#less the apprentice and more the player

[angelonhelios]

tbh i think my most unpopular borderlands opinion is that ava should have blamed the player for maya's death. forget lilith, the VHs were Right There when maya died.

[scribeofmorpheus]

Why Dragon Age Veilguard isn't a "Cathedral"

Concept art by Matt Rhodes

"To disinherit the storylines of past games goes directly against the notion of building cathedrals."

What is inherent with Veilguard that keeps bothering me is the fact that the world's choices truly didn't matter--and it doesn't simply bother me from a player perspective, it's not simply a grievance borne of frustration to what I (as a longtime fan) have lost. It's about the very culture of the arts under capitalism's new media habituation cycle [x][x].

Yes, I spent hours of my life playing and replaying each instalment of Dragon Age. Yes, I painstakingly curated a 'canon' world state by replaying what came before in preparation for Veilguard. Yes, I am even more unsatisfied with the end product--time hasn't helped, it's just widened the divide. But, and I can't stress this enough, these very personal gripes aren't what hit home the most. It's the inherent disregard of legacy. A legacy that the previous writers and game developers were building towards.

In the DAV artbook, "cathedral" is the word used to describe the process of making a game. Matt Rhodes' exact words are: "One artist can make a painting, but it takes a team to build a cathedral." Cathedrals took centuries to build. The architect who drafted the first blueprints would likely never see his work realised, he had to rely on those who came after him, like-minded and passionate, to see it through--for the culture, for the future, for legacy. Painters took on several apprentices for this reason too--giant frescoes were not completed by one man's hand, even if it is one man's name that immortalises them. Similarly, if you weave a narrative around choice, what good does it do to take it away at the final act if not to fall to caricature?

To disinherit the storylines of past games goes directly against the notion of building cathedrals.

Late-stage capitalism and profit-margin-obsessed game producers forcing developers to churn out meager content, to make a known brand into something it's not, to chase a fad or a popular trend... o, how reductive and cliche you've been forced to become Bioware. We have lost the cultural thought patterns relative to Cathedrals. We know only of barn-raised churches--done in a day but unlikely to last the turn of the seasons.

And don't even get me started on the music of Veilguard either. From Origins to World of Warcraft to Everquest to Baldur's Gate to Dungeon Siege, you can hear the intricate interconnected weave of sounds inspired by the Dungeons and Dragons-esque fantasy genre. You hear it in the repeated use of certain instruments, in the harmonic weeping notes of a bard-like singer or the foreboding echoes of drums as if of war. In tavern songs. But then, rather than hire someone who loves these worlds and this genre, who is a hungry artist looking to make a name, a legacy if you will, for themselves with a spectacular score, you hire any already sated composer, one well-into the encroaching years of career fatigue, whose notes repeat in countless projects, who feels less concise and more uninterested with each new project. One who has long since cemented his legacy. Someone in it for a paycheck and nothing else! And, to top it off, you let him compose something so minimalist? I am offended actually.

Cathedrals! We should have witnessed the final tile being placed on the Dragon Age cathedral. Instead, some architects walked up, tore down the interior and installed IKEA furniture and called it authentic before having to call the previous architects to come and fix the "load-bearing issues", forcing them to rush and add a coat of varnish and a few 'aged' details for authenticity.

[noctiva]

Pincushion

Toby Rogers x F!Reader [NSFW!

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WC: 6.7k

Summary: You’re an apprentice piercer trying to build your portfolio as much as you can. How lucky is it, that you have a best friend who can’t feel pain?

CW: 18+ content, descriptions of body parts being pierced, VERY improper piercing aftercare I’m being so fr don’t do this, friends to lovers, explicit sexual content, dry humping, oral sex (female receiving), possessiveness, dirty talk, hair pulling, drool and spit, cumming untouched

Reminder to separate reality from fiction! Some of the acts written here are definitely not recommended to imitate. Stay safe!

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NSFW under the cut! Minors do not interact!

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“I’m not k-keeping this one.”

The situation you found yourself in right now right now was a familiar one. Sat on your best friend Toby’s lap, the backs of your thighs pressed to his in the warmth of his bedroom. A soft rock song droned on from the speakers of his old record player, creating an inviting atmosphere that warded off uncomfortable silence.

A golden glow shines in through his bedroom window, curtains pulled back to reveal the slowly setting sun. You’re warm, cloaked in a hoodie that Toby had offered you when you were shivering before hand - basking in the softness and scent that cloaked you. Cheap cigarettes, musky cologne, pine.

It may have been a sweet sight, if not for the hollow needle pinched between your latex clad fingers.

Just inches from his face you held it, the victim in question looking up at you with a displeased expression.

A couple months ago, you had gotten a spot as an apprentice piercer at your town’s local tattoo shop. You had learned all of the safety measures, done all of the certification, so now the only thing left to do was practice. And well, you could only practice on yourself so many times.

You needed someone else. To be able to watch closely at every little thing you did, from the pinch of the clamp to the needle slicing through skin or cartilage. You needed real people, willing clients.

And well, Toby was one of those things.

It had been less than two hours after you got the gig before you were proposing the idea. With the world ‘please’ uttered more times than you could count, and the best puppy-dog eyes you could muster up - it still took weeks until you finally cracked him.

“Come on, Toby. At least let me pierce your ears. It can just be a little stud.” You had asked for the fiftieth time, to which he had responded with;

“Fuh-Fuck no. It’s not my style.”

“You think? I think you’d look pretty cute with them.”

You pierced his lobes later that day. Then, his septum a week later. Then his lip, eyebrow, and a few cartilage piercings spanning down the shell of his ear. He didn’t keep many, usually only letting them stay for long enough for you to snap a few photos for your portfolio - but he had taken a liking to a few.

One thin hoop pierced through his nostril, and the lobes you had done first. You thought that the eyebrow suited him the best, but he had tugged the barbell out just minutes after it was placed snug under his skin. Alas, at least you had photographic evidence that it had once been there.

After so many impromptu sessions, Toby just gotten used to you showing up at his house with a cheeky grin and piercing supplies in hand. Which, was exactly how you ended up on his lap on this particular evening.

“Yeah, didn’t expect you to.” You hum as you hand him a travel sized bottle of mouthwash to rinse with. “But I’ve never done this one before, so I’ve got to learn.” You smile at him. “Swish with that, then stick out your tongue.”

Toby legs out a groan, his eyebrows furrowed together in annoyance as he peers up at you. He had just woken up less than an hour ago - evidenced by his unruly hair and sleepy eyes - and now you were just seconds away from shoving a needle into his tongue. It wasn’t like he would feel it, but it wasn’t about that. It was about the prospect of it all.

What ever happened to just hanging out? Couldn’t you go one day without treating him like a pincushion?

If he was being completely honest, the only reason he hadn’t kicked you off of his lap yet was because he liked the feeling of you being there. Liked the warmth that seeped from your body into his. Liked being so close that he could hear each breath that left you lips. He liked the way you bit your bottom lip when you were focusing the best.

He also liked the way you let him rest a hand on your hip to keep you stable (which was an excuse he was still surprised that you believed).

He was your best friend, but you were his fixation. The most gorgeous woman he had ever laid eyes on, but he just didn’t have the guts to tell you. So, he settled for this. Keeping you held close whilst you stuck needles into his skin. Besides, he would much rather it was him than someone else.

So, he does what you’ve asked. Takes a swig of the mouthwash all whilst looking up at you with narrowed eyes, struggling to keep an annoyed expression while you were looking down at him so sweetly. All smiles and stars in your eyes. Hair pulled up haphazardly into a makeshift bun to keep the strand out of your face. Clad in his hoodie. His hoodie.

God, he was such a sucker.

Leaning his head to the side, he spits into the mug you had brought into his room for that exact purpose. Once that’s over with, as his mouth is coated in the taste of alcohol and mint, he looks back up at you. You were so close. Leaned in with a set of clamps in one hand and a needle in the other. So close he could smell you. Your perfume intermingling with the scent coming off of his sweater. His heart rate picks up just a little. “Y-You gonna pierce all your clients like-like this?” He asks with a soft chuckle, and you roll your eyes.

“Would probably get better tips if I did, but no.” You snort, shifting a bit on his lap. Now, his pulse is racing. He’s a lot less concerned about the needle inches from his face, than he is about popping an unwanted boner beneath you. “Hope you appreciate the special treatment you’re getting.” He did. Much more than you could imagine. “Now hurry up! Stick out your tongue for me, Rogers.”

He thinks he’s do anything for you if it was said in that sweet bossy tone you just used.

So, he lets out a breath through his nose, the does just what you ask. It’s mere seconds later that a clamp pinches his tongue.

Piercing Toby had its pros and cons. Pro: He couldn’t feel the pain, so he sat like a champ. An absolute dream for anyone in the industry. Con: His tics from his Tourette’s were completely involuntary, so you couldn’t exactly tell him to sit still and expect him to abide by that.

That was alright though. It just meant you had to learn to be quick. Your clients in the future would probably be thanking him for that learned skill.

You lean in close, sandwiching his tongue between the cold metal clamp and raising the needle. He’s looking up at you, fixated on your face as you bring the sharp point to the muscle.

All he feels is a slight pressure, then relief. The coldness of the needle lodged in his flesh. It was odd, but bearable. What wasn’t bearable, were the thoughts pinging around in his mind like popping candy. Did you know how pretty you were? Did you know that if you let him, he could count every freckle on your face and not once grow bored during it?

Did you know how he saw you? The blinding sun in the centre of his universe?

He doesn’t even realize you’ve slipped the jewelry in, until you’re screwing on the top ball. “There!” You grin, gazing down at his newly adorned tongue in satisfaction. “How’s it feel?”

Hot. He feels really hot.

“L-Like metal in my mouth.” He answers, frowning a little at the feeling of the piercing clinking against his teeth when he talks. It’s uncomfortable. This feels more like an intrusion than any other piercing you’ve ever given him. It couldn’t be ignored, making its presence known every time he formed a word. “It’s not st-staying. So, take a picture quick.”

“Boring.” You scoff, before sticking your tongue out at him playfully. You peel the latex gloves off of your hands before dropping them to the floor. “I think it looks good on you. Plus, the ladies would love it.”

Toby meets your eyes, and cocks an eyebrow.

“I d-doubt that.” He scoffs. He still had a hand on your hip from keeping you in place while you worked, but he hadn’t moved it yet. He didn’t think he could force himself to unless you told him to move.

“No, they totally would.” You argue, leaning back on his thighs. It was a shift that was actually in his favour, bringing your hips farther away from his. He definitely needed that distance. “It’s hot,” It was, or he was? “Plus it has benefits any girl would like.”

“B-Benefits?” He frowns, tilting his head to the side a little to observe you. Just what were you getting at here? Was this a joke? “Like what?”

You let out a little giggle, and bring a hand up to cover your mouth. It’s the sweetest sound that’s ever graced Toby’s ears. He’s already of thinking of ways to hear it again.

“You know.” You laugh, averting your gaze from his out of embarrassment. It’s not like you’ve never breached the topic of sexuality during a conversation in all of the years you’ve known each other, it’s just the look on his face that’s getting you. So clueless, it’s adorable. “Same reason guys like girls with tongue piercings.” You look back to him, and can tell he’s still not getting it. “More stimulation.”

Oh. Oh.

It’s instantaneous, the way a flush creeps onto his cheeks the moment your words register. If he was having a hard time restraining his thoughts before, he was putting in overtime now. Were you making this hard on him on purpose? Sitting on his lap, spouting about the sexual benefits of the piercing you had just given him?

It takes all the power in the world for him not to tighten the lazy grip he has on your hip.

“Says wh-who? He chokes out, voice coming out far hoarser than he meant it to. His tongue is starting to throb in his mouth, and he’s hopeful that his blood will stay up there and not migrate further south.

