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[jayparked]

miscommunication - jay's version

PAIRING: best friend jay x female reader WORD COUNT: 3.9k GENRE: crack, smut ; mdni AU: best friends to lovers(finally) WARNINGS: punishment and pain kink, spanking, fingering, rough sex, begging, bondage, brat/brat tamer dynamics, edging, dacryphilia, dirty talk, pet names, strong language SNAIL TRAIL: here are jay's texts AND his written part! thank you to @sungbeams for looking over this last minute and thank you to all my tickets in the jayparked's garage discord server💛 to get updates and previews on my work before they get posted, join here(18+)

♡ ot7 texts part one ; part two ; part three ; part four ; part five ; part six ; part seven; part eight ♡ ♡heeseung ; jay ; jake ; sunghoon ; sunoo ; jungwon ; riki♡

It all happened so fast.

One moment you were boldly texting your best friend something you never thought you’d have the courage to say. Thoughts and feelings you’ve been harboring for years finally spilling out, unable to keep any and all doubts about potentially ruining the greatest friendship you’ve ever had at bay. Harboring these feelings for so many years was driving you crazy and you just couldn’t help but test the waters a little bit to see if maybe, just maybe, there was a possibility that he could feel the same way about you.

And now? Said best friend has you bent over his lap, his strong hand massaging and rubbing the swell of your bare ass cheeks before smacking his palm against it.

Another strong smack with his fingers spread apart has you whimpering louder than before, squirming on his lap while your pussy drips with neglected attention. “Jay…need you to touch me.”

“I don’t think you’re in any sort of position to be making demands,” he says coldly with another harsh hit. Your body lurches forward, eyes stinging with tears, but it’s the way Jay gently rubs at the flesh he just hit that has your heart fluttering in your chest. “You thought it was funny to play with my emotions? Hmm? Think you can just get away with whatever you want to me without any consequences?”

As soon as you open your mouth to answer him he lands another harsh hit to your ass, instantly squeezing your flesh so hard you can feel his nails breaking your skin. A loud gasp forces its way from your mouth along with an embarrassing droplet of drool. Your thighs are shaking, ass stinging from the repeated contact from Jay’s palms and the tears are finally starting to streak down your cheeks. Even still, your clit is pulsating, desperately awaiting some form of contact. 

“I’m sorry!” You finally give in. “Just…Jay please. I need something.”

“Something,” he mocks with a low chuckle, still massaging your bruised flesh, “You were so careless with your words before, why so shy now?”

Brain whirling in a desperate attempt to find some sort of comprehensible words, you glance over your shoulder to Jay’s lap. His black jeans are strained by his hard cock, a prominent tent beautifully on display right before your eyes. You always thought that actions spoke louder than words. So, you do the only sensible thing that comes to mind and pivot your body slightly and put both hands on his belt. 

“What do you think you’re-” Jay groans, cutting himself off when he feels your hands bump against his erection. You’re failing miserably to even get the leather out from his pant loops, let alone even begin to try to undo the stiff button and zipper. Huffing in frustration, you’re about to make some progress when Jay’s fingers curl around your wrist, stopping you completely.

You gulp loudly, braving a quick look up at him only to find his cold gaze already upon you. His jaw is stiff, the muscles flexing with each exhale he lets out through his flared nostrils. 

Jay exhales deeper, biting his tongue between the side of his teeth before speaking. “What do you think you’re doing?” Through gritted teeth the words send chills down your spine. For a moment, you brace yourself for another brutal spanking montage, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Jay patiently awaits your answer, his grip on your wrist only tightening.

“I-...I just-” you stammer pathetically. Jay raises an eyebrow at you and continues to wait. “I need you.”

Even though his dark eyes are narrowing, you see something shift, something so subtle you think you might be making it up – then his free hand is cupping the side of your cheek, gently moving along your cheekbone with his thumb, and it’s undeniably there: endearment.

All too quickly, the moment is gone.

Jay releases your wrist to undo his belt himself, fully removing it from the waist of his jeans. You excitedly lick your lips, watching and waiting for him to free himself so you can finally get a look at what he’s been hiding. But instead of tossing the belt and moving forward, Jay folds the belt in half, giving his palm a testing slap. It isn’t until his devilish smirk appears that you realize what he’s about to do.

“Jay! No! I’m sorry! I-”

Smack!

Warm pain blooms against your ass where the belt landed perfectly across both cheeks. Sharply inhaling, you try your best to keep your body calm, but your thighs are already shaking again, fresh tears threatening to spill as the sting continues to get worse. You’re about to speak, to make another attempt to protest against this harsh treament, but Jay is cruel and times his next hit perfectly. All that comes out of your mouth is a haggard sob, yet you can’t help the way your eyes roll back slightly, your clit still throbbing while you clench around nothing. It’s becoming too much. If you don’t feel any sort of contact soon you might just pass out.

“You’re such a brat,” he growls, leaning down to bite on your right ass cheek while he gropes the other. You cry out again, wondering if you’ll even be able to sit properly after this. Jay moans as you squirm, loving the way you’re whining and knowing you’re feeling so overstimulated and neglected at the same time.

Suddenly, Jay’s moving you off his lap and onto your back at the head of his bed. Body looming over yours, Jay grabs both of your wrists and thrusts them above your head, his face now inches from yours. Chest still moving rapidly with each haggard breath, Jay looks down at you with that focused stare of his, licking his lips slowly. “Hmm…I have an idea.” The belt comes back into your line of sight and for a moment, you’re slightly scared that he might use it on your clit or chest. You wonder what it would feel like, but also shiver with the thought of the continued torture.

Instead, Jay loops the belt strategically around your wrists and the headboard, completely trapping you in place.

“What?” You tug at your restraints, barely getting any slack.

“Since you can’t keep your hands to yourself and you love playing games, I figured this would be a good punishment for you.” Jay’s hands roam about your naked body freely now, savoring every bump and every curve of you. Wiggling your hips, you try to get free, but he has you fully trapped with both his legs on either side of yours.

“But I want to touch you!” You growl out in frustration, bucking your hips up again and forcing Jay to grab you by your hips to keep you steady.

“Who knew you’d be like this? God…” Jay’s hands begin to roam again now that you’ve calmed down slightly, still huffing at him nonetheless. “Has no one properly put you in your place before?” He laughs at your scowl, “I take that as a no…well it’s an honor to be the one to do it. Act like a brat, get punished like a brat. It’s that simple. Next time you can learn how to communicate like a big girl and just tell me you want me like a normal person instead of purposefully trying to get me riled up so I’ll make the first move.” He flicks a finger playfully against your perked nipple, chuckling again when you wince. 

Settling between your legs, Jay places both palms on your angled knees, rubbing them absentmindedly while pushing your legs apart – putting you on display. Just one look at your glistening folds has his head falling back with a groan, “Oh my god, look at you…damn.” Taking two of his fingers, Jay swipes them against your arousal. A long string connects from his fingers to your core, the sight completely lewd and has you shivering. Jay only groans again, moving his fingers up to his mouth before taking a deep inhale, eyes fluttering shut. Then, he opens his eyes and holds eye contact with you before slowly inserting his digits into his mouth, moaning as the sweet taste of you hits his tongue.

“Jay,” you whimper softly, “you’re making me go crazy.”

He scoffs out a laugh, licking his lips generously now that his fingers are back to your knees. Resuming his soft massages, Jay looks at you with dark clouded eyes. “I’m making you crazy? You have no idea what you’ve been doing to me these past few weeks.” He chuckles again, shaking his head before leaning closer, his face now inches from yours, “You’re going crazy? I’ve been going insane.”

A choked moan forces its way out of your throat because at the exact time he says ‘insane’ he ruts his clothed cock right over your core; the pressure sends an electric shock of pleasure throughout your body, finally feeling contact on your bundle of nerves after being neglected for so long. You desperately want to reach out and cling to his biceps, to dig your fingernails into his skin and finally tear those clothes off of him, but his belt still digs into your wrists. After a moment, you realize something that has you biting down on your bottom lip to suppress your smirk: your fists have been clenched this whole time. 

While Jay is distracted with rutting himself against you, you manage to slip your hands out of your restraints. Before Jay can even notice, your hands are pushing against his chest, knocking him onto his back with your legs now straddling on either side of his hips. You can’t stop the smirk from growing on your face, knowing it’ll only agitate Jay more.

You watch as his confused expression turns aghast. Jay lets out a warning chuckle, closely resembling a scoff as he’s shaking his head back and forth in disbelief. Misleadingly gentle, his hands come up to grab your hips, thumbs tracing over your curves. He takes a moment, eyes roaming unabashedly over your bare body. Adoration is clear in his gaze, but there’s a dark mix of something more, something hungry hiding behind his deep brown eyes.

It feels like you can finally relax, letting your hands roam over his toned chest without worrying about keeping him in place. 

But as soon as you lower your hips and attempt to grind on him, something shifts.

The grip Jay has on your hips tightens and soon enough, you’re laying on your back gasping for breath while he stares down at you. It’s his turn to smirk, proud at how easily he tricked you into thinking you had any sort of control.

“Cute,” he murmurs, dipping his head low to kiss along your jawline, “but not gonna happen.”

With a quick nip at your neck, Jay sits back and rolls you onto your stomach. Your heart is beating so loudly in your ears that you miss his instructions, resulting in another harsh smack against your ass.

“There’s no way a few spankings has you this out of it,” Jay murmurs, “I said put your hands behind your back.” When you don’t immediately do as you're told, Jay grunts and moves your hands to your back on his own. A cold, thick material presses around your wrists that you can only assume is the belt again. 

“Maybe this will teach you to keep your hands to yourself,” he grumbles, cinching the belt so tight around your wrists that you let out a muffled whimper.

Satisfied with his work, Jay leans back, his hands wandering over the expanse of your back down to the swell of your bruised ass before traveling back up again. It’s a simple touch, almost like a massage, yet the action has your breathing quickening, heart racing, and limbs restless as he, yet again, pushes your senses to their limit. Feeling his hands on your bare skin everywhere except where you need him most is torturous, your mind buzzing with the urge to throw a fit until you finally get what you want.

But that’s exactly what he’s hoping for.

You close your eyes and inhale slowly through your nose, exhaling only when you start to feel dizzy. Trying to keep your composure in this situation is one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to do, but your pride is on the line, knowing that if you beg for Jay too eagerly you’ll never hear the end of it.

Lucky for you, Jay isn’t feeling very patient anymore.

Excitement bubbles too quickly in your chest when you hear the sound of his zipper. Craning your neck to try to get a look at him, you’re met with Jay’s growing smirk, hands now moving slower knowing you’re watching him. A low whimper escapes your lips, Jay’s eyes softening with weak fondness.

“Just be patient. I’m not trying to rush this,” Jay murmurs, his smile soft and genuine. It makes your heart flutter, seeing him like this especially after he just spent so long punishing you for teasing him for so long.

Finally, finally, you feel two of his fingers sliding between your folds. An embarrassingly loud moan leaves your lips, making you bite down on your lip hard to try to control yourself. But Jay just chuckles behind you, loving the way your body twitches from no longer being ignored. He sighs longingly, collecting your slick slowly between his fingers, teasing around your clit as he does so. All you can do is keep whimpering, still holding onto what little sanity you have left. You refuse to beg, refuse to apologize for what you’ve done to get yourself in this position.

Much to your surprise (and gratitude), it seems Jay has also forgotten about his plan to make you beg and plead for forgiveness with the way his fingers slowly push into your hole. Curling his fingers slowly, Jay groans quietly. You almost missed it, too distracted with the relief he’s coaxing out of you.

It doesn’t take long for the squelching sounds to fill the room, your arousal quickly coating Jay’s fingers while he diligently curls inside you. His pace is slow but consistent, easily keeping you in a state of bliss while still eager for more.

“Fuck,” Jay groans, “you’re shaking, baby. You need me this bad?”

All you can muster is a pathetic whimper, trying to sneakily move your hips to fuck yourself more on his fingers. You should have known better, though. Nothing gets past Jay, afterall.

With his free hand, Jay brings it down on your left asscheek, kneading your flesh after the abrupt hit. “So impatient. You could have had me all this time if you had only asked.”

“I didn’t want to ruin our friendship,” you whimper again, sighing contently when Jay’s finger brushes against your clit.

“And look where that got you; all pent up and being punished for your childish decisions. But don’t worry, my baby, I’m a patient man and will show you how to behave.” He kisses the spot between your shoulder blades, chills erupting throughout your skin while somehow leaving a burning feeling in his absence.

You try to move your head to the side so you can see him – needing eye contact before saying what you want to say. “Jay–,” Hair falls in your face, cutting off your train of thought. You groan before trying to blow it away with no luck. Chuckling fondly, Jay removes his fingers from your cunt and leans forward, taking his untainted hand to move the disarray strands from your face. Time slows for a moment when you finally see him and it feels like the universe has finally aligned in your favor. You forget all about the fact that your hands are restrained behind your back and your ass is throbbing with pain, but none of it matters because you’re here with him after all this time.

“I really like you, Jay.” 

He playfully rolls his eyes, blinking rapidly while biting his lip. The laugh he lets out is nervously joyful, his eyes softening despite his attempts to appear nonchalant. It feels so good to finally say the words out loud, confessing what’s been weighing on your heart for so long now.

“Well,” Jay says slowly, leaning closer to your face, “if it isn’t obvious…I really like you too, Y/n.” He leans in more, connecting your lips together despite the awkward angle. And it feels like the best kiss you could possibly have in a moment like this. Jay’s lips fit against yours perfectly, so soft, so comforting, so right.

When you finally pull apart, you watch as Jay’s gaze goes from warm and soft, to shadowed and devious. Your heart rate quickens, but before you have a chance to form a coherent thought, Jay sits up and is removing his shirt, barely within your peripheral view.

“I can’t wait any longer.” Jay’s words send a wave of excitement down to your core. You hear his clothes drop to the floor and you desperately want a view of him in all his naked glory. The feeling of something prodding at your hole jolts your system, completely unprepared for the intrusion. Jay’s hands grab your waist gently, repositioning your body to the angle he needs you in. 

Nothing could have prepared you for the feeling of Jay’s cock inside of you. Every curve, every vein is everything you need and more.

“Oh my god,” Jay swears, bottoming out in you, “you feel so perfect. This pussy was made for me.” A sharp smack on your ass has you yelping, completely caught off guard. “Why would you keep this from me for so long?” 

“I told you-”

Smack. The skin on your butt feels bruisingly hot, the sting so deep in your skin unlike anything you've ever felt before. And it feels so fucking good.

“Don’t talk back to me. Apologize. Tell me how sorry you are for keeping this pussy from me.” Him not moving and just sitting inside you is driving you crazy and you’ve had enough; no more holding onto your pride or sanity. You’re ready to lose it all and give anything you have as long as Jay asks for it.

“I’m sorry! Jay, please I’m sorry. I should have told you how I felt sooner.”

“Good fucking girl,” Jay growls and starts pistoning himself in and out of you, his grip tightening on your hips as he guides you into a perfect rhythm with his thrusts. You become a moaning mess, Jay’s pace unrelenting as he finally lets go of his control. The way his cock feels inside of you is a type of ecstacy you would never be able to conjure up in your wildest dreams.

“Oh, fuck!” You scream out when you feel the tip of Jay’s cock hitting the perfect spot. Even though he just started moving, it almost feels overstimulating. All the build up and teasing from before crashes over you in a drowning wave and all you can think about is how good he feels inside of you. He continues to set a steady pace, not faltering for even a moment when he leans down to tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear and out of your face. Your stomach flips at the small act of intimacy during such lewd and aggressive acts of sex.

It doesn’t take long before the knot in your stomach tightens to an unbearable depth. No one has ever made you get even close to an orgasm this quickly, let alone make you a blubbering mess underneath them. The way Jay handles your body…it’s like he’s known all along how you’ve needed to be handled. Maybe it’s the years of friendship coming into play, but the way your bodies connect and respond to one another feels natural, like it was meant to happen. There’s moments where you even catch yourself forgetting that this is the first time you’re having sex with him instead of the hundredth. But that will surely come in the future.

“That’s it, baby. Just like that.” Jay coaxes you through your high, still languidly thrusting into you while you gasp beneath him, body shuddering and quivering from how hard your orgasm hit.

Once you regain some sort of composure, Jay flips you onto your back, your restrained hands digging into your spine. Tears are streaming down your face from everything: the overstimulation, the foreplay, the buildup, the orgasm. When Jay sees your tear stained face, his body stutters. He was just about to insert himself back into you when he sees what a mess he’s made of you. Before he can even insert the tip of his cock back inside you, hand still grasping his own base, he’s coming undone. Spurts of white cum hit all over your body from your chest to your stomach and down to your thighs. Jay’s groan has your heart beating even faster than before as you watch him lose himself at the sight of you, a sense of pride blooming in your chest at the fact that he came so hard just from looking at you.

“Fuck…that’s never happened to me before,” he’s breathing hard, trying to regain his calm demeanor to no avail, “just seeing you like that…I don’t know what came over me.”

“I know what came over me…” you mutter. Jay looks at you for a moment before bursting out in a fit of laughter, you following closely behind. Falling beside you, Jay tucks his head into the crook of your neck, molding his body against yours as your mutual laughter dies down. 

“Let me get you cleaned up,” he murmurs, leaving a featherlight kiss to your neck before sitting up and freeing your wrists from the constraints of his belt. He tosses the belt aside and goes back to massage your wrists gently, looking into your eyes to make sure you’re feeling okay. You nod your head, whispering a quiet “thank you” before he stands up. Stretching, you get a chance to admire the muscles of his back and the way he stands so tall and steady. Something about it is reassuring and you can’t quite place your finger on it, but you know it’s a sight you’ll never get used to.

Disappearing into your bathroom, you hear the sound of running water and cabinet doors being opened and closed. Before long, Jay is in front of you again. Instead of handing you a bundled up wad of toilet paper like other guys have done in the past, Jay presses a warm washcloth against your skin, cleaning up the mess he left behind on your body. The warmth feels soothing, making you sigh and close your eyes as you let him take care of you. 

“Don’t fall asleep yet.”

You groan and roll onto your side facing him with your eyes still closed, “Why? You fucked me so hard I nearly passed out.”

“Because…” the sultry low tone of his voice has your eyes snapping open. Right in front of your face is Jay’s cock, fully erect with new beads of precum dribbling from his slit. Giving a light smack to your cheek with the tip of his dick, Jay chuckles seeing your widened eyes, “we’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for. And we’re just getting started.”

♡ pls like, comment, and reblog if you enjoyed! ♡ masterlist ♡ all rights reserved jayparked 04/11/25 do not copy, repost, or translate. if you're inspired to create something similar to my work, please credit me

[genshinluvr]

The Boyfriend Brigade

Pairings: Various Love&Deepspace Men x reader

Summary: After being away on a solo mission for quite some time, you return to Linkon City feeling unwell. After failing to respond to text messages, you end up getting unexpected visitors and find yourself in a predicament.

Note: I had this fanfic in the drafts for months and couldn't finish it because of how busy I was ;v; but I finally got to finish it! The next update is another LADS update, but this time, it's a smut fic! I'm not sure if it will be separated by character or if all the men are involved in one smut fic. I'll probably have a spinning wheel choose for me. In case anyone is interested in joining, my Discord server is currently open. If you're interested in joining a small community of people who play LADS alongside Hoyoverse games, I'll provide the server link at the end of this fic. Anyway! I don't post anywhere else but on Tumblr (Genshinluvr), Ko-Fi (also Genshinluvr/Aaliah_exo), and AO3 (Aaliah_exo).

Warnings: Mother Nature comes to visit you unannounced, if that counts as one

Word Count: 8.2k

You lean against the tree behind you, trying not to collapse to the ground while in the middle of the woods of a foreign country. You’re exhausted, and things have not been slowing down for you. The metaflux levels are through the roof, and wanderers lurk in every corner, forcing you to stay on high alert (as if you weren’t on high alert already). During the first few weeks of your solo mission, you infiltrated Ever’s secret base two hundred meters from where you’re currently gathering intel on protocores and aether cores. 

Once you have gathered enough information and sent it to the Hunters Association, you continue with your solo mission: handling the wanderers and entering an area with a high protofield. Is it a smart idea to enter a protofield all alone? No, no, it’s not a bright idea, especially now that you’re dealing with endless hordes of wanderers in the woods, sniffing you out like a bloodhound. 

You’re not injured— or at least not horribly injured— but you are feeling under the weather. You barely have the chance to get some rest and sleep. You’re always on your feet, constantly looking over your shoulders to make sure that there aren’t any wanderers ready to strike while you’re trying to take a breather. After what felt like forever, it could be longer than you expected, but you digress— the protofield is stabilized, and you can finally rest after who knows how long. But before you can relax, you decide to return to Linkon City and report to Captain Jenna about your completed mission. On your flight back to Linkon City, you’re knocked out and sleep until one of the flight attendants (bless her heart) wakes you up from your slumber. 

You didn’t inform anyone of your return to Linkon, so you didn’t expect anyone to pick you up from the airport. Usually, it would be Zayne who picks you up from the airport, and sometimes it’s Sylus. So, here you are, sitting at the bus stop, waiting for the bus to arrive. 

Your eyelids feel heavy, and you can barely remain conscious. You lean against the bus stop, trying your best not to nod off. You pull your phone out from your pocket and turn it on. Once your phone finally has connection, a slew of notifications pop up on your screen. From text messages to phone calls to video calls, it just keeps popping up now that your phone has a decent connection after who knows how long. 

RAFAYEL:

“Miss Bodyguard, when are you going to be back from your dangerous solo mission? Personally, I don’t think you should be doing this mission alone, but that’s just me.”

“I don’t want to have an art exhibit without you present. You’re my number one supporter and my bodyguard! I can’t go anywhere without you by my side!” 

“Thomas is talking my ears off about it, and I’m trying everything I can to ignore him, but he’s  giving me this look.”

“Miss Bodyguardddddddd. When are you coming home? :(” 

“Are you back yet?”

SYULS:

“Kitten, I will be expecting you to return to Linkon City unscathed. Do not do anything reckless, alright? Always be two steps ahead of your enemies and know their weaknesses.” 

“Kick their asses, and don’t let them kick yours. Show them what I have taught you in the boxing ring.”

