad she never hulked out properly. We only ever got the one panel of her with a buff arm going after Liltotto when she got lovestruck. Unrelated to this iteration of alternate fights, but it also would've been neat to see her fight Kira; he'd try and utilize his shikai the usual way, but Meninas would just get bulkier the heavier Wabisuke made her to carry the additional weight. And then Kira would end up baffled and terrified in the shadow of a fully hulked out Meninas.

Maybe a little too obvious, but I feel like a proper wushu fight between Sui-Feng and Cang Du was stolen from us. It also would've been a perfect set up for the bankai theft because Sui-Feng could go full assassin but immediately run into the problem that if Cang Du's Iron skin can't be pierced, then she can't leave any marks to hit twice. So obviously that makes her only option the bankai, and he can swipe it from there. I feel like unlike most of the other captains Sui-Feng would get to have a cool moment where she still fights Cang Du to a standstill even without her bankai, but then of course he just sinks back into the shadows at the end of the first raid.

This one feels like a stretch, but for all the weirdness of PePe and the creative choices that went into him, I liked the little bit of his explanation of his powers where it wasn't just a romantic or erotic kind of Love that his power controlled, but that he compared it to the instinctive need to protect an innocent baby. And with Jizo being the patron deity of dead children, it would have been really cool to see him have some thematic play with Mayuri. I know it's not how his powers worked in canon, but I actually would've really liked if his power wasn't as directly focused on himself. So that he could provoke people to act on their strong desires to the detriment of logic, but without a lot of direct control over it. So he'd hit Mayuri, and Mayuri would shrug it off because he doesn't care about anyone and then without warning Nemu would be put in danger in the course of the fight and Mayuri would be compelled to protect her. And he wouldn't know what happened as he threw himself in the way of an attack. Then like everyone else he'd pull bankai and PePe could steal it, so that weird creepy cupid man could have a giant creepy baby. but more importantly Mayuri could quietly and furiously ruminate on his feelings during the interim training arc

I know Mayuri didn't actually lose his bankai with the rest during the first attack in the manga, but it felt like he should have since his was part of that batch of SS arc bankai we saw earliest and got kind of accustomed to throughout the rest of the Arrancar arc. (more so than Sui-Feng's at least) Actually in regards to that same sentiment, I feel like renji should have lost his bankai too, even though his ostensibly posed less of a threat than some of the more well honed captains'. It's a shame that so many of the lieutenants just kinda got lost in the background of this arc. It would've been really cool to see the gotei compensate the loss of their bankai by doing more tagteams and group fights

#Bleach #i dunno #do i tag this as AU?#i dont really do this sort of thing normally #shinigami #sternritter #quincy #bankai

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zoeykallus · 11 months

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I love your bad batch headcanons!! They feel so I’m character :)

I’ve got a nsfw question, how would the batch react to their SO wanting to dominate/ peg them?

🤔

Interesting question.... Again, as always, if you don't specifically tell me to use GN reader or male or female, I go with fem, automatically, although no pronouns are mentioned, but certain... tools (so to speak)

The Bad Batch x Fem!Reader HCs - Domination

Warning: Mention Of Sexual Activities/Suggestive/Strong Language/Pegging18+

_____________

This is mostly just about the reaction, not about the act itself. But still 18+

_____________

Hunter

His reaction to your suggestion:

"You want to do what?"

At first, he is quite uncomfortable with the thought. Hunter is used to being in control and being the dominant part, and he feels very comfortable with that. But he knows your question is serious and thinks about it.

"I don't know," he says hesitantly, "This is definitely new territory for me."

"You trust me, don't you?"

He nods in agreement, "Yes, of course I trust you"

"I think if we do this right, you could definitely enjoy it"

Hunter is not so sure about that, but he is willing to take the leap after proper preparation.

His reaction to the act itself:

At first, Hunter is still quite tense, it takes him a bit to get used to not being in control and playing the submissive part. But if you care for him appropriately, he will take a liking to it.

Use your hand or a toy on his cock while you work him with the strap on, combined with little caresses, like kisses and strokes, Hunter will be able to let himself fall more easily. The feeling may be intrusive and foreign to him at first, but will eventually lead to an intense orgasm.

Hunter still likes to be the dominant part for the future, but is no longer averse to the occasional exception.

Echo

His reaction to your suggestion:

At first, he is surprised, a bit shy perhaps, but he is definitely curious. Echo trusts you, otherwise you would never have gotten close enough to discuss this idea.

"An interesting idea," he finally says after you explain what you have in mind.

"Would you be willing to try the idea?"

Echo smiles slyly and says, "Why not, I trust you, and I'm curious too."

It doesn't take too much to convince him. You have a connection built on trust, among other things, he will always be open to your ideas.

His reaction to the act itself:

So you are preparing accordingly. You and Echo finally have some time to yourselves and take the leap. Echo is incredibly forthcoming, even though he is visibly a little nervous, he is just as joyfully excited.

The preparation alone has a certain appeal, getting lubed up, feeling your hands so gentle and also guiding, he finds very pleasurable. Of course, you don't let him miss out. Echo enjoys your attention, every touch.

Echo is developing into a switch. He can be both for you, the dominant or also the submissive part. He can enjoy both to the fullest, because he rightly trusts you.

Wrecker

His reaction to your suggestion:

He looks at you in confusion, scratches the back of his head thoughtfully. The tough guy has never really given it much thought. Since others always see him as the typical, big strong guy, at least on the surface, he's never really given it much thought.

But Wrecker is an open, curious mind, playful and always ready to discover new things with you. Still, he hesitates a bit.

You try to make the idea appealing to him by telling him what else you can do for him during the act to intensify the feeling.

"Depending on the pose, you can see me naked during the act and I can massage your cock".

He smirks lopsidedly and says with amusement, "You've already piqued my curiosity, sweetie".

His reaction to the act itself:

Wrecker is playful as always, just as he is now. He is completely absorbed in his role and submits to you, letting you make all the decisions and following your lead. Even if the very first feeling when the strap on enters him is strange at first, Wrecker doesn't give up this idea so easily.

He tries to relax, listens to your words, your suggestions and also commands. It doesn't take him long to find his center in this game.