“Uh, everyone?” You laugh, raising an eyebrow at him. “It’s just like, a fact. Having a tongue piercing equals giving better head. How do you not know this?”

Uh, maybe because the only girl he’s thought about sexually in years was you? But maybe it would’ve been a good fact to know before you pierced him.

“Are you speaking f-from experience, or what?” He doesn’t know why he asked that. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s saying right now, if he’s being honest. His brain was fried, coherent thoughts fizzling out before they came to fruition. And with his brain clocked out, that only left one other organ to think with. He was so screwed.

The way you look at him after he’s spoken has Toby wanting to bite his tongue clean off. Death would surely be better than you staring down at him, equal parts bewildered and shocked by his bold ask. He can’t even bring himself to try and backtrack and save face, because he feels like his throat is closing up. If there was an award for ‘World’s biggest dumbass’ he would’ve surely swept the floor with the competition.

“No.” You breathe out, face growing hot. Toby’s not any better - the pink tone dusting his cheeks beginning to creep down his neck. “I just… That’s what people say.”

“W-Would you want…” Shut the fuck up, Toby. Shut your idiotic mouth. “Would you ever want t-to try it?” He’s done for. Might as well just throw in the towel now.

He must be speaking with his dick, because if these thoughts were filtering through his brain at all they would’ve stayed tucked far away where you could never hear them. But he was saying them to you, right in your face, just inches from you. He hasn’t a semblance of a clue where this boldness was coming from, but just he knew it would be his undoing.

Hopefully his frazzled mind could figure out a way to leave this interaction not looking like the horny freak he was deep down.

“Would I want to?” You repeat back to him, your tongue feeling heavy as you speak the words. Why was it so hot all of a sudden? And why could you suddenly only focus on the feeling of Toby’s hand on your waist? Before, you had barely even registered it being there. Now, it was all you could feel. “I mean like, yeah.” You murmur sheepishly. “If the opportunity presented itself.”

Toby’s eyes quickly lock in on the pretty pink hue slowly spreading across your cheeks and up to the tips of your ears. You were avoiding his gaze like the plague, and you just kept fidgeting. Were you embarrassed? Uncomfortable? Had he taken it too far?

He watches as you tug the sleeves of his hoodie over your hands, and curl your fingers into fists. “Also I… I don’t know anyone who has one.”

Was that bait? It sounded like bait. So much so that Toby’s eyes immediately flick upwards to scan your face. You were still blushing, darker now, eyes fixated on the wall behind him like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

He knows. He knows he shouldn’t push. But his tongue is pulsing in his mouth, and his dick is coming to life in his jeans, so he’s feeling just a tad compromised. Besides, if you wrote him off he could just act like he was joking. That always worked with you.

“You know me.” Toby murmurs the words softly, almost like he’s hoping you won’t hear it. But, you’re so close that the probability of that is slim to none.

You hear it alright, gaze snapping to his the moment the sound of his voice reaches your ears.

“What… What are you saying?” You ask hesitantly, forcing the words out of your lungs. You know what he’s saying. You know exactly what he means, and yet actually accepting that fact is a lot harder than he probably realizes. He was joking, right? Because there was just no way Toby would offer what he just did to you, of all people.

He… You were his best friend, right? Nothing more, nothing less. That is, unless that was just you being blind and ignorant. Maybe his always lingering touches meant something. Maybe there was a reason he so easily abided to your every whim and suggestion.

“W-Whatever you think I’m saying.” Toby shrugs, and you feel it when his grip on your hip tightens just minutely. Enough for you to really feel it - the pressure of his fingers through your clothes. You’re suddenly acutely aware of every point of contact where your body met his. Your thighs against his, his hand on your waist. Chests so close it would be an ease to close the distance.

You could feel the warmth radiating off of him, but it was nothing compared to the heat in his eyes. Those chocolate brown irises were blazing. Thinly veiled desire waging a war within them, trying to burst free.

God, had you ever had anyone look at you like that?

“But that… That would be weird.” You laugh sheepishly, despite the fact that your mind was already conjuring up ideas of how it would go down.

Toby’s calloused hands on your thighs, pushing your legs apart and holding them open. That fluffy mess of brown hair, begging for you to tug on it as he parted his lips and-

“W-Would it?” Toby asks, voice lower than before. He reaches up with his free hand, and grasps your chin oh so gently between two fingers. Then he’s turning your head towards him, leaving your gaze nowhere to run as he holds you in place. “Why would it b-be?”

He was in far too deep to back down now, and he was quite sure you didn’t want him to anyway. He could see it, the look in your eyes, how your pupils had dilated more with each word he spoke. You were so receptive, but were holding yourself back. He just had to give you a little push.

“Because.” You mutter, swallowing thickly. You feel like you’re drowning in his eyes, your heart thudding so loud you’re almost convinced it’s migrated to your ears. “Because we’re friends.”

You watch as Toby’s lips purse, a look of something flashing in his irises. Irritation. Maybe a little bit of impatience.

“I’m y-your friend.” He breathes out after a few moments, giving you a few beats to really think about you’ve said before he responds. Just friends. Were you really? You had the potential to be so much more. “You’re s-so much more to me than that, though.”

The hand on your waist slips around you, his forearm wrapping around your torso as he draws you in closer. There’s no excuses now. He didn’t want there to be. “You’re e-everything. Have been since the d-day I met you.” Toby tilts your head downwards, and it’s almost maddening how easily your body bends to his will. Easily conceding. Just letting him push and pull you into whatever position he saw fit. “B-But I didn’t wanna scare you o-off.”

He leans in, close enough that his nose is nearly brushing yours, his gaze still unwavering. You can see the glint of metal in his mouth everytime he speaks. “So I s-sat back. Sat back and watched you f-fuck around with guys that would never have what it takes to t-treat you right.” Your breath hitches, catching in your throat. “Because they don’t know you. N-Not like I do.”

He tugs you in closer, and you can’t help the gasp that leaves you when your hips press against his. You can feel the bulge he’s sporting now, snug against your clothed heat as he looks you right in the eyes. “No one knows you like I-I do.”

And you can’t argue, because you know he’s right. Toby had been the only constant in your life for as long as you could remember. Always close by, always keeping an eye. Making sure you’re safe, happy, cared for. He was also funny, sweet, and handsome in a rugged way. Ergo, clearly the best option, but one you had never considered up until now.

Not because you hadn’t ever thought about it, but more so for fear of ruining what you held dear. Things were fine as they were, so why push it?

You think it over for a total of less than a second before you shift, pressing your hips to his with a lot more intention. Because this feels better. That’s why. Toby lets out a little hiss through his teeth when you notch your hips forwards, his own jolting instinctively at the contact. Your eyes were brimming with a mixture of emotions, mostly shyness and nervousness - but the desire was shining through clear as day. You wanted this. Wanted him.

God, this stupid piercing was so fucking worth it. “No one else knows what s-scares you, excites you.” He trails his hand down your jaw, then your side, letting it find a home resting right above your hipbone as he tugs you down against him again. Gently. Just coaxing you. Taking it at whatever pace you need. “No one else k-knows what makes you laugh. O-Or the way your eyes light up when something makes you ha-happy. No one but me.” You hesitantly roll your hips downwards, feeling your cheeks heat up at the sensation.

You can really feel him now, just growing harder beneath you with each movement you make. Can feel the shape of him, the size of him - large enough to make your heart jump. “I-Isn’t that right?” He’s dipped his head down lower, brought his lips close to your ear so that you can feel the heat of his breath when he speaks. Goosebumps prickle your skin, and it’s getting harder to ignore the warmth creeping down between your thighs.

“Yeah.” You breathe, voice soft and trembling. Toby lets out a little hum of agreement at your answer, and then you feel him hesitate for just a moment before he leans in closer. He does it anyway, pressing his lips against the skin just below your ear. So gentle of a touch you can barely feel it, but it’s enough to send your body into a frenzy.

“S-So it only makes sense that I’d treat you b-best, right?” His lips brush against your ear as he speaks. You’re moving completely of your own volition now - slow rolls down against his lap, dragging your clothed core against the outline of his length. There are butterflies in your stomach, fluttering lower and lower to make your cunt throb against him. You wonder if he can feel it. “I-I’d make it my life’s mission to make you happy.” He murmurs as his grip on you tightens, hips bucking up to meet yours. His breathing has grown heavier and so has yours, soft huffs of air, quivering on exhale. “Y-You’d never cry. Not unless i-it was from somethin’ good.”

Toby rocks you against him, keeping you snug against his chest - all personal space lost. “I-I’d worship you.” He breathes, biting back a groan. “D-Do anything you want. W-Why wouldn’t you want that?”

Good question. Why wouldn’t you?

“I do.” You choke out, eyes fluttering as he pulls you down against him once more. Soft, slows rocks of your hips turning into something much more insistent. He would swear he could feel your heat permeating through your clothes. Just the idea of you growing wet above him right now was enough to make his cock twitch.

“Yeah, you d-do?” He asks, nuzzling into your hair as you move against him. Drowning in your scent. In all of the little sounds you were trying to bite back. “You’ll let me treat you how you d-deserve?”

“Mhm.” You nod back mindlessly, reaching up to grip at the front of his t-shirt - curling your fingers into the fabric. This is good. Really good. The feeling of having Toby so close. The friction of your panties rubbing against your clit every time your hips met his. His hands on you. His breath on your neck.

You were baffled as to how you denied yourself or this for so long? You could’ve had this all along? God, were you stupid.

“God-“ Toby breathes out in a quivering voice. Then, in one swift movement he’s standing and bringing you with him. Arms snaking under your thighs, holding you against him with almost mind-boggling ease as he walks you back towards his bed. It’s messy, blankets strewn around from when he had woken up to the sound of you knocking on his door.

A fact that he had been a little embarrassed about when you first arrived, but he couldn’t care less now. If things went his way, it was going to be an even bigger mess by the time he was done with you.

He lowers you down on his sheets gently, then climbing over you mere seconds later. Blanketing you with his body as he leans down to press his lips to your neck. Toby had thought about this very scenario numerous times. Jerked off to the idea far more times than he would ever admit. You beneath him, all soft and willing. Pulling him in close, hips bucking up towards his impatiently.

His imagination didn’t do the real thing justice at all. You were addictive. The feeling of your fingers weaving into his hair was one he’d never forget, nails scratching against his scalp as he left open mouthed kisses against your neck.

In the back of his mind, he could feel his tongue throbbing. His fresh piercing obviously not too keen on the treatment it was receiving as he licked and nipped at your skin. He couldn’t give less of a damn right now. His tongue could fucking fall off after all this, for all he cared, just so long as he got to taste you first.

Toby’s hands slip under the sweater and up your torso as he swirls his tongue against your collarbone, and he’s nearly moaning from the taste of your skin alone. He can’t think. Couldn’t form a coherent thought if he tried right now, all he could do was meld into you - a slave to his own desires as his palms make their way downwards again, fingers curling under the waistband of your shorts.

He pauses, as if to silently ask for permission, and you’re nodding before you can even think twice about it. Breathing out ‘please’ before you can cringe at how desperate you sound.

You could worry about everything else later. What this meant, where you’d go from it afterwards, if he truly meant everything he had said. None of that mattered right now. You just needed him.

Despite his eagerness, he pulls your shorts off gently. Slowly. Letting you feel the drag of his fingers on the outsides of your thighs as he tugs the material down. He creates a trail of goosebumps against your soft skin, a sight that has a shiver going down his spine. You hear him curse under his breath before he’s ducking his head back down again.

Tugging your sweater up but not all the way off, he presses his lips to the valley between your breasts. Nuzzling into the cleavage that your bra presented to him to beautifully. He thinks he could live there, if you let him, but not today. Today, he has other plans.

