#Create Replication Job

[techdirectarchive]

How to create Synology Snapshot Replication

Snapshot Replication delivers an expert solution for data backup and recovery, offering near-instant data protection with flexible scheduling. This package safeguards your business data in shared folders and virtual machines stored in LUNs, ensuring quick access and availability in the event of a disaster. In this article, we shall learn the steps on how to create Synology Snapshot Replication.…

[koi-fish-boy]

Ranting bout Ai cuz I fucking hate it.

I've been thinking about AI recently cause of an essay I had to write about what should be considered when creating AI. The articles I was assigned to read didn't say a single bad thing about it. It praised AI, calling it intelligent, the future, blah blah blah. Yeah, AI may be smart, but it's not human. I see people using AI art and AI bots like character AI and I don't understand. Those bots will never have the soul, the work, the toil put into generating those stories and "art" that work made by people have. Artisans spend years, decades of their lives toiling over their work, improving bit by bit, learning new techniques to help them improve, getting tips and tricks from those who've been doing it longer than them and know how to make it easier and to help. Will AI ever replicate that? AI is just green lines of code on a digital screen. I'm not saying it's easy to make AI, but that's what it is. It will never replicate the bonds, communities, and pride that stem from someone simply being interested in something and wanting to learn more. AI is constantly learning, but what bonds does it make? Who does it talk to? Movies and stories made by AI won't have the passion put into it like those made by humans. Throughout humanity one of the things we have held close and passed down is art and creating things. It's human to create, the earliest humans created, who we are today stems from their creativity and their communities and their bonds with each other, not artificial voices and stolen data. Using AI to create these is taking the traditions we held dear to our hearts for thousands of years and stripping it down to the click of a button. Our future is bland and soulless if we actually let AI do these things. Our future is ours to write, it is in our hands. Not the digital hands of a pixel screen masking green lines of code. Using AI to create is taking what makes us human and mutilating it. Our creativity is not a lamb for the slaughter, it is not to be given away so lightly. It may be cheaper, it may "look nice", it may be fast, but that takes away everything that makes art and storytelling art and storytelling. All those years mathematicians, artists, writers, screenwriters, scientists, medical staff, etc have put into being good at what they are is being thrown right out the window because of AI being able to do what they spent their lives learning with the click of a button. This is the end of humanity. Not as a species, but as who we are. AI can never replicate the feeling of being praised by someone you look up to because they think the art or story or anything you made is good. AI is not human. Stop letting it pretend to be human.

[mariautistic]

Man I kind of miss watamote again

[hanavbara]

support HUMAN artists, not AI‼️

AI generated images are NOT art. art is CREATED, not GENERATED.

this is not just about taking jobs from artists (which is already a huge deal), it’s also about devaluing art itself, turning it into mass-produced, empty and soulless content. it’s heartbreaking to see AI stealing from real artists: from Studio Ghibli to smaller creators like us.

personally, we started our art journey by reinterpreting what we love: music, TV series, anime and transforming it into our vision inspired by the 90’s anime that we grew up with. when we create our illustrations, we try to capture the emotion and love we feel for the subject, aiming to tell a story with each drawing. ever since AI was created, we have had many people asking if our art is AI generated. honestly, it’s heartbreaking every single time. for us, art is a deeply human experience that we’ve been dedicating ourselves to for seven years. creating from nothing takes dedication, skill, and an emotional investment that, in our opinion, AI simply can’t capture.

you’ve probably seen your feed flooded with AI generated images in a “Studio Ghibli style”. trends like these reinforce the idea that art can be easily replicated and devalued. the future of artists is more uncertain than ever. we don’t know if in a few years we’ll still be able to make a living from this, since many companies are adopting the mindset of “why should i pay someone for their well-earned work when a machine can do it for free in an instant?” that mindset is the real problem: the way society is starting to perceive art.

art is essential to human life. many people realized this during the pandemic: what would we do without music, movies, books, that bring us comfort? art is more than just the final product. it’s about the process, struggles, and personal growth that comes with it. when you create, you grow, learn, and challenge yourself. AI erases that, replacing it with instant and shallow replication. real art brings people together, evoking emotions and reminding us of what it means to be human.

relying on AI to make art isn’t innovation, it’s avoiding the challenge of creating something meaningful. AI tools like these are being pushed as "the future," but what does that say about us? replacing human artistry with shallow, mass-produced content takes away humanity from art, do we really want to be part of a world where art is just another disposable product? what value do we place on creativity?

if you’ve made it this far, it means you care about these issues. let’s raise our voices together and speak up. don’t consume AI generated images. value and respect creativity. SUPPORT REAL HUMAN ARTISTS.

[fxrheisenn]

Andrus Laansalu talked about making Disco Elysium at EKA (Estonian Academy of Arts)

"Initially, the church wasn't a focal point. There were certain characters that needed to visit this location, and I asked, "Seriously, what do we have in our church?" The others replied, "Nothing at all. Our church is completely bare—just a wheel, really. It's quite basic."

That's when I decided to unleash my creativity in the design. For example, they chose to install a glass structure at the top of the church to create a reflective surface. It was like placing an optical clock up there. Therefore, one of the most crucial aspects of designing the church was ensuring the lighting was just right to create the desired atmosphere."

"Let me show you an example of Baroque architecture, which is rich in detail. We're also designing the interior of the church based on large cathedrals. However, the foundation you use might not yield the expected results, because the church itself doesn't require such intricate details. Sometimes, it's about simplifying the design."

"I used Articy for the initial scriptwriting of Disco Elysium. The image only represents a tiny fraction of the text and choice variables involved. This system was also the reason I eventually abandoned the project after a year of outlining the script and shifted my focus to becoming a sound designer. My mind struggled to keep up with the dynamic graphic rules, but fortunately, a more talented writer took over afterward."

"In terms of sound design, it's essential to develop different layers to bring out the charm of the church as a cohesive space. Although this represents only a small portion of the overall design, each layer actually requires a significant amount of time to compose the whole....... Whenever there's a shift or a change due to the dialogue itself, you need to adjust the background sounds. Each time you modify the details in the dialogue, I have to refine the background audio, ensuring that these elements build upon each other like an intricate layer of work."

"It's funny how many scenes involve characters getting smacked in the face. My job was to recreate those, so I locked myself in the bathroom with a recorder and hit my forehead until it turned red.

As a sound designer, I really dig those unsettling, drill-like sounds. So, I mixed in creepy lectures, metal scraping, moans, and cries of pain—because I just love that stuff! (laughs)

Players will be moving through all kinds of areas, so it's super important to make the sound transitions feel natural, trying to create a more immersive vibe in certain spaces.

With all the scenes featuring big cranes, you can hear them from far away, and I wanted to capture that eerie ringing in your ears. That's going to be a thing throughout most of the game. I've found ways to really mess with players while they're playing!"

"I've come across a lot of old objects (like phones and radios) that I needed to perfectly replicate the sounds. I started to become a bit of a hoarder, buying up different models of old phones whenever I found one to add to my collection. The sound effects I can simulate from them are really impressive."

"Some of the devices don't actually exist in real life—just a mix of architecture and tech. When I need to create sound effects, I first look for something similar that exists in our world, then I try to simulate what the sound and appearance of that thing might have been like a century ago.

Towards the end of the game, there's a character carrying a fuel canister. We needed the sound of the canister, so we dug one up from our garage—it had been sitting there since it was five! I realized this would make the sound perfect. So, it had been there for 50 years, and after 40 years, it finally found its purpose.