In the end, it's a playful, sensual, hot experience for both of you that you'll both love to repeat.

Tech

His reaction to your suggestion:

He blinks, finally slowly lowers the datapad, pushes up his goggles with his index finger, and looks at you questioningly.

"Would you describe this idea in a little more detail?"

Of course, you oblige him. At first, it's very hard to figure out what exactly Tech thinks of the idea, because his expression barely moves at first as he listens to you. Then he frowns thoughtfully, almost critically, and you fear that he is not interested.

Tech is quite experimental, very curious and as soon as he is thawed out, he has a much stronger sexual drive than you would probably believe him to have at first glance. But there's a whole other problem. Tech doesn't like to give up control very much, things he can't consciously fully control, usually cause him great discomfort.

For this reason, the early days when he realized he was falling in love with you were also very stressful and scary for him. It took him a while to let go of the fear and let himself fall. In the meantime, however, he can no longer imagine not being in a relationship with you.

Of course, you already know quite well how he ticks and say, "We would of course discuss together what exactly we want to do, how we proceed and set a safeword, so that you can pull the emergency brake at any time, should you not like it".

He sighs softly, thoughtfully.

"That sounds reasonable, my dear"

His reaction to the act itself:

Everything is planned out, prepared, and you're ready to go. Tech is a little uneasy, nervous, but a gentle touch here and a soft kiss there, slowly thaws him out.

Gradually, Tech adjusts to the new situation, and he plays his part quite wonderfully. As you sink the strap on into him, his hard cock pulses in your hand. It's different, it's challenging for him and yet exciting in a pleasant way.

He trusts you, fully and completely, otherwise he would never have agreed to try this.

In fact, Tech has much more fun than expected and is quite willing to repeat and even other variations of this kind of lovemaking in the future.

Crosshair

His reaction to your suggestion:

His brows go up questioningly, his look almost as if he can't quite grasp that you've dared to broach the subject.

"Are you serious?" he asks dryly.

A little unsure, you nod and say, "Sure, why not?"

Crosshair hates to submit, give in, or admit any weaknesses. He is a victim of his own toxic masculinity, now and then. So, for example, for him to admit interest in the idea, or even to dare to try, would be a sign of weakness.

First of all, it probably makes sense to wait with this question, this idea, until your relationship is really solidified, and a real and firm basis of trust is present, which is practically unshakeable. But even now, he will resist at first, even if he is curious himself.

Finally, he will give in rolling his eyes, as if this experiment, was a mere favor for you, with no benefits for him.

His reaction to the act itself:

He acts all bitchy, stubborn, and unyielding. You'll have to have a lot of patience and a thick skin, otherwise this could very well end up in a fight. Crosshair is sometimes like a spoiled brat who always wants to get his way, which of course doesn't go so well with what you're up to here today.

Or maybe it does?

If you get the hang of giving him orders and threatening him with punishment, while sounding insinuating and having appropriate punishments in store, Crosshair might suddenly take a liking to the whole thing quite quickly.

"You're pretty bratty, we should get that out of your system, don't you think?"

It's not often someone dares to contradict him, especially in this area, so this could be a really refreshing, erotic change of pace if you go about it the right way.

He won't admit right away that he liked it, but eventually he might, and maybe, just maybe, he will ask for a meeting of this kind himself.

Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

@darkangel4121

@ttzamara

@arctrooper69

@padawancat97

@agenteliix

@allsystemsblue

@palliateclaw

@either-madness-or-brilliance

@ortizshinkaroff

@andy-solo1

@hunterssecretrecipe

@heyitsaloy

@greaser-wolf

@extrahotpixels

@hated-by-me

@hunterxcrosshair

@malicemercy

@bebopsworld

@echos-girlfriend

@cpnt616

@dangraccoon

@jediknightjana

@pb-jellybeans

@antishadow2021

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722alycat · 3 years

Text

Face Down

pt i, pt ii pt iv

Masterlist

Summary: Kenny is an abrasive bastard, sure, but he teaches you and Levi how to survive. You feel like a natural at Kenny’s lessons, in fact, especially next to Levi’s clumsy attempts.

an: sorry this took so long! It was a monster to write and edit, and I had a busy few days! Hope you enjoy :)

Kenny's motto in life is similar to that of an old proverb. "give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. teach a man to fish and he will eat for his life.”

But, you reflected as you watched him scold Levi yet again for his stance, much more violent.

"Look, brat," he sniffed, "if I killed every motherfucker down here, you'd only be safe until the next batch of thugs came in. Now fucking hold the damn knife right."

Levi growled under his breath, and went back into the pose that Kenny had drilled into him religiously while you watched. He curled his fingers around the grip of the blade, and proceeded to flip and throw it, quick-changing his hold for different angles to stab and slash.

You grinned snobbishly at him as you flipped your own knife, over and over in your hand. "Hey, Levi, check this out!" you called, quickly flicking the blade so it danced through your fingers, before catching it back in your palm, now poised for a downward strike.

He scowled at you, while Kenny looked on, indifferent as always.

"Don't get too ahead of yourself, little lady." Kenny finally intoned, "Levi will overtake you by leaps and bounds, if he's really an Ackerman."

You grinned cheekily, “Well, we all know how Miss Kuchel felt about taking in orphans!” You teased.

Levi scoffed at you, and you cackled. Your head tossed back, hair falling past violently shaking shoulders. Your laughter echoed through the dimly lit home you had purchased after selling some of the drugs you had pilfered from that shop. The place was small, really more of a postage stamp than anything else, and it was tucked away in a damp and dreary corner of the Underground, but even so...

It was beginning to feel somewhat like home.

When your giggles finally died out, you rolled your head back upright. Tears of mirth sparkled on your lashes, and when you caught sight of Levi...

The boy was staring at you, eyes wide and mouth gaping. You watched in confusion as a flush began to creep slowly up his neck, over his high cheekbones. He looked... flustered, in a way.

You cocked your head. What on earth...?

“You feeling alright, Levi?”

Kenny grinned, all teeth and squinting eyes. It made him look roguish, when he wasn’t doing it in a cruel way. It almost made you curious as to how Levi would look with such a devil-may-care smile. All he’d done lately, or ever really, was scowl.