Another kiss, to your sternum. Then another a few inches down. It’s only once his lips meet your belly button, that you realize what his destination is.

“Toby-“ You lean up onto your elbows, watching him with hazy eyes as he mouths against your hipbone - toying with the hem of your panties with his teeth. His eyes flit up to meet yours, pupils blown wide. You’re pretty sure you look quite the same when he catches the waistband between his canines and tugs on it. “Your tongue, you can’t-“

“Won’t feel it. D-Doesn’t matter.” He cuts you off, bringing his hands down to cup the backs of your thighs. Callouses against smooth skin, gently spreading you open wider.

“That’s not the issue.” You argue, hips twitching when releases the fabric in his teeth with a snap against your skin. “You know how unsafe that is? It’ll get infected.”

“L-Let it. I don’t g-give a fuck.” His nails bite into your skin, fingers pressing deep into the supple flesh. “I’ve fuh-fuckin’ dreamt about this pussy.” As if to enunciate his point, he closes the gap between his face and your core - pressing his nose against the dampened fabric with a moan. You jolt, hips leaving the bed for a second from the sudden stimulation against your throbbing clit. “I need to taste you. P-Please.” His lips part before you can even speak next, his darting out to drag flat against clothed folds.

And you think, it would take a lot stronger of a woman than you to refuse him. Nestled between your thighs, face flushed and eyes hazy as he mouths at your heat through your panties.

It’s a bad idea and you know it is, but he’s literally begging you. Begging for you in a way no man had ever done for you before. He was right, he would treat you better.

And so - disregarding pretty much the number one rule after getting an oral piercing, and spitting in the face of all the training you did - you nod. Small, and shaky, but that’s all Toby needs. “A-Ah, thank you.” He murmurs against you, fingers coming up to grab at the thin material hugging your hips.

He pulls it down a lot quicker than he had your shorts, desperation obviously getting the best of him. That was okay though, because his blazing desire for you was only making you wetter. A sight that he got a prime view of once your underwear was completely discarded - thrown off into some corner of his bedroom. “So puh-pretty.” Toby murmurs in awe, before bringing a hand down to swipe his fingers through your slickness. You can hear it when his breath hitches. “And s-so wet for me.” He spreads his fingers, parting your folds and exposing you fully - fixated on the sight of your core like he had just seen god himself.

He might as well have, with the effect you have on him. His entire body feels like it’s on fire, rock hard length pulsing against the confines of his jeans. Only once it drips down against you, does he notice that he’s drooling. Literally drooling over your pussy.

Such a mess for you, but he couldn’t care less. “S-So fucking pretty.” He repeats again in a breathless whisper, and then he’s diving in.

Your entire body jolts when his tongue meets your cunt - licking a long, flat stripe from bottom to top. You couldn’t even attempt to hold back the moan that elicited, body arching up from the bed as tingles shoot up your spine.

You can feel it. You can feel the hard metal of his piercing, pressing against your clit when he repeats the action. And the rumours were right. That felt fucking divine. It added the perfect amount of pressure, the jewelry rolling against you with each flick of his tongue. He laps at you a few times, dipping into your folds, savouring the taste of you flooding his tastebuds.

You were so sweet. So sweet that even though his cock is aching in his jeans, but he pays it no mind. He just needed this, your pussy flush against his face, and he’d be satisfied. The tip of his tongue swipes through your slick, and then his lips are circling around your clit - giving it all the love it deserved.

Your hand flies downwards, fisting into his hair with a grip you know would be painful if he could feel it. But you couldn’t help it. He was eating you out like a starving dog, slurping up every drop of slick that left you. “S-So fuckin’ good.” He slurs against you, taking in a quivering breath before he prods his tongue at your entrance.

It the only warning you get before the warm muscle is sliding inside you.

“F-Fuck, Toby-“ You cry, tugging him in closer by the hair - an action that makes him let out a gravelly moan into you. Hot, slick muscle slides against your quivering walls - the top ball of his piercing dragging against the sensitive flesh. It makes you genuinely see stars, vision going blurry as his tongue works inside you. “You- Fuck! It’s so good.”

He honestly didn’t think he could get more turned on than he already was right now, but the sound of your voice? Yeah, that did it. You sounded fucking sinful. Gasped out, strained words. Voice so high pitched and pretty. And the moans that were slipping out now too? He needed to hear more. Needed to hear you moan your little heart out until your throat went raw.

His fingers claw at your thighs, and now he’s tugging them apart wider, giving himself ample room to devour you completely. His tongue thrusts into you, nose bumping against your clit, the entire bottom half of his face shining with a combination of your slick and his drool. But he just couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t. Not until you were begging him to.

He leans forwards more, practically burying his face in your cunt. As he does, his hips shift, his neglected cock brushing against the bed through his jeans. And by now, he’s so agonizingly worked up that just that small bit of friction has him letting out a gravelly moan right against your twitching core.

He lapping you up like he had been starving for it, and quite honestly, he was. He had been, for a long, long time. He feels almost dizzy from it, so drunk on you that his mind was going hazy.

And you? Well, you’re having a hard time not completely melting into his bed. You can barely breathe between moans. Tingles of pleasure are making your thighs twitch and tremble but Toby keeps them held open right where he wants them. You’re burning up, slick with sweat. You had thought about tugging the sweater off of you, but being enveloped in his scent was just getting you higher.

His tongue leaves you, and then he’s back to abusing your clit again - flicking his pierced tongue against the swollen nub. He can feel it throbbing, and he knows he’s getting you right where he wants you to be.

He sucks on you gently, rubbing the metal in his mouth against the sensitive flesh - a sensation that has you damn near sobbing. A sound that he wants to hear over and over again, so he doubles his efforts.

One hand leaves your thigh (in its wake, five crescent shaped indents in your skin) to move lower downwards instead. His tongue drags flat against your clit as he slips a finger inside you.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better.

He pumps it into you in time with the flick of his tongue, curling it gently as he tries to find the spot that would make you cry out for him again. Once, twice, three times he tries, and then- “Ah!” Found it.

The way you tightened up around him made his mind go fuzzy, imagining just how perfect you’d feel around his cock instead. You were already so tight, wet, and warm around his finger - which was just a taste. He’d probably cum before he even got an inch inside.

Speaking of, he was trying not to right now. Without even realizing it, ever since that first brush of the mattress against his length, he had been absentmindedly grinding down against his while keeping his tongue occupied. He needed something, anything, but he just couldn’t bring himself to tear his mouth away from you. He might not ever get enough.

And so, he’s left humping his own mattress like a damn dog, downright whorish groans vibrating against you everytime he brings his hips down. If he had any rationality left, he’d realize how humiliating the entire scenario was, but his mind was too far gone. Turned to mush by you and that holy treasure between your legs. “Toby-“ He hears you gasp again, and his name has never sounded better. You made it sound like gospel as you breathed it out, all needy and overwhelmed.

The warmth brewing in your gut was getting to be too much to bear, building and building into a heat that was all-consuming. You’re so close you can taste it, gripping his hair so tight that you’re almost worried you might rip some of the strands out.

Toby can feel it when your pleasure starts to crest, your walls convulsing around his finger as he laps at your clit. It just spurs him on more, knowing that he can take you there. That you’re crying out for him. Clutching at him as your thighs shake.

He feels like he’s on top of the world. He feels euphoric. He feels like…

…Like he’s cumming.

It hits him with no warning, unannounced, right as you let out a broken cry and arch up off of the bed. He’s moaning into you as you gush into his mouth, hot slick that has his eyes rolling back as a wet, sticky warmth blooms in his boxers.

His free hand claws at your thigh, his hips hopelessly rutting against the bed to ride out the high as you buck up into his mouth. Pulsing and twitching against his tongue. Still, he couldn’t get enough. With pleasure sizzling through every nerve in his body, the taste of you was just heightening it. Making his hips twitch and his whole body tremble as he borderline sobs into your pussy, lapping up every drop of your release.

It’s only once your shaky hands start pushing his head away from your way too sensitive clit, does he relent.

It takes a few long moments for either of you to come back down to earth.

Toby’s left with his cheek pressed against your thigh, stubble scratching the soft skin as he gasps for air - trying to catch his breath. His eyes are drooped closed; cheeks flushed, hair in disarray, with his mouth and chin glistening with a combination of his spit and your release. He’s trembling slightly, you can feel it, still grasping your thigh like it would kill him to let go.

Through your hazy eyes, and brain still mushy from the afterglow of your orgasm, you think he might just be the most lovely thing you’ve ever seen.

You weakly tug at his hair, making his eyes flutter open to look up at you dreamily. “C’mere.” You murmur tiredly. “Wouldn’t be fair if I’m the only one who came.”

Toby blinks up at you and his face flushes an even deeper pink as he fumbles for what to say next. You hadn’t noticed? Well, maybe he couldn’t blame you for being too caught up in your own pleasure. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, gaping at you like a fish out of water before he’s mumbling out;

“Y-You weren’t.” He smiles at you sheepishly, blush spreading upwards to dust the tips of his ears rosy as well. “I’m g-good.”

Your lips part, eyes widening as his words sink in. Once the realization hits, a whole new wave of heat washes over your entire body. He had..? Just from..? You almost couldn’t wrap your head around it.

But when his hand reaches down to adjust his jeans, and you notice his expression twist into one of embarrassed discomfort - you know he’s not lying. “T-Tried not to, but… I don’t know. You d-do things to me.”

Clearly.

You let out a little disbelieving laugh, then trailing your hand down the side of his face to caress his cheek. The way he leans into your touch immediately has your heart slipping a beat. He was so perfect it was almost uncanny.

But of course, rationality had to come back into play eventually.

“Oh shit.” You breathe, pulling your hand back so that you could prop yourself up on your elbows as you gazed down at him - expression becoming wrinkled with worry. “How’s your tongue?”

Toby blinks up at you, like he had also forgotten about how carelessly he had treated the fresh wound in his mouth, before shrugging his shoulders and sticking his tongue out for you to observe.

Swollen and angry. That’s the best way you could describe the sight of the once portfolio-worthy piercing you had just done on him. His tongue was definitely irritated beyond belief, a painful looking shade of red coating the entire thing. “You’re fucked.” You murmur, brows pinching together. “Toby… That’s definitely getting infected.”

Again, Toby shrugs.

“W-Worth it.”

You were right, of course. Toby woke up the next morning with a tongue so swollen he could barely open his mouth. A sight that had you rubbing your temples in disbelief, and him still somehow managing a cocky grin

He managed to save it, with both his and your efforts combined (and antibiotics, and a lot of mouthwash, and ice cubes). It luckily only took about a week for the irritation to subside.

Which was good, because he was definitely keeping this one.

—————————————————————————☆

looked at my own tongue piercing in the mirror and went ‘What if Toby…’ and now here we are.

thanks for reading! ♡

[leejenowrld]

heart to heart — spoiler

pairing — surgeon! na jaemin x intern! y/n

genre — smut, fluff, angst, age gap (10 years, jaemin is older)

word count — 2.9k

authors note — this is quite a generous and lengthy spoiler, fans of ‘love me back’ and ‘back to you’ will appreciate this one a lot. if you’re not familiar with the other two stories in the ‘love and games universe’ then my only advice would be… become familiar LOL, anyways enjoy my loves <3 don’t say i never gave you anything 🫶

Hayoung’s eyes glitter with mischievous delight as she leans closer, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. She’s always been the resident sleuth, devouring every headline, every whisper in the intern’s lounge, cataloguing names and dates like precious specimens in a private menagerie. For her, uncovering the hidden ties that bind people is as satisfying as stitching new stories into a patchwork quilt. Tonight, she’s your guide through an exclusive gallery of Jaemin’s inner circle, each figure more beguiling than the last.