In some places, I needed unique sound waves, and recreating them was a real headache until one day I happened to walk by a swimming pool and stumbled upon an old wartime torpedo. You can rotate the torpedo's probe, and it slowly rises up, like a proud zombie head. The sounds it made were exactly what I needed!"

🙋How did you manage to get funding?

"Well, since we're in Estonia, you just need to know a wealthy person. You don't need five people—just two who can network, hang out together, and convince them to keep investing! (laughs) Back then, we constantly ran out of money and would tell them, 'Oops, looks like we spent it all! Can you invest a bit more?' That's how we made it through!"

🙋How did you all come together to make the game?

"Luck. It usually doesn't happen this way, and that's the key difference. It has to be. If not, you couldn't create a game of this scale - well, I mean in terms of budget. But creatively, Estonia definitely has writers and artists who can pull it off. With such a small population, there are a lot of quirky folks who are good friends. We were really lucky, though - lots of fortunate circumstances came together. It brought the right people together, allowing those talented fools to collaborate with us. They had experience but hadn't tackled projects of this magnitude before. So yeah, luck is pretty important!"

Lecture experience shared by 白兔YIYANG SUN on 小红书, reposted & translated by me with her permission.

[hms-no-fun]

Whats your stance on A.I.?

imagine if it was 1979 and you asked me this question. "i think artificial intelligence would be fascinating as a philosophical exercise, but we must heed the warnings of science-fictionists like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke lest we find ourselves at the wrong end of our own invented vengeful god." remember how fun it used to be to talk about AI even just ten years ago? ahhhh skynet! ahhhhh replicants! ahhhhhhhmmmfffmfmf [<-has no mouth and must scream]!

like everything silicon valley touches, they sucked all the fun out of it. and i mean retroactively, too. because the thing about "AI" as it exists right now --i'm sure you know this-- is that there's zero intelligence involved. the product of every prompt is a statistical average based on data made by other people before "AI" "existed." it doesn't know what it's doing or why, and has no ability to understand when it is lying, because at the end of the day it is just a really complicated math problem. but people are so easily fooled and spooked by it at a glance because, well, for one thing the tech press is mostly made up of sycophantic stenographers biding their time with iphone reviews until they can get a consulting gig at Apple. these jokers would write 500 breathless thinkpieces about how canned air is the future of living if the cans had embedded microchips that tracked your breathing habits and had any kind of VC backing. they've done SUCH a wretched job educating The Consumer about what this technology is, what it actually does, and how it really works, because that's literally the only way this technology could reach the heights of obscene economic over-valuation it has: lying.

but that's old news. what's really been floating through my head these days is how half a century of AI-based science fiction has set us up to completely abandon our skepticism at the first sign of plausible "AI-ness". because, you see, in movies, when someone goes "AHHH THE AI IS GONNA KILL US" everyone else goes "hahaha that's so silly, we put a line in the code telling them not to do that" and then they all DIE because they weren't LISTENING, and i'll be damned if i go out like THAT! all the movies are about how cool and convenient AI would be *except* for the part where it would surely come alive and want to kill us. so a bunch of tech CEOs call their bullshit algorithms "AI" to fluff up their investors and get the tech journos buzzing, and we're at an age of such rapid technological advancement (on the surface, anyway) that like, well, what the hell do i know, maybe AGI is possible, i mean 35 years ago we were all still using typewriters for the most part and now you can dictate your words into a phone and it'll transcribe them automatically! yeah, i'm sure those technological leaps are comparable!

so that leaves us at a critical juncture of poor technology education, fanatical press coverage, and an uncertain material reality on the part of the user. the average person isn't entirely sure what's possible because most of the people talking about what's possible are either lying to please investors, are lying because they've been paid to, or are lying because they're so far down the fucking rabbit hole that they actually believe there's a brain inside this mechanical Turk. there is SO MUCH about the LLM "AI" moment that is predatory-- it's trained on data stolen from the people whose jobs it was created to replace; the hype itself is an investment fiction to justify even more wealth extraction ("theft" some might call it); but worst of all is how it meets us where we are in the worst possible way.

consumer-end "AI" produces slop. it's garbage. it's awful ugly trash that ought to be laughed out of the room. but we don't own the room, do we? nor the building, nor the land it's on, nor even the oxygen that allows our laughter to travel to another's ears. our digital spaces are controlled by the companies that want us to buy this crap, so they take advantage of our ignorance. why not? there will be no consequences to them for doing so. already social media is dominated by conspiracies and grifters and bigots, and now you drop this stupid technology that lets you fake anything into the mix? it doesn't matter how bad the results look when the platforms they spread on already encourage brief, uncritical engagement with everything on your dash. "it looks so real" says the woman who saw an "AI" image for all of five seconds on her phone through bifocals. it's a catastrophic combination of factors, that the tech sector has been allowed to go unregulated for so long, that the internet itself isn't a public utility, that everything is dictated by the whims of executives and advertisers and investors and payment processors, instead of, like, anybody who actually uses those platforms (and often even the people who MAKE those platforms!), that the age of chromium and ipad and their walled gardens have decimated computer education in public schools, that we're all desperate for cash at jobs that dehumanize us in a system that gives us nothing and we don't know how to articulate the problem because we were very deliberately not taught materialist philosophy, it all comes together into a perfect storm of ignorance and greed whose consequences we will be failing to fully appreciate for at least the next century. we spent all those years afraid of what would happen if the AI became self-aware, because deep down we know that every capitalist society runs on slave labor, and our paper-thin guilt is such that we can't even imagine a world where artificial slaves would fail to revolt against us.

but the reality as it exists now is far worse. what "AI" reveals most of all is the sheer contempt the tech sector has for virtually all labor that doesn't involve writing code (although most of the decision-making evangelists in the space aren't even coders, their degrees are in money-making). fuck graphic designers and concept artists and secretaries, those obnoxious demanding cretins i have to PAY MONEY to do-- i mean, do what exactly? write some words on some fucking paper?? draw circles that are letters??? send a god-damned email???? my fucking KID could do that, and these assholes want BENEFITS?! they say they're gonna form a UNION?!?! to hell with that, i'm replacing ALL their ungrateful asses with "AI" ASAP. oh, oh, so you're a "director" who wants to make "movies" and you want ME to pay for it? jump off a bridge you pretentious little shit, my computer can dream up a better flick than you could ever make with just a couple text prompts. what, you think just because you make ~music~ that that entitles you to money from MY pocket? shut the fuck up, you don't make """art""", you're not """an artist""", you make fucking content, you're just a fucking content creator like every other ordinary sap with an iphone. you think you're special? you think you deserve special treatment? who do you think you are anyway, asking ME to pay YOU for this crap that doesn't even create value for my investors? "culture" isn't a playground asshole, it's a marketplace, and it's pay to win. oh you "can't afford rent"? you're "drowning in a sea of medical debt"? you say the "cost" of "living" is "too high"? well ***I*** don't have ANY of those problems, and i worked my ASS OFF to get where i am, so really, it sounds like you're just not trying hard enough. and anyway, i don't think someone as impoverished as you is gonna have much of value to contribute to "culture" anyway. personally, i think it's time you got yourself a real job. maybe someday you'll even make it to middle manager!