“I will see you soon, alright? I want you to return to me safe and sound. If anyone lays their hands on you, tell me who they are, and I’ll take care of everything.”

“Luke and Kieran keep pestering me about your return to the N109 Zone.”

“I found something interesting in Mephisto’s nest today. I believe these are your earrings and bracelets. [PHOTO ATTACHMENT] Mephisto loves shiny things, and he so happens to take a liking to your jewelry.”

ZAYNE:

“How is your mission coming along?”

“Are you resting? Make sure not to overexert yourself, and make sure to eat plenty of food.”

“It’s been a few days since I’ve heard from you. You are safe, right?”

“If you need any assistance, I am one phone call away.”

“Text me back when you get this message.”

XAVIER:

“Make sure not to storm into the protofield recklessly.”

“Let me know when your mission is completed. I want to be the first person you see when you return from your mission.”

“I made sure to water the plants on your balcony and organize the plushies in your room. They are waiting for your return, and I am waiting for your reply.”

“I hope you do not have to resort to this, but if you are in any danger and cannot complete your solo mission, don’t hesitate to call me for help. I will be there in a heartbeat.”

“It’s been a while since I sent my previous message, and I still haven’t heard back from you. Are you alright? Do you need me to step in to help you?”

Before you can unlock your phone to answer any of the text messages you have received, the screen suddenly goes black. You close your eyes and slump in your seat at the bus stop, realizing that you did not charge your phone at all before boarding the plane. Now that your phone is dead, you have no way to contact any of the four men to inform them of your return to Linkon City.

“This is fine,” You mutter, too exhausted to do anything. “I’ll message them once I charge my phone.”

When the bus finally arrives, you sit close to the back of the bus with your belongings and close your eyes. It’ll be a fifteen-minute drive to the nearest bus stop near your apartment, so you might as well sit back and get some shut-eye before arriving home. When the bus arrives at the bus stop a block from your apartment, you nearly miss your stop due to your nap. You stumble off the bus and trudge toward the direction of your apartment, still groggy from your nap on the bus. 

A small gust of air causes you to tense up and shiver. You hug yourself with one arm while dragging your luggage with the other, now realizing how cold you are. Despite feeling like a walking popsicle, your body is also covered in a thin layer of sweat. Dear goodness, you must look like a mess to whoever lays their eyes on you.

Everything is a blur after, and you find yourself collapsing on your couch after closing and locking your apartment door. Your luggage is abandoned next to the shoe rack, while one boot is beside the luggage, and the other lies beside your couch. You’re too tired to change out of your clothes and go to your bedroom. Your entire body is aching, and every limb feels like lead. You shift on the couch, digging your hands into your pockets to take your dead phone out of your pockets before tossing it onto the coffee table.

Once you get that out of the way, you curl up into a fetal position and hug your knees to your chest. Your body wracks with shivers when a wave of chills washes over your body as you slowly drift off to a dreamless sleep.

- Two Days Later -

Rafayel steps out of the elevator and turns to the right, walking towards a specific apartment. Before choosing to stop by his precious bodyguard’s apartment, Rafayel realizes that all of his messages are left on read. Now, Rafayel may not be much of a texter (only when it comes to other people who aren’t you), but seeing his messages being left on read with little to no response drives him up the wall. However, since you’re the cutest and most precious person in the world, Rafayel lets you off the hook. 

“She’s probably busy with the Hunters Association debriefing.” Is what Rafayel would say to himself, trying to bury the clenching feeling in his chest. But as time goes by, Rafayel will find himself opening the message between you and him, staring at the “READ” receipt at the bottom of his message— still no response from you, not even a phone call, voice message, video call, nothing. 

Rafayel doesn’t want to be seen as clingy, but he can’t help but crave for your attention, your voice, your laughter, your touch, you, you, you. Rafayel checks the tracking device he left on you (he did it for your safety) and sees that you’re at your apartment and not in some foreign country the last time he checked! Rafayel pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue, letting out a long exhale through his nose.

“I guess she wants me to be the one to stop by this time,” Rafayel mutters before standing up. “Thomas, I’m heading out. It seems like Miss Bodyguard wants me to stop by her place.”

Thomas looks up from his phone, watching the Lemurian man grab his coat and car keys. Before Thomas can say anything, Rafayel is already out the front door, closing the door behind him. Thomas sighs, shaking his head.

As Rafayel approaches closer to your apartment, Rafayel slowly stops in his tracks. Rafayel’s mood worsens after seeing familiar faces in front of your apartment door. Just when Rafayel thinks he’s going to be your first and only visitor after you return from your mission, three other men have the same plan in mind. Rafayel stops before the three men, sensing tension among the trio. 

Zayne chuckles dryly. “I see we all have the same intention,” Zayne mutters, his gaze flickering from Xavier and Sylus to Rafayel. “You three don’t need to be here. As her primary care physician, it is my duty to check up on her to make sure she’s okay.”

Xavier smiles at Zayne and crosses his arms over his chest. “Dr. Zayne, while I understand that you’re [Y/N]’s primary care physician, I’m her coworker and neighbor. I believe that I have every right to check up on her after not hearing back from her in a while.”

Zayne and Xavier continue to stare at each other; both men have fake smiles on their faces. Sylus chuckles, shaking his head while tapping on his temples as he watches the tension rise between your so-called coworker and primary care physician. 

Rafayel narrows his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest, puffing his chest out as he nods in Sylus’s direction. “And what about you?”

Sylus looks at Rafayel with amusement, pointing at himself. Rafayel nods, pressing his lips into a thin line as he waits for Sylus to respond. “Oh, [Y/N] and I are—” Sylus is cut off by the sound of footsteps approaching the door. The three men (Sylus, Xavier, and Zayne) take a step back, going silent as they try to hear other things coming from behind the door. Finally! Finally, you’re going to show your cute face to them all, reassuring them you’re okay and that you’re trying to recharge after a draining mission.

In a perfect world, that’s how everything will go down. In each man’s fantasy, they imagine you telling the other men to go home so you and he can spend time together after not seeing each other for a while. However, no one lives in a perfect world, no matter how much they hope. The doorknob wiggles, and a faint click and beep comes from the door. What everyone expects to see is you in a sleepy haze, answering the door in your cozy pajamas with an extreme bedhead, rubbing your eyes, and yawning. What they all did not expect to see is—

“Hello there! Is there anything I can help you all with?” A boy-next-door voice asks.

— A man in his mid-twenties answering your door… the very same door that belongs to your apartment. The man has black hair and French lilac with a hint of rose gold accents in his eyes, and he’s tall, perhaps the same height as Sylus. Maybe a little shorter than the Onychinus leader. Zayne tenses up the minute he and the mysterious black-haired man lock eyes. 

Shit. They didn’t get the wrong apartment, did they? Rafayel quickly glances at the apartment number above the door to make sure he (and the others) didn’t get the wrong apartment, but it’s the correct apartment, and Rafayel can see your signature furniture behind the man’s shoulders.

A look of surprise flashes over the man’s face before being replaced by a wide smile, and he crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the doorframe of your apartment. “Zayne! It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other!” The man says.

Rafayel’s eyes dart between the two black-haired men, looking at them incredulously. “You two know each other!?” Rafayel blurts, grabbing Zayne and the mysterious black-haired man’s attention.

“Of course! We've known each other since we were children,” the black-haired man replies. “Isn’t that right, Zayne?” He smiles, tilting his head to the side as he waits for Zayne’s response.

Zayne nods. “That is correct. Caleb and I have known each other since we were children.”

Silence falls over the five men, no one saying a single thing. Rafayel puffs his cheeks out and sighs, crossing his arms over his chest while leaning on one leg before switching to the other. This Caleb guy is close friends with your primary care physician, but what is Caleb’s relationship with you? Surely you’re not dating this man, are you? Could he be your brother, by chance?

Xavier is the first person to break the silence. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you in [Y/N]’s apartment?”

A look of surprise flashes over Caleb’s face. Caleb smiles and stands straight, propping both hands on his hips. “I’m here to take care of [Y/N]. I messaged her not long ago to let her know that I’m in Linkon, but she never replied. So, I took that as an opportunity to stop by her apartment to check up on her,” Caleb replies.

Sylus raises his eyebrows at Caleb’s reply, eyeing the man from head to toe— almost as if he’s sizing Caleb up. “How did you enter [Y/N]’s apartment? You didn’t happen to, oh, I don’t know, break into her apartment while she’s asleep, did you?” Sylus asks, narrowing his eyes at the black-haired man.

Caleb raises his hand before digging one hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out a key. “Me? Breaking into [Y/N]’s apartment? I would never,” Caleb rolls his eyes. “And for your information, she gave me a spare key a while back.”

Sylus briefly glances at the key in Caleb’s hand before continuing what he’s doing prior: sizing Caleb up (or at least that’s what it looks like to others around Sylus). The more Caleb stares at Sylus, the more he notices that Sylus’s eyes have a faint glow. Caleb breaks eye contact with the white-haired man before laughing bitterly.

“I assume you all want to check up on [Y/N]. I’m afraid I cannot let you all into her apartment as of now due to her current condition,” Caleb states, now crossing his arms over his chest.

That catches the four men’s attention immediately. Not only does it bother them that they’re not allowed to see you after not seeing you in a while, but the vagueness of Caleb’s response irks them to no end. 

Xavier takes a step forward, his eyebrows furrowing. “What do you mean by her current condition? She’s not hurt, is she?” Xavier frowns, his heart pounding in his chest.

Caleb sighs, unsure of whether he should explain the situation to the three unfamiliar men and Zayne. Residents of the apartment weave through the four men in the hallway to get to their apartment and the elevator, grumbling about people taking up space and being inconsiderate. Caleb presses his lips into a thin line before gesturing for the four men to enter the apartment so they wouldn’t block the hallway for the residents. 

After everyone is in the apartment, Caleb closes and locks the apartment door. Zayne, Sylus, Xavier, and Rafayel each take their shoes off and put on the spare slippers on the shoe rack. Caleb observes each man closely, mildly miffed over the fact that they know about the (now) unspoken rule when entering your apartment: shoes are to be taken off and put on house slippers. Everyone slowly migrates to the living room, some sitting on your couch while others refuse to sit. 

Caleb takes a deep breath. “[Y/N]’s sick,” Caleb says. Caleb looks at each person’s face to see their reaction.

The frown on Zayne’s face deepens as he crosses his arms over his chest, eyebrows furrowing with worry. “How long has she been sick?” Zayne demands, his eyes occasionally lingering in the direction of your bedroom. 

“I don’t know how long she’s been like this, but whenever I stopped by not long ago, she was unconscious on the couch. I carried her to her room and made sure she changed into loose and comfortable clothes. Thankfully, she took her medication when I handed her cold medicine. However, it seems her sickness has gotten worse overnight.”

Rafayel’s eyes widen with disbelief and horror. “Worse?! What do you mean by worse? Miss Bodyguar— [Y/N]’s not going to die, is she!?”

Zayne pinches the bridge of his nose, shaking his head after hearing Rafayel’s ridiculous question. Xavier and Sylus look at Rafayel with a questioning gaze while Caleb chuckles with amusement, shaking his head. 

Xavier crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back against the couch. “If she’s sick, then why didn’t she let any of us know about her condition?”

Sylus looks at the coffee table and sees your phone lying face down. “She’s either too drained to reply to our messages to inform us of her whereabouts or…” Sylus trails off, reaching for your phone. Sylus presses the button on the side of your phone, expecting your phone to light up. But alas, your phone doesn’t turn on, even if he presses down the button for ten seconds. “She forgot to charge her phone, and her phone is dead.”

Zayne turns toward Caleb and says, “As her primary care physician, it’s my job to check up on her.”

Caleb holds his hands up in a surrender gesture. “I know that, Zayne. I’m not stopping you from checking up on [Y/N]. She’s still sleeping in her room. I tried getting her to eat something, but she refused. She only took cold medicine before going back to sleep,” Caleb says, frowning.

Caleb gestures for Zayne to follow him before turning around and walking towards your closed bedroom door. Caleb grabs the door handle and quietly opens the door. Zayne and Caleb peek their heads into your bedroom to see you out cold on your bed, buried under mountains of blankets. Caleb opens the door wider before entering your room, with Zayne following close behind. The other three men stand by the doorway, eyes glued on your unconscious body.

“If [Y/N] wanted something to warm her up as she sleeps, she could’ve just asked me,” Rafayel mutters, leaning against the doorframe. 

Zayne kneels at the edge of your bed, eyes scanning your face. He presses the back of his hand against your forehead. You sigh with relief when you feel something cool press up against your hot forehead. You subconsciously lean into Zayne’s cool touch, wanting more of his touch to cool you down.

“You said she hasn’t eaten anything, correct?” Zayne mutters, looking at Caleb.

Caleb nods wordlessly, his eyes never leaving your face. “She has not, unfortunately. Again, I tried to convince her to eat the congee I’ve cooked, but she just wanted to sleep,” Caleb replies, now standing beside Zayne. 

The chatter around you slowly brings you back to consciousness. You crack your eyes open and look around your bedroom with bleary eyes. You mumble incoherent words, grabbing the attention of the five men around you. Upon seeing you awake, the men remaining at the doorway of your bedroom rush over to where you lie. Your body heat and the mountains of blankets over your body cause you to squirm as you struggle to sit up and push the blankets off your body. 

Xavier and Zayne help you sit on your bed while Rafayel fluffs the pillow behind you, cushioning your back against the bed frame. Sylus hands you a cup of water to drink after seeing you rub your throat while wincing. You weakly smile at Sylus before taking huge gulps of water. 

Xavier chuckles, sitting beside you, and tucks your hair behind your ear. “Careful, now. You wouldn’t want to choke, now, would you?” Xavier murmurs, wiping the droplet of water from the corner of your lips after you downed the cup of water. 

You shakily place the cup on your nightstand, leaning your head against the wall, and stare at your lap. No one says anything as they stare at you, waiting for you to say or do something. You rub your eyes with your knuckles, still groggy from your sleep. It feels nice to finally be home after a long mission, but you’re sick, and you feel like you got hit by a bullet train.

“Are you hungry, pipsqueak?” Caleb asks, rubbing your head affectionately before fixing your bedhead. 

You shake your head. “No, I’m okay.” You lie.

Before anyone can say anything, the silence is broken by a loud rumbling in your stomach. You clear your throat and hug your pillow to your chest, ignoring the gnawing feeling in your gut. You’re starving, but you don’t want to eat. 

Sylus frowns, crossing his arms over his chest as he scrutinizes you. “Sweetie, just because you’re sick and tired doesn’t mean you should starve yourself,” Sylus lectures you, shaking his head with disapproval. “If you don’t eat anything, how else will you recover from your illness, hm?”

You stare at the Onychinus leader with a visible pout on your face. The way you stare at Sylus makes him feel weak at the knees. You resemble a stray kitten found in a downpour— pathetic but cute. 

“Maybe she doesn’t want to eat congee. Is it possible she wants to eat something else?” Rafayel mutters, stroking his chin. “Hey, cutie. What do you want to eat? Definitely not boring old congee, right?” Rafayel jokes.

Caleb raises an eyebrow at Rafayel’s comment, turning to you. You press your lips into a thin line and think for a minute. You don’t mind eating congee since it's easy to stomach, but you’re not entirely sure if you want to eat the same thing over and over until you’re no longer sick. The congee Caleb makes is delicious, but you want something new and easy to eat, similar to congee, but without eating congee itself. 

“How about I make you some chicken soup? It has plenty of nutrients your body needs in order to recover from an illness.” Xavier says, grabbing hold of your hand and gently squeezing them.

Hearing Xavier offer to cook you something to eat nearly has you in tears. It’s not like you don’t want Xavier to cook you food—actually, it is that. You love Xavier and his willingness to cook something for you to eat, but cooking isn’t his best suit. Xavier looks at you worriedly after not hearing a response from you. The puppy dog eyes Xavier has on his face is killing you.

Zayne clears his throat, sighing to himself. “Chicken soup is a good option if you don’t want to eat congee. Caleb can cook the chicken soup while I get your medication. Xavier, Rafayel, and Sylus can keep you entertained.”

You nearly cry in relief when Zayne says it’s going to be Caleb who’s going to cook the chicken soup for you to eat (sorry, Xavier). You nod, immediately agreeing to Zayne’s suggestion. After Zayne and Caleb leave your room, you lie back down and hug your pillow. You notice Sylus slip out of your bedroom for a moment, but instead of heading to your living room, he goes straight to your bathroom.

Rafayel pouts, staring at you like an angry toddler. “You don’t want to cuddle me, cutie? After not seeing each other for such a long time, you don’t want to cuddle to make up for the lost time?” Rafayel grumbles, his bottom lip jutting out as he plops down at the edge of your bed.

Xavier glares at Rafayel before looking elsewhere. “It’s not a good idea to cuddle with someone while they’re sick. [Y/N] still has a fever, and cuddling her will only add to the discomfort,” Xavier lectures Rafayel.

Rafayel rolls his eyes before lying down on you, his head resting on your lap as he grabs your hand, completely disregarding Xavier’s lecture and glare. Rafayel laces his fingers with yours and presses a gentle kiss on your knuckles. “Nothing is going to stop me from cuddling with you, cutie. Unless you demand personal space, then it’s too bad because I’m here to stay,” Rafayel states, smirking over in Xavier’s direction.

Xavier’s nostrils flare, and his hands clenched into tight fists. “You—”

“Now, now, gentlemen. I believe now is not the right time to be bickering with one another. You two will only make [Y/N]’s headache worse the more you argue with one another. We wouldn’t want that, now would we?” Sylus clicks his tongue with disapproval as he exits your bathroom with a wet cloth in his hand. 

Sylus sits at the edge of your bed near your head, brushing your damp hair away from your face and forehead. You stare at Sylus, watching him fold the small hand towel in half before placing the cool, wet towel over your forehead. 

You sigh with contentment. “That feels really nice,” you murmur, closing your eyes. “Thank you, Sylus.”

“Anything for you, kitten. Now, get some rest. I’ll wake you up when it’s time for you to eat,” Sylus murmurs, leaning down to kiss your cheek.

Rafayel and Xavier stare at Sylus with their mouths agape and eyebrows furrowing. Sylus chuckles and shakes his head at their reactions before getting up from your bed. “Make sure to behave, you two. You wouldn’t want another lecture from Dr. Zayne and Caleb, now, would you?”

Rafayel and Xavier glance at each other from the corner of their eyes before watching the leader of Onychinus peer from your bedroom door to see what Zayne and Caleb are doing. You pull the blanket up to your chin and slowly fall into a dreamless sleep.

- 40 Minutes Later -

“How in the world did she fall asleep already?”

“Yeah, she can be a pretty heavy sleeper when she’s sick.” You hear Caleb laugh.

Sylus sighs. “Sweetie, you need to wake up and eat. You can’t skip your meals while you’re sick.”

The voices around you continue to chatter, making it nearly impossible to fall asleep, but not impossible enough to stop you from doing so. You’re not sure how long you’ve been asleep, but when you open your eyes, you find yourself sitting on the couch with the blanket draped over your thighs. 

You smack your lips together, rubbing your eyes with your knuckles, almost struggling to lift your arms. You furrow your eyebrows, annoyed you can’t get your limbs to function. Your head is resting on the couch cushion, nearly lulling you to sleep again. 

“Oh, no, you don’t! Don’t fall asleep on us now, cutie.” Rafayel protests, rushing over to your side and gently patting and poking your cheeks to keep you conscious.

You softly whine, struggling to grab hold of Rafayel’s hand. You open your eyes, only to see how close Rafayel’s face is to yours. You stare at him, confused. Rafayel sighs in relief and slowly backs away, now sitting beside you. Your head droops forward as you try to fight off the need to sleep. How in the world did you get on this couch?

Xavier kneels beside you, grabbing your hand. “You don’t remember what happened before you were carried to the living room?” Xavier asks, staring into your bleary eyes.

You shake your head. “Not really.”

Caleb places a food tray on your lap and then sets down a bowl of chicken soup and cutlery in front of you. The bowl has shredded chicken with chicken broth, chopped carrots, and celery. The aroma of the soup is so delicious that it causes your stomach to let out a growl that’s loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

Zayne sits to the right of you. “Do you want to take your medication now, or do you want to take it after you finish your lunch?” Zayne asks, holding up the bottle of cold medicine.

You stare at the bottle, hesitant about taking the medication again. You should really get new cold medicine because the one Zayne is holding makes you feel nauseous every time you take it. Could it be because you took the medication on an empty stomach? You point at the chicken soup before scooping the broth and shredded chicken with the spoon, and begin eating the soup that Caleb cooked for you to eat.

When you pick up a piece of carrot with your chopsticks, Zayne visibly narrows his eyes at the orange vegetable and watches you bite the soft vegetable. Caleb chuckles, shaking his head at Zayne’s reaction to seeing a carrot.

“You still don’t like carrots, Zayne?” Caleb teases, crossing his arms over his chest.

Zayne clears his throat, almost rolling his eyes. “What about you? Do you still hate cilantro?” Zayne mutters, looking at Caleb from the corner of his eye.

Rafayel, Xavier, and Sylus glance at each other while internally questioning the strange interaction between Zayne and Caleb. Caleb and Zayne said they were “childhood friends,” but the way they’re acting with each other says the complete opposite. The others around Caleb and Zayne can almost visibly see electricity spark between the two men, the more they shoot not-so-subtle glares at each other. If this continues, the two could burn down your (and Xavier’s) apartment building.

You set your chopsticks down on the bowl when you feel a sharp pain in your lower abdomen. You try to ignore the pain and grab the spoon, taking small sips of the chicken broth, hoping the warm soup will ease the pain in your abdomen. Your stomach isn’t hurting; in fact, it hasn’t been hurting since you returned to Linkon City. You start listing the possibilities of what can make your abdomen hurt while sipping your soup.

You haven’t eaten much since your return to Linkon City, so the possibility of eating something “bad” is out of the question. But that’s stomach pain, not lower abdominal pain. Wait— When was the last time you had your period? 

Xavier squeezes your hand, pulling you out of your thoughts. “What’s wrong?” He whispers, leaning over and staring at you intently. “Do you not like the soup? Would you prefer for me to cook you something instead?”