You draw in a shaky breath and edge nearer to the one‐way glass. Hayoung raises a slender finger toward the towering silhouette at the room’s center, a man whose presence feels as inevitable as gravity itself. His broad shoulders fill the crisp lines of his navy blazer, the fabric stretched ever so slightly across a sculpted chest, each inhale subtly flexing muscle beneath starched cotton. His trousers fall in a perfect, confidence-infused drape, hinting at powerful thighs honed by hours on hardwood courts. A tumble of dark curls grazes the nape of his neck, and when he turns, the faint arc of a smirk reveals a jaw so sharply carved it could slice through the hum of conversation. Even from here you catch the swirl of his cologne, something smoky, dark wood warmed by sunlight and feel the air shift around him. In that moment, Lee Jeno is less a man in a room and more a gravitational force: utterly magnetic, a living testament to strength and elegance entwined.

“That’s Lee Jeno, he doesn’t need an introduction. Everyone knows him, the most influential NBA player of his time.” She murmurs, voice hushed as if narrating a masterpiece. “See how he stands, shoulders squared like the corner of a backboard, every line of his tailored suit whispering discipline and power? He’s an NBA legend, record-breaker, triple-double maestro, the kind of athlete whose name is etched into every stat sheet and every fan’s heart. But more than that, he’s been Jaemin’s north star since they were toddlers dreaming of the same impossible things. He was the first to learn of Haeun’s little heartbeat, sneaking into the NICU at dawn to cradle the tiniest secret in his enormous hands. Off the court, he’s quietly philanthropic, rumor has it he quietly funds scholarships for underprivileged kids in his hometown, though he’d never brag. The media paints him as unflappable, the perfect poster boy for athletic excellence, but those who know him well call him fiercely loyal, the kind of man who shows up whether you’ve invited him or not.”

She lets that settle, then nods toward the woman at his side. “And that,” she continues, “is his fiancée, a vision of composure in couture. They met in college, drifted apart, then discovered that some bonds refuse to break. Their love story is whispered about in fashion circles and sports columns alike: soulful reunions, secret late-night text threads, wedding bells set to ring in just a few weeks. It’s the sort of romance you’d write a novel about—timeless, improbable, and entirely, irrepressibly theirs.”

Hayoung tells you that beyond the fairytale love story, she is every bit her own force of nature: the celebrated face of APEX, a powerhouse executive whose razor-sharp intellect and unflinching moral compass have steered global design initiatives and social impact campaigns for over a decade. In boardrooms she commands deference, in studio ateliers she inspires apprentices, and in every exhibition she curates she challenges viewers to see beauty as a catalyst for change. Each year, she and Jeno co-host the hospital’s signature gala, an evening of crystal chandeliers and whispered promises, where proceeds underwrite life-saving surgeries for families who simply can’t shoulder the cost. Hayoung recalls one gala night to you in particular. When little Haeun, clutching Bunny in one hand and a crayon-scrawled invitation in the other, was lifted onto the stage to present a check; the room hushed as the child’s earnest smile lit every heart, and tears of joy stained even the driest cheeks. It was a moment that crystallized their shared mission, to tether privilege to purpose, and to kindle hope in every young life they touch. Each December, they dispatch carefully curated gifts to every child in the ward—small treasures that, come Christmas morning, become lifelong keepsakes.

“Ryujin and Shotaro’s story is kind of a real-life fairy tale,” Hayoung begins, voice warm. “They met during college, he was mastering a contemporary routine, she was perfecting a lyrical piece and sparks flew over perfect pirouettes. Together they opened a tiny dance school in a repurposed loft, teaching six students and dreaming of bigger things. Now? Twelve studios later, they’ve trained hundreds of young dancers, from hopeful amateurs to budding professionals, and their outreach programs have given every child, no matter their background, a chance to feel the magic of movement. They’re always giggling when they talk about how their after-class water breaks turned into marathon brainstorming sessions. ‘What if we could heal with dance?’ and how every new studio opening felt like adding another heartbeat to the city’s rhythm.”

“And that dream brought them here,” she continues, tipping her voice conspiratorially. “Ryujin and Shotaro now co-design the hospital’s pediatric dance-therapy wing, turning sterile hallways into places where little feet learn strength and resilience. They’ve taught Haeun to pirouette past her fears, remember that time she insisted on ‘just one more spin’ even after her echo scan?—and they’ve choreographed holiday performances where she’s always the star. Their partnership isn’t just about fundraising or fancy recitals; it’s about showing every child that joy and healing can bloom side by side, and proving that sometimes the purest medicine comes in the form of music, movement, and a whole lot of love.”

“You see that hot guy by the window? That’s Lee Donghyuck, he’s a sports anchor whose name you can’t scroll past without wanting to know more. He’s the guy who turned a sideline gesture into a signature catchphrase, but off-camera he’s even more impressive: he spearheaded last year’s ‘Heart Run,’ a charity marathon that raised millions for the pediatric ward, and personally negotiated with sponsors so every dollar went straight to families in need. He’s brokered equipment donations, hosted fundraising luncheons in that very lounge, and somehow still remembers every child’s name who’s ever cross-checked him for an autograph. And don’t think he lets Haeun escape his radar. last month he rolled out a mini basketball hoop next to her play corner, just her size, and taught her how to drain a ‘baby three-pointer’ with a flourish. She squealed so loud you could hear it through the corridor, and he bent down afterward, ruffled her curls, and whispered, ‘You’re my MVP, princess.’ Even now she’s peeking at him, cheeks lighting up every time he offers a thumbs-up from across the room. With Donghyuck, it’s never just television bravado, it’s genuine joy in every high-five and every fundraiser he champions, a constant reminder that heroes come in many uniforms.”

She shifts her gaze to another figure: graceful, magnetic. “And finally, that’s Jang Karina. She doesn’t need any introduction, she’s a fashion powerhouse, her silhouette feels sculpted by intention. Karina began as a runway model whose charisma captivated editors and buyers alike; today she presides over a global design empire, her eponymous label celebrated for its architectural lines and daring palettes, while her beauty brand, praised for its clean formulas and bold pigments, has soared into the multimillion-dollar stratosphere. She pioneers mentorship programs for young designers, spearheads sustainable textile initiatives in collaboration with leading research labs, and curates charity auctions that funnel life-saving funds to children’s hospitals around the world. Every accolade she collects, Vogue cover shoots, Council of Fashion Designers awards, front-row appearances at the Met Gala, has been earned by a woman who learned to temper brilliance with empathy, who moved beyond the runway’s glare into the quiet confidence of a leader whose influence stretches from boardrooms to breaking bread with those she protects.”

“Karina and Dr. Na have a tenderness, a shared history written in soft confidences and midnight phone calls. They met during college before either dreamed of a spotlight, she, a striver fresh from design school; he, a busy surgical resident moonlighting to pay his rent. He didn’t like her in college, but they ran into each other in New York and started fucking intensely. Their first real date was over steaming bowls of bibimbap in a corner café, trading fears and ambitions until the staff nudged them out at closing time. Then life intervened—back-to-back seasons for her, grueling on-call marathons for him—and they drifted apart, each chasing dreams they’d once whispered to each other. They’re not really romantic but I’m sure they still fuck, I could bet on it, that’s how confident I am that I’m correct. They’re co-architects of Haeun’s world. She’s the first to arrive with balloons and homemade cookies on scan days, the one whose laugh draws Haeun from any shyness. Karina helps Dr. Na with Haeun a lot.”

Begrudgingly, you learn that they were lovers once, in that brief, incandescent season before parenthood reshaped his every horizon; the memory of their closeness still simmers behind Karina’s steady gaze. Now she arrives at the hospital not as a distant star but as a second mother to Haeun, smoothing stray curls with the gentlest touch and laughing through bedtime stories whispered in the playroom’s lamplight. When she bends to offer Haeun her lap, the little girl curls in as naturally as into her father’s arms, murmuring “Mama Rina” with the surety of a heart that instinctively knows where comfort lives. In every pivot of her poised stride and every warm look she casts at Dr. Na, you sense the unspoken vow: that this chosen family, wrought from loss and love, will hold its orbit against any darkness that dares encroach.

Her tone softens, eyes drifting back through the glass as if she can already see their silhouettes in the corridor. “They’re legends in their own right. Jeno, with championships and record-breaking buzzer-beaters that make arenas tremble; Karina, whose gowns have rewritten the language of fashion and whose makeup line is in every beauty editor’s kit; Ryujin and Shotaro, whose dance therapy programs have coaxed laughter and movement from children who’d forgotten how to feel joy; Donghyuck, whose voice carries stories of triumph on screens that millions tune in to each night. But none of that matters here. What binds them isn’t fame or fortune, it’s this hospital. This place saved Haeun when her own mother tried to end her life before she even drew a single breath, when she was left to die alone on the rooftop. Doctors patched her broken heart; nurses soothed her frightened sobs; researchers here keep rewriting the rules of what sick children can endure. Every gala Karina co-hosts, every scholarship Jeno underwrites, every dance-floor fund Shotaro and Ryujin open, all of it funnels back into this ward. They fund free surgeries for babies born blue-liped, they underwrite outreach clinics in forgotten towns, they sponsor scholarship nurses who stay to care for children no matter the cost. They do it all because of Haeun. Because she survived the darkness, they learned what true rescue means, and found a way to pay her back in light.”

Your heart twists in your chest as you watch Karina cradle Haeun at the edge of the room, tiny arms fluttering around Karina’s neck like fledgling wings seeking warmth. Karina’s hair tumbles over her shoulders in waves of midnight silk, each strand catching the light of the conference wing’s golden glow. Her posture is an unspoken manifesto of poise: spine straight as a ballet barre, shoulders soft but unyielding, gaze warm enough to melt the iciest boardroom. Haeun’s laughter resonates like a chime, and Karina responds with a low, musical hum, her fingers tracing idle patterns in Haeun’s curls. You step back, scrubs suddenly heavy on your skin, as though you’ve walked into a painting you were never meant to touch. The distance between you and this effortless grace stretches taut, and you wonder how you—ten years her junior, still mastering knotting sutures and bedside manner—could ever bridge the gap. You feel like a child intruding on a world you can’t touch: awkward in your youth, your intern’s scrubs swallowed by the hush of designer silks and tailored blazers. 

Your cheeks burn when you realize how small you feel here: stripped of your usual confidence, every inch of your skin prickles with self-consciousness. You recall the times you braided Haeun’s hair, the soft “thank you, my wuv” she pressed against your palm, and you ache to belong in that gentle space again. But here, in the orbit of Karina’s radiance, you are merely a shadow, an earnest trainee whose greatest accolade is a passing nod from Dr. Na. While Karina, in the privacy of their past, has lost herself on his cock a million times, a fiery intimacy you ache to claim as your own. You tighten your grip on the edge of your clipboard, fingernails biting into the paper, and force your gaze back to the room. Yet even as you try to anchor yourself, your eyes betray you, drifting back to Karina’s measured smile, the easy way she curls a lock of Haeun’s hair behind her ear, the quiet assurance that you can never duplicate.

It’s not merely Karina’s beauty that stings, it’s her history, her accomplishments writ large in the world Jaemin inhabits. You think of the single-family flats you shared with overwhelmed roommates, long shifts of charting before dawn, the perpetual undercurrent of imposter syndrome that thrums beneath your every success. Karina, by contrast, has carved an empire from thread and vision, her name sewn onto the seats of fashion capitals from Paris to Tokyo. She is the creative force behind runway shows that have shaped decades of style; the philanthropist whose gala soirées have raised millions for pediatric research; the mentor whose apprentices now stand on stage in their own right. And here she is, bending gentle and unguarded over Haeun—an innocent whose life Karina helped to celebrate, whose future she pledged to support long before you ever learned your first surgical knot.