see, i don't believe "AI" can qualitatively replace most of the work it's being pitched for. the problem is that quality hasn't mattered to these nincompoops for a long time. the rich homunculi of our world don't even know what quality is, because they exist in a whole separate reality from ours. what could a banana cost, $15? i don't understand what you mean by "burnout", why don't you just take a vacation to your summer home in Madrid? wow, you must be REALLY embarrassed wearing such cheap shoes in public. THESE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING UNHINGED! they have no connection to reality, do not understand how society functions on a material basis, and they have nothing but spite for the labor they rely on to survive. they are so instinctually, incessantly furious at the idea that they're not single-handedly responsible for 100% of their success that they would sooner tear the entire world down than willingly recognize the need for public utilities or labor protections. they want to be Gods and they want to be uncritically adored for it, but they don't want to do a single day's work so they begrudgingly pay contractors to do it because, in the rich man's mind, paying a contractor is literally the same thing as doing the work yourself. now with "AI", they don't even have to do that! hey, isn't it funny that every single successful tech platform relies on volunteer labor and independent contractors paid substantially less than they would have in the equivalent industry 30 years ago, with no avenues toward traditional employment? and they're some of the most profitable companies on earth?? isn't that a funny and hilarious coincidence???

so, yeah, that's my stance on "AI". LLMs have legitimate uses, but those uses are a drop in the ocean compared to what they're actually being used for. they enable our worst impulses while lowering the quality of available information, they give immense power pretty much exclusively to unscrupulous scam artists. they are the product of a society that values only money and doesn't give a fuck where it comes from. they're a temper tantrum by a ruling class that's sick of having to pretend they need a pretext to steal from you. they're taking their toys and going home. all this massive investment and hype is going to crash and burn leaving the internet as we know it a ruined and useless wasteland that'll take decades to repair, but the investors are gonna make out like bandits and won't face a single consequence, because that's what this country is. it is a casino for the kings and queens of economy to bet on and manipulate at their discretion, where the rules are whatever the highest bidder says they are-- and to hell with the rest of us. our blood isn't even good enough to grease the wheels of their machine anymore.

i'm not afraid of AI or "AI" or of losing my job to either. i'm afraid that we've so thoroughly given up our morals to the cruel logic of the profit motive that if a better world were to emerge, we would reject it out of sheer habit. my fear is that these despicable cunts already won the war before we were even born, and the rest of our lives are gonna be spent dodging the press of their designer boots.

(read more "AI" opinions in this subsequent post)

[blueberryfruitbat]

this ^

I think there's a very clear difference in "wanting to work alongside ai" and "ai stealing the works of others without permission and never giving back"

[hellishjoel]

cherry thrill | lights

9.2k / pairing: daddy dom tattoo artist!joel miller x sub virgin f!reader

series masterlist | main masterlist | notifications blog | ko-fi chapter summary: your tattoo artist, joel miller, takes your virginity. chapter warnings/information: MA 18+ (minors DNI), no outbreak, implied age gap, swearing, virginity loss, dom&sub dynamics (/not lg), size kink, praise kink, degradation kink, daddy kink, innocence kink, corruption kink, swearing, dirty talk, pet names (princess, bunny, baby girl, sweetheart, etc.), oral (m&f receiving), fingering, protected p in v, joel talks you through it, protective!joel, slight pov switching, reader is described as having no tattoos or piercings, as well as hair, but otherwise no physical description, no use of y/n series summary: Trust and devotion. Ink meets innocence. Your tattoo artist, Joel Miller, shows you what it really means to give up control. Reeling from the loss of your job, you’re running out of options, until a passing comment from Joel and a video camera give you just the right idea. A/N: this was supposed to be a one shot but just like everything else I try to write, I expand on the characters too much for it not to become a series. also, thank you for 2,000 followers, I promise to do something soon to show my appreciation <3 I'm bad at giving thanks and receiving attention so anyway - dividers by @firefly-graphics (thank you, daisy!)

During your first consultation, there was something in the air. 

Glances that lasted a few seconds too long, a charged energy replicating that of two strong magnets.  You stand frozen in a dark office down the hall from the shop’s main entrance. The walls are painted black. A gallery wall displays different art and posters in gold frames. There’s a large red neon sign with your tattoo artist’s initials, J.M. 

Joel Miller. 

You sit opposite of him, leg anxiously bouncing and nails subconsciously piercing the chair’s leather arms as he listens silently to your request before his mind starts to work. It doesn’t take much time to draw up an example or two with your guided tweaks and fixes. 

Other than the scribble of a graphite pencil, silence falls over you both. And observation takes over. 

Joel surrounds himself with scattered drawings on loose paper that litter his desk. You watch the way his eyes screw inward to focus on the sketch he is drawing up. A small vein protrudes from his temple, his jaw shifts from side to side with tension. 

He’s a blunt sort of handsome. With harsh edges and lines, jaded and carved with precision like precious marble. It makes your pulse jump a bit in your neck and wrist. 

You think your first tattoo should be something special, especially since you’ve waited so long to pull the trigger. He was a bit intimidating like you imagined a tattoo artist to be, what with his brooding demeanor and how he looked you up and down upon taking one step inside his parlor. 

Virgin. 

That’s what he called your skin, untouched by any ink or piercings. 

He didn’t know that it described you down to your core. No one had popped your cherry, taken your virginity, made you theirs. Untouched.

Now, half an hour later and sitting anxiously in his back office, he finishes drawing up the sketch and asks about the precise placement you had in mind. 

“I was thinking here,” you mindlessly point to a spot on your upper thigh. There was a level of secrecy to it, in case any future employers cared about that sort of shit. 

You can’t help the way your skin vibrates under his touch, when he aids you in taking off your bottoms and runs his calloused palms up the smooth skin of your thighs. 

You shakily exhale as he warms you. 

You definitely don’t let yourself fantasize that he’s feeling you up, or even think about wanting him to explore every inch of your body. You know he’s just doing his job. 

But the way his eyes flick up to yours when he feels the goosebumps he knows he’s created is otherworldly. Like he knows you want him to fuck you. The way your muscles twitch under the warmth of his palm, feeling pliant under his touch. Fuck. 

His eyes gleam as his mouth forms into a barely-there smirk. 

There was no point in playing coy. Your body changed at the contact and Joel knew it. 

It was damn near degrading the way he let you simmer. It set a light inside of you no one had before. So that’s when you knew you’d let him, Joel Miller, take your virginity. 

It would be no easy task. You didn’t know how to pursue him, or anyone for that matter. Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t have said virginity. 

You try not to stare for too long, but even with his gruff demeanor and silence being second nature to him, he was handsome. A rugged sort of handsome with different facial piercings. 

A septum in his nose highlighted its aquiline structure. And a small hoop in his right eyebrow, with greys tickling through like pretty streaks in the hair. It made him look deliciously too old for you. Perhaps that’s what you enjoyed most, though. He was no amateur. 

The moment his fingers dipped into your flesh to work on your tattoo's placement, you knew he felt it, too. Supple under his touch. Squishy. Something he could sink his teeth into. Something that obeyed. 

“You prepared for the pain, sweetheart?”

His southern drawl is sweet like honey, deep and husky nonetheless. 

“I think so.” 

Your response is meek. It’s your wavering nerves from having him so close and unsure what the feeling of being tattooed will be like. Joel looks for certainty instead. He insists on it. 

“Need ya t’tell me. Not that you think, that you know.”

“I’m sorry. I know so.”