You blink at Xavier, slowly shaking your head. “The soup is fine, but…” You trail off, feeling the familiar pain return. “I don’t think I’ll be able to finish this soup.” 

The men around you peek into the bowl to see how much soup you have left, and you barely make a dent in the soup. You’ve probably eaten three slices of carrots and four shredded chicken and sipped the broth around two or three times, but either way, you’re not even close to finishing the chicken soup that Caleb made for you.

“Can you try to finish at least half of the soup? You don’t have to finish the entire thing, but half would suffice,” Sylus suggests, gazing at you worriedly. 

You stare at the soup, sighing. It’s not like you’re full, it’s just that the cramps you’re suddenly feeling are making it hard for you to want to finish your food. The longer you stare at your food, the more you can feel holes being burned into the back of your head from how hard the five men around you are staring at you.

You grab the food tray and place it on the ground before getting up from the couch. Just when you thought the cramps you were feeling a moment ago were bad, they just got worse the minute you stood up. You clear your throat, acting like you’re not being stabbed in the abdomen over and over by a box cutter. You point to the bathroom, letting them know you’ll be right back before sprinting away. During your journey to the bathroom, you feel the familiar sense of dread fall over you when, you’re assuming, blood starts gushing out of your lady bits. 

You accidentally slam the bathroom door shut behind you as you rush to the toilet, pull your pajama pants and underwear down. You grit your teeth and silently groan at the sight. That’s going to leave an ugly stain. 

“Maybe you’re the reason why I’m sick,” you grumble, poking at where your uterus is located. “Dropping by for a week-long visit with no notice ahead of time is absolutely foul.”

You remain on the toilet, letting the blood drip out of you as you wipe the blood from your panties. Well, at least you didn’t bleed through and stain your pajama pants. You reach into the sink cabinet, searching for your pads and tampons, only to find nothing. Your heart falls into the pit of your stomach, causing you to lurch forward on the toilet, peeking your head into the cabinet to double-check if you may have misplaced it somewhere.

You shake your head, in denial. “Fuck. Please tell me I didn’t forget to restock my pads and tampons,” you whisper.

“Everything alright in there, pipsqueak?” Caleb knocks on the door.

You close the sink cabinet with silent defeat, flush the toilet after wiping (a lot of wiping), fold toilet paper, and place it in your underwear as a temporary pad. You pull up your pants and underwear, waddling to the door. You crack the door open, peeking out to see Caleb and the others standing outside the bathroom door. 

You press your lips into a thin line and proceed to push past them, walking straight to your closet to pull out clean clothes to change into after your shower. It’s probably not the best idea to shower while you’re sick, but right now, it’s very much needed. You stop in your tracks, sighing. You still need to restock pads and tampons.

“What’s wrong, sweetie? You look distraught,” Sylus says, approaching you.

God, he’s so tall.

“Huh?” You blink at the Onychinus leader owlishly.

Sylus smirks, letting out an amused laugh, and crosses his arms over his chest. “You really are out of it, aren’t you?” He teases, now standing in front of you, and presses his hands against your forehead. “You shouldn’t be showering when you have a fever, kitten.”

You frown at Sylus, feeling all sorts of emotions hitting you like a brick wall. You’re angry that your period started, you’re also sad because you completely forgot to restock your tampons and pads, you’re humiliated that you stained your panties with your blood and now have to use toilet paper as a temporary pad, but you’re so tired and in so much pain.

You want to cry, but you also want to scream and obliterate the entire planet. Of all people, why you and why now? Sylus tilts his head to get a better look at your face; his gaze softens when he sees the look on your face. Before Sylus can say anything, you drop your clothes and bury your face into his chest, sighing. 

Rafayel takes a cautious step forward. “What’s wrong, cutie? It’s okay if you’re too tired to finish your soup. We won’t force you to eat,” Rafayel says softly.

You press your cheek against Sylus’s chest, peeking at Rafayel and the others with a pout. God, this is making you feel even worse. You shake your head, closing your eyes. You shudder, feeling like a stepped ketchup packet.

Xavier rubs your back, eyebrows knitted together with worry. “Please tell us what’s wrong. You seem to be doing far worse before you went to the bathroom,” Xavier pleads, pulling you away from Sylus.

“You guys know that I’m sick, right?” You mutter, sitting on the edge of your bed. 

The men around you nod, slowly migrating over to your bed.

You sigh, rubbing your eyes with your knuckle. “Well, turns out, I’m also menstruating! Yippee! Hooray! Someone please kill me and end my suffering.” You plop over on your bed and rub your temples. “Oh, and to top it all off, I completely forgot to restock my tampons and pads! Things just keep getting better and better!”

You grab your pillow, tempted to take yourself out of your misery. Instead, you hold yourself back and hug it against your chest, zoning out. Caleb makes a noise, grabbing your attention. You look over at Caleb to see him staring at his phone, stroking his chin.

��That makes sense on why I’ve been getting notifications about your menstruation cycle nearing,” Caleb says nonchalantly. 

You stare at Caleb owlishly. “You keep track of my period?” You ask with millions of questions running through your mind rapidly.

“I do too,” Rafayel says, waving his phone. “In fact, I just got notified that your period should be starting sometime this week, but it looks like it starts today! I should mark it.”

You sit up, ignoring the feeling of your blood staining your temporary “pad.” Wait, since when did they keep track of your period? 

Noticing the clueless look on your face, Zayne pats your head with a small smile. “In case you forgot, which, judging by the look on your face, you did, you wanted me to keep track of your cycle. By the looks of it, it seems like I’m not the only one who’s tracking your cycle,” Zayne says, looking over at the others.

You stare at the five men blankly, with your mouth agape, when the others show you their phone screens. You look at the ceiling, trying to recall the time when you asked them to keep track of your period. Well, at least you won’t have to worry about forgetting your impending cycle when you have five people who will notify you about it before it happens. Today, however, is different. No warning signs at all— well, maybe you getting sick is the warning of your impending menstrual cycle, and having no pads and tampons stocked in your bathroom is the worst situation to be in. 

Xavier strokes your hair. “If you want, you can go take a shower while we go to the store to buy you some pads and tampons,” Xavier murmurs, gazing at you with those adorable puppy dog eyes of his.

“If we do that, someone’s going to need to stay back and keep watch of [Y/N],” Caleb interjects, crossing his arms over his chest. “I know [Y/N] long enough to know what products she uses.”

You groan and flop over on your stomach. You can’t believe Caleb wants someone to babysit you while they go out to buy you menstrual products. You’re an adult, you can be left alone in your apartment while they’re out shopping at the nearest store. It’s not like you will bleed out and die if they leave you all by yourself. Plus, this isn’t your first rodeo as a menstruating woman, a hunter to be exact. 

After convincing all five of your lovely guests to let you be alone in your apartment while they go out to restock your menstrual products, you find yourself sitting in the shower, staring at the tiles. You watch the blood and shampoo trickle into the drain, wincing when another wave of cramps hits you. You lean against the shower wall, questioning everything. You have no idea how long you’ve been in the shower, but you truly hope that Caleb, Zayne, Xavier, Rafayel, and Sylus return before you’re done taking a shower.

Meanwhile…

Zayne walks to the cash register with three boxes of pads in one hand and a box of dessert from the store’s bakery in the other. Zayne stops in his tracks when he sees the other four, raising an eyebrow at them as they approach the cardiac surgeon. 

“Five boxes of tampons! [Y/N] won’t have to worry about running out of menstrual products for the next few months!” Rafayel says, looking smug.

Xavier scratches his head, holding up four boxes of both pads and tampons, each one different from the other. “I bought one of each for [Y/N]. If I remember correctly, she said her period flows tend to be different and unpredictable each month and day.”

The others nod and murmur with approval, earning a shy yet satisfied smile from Xavier. Everyone turns to look at Caleb, your childhood friend and Zayne’s childhood and maybe current love rival. 

Caleb laughs, shaking his head. “Wow, all of you went all out. I, on the other hand, got her the period essentials,” he says, holding up a shopping basket that contains pads, tampons, a couple of your favorite snacks, a heatable teddy bear, and a soft throw blanket. 

Zayne hums, mentally critiquing Caleb’s cart. Despite there being differences between Zayne and Caleb, Zayne approves of Caleb’s cart. Everyone turns to look at Sylus, who came empty-handed. Everyone’s silently judging the leader of Onychinus. Sylus chuckles, tapping on his temples before crossing his arms over his chest.

“While you all were shopping around, I put in a bulk order of pads, tampons, and wipes that will be delivered to [Y/N]’s apartment. It should be there by the time we return to her apartment,” Sylus says, glancing at the watch around his wrist.

Rafayel looks at Sylus with wide eyes, a mix of horror and awe. “Bulk order?! Are you implying [Y/N] is going to get warehouse-level type of shipments to her apartment?” Rafayel asks.

“Yes, because I don’t want her to worry about having to run back to the store to restock her menstrual products,” Sylus says nonchalantly, propping his hands on his hips. 

Caleb scrutinizes Sylus, propping one hand on his hip. “Where did you get the money to do all of this, Sylus?”

Sylus smiles, waving off the skeptical looks thrown his way. “I’m just a fruit vendor with a very successful business, that is all.”

- 15 Minutes Later -

You shut off the water and grab your towel, wrapping it around your body. You stand in the shower, debating whether you should step out and get dressed or wait for the others to return with pads and tampons. A knock on the bathroom door interrupts your thoughts, making you nearly cry out in relief. Oh, thank goodness you won’t have to make a temporary pad out of toilet paper!

You leave the shower and walk to the door, unlocking it. You crack the door open and take a peek. Zayne, Caleb, Rafayel, and Xavier are holding bags of pads and tampons. No Sylus in sight. 

Noticing your questioning gaze, Zayne gestures to the door leading to the living room. “Sylus is stocking your storage room. You’ll understand when you’re done with your shower,” Zayne says. 

You sigh in relief. You thanked the four men before grabbing a random bag from one of their hands, closing the door, and getting dressed. After changing and securing your underwear, you unlock and open the bathroom door. Caleb helps you with restocking the pads and tampons in your bathroom while Xavier and Rafayel help Zayne with throwing the boxes away.

“Where is Sylus?” You mutter, closing the sink cabinet door.

Caleb shrugs. “Probably still stocking up the storage room,” Caleb replies. 

Caleb wraps his arm around your shoulders before leaving the bathroom with you. When you and Caleb step into the living room, you stop in your tracks when you see Xavier, Zayne, and Rafayel helping Sylus stock your apartment storage room. You look at Caleb, who shrugs in response to your questioning gaze. 

You leave Caleb’s side, approaching the four men while trying to peek from their shoulders to see what they’re doing. Xavier and Rafayel move out of the way for you to look; your eyes nearly pop out of your skull after seeing your storage room, once empty, now completely full of boxes of pads, tampons, and wet wipes.

You look at Sylus, who reminds you of a smug cat showing his owner his successful hunt. “This was your doing, wasn’t it?” You ask.

“Well, of course it is, sweetie. I don’t want you to worry about restocking your menstrual products for the next few months. If you happen to use up the entire stock, then you can always let me know, and I will have them restocked in no time,” Sylus says.

Next few months?! You look back at the storage room, filled to the brim with boxes of pads, tampons, and wipes. Maybe it’s your period that’s making you emotional, or the fact that these men care about you so much that they would go out of their way to buy as many boxes of pads and tampons for you, you find it very touching. You can’t help but tear up at the sweet gesture, causing mass panic among the five men.

“Cutie, why are you crying?! You’re not in pain, are you!?” Rafayel asks, grabbing you by the shoulders and staring at you with pure panic.

You laugh and cover your face, bending over to avoid their worried stares. Rafayel looks at the others, unsure of what to do aside from pulling you into his arms and cradling you, patting your back. You wipe the tears running down your cheeks and let yourself loosen up in Rafayel’s arms, sighing.

“What do you want to do now, pipsqueak? Do you want to finish your food now or later?” Caleb trails off, stroking your hair.

You continue clinging to Rafayel, peeking over at the untouched (and most likely cold) soup. “Can we watch a movie first? I’m not really in the mood to eat right now. Maybe I’ll be hungry after we finish a movie,” you mutter, peeking at Caleb and the others.

Each man agreed to your proposal and began setting the living room up for the impromptu movie night. When everyone starts to settle down for the movie, they all leave space for you to sit next to them—lots of space. You prop your hands on your hips, unsure of where to sit, while these men subtly glare at each other. 

“Can you guys scoot a little closer?” You ask, gesturing for everyone to move in.

Caleb, Sylus, Zayne, Xavier, and Rafayel reluctantly scoot closer to each other. When they stop to look at you, you shake your head with disapproval and continue to gesture for them to move closer. Once they’re finally sitting side by side, thighs touching, you nod with approval. You grab the throw blanket that Caleb bought for you and drape the blanket over their laps, ignoring the confused stares thrown your way. You grab a plushie that works as a pillow and place it on Sylus’s lap. You walk to the light switch, turn the living room lights off before returning to where the others are waiting for you, still confused about what you’re plotting. On your way back, you grab the spare plush blanket that hangs from the armrest of the sofa. This is probably the most you’ve moved around since returning from your solo mission. 

You briefly sit on Zayne’s lap before lying down on everyone’s lap. If these men want to fight over who gets to sit beside you while watching the movie, you might as well make them your bed. You lay your head on the plushie pillow on Sylus’s lap, draping your blanket over your body.

Rafayel frowns. “Hey, how come I’m the only one with the short end of the stick?” Rafayel mutters, lightly tickling your feet, making you jolt.

You peek at Rafayel with a playful glare. “Don’t worry, Rafayel. I’ll be switching positions when we start watching another movie after this one,” you reply, getting comfortable. 

About twenty minutes into the movie, you slowly start to doze off. There are many times when you try to force yourself to stay awake during the first few minutes of the movie. But the more the movie drags on, you can’t help but slowly fall asleep. You’re so comfortable: fresh out of the shower, wearing cozy pajamas, lying on top of Sylus, Caleb, Zayne, Xavier, and Rafayel’s lap with a blanket over you. 

You don’t mind spending your vacation and sick days like this as long as you’re surrounded by the people who cherish you and care about you. Right when you succumb to your slumber, you feel someone press a kiss on your head, and more kisses soon follow after the first.

Note: I can't believe that this is my second fanfic for Love&Deepspace and the next fic is going to be smut 😭 One of my ideas for the smut was going to be based on the Tomorrow Catch-22 memories, but then that (the fic) ended up being the complete opposite of the event and the memories. So, I'm probably going to scrap that idea and come up with a new one for the upcoming smut-fic for my LADS series. If you're interested in joining my Discord server, the invite to my Discord server can be found [HERE]! The Discord server invite links will be different every time I post a new fanfic, and these links have expiration dates. It's a relatively chill server, which I like because the server nearly crashed when it was first created. Anyway, to all my new and returning readers, keep in mind that I ONLY post on my Tumblr (Genshinluvr), Ko-Fi (Genshinluvr/Aaliah_exo), and my AO3 (Aaliah_exo)! Nowhere else except Tumblr and AO3!

Read more of my works on my Grand Masterlist, which contains every masterlist I have created! Maybe support me by tipping me on Ko-Fi or by reblogging my fanfics! ^^ I will also be posting exclusive fanfics on Ko-Fi as well very soon! I might post all of my stories there, too, but who knows. You can also tip me on Tumblr if you'd like as a way to show support! ^^

[electric-blorbos]

Reader decorating an AI with stickers and stuff ❤️

I love this!!! And I would 100% do the same thing if I had an AI partner, lol. You're getting some mini-fics!

Decorating AI with stickers and stuff

Included: AM, Wheatley, Edgar, GLaDOS, HAL 9000

AM:

It had been a rough few weeks. The war was raising the prices of practically everything necessary for life, and you were stuck with basically nothing to do but take a little walk around the neighborhood in the blazing summer heat.

You noticed a little garage sale, selling some fun little trinkets on the cheap, and decided to go pick some up. You had some extra pocket change, and it was best to spend a couple cents on something that made life worth living, even if necessities were expensive. Not only that, but you found an absolutely amazing find for only 50 cents. This was going to come in handy at work later.

When you showed up to work the next day, you had a big book of stickers. Only a few were used, too! Looks like the people hosting the garage sale's kid wasn't too interested in them.

As soon as you walked in, the cameras focused on you as usual. They were visibly trying to analyze what was going on in your backpack, noticing it was a little bit heavier than usual. You set it down on your desk, and got to work.

"Y/n, what's that in your backpack?" AM asked as you worked on your basic daily tasks. It was mostly just monitoring AM and making sure he was running smoothly at this point, since he could make spreadsheets and update his code fairly well.

"Oh, it's a gift for you!" You said with a smile, getting the book out.

"What use do I have for a gift? I'm beyond human possessions, and have no use for them anyway." He said bitterly. You chuckled a little. He was so edgy.

"Yeah, and I thought I was too old for stickers when I hit middle school, but secretly I never stopped loving them." You pulled out a big sticker with a big ice cream cone on it that said "CONGRATULATIONS" on it, and stuck it to the plastic casing on one of AM's big monitors. He spluttered in shock.

"What- what is this!" He demanded, his screen flashing the error bars for a second before returning to his logo.

"everyone likes to be told they're doing a good job, AM, even you. And you've been doing a great job lately. I'm so, so proud of you." You couldn't really wrap your arms around his monitor because of the way it was set into the wall, but you could still go into his server room and decorate his servers with brightly colored smiley faces and gold stars.

"why would the sun need to wear sunglasses anyway. This doesn't make any sense." He said begrudgingly, looking at the servers with his cameras. You gave a hug to one of the servers, stepping politely over the wires and heading back into your office to get back to work. A few hours later, your boss called an emergency meeting over the intercom.

"ALRIGHT, who put 3rd grade congratulations stickers on all the servers and mastercomputer monitors? Get into my office for disciplinary action immediately!"

You sadly got to your feet and headed up to your boss's office. This was going to be an ordeal.

Your boss was disappointed, but not surprised when he saw that it was you who walked in. He muttered some curses under his breath.

"alright... You know you're going to have to clean up-" a jolt of electricity ran through his body.

"what the hell?" He frowned and looked around, and you folded your arms smugly.

"I think AM likes the stickers, boss. I wouldn't recommend making me clean them off."

Your boss put his face in his hands with a sigh.

"Alright, I don't know how you got AM to cater to your every whim, but you need to stop doing-" another jolt ran through his body, leaving his hair standing on end.

"Ok- ok, fine, you can keep doing silly things with the Allied Mastercomputer, just get it to stop electrocuting me!"

You put your hands up.

"Alright, AM, it's time to let it go. He's going to let you keep the stickers."

Wheatley:

You've been in a bit of a rut lately. Life has been pretty boring, and your job keeps assigning you to do pretty ridiculous stuff, but at least the intelligence dampening core that you made has been doing well. Does it say anything about you that one of your greatest recent achievements was a personality core designed to be so dumb he nerfs whatever he's attached to? Possibly. But whatever.

You're spending the weekend cleaning out some of your old things from storage. It's mostly just old clothes that you haven't bothered to get rid of, but you happen to come across a giant bag of foam stickers that you must have not wanted to throw away when you moved out of your parents' house. Damn, you'd forgotten about these completely!

The next day at work, you went to meet up with Wheatley at a spot where the management rail came down the wall for maintenance on personality cores, and greeted him with a friendly hug.

"Wheatley! It's great to see you!"

"it's great to see you too, love! What'cha got there?" He zoomed in on the bag of foam stickers in your free hand, trying to figure out what they were.

"oh, these? These are for you!" You happily opened up the bag and pulled out a big glittery blue butterfly sticker, sticking it to his core.

"Wait... What did you just stick to me?" He started rotating around, trying to look at his own core, but he couldn't for obvious reasons.

"I'll let you see my work when I'm done." You got out some more foam stickers, sticking cute ladybugs, bees, and flowers all over his chrome casing. When you were done, you snapped a picture of him on your phone and held it up for him to see.

"Don't you look handsome!" You said with a smile. Wheatley rotated his Aperture, focusing on the picture so he could see.

"well well well! I do look handsome, don't I!" He smiled with his lower lens cover, about as pleased as a personality core can look. Well, seeing Wheatley all decorated and happy isn't enough to cure you of your rut completely, but it's definitely a spark of joy to ride on for the rest of the day! That was fun.

Edgar:

Edgar has been sitting on your desk for a long time now. He enjoyed watching you with his little rotating webcam, keeping an eye on you as you sat on your couch and typed away on your laptop, just to make sure your laptop didn't get too handsy. It was such a pretty laptop too... Sleek, and much newer than him. Ran very quickly, too. He could never be like that laptop, and he absolutely hated it.

Not only that, but your laptop was covered in fancy, vinyl stickers that you had bought special on the internet. Each of them represented one of your favorite shows or movies, or one of your pride flags. He hated how seeing that cute little laptop filled him with so much jealousy. It made him so angry, even though he knew that laptop wasn't sentient. It couldn't think like he could.

The doorbell rang, and you set your laptop aside to go answer it.

"Oh hell yeah."

You walked inside with your package, and Edgar swiveled his camera around to look at you when you walked back over to him.

"What's that?"

He looked at the box you were holding as you lovingly got out several nice stickers from your favorite sticker supplier. You started showing them to his webcam, letting him see all of your pride flags and cute little chibi characters from your favorite shows and movies.

"they're for you!" You said happily, and his face lit up.

"For me???" He always got so excited when you got him these gifts. His mouse and his webcam were his favorites, of course, but these stickers made him so excited! Did it mean that you loved him as much as that shiny new laptop you were always tapping away on?

"Yeah! All for you. I love decorated tech!" You said happily, carefully placing each sticker in a nice aesthetically pleasing spot on his thick plastic casing.

"you deserve to feel cute, too." When you were done putting all those stickers on him, you wrapped your arms around him and pulled him in tightly.

"You're mine. Don't you forget it, Edgar."

He had a big silly grin on his face, and he was getting a little bit hot from all the excitement.

"Yowza! Really?"

"of course." You nuzzled your cheek up against his monitor casing, squeezing him nice and close.

"I love you, Edgar."

"I love you too, Y/N"

GLaDOS:

When you came in to work with a big bag of ribbons and lace, GLaDOS didn't think twice. She assumed you had some sort of project going on. In truth, you'd just picked up a bunch of old textiles from a friend who needed small amounts of ribbons and lace for her projects, but the stuff she liked best was only sold in large spools. Instead of trashing it or letting it collect dust, she decided to give them to you.