“Don’t you worry, kiddo,” Kenny snickered, throwing an arm over your shoulder and leering down at the red faced boy, “I think Levi here’s gonna be doing just fine.”

And so time marched on.

Days without Miss Kuchel turned into months, turned into a year, then two. You rounded into your 10th year of life, and then hurtled straight into puberty. You continued to outpace Levi by leaps and bounds, even as he began to outgrow you in height. Your moves became flashier and more complex, attacks became quicker and more lethal. Kenny scolded you frequently, telling you in a real knife fight, you were rather average, and tricks like those would only get you killed.

Still, you found it exceedingly fun to twirl a blade between your fingers, to flick it through the air and catch it, only to send it twirling back out again. You excelled, as Kenny soon realized, at throwables. Knives, rocks, hell, even the old axe they had tried to barter off a local seller, and then later stolen when he wouldn’t budge on price. You were more likely to get praise from him due to your deadly aim than you were for being able to spin a knife like a top on your finger, even though the latter was much more impressive in your opinion.

“What can I say, Kenny,” you had crowed one evening, after he scolded you for wasting time practicing tricks, “I’m a show-man!”

Kenny swiftly came to the ragged end of his patience regarding your lackadaisical attitude towards the offensive moves he’d been teaching you. In true Ackerman fashion, he decided to rip you a new one.

“The only thing a performer is good for down here is laying on their back, girl, so unless you want to be like Kuchel and your mother, I suggest you take me a little more seriously.”

You snarled, baring your teeth at him, the picture of teenage obstinance, “Like there’s shame in being a whore!” You objected, as you had done so often before, knife spinning faster in your hands.

He laughed shortly, shaking his head, “Being a whore gets you killed, and the dumb ones die even quicker, so you’d better stay out of the business. Besides, is that the life you want for yourself? For Levi?”

You stalled out at this, thinking of how anxious Levi had been every time his mother had a client. He was so scared she would be harmed, or he’d find her beat to death in her bed... you didn’t want to see him like that again.

You pursed your lips, suddenly sullen from the memories, twirling knife stilling in your hand, “No.”

Kenny grimaced, bringing his hand up to rub the tension from between his brows. “Look, y/n,” he began, gruffly, “as of now, you’re better than Levi at defending yourself. I don’t know how long that will last, but for now, if something were to happen while I’m out on business... he might need you. And you need to be on top of your game if you want to help him.”

You were two parts guilty, two parts proud for outdoing Levi at every turn. You took to holding a knife like a duck took to water. You dodged Kenny’s blows like you were a dancer. Sure, you weren’t as strong as Levi, and it took twice as many hits from you to equal one of his, but...

You felt like you could thrive, out there in the underground, if you wanted to. If you had Levi beside you.

If you had been like this when Miss Kuchel was sick, that store owner never would have been able to stop you. You could have gotten back in time. Guilt rose like bile up your throat as you remembered seeing Levi, curled up by his decaying mother, looking sunken away and dead himself. All because you’d been too loud and got caught, because you were too slow to dodge that storekeeper grabbing you, because you weren’t fast enough to get that medicine to Miss Kuchel and barely fast enough to save Levi, and if you fucked up like that again, maybe next time you wouldn’t be fast enough to save Levi and then he would- no.

Never again.

“Kenny...” you finally murmured, forcing yourself from your panicked thoughts, “you always speak of Levi like he’s going to... evolve, in a way. Like he’ll simply pick up everything he can’t, now. Its been confusing me for quite some time. You aren’t the kind to patronize people, so... what are you doing?”

Kenny took a moment to consider you. He thought how you picked on Levi, how Levi shoved you around, how you bickered relentlessly with each other. He thought of how you never cried, how you held yourself in an echo of Kuchel, how you would wrestle Levi, and how now that he was getting bigger, he was winning more often, but you smiled just as wide when you lost. He thought of how neither of you could fall asleep without being beside eachother. He thought of you, curled around his sleeping, emaciated nephew all those years ago, pint-sized and wielding a shard of glass like a dagger and snarling at him like a wildcat. Leave Levi alone, you had said, before you knew he was more friend than foe.

He sighed. He could trust you, he knew. “I know Ackermans...” he finally muttered, glancing down at you, “Some, up on the surface. They all have an uncanny ability within them. They call it the Ackerman Instinct. In a time of great stress, it awakens in them. Everything clicks into place. They become machines. Killers. Weapons. The only thing that can best an Ackerman is an army. One day, that’ll awaken in Levi, and then... he’ll be invaluable.”

You grimaced, disgusted by his description of the boy you had grown up along side, the calculation behind his words. “You talk about him how that old pimp used to talk about me,” you said, repulsed, “If you think you’re gonna turn him into some kind of... some kind of tool, you’re wrong. Doubly so if you think I’ll let you sell him. Not Levi. Not while I’m here.”

Kenny grinned sickly at you, “Not while you’re here? Little girl, what is it that you think you can do?” he asked, drawing himself to full height as he glowered down at you.

You snarled. resembling that wildcat he’d seen curled around Levi years ago, now nearly grown into her paws. “I’ll fucking kill you if you try to take him from me,” you promised, “I swear to god, I’ll do it. It’s not like you’re some kind of Ackerman Killing Machine, or anything. Should be fucking easy.”

Kenny tried to keep a straight face, he really did. But confronted with your fury wrapped up so tightly in a thirteen year old body, hissing and spitting at him, and unknowingly telling Kenny ‘the ripper’ Ackerman he wasn't an Ackerman Killing Machine.... It tickled him. More than he had been in years. He broke out into rib breaking guffaws, your pouting face and insists that you were serious only adding fuel to the fire.

Christ you were a fucking hoot.

When he managed to get his breath back, he grinned down at you, lazily. “Don’t worry, little lady. I’m not here do nothing to Levi, and I suspect the little shit would put up a mighty fine fight if I tried to separate you two. He’s quite fond of you, in his own pint-sized psycho kind of way. I just... knew Kuchel.” Kenny was unsure of why he was telling you this, even as he said it, “We grew up... nearby each other. I want to do right by her brat, that’s all. Did I pass your test, Livewire?”