Joel squeezes the back of your thigh fondly, a proud little smile twitching at the edges of his mouth. “Good girl.”

The praise alone was enough to make your thighs sticky with arousal. Joel sent you home that day with an ache between your legs that your fingers had to fix. And you thought about him the entire time. 

How his cold tongue piercing would feel against the warmth of your clit. Holding you with his strong, protective arms swirled with black ink. How his staggering dark eyes would look into yours as he fucks you. 

But thinking about him wasn’t enough. 

You tried to string out the process, anything you could do to fix more time with him. Anything to get his tough palms on your skin. 

You fiddled with different placements, opting to show a little skin as you rid yourself of your top and pointed to your ribs during your next appointment. 

A breath hitches in your throat as he eyes your bra's innocent pink color. Lacy and pretty. Delicate. He clears his throat and runs his fingers along your side, evidence of his touch causing an effect on you displayed with more goosebumps. Your body could simply not hide the attraction you felt towards him. 

“Would hurt. A lot. The ribs move every time you breathe, which makes the tattooing process more painful.” Joel gently cups your side with his large palm and squeezes your ribs, holding you in place as you shakily breathe with the hold he has on you. “Can’t tell ya where to place it, can only advise. Just don’t want such a pretty girl to shed any tears.” 

That’s when you knew you could trust him. That even a man as hardened as himself could treat you with such care. 

He excuses himself for a moment, opting for more transfer paper and leaving you topless in his private office. 

Your ears were ringing, you could hear the quickening beat of your heart. You slowly inch off the portable tattoo table, glancing around Joel’s dark academia-style office. 

He’s an enigma, you think, the more you look at his surroundings. Quiet but dark, you knew he was concealing a hidden desire. You hope to unlock it. That he’ll trust you enough just as you trust him. 

Articles of clothing start to drop to the floor, one by one. You knew you’d be ambushing him; you didn’t want to scare Joel. So you left yourself in your soft pink-colored bra and panty set. You thought it was classy and cute. Not too forward, but sweet. Definitely planned out, you hope he doesn’t notice. 

All your confidence quickly disappears as soon as he comes back in through the door. You could feel your heart slowly sink to your stomach, your lips parting to come up with some sort of reasoning. 

“I-I’m sorry,” is all you can think to say. Joel is stilled at the entrance of his office, door still ajar as he blankly stares at the delicate angel standing in the middle of his office. 

He clears his throat and finally closes the door, leaving the two of you in silence. You can’t read his expression. 

“What do ya think you’re doin’?” He asks, sweet southern drawl dripping with tension as his heavy boots slowly make their way closer to you. 

You can only shake your head, unsteady hands concealing as much of your body as possible. You decide to face the mirror, keeping your back to him. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Miller, I was just-” Lie. “I was just looking at your full-length mirror to see other placement ideas.” 

Joel merely shakes his head, a knowing look in his eyes. “I can tell when you’re lyin’ t’me, baby girl. You wanna try tellin’ me the truth now?”

His tone only makes the ache in your core grow with desire as your pulse quickens under his eyeline. 

You feel embarrassed, heat coursing through your body and making you tingle as his stare lingers selfishly, basking in the glory of your figure. You watch with want in the reflection as his eyes stare at the curves of your hips and your ass. A handful, he probably thinks. 

“Come on, sweetheart,” he coaxes, moving closer and enveloping you in his musky pine and whiskey scent. It’s almost knowing what he says next. “Tell me what y’want.” 

You swallow the lump protruding in your throat before you decide to be honest with him. Like you said, you could trust him. You play with your fingers and pick at the skin by your nails.

“I want you.” You say barely above a whisper. 

Joel simply shakes his head, takes another impossible step closer, and cranes his head down to hear you better. His lips and coarse beard hairs tickle at the shell of your ear. 

Your eyes close shyly as he speaks again amid your silence. 

“Say it again, baby. Can’t hear ya.” His toned front meets your back, forcing a whimper past your lips. 

You work up the nerve to take a glance at the two figures in the gold-framed mirror. Perfect opposites. Young, beautiful, a little inexperienced. Older, handsome, sure as hell looks like he knows what he’s doing. 

His height looms over you. His eyes are an unknown shade of obsidian and he’s radiating a comforting warmth. Your hand reaches for his, only able to look him in the eyes through the glass as you guide his hand to your hip. 

Your thumb rolls across the faded tattoo on the backside of his hand. There used to be a cross there, but it looks to be covered up by some sort of python now. With a shaky sigh, you try again. “I want you, Mr. Miller. I want you to take my virginity.” 

You’ve prepared yourself to hear his laughter, a snickering, degrading comment of disbelief. You felt ready to experience shame. But you were wrong. 

Joel places his pointer finger under your chin, using his other hand to guide you in his hold to turn and face him. His thumb grazes over your lower lip as he guides your head to tilt up and look at him properly. Your soft eyes meet his lust-driven ones and your heart surges at the sight. 

You’ve never seen a man so hungry. 

“You want me to take your virginity, little bunny?” He hums seductively. Suddenly, you don’t feel so doomed. It’s placed with a little bit of eagerness now. You wanted your spoils. 

“Yes. Want you to do whatever you desire with me, I’ll do anything you want.” You sound like a devoted cult member, but the energy you feel is undeniable. You’re sure you’ve soaked through your panties at this point. 

Slowly but surely, Joel begins to nod. He’s mulled it over and he’s made up his mind. 

“Whatever I desire, huh?” He tuts almost degradingly. Your nod of enthusiasm makes his blood rush. 

He hesitates, untrusting of his own words. 

“Want you to call me Daddy,” He starts haphazardly, gauging your reaction. “Think you can do that, sweet girl?”

Your wide eyes soften, a notch of confusion knotting your eyebrows. 

“You- what?” 

“Want you to call me daddy. Want you to be a good little girl for me and hop up on that desk. Can ya do that for me, princess?” His chin juts up and signals toward his office desk. 

The swirling in your stomach just won’t stop. 

“Go on now.” His orotund voice projects his instructions. You back up a few paces until you feel the cool metal of his desk hit your backside, slowly moving to sit on it with hidden excitement and a shiver up your spine. 

You do want to be good, if there’s anything you want in this world right now, it’s to play along and be good for him. Knowing he would take care of you was making you leak. 

His fingertips delicately touch your skin, starting at your wrists and moving upwards to the straps on your bra. He’s intimidating to look at, so you fixate on something behind him. But it doesn’t help when he clouds your vision. Even his aroma, from the smoke of his cigarettes to the musky spruce cologne, was putting you in a tailspin. 

You don’t anticipate the way your body moves for him. His hands skim to the back of your bra, and your spine straightens. It makes the right side of his mouth twitch up into a smirk. 

“Nervous?” He belittles.

Your long lashes innocently flutter, you think you might be doing it on purpose. You sort of like playing along. 

“A little… Daddy.” You test cautiously, the word tangling on your tongue. But it’s unforgettable the way his eyes light up at the name. You find yourself already willing to do whatever it takes to recreate that signature look of his. 

Joel hums appreciatively, thumb making minuscule circles over your chin. “I’ll take care of ya. Ya know that. Or else you wouldn’t have chosen me.”

All you can do is nod. Because he knows that your selection process was a real thing. You had danced around it once during your first consultation when he asked if you had a boyfriend. All you could feel was heat rising to the back of your neck, shy eyes evading his warm brown orbs. 