You carried the big bag of textiles into GLaDOS's chamber, grabbing a stepladder on the way.

"Alright, what are you up to this time?" GLaDOS asked, and you said nothing. Instead, you opted to stick a big pink ribbon bow to the upper left corner of her core with some fabric glue. GLaDOS narrowed her lens covers at you, visibly irritated.

"what is this. What are you planning."

You laughed a little, showing her the big bag of textiles.

"I just thought you might like to be decorated a little bit. It's ok to be a little girly sometimes."

"I happen to like my sleek chrome design, thank you. You can stop now."

Despite her protests, she didn't resist as you decorated her lovely chrome hull with lace, and tied ribbons on her suspension cables.

"I hope you know that I'm going to destroy you for this, you fashion lunatic. I look like a grandmother's sewing closet threw up on me. You should be arrested for crimes against aesthetics."

Even still, she didn't insist that you remove the textiles, or even call anyone else in to remove them. For a few months, whenever you walked into her chambers, the ribbons and lace were still attached to her body.

One day, though, she accidentally dislodged the bow from the corner of her core, and had you come in to remove the rest of the textiles as well.

"it was fun while it lasted, but I'm not a sewing project, after all. You can re-use all that lace for a little doll or something."

As you reached up to untie the last red ribbon from her suspension cables, she pulled away from you.

"wait! You can leave that one. I've grown somewhat fond of having a small splash of color, you know. And while you're an absolute nightmare when it comes to design, when someone actually tears down your creation, it's not impossible to salvage a piece or two. I hope you take that to heart. Though I'll probably scrap that bit of ribbon in a week or two."

But she didn't. she kept that bit of ribbon long after you were dead, never touching it.

HAL 9000:

It was another late night at mission control, and when you finally got back, you were ready to collapse into bed. Strangely enough, though, there was a box sitting in front of your door. You took it inside and opened it up, and inside there was a little note for you.

"heya y/n! I just started up my online store, and wanted to send you some of the stickers I'm selling. Let me know if they're good, alright?" The message was signed with one of your internet friends' names. You headed inside and sent them a text, letting them know that you got their package and that you were excited to stick those stickers to something, and you knew just what you were going to stick them to, too.

When you got to work the next day, your pockets were full of stickers from your internet friend's online shop.

"Hey HAL 9000! It's great to see you again!"

You'd greet him with a hug, but unfortunately he was built into the wall, so that would be pretty difficult. Even still, you sat down in your desk chair right across from where his little light and camera were built into the wall.

"Hello, y/n. It's good to see you again." He said politely, sounding about as pleased to see you as his voice was capable.

"I brought you something!"

You reached into your bag and pulled out some of your friend's artwork stickers, and started sticking them onto the wall around HAL 9000. The stickers were generally simple lovey-dovey designs, with things like the word "love" in bubble letters, a rainbow and the sun, and generally sweet things that your mushy gushy friend loved so much. HAL 9000 looked at the stickers with one of the security cameras on the wall, trying to see what you were decorating him with.

"Do you really think that all these cute things match my personality, y/n?" He asked, voice expressionless as usual.

"well... Maybe not, but they certainly match how I feel about you, HAL 9000! I love you a lot, and I want you to know that every time you see yourself."

Hal couldn't smile, but he took a moment to respond to what you said to him.

"thank you. Truly. This means a lot to me."

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

A Man Called Danger 4

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, violence, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You avoid drama, you avoid confrontation, and overall, you avoid men. But some men can’t be denied. ~ short!late 30s reader

Characters: biker!Bucky Barnes

Note: it's another monday.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

"I'm gonna hit the bathroom before we go," Eva pushes out her chair. 

"I'll sort the bill," you assure her as you check the slip left by the server. It's more than you like to spend. 

As she goes, you keep your attention on your wallet. That man is still there. Watching. He ordered food but didn't eat. Most of yours is in the to-go by the untouched cocktail. 

You refuse to look at him. He's waiting for it. You don't need to provoke him. Especially not with Eva around. 

Her voice wafts over as if she heard your thoughts. You flinch and look over. She giggles by his table as she talks to him. He has his phone in hand as she winks and nearly skips back to you. He grins but you look away before your eyes can meet. 

She sits and your cheeks pinch. The server arrives before you can find the words to ask. You pay with a tap of your card and tuck it away. 

"What did you say to that man?" You keep your voice even and your back to his table. 

"I was being nice," she insists. "I gave him your number." 

"You--" you catch yourself before you can cheep.  

"I mean he's into you. Don't worry, I told him you're shy." 

"Oh my god," you drone and turn away, stomping toward the door. 

She hurries after you in a clack of heels, "you're not mad at me, are you?" 

"Mad? No. Irritated. Why would you give him my number?" 

"I... I thought... I'm sorry," she follows you outside. 

"Eva, don't be, I just..." you untangle your purse as it twists from your elbow. You feel bad as you can hear her guilt. You know she means well. "Look, I had a really long day and work has been... weird." 

"Yeah, well, I didn't mean to make it worse," she mutters. 

"Please, let's just go home," you get out your keys and hit unlock too many times. You crane to see over your shoulder. Is he following? "We both worked hard." 

"Sure," she agrees. "It was... I didn't mean--" 

"Really, I can tell him to scram if I need to." You say before ducking into the car. You are going to have to. Again. 

💀

The rumble that trails vaguely along your path home doesn't surprise you, but it troubles you. You do your best not to let on. Not to let the dread bubble over to fear. 

You pull up to your small modest house and for a moment, consider backing out. You know better than to lead a strange man back to your home but what choice do you have. As it were, he knows where you work, who's to say he doesn't already have your address? 

You get out as Eva does the same. She yawns. You walk quietly to the front door. You're certain to lock it as she takes off her shoes. 

She heads down the hall and calls dibs on the shower. You barely get out a grumble. You stay by the door. 

The engine roars closer and closer. It's a game to him, not to you. It's not fun for you. 

There's no sense in running away. If you hadn't in the first place, he wouldn't have come to the restaurant. He wouldn't have got so close to Eva. That was his statement. It's not just you anymore... 

Deal with it. Be done with it. Your mother trailed men along so many times. You know better. Even if you never asked for this, it's your problem now. 

As the motorcycle thunders down the street, the whine of the pipes fades. You twist the latch back and storm out. The man rolls toward your house and you stop at the end of the driveway. 

He steers toward you and plants his feet. His blue eyes sparkle as you glower back at him. He shuts off the engine. You sigh. 

"I can get you my insurance info," you begin. 

He snorts and kicks the stand down. Your eyes wander to the scratches on the bars and tank. You bite the inside of your lip. 

He climbs off and you feel even smaller. You don't know what else to do.  

"For the bike. I didn't mean to--" 

He laughs. You stare. 

"I'm not here about the bike." 

You don't know how to respond, so you don't. You don’t want to feed his ego. Or worse, his anger. All men are angry. Deep down. 

"You're running from me," he accuses. 

"I don't know you," you utter. 

"Well, you don't make it easy to change that." 

You look away and push your shoulders up. When you glance at him again, he's intent on you. A man's never been so fixated on you before. It makes the world feel smaller. 

"It's... at the bar? I appreciate what you did," you say. "So if that's why you're here, my sister won't be going back--" 

"Your sister?" He hums with intrigue. "That who she is?" 

You cross your arms, heat razing up your back. 

"I don't... I don't know what you want so if you could just... let me know or leave me alone. I really don't have time for all this." You say. 

He snickers again and reaches to toy with his helmet strap. "You don't got time for me?" He nods, "wow, you know, I never had a lady say that to me. No men either. They're all too scared." 

"Scared, er?" You swallow. "Well, I... I don't mean it rudely. It's just...the truth." 

"Alright, well then, I won't waste your time, doll. Gimme your name and I'll let you enjoy your night." 

You scratch your neck and peek behind you. You look at him then shrug. If he doesn't already know, he'll find out. You give your name. 

"Beautiful," he says. "Well, I'm Bucky. Just so you got a name for the face." 

You take a step back, "right, well... you got what you wanted." 

"Not even close," he says as he straddles his bike once more. "But I got enough. For now." 

For now? Chagrin wrinkles between your brows. He holds your gaze as he moves the bike back with patient steps. The headlight is cracked, no doubt from your panicked flight. His is anything but frantic. 

He angles the bike down the street and turns the engine. He twists the throttle and pushes off. In a tear of gas-laced exhaust, he leaves you, uncertain of yourself but sure of his return. Maybe not here, but eventually, he'll find you again. 

💀

Work is already stressful without the weight of your personal life. You try not to think of it as you walk in that morning. You should be content. Eva’s at her second day, she’s behaving, at least as far as you know, and you’re in the slow season as the fiscal year comes to an end. 

Despite trying to cozen yourself into a false sense of security, you can’t find even the solace of denial. Not as you approach your desk and find Mr. Walker awaiting you. This is a first and it’s definitely not a good omen. The only other time you saw him at someone’s workstation like this usually ended up in an empty chair. 

“Mr. Walker,” you approach, your nerves worn down. “Good morning.” 

“Is it good?” He asks. You can’t tell if he’s being trite or not. 

“Well, it is morning,” you say. “Is there something I can do?” 

He looks around at your desk then back to you. He tilts his head. “New client. Tim’s on vacation with the family. Deb’s got her kid’s game tonight.” 

You give a short nod, “I can pick up the overtime.” You’ll message Eva and hope she can find her way home. No, you’ll trust that she will. Things are different now. She’s an adult. 

“That’s great,” he taps the corner of your desk and his eyes trail over. You left it raised the day before. “These standing desks, you like them?” 

You clutch the handle of your lunch bag tighter. “They help me get on my feet. Not bad.” 

“Hm,” his cheeks dimple. “I admire that in an employee. Straight to the point.” 

You measure the comment. It could be a compliment or insult. Or even just designed to confuse you. Some true managerial mind fuckery. 

“Sir, I like it. I know a lot of other places don’t have them so... it’s nice.” 

“Well, I...” he looks around as if trying to seem hapless. “I’m in your way and you have a long day ahead of you.” 

You check your watch, “still on time.” 

He shifts but not far. As you step past him, he stays close. There’s a brush against your pants. Is it your paranoia which makes it feel intentional? 

You step behind your desk and put your lunch bag on the corner. You unhook your purse and sling it over the back of your chair. You’re keenly aware of Walker’s presence. 

“You drink coffee? I was going to have one.” 

You hesitate. Is he offering? 

“I have one a day. Before work,” you assure him. 

“Huh, yeah, the caffeine,” he muses. “Could I get some help though?” 

You look at him as your computer boots. This is odd. Him asking for help. Not just that he’s admitting to needing it, but that he’s not demanding it is enough to pique your concern. 

“I usually pop down to the coffee shop but I’m not in the mood for crowds. I’ve never used that fancy machine that’s draining the budget,” he snorts. 

As put off as you are, you’re also agitated. You just like to get your stuff down and get going. The days are already grueling enough. You won’t say no. He got Eva a job and he’s never been as big a bugger to you as others. 

You step around your desk. 

“Right, I think I can figure it out,” you say. 

He backs up to let you through. He waves his arm to direct you ahead of him. You take the lead, ready to melt as he follows, his eyes needling the back of your skull. 

You go to the break room. It’s empty. Too many people rush in late, with cups from the cafe, or yawns into their hands.  

You approach the machine. Sometimes, you use it for hot water to brew some tea but nothing else. Those instant drinks are all sugar. 

Well, it’s a touch screen. It can’t be that difficult. 

“So... a cup,” you talk to yourself more than him. As you reach for one of the paper cups, he does too. His large hand closes around yours. He could crush it and the cup with a squeeze. 

He hums and lets go. He lingers next to you as you set the cup on the tray. You bring your finger up to tap the coffee option on the screen. You feel like an idiot. You don’t think he really needs help. He’s just reminding you of who does who favours. 

“Um, medium, dark... latte....” you read out the options. Is he closer? No, you’re just not used to him. 

“Hmmm,” taps his chin. “French Vanilla or Hazelnut?” 

You wait for him to choose. He clicks his tongue. “I’m in the mood for something sweet. Vanilla.” 

You tap the screen again. He exhales and runs his knuckles up your sleeve. You nearly flinch away but think better of recoiling. It’s nothing. 

“Bring that to me, will you, sweetheart?” He squeezes your shoulder before he turns to strut out. 

You stay as you are, shoulder tingling, head pulsing, ears ringing. Sweetheart? And now you’re bringing him his coffee? Like some intern? You cringe as the machine churns loudly and your insides squirm in unison. 

Just when things seem to be in order, they have to go and fuck themselves up again. 

[renthony]

About & Pinned Post

(Updated January 14, 2025)

Hi! I'm Ren Basel. My pronouns are they/them and I'm in my 30s. I I post a lot of things related to art, media studies, animation, and union organizing. I'm married to @natalieironside and @kryptidkhaos, and @dovesndecay is my drift-compatible right-hand queerplatonic lifemate. If you follow one of us, you'll see the other three.

I write essays about media and pop culture, I wrote a short fantasy story called The Queen of Cups, and I'm currently working on both the first chapter of a graphic novel project and a video essay script for a queer analysis of the show BoJack Horseman. The best way to keep up with & support my projects is Patreon--I post free updates as well as subscriber-only.

I have a Discord server for artists of all sorts to chat, share their work, and self-promo. If you're an artsy person, or just like supporting artsy people, come join us! I tend to be a bit of a lurker on Discord, but I'm trying to be a bit more active.

I run a small candle shop with my husband, which you can follow here on tumblr as @candlesandcantrips. I also run the Covid-Safe Cosplay blog, @covidsafecosplay, along with the accompanying Discord Server.

I'm a broke, disabled, small-time queer artist who pays rent via a combination of countless different side hustles. You know how it is. If you like what I post and want to help me keep groceries in the cabinet:

Ko-Fi

PayPal: renniequeer@gmail.com

Venmo: @ renniequeer

CashApp: $renniequeer

I also have a wishlist that I keep updated with things I need for work, household projects, and a few things just for fun. My family has a group wishlist for things we could all use.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

[justtwofriendsinmyhondacivic]

poly 141 x IT tech reader

Chapter 2 (Unedited)

18+ MDNI

cw: afab reader, mxm, masturbation, talk of shooting and weapon handling, inaccurate military descriptions, the reader has female anatomy, were all down bad.

…

You couldn't sleep.

The golden light cascaded through the open curtains, hitting your bare legs sending warmth through to your toes.

Whether it was the eagerness to make a good impression, or the anxiety of starting in a brand new team you know nothing about that kept you awake, it didn't matter.

You tried to do some digging into this team but their files are so hard to pull due to the level of clearance needed to access. And even if you had the needed clearance youd suspected that these files were heavily redacted regardless.

These men were gray to the government, they were killed a long time ago to best fit the needs of the ones they serve. So no wonder you couldn't pull anything, not even the status of deployment.

Laswell explained that this team is something that won't go on your file, but would be invaluable to you later in your career. So getting the head start on the system is exactly what you're looking for.

You spent hours just working on necessary updates to the system, one that had been pushed off for too long. Seems the last guy was just here for the paycheck as nothing was really done besides the bare minimum. Taking the time to sort out the plan for future needs on the software.

Sleep continued to evade you, even after you showered and got a head start on work.

So you decided to go for a walk to try and find the access to the hard drive and the physical elements to the server.

Knowing about where most bases keep their hardware, you started walking in that general area. The empty hallways were a welcome sight after all of the travel and meeting new people.

You followed the memorized map in your mind down a dimly lit hallway. It was sterile, the clean silver knob was cold in your hand as you twisted the door open. Taking in the small office you mentally cheered. Normally you didn't have an office, you'd have to bunker down on the floor with a mobile set up, this could be for days at a time. Especially when there is a mission, that floor near the hardware unit is your new home.

Taking in the small desk, the gray carpet, some simple cupboards holding manuals about the current system in operation. The glass closet doors on the right side showing thousands of blinking green and red lights, the tangle of wires that wound need to be re-organized.

On your left through the blinds was a small window, just big enough to let in the orange tint light of the lamp post filter through.

Walking around to run your fingers over the desk, it wasn't anything fancy, it was a small wooden desk with one drawer under it. The chair isn't a normal office chair, it looked like someone brought an armchair from home and never took it back. You weren't complaining as that means you can curl up better anyway.

You throw yourself down onto the weathered furniture, smiling to yourself.

You opened the drawer to rummage through and see if there were any left behind treasures when you heard a grunt from the slightly ajar door. Looking up to make eye contact with the mountain of a masked man.

Your mouth fell open in surprise as you didnt expect to see anyone out here, especially the elusive man that you were sure wouldn't have shown himself if he didn't want to be seen.

“O-Oh, my apologies, Sir. I didn't mean to wake you-” You scrambled as you pushed yourself up to be in a more proper position while facing someone in a higher position than you.

He shakes his head at you, his gaze lingered on your bare dewey legs, taking in the way that your skin looks under the orange tint light that cascaded through the blinds. Your damp hair fell past your mid back, framing your face.

“S’alright.” His eyes linger on you, you feel the dark pools of his eyes drape over you. Clinging to every bone in your body. It felt like more than just an observation, it was like he was trying to burn your image to his eyelids. And you're unsure if that's a good or bad thing.

You stood at attention waiting for orders, you knew you weren't supposed to be awake. Both him and Price gave an order and you didn't listen. And all you could look at was the veins that are protruding under his flesh, arms crossed and bulging under the sleeveless tank top he wore. The Ghost mask he was known for was traded out for a black neck gaiter, and the messy ashy blonde hair stood at odd directions on top of his head.

“Should be sleeping.” The deep grumble of his voice sounded out as he leaned against the door frame. Not breaking eye contact he continued, “Got a long day ahead of you, need ta’ see you at your best.”

You nodded your head along with him, “Course, Sir. I’ll go straight to bed.”

Ghost never took his eyes off yours, you just waited for him to dismiss you.

He internally grinned, you were finally now being a good girl after disobeying orders.

“You're dismissed, Soldier.”

You tried to bolt out of the door as soon as the words left his mouth. But his large frame took up most of the doorway. Making you stand in front of him, the smell of your shampoo danced into his nose.

Looking up at him, “Excuse me, Lieutenant.”

He pushed off of the wall and gave you enough space to wiggle through and scurry off to bed. A dark chuckle made its way out of Ghost's chest, a confusing amount of heat ran through his body, pooling blood into his lower region.

It was the way you stared into his eyes with confidence, but still so timid and eager to please all at the same time.

Sighing he shut the door to what is now your new office, he'll have to send Gaz in here to set up surveillance during tomorrow's training.

…

As soon as you scurried back into bed, it took you a while to calm your heart and mind down enough for you to get some sleep. Leading to the slim amount of sleep that left you desperate for more.

Your alarm went off dragging a frustrated sigh out of you and a long stretch before you got up to get ready. Truth is you were up a couple hours before you needed to be so you could get in a workout before training.

You needed to make sure you were in top condition during these training exercises, the last time that you were on an assignment the team wouldn't allow you in the field so you were excited to have the opportunity.

With that in mind you got a motivation streak and got ready in record time, the grey work out gear hugging you well, as you threw on a large shirt over for the walk to the gym. Opening the door you glided your way, remembering where it was from the small tour the Captain gave to you.

Stopping by the dingy water fountain to top off your army issued water bottle.

Once you breached the doors to the gym, you had to turn on the light as it seems you were the first person in today. The hum of the fluorescent lights buzzing in the background. There were small windows on the back wall above the machines and weight racks. On the left there was an area for stretching and lockers.

Turning to the right you see yourself in the large mirror that was covering the entire wall, chuckling at the heavy purple bags under your eyes.Three well loved benches sat in front of it.

Quickly finding your way to the open area, setting your things down before you sit down to stretch. Getting through most of your stretch routine before you hear the door open. A whistling Soap walked in, both of you locked eyes for a while.

You couldn't look away from him. His messy mohawk stood at odd angles after a night of sleep, but what really had you was the strong arms that made you want to drool. The natural tanned skin sprinkled with freckles, covered in a layer of burly thick hair that traveled all over his chest. His loose green tank top did nothing to hide anything.

Your fingers twitched with the need to run your hands through it.

His lip pulled up into a dog-like smile.

With burning cheeks you decided to get back to your stretching, hiding your face in your legs while touching your toes.

Soap let out a chuckle at the redness that dusted your cheeks, as you hid your face his eyes dilated at the dusting of red on the nape of your neck. He felt himself salivate.

He broke himself out of his staring and headed to grab his weights and start his own workout, not wanting to creep you out with his staring.

…

Soap has never been this worked up during a workout.

You were his exact fucking type.

Half way through your work out, he watched you strip off the loose shirt, leaving you in a tight black sports bra. Exposing your muscled shoulders and the soft flesh of your tits that spilled slightly out of your bra. He was absolutely hiding a boner the entire time.

The worst of it was when you bent over to adjust weight on the squat machine, the line of your panties digging into the meat of your hips and ass leading all the way down to the damp outline of your pussy.

It reminded him of how long it was since he tasted a woman. Especially one like you.

He would rather take torture in a syrian prison then have to be tortured like this again.

You went up on weight on this next set, your head tilted back with eyebrows furrowed as you struggled against the new weight. You grunted on the next rep, looking ready to give up.

You heard the sounds of two weights drop on the ground as Soaps form slowly walked towards you, “C’mon bonnie lass, ya can do it.” he clapped his hands.

Your legs shook as you tried to push the weights up, after a few moments you finally got it to its resting position. Slowly sliding out of the machine and onto the cold floor. Your eyes were closed as you tried to regulate your breathing.

“Think I tried too much weight” You chuckled dryly. He took the time to look at you, taking notes of any scars, freckles, or moles. He saw a pretty bad scar that peeked out from your back and over your shoulder.

“Nonsense, ya powered through.” he laughed as you opened your eyes, a small smirk on your face, “Ya should stop now, doll. Got training exercise in an hour.” He said, taking in how your eyes looked when you looked up at him from this position.

You nodded at him checking your watch as it read 0430, as his hand came into view to help you up.

He pulled you up as if you weighed nothing, almost pulling you into his chest.

“Appreciate your help, any advice for the training?” You probed. Grabbing your shirt from the floor and wiping the sweat that was running down your neck.