You flush all the way to your fingertips as you recall Hayoung’s hushed confession about Karina and Dr. Na’s secret trysts—how Karina’s satin lips once pressed against his throat in the moonlight, how she gasped his name as his fingers tangled in her platinum-blonde waves. Your pulse hammers when you imagine those heated nights, Karina draped over him like silk, whispering his name between breathless moans. You bite your lip, thighs trembling, picturing yourself in her place—skin slick, lips parted, arching beneath his touch as he buries himself deep inside you. Every polished step in these hospital halls suddenly feels charged with forbidden promise: could those same strong hands guide your body, curl you into whispered ecstasy until you’re nothing but warm, quivering mush in his arms? The thought sends a delicious shiver down your spine, and you press a hand to your chest, breathing unevenly, desperate for even a flicker of that raw, unfiltered passion Karina once claimed as her birthright.

Karina’s presence is almost mythic: hair that falls in glossy waves around a face sculpted by years of confidence, eyes that have both softened at a child’s smile and hardened at the cruelties of fashion backstage. She embodies refinement and resolve—each step a whisper of silk, each laugh a note of genuine warmth. Haeun clings to her as though born knowing Karina’s arms are safe harbors: tiny fingers threading through Karina’s familiarity, curls brushing Karina’s velvet collar. You watch that bond and ache—you’re not certain you could learn the art of such effortless love, not sure you could anchor Haeun’s heart as deeply, as naturally, as one who has guided her through every high-profile gala and quiet bedtime story alike. In that moment, you feel the full weight of your inexperience, the impossibility of matching a grace so honed, so intrinsic. The envy blossoms bitterly in your chest, and you wonder if you will ever find your own place in Haeun’s world beyond the shadow of these legends.

You turn your gaze inward, the harsh white of hospital walls receding as memory and desire entwine into a single, bitter bloom. You recall the early mornings when you and Haeun would share cereal in the NICU hallway, your voice the only anchor to her frightened world. You remember the fear that distilled your every thought when her tiny chest stuttered for breath, and the primal desire to be the guardian of her heart. Yet here, in the glow of polished floors and the gentle murmur of celebrities-turned-family, you feel neither hero nor protector. only an outsider whose worth is measured in clinical competence, not in the kind of love that sees without pretense. The ache in your ribs intensifies, a reminder that motherhood, in its many forms, is not won by credentials or passion alone but by the quiet alchemy of trust, time, and intimacy. You realize that Karina has woven herself into Haeun’s life with every shared story, every whispered promise, every dance lesson sponsored and every stolen cuddle. And you, still learning the rhythms of both scalpels and lullabies, are left yearning for a place in the soft tapestry they have created. You close your eyes for a moment, drawing a shaky breath, and resolve to carve out your own kind of sanctuary, a space in Haeun’s world defined by your devotion, your sleepless nights, your relentless hope that even the most fragile hearts can find new wings.

taglist — @yukisroom97 @fancypeacepersona @jaeminnanaaa17 @shiningnono @junrenjun @honeybeehorizon @neotannies @noorabora @oppabochim @chenlesfeetpic @kynessa @awktwurtle @euphormiia @hi00000234527 @yvvnii @sunwoosberrie @ppeachyttae @dee-zennie @ballsackzz101 @neonaby @kukkurookkoo @antifrggile @dedandelion @fymine @zoesruby @yoonohswife @jessga @markerloi @ryuhannaworld @yasminetrappy @sunghoonsgfreal @jaemjeno @lovetaroandtaemin @yunhoswrldddd @dowoonwoodealer @enhalovie @jenzyoit @sunseteternal @dewyspace @markiesfatbooty @raysofpolaris @sunseteternal @oppabochim @markerloi @xiuriii

[casualsnickers]

round. friend-shaped. iconic, dare i say. in the world's weirdest polycule. also, could he be anymore obvious as to his mission being a trap? "i was simply testing your strength, my fellow explorer" YOU'RE A TERRIBLE LIAR. super pmd kept him as a bastard man and i wholly appreciate it.

been thinkin about dusknoir and his less-than-optimal history with the player

i do feel like dusknoir should've been given more screen time pre-betrayal as there was never really any backstory as to him being all-knowing and wise. that and the fact that he just never came off as being inherently trustworthy during my initial playthrough of the game. big hulking ghost type... and he's also a warm, jolly fellow? something's not adding up here.

in my own version, dusknoir isn't a famous pokemon nor is he world-reknowned. he's strong, he's knowledgable and he's intimidating. he's been in the past plotting and scheming the same amount of time the hero has. and after all, you don't need other team members to become an explorer.

word would probably reach him via travel about the time gears going missing and he'd immediately scour every inch of the continent for info, eager to throw hands with grovyle only to run into officer magnezone who's investigating the case alongside their fellow magnemites. dusknoir would make up some believable excuse that he's a hobbyist explorer looking to catch grovyle to bolster his own reputation and after explaining what he knows, chief magnezone would take him back to treasure town to have him work exclusively with the wigglytuff guild. it's magnezone who spreads the rumor that dusknoir is well-traveled and intelligent.

dusknoir is both thrilled and exasperated as he now has more access to information via chatot (who actually has the history, skills, documents and reputation of being a head of intelligence) and via wigglytuff's connection to other groups- that, and he now has to work harder to conceal why he's really trying to stay ahead of the guild in tracking down grovyle. he'd be damned if somebody gets their hands on that detestable lizard before he does.

he just lurks around treasure town, mostly in the guild discussing possible locations for the time gears. sometimes, he's gone on solo missions. sometimes, he's in the town buying things. it's understood that he's literally just there to reap the social reward of capturing grovyle and nobody makes a big deal about him just showing up and helping. talking to him is completely optional- he still puts on the fake jolly voice and is very social- but he doesn't really take notice of burr or watts since they're both just guild apprentices doing mundane tasks... that and one of them eats rocks.

one day, he tells chatot that he needs to take a break to reservice his equipment and is pointed specifically in burr's direction to get his wonder orbs repurposed; something only the wigglytuff guild knows about. it's canon that nobody really knows where wonder orbs come from nor how they get their power; they simply exist. same thing with wands, scarves, looplets, etc. not even dusknoir knows the deal with where dungeon items come from or why they replenish themselves.

to dusknoir's knowledge, the only person he once knew who could tinker with wonder orbs without breaking them was grovyle's lost partner... the one who's orbs grovyle still uses to escape being caught. the one who's been conveniently off the radar for some time yet. dusknoir takes the time to ask burr to repurpose his wonder orbs and as she does, he recognizes that she and grovyle's partner share the same name, the same mannerisms, and the same way of actually disenchanting and enchanting orbs (via heat, pressure, and a bit of footprint rune know-how). it's when he catches watts casually making a joke about burr's amnesia to another apprentice does he finally begin to put the pieces together.

the issue with the water float arises. marill & azurill come to the guild looking for hero & partner and make a big scene. almost immediately, burr quietly pinpoints that it's in amp plains (via the dimensional scream ability) and leaves with watts to go and retrive it, dusknoir tagging along because he's familiar with the luxray clan lore and because he has no idea how burr would be able to pinpoint the water float's location so quickly having overheard her.

he comes in handy for the luxray pack and for chasing off team skull once they're found out. the three of them take the float back to town and deliver it back to the marill brothers only for dusknoir to take them both aside later and question their abilities. watts is completely ordinary apart from his relic fragment but being the talkative one, he persuades burr to tell dusknoir about her special ability and to keep it a secret that burr is actually a human.

it's a done deal after that and dusknoir immediately begins laying the bait for both grovyle and his amnesiac partner.

[tales-from-the-aether-ttrpg]

Have you ever been playing dnd and found yourself wishing you could experience the full immersion of mechanics for brewing potions, charting maps, picking locks, or enchanting items that were more than simply chucking a d20 and hoping for the best?

In addition to an expansive combat system that favors player exploration and expression, Tales from the Aether encourages players to explore more facets of the fantasy and adventuring genre. Some fun examples are the Chef’s Tools and Climbing Tools mechanics.

Chef’s Tools

These tools are used to make delicious and nutritious meals that are far superior to simple rations. In order to make a nutritious meal that last the whole adventuring day, you must use at least 4 lbs of food stuff such as meat, vegetables, or roots per individual you wish to feed.

You gain a number of d6s equal to your Nature or Knowledge score. You only need to roll one dice to make a successful meal but can gamble for additional bonuses. If you roll doubles on anything other than 1s, your meal grants an additional bonus. Any effects granted from the meals lasts until your next long rest.

If you roll anything other than a 1, the meal is a success and grants a temporary increase to Hit Point maximum equal to your Nature or Knowledge score.

If you roll a 1, the meal is just an average meal with no additional benefits.

If you roll multiple 2s, the meal grants a +1 Bonus to Stamina.

If you roll multiple 3s, the meal grants a +5 to Speed.

If you roll multiple 4s, the meal grants a +1 Bonus to Awareness and Security checks.

If you roll multiple 5s, the meal grants a +1 Bonus to Diplomacy, Deception, Intimidation, and Performance checks.

If you roll multiple 6s, the meal grants double the increase to Hit Points.

Climbing Tools

Climbing long distances is a dangerous sport and can be nearly impossible without the proper tools. With these tools, a misstep may lead to a minor panic attack, not a fall to one’s death.

You gain a pool of 5 dice (1d4). For every 100 feet you climb, you must use these dice to reach a DC of 10. If you fail to meet this DC, you gain 10 points of Stress but make the distance.

The dice you get to roll is increased depending on your Skill Rank. Novice grants a 1d6, Apprentice a 1d8, Journeyman a 1d10, Expert a 1d12, and Master a 1d20.

If you are climbing with multiple people, you can share your dice to help your companions out. For example, if one member of the group is an Expert and passed the DC with 2 dice, they can share their last 3 dice with members of the group that are less skilled in Agility or Strength.

This is just a taste but there is much more to be found. If such exploration of different mechanics interests you, give a follow to keep up to date with Tales from the Aether’s progress! I may be inviting more people to the discord to take a look at the 250+ page document once its V1.2 is completed ;p

[thewertsearch]

A fifth exile, sleeping for centuries in the belly of the ruins, far beneath the desecrated idol once sharing its visage with the legendary SPEAKER OF THE VAST CROAK.

We’ve got another Vast Thing, to accompany Gl'bgolyb’s Glub and Aradia's Joke.

I'm a little nervous about the parallel being drawn here between Gl'bgolyb and Bilious Slick. If Sburb's Frog God turns out to have been a Horrorterror all along, it would certainly be fitting, but it definitely wouldn't be good.

Soon the WRIT KEEPER will awaken and serve his new queen.

Fair enough. It makes sense that the Queen would want to save her husband if the opportunity were to present itself.

It is a little fucked that he's the only one who was preserved, though. He shared space with Dave’s beta, so the device can clearly accommodate multiple payloads. For all we know, they could have evacuated half of Prospit through here!

The King has become the Writ Keeper, which makes me think that Complacency might be more than just a teen's first novel.

I think it’s time to take another look at Rose's magnum opus.

COTL is a story about twelve wizards, who suspect that their twelve apprentices are responsible for murder.

In contrast, Homestuck is a story about twelve rather murderous trolls, who are following in the footsteps of their twelve ancestors. So, you see, it's different.

Nah, but seriously, I'm fairly confident that these wizards are supposed to represent the ancestors and Players of the troll session. Zazzerpan even refers to the apprentices as the Complacency's 'grand descendence', which is almost comically on the nose.