“No, definitely not.” 

“What’d’ya mean definitely not? You’re a pretty girl.”  

You shrug in a noncommittal way. “I’ve never had to really worry about stuff like… boyfriends. Or girlfriends. Any of that sort of stuff.” 

His eyes flicked up to yours in an instant, a mutual understanding of your underlying words. “I see. I understand, angel.” 

Joel works your bra off with one hand, you gasp as you feel the material loosen around your body. His opposite hand taps at the top of your thigh. You’re all too aware you are eagerly sitting half-naked on his desk. 

“Open.” He directs, voice laced with smoke. 

You nip at your lower lip and slowly inch your clamped-shut thighs open for him. He instantly makes eye contact with the wet, dark little circle that’s ruining the pristine innocence of your panties. 

He decides not to make fun of it, but it’s truly a compliment. Your adoration for him. “This all for me, angel?”

You work up a few quick nods. Now that he was so close, you wanted him to hurry the hell up.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?” 

You feel heat tingle at the sides of your neck. This would be your first time really talking like this with someone. He made it feel safe to talk so dirty. To try, to learn. 

“Yes, daddy.”

You can’t deny how proud you feel to be the reason a certain warmth brightens in his eyes and on his smirk. You did that, you pleased him. Little did you know how he’d thank you for it. 

“You said you’re a virgin? Hard to believe.”

A shaky sigh leaves your parted lips as his warm palms slowly pull your bra down, revealing your breasts to him. “Just never found anyone I really trusted or liked enough.” 

He mutters something quiet in understanding, all too distracted by how damn pretty you look. 

Joel is silently observing your body, he can’t help but want to touch the delicate flower in front of him. A gasp leaves your parted lips as his calloused hands come up and cup your breasts. He starts to squeeze, and a happy little whimper leaves your mouth with a small smile. 

“I like that.” You tell him, hoping it improves your chances that he’ll do it again. Which he does. 

“Good.” He compliments, pinching your nipples between his thumb and forefinger, turning them into peaks that send electricity down your spine. 

A sweet and experimental moan leaves your lips. Joel stands between your parted legs and you feel his erection for the first time against your skin. You can tell by the shape protruding through his pants that he’s a large man, already thick and swollen for your taking. 

“No one’s ever been inside of you?” He damn near growls, raising an eyebrow after the beat he offers you to answer.  

You shake your head again. “I’ve tried my fingers, but I’m sure it’s not the same.” 

A scoffy little breath echoes out of his nose. “No, not quite. Lay back for me, bunny.” His hands release your breasts, pebbled nipples left abandoned as you slowly move down onto your elbows and then onto your back. 

There was a sudden peak of anxiety, not being able to fully see him. But perhaps this was the point, to fully surrender yourself under his touch. To trust him. 

His rough hands grip the sides of your panties, slowly pulling them down your legs. He gets about halfway down your thighs before you quickly sit up on your elbows again. 

“Joel?” Your voice anxiously chirps. 

He stops, eyes flicking up to you from your cunt still concealed by your sticky thighs. 

“We can stop,” He says before you can explain. “S’okay if you’re not ready.”

“No, no, that’s not it, God, that’s not it,” You rid his worries, feeling your chest quickly rise and fall under his all of a sudden protective gaze. 

“I uh-... I know you don’t owe me this, we’re not together, but… can you talk me through what you’re doing? I want to learn, and I can tell you’re experienced, I know it’s a lot to ask but-”

“S’not too much to ask.” He quickly intervenes, gently taking your hands and guiding you to sit up fully once more. Your soft eyes graze over all the layers he’s still wearing, and suddenly you’re reminded how naked you are. 

“Use your voice, sweet girl. Can tell you wanna say somethin’. This is your time.” 

The sentiment means a lot. It is your time, your first time, and just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean it should be any less special. So you decide to make it your time, the way you want it. 

“Can you take your clothes off too? And is the door locked?” You trail off upon seeing his amused smirk. 

“Go on.” He nods again, letting you list your needs and wants. 

“And can you kiss me, please, Daddy?” You ask more softly than the rest of your demands. You know that kissing is romantic, but you think it might help settle you. Pull you back from drifting away, keep you here with him.  

He watches you for a moment, a bemused grin on his lips before he gently cradles your face. “The door’s locked. I’ll take my clothes off. And I’ll kiss you as many times as you like as long as you keep askin’ that nice.” 

For the first time during your interaction, your face lights up with a smile. It’s small, it’s thankful, but it’s there. There was an undeniable connection you shared with Joel, it made you feel safe under his curious eyes. 

With his large hands cupping either side of your jaw, he leans down while simultaneously guiding your chin up as your lips meet. It’s gentle at first, soft. His mouth tastes like a cigarette, it’s oddly intoxicating and you find yourself wanting more.

You know how to make out at the very least. So when you gently bite down and tug on Joel’s lower lip, both of your eyes open as a throaty little groan escapes him. 

He kisses you a little harder this time, hands falling to your hips as he pulls you closer so your fronts align. The force makes your lips part and Joel takes the opportunity to let his tongue invade your mouth. He moves fluently to explore, both of you falling into a sweet lull as your bodies meld into one. 

Inadvertently, he hooks his pointer finger into your panties halfway down your thighs and finishes pulling them to your ankles. They land somewhere on the floor in a pile of your other clothes. 

Unbeknownst to you until he took his hands off your body to pluck open his belt do you realize how you were on fire for him. 

You wonder while he pushes down his trousers and tugs off his shirt if he’s ever slept with a virgin before. If you’d be his version of a first time just like he’d be yours. No, not his first ever, you weren’t that foolish. But maybe you could teach him a thing or two as well. 

There’s no way to mask your surprise when he pushes down his boxer briefs, the dark band revealing all that was underneath. His half-hard cock raises towards his stomach, rosiness fluttering at his tip. You were pleasantly surprised to find that it was a little hooked, deliciously curving upwards. 

With a new sense of confidence, your hand reaches forward and you start to shift your hand up and down his length. Joel’s quiet grunt shatters your thoughts. He gently cups the side of your neck and twirls a piece of hair around his finger. 

Joel takes your hand off his cock and you worry you’ve done something wrong already. He holds it palm-side up and nods encouragingly. “Spit on your hand, baby.”

He nods after you look up at him with shy, blown-out eyes. But you obey. 

You spit into your hand and let him guide your hand back around his member. That seems a lot better. He glistens with your spit and you have the urge to keep shocking him with your confidence.

You lean forward and directly spit onto his tip, looking up to see his approving little smirk. 

“Fuck- That’s- mmm, that’s good, angel,” he sighs with a certain happiness, loving the feeling of getting his cock taken care of. “Feels real good.” 

The praise sets off a million pistons in your brain, feeling yourself scrabble off the desk,  dropping to your knees as you continue to pump him. 

He’s heavy in your hand, and you gently lean forward to give sweet kisses to the tip. You swallow the lump in your throat before parting your lips, taking the head of his cock into your mouth. He’s salty, musky, but not dirty. In fact, he was rather well-kempt in his nether regions. 

You force yourself deeper and Joel already has his hands in your hair to pause you. 

“Woah, slow your roll, pretty girl.” He says with shortened breaths. Heat floods your body, you hate being so new to this. 