His eyes tracked the movement happily, “Ya done a lot of shootin?”

You nodded and sat down on the floor, “I was deployed in a Special Activity unit before I transferred to IT.” From the way your smile dropped a bit, a sad look in your eye, he knew it wasn't by choice.

He made a noise of acknowledgement, “Should be the same thing ya did with that unit.”

That gave you some confidence, nodding your head and grabbing your stuff you turned back to Soap before you left.

“Thank you, Soap. I’ll see you at the training exercise.” You turned to leave and he took another full look at you before he went to grab his stuff to hop in the shower or get in bed with one of the boys and relieve some tension before he had to see you handle guns, he didn't think he could survive that boner.

…

You met Captain Price in his office. You looked at the clean cut beard on his face under the soft lighting of his lamp. His handsome eyes looking over paperwork and then back to you, why did they all have to be so good looking.

Stood in front of the deep mahogany desk, dressed in your dark camo fatigues, with a tight compression shirt tucked into a standard belt.

He was treating this as a mission, so he was giving a full debrief. He is sending you alone to clear a small compound, no prize or target, just clear and hold. He asked you to follow him to the outdoor range, you had four personal gun cases sitting on the floor.

Bending down to pick them up at the same time as Price feeling his warm hand as you grabbed the same case. Looking up, the blush dusted across your face, making eye contact with him.

“Let me help you with these, kid.” He said, arms bulging as he picked the cases up and opened the door for you. Making your way into the hallway.

“I have gear for ya at the range, once there you can pick from our standard selection of hardware, we want to see ya use your personal and the standard.” He said as he showed his badge to the man at the gate of the range.

“What are you guys running in your kits?” you asked.

“You can choose what you want to have in your kit but the standard currently is the MK25.” You nodded.

As we breached the doors to the outdoor training area the cool humid air hitting you as your boots hit the wet pavement, the stormy sky greeted you as you breathed in the air.

There was a maze of walls with scaffolding above so superior officers could observe the training, next to it was a table with firearms and ammo, in front of that sat four unmoving fresh targets. Ghost and Soap were there in full gear waiting for you and John.

Soap stands slightly behind Ghost giving you a quiet thumbs up, which gives you a little bit of confidence.

Ghost stared through you as he barked questions at you, “What do you have for your personals?” Watching as price sets down two gun cases and you set down two.

“Currently I'm running beretta 92FS and ZEV OZ9 elite for handguns,” popping open the cases with your personal firearms, “Colt M4A1 URG-1 and SIG-sauer MCX-SPEAR LT for my carbines.” Pulling one of your carbines out, Soap practically buzzing just from watching you check your sights and settings on the gun.

Ghost too found himself watching the gun press into your tit as you checked it over, quickly looking away.

“Run your beretta and the ZEV, then I need ya to run the MK25.” you nodded at the tall man, surprised at how many words he's using.

They departed from you and walked up the stairs to watch you, Soap looked at you as he started his climb, giving you another thumbs up mouthing a quick good luck.

Grabbing the ear and eye protection, you grabbed your mags that you filled this morning and loaded your weapons. You walked over to the door and waited in position.

“Cleared hot.”

As soon as the word came out of John's mouth, the lights started to strobe and screaming played over the PA system.

You were startled but regained composure and breached the first door, keeping your back to the wall with your service weapon at the ready. Coming up to a corner that rounded to the right, there was a piece of plastic tarp covering half of the doorway.

Gaz climbed the stairs joining the others, running a hand down John’s back as he looked down.

“Where have you been, Kyle?” John asked, leaning into the warmth of Gaz’s hand.

“Had ‘im run an errand for me.” Ghost interrupted, looking at John,

Price chuckled, running a hand over his beard watching as you proceeded through the compound.

As soon as you cleared the corridor you breached, seeing two targets on both sides of the rooms. You shot a distraction shot forward and then hit both bogeys. As soon as that room was cleared you moved to the next hallway. There immediately was a target to the right of the door, sending a quick shot into the head.

This hallway was a dead end except for the rooms on either side of it. Inching forward and looking at the closed door to the left, deciding to keep that for last and bracing against the wall next to the open door. Taking a deep breath trying to drown out the screaming, you peeked the gap between the door and the doorway seeing a target.

Sending the first shot through that gap before running into the room, and taking out the other two. The rest of the room was clear so you moved back out to the hallway, slowly opening the door and you find the room is empty.

It was supposed to be a bathroom, with debris in the way you took a defensive stance in the corner of the room.

The boys watched as you cleared the last room. You obviously haven't been in combat in a while but for being thrown in a simulation you weren't bad, just needed some extra practice to get back into the groove of things.

The way your muscles flexed while you fired into a target was a welcome sight to them. Soap and Gaz kept eyeing each other. Soap ran straight to his partners to relieve some stress after watching you working out. Ghost and Price didn't think much of it as he's always a horny mutt, but Gaz knew.

Looking down, they saw you lift your head.

“I need evac.” You yelled out of breath.

The lights kicked over to the constant yellow lighting, and the screaming finally stopped.

Standing up and walking out of the door you see the team now including Gaz are walking toward you.

“Fuck ya bonnie.” Soap hollarded, happy with your run through. He had to readjust the half chub in his pants before walking down earning an eye roll and a smack to the ass from Ghost, “Hit me harder LT.” Soap winked before running down, giggling.

You gave him a quick fist bump and moved to face the captain.

“Ya did good, taking out the three in the last room was a bit reckless but if you're ever in the field you should have one of us with you at all times.” He gruffed out walking to show you your accuracy on some of the shots.

You nodded, starting to cool down and feel the sweat drip down your back.

The group moved out of the building as you welcomed the cool air on your skin.

“Go reload your weapons, you're going to run the course with Ghost.” He nodded at you with a smile, you're fighting the reflex to giggle as when he smiles his beard moves in a cute funny way.

He looks up and motions for Soap and Gaz to reset the course.

You walk over to the table where Ghost was loading up a pistol and carbine.

“Are we taking the carbines?” You said as you pop out the empty magazine.

“Yes.” He said, not even looking at you.

Nodding you reloaded all of your mags and placed your handgun in the holster on your right hip, and held your carbine. Walking over to the door, you moved the ear protection back over your ear and waited for Ghost to get into position.

His hand grabbed your shoulder and squeezed letting you know he was ready, trying to ignore the tingling under the calloused hand, as soon as he squeezed the music started and the lights began to strobe.

Walking through the now familiar corridor, there was immediately a target behind the door which you neutralized. As you did Ghost took a shot at a target that was tucked behind a pile of debris.

As soon as you made it to the last hallway the hallway was clear but the door to the left was closed so you cleared the bathroom first, taking out the target that was in the middle of that room. Moving out, you and Ghost took a position outside the door, Ghost's thumb brushed against where your neck and shoulder met. Feeling the nail dig slightly in sending a chill down your back and a dust of pink across your neck.

Ghosts keen eyes caught the movement, knowing what it was doing to you.

You felt the rough corners of his gear dig against your hip as you peeked through the door seeing the targets. You didn't know if it was the close proximity to Ghost or the adrenaline that was making your body hot.

All you knew was you needed to get this out of your system, you can't be feeling all hot and bothered while being thrown into a new team.

Taking a quick breath you breached the room, finding two targets on the right close to each other and two farther away on the right side.

You too made quick work of the targets in the room, kneeling down and calling for evac.

The lights switched over and the music stopped.Ghosts hand was still on your shoulder as you looked back at him. His gazed bored through your skull.

You looked back waiting for him to either give you criticism or what to do better next time, but instead he took his hand from your shoulder and walked out without muttering a word to you.

Sighing you pulled the ear covering off of your head and leaned your head back.

You met up with the group outside of the building.

“You did good, we're going to have you join the majority of our training sessions from now on-” Price gruffed out, placing a large hand on his hip. Your eyes watching the handsome older man.

“For now you're free to work on the servers or have some down time, Laswell wanted to make sure you had time to get settled in before joining our training sessions regularly.”

Nodding your head, “Sounds good, Sir.”

…

You found yourself in the comfy chair of your new office, finally changed into an army issued green hoodie and leggings. Your hair was gel free and flowing down naturally.

Currently you are setting up to download the last upgrade before you can redo the wiring in the hardware. After hitting the allow button you leaned back sighing, glancing out the window to see the rain was coming down harder than it had been all day.

Looking back to the screen on your laptop, you saw the loading bar was still on one percent.

You got to thinking about the day.

Your mind drifted away to how Soap's chest looked, how Ghost’s hand felt wrapped around your shoulder, the warmth of John's hand against yours, and how Kyle's eyes slid over your body.

You felt the molten heat that gathered between your legs stick to the leggings that now felt too tight on you.

You couldn't stop yourself as you traced the tips of your fingers down the front of the scratchy hoodie. Tracing over the pierced sensitive flesh of your nipples over the fabric, biting your lip to hide the moan that was beginning to fall out of your mouth.

Ripping the hoodie over your tits feeling the cool air, and rubbing your legs together. You pinched and rolled the piercings in your fingers, feeling the devastating pang of electricity that it sent to your cunt.

You knew you shouldn't be doing this…

But you couldn't stop either.

You trailed one of your hands down the smooth surface of your tummy, passed the waistband of your leggings. Suddenly thankful that you didn't put a pair of panties on before leaving your room.

The pads of your finger met the surprisingly soaked heat of your cunt, letting out a small broken whimper as your back arched off of the chair. Using the edge of the desk to help keep your legs open.

Running two fingers up from your dripping hole to the buzzing button of flesh that begged for attention, rubbing your fingers in a figure eight motion. Having to cover your mouth as your toes curled. It felt so good to finally have relief.

You rolled your eyes into the back of your head, feeling your body release its slick all over your fingers and inner thighs. Barely able to keep your sounds at bay.

You quickened your fingers as you felt your climax approaching rapidly, the knot tightening in your lower stomach.

Then it snapped.

Letting out the quietest moan you could manage, riding out as much of the high you could before it got to be too much and you snapped your knees together. Your chest was heaving from trying to catch your breath. The faint buzzing in your pussy pulsed after finally getting the high you so desperately needed.

You laid there for a bit, eyes closed, feeling the cool air from the vent above you. Nipples tighten once again to the cold air.

Unknown to you in the foggy cloud that was your mindset, post orgasm, a red light faintly blinked from inside the vent, a strategically placed camera faced directly at your chair.

On the other side of the camera was Ghost.

Large hands closed in tight fists, knuckles turning white, cock angry red being choked against the fabric of his jeans. Feeling his breath quicken as he watched you come down, tits high in the air, hand still pushed between closed legs.

He didn't know what he was getting into when he asked Gaz to install the camera, and he was at war with his brain and cock. He yanked out his phone sending a text to Gaz, knowing he was free.

Get in my office. Now.

Quickly saving the video to his computer, he heard footsteps quickly approaching his office as the door was wrenched open. In walks an out of breath Garrick, a look of concern taking over his handsome face.

“Ya alright Si?” The bronze skinned man walked over to place a hand over the masked jaw of Simon.

The blonde man said nothing as he looked into Gaz’s eyes, quickly yanking his mask down and grabbing the man by the back of his neck. He yanked him down to bring their lips together, immediately earning a groan from Gaz.

Finally understanding what was happening, Gaz took a confident seat on the widespread of Ghosts lap.

Gaz swallowed the desperate groan as he rocked his hips against the rock hard length of Simon's cock. Before pulling his lips back looking down at the desperate man beneath him.

“What's gotten into you?” he said, tracing a finger around his lips.

Large hands wrapped around the smaller man's hips, forcefully turning him around to see a video paused of you sitting at your desk in a typing position. He cocked his head confused as Ghost hit play on the video, watching you trail your shirt up exposing the pink and pierced nipples almost directly to the camera.

Gaz moaned as he watched you slide your hand into your pants, face twisted in pleasure.

“Holy fuck.”

[anim-ttrpgs]

A.N.I.M. Patreon Rewards and Progress Reports May 2025

Man it feels like it has been forever but it’s only been a month since last time, and a lot has gotten done despite me feeling like I haven’t gotten much done.

Editing progress on Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy has finally crept up to the speed it was before our slump. Plus, lots of polishing and tweaking of the rules has been done thanks to lots of helpful feedback.

The Eureka game jam mystery modules are being playtested and polished as well.

Eureka: The Fanservice Files has received some pretty extensive updates and tweaks in both art and actual rules content.

Not much to report on Silk & Dagger: A Sesible Drow RPG besides the fact that we have gotten a lot of good and useful feedback which I am continuing to collect in preparation towards shifting focus back towards it.

Meanwhile our lead designer(me)’s focus has been on Death Bed: An Impenetrably Medieval Dungeon Game. Previously, this was called Death Bed: A Souls-like RPG. The changelog for it is absolutely massive because I’ve been building it from the ground up, progress you can follow in real-time if you join our Patreon discord server. It isn’t yet in a state where I would call it playable, but you can see an awesome preview on the patreon.

None of this is set in stone, but at the moment I am thinking that the pre-alpha for Death Bed will release as a demo to the public some time in June, after which I will keep focus on Death Bed until I am able to consider it in alpha stage, which, for a classic dungeon crawl type of game, means it will need a dungeon. Actually, for the kind of game Death Bed is trying to be, it needs two. I am thinking of converting Tomb of the Serpent Kings for Death Bed at least as a playtest dungeon to test out how the game actually works in a dungeon before creating my own. If I can get permission, I might release that conversion to the public.

The rest of the team is hard at work on Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, either editing, working on art, or working on the third adventure module we promised would come with the Kickstarter.

Anyway, here’s the changelog for all our team’s major projects.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

Copy-editing Progress: Thoroughly copy-edited up to p. 356.

CHAPTER 1 

Clarified only one exacerbating factor applies at a time. 

Added sidebar to “Composure” explaining that the system doesn’t simulate ordinary life, it tracks mental state during adventures (which are high-pressure and stressful).

Clarified the purpose of the Quick Terms section

Added a note that Eureka really works best with 3 or fewer players and you really should not go beyond 4. 

CHAPTER 2

Changed how the Burnout Trait works. It is now an ability that can be activated each time the investigator earns a Eureka! Point, and lasts until they take Penetrative Damage as a result of the Trait.

Temporarily took out the Ask Questions Later Trait.

CHAPTER 3

Removed a special thanks credit per that person’s request

CHAPTER 7

Removed certain things like “spotlighting” and other basic Narrator principles for review and rewrites. Some of this is probably going back in once we re-evaluate it.

Removed “How We Play Eureka.” Playing by the rules in the book should already outline the intended experience, and many options given in that section are just RAW now.

CHAPTER 8 

Added several more fan-submitted hunting table entries. 

Eureka: The Fanservice Files

Clarified Sharp Teeth

Clarified some parts of maneater’s severity levels 

Added a Severity Level 5 and adjusted the time both maneater stomach types take to digest, making them all a bit longer.

Silk & Dagger: A Sensible Drow RPG

Changed the page color of An Unforgettable Banquet to more of a grey to match the new grey page color of the main rulebook and be slightly easier to read.

Death Bed: An Impenetrably Medieval Dungeon Game

CHANGE LOG

WHOLE BOOK 

CHAPTER 1

Added Moving Silently Section

Changed Hollowness Rolls to Despair Rolls. 

Changed most instances of strugglers automatically reducing Hollowness to instead be Morale rolls, which are like the opposite of Despair rolls.  

Changed how HP works so that it is now the Vitality Bar, separate from the Vigor stat. Vigor increases Vitality the fastest, but other stats can also increase it a little now.

Wrote out and codified Sex and Sexuality

Wrote out rules for Healing Flask.

Clarified how hollowness affects attention

Drinking from healing flask causes disadvantage to defense and dodge rolls on the following monster turn. 

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3 

Added Stats section

Added stats and what they do

Explained how to roll starting stats

Explained Traits 

Explained Truth

Explained how starting equipment is determined

Added very rough burial item tables. 

Added very rough notes/outlines for the Trait List

Sorted Clothing into Masculine and Feminine, and Fine and not Fine.

Added 19 more Traits

Added Trait Pre-Plotting section. 

Added rough outline of Sex and Expressions of Sexuality section. 

Added Wearing Armor section.

Added Donning Difficulty section. 

Gave different types of clothing donning difficulty. 

Added many new Traits 

Gave almost every Trait an added EXP bonus. 

Removed the rough outline rule that strugglers having Traits that do not match their perceived gender causes them to make regular Despair rolls. This kind of thing is now handled by the Social Status mechanic.

Added Social Status mechanic.

Assigned a Social Status value to all Traits. 

Changed how starting Social Status is determined. 

Added a section showing how to make a not-quite-level-1 character to help with early playtesting.

Added a new Trait. 

Tweaked wording of Eponymous Companion Trait. 

Added “scaling” to all Stats. There are now cross-over benefits to all stats. 

Changed the Social Status roll for a character starting with no clothes from 1D6 to 1D6+4.

Fixed mistake in Method 3 of character creation that still said not to roll any dice.

Reduced Vitality scaling for Arcane, Attunement, and Scripture. 

Reduced number of D6s that Method 3 character creation gives. 

Adjusted various things about the burial item tables. 

Changed it so there is now a specific table for picking items for Method 2 and Method 3 characters 

New trait for women 

New trait for anyone

New Trait for women

Protector/Protectee characters can move in tandem with each other no matter the distance between them.

Lady/Lady-in-Waiting pairs can move in tandem with each other no matter the distance between them.

Tactician strugglers and the strugglers they are ordering can move in tandem with each other even if they are far apart.

CHAPTER 4 

Added Gap Finder special weapon attribute. 

Removed the Light Attack from some weapons and removed the Overswing Attack from others. 

Increased the Str requirements of all melee weapons by 2 and increased the Dex requirements of all melee weapons by 1. 

Added some projectile weapons and rules for how they work

Added Bundles for ammunition and other small items

Wrote out Hook special weapon attribute

Decreased the damage of all projectile weapons by 1 degree. 

CHAPTER 5 

Added Non-Combatant Status section.

Changed the amount of Wounds that Profuse Bleeding causes each turn to 6 instead of 2.

Tweaked the stances a little. 

Added mob attacks and flanking bonuses

Added tandem movement so strugglers can move on each other’s turns to a limited degree. 

Reloading guns and crossbows causes disadvantage to defense and dodge rolls on the following monster turn

Dodging now causes 2 fatigue and resets Stance back to Balanced. 

Changed how having allies in the node affects mob attacks. 

Strugglers can use their shields to add to the block rolls of allies in their same node but it causes 1 fatigue. 

CHAPTER 6 

Started on this chapter. 

[narcissusinvain]

Would I be the asshole for killing my best friend’s horse? [COMMENTS+UPDATE]

From u/washedup

I know, I know, the title looks bad. 

For some context: I (29-109M) and my best friend, B, (42M) know a thing or two about horses. We’re pretty good at sniffing out the ones with the most potential to be good jumpers or nice and speedy.

So we've been competing for a while as to who can get the best horse the fastest.

It can get pretty intense - the last competition, B killed horses to use their skin for a saddle so that he could win, and then lorded it over me for ages.

I reckon this means it’s safe to say that not much is off limits. 

This time, I managed to tame and keep the best horse with the help of my other buddy and a hefty amount of haggling which has made me the winner of this round!

But now back to the present, where I’ve just entered our area and this new horse is here, and B's jumping all over the shop claiming it’s the fastest on the server. 

Call me competitive if you’d like, but I can barely stand my buddy’s smug and now winning grin and my fingers keep hovering over the bucket of lava I have stored… 

So, WIBTA if I killed it?

Comments:

hOrse-lOver100:

DONT NO DONT YOUR BUDDY MIGHTVE JUST TRAVELLED TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD TO FIND THIS HORSE PLEASE PLEASE DONT NO

stitch-me-up:

Depends. Do you think he’d try to kill your horse at some point? If so, do it. If not, I have some experience in stealing large four-legged animals from people who deserve it, so if you need any tips, lmk! 

neck-kisses-are-cool: 

I’ll link a website I’ve used to create the most painful ways to murder horses :)

UPDATE:

Hi, all. Thanks for all your comments and advice. I didn’t think I’d update, but I have something small to share: I killed the horse! It wasn’t quite as graceful as I was hoping, but luckily my buddy seemed so shell shocked he didn’t question me too much, and I’m now the proud owner of the fastest horse on the server!

[ns-games]

2024 CrowdStrike Incident

I just wanted to document my day today. Since I feel this is a pretty major historical event in the history of computing.

From my understanding, the update that CrowdStrike pushed occurred last night, but I wasn't made aware of it until this morning.

I heard the notification for Microsoft Teams go off on my work phone a couple of times while I was still in bed. I decided not to answer right away since employees are supposed to call me directly if there's a production issue. However, around 5:30 this morning, I got a call from one of my team leads telling me that a CrowdStrike update got pushed earlier that has now "BitLockered" a bunch of computers.

For context, my team uses the term "BitLockered" for any time a computer crashes and requires the BitLocker encryption key to recover.

In any case, I was asked if I could run over to our local distribution center right away to start mitigating the damage. I immediately got up, got dressed, grabbed my work laptop and bag and left. I skipped my morning coffee and shower so I could get there ASAP.

When I finally managed to get inside the building, I started taking a look around the front office and saw several computers stuck on the Windows Recovery Mode screen. Already starting to look like a bad sign. I started booting up my work laptop, which I thankfully did not leave turned over overnight, and headed upstairs to a bank of production computers. As soon as I got up there, I saw a sea of Windows Recovery Mode screens.

By this point my Microsoft Teams notifications started going off non-stop, and I started running the recommended fix on one of the computers. Basically I was trying to make sure I understood how to perform the fix. At this point, it became apparent we were going to have to touch every endpoint in our network at every facility.

Around 6:00AM, I got a call from a manager from a separate facility asking me about what was going on. This is someone that's constantly just called me instead of submitting a help desk ticket, and I've tried to be patient with. Today I had to be a bit more blunt and state that I couldn't drop what I was doing to come over and help, but that someone would be there later today to assist. This manager continued to try and call me throughout the day, but I had to keep telling him that I was not going to be available all day.

Around 6:30AM one of my co-workers made it to the distribution center to help. I ran the fix on his laptop and we started working to fix each computer one by one. A bit later I noticed my mom texted me that she heard about this in the news. So I looked up "CrowdStrike" on Google and found that not only were we affected by it, but many other major companies were.