But what does it mean? I doubt Rose is intentionally weaving these parallels - it's probably just a manifestation of her latent Seer powers.

In the story, Zazzerpan's cohort are horrified by the possibility that their apprentices are killers. Does this imply that the troll ancestors are less violent and dangerous than the modern Alternians? But if the ancestors were peaceful, I don't think Eridan would respect them the way he does. Hmm.

She would like clarification on the nature of the work, which you are happy to provide. You explain that it is very simple. As the new queen, she will be charged with bringing the slayer to justice, and rebuilding her kingdom in a new land.

The latter is standard practice for Sburban Exiles, and should be well within their capabilities. That said, it would be just as achievable if they were being led by WQ, so I’m not sure why PM needs to bear the crown instead.

If PM is 'bringing the Slayer to justice', she'll probably be confronting Jack directly. This means she's going to be travelling back into sessionspace, presumably quipped with the one weapon capable of matching Noir’s.

[mrs-stans]

GQ Hype

How Sebastian Stan became Donald Trump in The Apprentice

With an uncanny performance as a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice and an even less recognisable turn in A Different Man, the shapeshifting actor is embracing his freaky side

By Ben Allen Photography by Daniel Jack Lyons

Coat by Loewe. Boots by Dolce & Gabbana.Necklace by Cartier.Daniel Jack Lyons

When Sebastian Stan was growing up in Romania in the 1980s, he began to learn English through passive immersion. His mother, a concert pianist, would regularly play English music and language lessons on the family record player while they were going about their day. “I’d be playing with toys and I’d hear, like, ‘frog’ and ‘dog’, or whatever,” Stan says. It meant that by the time the actor moved to Vienna at age eight, where he attended an American international school – and later, when he moved to New York at 12 – he had a decent jumping-off point. “I’m a big believer in putting yourself in a situation where, subconsciously, there’s work being done.”

In the past two years, Stan has put that method to use in a very different way. As he entered preproduction to play Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice – which charts the former President and current Republican candidate’s early rise through the New York property scene – he started spending his waking hours with tapes of the young Trump playing in his ears. He brushed his teeth with Trump, he went grocery shopping with Trump, he spoke to friends with one earphone in, Trump still nattering away in his ear. “I slept with him, by the way,” Stan says, well aware of how strange that sounds. “It just sort of ends up taking over your life.” He’s sitting somewhere in Los Angeles at lunchtime, speaking to me over Zoom, with the afternoon sun reflecting off his chlorine-blue eyes.

Jacket and shirt by Gabriela Hearst. Hat by Gladys Tamez. Ring by Cartier.

The Apprentice, which Stan first signed up for in 2022, explores the question, ‘How did Trump get like this?’ (The answer, it posits, has a lot to do with Roy Cohn, a lawyer and prosecutor who had risen to prominence in the 1950s as Senator Joseph McCarthy’s attack dog in the communist witch-hunts.) The film is the latest in a string of freaky, transformation-heavy roles that have run parallel alongside Stan’s very mainstream 13-year-and-counting stint as Captain America’s pal Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has made him a globally recognised action star. The Apprentice lands this month in the UK, two weeks after A Different Man, an A24 production in which Stan plays an aspiring actor with neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition that has caused the growth of non-cancerous tumours on his face. They’re not your typical actor-in-between-superhero-outings roles – and the fact that Stan is spending so much time in the make-up chair outside of the blockbusters is indicative of a desire to get truly lost in his work.

I started to think a lot about the American dream. What is it? Is it a ghost you keep chasing?

Preparing to play Trump, he says, was like any other time he has portrayed a real-life person – take, say, Tonya Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, in I, Tonya, or Tommy Lee in Pam & Tommy. But this time around it came with an added layer of stress. “There’d be nights when my anxiety levels would be through the roof, because I’d be like, Why did I say yes to this?” he says with a laugh.

But Stan thrives when he leans into fear. He had been terrified of I, Tonya, and even more terrified of Pam & Tommy – which, in its exploration of the couple’s romance and sex tape, involved a scene where Lee converses with a silicone puppet of his penis. (The latter earned him Golden Globe and Emmy nominations.) Trump was a different beast. “I thought, I don’t know if this is doable. I don’t know if I have it in me,” he says. “But it’s not not gonna happen because I’m scared of it.”

Coat, shirt and tie by Ludovic de Saint Sernin. Trousers by Gabriela Hearst. Boots and gloves by Versace. Hat by Gladys Tamez. Daniel Jack Lyons

Jacket and shirt by Gabriela Hearst. Hat by Gladys Tamez. Daniel Jack Lyons

When his mother told him he was going to be leaving Vienna for the United States at 12 years old, Stan felt like the floor had fallen from beneath him. “It was like you were telling me that my life was over,” he says. His mother was a single parent and had met an American man and fallen in love; he wanted to bring them both to live with him in New York. Stan remembers crying in the shower in the days leading up to the move. After departing Romania a few years before, he had worked hard to forge new friendships. Now, he’d have to rebuild from the bottom up again. “That did feed me resilience, because it did allow me to get better at restarting and restarting,” he says. “It fed a lot of who I am.”

Upon arriving in America, he started working on his impersonation of an American teenager. “I was so traumatised by being different,” he says. He refused to speak Romanian, even at home. He didn’t tell anyone he was from a foreign country. “I wanted to change my name to Christopher,” he says. “I wanted to be as normal in America as anybody else.” Having already set the ball rolling with his passive English lessons as a child, he was able to adopt a seamless New York accent, leaving little to betray his otherness. He tried out every personality marker available to him at school, to figure out which one fitted: debate team, forensics, every sport he could muster, and drama, eventually gravitating towards the latter. “I became popular in high school through acting,” he says. “I went on dates. I found my path.”

Still, this otherness was a part of Stan, as much as he initially tried to suppress it. As he came to appreciate life in America – in a middle-class household, with a good education – he began to reappraise his background, and felt a sense of gratitude to his stepfather for bringing them over, and for the drive it seeded within him. “This idea that you’ve been so lucky to have been selected to get this opportunity,” he says. “I was able to seize it and work with it, but on the other hand it’s a never-ending burden because you go, ‘You better not blow it!’” He remembers taking a walk through the city on their arrival, gawping up at the skyscrapers, when his mother impressed upon him that very sentiment: “You see these buildings? This is where you have a chance to become something.” He thought about this conversation quite a lot while he was playing Trump, probably because it feels like a scene ripped right out of a more varnished biography of the former President. “I started to think a lot about the American dream, and sort of like, what is it?” he says. “Is it a ghost you keep chasing?”

That was a way of me understanding that you're just out there, like target practice.

When Stan was doing theatre in high school, he loved getting a chance to transform and become a different person entirely. “You’re 14, 15, and you’re playing parts where you have to be, like, 35 years older than you are, and you have to change your appearance, you have to change everything, and you have to walk a certain way,” he says. “That shit was fun.” He would find himself craving those meatier transformations later, after landing a run of roles in Hollywood playing traditionally hot villains and heroes in Gossip Girl and in the Captain America movies. “Watching Christian Bale do The Fighter and watching him do Batman and Vice and The Machinist… He was a guy that, to me, could have made very conventional choices because he’s very good at any of it. But then he’s trying these things.”

Opportunities like this aren’t necessarily afforded to nascent actors. In a weird way, you kind of have to wait for your face to become recognisable before you’re allowed to start messing with it. The first real taste Stan got of this was in 2017 – after he had been solidly established as a Marvel hero – in the Margot Robbie-led, Oscar-winning I, Tonya, which told the story of the assault on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, orchestrated by her Olympic rival Tonya Harding’s camp. For Harding’s ex-husband – who sets the assault in motion – they were looking for someone very different to Stan. The real Gillooly is slight and short, with narrow features. Stan felt his teen-drama looks would work against him in the audition process. “I’m like, ‘I’m gonna walk into that room and they’re gonna see the taller guy, The CW [the young-people-melodrama US TV network that first aired Gossip Girl] guy.’ I felt like I was going to be immediately judged.”

Coat and pyjamas by Dolce & Gabbana. Daniel Jack Lyons

I, Tonya director Craig Gillespie saw in Stan a capacity to become Gillooly. “I was familiar with Captain America: Civil War and his work there, and I couldn’t quite picture it [at first],” Gillespie tells me. “But he actually turned up [to the audition] in the turtleneck and the moustache, almost in character. And the transformation, and his instincts tonally and comedically… He was actually improvising things in the scene that worked incredibly well.”

Gillespie was impressed not just by how Stan had remoulded himself in the shape of someone else, but by his ability to tap into the character’s humanity, too. “It has to be emotionally resonant,” he says. “You have to be able to connect to the characters… He completely commits, which is an incredibly scary proposition for an actor.” Still, Stan was filled with anxiety heading into I, Tonya. “The amount of fear I had was almost traumatising,” he says. But then he did it. “I worked so hard for that movie, and it worked.”

A DIFFERENT MAN takes things up another notch. The film was written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, a rising indie director whose work has explored how disability has impacted his life (Schimberg was born with a cleft lip and palate). In it, a prosthetics-heavy Stan plays Edward, an actor whose biggest break to date is a small role in a corporate training video about how to treat employees with facial differences in the workplace. Edward’s spirit has been crushed by the world around him, weathered by the relentless gawping of strangers and rejection. Then, he takes part in a clinical trial for a new drug that could remove the tumours from his face. It works. Edward fakes his death and adopts a new identity, looking just like regular old Sebastian Stan. But when Edward’s kind neighbour – played by The Worst Person in the World’s Renate Reinsve – stages a play about him, he finds himself in competition with Oswald (played by Adam Pearson, a British actor with neurofibromatosis) for the part. It is, to put it mildly, a confronting drama, excavating both society’s unwillingness to treat people with disabilities fairly and the fallacy of our terminal dissatisfaction with our looks.

Coat by McQueen. Shirt by Louis Vuitton. Trousers by Louis Vuitton. Tie by Dolce & Gabbana. Boots by Versace. Daniel Jack Lyons

Though the film treads across the noir and comic horror genres, and at points tips into the absurd, it feels most like a parable. “It’s another version of the American dream, right?” Stan says. “Don’t wish for the things you want; you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

During the shoot, Stan often had long stretches between having his facial prosthetics applied and his call time (the film’s make-up designer, Michael Marino, was simultaneously working on The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, and would sometimes have to squeeze Stan into make-up in the early hours before running to that job). So Stan would walk around New York, including parts of his own neighbourhood, wearing hyperrealistic prosthetics, getting just a little taste of what his life would be like if he had been dealt a different hand. At one point, he went to his local coffee shop, where a barista he has known for years was working the counter. “She was so busy handling stuff, and suddenly she turned and she didn’t expect to see me,” he says, “and I could see the shock going immediately into overcompensation.” Pearson told him that those are the reactions that he is most often confronted with as a person with a disability: shock verging on repulsion, and guilty, over-the-top kindness.

Schimberg helped Stan to draw a neat line between Edward’s life and his own experience of fame. The one thing they had in common is how they’re observed in public spaces. “He said, ‘You have to think about what it’s like to be recognised. And the sense that you’re fair game out there.’ That I could understand,” Stan says. “I’ll go to lunch with my mom and somebody will be filming me the entire time, pretending they’re not. Or I’ll see somebody look at me strangely and then they’ll whisper to their friends. Or I’ve had someone come and tap me and run away. The invasiveness of that… And I can’t do anything but just receive it.”

Stan is quick to clarify that his experience as a famous person is not really comparable, that it comes with all sorts of upsides. But this point of similarity helped him to fully embody the character. “That was a way of me understanding this thing – that you’re just out there, like target practice.”