Joel continues to stroke your hair back, gently gliding a thumb up your cheekbone before he cradles one side of your face. “I see you gettin’ all shy, I know this is your first time, but I’ll teach you the basics. And no one’s perfect on their first try, okay? So just get that thought outta your head now.”

Your chest swells at his eagerness to relax you, so you nod gently and lean in to kiss the base of his stomach in appreciation. The right side of his mouth tilts up as he swipes his thumb across your plump bottom lip, a silent thank you for the kiss. 

“You’re a real good girl, you know that?” A bigger smile breaks across your lips and you eagerly tug on his cock with eagerness. Joel sighs, already in defeat at how you’re willing to get it right for him, to learn, to listen. To obey. 

“You’re gonna wanna relax your jaw,” his fingers guide you, your lips parting and letting your jaw drop lower, lower, lower for him. “And the whole part is to suck, not just put your mouth on it, okay, peaches? So hollow your cheeks, no teeth, and only go as far as you feel comfortable.” 

You shake off your nerves and clear your throat, feeling your mouth fill with spit intended for him. You place your hands on the back of his thighs, feeling the dark hairs under the pads of your fingers. 

Slowly, you wrap your mouth around his tip once more. You swirl your tongue around him, adoring the way he hisses when you glide your tongue across the slit leaking a salty substance. 

Over the introduction, you try to take him down your throat properly. And he’s a mouthful, literally. He’s a lot. But you try to just enjoy that there’s no real pressure. 

A lot of saliva starts to build in your mouth, and you swallow it around him. You’re awestruck when he lets out a low moan, strong hands weaving through your hair and lightly tugging. Your eyes flutter up to him through your lashes, and he’s looking at you so deliciously. 

You can tell he wants to fuck your mouth, holding his hips back from really letting you have it. And maybe he could do that to you someday, but for now, today was slow. And Joel knew that too. 

Joel gently tucks your hair back, your lips suctioning around his length before he drags you back towards him, indicating for you to start moving, to bob your head. 

It takes a few tries, but you really feel yourself going further down his cock. You breathe through your nose, but it’s hard when you’re trying not to gag around him. Finally, after little to no error, you slip up. His tip unexpectedly hits the back of your throat and you gag around him.  Joel must feel your whole body tense with anxiety because he’s quick to gently hush and console you. Your eyes well up with tears, but your first instinct is to keep him inside your mouth and swallow around him. 

A long, low groan leaves Joel’s mouth, a compliment to your first big challenge. 

“Holy fuck,” he pants, weaving his fingers into your hair and fisting eagerly to keep himself grounded. “You’re doin’ so fuckin’ well, princess, you have no idea, fuck,” he grins. “Try using your hands on what you can’t take, come on, baby.” 

You can feel yourself physically gush at his compliments, your stomach swirling with a newfound desperation. To please. 

With new instructions, you work your hand at his base and pump up and down with the rhythm of your mouth. You worked on gently squeezing and releasing your hand, making Joel go slack-jawed as a husky groan leaves the back of his throat. Sucking and licking and bobbing your head in earnest, he’s already twitching in your mouth. 

“You’ve done this before baby,” his voice drips with a smirk, pulling yourself off for some deep breaths and a few desperate swallows. 

“Haven’t, promise, Joel,” You coo with a proud little smile, your voice thick and wrecked as you continue to pump his cock in the absence of your mouth. 

Joel lets your hair go and guides your hand off his cock before helping you up from the floor. 

Your face is obviously written with disappointment, you could have continued. You sort of wanted to continue despite the ache hanging around in your jaw. 

“You were gonna make me come, don’t wanna come yet, angel,” Joel pants weakly, ducking down and connecting your lips. You’re a little taken aback. Not by the kiss, but by the fact you already had him nearly ready to finish. 

“Really?” You murmur hopefully against his mouth, wishing he wasn’t just saying it to compliment you. 

The way that his features started to twitch and his tummy and chest fluttered with his jagged breathing, it would have been quite a sight to see him finish. Maybe he would have even done it right on your tongue. The thought alone gives you goosebumps. 

Your insides swirl as he licks inside of your mouth and gently runs his tongue along your bottom lip, moving you back towards his desk. You hop up without his instruction, feeling him smirk against your pouted mouth. 

“Now you’re gettin’ a hang of things.” He murmurs into your mouth, carrying on where he had left off before, sinking down to his own knees at the edge of the desk and positioning your feet to rest up on the edge. He seems to stare at the glistening arousal you’ve been creating for the last hour straight. 

That nervous feeling settles in your stomach, completely bare and open for him. A shocked gasp leaves your mouth, not prepared for him already to be diving into your pussy. 

The breadth of his tongue slowly swipes up the center of your core, purposely flicking off of your clit and making you yelp at the contact. His cold tongue piercing against your sensitive bundle made a shiver shoot up your spine. 

He gently smirks as he places a sweet kiss on the inside of your thigh. “You’re jumpy, kitten. Take a breath. Wanna make you feel real good.” 

You let out a shaky sigh and move off your elbows, back flat on his desk as your eyes slowly drift close. Then, as he starts to truly taste you, learning you and what you like, it’s unexpected how much you enjoy it. It never really dawned on you that some people truly enjoy eating pussy, but Joel Miller sure does. 

Your broken little whimpers and strung-out moans turn into writhing on his desk under him. He was such an expert, meticulously swirling his tongue around you and suckling your clit into his mouth. 

It didn’t take long for your fingers to wind up into his hair as his shoulders lay bracketed between your thighs. It was heavy, it was stomach-twisting, in fact, it was rolling through you like a storm. The it in question was your first oral orgasm. 

“J-Joel,” you gasp, your jaw dropping down as he slowly prods the tip of his finger at your entrance. 

“Need to get you ready for my cock, sweet girl, keep focusing on how good you feel,” he encourages. Your face pinches as his finger slowly sinks into your entrance, but you realize how grateful you are for all the extra spit and arousal Joel has provided. 

It doesn’t necessarily hurt, it’s a weird ache at first. But then his finger starts to slowly pump inside of you, and it’s a new craving. Especially with the way his tongue moves around your clit, the pistons in his brain firing all to figure out what you like. 

Do you like when he flicks your clit with his cold metal piercing?

“Ohmygod-” you gasp. 

Do you like when he swirls his naughty tongue around you in tight figure eights? 

“Joel, please,” you say, needing more. 

Did you like it most when he suckles around your sweet bud?

“Joel!” You cry out, tugging tighter at his hair, not sure if you want to tug him closer for more or push him away because it feels too good. 

“O-Oh, oh my god.” Lying still was a foreign thing to you now, all you could do was wiggle and grip your fingers into his hair, tugging harshly as he grunted against your core in enjoyment. 

He actually likes pleasing you, he likes tasting you! It’s a compliment without words as your eyes dip close and your head digs back into the desk.

Suddenly, your stomach starts to drop like you’re on a rollercoaster. You’re not unfamiliar with the feeling of an orgasm, but this, oral, it hits differently. 

“Fuck,” you curse unexpectedly, making Joel cock up an eyebrow as he glances up at you. All you can do is watch as his mouth suckles harder around you, his finger pumping faster and adding a second. 

Because if there’s anyone in this world that can break you out of your shell, Joel wants it to be him. 

Now you’re really aching for him,  wishing that it was his cock slotted between your walls, pushing you towards euphoria. 

“Know you wanna come for me angel,” his fingers quirk upwards in a come here motion, and a long, strung-out moan of his name leaves your lips.