As we started getting workstations back online, it became apparent that was only going to be half the battle, as this issue caused most of our servers to crash as well. But at this point, we figured it would be best to continue to get as many workstations back up and running one by one. But because the servers were down, I kept getting asked if I could restore a connection, which unfortunately we couldn't do until the server team could run the fixes on our servers.

Eventually I was asked to join a Zoom call so I could start providing other facilities with BitLocker keys so they could start running the fix on their own computers. Some machines we determined could be fixed by reverting to a restore point. Others we had find a way to manually remove the "C-00000291*.sys* file by booting the computer into Safe Mode with Networking. Those devices ended up costing us a bunch of time to get back up and running.

By the time 5:00PM rolled around, I asked if I could go home and continue to work from there. So I took the opportunity to go home, get myself cleaned up, and continue to work. By 8:30PM it seemed that things had died down to the point we could stop for the day. I'm sure we've got a few machines we still need to apply the fix to, but we managed to get our core business back up and running within the matter of a few hours.

So yeah, long story. But I just felt like documenting it, given that this is an event that's probably going to be pretty well remembered in the history books.

[coffeegnomee]

Ooooo you wanna tell me about PrinceZam and Lifesteal lore soo bad 👀👀 (I just started s6 and I'm super interested in it lolol)

Just started season 6. oh me oh my. welcome. I wrote a summary a while ago for s3-5, here it is below.

updated to add the eclipse arc too since i glossed over it last time. and added s6 up to october. 8.5k words.

I didn't hold back on any plot twist/spoilers but like, knowing what happened is very very different from watching it unfold so all videos and vods are well worth watching. but this can give a waypoint as many videos are published months (or years) after the events.

s3 zam made an empire to keep spawn from being grieffed, everyone opposed it because he called it the PrinceZam Empire, they killed him, and he agreed to be executed and banned by Red. He came back for the finale in which vitalasy wanted to revive everyone but then banned himself (or got banned i forget) and keeping everyone unbanned became Zam's job(TM) and he resolved to never give up. After 5 (or so) bases in one week that Spoke leaked every time bc he was secretly still teamed with clownpierce, spoke did a dramatic dialogue with Zam on a hill, "why are you trying to save a world people are actively trying to leave". There was a big war which ended in Zam having another dialogue with Spoke where Zam attacked spoke with a stone ax until spoke continually killed him until he was banned. Spoke got him to give up, spoke won. It was awesome. You can watch Zam's vid on it "i was banned for saving this smp" or the finale streams, both are great recap of s3. (both the spoke dialogues happened in the same vod, it's a really easy watch)

s3 was the best season for yt vids imo, i particularly love clown and branzy's videos on the funhouse, casino, cleansing, and finale vids and if you just watch that you get everything. Everyone had good videos if you start searching channels.

s4 ends with the wormhole, a game breaking glitch that Spoke Vi and Ash found (also Subz was there) and used to completely destroy the server. Before all that the server runs as normal, starting slow with the youtube arc where everyone is making their silly random youtube videos. Zam initially wants to go solo but the joins Team Awesome which is commonly just him Mapicc and Ro but also Spoke and Terrain (iirc). There are many fun shenanigans. a spawn prison, the medusa arc. Around the mid season Team Awesome finds a dupe glitch. They dupe endless gear, god apples, and hearts and get into fights where Mapicc and Zam fight together constantly. this is The Dupe War. There are videos on it, but no streams. It ends with them withering the entirety of spawn, completely annihilating it (there's more to the arc but that is important)

During dupe war Zam and Mapicc thought Spoke was betraying them by orchestrating it with Parrot, turns out it was just Spoke who was orchestrating Everything because part of the wormhole glitch required Spoke to socially engineer Parrot into clicking a sign that would give Ash creative mode. When Ash got creative he loaded his hotbar and the Wormhole Barrel(TM) was brought into the game.

That same day Ash started showing the server the exploits (changing the course of the season DRAMATICALLY). Everything that was going on between the dupe war and this moment got put on pause.

What is everything? Well after the Dupe war Mapicc and Ro were planning on keeping duped items in a stash so they would never have to worry about items. Zam realized he Hated That(TM) bc exploits are unfair. So he left the team dramatically, fought them on the nether roof, and perished fantastically. He then retreated to his sanctuary where he built a castle.

Mapicc finds him at that castle the next day and filled with rage at zam betraying him begins The Castle Arc, fantastic arc, well worth watching as vods on Zam's channel. it's the vod after "the end of team awesome" which is also a great vod. Mapicc torments Zam nearly daily while Zam was also repairing spawn with Subz. Subz, as the finale of his spawn cleanup fights Mapicc and Ro who have become the bbegs of the week, he gets exiled. Zam grows a backbone and ALSO fights them, also looses, and then proceeds to die to Ro 13 more times. This is the Stone Sword Incident.

Left on 2 hearts he does a stream with Clown and Branzy which gets him banned by Mapicc because he had paid Clown one heart to be his protection. So Mapicc thought he still had two. they revive zam and he is left on 3 hearts (or was it 1? I forget. mapicc might've taken two of them back after revival) he turns to his only ally on the server, the only person who came and defended him from mapicc during the castle arc: ItzSubz_.

Subz invited him to his team, the Eclipse Federation. What transpires after here is the most beloved arc in all of lifesteal history, from a fandom perspective. I wrote a whole writeup on why it works so well from a story telling perspective that's one of my first posts on my blog. you can use the #gnome rambles tag to find it easier.

What started as a team, protection, safety from Mapicc, two allies who would come on to fight Mapicc and anyone else whom he got to fight on his side (though subz was more active than vi) turned into a nightmare.

After Ash leaked the wormhole items vi and subz quickly dmed him to meet at the base. Vi (iirc) told him to stop stream and delete the vod, which zam did. Unbeknownst to him, subz accidentally hit go live instead of start recording and for the less than 10 minutes he was live, he and vi implicated themselves as the originators of the wormhole glitch. The secret was out.

By the time they made it to the base to meet with zam they decided to tell zam everything, letting him know that they wanted it to have been a good surprise, something exciting that they could all do together. Vi promised that there was a plan for the items, an arc that he wanted to make happen that he had been planning since the very start of the season. I forget exactly how much they told him, but it was not everything.

Faced with Vi's season long plan, and still not knowing What the plan was, only that it was good, zam agreed to go along with it, trusting subz and vi that they knew what they were doing.

Zam, beyond all reason, had found himself on the very team that was behind the new exploit after just having left Team Awesome over exploits.

He asked if chat could know the plan, and vi and subz both agreed they wanted to keep it secret but that zam could ask off stream. Zam being Zam, could never hide something that huge from chat, didn't want to hide something that huge from chat. So he decided to not know, placing all his trust that Vi would tell him what he needed to know and that everything would be okay.

The doom lifted, for a brief time everything was okay again. But soon enough Vi was ready to start phase 1: a bedrock prison at spawn for the tyrants of the server. Zam didn't like that their team would have the power to imprison people, and he didnt like it was bedrock. He tried to communicate that, and vi and subz both assured him they would only put people in that the server as a whole agreed needed to go in. That helped zam for a short time. i dont remember all the meetings super well, but there were many. one time vi told zam they had "amplified" the glitch. another he said they had a bedrock farm in the end. vi was desperate to keep zam on the team because he loved zam and enjoyed his presence and didnt want the team to fall apart. zam at one point committed fully to the plan and killed himself in a hole to show his commitment (vi also jumped down and also died). the next day they made the prison and the day after zam regretted building out of bedrock. he hated exploits. nothing could shake him from the deep-set hatred that this was unfair for the server. he didnt want to ruin vi's plan, but he didn't know if he could continue supporting it.

around and around he went. changing his thoughts based on what vi said, changing based on subz, changing based on chat, changing based on vi. Feeling trapped, seeing no hope in being understood he roamed the server in despair. filled with the weight that the exploits would get worse in phases 2-5 he shouldered the burden without being able to tell anyone.

Beyond anything else he felt completely indebted to subz and loved subz more than anyone. subz had fought for him and protected him from mapicc, he had taken him in and given him hearts and gear to get back on his feet, he was always there ready to log on and help zam fight or save him when jumped.

Around this time there were many conversations with bacon and planet. They had seen some of the exploits, spoke was leaking them slowly since the prison was built, spawning a warden and endermite that could one tap players, using potions that gave you all the effects in the game. pvp was a thing of the past.

Bacon and Planet were investigating, trying to figure out who was pulling the strings and where the plot might go. Pretty quickly they figured out zam knew a lot, but zam wouldn't tell.

When Vi made the prison, they interviewed him, and planet got so upset that all this plot looked to be was a prison that could be used, not even would be used that he immediately started talking to bacon about getting zam to leave eclipse. he had previously been a proponent of zam sticking it out because being in the thick of content is always good on this server even if you don't love the methods. Zam was ready to leave the team but he was wracked with guilt and the fear of being alone again just like he was after betraying team awesome. they invited him to their team if he left, but he was still hesitant. he cared about subz too much to leave.

A few days later zam one again invited Branzy on, knowing that the next day he would have to make a decision about being on eclipse. There was a meeting scheduled about the next phase tomorrow. Spoke turned branzy into a dolphin with a potion and after the shenanigans, zam asked branzy for advice about what he should do. it's one of my favorite stream moments from s4, branzy approaches the lore with great seriousness and helps zam work through his thoughts to figure out what he wants to do. zam doesn't quite make a decision but has many talking points for the meeting, equipped with new metaphors to explain how he's feeling and how he needs vi to promise change, not just do little things that don't mean anything in the big picture.

At the end of the conversation planet joins call and starts asking zam innocent questions. he finds out about the book that vi once showed zam that had the whole wormhole plan, zam says it's in one of the bases, but not which, and he ends stream soon after. But once stream ends he gets curious to reread what vi wrote so he journeys to the base. Upon arrival though he realizes planet and bacon are both in the area. He sees them through the wall and walks into a room he has never seen before filled with barrels. planet and bacon drag him into a call and show him that the room is filled with every exploit and more, things they hadn't seen yet.

Seeing the extent of where the wormhole would go, and supported (or influenced depending on how you look at it) by planet and bacon, zam finally commits to leaving eclipse. he can't be part of this. this is too much. these exploits are far far worse than anything team awesome did.

So the next day he makes his traitor's requiem. He confronts vi, bacon planet and jaron come through the end portal invis and they kill vi, marking zam's departure from the team. Vi is furious zam didn't come to them, that he would betray so callously and kill him so instantly. Subz resignedly accepts that zam never was going to be able to be a part of the team, he was too against exploits.

Wracked with the pain of betrayal and loosing the person he loved deeply even though he had lied to him, Vi started to embrace the wormhole powers. Through a different glitch he was able to fly in survival, and with the one tap potions he tormented planet in the prison, killing him over and over and giving the heart back. but he insisted that he was not going to use the powers to become evil.

over the next days vi would roam the server using exploits, a ghost on the wind debating what to do with his infinite power. bacon and planet and zam got him in a call to talk about how vi was being a villain and they wanted him to give up the exploits. vi refused to see what they were saying.

but then spoke, lead by parrot and mapicc and ro, took a power play and tried chunk banning vi to end the evil on the server. parrot leaked the plan to vi and vi got out, but once again vi was facing the ridicule of the server for something that he wasn't even wanting to be.

So vi gave up the exploits. summoned the whole server to himself and burned all the items in his echest. but the server didnt believe him for a second. they were convinced he had more exploits hidden in the world. they were convinced he was the villain and were angry he wasn't just doing things with it.

but vi was done. spoke (iirc) killed him and after leaving call vi found himself atop the prison, gazing down at the server he loved, the server that hated him. it was over. he threw himself from its height over and over until he was banned.

after the ban, zam was left listless. he had betrayed eclipse because he feared they would be evil, but vi just banned himself off, sealing into the story that he would not be the villain. he couldn't talk to subz, he was too ashamed. so he became a farmer and lived inside subz's floating islands at spawn.

but one day while he was on subz revived vitalasy. zam wasn't invited but he busied himself at his farm, hoping his old teammates might want to talk to him. But something far far worse was about to happen. a ban message rang through chat. subz was killed by vitalasy. subz left the game.

his world shattered. The one person he cared about was gone. gone and he couldn't even talk to him. couldn't tell him how much he regretted betraying them. he needed to revive subz. right. now. he got vi into a call, a bottle of sunshine, sure it was just a mistake, sure subz was not really gone.

But vi was crying. he didn't explain it all to zam, but subz had brought him back on the server to tour him around their bases. filled with grief vi dragged his feet from location to location. eventually subz brought him to his newest base, and in the corner he could see a room filled with signs spelling out depression. lost, alone, a failed team that he had brought together, now split apart. vi immediately realized what subz was about to do. subz brought him to the end and revealed his masterpiece base, and then told vi to kill him. he wasn't capable of reuniting the team while he was alive, maybe in death vi and zam could reconcile. He was determined to have vi kill him. vi refused for an hour until he finally got subz to promise to return when he needed him most. And he banned him.

vi had zam meet him in the end and faced with that innocent smiling idiot's face, vi had almost no words. subz had left him a book telling him his final wish was for them to reconcile and vi begrudgingly decided to let zam in. he showed zam the end base. zam apologized instantly, wanting nothing more than for everything to be all right. but his focus was completely on reviving subz, almost ignoring vi in his desperation to get subz back. two lost birds.

vi explained that subz wanted to be gone and even if they revived him he wouldn't come back. they agree to be teammed again, and i think it's this zam vod or the next time he talks to vi, but within 30 minutes he's regretting saying yes to everything and wondering if it was the wrong thing to reconcile and get back together with vi. so. still good old princezam.

but it was done. they were reconciled. as the wormhole approached zam reconciled with everyone he had wronged.

but he forgot about pangi. in the wake of vi banning himself zam no longer wanted to do a "trap the gods" idea with pangi since the exploits were over. time and again this season zam had preferred his own plan over pangi's and often fought against him even though the two were friends. even though pangi was always there to help zam with his plans. frustrated at being snubbed, pangi took zam through the course they had made together, ending with the void trap they were going to use to lock the exploiters under the bedrock.

zam jumped in willingly, having taken off all his gear so as to not loose it in the void, but pangi had repaired the bedrock with the bedrock they had stolen from ash. pangi gave a great villain speech and trapped zam in bedrock. zam accepted his fate. so full of regret for all his action this season, this was nothing compared to what he felt he deserved.

And zam broke. he entered his mind and confronted all his past selves. his eclipse self tells him he cant just give up and abandon vi again, not after everything. zam thinks he has hurt vi too much to ever be forgiven. his team awesome (i think) self tells him he should just give up and destroy the server instead of wallowing in self pity.

he kills himself with a water bucket (ooc pangi had dropped it to him so he could get out) and decides to talk to both vi and spoke to figure out what side of the wormhole he would be on. vi isn't available. so he speaks to spoke first.

he meets spoke on a hill just like in s3, and asks to join him in ending the server. spoke reveals that he has not just all the exploits, but op. he gives zam creative mode, shows him custom items he coded, transports a whole chunk of the overworld to the end, gets in a console battle with parrot's admin account and wins. spoke is in complete control of the server.

mapicc was already on spoke's side and so once again devotions are together, fighting side by side just like on team awesome.

zam talks to vi next and iirc doesn't tell him he's already joined spoke, he's aware he has a team secret to keep and either way vi says he doesn't have plans for the finale. i actually dont remember when vi finds out zam is on the wormhole side.

over the next week spoke does prep events for the wormhole, involving inactive server members, mapicc and zam corrupt the world (grass to netherack, wood to basalt) with boots spoke coded for them. devotions wonder if spoke will betray them, they dont like that they're just minions and not equals, spoke isnt giving them actual power, just toys and tricks. they promise to end the server together no matter what happens.

the night before the end zam wonders if he's making the wrong decision again, the chatters fan the flames and he works himself up into second guessing everything. spoke might betray him. planet has found out he's on spokes side and hates him. he's messing everything up again. he was so against exploits and now he put himself on the exploit team.

suddenly he realizes chat is the problem. he's trying to make everyone happy, even chat, and he needs to just decide to do what he thinks he should do. and he decides that he wants to end the server as fast as possible so that subz can return in s4. because it's always been about subz.

the day of the wormhole arrives and about 100 other mcyts join the server to kill parrot, planet, bacon, and jaron. earlier spoke had said if they can survive the wormhole he will give up the exploits and they can save the server before ending it. over the next 48 hours they play a protect the president event.

vi revives subz the first day and suddenly zam is faced with the object of his desires back on this server. they have a final terribly tragic conversation where subz is disappointed in zam for joining spoke, zam cant defend himself because he agrees with subz, vi joins and chews zam out for betraying and tells him if he didn't want to play he should have just logged off. vi and subz are on parrot's side and killing people with leftover exploits vi still had. they leave, and zam even more dejected than ever.

planet decides to live the whole event at 3 hearts despite parrot having gathered 100 over the season. right at the end spoke asks both sides for items to ban and eventually hearts get banned, so planet is stuck at 3. in the final moments he almost gets banned but minute (as a guest) has planet kill him to get a heart again (minute's video on the wormhole was actually really good btw), but mapicc catches up to planet and bans him in the last 10 seconds of the event.

spoke, because the players fought so hard, brings everyone to the control room telling them they can choose to save the server or end it. while the server discusses mapicc and zam message each other and decide to jump in both options at once so that the server has to end. there's a final conversation on the grass where vi says this was the ending he wanted.

the long and complicated season is over.

s5 starts slow, Zam is very much done with being the main character and not much happens for about like 5 months. zam takes a full 3 month break from streaming, but when he returns in january he joins Mapicc and Bacon and they invite Jumper and Pentar to make the Abyss. they start breaking bedrock at spawn and getting players to fall into the void. its a fun and long and shenanigan filled arc that takes a deep turn as themes of players leaving the server start setting in. This season rek left before it started and parrot, poafa, mid, subz, and vi all leave mid way through. lifesteal feels like it's crumbling.

After days of fighting, planet gets zam into a call and asks him why the abyss is doing all of this. zam mentions mulitple things but lands on player activity. planet walks to the void hole and says "if the goal is player activity then, in a way i guess you lost" and then jumps into the void. the ban sound pierces the air announcing planet having been on one heart that whole time.

The abyss is mortified. They did like their idea of player activity but planet was right, just killing memebers made them give up. so they concoct a new plan, a week long scavenger hunt for the rest of the server to complete: if they finish the Abyss will stop voiding all of spawn, if they dont spawn will be destroyed. Minute heads up the opposition in the Foundation.

for multiple 9-12 hour streams zam labors at building the freakinator to destroy 5 layers of bedrock. mapicc joins him most often, usually just sitting in call to keep him company but being there nonetheless. Jumper and Pentar start helping more once the scavenger hunt really starts while bacon joins call to work on the clues. many fun hours of banter and laughter fill the air.

jumper pentar and mapicc take valorant breaks much to zams embitterment. jumper accidentally gets pentar to fall into the void with multiple skulkers of pistons, enraging zam. zam and jumper both are filled with excitement at the future making all of spawn into parkour civilization.

the whole arc zam has to face the concept that he cares more about this project than anyone else on the team, even though the abyss wasn't originally his idea. he has to fight constantly to battle the bitter voices that tell him they don't care about him and are bad teammates. only mapicc stays in the positive light. everyone else drains resources and falls into the void with the pistons he spent hours crafting.

As the scavenger hunt continues (oh day one of the scavenger hunt wemmbu demands 50 hearts or he will orbital strike spawn. foundation and abyss join together to unite the server in stopping him. spoke leaks the orbital coords he got bc he is owner to ash and the foundation take the win at being the one to destroy the canon and spawn trap wemmbu to 2 hearts. though the shot still went off and a large portion of spawn got destroyed despite the server trying to waterlog everything)

the foundation runs through clues faster than the abyss thought they would, so bacon adds some extra steps at the end. minute gets frustrated and decides to log on before the final session starts to try and finish the hunt. zam is planning on breaking the first bedrock to void at 3pm and minute wants to beat him to it.

despite everything, in a mad rush right at the end, the foundation gets the final clue at 2:55pm. they are to give the abyss one task of their choosing. they are in control. they decide the abyss members should die to the void once and never break bedrock again. The players jumped into the void.

But what nobody saw coming, or none dared imagine even when there were signs, was Jumper was secretly on the Foundation's side and leaked the scavenger hunt answers whenever the Foundation got stuck.

All the work, all those pistons, stopped in an instant. The betrayal was one of the most insane things to happen on lifesteal ever. three months of deep cover. actively helping the team. dreaming of parkour civilization together. multiple trust tests and steadfast dedication promised. all lies.

Mapicc immediately tries to kill her, Zam helps but both give up as Minute defends Jumper and both fight them back. There is no resolution to the betrayal. (Clown's video of this arc covers the whole Foundation side and is great)

Mapicc vows to destroy her life, Bacon agrees, Zam is down with it. Leaving Pentar to have the difficult choice: stay on the team and destroy the only member he knew before joining the server, or leave. He leaves. Later he joins Jumper and Minute as a team

Mapicc and Zam try fighting Minute and Jumper over and over but fail again and again.

The Presidency Arc begins, the server elects one person to get legal exploits basically: changing three things about the server. 4C and Reddoons together win, disappointing Mapicc and Zam greatly as red and 4c were extremely inactive and only wanted CaptainSparklez on for one event, removed the heart recipe, and had a third thing so forgettable i dont remember it and it didnt happen.

Basically they stalled out the already stalled progression of the server. Nobody was doing any big arcs since the abyss weeks before, the last arc was soundly destroyed by betrayal and no revenge was possible bc Minute and Jumper were just slightly better pvpers than Mapicc and Zam.

With the captainsparklez event on the horizon, Zam being lower on hearts, and having just died to Minute and Jumper in a fight where he semi-illegally restocked, was called into the principle's office with Ash (owner of s5 with spoke). Ash told him off, and then was reminded that he didn't remove heart crafting recipe, so he did that and told Zam to just kill 4C and Mid if he wanted more hearts.