You pursed your lips, deliberating, as you looked up at the man who had been with you for years. To know that he and Miss Kuchel were close... that he wasn’t simply a besotted client who chose to do right by her kids as Levi and you had assumed...

You grabbed his wrist, dragging him to where your friend was curled outside the house.

“You knew her... tell us what she was like.” you bargained, curling beside Levi like a cat, hand instinctively seeking his wrist as you leaned comfortably against his side.

He glanced at you, startled out of his thoughts, confused and wary of what you may be up to. You grinned at the sight, knowing he was still waiting for you to repay him for putting an earthworm on your pillow last night. But revenge would have to wait, you had found bigger game to hunt. You turned your sharp eyes on Kenny, demanding. “Come on, old timer. I’d kill for someone to tell me stories about my mom. You’d be doing us sad orphans a mighty fine favor.”

Kenny sighed, squatting on the other side of Levi and lighting a cigarette. He had it halfway finished but the time he finally decided to give into your fidgeting, and Levi’s confused and annoyed expression. He huffed, and drug a hand across his face. Slowly, like each word was being pulled from him, he began.

“Kuchel was... strong. She was a true Ackerman.”

Levi stiffened beside you, having never heard your crochety guardian talk about his mother before, and his hand went to where yours rested on his wrist, before his body slowly went lax beside you. You wormed your way closer to his warm side, and for once he didn’t wriggle and complain.

You and Levi listened to Kenny tell stories about Miss Kuchel until sunrise, side by side, eventually nodding off like that, snuggled against each other.

It was a rare night off for the two of you, where Kenny wasn’t running you both ragged. He told you he had business regarding the recent arrival of Military Police into the underground, and went off without any telling when he’d be back.

You were almost unsure of what to do. Kenny had become a constant in your lives, his sharp tongue and acerbic nature driving you to do better, to be better. His constant reminders that while someday something would awaken in Levi and cause him to become a killing machine, today was not that day, and you needed to learn to protect him, to protect you.

You wondered if he preached the same sermon to Levi. You wondered, even, if it was all a lie, and nothing would awaken in your dark haired friend. You didn’t mind, really, him being subpar with a blade. But every time you watched him fumble, you remembered Kuchels words. The only way to make money in the Underground is as a thug or a whore.

The statement rang brutally true, even now. You knew, whatever Kenny’s business what those MP was, it would involve being the former. You giggled suddenly. Unless... Kenny was on the other end of the spectrum?

Levi looked at you, startled at your sudden laughter, and you waved him away, “Just imagining Kenny in one of Miss Kuchels dresses. One of the puffy ones, even.”

Levi’s mouth twitched, “The blue one would compliment his eyes.”

You guffawed. Levi had slowly been coming back to you, you realized. He rarely joked, over the past few years, locked deep inside his own head despite your efforts to drag him back out. The morning you woke up outside, snuggled together, had been awkward, but you didn’t quite understand why. You always slept beside each other, even if you weren’t touching. You didn’t quite understand why Levi couldn’t meet your eyes the next day, why he seemed to skitter away from your touch. To you, it had really only felt natural to wake up with him beside you, still warm from his body heat.

His joking demeanor now bolstered yours, and you grinned at him, happy and carefree. The grin turned sly, and you batted long lashes at him, like you’d often seen Miss Kuchel do when she wanted something.

“Levi... can you help me?” you asked, sidling closer to his side, hand finding his wrist.

He looked at you, wary once more, and you took it as a sign to continue. “Lets get on the roof,” you suggested, grinning devilishly at him, “check out the view!”

He scowled, and you almost relented until you saw the twitch of his nose, the tug on the corner of his mouth. The little bastard was almost smiling. You had never felt so proud.

“C’mon, Lee,” you wheedled, “I just need a boost. You’re still bunches stronger than I am, even if you are shit with a knife. And you’re taller than me now!”

The praise did the trick, and he began to walk towards the door, using your grip on his arm like a leash as he drug you along. “Fine, brat, but you’ll owe me one.”

You grinned, shifting your hand to catch his fingers. You promised, “For you, anything.”

Getting on that damn roof had bruised you more than anything, and all to look at a shitty concrete ceiling above you, in a crappy Underground. Still, you and Levi laid there for a while in silence, only taking in the sounds of each other breathing and alive. He was your touchstone, and you were his. Always faithful, constantly by your side. Even with Kenny here, in your little house for years, it still didn’t feel constant. It felt like he could leave at any moment. But even if he did, you reflected, it was still you and Levi. The two of you wouldn’t ever be alone, so long as you had the other.

Levi shifted, his shoulder brushing yours, his knee brushing your thigh, and he jerked away as if burnt. You hummed, sensing the beeping of a mine about to go off, and circumvented it. “Levi,” you murmured, “what do you think stars look like?”

“Huh?” he asked, properly diffused, “why would you ask that?”

You shrugged, continuing to stare up, “Just trying to imagine something better than damp concrete.” you finally said, blinking up, “I’ve been trying to imagine something better for a while now. I just... don’t know where to start.”

He scoffed, before stilling beside you, studying the roof above you. You knew he thought it foolish, to wish for a better life. Especially when you were so far from the surface, the stairs leading upstairs an insurmountable dream, too tall for your weak legs to carry you up.

“I hear they’re like... the sequins, on moms pretty blue dress.” he finally said, “only there's a bajillion of them up there.”

You took a moment to imagine this through the shock of the stoic boy beside you even humoring your request. The dark sky full of the small ornate sequin swirls on Miss Kuchels dress, and you wondered if they moved and swished like her skirt did. You wondered if they spun through the sky, or if they were stationary, ever present and watching, like guardians. Were they brighter than the dull dewdrops shining on the stone slabs above you?

“I’d like to see them someday, if you were with me.” you rushed out, not understanding why the words burnt you like a confession, why you felt your face heating up. God, why was your heart beating so fast?

Levi looked at you like you we’re stupid, and you felt like swallowing your tongue. But then...

His hand found yours, wrapping your fingers tightly in his own. “Tch. Where the fuck else would I be, idiot?”

And suddenly everything felt right.