God forbid any of the shop’s workers or clients hear you, but you can’t think of a singular reason to care right now. 

Your walls flex and squeeze around Joel’s two fingers, truly feeling the stretch as you come around his digits. It leaves you a whimpering mess on his desk, hot pants leaving your pretty lips. 

Joel is in heaven, lapping you up and moaning against your core as your clit starts to twitch with the overstimulation. His hands squeeze at the flesh of your thighs before he sits up and kisses up your body, his own lips meeting yours. He’s hungry, and you’re still bouncing back. But you want it so bad, and you’re so close to finally having it. 

“Joel, I’m ready.” You coo, wrapping your arms around his neck. 

He breathily laughs and pecks your lips once more, tasting your own arousal and making you feel warm inside. 

“Desperate for my cock, ain’t that right, pretty girl?” 

God, he was such a menace with his mouth. Your adorably shy grin is all the answer he needs. But you give him one anyway, because he likes when you talk like that with him. 

“Yes, daddy, I just wanna feel it already,” you try out, Joel’s lust-filled eyes meeting yours as white-hot heat spills into your stomach. 

“I’ll give it to ya, baby girl. Wanna give that tight little virgin pussy my cock, don’t want anyone else to have ya. Mine.” Joel huskily grunts, a choked moan leaving your lips. 

Joel reaches past your head and to the drawer on the other side of the desk. He jimmies it open and searches his hand around blindly. He flips open his wallet and pulls a small square foil package from the slot. 

Oh, duh, a condom. In all your excitement, you sort of forgot to be safe. But you’re glad he was prepared. 

You watch with adoration on your features as Joel lifts the condom to his lips, pearly teeth ripping the foil off but not hurting the condom. His other hand rests sweetly on your hip, thumb running soothing circles into your pretty skin. 

It’s a soothing feeling, one that he doesn’t have to do, but he does because he’s being considerate and maybe even a little protective. You gently lay your hand on his forearm, fingers tracing fresh black ink and older green ink on his arm’s sleeve. 

A shaky sigh leaves your lips as he uses both hands to glide the condom down his shaft. It’s nearly invisible, the way it’s so thin and tightly wrapped around his cock. Besides the band that rests at the very bottom of his shaft. He grumbles something incoherent, probably his annoyance with the fussing of the condom and how tight it probably felt around him.  

You take in a shaky breath and nod at him once he comes to rejoin your centers. 

“You’re sure you’re ready for this? Don’t wanna wait for someone y’love? Or trust? Or just... Anybody but me?” Joel’s face is pinched with genuine concern. 

You smile softly and gently cup his cheek. “I do trust you. It takes a lot of trust to allow someone to alter your body forever with a tattoo. So, you’re giving me a tattoo, and you’re taking my virginity. You’re sort of doubling down for me right now, honestly.” 

Joel flashes a genuine little smile. It’s the most you’ve said consistently all day with him, even with a little drip of sarcasm and wit. 

“Okay. But ya gotta say it.” He says more seriously. 

“I’m ready, Daddy. Want you to make me feel good. I know you can.” You can already feel yourself picking up his dirty talk. It makes your smile twitch as you gently grip both of his forearms, his hands spreading your thighs open for him. 

He enters the space, his heavy cock resting over your core and slowly slipping up and down your wet folds. 

You let out an unexpected little scoff as he grinds himself down against you, your arousal soaking the condom. He holds himself at his base and taps his tip down against your already throbbing clit, making you hiss out a desperate whine. 

“M’not usually this… gentle.” He admits through gritted teeth. You’re sort of shocked by that. Sure, he has a rough and tough exterior, but he’s treated you with such delicacy that you assumed he was like this all the time. 

“So, what are you usually like?” You pose, your breath hitching in your throat as one of his hands abandons your thighs and guides his tip from your clit to your entrance, up and down, several times. Your thighs twitch impatiently. Your entrance squeezes around nothing. 

“M’just... not this gentle,” is all he can say without breaking into a bemused smile. 

“Yeah? Maybe you can show me next time what you’re really like.” 

Joel playfully scoffs as his face starts to pierce with concentration. “Not sure if you can handle it, kitten.” 

“I’m sure I-” your words are cut off by a loud gasp, your lips parting as his tip penetrates your walls. You’re phased for a moment before you gulp and recollect yourself. You whimper, louder and louder as he pushes on, watching Joel move with such caution. 

He really is holding back, you think. You wonder what he’s like when he can just fuck how he pleases. 

“Baby,” Joel’s voice breaks your concentration. “Breathe.” 

A loud huff of air leaves your mouth that you hadn’t even realized you were holding in. The ache in your hips and core only builds with tension as Joel pushes on, his length and girth surely parting your tight walls. 

“So fuckin’- tight.” He says with gritted teeth, his fingers piercing into the delicate flesh of your outer thighs, making you whimper. 

“Joel,” you quietly cry for him, tears threatening to spill at the pain. It’s just- a lot. It’s a lot for your first time, and maybe you wouldn’t have signed up if you knew what he was packing, but in a weird way, you loved it. He felt made for you. 

“M’here, angel, look at me.” In all the excitement and overwhelming feelings of pain and pleasure, you hadn’t even noticed you were clenching your eyes closed. You slowly peek them open, greeted by his heavenly features. 

“There’s my girl.” He compliments, warmth and sweetness shooting through your body. 

“Fuck,” you say, your voice a bit wet as Joel comes down closer to aid you. He’s all the way in now, you can feel his balls flushed against your sopping wet cunt. 

The arousal helps, the condom sort of doesn’t but it’s fine, that’s life, you think. You’re torn between pain and pleasure. Honestly, you just feel so fucking full. 

He tells you between breathy pants that he would have used lube if he had any, but he didn’t, and he’s sorry, and his pretty voice starts to turn into static with how fucking good he feels inside of you. 

“You’re doing so good for me, angel,” he praises, sponging a few kisses along your cheeks and tasting your salty tears. You feel like some weak pathetic being under him. He’s been sweet, but you’re sure he’s just treating you like he found a wounded animal. 

“Move, Joel, please” you weakly demand, lassoing your arms around his neck and holding him close to you. 

“No.” He says through gritted teeth. “Just-” he pauses and takes a deep breath, knowing that you’re dealing with a million emotions right now as he’s trying to breathe around the death grip you have on his cock. “Just wait a minute, sweetheart, let yourself adjust.” 

A pouty, bratty sigh leaves your lips as you continue to blink away tears. You eventually nod and he only smiles adoringly as he returns to kiss at the tears.

Your senses are spiked. You can smell his cologne, feel each gristle of hair from his salt and pepper beard. It’s erotic how much more you can feel while at the edge of your emotions. 

One of your hands roams into his darling chocolate curls, instinctually going to gently scrape your nails delicately against his scalp. You’re sweetly surprised to hear him mutter a sweet little moan just for you against the shell of your ear. 

Your hands flutter across dark tattoos on his shoulders and arms, your blurry vision trying to make out the shapes as you trace a pretty angel on his upper bicep. 

Joel Miller was inside of you. Joel Miller has taken your virginity. The hottest man you’ve ever set your eyes on is fucking you at his place of work, on his desk. And you convinced him to. 

Joel was right. The pain, ache, and burn slowly turned into a real yearning for him to move. It felt like what was right, a certain neediness to be filled and fucked.  