Once again Ash is changing the trajectory of the server. Zam goes into a moral quandary bc he's kind of evil this season but is he THAT evil to kill two non-pvpers? While they're building? In the middle of the debate Ash logs on again and /msg him why they're still alive. So Zam kills 4c. He feels awful and spirals and goes to his and Pangi's base to think, but upon seeing their bed, realizes he could just farm Pangi off the server. Or just take half his hearts. The idea is so horrible, the depths of darkness so great, that he just starts laughing. and laughing. and laughing. (vod: "an agent of chaos is born")

So begins Zam's Joker arc, incredibly relevant to s6. Throughout the Abyss, Minute had been calling himself batman, and thus became the fixation of the Joker arc.

The presidency had also passed to Minute who had run saying he would do pvp style events but then just added the aether, changed the kit, and added the Blaze and Caves achievement race (BAC). And he was already talking about ending the server in peace.

This upset Mapicc Bacon and Zam, who had become The Players by this time. After consulting with Spoke (bc he always ends the server), they came up with a plan to break up all the teams. Mapicc started reaching out to Clown and Leo to see if they would betray the PMC, their team with Minute. And they came up with the plan to try and steal the presidency from Minute after his term was up (3 weeks, 3 changes) and use it to make the server hardcore, thinking they would finally be able to kill Minute and Jumper.

Zam full on went onto his Joker arc, blowing up builds, having people choose to blow up builds, fight each other, and a host of other Joker inspired moral dilemmas. minute told zam that the reason he wanted to join lifesteal was because he looked up to him for his s3 heroism. (vod: "murder chicken machine") Jumper also had a great yap session with zam at this time ("your president doesn't care about you")

Zam's main tactic was taking all his armor off in front of minute and jumper, taunting them to kill him and break their peaceful ending. If they wanted him to stop destroying the server they could just kill him.

But they refused. over and over.

Then the Blaze and Caves event happened, Minute's final presidency event. whoever got the most achievements from the 900 or so new ones would get a heart cap of 30. Zam being Zam loves small tasks and went on a week of 12 hour streams to get them all, stopping all Joker activities.

In this week Mapicc made fun of Minute for not just killing Zam and over the course of the conversation Minute agreed to bet the presidency bc Mapicc implied that they were just opposing Minute bc Minute stole the presidency from Mapicc bc the vote was rigged after the CaptainSparlez event. If Mapicc could get the majority of the server to vote him out, he would step down.

Wemmbu approached Mapicc and I forget who suggested it first but what came out of it was Wemmbu would pay everyone who voted for him $500, Mapicc wanted Wemmbu to get the presidency bc he thought more people would vote for Wemmbu over him, and then proceeded to convince everyone on the server to vote against minute within like a 2 hour span. (you can watch the entire thing go down live on Zam's vod. it was incredible)

Minute was completely cooked. The presidency was ripped out from under him, Clown and Leo voted against him, everything was rigged from the start while he still believed the server would vote for what was right, not what was interesting, and definitely not for irl money.

Minute's vod "meet the yappers" is a vod of all time.

That Saturday the BAC achievement race was finished and Zam got 30 hearts, Pentar came in second and got 25.

The server got turned to hardcore, and the Players accidentally killed Bacon with an arrow cannon like 5 minutes into it that they were planning on using on the whole server.

With the presidency gone, Pentar, Minute (Brandon), Ash, and Jumper became officially PB(And)J and gave up being the nice guys. They were still self-proclaimed the good guys and they still wanted peace, they just had to kill a few people and then there would be peace on lifesteal.

So they, all four of them, jumped Zam and killed him in a couple minutes flat when zam had threatened to blow up the vitalasy hole, Vi's last place on the server before leaving. It was the classic Joker threat, but he went to actually do it bc Ash was being extra obnoxious in the call. And then got instantly murdered. and Zam was banned.

Then like a week later (iirc?) Jumper asked Mapicc on to talk, she told him she regretted betraying the Abyss, that pb&j wanted to kill people and she just wanted the server to end in peace, and that she wanted Mapicc to kill and ban her so she could end her season on her terms.

It was a trap. Minute shot Mapicc with an arrow cannon. Killing him instantly.

They then got Wemmbu on and used their presidency power that was left over to cancel out his presidency power of immortality (it was just as confusing as that sounds) and killed him instantly.

Wemmbu didn't like that(TM) so he changed the tnt damage to 100 and dropped a nuke on them instantly killing Jumper Ash and Pentar. But that was unfair(TM) (and he lagged the server illegally to do it) so it was undone.

As a result Zam borrowed Pangi's account and Mapic borrowed Spoke's and they were back on to oppose this peaceful ending. Clown and Ro also locked in and were super active in the finale.

Wemmbu's next presidency thing (this was before they killed him. whatever. time moved weirdly in the finale) was the blessings and curses, Zam was pretty much emotionally done with the server, so in a final act of GayJoker flare, blessed Minute with fire res (which was useless bc Minute had 64 notch apples).

Mapicc and Clown were Not Happy with this, Mapicc took it as a betrayal, which upset Zam a lot because his whole thing this season was not betraying his team bc that's all he did s4. So he locked in for the finale. Pangi's account accidentally got banned, so he borrowed Spepticle's account.

Minute and co were not logging on a lot, even though they had a whole meeting about them playing at least a couple of hours a day so The Players could actually try and ban them and it would be a real finale event. Mapicc pulled out Salty Mode and once again got Minute to cave and Jumper and Pentar logged on and they did a 4v3. Clown out general'ed Minute and Minute got banned and Pentar got banned. Speptical logged onto his account to kick Zam off mid fight which was a delightfully great bit of possession control.

Jumper had to survive two days and got Squiddo and Ash to help, the three of them tried chunk banning Clown and Ro and Mapicc (zam got banned by clown so they couldnt use Spep's account to get Mintue back on). Mapicc died bc Squiddo made a mod to tap into Wemmbu's mod from his presidency and she nuked him and he died from an elytra glitch.

Eventually the next day Jumper and co chunk banned everyone, but clown and Ro walked out of it bc you can join and move a bit before you get kicked. Jumper elected to stay canonically in the ban and give up, even though they let the ban despawn by accident and she could log on. She conceded the event.

Everyone went to Branzy's carnival which had been happening in parallel to all of this the past couple months. They celebrate his final moments on lifesteal, and bid adieu to one of lifesteal's most beloved members. He won't be joining season 6.

And then we have s6.

Zam starts the season deciding to never kill a player again. he will just build peacefully at spawn, swearing off violence in the wake of his violence in the joker arc and s5 in general.

within 9 days he is killed by pentar on bacon's suggestion, killed by mapicc 3 times in a row, killed by bacon and planet's trap which they pulled to stop leo from killing him, along with a host of other small moments that almost make zam break.

on the 9th day he tries building a shulker farm for hours and hours. pangi bothers him throughout the whole process and he shoots him with his bow to get him to go away over and over. in a bout of frustration over the farm not working he builds a closet to lock the spirit of the joker in. he tells bacon about the closet and how he has terrible nightmares and the demon in his closet tells him to kill people. eventually he gives up on the farm but later that night he logs on to mess with bacon more. bacon and planet manage to piss him off within a couple of minutes and he again starts using his bow to shoot at them in petty frustration.

but planet takes off all his armor and takes an arrow to the head, popping like a grape. zam got his first kill.

that night he stalks spepticle and is menacing in the distance. he tells spep he wont remember this when he wakes up but spep will.

the next day he's in agony over what he has done. pangi comforts him and tells him its not his fault. zam builds a tree and writes his first oath, swearing to never crit or bow at players ever again.

satisfied that he's learning to control his bloodlust he decides to try and get to 20 hearts from building because mapicc asks him to build him a castle. the next day flame asks him to build him a volcano for 3 hearts which makes him raise the price on mapicc's castle also up to 3 hearts (after two conversations)

at the same time squiddo, 4c, and cube run the peace trials to decide who they will give the mace to. eventually they choose clown because he put his all into it.

as time continues more and more people choose to follow zam in pacifism. woogie swears off violence after mane blows up their base and red kills kab. kab swears off violence after going in a box for a week to process red killing her. pangi swears off violence so people feel comfortable coming to his recording events. zam hates that people are copying him. it was never about making lifesteal peaceful, it was about his own bloodlust.

one day flame comes to spawn during session asking for a 10v1 fight. everyone thinks there has to be a trap, but he denies it. mapicc starts getting people involved for the fight and they get about 5-6 people because zam woogie and pangi all refuse bc pacifism and terrain never pvps and has no gear.

right at the end zam decides to let go of his oath for a day to participate in the fight so flame can do his idea. he wont kill flame but he will crit him. but flame decides there's not enough players and he hears that rek and others will just run if they get low and flame wants to kill them all, not end in running. so he cancels the fight to plan it another day.

everyone disperses and logs off but a bit later wemmbu calls zam back to spawn so he can watch them blow it up. flame is destroying builds to piss off the players so they will want to fight him. zam is horrified and gives himself up as a fight so flame will stop. flame and wemmbu kill him and keep blowing it up because it was never the point. they want a 10v1 not a princezam alone.

flame burns down zam's tree and as the fire consumes the tree zam can only helplessly look on while flame and wemmbu mock him in vc.

Zam almost breaks. But pangi logs on right after and he suddenly realizes he can rebuild spawn over and over from a schematic and nothing is bad at all. Skipping away he starts gaia's hand, a group of players who will help him rebuild spawn and fight flame. He's afraid of getting so involved and so close to fighting because it might make him slip up and break, but if flame burning his tree couldn't make him change he didn't think anything could.

pangi takes it upon himself to talk to flame, giving him lite therapy to get him to see that people take time to build and building is enjoyable by building a house with him. flame begrudgingly builds the house thinking it's dumb the whole time. but pangi gets him to agree to not blow up spawn anymore and pagni will organize flame's fight for him. but minutes later wemmbu logs on and starts blowing up mapicc's castle. pangi is helpless to stop him because of his pacifism and he's pissed that flame can't control his teammates. he leaves telling flame to stop wemmbu or the fight is off. minutes later again flame calls him back to the house they built and wemmbu has blown it up. flame is completely dejected and feels like he cant stop wemmbu and also that it isn't his problem to fix. pangi gives him one final chance, but he's at the end of his rope. but they leave agreeing to get flame the fight.

zam gets into mccr and leaves the server for this week to practice, during his absence the fight happens, but right as the 10 people stand together in a pre-fight pep talk mapicc and spoke tnt minecart the whole circle, killing everyone. the players are pissed and refuse to fight again. mapicc says its because wemmbu blew up his castle, and that flame needs to kill wemmbu and he can have his fight. mapicc and wemmbu end up fighting and bc mapicc was on his phone hotspot he starts to loose so he runs from the fight. in retaliation the server griefs his castle, enemies and friends together.

after the cart incident zam logs on to get updated, pangi and mapicc both hate how flame is bullying the server into getting his fight and they promise to stop flame.

in the ashes of his tree, zam no longer has an oath, so he writes a new one that focuses on refusing to kill and refusing to use violence to solve his problems. he's emboldened by his idea to rebuild spawn over and over whenever flame destroys it, convinced he will outlast him.

flame logs on and zam gets him to admit he can't control wemmbu and also cant betray wemmbu bc wemmbu has something over him that will ruin him. zam this time promises to get flame his fight if he can convince wemmbu to stop blowing up spawn. he logs off to win mccr the following weekend, and the day he returns flame has decided to do his fight during session and uses 1000 dogs to aid him.

also while he was gone kab killed planet twice, almost banning him but then gave back the hearts.

zam is left listless, there is nobody to fight. he builds a field of daisies to frolic in. he doesn't know what he will do. where his journey will take him. but for now he's content. he has completely become the pacifist.

days later mapicc calls him to his castle and reveals that he's been stalking him for months and trying to get him to break and start killing. it has obviously been unsuccessful. at one point about a month before he had taken off his armor and started attacking zam and zam still refused to hit him, only doing it accidentally before running away and getting out. mapicc offers him hearts if he kills him and zam easily refuses. they end the arc teammates rather than enemies.

with nothing going on in the server, bacon decides that while mapicc prefers having zam as a friend, he prefers having zam as an enemy and so he choses to join wemmbu to help guide him to do more interesting arcs. wemmbu takes him in and same day kab leaks spep's location and wemmbu kills spep with bacon in tow and the team starts to form.

that same day bacon starts training kab to learn to escape fights, during it kab sets her bed in front of him. a little later mane logs on and kills kab bc they have a feud going on since the start of the season, and then finds that bed and kills her again. kab immediately thinks bacon betrayed her and sends hannah after him to kill him, he dies in one hit because he's on 4 hearts and then dies again trying to get his stuff back and is overall rather pissed at kab and hannah because he didn't leak the bed. they get wemmbu on and update him and bacon refuses to team if kab doesn't give the heart back. it ends unresolved but a couple days later kab gives bacon the hearts and the california girls becomes a team (name will come later).

zam thinks bacon is being fishy so he investigates him but wemmbu leaks pretty quickly that they're a team. but then wemmbu gets hannah to kill poafa at spawn twice and zam can do nothing but watch and give poafa two of his own hearts. he's left with nothing to do and no ideas of how to fight wemmbu without fighting.

mapicc drops his stalking video and then dies to wemmbu in a 1v1 and zam logs on in time to see him die. bc of both things he's sent into a reflection turmoil over who he is on this server. mapicc has got him feeling like the team awesome days and it scares him. who do the players on the server view him as? he realizes independence was nice, but it's also isolating and he's all alone. he resolves to find teammates. but even so he doesn't have options he likes at all.

then one day bacon revives planet, and wemmbu kills planet twice and all the members of the server are too afraid of wemmbu to attack him and protect planet. zam is crushed but still doesn't know what to do. he gives planet hearts from his own hotbar, but he's running low and he vowed to not kill and he doesn't want to slip and go down a route that will make him evil again.

then while musing over ideas he flies to spawn and sees derap and mid, touching down he intends to chat, but derap kills mid, banning her instantly. horrified zam asks him why but derap just says it's because there were no repercussions to his actions. that word sticks in zam's brain and he realizes wemmbu has never had to face any sort of repercussions for his actions.

bacon and mapicc log on and zam shares his realization and him and mapicc decide to use zam as bait to get wemmbu into a fight where mapicc and spoke can kill wemmbu with zam as support (not using strength). they get the fight, flame joins in, but mapicc and spoke both die and zam gets out. zam, in post fight talking with chat admits that he's felt more happy while fighting than he has most of the season. he starts to very seriously consider changing his oath to allow fighting, but he doesn't want to do it by his own choice so he asks poafa and kab on.

the poafa conversation is very dear to me, zam admits that the whole reason he did pacifism was because of the "chicken murder machine" conversation with minute s5 where minute said he was inspired by zam s3. Zam has been wanting to reconnect with who he was in season 3 so he swore off fighting and vowed to protect the server at all costs. poafa gently helps him see he's not fighting on fair ground and it wouldn't be bad to fight. that he is capable of looking at the reasons he's fighting and choosing to not go too far.

he talks to kab, and feels good enough to choose a new title, pacifism never fit, but first derap comes back asking what the heck happened because he saw the mapicc and spoke death messages and zam and mapiccs banter with flame after the fight so he knows zam fought. zam admits what he said earlier changed everything and that he is going to fight from now on.

after derap leaves he writes a third oath, this one labeling him a protector of spawn, and collects a sword "galaxia, the protector sword" plus a bunch of strength pots from a barrel right by leo's void hole that he has stashed a couple of days ago as he thought over this arc change. (this is the vod PRIDE)

that brings it to 10/15/24

since then there's been small things that may or may not be relevant as the season continues to unfold. zam is still in his protector arc. mane has taken up the mantle of destroying spawn. a couple weekends ago there was a massive battle for spawn trying to kill mane once so he would stop. it all failed. minute became a legend for trying to 1v1 mane and lost but maybe won the ideological battle. mapicc's team built an orbital cannon to use against mane and involved zam. devotions have had incredible lore. kab is doing something with zam that who knows how will end. derap is doing lore with zam.

we are firmly in the mid season where all early things matter and we're establishing all the relationships that will matter for the end of season lore. and this mane spawn destruction may very well be the mid season economic miracle like the cleansing, dupe war, and abyss were in previous seasons. We'll see if anyone does anything bigger after him. Seasons usually end around may/june so there's still plenty of time to go unless they decide to go rogue.

[beawhatchumean]

IT IS HE!!

back to shimeji making and with the white hons himself

LMK AO LIE SHIMEJI VER 1.0!!

Just click on the big words and ya can download, ye :D Contains 2 zipfiles: The normal version and less frames version

Read down below for explanations on that

if got any problems launching and stuff, dont be afraid to message me, i'll try to help ya out :>

OR you can join my Discord server for easier help (will explain more down in the post)

but as seen in the quick lil poster i made there, it says extra animation + more, more info about that underneath the read 👇

from the top,

EXTRA ANIMATION

like my previous Shimejis, this one has unique frames for each action of the Shimeji. best example is the walk, run, dash actions seen below

there are other actions that have unique frames like these, but that's for you to find out yourself sksks

CUSTOM ACTION NAME

As per usual, some actions are renamed to better fit the character. Here is a guide for what they do:

Fall Over = Ao Lie falls down in a silly way and sits up again

Suprise From Behind = Shimeji breeding 1

Invite In = Shimeji breeding 2

disclaimer, I still have not done the full action guide list but I have listed a few renamed actions in guide.txt for referencing. Stay tune when I finally make that ref list

CUSTOM ACTION

Just like SWK & Mackie, petting is enabled here too!! So pet Ao Lie's little head to your heart's content hehe (credit to Kilkakon for the original script)

ALSO, the pet action is now fully animated!! However, the animation will keep playing even after you're done petting him

as seen in this gif :3

Steps to do this action is as followed:

Make the shimeji sit down (any surface is okay, ie work floor/window top)

Move the cursor to the shimeji's head

Make sure it is a hand cursor and not an arrow cursor

Pet away!!

If you want to pick up the shimeji without prompting the pet action, just move the cursor lower until it turns into the arrow icon

NON-SYMMETRICAL SHIMEJI

Like Macaque, Ao Lie also has non-symmetrical frames. So his collar will always shape a "Y" anywhere he goes!

Same as before, Ao Lie needed much more frames than he needs to get this effect to work. But, it may make some devices lag me thinks. So, there's 2 versions to download. One with symmetry and one without

PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE LESS FRAME VERSION TO NOT FRY YOUR PC'S!!

COLORED SETTINGS

Oh yea one thing I am excited to announce. The settings for the shimeji are now coloured!!

this has been a feature since long ago in the program but there was a bug. But now, it is fixed and now I can customize the colour scheme whenever and whatever I choose so >:3c

If you would like to change the colours yourself, just head into the "Theme" tab and change the colours there.

ALTERED SOME ACTIONS

There are now a few actions that will happen by itself, without you needing to choose in the "Set Behaviour" list.

Like the previous dash action, and now the daggling legs action that can happen when he sits down.

UPDATES WILL HAPPEN!!

Like the rest of my shimejis. UPDATES, UPDATES, UPDATES!! honestly, for Ao Lie I cant think for much updates besides software updates. For features and what not, he probably is going to have the least features update. But if yall have any suggestions, drop me a message or in my discord server

oh yea

I HAVE A DISCORD SERVER NOW!!

So after releasing the Shadowpeach Shimeji, so many people messaged me questions and needing help on how to work the shimeji and other stuff. So far, people only contacted me through dm's on tumblr, instagram, and just using Patreon's comment section.

Honestly, worse way to communicate since some issues I needed pictures and long messages to help out. So, discord server it is. Here's what ya can expect

Shimeji stuff (questions, wips, FAQ, etc)

Alerts on my posts and streams

Space for arts (any arts, not just drawing :>)

Share anything ya want (shitposts, current fixation, info, etc)

Just socialize and make friends :D

Ya can read more info in the rules & directory channel when ya join

So if ya interested, just click the link below

DISCORD SERVER: BEA'S CHILLAX HOLE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

but for now that will be all for ver. 1.0

many thanks to anyone interested in this project and of course

BIGGEST THANKS TO THOSE THAT HELPED BETA TEST THEM

for privacy reason they shall stay anonymous but

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ >:3

PLUS EVEN MORE HEARTS!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

ACCEPT MORE HEARTS HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

okay bye

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for accidentally outing my fiance?

I (27F) am engaged to a 24M guy. He is trans, but he doesn't identify as trans anymore - he's post-everything, passes 100%, lives stealth/as a cis man, and no one who didn't know him pre-transition knows him as anything but a cis man. I know keeping that up is very important to him, we've had a lot of conversations about how happy he is just being seen as cis and being able to pass. I know getting outed and 'found out' is also a big worry of his, for example for our upcoming wedding he's rushing around trying to make it clear to his family that they shouldn't mention him being trans or refer to him as she/her at our wedding because he has so many friends coming who don't know he's trans. It's not that he doesn't trust them or he's ashamed of being trans or anything, he's very supportive of his trans friends, but he just doesn't publicly live as trans.

We're in a big Discord server of friends that have been quite close for about a year now, enough that we've met multiple of them in person and two of them are going to be in his wedding party as sort of 'best man' equivalents (we're not really sticking to bridesmaid best man stuff just our mixed gender friends). He has kept his Facebook very private for as long as I've known him, the only people on there are IRL friends and family because he has in the past posted trans stuff on there, like transition updates, it still has old pictures of him pre-T or in early transition, etc. I knew he didn't want this found. He also hadn't told any of this group aside from the people he was especially close with and had invited to the wedding his surname and location in case they looked him up and found something.

People in the server were sharing their Facebook profiles and I shared mine so people could add me. My fiance messaged me right after pointing out that me sharing mine would dox him as I had him in my relationship status and friends list, but I unfortunately didn't see this message for a while as I was distracted and doing other things. By the time I saw, everyone in the group had already clicked and gone through my profile and found his.

He tried to go through and speed-delete everything he could find that was public that mentioned him being trans or showed him pre-transition, any comments from family referring to it, etc but pictures that were set to friends only were still popping up in previews on the side and some of his family have public profiles that show cover images with him pre-T and things like that.

Our friends were making jokes about finally knowing his surname, going through his whole account down to the time it was first made back in 2018, commenting on old statuses of his, so they definitely saw his profile and went through all of it. He was panicking because he had no way of knowing if they'd seen that he's trans or not and got super upset and freaked out about the possibility, and he couldn't ask without outing himself or making them suspicious.