Levi and you had decided to go to the market to steal some decent food for dinner, Kenny long gone on another trip. His parting advice of try not to die stinging and bolstering you. As if you would die. You felt like a goliath compared to when you were nine and starving and watching Kuchel wilt away, when you were eight and fighting and biting anything that got too close, when you were seven and learning to bite back tears and turn them into something useful, when you were five and had a mother who wanted you to be safe and warm no matter what the cost.

You had come too far to simply die, and so had Levi.

Even now, you bumped arms with him, walking close enough to trip if you weren’t so in sync. You smiled up at him, pleased with your successful theft, the loaf of bread, tin of oats, and apples feeling like meat, cheese, and honey to you.

“All in a days work,” you teased, “It’s not much, but it’s honest.”

He scoffed, glancing down at your grinning features as you stretched, lithe arms pressing outward and brushing his back, “it’s not even honest, it’s just not much.” he told you, voice deeper now than it had been when you’d first been found by Kenny.

You shrugged, “Shit, birds gotta fly, orphans gotta eat.”

He nudged you with his hip, smirking down at you, almost showing teeth. He was fucking gorgeous when he smiled.

You told him as much, watching the pretty blush rise up on his cheekbones. He even stuttered at you, letting out a “uh... I’m...”

You stopped, and he turned to you, curling into your form, like a shield, like a blanket. You peered up to him, wide eyes captivating him, drawing him in almost. You realized that if he was pretty smiling, he was even prettier smiling and blushing.

You were deliberating the cost of rolling up and pressing your mouth to his, and then blinking in shock at the boldness of your thoughts, when you heard it.

“Hey, whore.”

You grit your teeth, the voice sending unpleasant shivers of disgust up your spine. Even deepened into adulthood, you could recognize it.

Vic. The same man who had spoken down on your mother, on Kuchel, for being whores.

“Ha,” he continued, “That little runt finally saved up enough to buy you, huh? How much after him? I’m not mad about sloppy seconds.” He leered.

You felt Levi tense. He was frozen before you, and your hand found his, stroking across his knuckles, wishing to calm him, “Levi... he isn’t worth it. Let’s just go home.”

But Vic didn’t care, Vic didn’t know you had spent the past few years training with a dictator of a teacher. Vic didn’t know you had a knife ready to draw, didn’t realize you had grown sharper and angrier, even if you hadn’t ever outgrown him.

He didn’t know you were waiting for the Ackerman instinct to kick in.

Vic stepped towards you, grabbing you by the elbow, trying to yank you away from Levi’s grip.

Like a flash, Levi lashed out, boney knuckles crashing into Vic’s cheek, your bag of stolen goods dropped to the floor. He drew his knife, fingers twiddling with the blade until it was poised for a downward strike.

You’re signature move...

You turned, arm released, to aid Levi. As Vic lunged, overpowering Levi’s weak stance and clumsy movements, you rushed at his back. Levi watched your desperate attack, eyes widening, and giving you away. Vic realized the danger, remembering your tendency towards aggression, and spun to face you. He batted you away with his arm and his blade, and you heard Levi’s frantic yelp of ‘don’t touch her!’. You landed hard on the concrete, skidding and rolling, your breath punched out of you. You began to pick yourself up off the floor, winded and bleeding from your ribs and steeling yourself to throw yourself back into the fight, when another thug showed up.

He was scrawnier than Vic, raised leaner. Probably, you realized, an orphanage kid who wasn’t the descendant of the head wallist. He had disregarded you, assuming you were a woman, and a whore, and uncapable of defending yourself.

He would pay dearly for that, you decided.

As he readied himself to attack Levi, you lunged, reckless and desperate.

Because... Levi had just gotten the upper hand, was just beginning to overtake Vic. You couldn’t risk that, couldn’t allow another man to attack him and throw him off. You didn’t want to be alone, and you didn’t want to lose him.

You caught him around the middle, leg frantically kicking out to take him to the ground. The air rushed out of him with the hit, and he yelped. He was too surprised to twist to catch himself, and landed roughly on the ground.

You snarled, feral and up to your throat in adrenaline, unable to hear anything over the rapid-fire thump of your heartbeat. You couldn't focus on anything besides keeping this motherfucker away from Levi.

Your hand found the knife crammed into your belt, yanking it from its makeshift sheath and lunging, while you still had the upper-hand. He battered you away, smacking you violently. You tried to roll with the hit, jarring your leg as you yanked it violently from beneath him. You fought through the pins and needles crawling up your ankle, and scrambled backwards.

Levi grunted, and you frantically craned your neck to make sure he was okay.

The thug took advantage of your distraction, lunging on top of you, grabbing your hands and trying to wrestle the knife from your grip. You screeched your panic to the air, thrashing violently and kicking. He leered down at you, blood from a gash in his forehead dribbled down his jaw, dripping onto your face. You fought the urge to gag.

He raised the knife up, your hands still gripping it as you struggled to regain control, and began to plunge the point towards your chest.

You screamed and panted, fighting his downward thrust, feet scrabbling in the gravel as you tried to brace, and even you, with all your violent optimism, could see this was a losing battle.

You heard Levi scream, a sound of rage and panic, and Vic let out a startled, pained grunt. You heard the sound of rending flesh, something wet spilling out onto the ground.

"LEVI!" You screamed. Your brain whited out. The only thought running in your mind a frantic repetition of no, no, no no no. You couldn't lose him.

You let the thug overpower your grip, a controlled descent that ended in you releasing the knife and shoving his hand to the side. You jack-knifed away from the stab and under his legs, wriggling from beneath him and scrambling to your feet, violently swinging back one leg and kicking your foot with vicious intent into his ribs, all panic and no power. You braced and did it again. He gagged, skittering off his hands and knees and landing roughly to his side. You screeched, frantic and shaking.

"Fuck," you shouted, stomping his chest and feeling something give beneath your heel, "fuck, fuck, fuck!"

You kicked him one more time, and frantically grabbed the knife. The thug wheezed, lunging for you in staggering movements, and any question of whether to kill him or not disappeared from your mind as you twirled the blade between your fingers, and plunged it into his neck.