Coat and pyjamas by Dolce & Gabbana. Daniel Jack Lyons

Production on The Apprentice was hazardously stop-start. Several times over, Stan began his Trump immersion routine – which also involved pounding Coca-Colas and peanut butter and jam sandwiches, among other things, to put on some very un-superhero bulk – only to find out that production had been suspended. At one point, the project came so close to overlapping with his next Marvel outing, next May’s Thunderbolts, that he had to start shredding instead – only for Thunderbolts to be postponed because of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Straight back to the PB&Js. All that work wasted. “I’m fuckin’ 41; I just worked pretty hard to get in shape here!” he says.

Stan’s Trump is admirably nuanced, particularly for a person who has been so widely imitated – on SNL, on late-night talk shows, every second of every day by comedians trying to make a name for themselves on TikTok – as to be reduced to a caricature in the public consciousness. Initially, it feels quite removed, but then you spot the shape his mouth curves into while enunciating words like “deal” and “loser”, a subtle pursing of the lips when he’s being spoken to, a hand gesture. As the movie progresses, the man with whom we’re all exhaustingly familiar comes closer and closer to the fore.

Suit and boots by Versace. Vest top by Schiesser. Hat by Gladys Tamez. Watch by Cartier. Daniel Jack Lyons

The challenge, in Stan’s eyes, was to tread the very fine line between interpretation and imitation. “It’s a balance between having the familiarity without it becoming sort of a schtick,” he says. “There is a small window of time where you are going through the impersonation phase, because you’ve got to get through that in order to come out the other end,” he says. “There is a mechanical, technical piece to it, and that comes from actually studying a person.” According to Stan’s mother, he spent much of his childhood relentlessly impersonating people he came in to contact with. “I’ve always been good at watching people,” he says.

I'm going to commit the fuck out of it and surrender myself to the story.

Once he got comfortable enough, he would take the show on the road – trying versions of the character out in restaurants to see if anyone would pick up on it. “Because there’s a thing getting born,” he says, “and you want to test it out in the world, but you don’t want to overdo it too quickly – then it gets frozen.” No one seemed to notice in the moment, which was at least some indication that he hadn’t tipped over into parody, but some friends who have seen the movie realised retrospectively: “They’ve come up to me after and said, ‘Now I see this fuckin’ weird thing you were doing!’”

When we meet Trump in The Apprentice, he is a footsoldier in his father’s company and significantly less self-assured, though he’s got the trademark wispy hair and the ill-fitting suits. The wheels begin to turn when he meets Cohn – portrayed here in typically committed fashion by Succession’s Jeremy Strong, with whom Stan only had the chance to interact in character on set – who begins to sculpt Trump in his own image, laying out his rules for success, which will be very familiar to anyone who has paid attention to Trump’s political career: 1) attack, attack, attack; 2) admit nothing and deny everything; and 3) always claim victory and never admit defeat.

Coat, trousers and shoes by McQueen. Vest top by Ami. Sunglasses by Jacques Marie Mages. Pin by Cartier. Daniel Jack Lyons

Stan seems reticent to get into the politics of The Apprentice, which depicts Trump as, among other things, a rapist, in a scene referencing allegations made in a deposition by his first wife Ivana during their divorce proceedings. (Trump has previously denied the rape allegation; Ivana later issued a statement clarifying that she had felt violated, but was not raped in a “literal or criminal sense”.) But the movie speaks for itself. And Trump’s camp is already speaking back: after the film premiered at Cannes in May, the presidential campaign’s chief spokesperson Steven Cheung called the movie “garbage”, “pure fiction” and “election interference by Hollywood elites”, while also threatening a lawsuit. In a press conference at the film festival, Abbasi suggested that an ideal release date would be in mid-September, to align with the second presidential debate (but the film, as it happens, is now due out on 11 October in the USA, and 18 October in the UK). It wouldn’t take Alan Turing to decipher the message being transmitted. But I try and press for a direct answer: does Stan feel an added sense of responsibility playing Trump in an election year? “You can’t not think about it,” he says. “But I had tremendous trust in Ali Abbasi and his vision for the movie. And it is an important story – I think the movie makes a great attempt at exploring: how did we get here? But I approached it with the same responsibility as I approached anything I ever got involved with, which is, I’m going to give this my all. I’m going to research the fuck out of it; I’m going to commit the fuck out of it and surrender myself to the story.”

Does he have any concerns about backlash from Trump or from MAGA supporters? “I mean, is there anything out there now that doesn’t get backlash? You can’t worry about what people think,” Stan says. “But I’m fully aware that I’m doing things that are not going to be for everybody.”

He’s not far off the mark. Even Marvel, the world’s highest-grossing movie franchise of all time, has faced quite a bit of criticism in recent years – in part for the way in which they’ve handled the transition to a new set of heroes and storylines since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Stan doesn’t have any time for it. “I’ve never been part of a company that puts so much heart and thought into anything,” he says. “I think if Marvel was gone, it’d be such a big hole to try and fill up. Don’t just go out there and shit on something without offering something better.”

Coat by Loewe. Boots by Dolce & Gabbana. Necklace by Cartier. Daniel Jack Lyons

He’s certainly not done with the MCU yet. Thunderbolts, which he’ll headline alongside Florence Pugh, will arrive in May next year. And he’s already looking beyond that, to a potential reunion with Robert Downey Jr, who has been announced to return in the next Avengers movie – not as Iron Man, but as the villain Doctor Doom. “I hope I’m in a scene with him,” Stan says. “Is there any other guy that could pull that off? I don’t know, probably not. After Tropic Thunder, is there anything that guy can’t do?” he says, laughing. It is perhaps the movie that I least expect Stan – or anyone, to be honest – to reference in 2024, but I should know better. Downey Jr is a transformation master, too. Game recognises game.

Trump doesn’t exist in the Marvel universe – or at least not yet – but if you spot a hint of him in Thunderbolts, you’ll know why. “I went off to Marvel after [The Apprentice],” Stan says. “And we were doing scenes, and I would do something, a thing or two, and be like, ‘Fuck! This is still living somewhere.’”

Styled by Sean Knight Hair by Erica Adams Grooming by Kc Fee using iS Clinical at Redefine Representation Set Design by Daniel Horowitz Production by May Kielany

[curiouswisp]

OC Tag Game

Tagged by beautiful Francesca's owner @trashwithvariety, not that I need any encouragement to yap about Ruk 💜

Tagging @hellomehlo (I need more Rue on my dash!) @dirthavarens @quaksi @albino-pony @scottysketches @flowersforthemachines

or anyone else that wants to share!! If you don't want to post just DM me all the deets about your Rook so I can look at them and think about them all day.

OC: Rukhana Ingellvar - Mourn Watch Necrotic Warrior

General:

Name: Rukhana Ingellvar (Eventually Rukhana Ingellvar-Volkarin)

Alias: Ruk, Rook

Gender: Female (she/her)

Age: 34

Spoken Language: Nevarran, Common, conversational in Tevene and Orlesian, can read some Tomb Script.

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Occupation: Mourn Watch - Political Advisor & Guard Captain

Favorite…

Color: olive and emerald green

Entertainment: any sort of games or puzzles, playing piano

Pastime:  History nerd, overly competitive board game/card player, kicking ass in the sparring ring.

Food: Ruk can't cook well, but she's not picky when it comes to food. Started eating some meat after leaving the Necropolis, but deep down will always love anything made with potatoes.

Drink: Yes, please! 😉 She has a pretty decent wine collection and will never turn down a fresh cup of tea.

Have they…

Passed University: Yes! She majored in history and politics (with a minor interest in theoretical magic)

Had Sex: Yes, both casual encounters and in relationships.

Had Sex in Public: Yes

Got Tattoos: She has one. It was an act of rebellion as a teenager and has no meaning other than she liked the way it looked at the time.

Got Piercings: She has no piercings

Got Scarred: Some minor scrapes here and there and a prominent scar on her chin.

Had a Broken Heart: Only from one relationship, although she had an equal role to play in the heartbreak.

Are they…

A Cuddler: Yes, Ruk is much more comfortable with being physically affectionate over verbally affectionate. She loves resting a hand on a thigh or lower back, or draping an arm or leg over someone to show affection.

Scared Easily: No. Honestly, it's the opposite most of the time, she's pretty confident (overly so) and less fearful than she should be of some situations. She tends to assume she'll figure out a solution or a way out of anything dangerous but had a few wake-up moments during the events of the game.

Jealous Easily: Hmm... yes and no. It depends on the person and situation. She's comfortable in polyamorous situations and is capable of compersion, but every now and then a situation will get under her skin and she doesn't tend to handle it well.

Trustworthy:  Absolutely. She's a sealed vault unless you are asking her not to tell her partners something, then sorry 🤷‍♀️ they know everything she knows.

Family…

Sibling(s): None that she knows of.

Parents: Ruk is unaware of their status.

Children: Other than Manfred, one daughter years after the game's events.

Pets: She gifted Manfred a black cat that she adopted after it followed her for an entire afternoon around Minrathous. She gifted it to him to accompany him during his time as an apprentice and he named it Cat. They hiss at each other and adventure together.

[armoredisopod]

Collab Event PV

New Operators

Senshi, 5* Collab Welfare Guardian Defender

Now, which is the better dish to make...?

Chilchuck, 5* Collab Agent Vanguard

For the record, i'm only a scout, don't expect me to fight.

Laios, 5* Collab Dreadnought Guard

I can't help but notice, but you're actually quite interested in monster cuisine, right?

Marcille, 6* Collab Splash Caster

It's just like what i used to do back in the Magic Academy, I've learned how to use all the magical instruments you have here, so don't worry and leave it all to me!

I just had a full meal and now i have plenty of magical energy to spare.

Operator Outfits Update

Total of 7 new outfits, a new collab outfit, 4 new additions for the Achievement Star brand, 1 new addition for the Raythean Striker brand and 1 new addition for the 0011/Yun brand

Collab Series

Terra & Traveller - Marcille

Achievement Star

The Archivist and Her Pilgrimage - Leizi

The Apprentice and Her Aura - Kroos the Keen Glint

The Adjudicatrix and Her Resolve - Irene

The Zoophilist and Her Mollusca - Vanilla (Event Reward)

0011/Yun

Moon Under The Pines - Wind Chimes

Raythean Striker

Dawnbreak - Coldshot

Coldshot's outfit will be up for sale during Come Catastrophes and Wakes of Vultures Retrospect

Vanilla's outfit is a reward from Vector Breakthrough

Announced a rerun for Akafuyu, Mountain and Wild Mane's Epoque outfits, up for sale at the same time as the new Achievement Star outfits

Operator Modules Update

All the collab operators immediately get their modules including Chilchuck despite being part of a branch that DOESN'T have a module yet

SPC-Y module base effect reduces Marcille's deployment cost by -8 DP

DRE-Y module base effect allows Laios to revive himself and gain a +30 ASPD boost at the cost of reducing his Max HP by -60% once per deployment

The base effect of Chilchuck's module is unknown at the time of writing

GUA-Y module base effect makes Senshi take 15% less damage

Crusher Guard branch gets 1 module type

Irene gets her 2nd module

SWO-X module base effect makes Irene's skills deal 10% more damage

Events and Stories

Delicious on Terra, a limited collaboration side story event

When adventuring with no way back, don't ask where the food comes from, you can't defeat monsters on an empty stomach. "Eat and be eaten", is it a cruel curse, or a natural law? A never before seen place, an unfamiliar menu—— i don't care about all that, let's chow down!