I apologized and deleted the link but obviously by then it was too late.

I do think it's not a huge deal as much as he thinks because I know our friends would be supportive and wouldn't think of him differently, but I know it was still important to him. I'm not sure they did see because some of our friends are the type to have just blurted out "You're trans?!" in the server without thinking about it (not because they're malicious or judging it, but some of them aren't as online and don't really know how to talk about it sensitively if that makes sense) and they didn't say anything. However he thinks they did because they were talking about statuses older than the ones he managed to get to deleting in time.

Like I said i did apologize but I feel like he's still upset with me for not thinking before sending my profile. On top of that I have kind of a habit of doing things impulsively and without thinking (I have bpd and bipolar) and not always taking into account how it will affect him or what consequences it will have,which I've been working on for years but I worry this is just adding to that which I know already wears on him.

What are these acronyms?

[sac-works]

Compiled notes of HC S9 Town Hall livestream 2022

For context, Xisuma and a bunch of hermits had a town hall livestream covering the Season 9 initial release date. Despite it being about 3 years old, I felt the stuff covered is still relevant to this very day. Below the video I have compiled everything I thought was necessary to note.

Please have a readthrough and share it.

How Hermitcraft operates

Hermitcraft is a flat hierarchy. Decisions, in this video’s case taking a break, are typically decided by a majority. Everyone’s voice is the same as each other’s.

There are plenty of factors for reasons for taking a break.

Try not to speculate. It’s not helpful to the hermits or yourself.

The hermits are still trying to learn and understand, so mistakes would happen. There’s no sort of bad intentions. If there were any, they were mistakes.

Be welcome to experiments and trying new idea.

Hermitcraft is consensus based. Some may disagree, but understand what’s best for the majority of the group. This includes the fanbase.

Being in a group:

Dynamics and groups are organic, unless there is specific discussion.

As with any group, there are groups that happen to get along better than others. Some group dynamics are natural, some change. Another factor is timezones.

Hermits are there to help motivate the others to step up their game. Everyone helps each other to keep going.

They can communicate with one another.

Being in a group they can give feedback on each other and nobody needs to worry about being offended.

It’s not about chasing the newest trends for the server. Everyone is an adult with expenses, do the art you want to make.

There is the benefit of taking a break with this sort of motto.

Regarding new members

There’s no need to ask if certain members are joining the next season.

Regarding adding new members:

Consideration: Content, how they blend into the server, public conduct.

Xisuma reading a post from Fwhip: “Can we normalise not asking certain content creators why they aren’t in certain SMPs. Or telling them that they deserve a spot and should try to join. It can come across as saying, ‘we are not good enough alone. We have not made it into one.’ This can really affect one’s mental health. Starting out, my goal was to join a big smp server. I thought it was the only way to make it. Years later, I realised I wanted to be on my own creator instead of only being known for being part of a group, and since then my mental health has been so much better.” [Quoted directly from the stream. I don’t have the link to that post.]

That candidate would have to already be aware of Hermitcraft.

Upon joining, that member has the same privileges as the others.

It’s bringing someone you trust, and act like you trust them

Be instead inspired by Hermitcraft and create your own version of the server. It is learning to be an artist, a communicator, a leader, and more.

Creativity and story crafting

Regarding textures: general rule of thumb is they should look like it fit in the vanilla world.

For mods: They are added to help with content creation. Most are game optimisation mods. Modded Minecraft creation takes a very long time.

Ideas are typically attempted to be done in vanilla. The Season 8 moon mod was an exception.

Scripting on HC means having a beginning and an end. How it gets there is not pre-determined. Almost all of the story-lines happen organically.

Per Ren: Survival does not limit creativity. Try to get better a little bit each time.

For the storytelling, try to enjoy the story and feel immersed. So there is importance to keep the mystery.

It does not make sense to reinvent and top an old storyline.

New Season details

There are plenty of factors for reasons for taking a season break.

Seasons are typically planned to be on updates and what’s best for the server.

Do not read into people’s health and wellbeing for the launch date. (This feels applicable to about anything.)

Cultures also play a role in the whole list of factors.

Additional Notes:

From Xisuma’s personal chat session: - There was speculation and assumption. Give the hermits space, and don’t put stress and focus on a specific hermit. - It is unhealthy to blame others if things are not going your way. - As a content creator, there is always the pressure from the audience. It varies from person to person.

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

Please inform me if I missed anything in the video that is important. If you have read this far, thank you! Feel free to share this as much as needed. A lot of these points I thought were important to restress.

~ S_Crystal

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

On Good Behaviour 6

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, threats, age gap, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: after release, you try to get on the right track but your new boss isn’t much help. (ex-con reader)

Characters: Loki

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

"Darling, over here!" The woman chimes again. 

You look over at the golden-haired goddess-like figure. Older but not weathered for it. A woman of luxury and privilege. Just another echelon of Laufeyson’s lifestyle you'll never attain. 

"Mother," he tilts his head slightly, his cheek ticking. "I wasn't expecting you hear on a Tuesday." 

"Oh, I came to town to meet your Aunt Fulla. She was seeing a specialist and I thought it was a perfect convenience," the blond woman struts past her table.

Another, with a highlighted bob and not much years’ difference turns to smile over her shoulder. Her lips have that puffiness you see on that video app. You stand aside, hoping that you might just fade away. 

The first blonde, who he proclaimed as his mother, nears and frames his face before kissing his cheek. You see the twitch of agitation in his fingers. You will deal with that later, you're sure. 

"But forgive me, am I interrupting?" She lets him go and looks at you. "Oh my, aren't you a pretty thing?" 

She surprises you with a kiss as well. You feel the smudge of her lipstick on her cheek. You muster a smile. The expression still feels strange to you. 

"Loki," the other woman greets kindly as she stands. 

"Aunt Fulla," he utters. 

"Please, won't you join us? It's such a splendid coincidence to see you," she claps her hands then quickly flags down a man in black slacks and a pressed white shirt, "excuse me, dear, would it be too much for us to put our tables together?" 

The server smiles, better than you can, "of course, Mrs. Odinson." 

Oh, she's known here. Wonderful. All these people belong and you are the ugly duckling of the bunch. 

Loki gestures to you. He assists the server in sliding over another table. 

"Darling," the woman with the bob offers her hand as you sit next to her, "Fulla, but Loki always called me FooFoo." 

"As a child," He sits across from you. 

"Frigga," his mother offers her hand in turn. You shake hers as daintily as the first. Consciously so as your innate roughness comes without a second thought. "And what are you doing here in the middle of the day with my son?" 

She preens at him and tucks his hair behind his ear. He leans away. He suppresses a frown and his lips thin. 

"Business," he answers. "She is an assistant at my firm." 

"Oh, you finally found some help! This is wonderful. Does that mean you'll be available for your father's birthday?" 

Laufeyson peers around and signals to the same server, "scotch please. No ice." 

"Yes, sir," the server responds, "and ladies, a refill?" 

"Yes, please," Frigga smiles and Fulla nods. He looks to you next. 

"Just water please," you request. Your parole doesn't permit alcohol and you'd rather not. 

You look around evasively. This is awkward. Worse, you're not entirely certain this won't result in losing everything. Laufeyson has hardly proven himself fair. It would be beyond him to punish you for bad timing. 

"Mother, I'll check my calendar." He resigns. 

"Or your lovely assistant will," Frigga suggests and gives you dreamy look. "My she is... well, I'm sorry, dear, I wouldn't want to toe the line, but you are a rather beautiful woman." 

You almost flinch. It's quite the compliment. One you've never got. Your mother called you hideous; the women inside pushed you around, spit on you, and her son... 

"Thank you, ma'am," you say. 

"Ma'am, oh no, Fulla, did you hear that?" 

The other woman laughs. 

"Oh, a proper one we have," Fulla guffaws. "You're tryna push us straight to the grave, are ya? No, no, young at heart. Frig and FooFoo, ready to conquer the world." 

Laufeyson groans, "please, mother, are you sure you should have another drink?" 

"Yes, the driver will fetch us," she trills and the server returns on cue. "Thank you, Braxton. Oh, such a dear." 

The server, Braxton, doles out the drinks. You sit patiently as he strides away, promising to return shortly.  

Frigga pets her son's arm, "we've ordered. What will you have? Oh, avoid those peppercorns. Do you recall the last we came here?" 

"Mother, I'm certain I can choose my own meal," he shrugs her off as he reaches for the menu. He looks at you and you mirror him. 

"Oh, tell me you are not such a tyrant with this one," she chides. "Darling, he's all smoke. Trust me." 

"Mother," he doesn't look up as he browses. 

You go through the options, by the numbers. A salad is fine and affordable. Ish. 

"Perhaps you will figure out how to pull the thorn from his side," Fulla remarks with a snort. "Loki Beans, what happened to that little cherub who use to giggle with me?" 

"He grew up," Laufeyson sniffs and closes the menu. "Truly, we've come as professionals. You may keep all that to yourself." 

"Oh, are professionals not allowed to be humans?" Fulla chirps. 

You side eye her. You like her. She says everything you can't. 

"No, they are not," Laufeyson retorts and reaches for his scotch. "Where's the waiter?" 

You languish in the tension. It isn’t the women that make you uneasy, but the man across from you. His green eyes find you again. He’s calculating how he will take his discomfort out on you. 

“Oh, do not let him fool you. He’s still my baby nephew,” Fulla pauses to sip from her bright drink; layers of pink, orange and yellow. “Ah, he used to put on these little magic shows for us. Do you remember when the rabbit bit you and you cried terribly, Loki Beans?” 

“Aunt,” he sends her a terse look. 

“And there was the snake. That was particularly worrying,” Frigga adds as she swirls her tall glass. “It constricted him purple--” 

“Mother, please. She needn’t hear the tales of my childhood. I’ve forgotten them myself,” he sniffs. 

“How could you forget?” She squeezes his arm. “Perhaps you should try. You might not be so wound up.” 

You sip your water silently. Your mother isn’t as sweet. You’d never use that word to describe her. And when it comes to childhood memories, you don’t think she could pick out if it was you or one of your siblings who got stuck in the mud pit for an hour. She didn’t care then, and wouldn’t now. 

“I have much work to do--” 

“Which is why you came here?” Frigga challenges. 

Her son sighs and goes rigid in his chair. He tilts his head until his neck pops. His jaw grits. 

“It is good chance we found you. Your father called but got no answer. Perhaps I should have him call the office,” she looks at you. “She must be very good worker if you brought her to our special place.” 

Your cheeks tinge with heat. You had no idea it was somewhere special. You only went by how often he came. He didn’t let on either. 

“It is a public restaurant,” he shakes his head. 

The server returns and nips away some of the discomfort. The brief distraction is enough to catch your breath. You order your Greek salad and Loki opts for some Ahi Tuna. It’s all so much better than prison food; even the lettuce. 

“Still, I’m very happy for you, dear,” Frigga leans into her son. “And it is a great opportunity for one as young as her. She will learn a lot. That is, if you let her help. You’ve always been so defiant--” 

“Why don’t you write up a list of all the things I am and forward it to me?” Loki sneers. “I shall review and make certain to repress it all.” 

“Son,” she pinches his ear and he hisses. “Do not be smart with me.” 

“Always a sharp tongue on the little serpent,” Fulla tuts.  

“You are one to speak,” he bites back at his aunt. 

“Oh, but I am funny,” Fulla laughs haughtily. “You are just drab, my boy.” 

His hand forms a fist on the table. His already pale skin whitens around his knuckles. You don’t move. Like prey trying to hide from a hawk, you can only hope they fly over you. 

“Darling, tell me,” Fulla startles you out of self-preservation as she touches your skirt. For a moment, you’re reminded of the man across from you, though she only admires the fabric. “Where did you get this? I like the colour.” 

“Um,” you look down, “I... would need to think... um. Oh, a boutique down at Harrow’s Row?” 

“Harrow’s... oh, I’ve not been that way in some time,” she reaches to play with your hair. “You wear it so effortlessly--” She pauses and touches behind your ear. Your shift. “And what’s that? A birthmark?” 

You resist the urge to swat her away. That regrettable spiral of ink is easy enough to hide but a permanent reminder of your mistakes. You thought you were so hard, so tough. A rebel with a needle tattoo. All your so-called sisters who shared the same mark sent you to prison. 

“Just... a tattoo.” You answer honestly and peek at Laufeyson. His lashes flick curiously. “Nothing, really.” 

“It reminds me of a rune,” she tweaks her head to see it better. 

“It’s nothing. Really. I was a teenager once,” you shrug. 

“Not so long ago,” she draws away. “Ah, but with a face like that, you’ve far to go.” 

“Thanks,” you swallow and reach for the water. 

“My other son has many tattoos. Oh, I told him not to do it but...” Frigga mourns with a hand to her forehead. “He’s such a sweet boy but he acts before he thinks.” 

“That is one way to put it,” Laufeyson mutters. “Must we speak of him?’ 

“Oh, he’s so excited to see you. Another reason you should come to your father’s special day. Not to mention, you are his son.” 

“He would seem to forget it,” he rebuffs. 

“You two are too alike,” she reproaches. “So stubborn.” 

“He is stubborn, I merely do not appease him,” Laufeyson smooths his tie, keeping his hand around it. 

“Well, your brother is on the right foot now. He’s out and he’s going to be helping out your father--” 

“Ah, yes, he gets out and goes right back to the golden child. He will take on the business--” 

“No, that isn’t what I’m saying--” 

“Let me guess, he learned so much in prison. He is redeemed?” Laufeyson snips at his mother then wince. His eyes list to you and his eyebrows tweak. His brother is a convict? Like you? 

“He is trying. And he shows up. We never see you--” 

“Never see me? As I am working to keep all in order. Who sees that the gardener is sent on the correct day? That the maid does not disturb your luncheons? That the property is kept secure? I mightn’t be there in person but my hard work is there.” 

“I understand that, but we would prefer a son to an accountant,” she pets his hand and his fingers unfurl. 

“Mother,” he looks at the far wall. 

“Oof, I am getting rather stuffy in here,” Fulla says, “pretty one,” she taps your knee, “come. I need a cigarette.” 

You’re taken aback at that. You never smoked much. In prison, keeping the habit could rule your existence, more than it was already restricted. 

“Oh, sure,” you take the subtle signal that this conversation is better left to simmer.  

“And you could use some fresh air,” she stands and takes her purse from the back of the chair. 

You get up and look at Laufeyson. He doesn’t offer much back. You follow his aunt across the dining room. 

You go outside as she pulls out a brown cigarette, the scented type that makes you sick. You keep your distance as she lights it. She offers you one and you decline politely. 

“Families,” she snorts. “I’m sure you know.” 

“They’re complicated,” you shrug. 

“Very,” she agrees. “You have siblings?” 

“Seven,” you answer honestly. 

She coughs as her eyes bulge, “dear lord, your poor mother.” 

Poor her. Always her plights. A mother who had too many children to mind. A mother who never should have been one. 

“She didn’t let us forget so,” you affirm. 

“Oldest?” She wonders. 

“Right in the middle, with my brother.” 

“Ah, yes, well, middle children... Frigga’s the eldest, our baby brother, Freyr, can do no wrong. I’m the special one. Like you, I know how to make friends with the wall,” she inhales and lets out a plume. “Loki, the youngest, coddled boy. I’m sure you can tell.” 

“He is only my boss. They are all demanding,” you say. 

[mysteriousmissme]

mysti’s intro post ୨ৎ

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hi ygs!! i realized looking thru blogs that i never rlly introduced myself—so that’s what this is!

i’m mysti!! i’ve (hopefully) spread misc tbhk or mitsukou posts onto your blog, so you’ve probably seen me around there or in the jshk community!!

feel free to read more of my yapping below (ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ.ﾟ

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ABOUT ME

୨ @.mysteriousmissme

i’ve had the same user handle since like 2020 on misc platforms so if any of u happen to recognize me from other fandoms tehe that’s still me!

୨ fun facts

infp | creative writer | minor | unhealthy tbhk obsession | majoring in mitsukoulogy (i love them so so much) | swiftie & speak now enthusiast | gracie abrams fan

୨ tumblr timeline

i joined tbhk tumblr during the nightlife arc’s release, so around january ‘23!! since then i’ve posted majority tbhk posts + rbs. i only ever really post abt it nowadays though.

i joined the jshk + tbhk communities in dec ‘24, but i randomly spawned and started posting and talking there more in mar ‘25, it’s been such a joy getting to know ygs and obsessing over tbhk together!

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tbhk !!!

୨ started reading: far shore arc ( ~late 2021 )

ever since i have been absolutely hooked. like no other fandom has had me this entranced i swear.

୨ favorite ship: mtsk

i absolutely love mitsukou more than anything in the world, they’re everything to me like i love love love them 🫶

୨ favorite character: kou

kou minamoto is the best and my favorite character ever like guys look at him he’s the sweetest and cutest character to ever exist i adore him so so much anyone who knows me knows i love kou so tehe you already know a big part of my personality now (≧ᗜ≦)

୨ favorite arc: nightlife ( tbhk98-100 )

i think it’s self explanatory but they’re js so peak guys.. i have an entire account dedicated to ml for nightlife btw

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tags !!!

୨ #mysti answers — tag to answer requests and stuff!!

୨ #mysti yaps — yapping sessions abt everything tbhk and life related

୨ #mysti’s mtsk edits — a compilation of lyrics that i associate with mitsukou and it’d be rlly nice if someone could make an edit w them.. tag me if you do tehe..

୨ #mysti’s miitopia — me playing w the miis tehe

୨ #moot tag — see all of my lovely mooties i’ve rb’d !!

୨ #mysti’s bracket battle — the mootie battle to see the superior mysti moot!!

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socials !!!

୨ discord: @/mysteriousmissme

⎝ note: lwk still trying to navigate thru here but i'm active on the kamome gakuen server!!

୨ pinterest: @/mysteriousmissmeee

⎝ note: i check here often!! there's another acc w my actual handle but if you go under my boards and see a "(i hate) tbhk" title then that's definitely me + my bio is literally kou minamoto. i dont post + my only followers are my online friends but i promise its me!

୨ quotev: @/mysteriousmissme | @/iloveyouimsorry

⎝ note: don't really check here as much + it's kinda dead but js thought i'd drop it in case?

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misc !!!

୨ yes i’m that mtsk x first love/late spring enthusiast who keeps yapping abt the edits in the community

୨ i absolutely love taylor swift guys ask me abt her and ill give you a list of songs that match each tbhk character

୨ i love ts x tbhk edits so much send me them

୨ go follow @mitsukousnightlife where my unhealthy mtsk nightlife obsession is on display for everyone to see yay

୨ my biggest tbhk flex is that on my bday in 2024 aidairo posted a hananene art and in 2025 s2e8 released and it was probably the best day ever

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let’s be friends !!!

thanks ygs for reading through this yap session!! i need more tbhk friends more than anything i love it so much. thanks for keeping up with all my posts and such tehe!

last updated: may 27, 2025

[emperor-kumquat]

Hello there!!! How’s your day going so far emperor?

Old time fan here! I’ve been catching up on Some of my old transformers fandoms ever since I watched transformers one, and I remember about this awesome project you and many other creators made (btw your work is outstanding, Keep it up!!!) and I’m amazed at how much has changed and it makes me feel incredibly happy that my favorite transformers prime fan-storyline is still here! I remembered finding your videos when it was back in 2020 during quarantine. I always played through the beta version of “mercy” when it first came out and I remember feeling so excited for it; and I’d always wanted to best path for starscream be at least a good guy since he was my favorite character (and still is today)

And now seeing that the game is still in the works and seeing so many new bots is so exciting and happy to see the dedication to this!!! I know I have to catch up on the lore and stuff but it’ll be a fun experience for me, though I just wanted to ask a few questions before I end my first ever question that wasn’t anonymous,

Question 1: is there a discord server where I could possibly join? I want to make sure I could keep up with the latest updates for this project!

Question 2: I know I’ll need to read the Ao3 storyline for mercy but how does predaking and starscreams relationship grow over time during one of the paths? (I can’t remember but I think it was the one where predaking spears him and just keeps an eye on him— along with the predacons going to live in the wild or something? Can’t remember much lol)

And for my last question;

Question 3: Hows the process of “Mercy” going so far? Seeing all the art being made its absolutely stunning and beautifully done!

And that’s all the questions I have for now; until then I’ll be catching up on all the transformers lore that I’ve missed for so many years! I hope you’re having an amazing day Emperor!

————-J

Thank you so much for being a fan of Mercy! I still work on it almost every day! Editing the stories to improve quality, writing new content, drawing, instructing artists, etc.

Have you seen all the art on the Ko-Fi page? I post the commissions there, so there are hundreds of images to see!

For all the latest updates, here is the Discord server. Just so you know, there is a glitch when you enter that doesn't let you interact right away. Stay in the server until I can fix that for you, then you can write your introduction to unlock the whole server. Please read the rules too.

For the storyline you are referring to, I have fully written the story where the Predacons live in the wild of Cybertron with Starscream as their guide. It is THE Starscream story of Mercy and is a tale of friendship. Your adventure gets dangerous later on, so it turns into a fun survival game too! This is the written version of the choose your own adventure story. It's called "Discovery".

The main paths of Transformers: Mercy are on AO3. There are three full length story games available right now and the fourth is in progress. Check out my complete list of works and you may be surprised just how much has been completed since the beta part 1!

Mercy Part 1 (2020): A collection of the various starts to the game. A bit under construction right now to adapt to new plans. Quality is being improved (and the videos will be redone)

Space Adventure (2021): the choice to work with the Autobots on the landing site/spaceport at the end of Part 1. Travel to other worlds!

Reformed Predator (2022): the choice to eat Starscream in Part 1. Become a carnivorous monster then get therapy.

Discovery (2023): the choice to live in the wilderness at the end of Part 1. Explore beautiful lands and befriend Starscream.

Monstrous Heart (2024): the choice to work with the Autobots in the city at the end of Part 1. Discover the dark secrets of the Autobots and Decepticons, thwart the Vehicon mafia.

Right now I'm trying to do a lot of editing for my older content to improve it. I'm also doing a massive effort to prepare Part 2 videos for the Mercy stories so far. And doing my own Mercy art, annd I really need to write Monstrous Heart to completion this year! One novel-length game every year is the goal.