You felt the metal sink through his skin like a bruised apple, felt the clink of the tip hitting bone. You felt the blood spurt out as you withdrew and leapt back, hands shaking and dripping blood. You felt nausea roll up to replace the adrenaline as you watched him gurgle and choke, shaking hands grabbing for his neck before he convulsed one more time and went still.

You gagged, turning away from the body and into someone’s arms. You flinched away, trying to bat the hands back until you realized who was holding you.

Levi.

You looked up at him frantically, shoving your hands against your pants to wipe away the blood before they reached up to grasp his face.

You nearly sobbed. "You're okay... Levi..."

He grimaced as he looked at you, pursing his lips, the picture of composure while you stood quaking and whimpering. "I saw him, on top of you. You screamed."

You choked out a shaky laugh, "I was so scared. I didn’t know if you had- ...I was scared."

He scoffed. "No reason to be," he released you to look you over, before grabbing your hand, twining your fingers together, "you did a good job, with him. I just got Vic down when you started stomping his ribs."

At his mention of Vic, you peered past Levi’s shoulder. The thug was laying there, still and cooling in his own blood and entrails.

"Christ, Levi. You gutted him. Since when did you have that in you?"

He growled, shaking his head. "He was on top of you. I couldn't waste anymore time with Vic. Not with you screaming like that. Enough to give a man a headache."

You laughed, leaning into him, resting your head on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. You let the shaking subside as his warmth seeped into you.

It was you, and Levi, and you were both alive and coming down off the adrenaline rush of your first kill and fuck. Even here, covered in blood and the stench of Vic’s ruptured bowels, with Levi beside you...

Everything felt right.

When Levi was by your side, everything felt right.

pt iv

67 notes · View notes

tyunniverse · 4 years

Text

FRIENDS FOR A DAY (2)

pair: yeonjun x reader

genre: fluff

word count: 2654

parts: 1 | 2

· · ───────────── ·.☆.· ───────────── · ·

It had been a long time since Yeonjun felt like this. Sometimes life in general had become too much to bear and the things that used to make him happy weren't working for him anymore. Times spent alone slowly became more frequent for him than times he'd spent with his friends.

He'd skipped the first day, not wanting to go back to that routine life just yet. And towards the start of the day, he would never have imagined meeting you and getting to spend the day doing things that strayed far from any of the schedules he'd previously planned. A breath of fresh air was what he liked to call it, and he had you to thank for that.

Unlike him, everything was new to you; a new city, a new school, new people, and a whole new life ahead. Yeonjun felt a little envious after realizing it when you'd talked more about yourselves during lunch, but after seeing how you seemed to enjoy every single second of your little sight seeing endeavor, he thought that maybe he could also be a part of something new in your life.

Best friends.

You had agreed to be his best friend from today onwards; the pendant around your neck serving as proof. Yeonjun finds his hand wandering over to his pocket, holding on to his old necklace.

Half of a star. He'd bought it a few years back. The necklace had a similar purpose with the one he was wearing now— meant to be worn separately by two different people. In his case, he had bought it as a whole and had decided to keep one half of it still in its case, stashed inside his closet. His reasons for purchasing it never really felt clear even to him but he also wouldn't call it an impulsive decision. Yeonjun liked to think that he'd be able to find a use for it in the future.

"Yeonjun." You call for his attention, pointing at the posters plastered on a random shop's wall. "It says that the annual carnival will be opening tonight. Wanna go?"

Yeonjun grins. Opportunities somehow kept showing up right in front of his doorstep. "Yeah, only if you want to though. Afterall, I'm only the tour guide for today."

"Shut up." You hold back a smile. "Have you been there before?"

Yeonjun repeats the question in his mind. As someone one would consider pretty popular, you'd expect him to be no stranger in hanging out at fun places like an annual carnival, but that's just it. Yeonjun had never visited that Carnival once ever since it opened. His friends had asked him to tag along but something about it just never seemed to make him want to.

"No." Yeonjun answers, scratching the back of his head. "If we end up going then this would be my first time too." The first time he'd actually wanted to go.

"I guess we're going then." You grin and Yeonjun finds himself smiling back. "It says here that the Carnival's just around the corner so it'd probably be okay if we just walked there."

"Yeah."

The two of you make your way to the Carnival. You still had a good amount of time left before it opened so a few quick stops at some stalls along the way didn't do any harm.

· · ───────────── ·.☆.· ───────────── · ·

In all honesty, Yeonjun didn't even know when and how he'd ended up holding your hand, laughing his heart off by the time you arrived at the entrance but it all just happened somehow. Was it the when your ice cream cone almost landed straight on his shoe earlier? Or when his hand nearly hit you square in the face when he noticed a bug flying towards you? It could've even been when a group of old ladies started hitting on him at the handbag boutique and all you did was stand there shaking, wanting to laugh your ass off.

No matter what the reason was, he liked this. Somehow, it just felt right.

The two of you pay for the tickets before heading inside. The place was larger than any of you had ever expected, cleaner too. People of all ages were enjoying their carnival experience to the fullest. Children were running around with their guardians following closely behind, couples and groups of friends chatting along and taking pictures— Yeonjun could swear he saw two old men arguing over who gets to take a picture with the mascot first.

"So, which ride do you wanna go on first?" You ask, turning to him.

"Well, how about that one." Yeonjun points at the viking and you feel yourself getting more and more excited.

"NICE—" Before Yeonjun knew it, you were dragging him around to every single ride at the carnival.

You liked to keep count of everytime Yeonjun freaked out while you went on the rides, and Yeonjun liked to do the same. Despite the thrill of being at a carnival keeping you hyped up, there were a few times when you had overestimated your tolerance with being thrown around. Yeonjun nearly puked twice: once at the twister, and a second time on the rollercoaster. Even you were almost a victim by the rollercoaster's loops.

Yeonjun had claimed he was an expert at navigating haunted house attractions, stating, "I've been watching horror movies all my life. Nothing scares me at this point, tbh." True enough, nothing scared Yeonjun except every single ominous decoration and jump scares the haunted house threw at him. You weren't too fond of horror yourself, but you ended up trying to be the brave one after Yeonjun basically clung to you half of the time. It didn't help whenever you freaked out since you ended up losing Yeonjun after he not so subtly abandons you at the slightest suspicious sound. It was a miracle you made it out in one piece.