Operator Archives update for Goldenglow, Eunectes, Mitm and Courier

Come Catastrophes and Wakes of Vultures Retrospect, scheduled after Delicious on Terra

Vector Breakthrough, an improved version of Interlocking Competition, scheduled after Come Catastrophes and Wakes of Vultures Retrospect

Misc Stuff

Tuye and her potential tokens along with Myrrh's [Bitter Herbs] Outfit will be available in the certs shop to players that don't have them

Special collab profile icon pack and collab main menu background + UI theme pack sold in the shop during collab event period

[forsaken-headcanons]

I've come, with King (Combat Initiation) Headcanons, As that silly man will be joining Forsaken, so we ball:

King has tried multiple times to tame Guest 666. Why? Because he likes to collect valuable and rare creatures as pets, and 666 looks like a D a w g

He absolutely Despisses Skedletsky thanks to his demeanor and sword skills reminding him of the player

He has tried to bargain with Chance for his gun, mostly because it would look nice as decoration, and when Chance rejected the offer, he went with Plan B. Violence

He looks at c00lkid less as a child and more as a apprentice, trying to teach the kid alot of the stuff he masters in, with c00lkid mostly ignoring it, really only being interested in "giant robot suit"

I will bring more headcanons later :3

-Honk Anon

I forgot about that guy. Been meaning to get into Combat Initiation.

[adr-n-sketchy]

Okay, but what if Brightheart and Thornclaw were Rosetail's kits?

I was watching a youtube video a few weeks back that suggested that splitting Frostfur's TPB litter into two separate litters would fix a decent amount of the inbred ThunderClan family tree and today my noggin went "...huh." Yeah Rosetail was technically an elder in the first book, but she doesn't even show up in the allegiances and she died protecting the nursery - Warriors retcons have been based on far less. Also, in the loose and assumed time periods between a queen's age and still having kits, pretty sure Speckletail and Snowkit are technically older than Rosetail could've been, so we're rolling with it. And I am far too tired to calculate whether this change vastly fixes the level of relatedness of subsequent cats, I just wanted to make silly drawings of cats.

In the words of Moonkitti, "[she] lived a life obsessed with boys" haha. But also pretty true. One of Rosetail’s most consistent character traits is her fascination with gossip surrounding mates and kits - so, in my little hc world, maybe she took an out-of-clan mate/tom to have kits. That, along with her kits being kin to Thistleclaw, could also be a driving force in Bluestar refusing to make Brightpaw and Thornpaw warriors on time - yeah I know that Whitestorm is more closely related to Thistleclaw than the apprentices, but logic is not one of the strongest players in Bluestar's mind rn so we're moving on

Thornclaw could've been loosely named after his uncle, but thorn over thistle keeps the reference much less obvious. Also, because he's no longer related to Lionheart and Brackenfur, I'm taking the liberty of a little re-design for our boy. TBH, to me, being golden brown did nothing for Thornclaw other than label him as "not-Brackenfur." For Brightheart, the argument could be made that she should've been named after Sweetpaw, but Sweetpaw was already named after a cat, so maybe Bright- is a reference to her sister in that regard. Or both her children are named entirely separate from her family.

[the-exiled-comic]

What would it have been like if Firespots was apprenticed by Autumnstar instead? What would have been different?

ooh this is interesting, tbh i hadnt thought about this before.

he would for sure NOT be like crowstar, and she would not become like firespots, but i'd say there would be some pretty big changes for both these characters. autumnstar does not really love anyone, but he was a supportive and encouraging mentor figure to crow. so if we gave that to firespots he probably would have been more confident about fighting, and a lot more open to talking to autumnstar. he didn't feel wanted as kit, that his parents had him only for status. if he was apprenticed to his father he would try hard to impress him and stay on his good side because of his desire to feel cared for. to feel like atleast one of his parents wanted him to exist i think he would try really hard to be the one cat that his father loves, and would get very upset when its impossible to achieve

firespots by nature is someone who wants society to get better. he would still be radicalized by the war front, he would still argue to end the violence and i believe he would still rebel against leadership, unless he was made deputy and became the leader bc why would he rebel against himself lol (but i really dont think autumnstar would, firespots is the "raging woke liberal" in the eyes of his father. he knows damn well his boy is not going to be any sort of protege)

i think the effect this would have on crowstar would be interesting as well. perhaps she would never become leader? she was chosen as autumnstars apprentice because she was someone who was easy to mold. she was impressionable, wanted to be the toughest girl around, and he took advantage of that. the kind of person she might have become had he left her alone would likely be very different. sadly i think her outcome as a normal warrior would have been a casualty of war. she would have been less skilled without autumnstar's specialized training and the ego boost that came along with it, and treeclan had no qualms with targeting the strongest players to get them off the field for good.

if she did live though, she'd probably just be bitterly divorced from fallensnow. i think she'd be very petty about it but if shes not leader then she'd probably not kill him. the psychology on her willingness to kill and beat up her clanmates is too complicated lol, i have no idea if she would still do that with a different upbringing AND without a title to uphold.

[quiverpaw]

things i’d like to see more frequently in the wcue roleplay scene: (long post)

-sharing tongues (cats gossip in wcue like no other. but they don’t actually share tongues! this includes sharing tongues with a cat before they are buried.)

-vigils apon becoming a warrior (this is NEVER done. it’d bring a new air to the roleplay, i think!)

-elders burying cats. (usually the leader, medicine cat, or a random warrior will do in rp.)

-elders and queens in general. this includes den dads and early retired cats!

-apprentices travelling to the moonstone with the leader. (this used to happen in the early arcs. since most wcue players are only knowledgable on these arcs, this would be a great thing to pick up on doing)

-proper battle training, battles in general. (most apprentices either never recieve a mentor or only go on the occasional hunting or border patrol. battle sparring never actually includes learning new techniques most of the time!) (battles straight up do not happen. skirmishes do. Usually with rogues!)

-a more even spread of cats. Usually most of the server will flock to one clan (80%), 15% will become rogues or loners, and 5% are either non-cats or kittypets.) with the addition of more clans comes more interesting conflicts! (taking territory, battles, gatherings, tresspassers, forbidden love.) ideally in a 60 people server, there’d be 12-15 cats in each clan, or in a two-clan server, 20-30, with the rest going to outsiders/non-cats.)

-more time for deputies and leaders. A deputy in wcue is far more important than the leader in almost every way, which is NOT a good thing. a deputy should be able to appoint patrols, be able to join said patrols, and still have time to talk before they have to sleep. the leader usually has to officiate ceremonies and talk about allowing in outsiders, as well as recieve reports. leaders should be able to join patrols as well.

-apprentice’s assessments. this is, in my opinion, the least utilized aspect for app players. when a cat reaches close to warrior’s age (in wcue, this is 12 moons), the leader (or deputy) talks with the app’s mentor and haves said apprentice go on a solo hunting mission. if they bring back enouh prey, they’re granted their warrior name. usually the deputy or leader also conducts regular normal assessments to check the progress of the young cats.

-more diverse personality types. in wcue, there generally are only six personality types: charming, ‘evil’, quiet, aggressive/rude, kind, and nervous. most cats don’t go into depth beyond these core traits, and i think it would be really nice to see a more diverse cast of personalities. there’s plenty of generators online for personality types if needed!

-medicine cat apprentice appointments. just straight up- this does not happen. they have their own special moonstone ceremony! why wouldn’t you utilize that? and on second note:

-medicine cat gatherings. also straight up do not happen.

general parts of fandom changes i want to see

-the stop of use of names like ‘blindkit’ or ‘lostsight’. this is pretty obvious.

-not using overly complicated words to seem experienced! this is a big one. part of the exp/luna debate, many players like to have over-complicated names, use words people straight up don’t know, anything of the like to seem sophisticated. warriors itself does not use words like orbits or cranium. stop

-stop the hate around younger players. generally, in wcue, there’s a INSANE, and i mean INSANE hate for younger players. given a cruel nickname like ‘luna’ because it’s a common name for young kids to use, people make fun of little kids who are just learning about roleplaying. how is a kid supposed to become experienced if you’re just being cruel. instead, the least you can do is void them, or at least teach them a thing or two.

-less apprentice groups. (this is a bit nitpicky) these usually only exist because people find teenage drama interesting, but apprentice groups are pure terrors to the rp scene. they usually don’t take a mentor, refrain from training- only hunting occasionally, and are very unaware of the ongoings of the rest of the clan because of their personal interdrama. these groups will flock in around 7-10 apprentices, which insanely disrupts a clan’s balance. a apprentice friend group should be a natural thing- one that occurs from training or patrolling together, not sitting and camp and crushing on each other.

(also nitpicky) -less magic schools. i know you’re trying to roleplay harry potter. stop. don’t do that

-roblox groups dedicated to organized rps! many people don’t have discord- it’d be more accessible to younger people as well.

[great-kung-lao]

My final thoughts regarding the ending of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

At first I really disliked Verso's ending because it made me ask these questions towards developers:

What was the point of Gustave's sacrifice?

What was the point of writing Gustave's journal for his apprentices?

What was the point of making personal side quests for each party member?

What was the point of getting attached to the world of Canvas in general?

If all of this meant that the "good" or "right" ending is to deny all of it the right to exist and just erace it all?

Well, as I processed everything after some time, it came to me that we, as players, were meant to get attached to the Canvas in order to understand the pain of letting go of something that you hold very dear, even if it is the right thing to do in the long run. It is extremely painful in the moment, but eventually will lead to something better and less self-destructive.

Developers even attempted to make it less painful through Monoco's side quest about Noco's resurrection. It showed that those who are brought back to life after death in the Canvas are not the same characters as they were prior to their deaths, and everyone was gently erased by Renoir at the end of Act 2, so Lune and Sciel that Maelle brought back are most likely not the same as the ones that got Gommaged. Remember, we were explained that Noco has died multiple times and after each resurrection he lost more and more of the previous memories, so just because Lune and Sciel remember their Gommange doesn't necessarily make them the same as the ones that got actually Gommaged.

Since the Canvas we got attached to got Gommaged at the end of Act 2, we must do what Renoir told us: "For the sake of the living we must part with the dead."

Because the Canvas we see in Maelle's ending is no longer the same as we got to know throughout the game. That world was gone by the end of Act 2.

Verso's ending is painful, but, unfortunately, is the right one in the long run, even if it denies an entire world of Canvas its existence. Sometimes the right decision is not necessarily a kind one.

"Life forces cruel choices".

I accepted Verso's ending, but I still can't say that I like it. I still wish there was a way to save the world where Gustave and the others got to exist and live their lives and save Alicia from her mother's fate.

[twilightofthesandwiches]

So when I first saw this little reference to the Von Karma/Karuma family getting started I didn’t think about it much outside of ‘heh, cute’, and ‘shame there’s no way to make it 100% work in the Localization Continuity’ and ‘it’s kinda funny how the Von Karma line and Phoenix’s stories are going to be so inextricably linked in so many ways and yet it started as nothing more flashy than just ‘oh yeah, the apprentice of my boyfriend’s dad exists, I guess’.

But actually, dwelling about it a bit more, I think there is a bigger thematic throughline going on here with this connection between the Von Karmas and Kazuma. I mean, pretty much since Ryunosuke introduced him as his best friend and then started homoerotically gushing about how great he is, veteran AA players were set on seeing him as a counterpart to Edgeworth. And the comparisons obviously only grew once he re-emerged as angst-ridden prosecutor driven by daddy issues.

But the way he’s connected to the Von Karma family is an aspect that helps to emphasize the fact that if Kazuma Asogi is meant to mirror Miles Edgeworth- then he really is a mirror. Kazuma is less of a direct counterpart and more of a Reverse Edgeworth.

It’s even a key element in the visual design of his prosecutor outfit!

Red suit, white cravat. White suit, red cravat.

Miles Edgeworth apprenticed under the Von Karma family…. And the First Von Karma/Karuma apprenticed under Asogi’s family. This whole thing even comes right before the exchange that most obviously drives home the whole ‘Edgeworth in Reverse’ point.