"Yeah, so, uh, sorry about that." Yeonjun laughs it off the moment you two got out.

"Sure but you should know that I'm never gonna let you live it down." You tell him, smiling widely as you hold up the photos you received from one of the staff. "I got evidence."

Yeonjun snatches the photos from your hands. "Bold of you to assume these'll affect me— oh." It definitely did.

You watch as he slips the photos inside his jacket as if it wasn't obvious enough that he was trying to hide it from you. "Nice try but," You take out another batch of photos and wave it around. "Boom. Two copies."

"Wow, okay."

The two of you ended up laughing at each other before you suggest in trying out the stalls. They say time flies by fast when you're having fun and they couldn't be more right. There had been an unspoken competition between you and Yeonjun of who can win the most prizes and let's just say you weren't about to let yourself lose. By the time you got tired, you had a total of three plushies and a bunch of candy bars stuffed in your pockets and well, Yeonjun had the exact amount of prizes you had.

"Fine. It's a draw for now but only because I'm tired." Yeonjun holds the plushies tighter. "We should really get a bag for this. I wonder if we can get a huge plastic bag somewhere."

"Nah, we can just put em in here." You take off your back pack, opening it wide. "I'm sure it can fit all six of them. They're small enough." You were lucky that they did, finally leaving your hands free.

"Wait." Yeonjun pauses after putting the last of his plushies inside. "How can I be sure you won't just take my plushies for yourself after we leave? I'm pretty easy to distract so—"

"If you forget to get them back then I'll just hand them to you tomorrow at school. You go to HSU too, right?" You tell him.

"Yeah, but how will you contact me?"

"Obviously, we exchange numbers."

Yeonjun blinks. Of course that'd be the simplest solution but still. He'd been talking about staying as friends even after all this but the thought of exchanging numbers hadn't really crossed his mind. He takes out his phone and the two of you quickly added each other as contacts, somehow feeling a bit closer after the exchange.

"While we're at it—" Yeonjun pulls you in closer as he bends down. Only now that you've felt Yeonjun's warmth close to you have you noticed how cold it actually was outside . It takes you a few seconds to register that he wants to take a few selfies.

You bust out a smile and tried to go along with whatever weird faces and poses he did. "Send them to me later." You say after examining the photos. There's one where Yeonjun mimicked a kissing motion near your cheek, making you smile. Who would've expected you two were total strangers up until a few hours ago.

"Got room for one last ride?" Yeonjun asks as you return his phone.

"Yeah, sure. Which one?"

"Don't ask as if you don't know. I'm pretty sure you left this one out on purpose."

Perhaps unconsciously, you did. In every single movie that involved the two characters going to a carnival, for some reason, they always left the Ferris Wheel for last. It's not like you wanted something grand to happen when you ride it, but more like you just wanted to get a good view of the entire carnival before leaving. It seemed like the perfect final attraction.

Yeonjun notices how you've gone quiet and decided to hold your hand, pulling you along. "Let's go before the place closes."

"Okay." You look up at him, nodding.

· · ───────────── ·.☆.· ───────────── · ·

The Ferris Wheel ride wasn't all you had expected it to be. It looked pretty slow in the movies but right now? You were about to puke.

"Yeonjun, wait." You hold on to Yeonjun who was sitting opposite to you.

The Ferris Wheel was going too fast to your liking and you started feeling dizzy. Getting a good view of the carnival seemed impossible at this point and looking at your partner made you even more miserable.

Yeonjun was having the time of his life. He loved the feeling in his stomach whenever the ride went down, and the fact that you were lowkey suffering right in front of him made him laugh even harder.

The speed went on for a few more rounds until it finally slows down. Your heart and probably everything else stilled once the ride came to a complete stop just as your car reached the top. "Thank God. I felt like I was going to die."

"Well, you're safe for now." Yeonjun grins, leaning back in his heat. "You wanted to enjoy the view, right? We'll be stuck here for probably about a minute or two so enjoy it while it lasts."

"Yeah." You smile back, looking outside the window.

The winds were colder up there, reminding you of how warm it felt when you stood close to Yeonjun earlier. Yeonjun catches you warming yourself up with your hands and chuckles. He takes off his jacket and hands it over to you. "Here, put this on."

"Thanks." You quickly put his jacket on. Usually you'd go for the polite route and turn him down but if you were going to continue this friendship business then you weren't about to suffer in the cold when the dude's practically handing you a solution.

Yeonjun gives you a little smile before you continue to admire the view. Down there, the lights almost looked like a sea of stars. The music around the place didn't really help set the mood but somehow, the mixture of it along with the laughter and delightful screams of the other visitors made it feel right. After everything that happened today, you felt like it was the right decision to end the day with this breathtaking sight.

And Yeonjun couldn't agree more. The lights below reflected in your eyes in a way that made the atmosphere lighter. He could tell you were happy and right now, that seemed to be enough for him.

The Ferris Wheel began moving. Yeonjun snickers as he felt you grab for his hand, worried that the ride might throw you off once more, but it didn't. The way down was slow, allowing you to enjoy the ride in peace. Your pendant started to shine, reflecting the lights. It reminded him of everything that happened, from the moment you two met and agreed on a friendship that would last for only a day, up until now where he held your hand on the Ferris Wheel after deciding to be friends for real this time. The pendant became the sole proof of that friendship and Yeonjun couldn't help but wonder if the ones he bought a few years back would truly be of any use in the future. But what would it symbolize for? Who knows, he might just give you the other half.

Your car comes to a stop and the doors open. The realization that the day has officially come to an end left you feeling disappointed. Yeonjun squeezes your hand, bringing your attention to him. He gestures for the two of you to get up and you do, finally stepping back on the ground.

Both you and Yeonjun felt that the way back to the entrance was too fast. It really did seem like the two of you wouldn't see each other again despite the fact you went to the same university. The thought felt silly but that's just how the carnival experience gets to you.

"I guess this is it." Yeonjun speaks up first. "You live pretty far from here, right? I can take you home if you want."

"It's okay. My cousin lives nearby and I texted her earlier that I'd be staying over." You tell him, not wanting him to worry. "How about you? Will you be alright on your own?"

"Yeah, definitely." Yeonjun reassures, holding up his hands. "Oh, and by the way. Is it okay if I leave the plushies on your bag for now? I can't exactly carry them on the way back. If it's ok with you."

"Don't worry. You can just take them back tomorrow." You grin and Yeonjun smiles back. "Also, I'm keeping your jacket for now. I'll return it after I clean it up."

"I can work with that." He shouldn't feel this happy but he did. In a way, he was able to find an excuse to meet up with you tomorrow without things getting awkward. Maybe this friendship could work out afterall.

"Thanks for today. Honestly, this was the most fun I've had ever since I got here." You say, taking one last look at him.

I should be the one to thank you. "You know, I have a lot of things I wanna say to you right now but I think I'm gonna wait until I feel like it."

"Huh?"

"Nothing. I'll text you later." Yeonjun gives you a quick pat on the shoulder before running off to the opposite direction. "See you at school! And don't forget to bring the kids!"

You raise a brow. Did he just refer to the plushies as his kids?

He felt dumb, running away from you. The longer he stayed, the more he had trouble leaving, which was new for him. It's been a while since he actually found someone he'd like to hang out with and he was having trouble controlling his excitement. Soon, you'd be able to visit each other's houses, hang out more freely, talk about your days as if it were nothing, and get to know each other more. Honestly speaking, Yeonjun couldn't wait for that day to come but I guess he'll just have to start with tomorrow.

#txt imagines #txt x reader #yeonjun imagines #yeonjun imagine #yeonjun x reader #yeonjun fluff #yeonjun

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famous-aces · 5 years

Text

Mary Eliza Mahoney

Who: Mary Eliza Mahoney

What: Nurse and Activist

Where: American, active in America

When: May 5, 1845 - January 4, 1926

(Image Description: a bust photo of Mahoney from circa 1880s. She is a black woman with a young looking face and a serious expression. She has an oval shaped face, low eyebrows, and skin of a medium dark complexion. Her black hair is pinned up under a white bonnet. She is wearing a white shirt/dress with a dark colored scarf. End ID)

She was the first African-American to graduate nursing school and the first Black licensed nurse. In 1908 she co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (now the NACGN part of the American Nurses Association). She was an activist for both WOC and women's suffrage.

She worked to improve the conditions, standards, and working lives for nurses. She got more WOC into the nursing field and sought to help them achieve the success especially in the face of racist white clientele.

Mahoney was extremely gifted and was one or only four graduates of her 1879 nursing school class. As a nurse Mahoney became acclaimed despite her race putting her at a disadvantage. She had a reputation for being calm, patient, and caring, possessing an excellent bedside manner. Most of her clients were wealthy and white. She was employed briefly at the head of Howard Orphan Asylum in New York which took in orphaned and elderly people of color.

She became a suffragette and an early civil rights activist later in life. Mahoney was one of the first women in Boston to register to vote.

Today many honors bear her name, like the Mary Mahoney Award bestowed by American Nurses Association, in Newark, NJ there is a Mary Mahoney Memorial Health Center and Boston, MA has The Mary Eliza Mahoney Dialysis Center. She has been in the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame since 1976 and the National Women's Hall of Fame since 1993.

Probable Orientation: Aroace or grayro ace

I do these bios in batches of seven and I struggled a bit with two people I put in this one. Ultimately I am still debating one of them, but I decided to go with Mahoney.

My process in finding historical figures is so unscientific it is embarrassing, I pick names at random and scroll through their biography and if I see the words "never married" and/or "had no children" or some other hint they go on the list of Potential Apsecs (listed as "[Name, Occupation]???" The more unsure I am the more question marks they get.) Then when the name comes up on my list I start digging in earnest. I go through as many (reputable) sites I can find and as many papers I can read for free, I go looking for things that might swing my opinion one way or another.

Ultimately sexual orientation is not a science. There is no equation I can punch in and get a clean answer, but I look for traits that a lot of asexual or potentially asexual figures share. The most obvious of them is that the person in question lived alone, never married, never had kids (especially in a pre-20th century era), or otherwise had a life that stands out as downright Queer. I love words like Bachelor and Spinster. But not everyone is Tesla or Thoreau, straight up saying "I don't want to have sex." Often it takes inference.

Mahoney is neither widely accepted as ace nor did she leave much behind about her personal life to tell us one way or another. She left a big ol' question mark and when most historians see that question mark they say "cishet.". But there is evidence to the contrary and now that I have rambled on longer than a recipe blog I am going to share it with you.

Mahoney never married and never had children. She was (supposedly) very briefly engaged to a doctor. I say supposedly because I can only find one source mentioning the engagement and it is not a primary source. And it has neither what year it happened or even the man's name. According to this source when he "jilted" her Mahoney was left emotionally broken and bitter and never sought out romance for the rest of her life because he crushed her.

But I can find no evidence she was ever particularly open about her life or ever gave voice to this bitterness. I can't find Mahoney mentioning her fiance or his breaking her heart. And I find it weird that if Mahoney was emotionally destroyed by this man that no one would know his name. So, maybe she was engaged briefly, maybe she wasn't. Maybe he broke it off, maybe she did. But really that doesn't matter, what matters is, a lot of people go through very similar experiences and rarely do they become complete spinsters.

It doesn't seem that she was ever really interested in finding love again. She has no documented relationships I can find aside from that one. It seems more indicative of disinterest.

As I said Mahoney never had children, but she worked with children all her adult life. As a private nurse she tended to work with mothers and their babies. She was the director of an orphan asylum. It was not a disinterest in children, but maybe disinterest in making her own.

(Image description: a faded black and white photo from the first convention of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, 1909, at which Mahoney spoke. It shows a group of about 40 Black women posed in rows and well dressed in conservative dresses/skirts and all with either short hair or hair pinned up. They are in front of a stone building. At the bottom of the photo written in cursive it says "The First Convention of The National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses". End ID)

#lgbtq #queer #asexual #ace #history #20th century #19th century #american #north america #usa #activists #healthcare

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