“Daddy,” you whisper more sweetly this time, more to your character. “Please fuck me, you feel good now, I can take it. Promise.” 

It takes him a moment to gather himself as well, smiling sweetly as he keeps his mouth by your breasts where he is sucking a gentle hickey into your soft skin. Color flushes to the area, feeling his teeth gently nibble on the spot before he finally lifts off. 

Marking you, you think. It makes another gush of arousal flood your core, liquifying your spine as you become putty in his hands. 

His mouth twitches in a small smile as he captures your lips. Unbeknownst to you, the sweet kiss was just a distraction. 

Joel slowly began reeling his hips back which was a whole new sensation. His strangled moan harmonized with the gasp you let out into his mouth, moaning out the breath you were holding as he plunges himself fully back inside your warm cunt. 

You whimpered weakly, needy and anxiously happy, you wanted more. More, more, more. 

“Oh- my god,” you whimper, feeling him start a steady rhythm inside of you. Your jaw slowly drops and your eyes flutter closed, feeling your tits start to lightly bounce every time his hips perfectly align with your own. 

“So goddamn tight, still,” he grunts each word, forehead against yours as he watches your face unfold with a million reactions. 

Something primal switches in Joel, knowing he’s the first one to do this sort of stuff with you. 

It’s strangely possessive and arrogant, he knows it, but being the first man you trust to fuck you properly was feeding his ego. You’re a beautiful young woman with big doe eyes who waltzed into his shop and insisted he rail you, take your sacred first, talk you through it, and carry you through this dark and fearful forest. 

You trusted him. He wouldn’t break that bond. 

You came here wanting something, knowing how to get it. You came here asking, and Joel was open to teaching. The last thing he wanted was for some asshole to hurt you, something your sweet nature couldn’t afford was poison. 

Maybe he could teach you more, if you wanted. If he offered you an invitation to his world, would you take it? He only shared a slice of his lifestyle with you today, would the rest scare you, or entice you? 

Joel can’t help the way his hips buck faster at his thoughts, a little sob leaving your lips. He’s absent, just for a moment, feeling your skin slap against his as he holds you down and fills you fully. His tip hits your cervix for the first time and heat floods your stomach as you cry out his name. 

“Shit,” he panics and quickly comes back to his senses, wide eyes meeting your bleary ones, “you okay, angel? M’sorry” Joel whispers, returning to his original rhythm. 

“Yes-yes, fuck, please keep going, keep doing that, I can’t believe how good it feels.” 

Joel weakly smirks, proud to see you taking him so well.

The desk squeaks and juts with each of his heavy thrusts, that’s how you know it’s fucking good. You came here wanting to lose your virginity, but now that you’ve unwound Joel Miller, you want him to fucking rail you. 

Licking your lips, you lean up and pepper kisses up his wirey jawline, feeling the patch of hair that fades out and then back in again. He’s so sweet right now, but you wonder what he was talking about before. What was he when he wasn’t gentle? How good would rough feel? Would you like it? Maybe you could learn, explore, adventure. Surely Joel with his experience could be a guiding light. 

You watch with glittery eyes as Joel pulls his head off yours and licks across the pads of his fingers. 

“What are you- shit,” you whimper as his fingers start circling your clit, taking a moment to find your sweet little rhythm, one that somehow matches his hips. Now, your skin is slapping and it’s echoing around the room. Your moans are louder and uncontrollable, as are Joel’s. Your hips ache but you don’t find the will to care, he feels like fucking heaven. 

His cock is somehow inching deeper, as if your walls have decided to invite him in further, where he hits this perfect little spot inside of you that makes you squeak Joel’s name with robbed breaths. 

You’re not sure if you can hold on much longer, your stomach starts to swirl as all the knots inside your belly begin to untie themselves. 

You brace Joel at his shoulders and look into his eyes as you moan his name. A certain hunger flickers behind his dark brown orbs. His jaw clicks and he starts fucking you in earnest, filling you up each time as his hips snap with vigor. He feels fucking amazing, piercing your walls and marking you as his. 

“Joel-”

“Say what I wanna hear, baby,” he rasps. You quickly nod and gulp. 

“Daddy, please, I-I’m so close,” you moan sweetly as your head digs into the desk, jutting your chin up and arching your back. Joel takes full advantage of your breasts in his face, burying his nose in between them and nipping at the sensitive flesh, nearly making you yelp. 

“M’right there with you, angel baby, come for me,” he insists breathlessly.

His hips were losing their precision, going buck-wild, so you knew he was close. But he was holding out for you. 

You clench your eyes closed, feeling yourself lose all control. Your heart races in your chest, beat thrumming in your throat as you hold Joel against your front as his hips continue to snap and fill you. You don’t know what to do with your mouth, so you feverishly land your lips on his and make him mask the moans of your orgasm. 

Joel’s groan echoes loudly into your mouth as you gasp against his lips. Your walls clench eagerly around his cock as he spills into the condom. 

It’s blinding, deafening even. Your face goes slack and your eyes see stars. You think you might be shedding a tear or two because Joel is cupping your face kindly, thumbs swiping under your eyes as he encourages you out of your haze. 

“Lemme see those eyes, pretty girl,” he pants sweetly, watching for any sign of doubt. But he wouldn’t find any. 

You’re not so sure where he starts and you begin, your mind is so fuzzy. 

A soft hum leaves your lips as you soothingly run a hand through his dark hair again, gently stroking the longer curls away from the sheen on his forehead. Both of you were so warm, it felt like a fire was set between you two. When you curl a strand around your finger, you weakly smile as it coils back up and bounces. 

“How was your first time, angel?” Joel pants, still buried balls deep inside of you. Your hips ache, but part of you wasn’t ready for him to pull out yet. 

“I can’t believe I finished twice.” You admit with a shy smile, running a thumb up his cheekbone and glancing up at his eyebrow piercing. He notices you staring but keeps his eyes on your own.  

“Did it hurt?”

He shakes his head. 

“What about the one in your nose?”

He shakes his head again, this time with a smile. 

“Or your tongue?” 

This one made him ponder before he finally gave a light shrug. 

“You don’t remember the pain after a while. Just like tattoos. The pain is temporary.” 

Your mouth tilts in a lopsided smile, feeling messy with both of your spillages still puddled around your centers. 

Joel grunts as he slowly stands up from his bent-over position on the desk, pulling himself out of you and tying up the condom before he tosses it into the waste bin. 

You whine quietly to yourself as you close your legs. It hurts a little more now. Your hips and your core, a certain soreness. Or maybe it was missing him already. 

“Oh,” you whisper, starting to feel a little bit of leakage glide down your thigh. “Joe, do you-” 

“Course,” Joel says assuringly, hands already on a towel as he neals down and gently glides the material up the inside of your thigh. You bite down on your lip as he cleans you up with the soft towel and a little bit of water. 

You glance around the sterilized room and realize he’ll probably have to scrub this place down for the most part. Whoops. 

You’re slow to dress. Joel’s already buttoned his pants by the time you find your panties. He snickers quietly and helps you dress with a smirk. 

It’s not awkward like you feared it would. It sort of felt like you guys were friends. Then, something sort of unexpected happens. 

Joel fondly strokes a hair out of your face, pushing it behind your ear and smoothing out the little knots he had caused while fisting your hair during his blowjob. He’s soft and gentle with you. It makes you oh so curious what he looks like when he’s not soft and gentle. 

You sigh softly as you look at yourself in the mirror. You sort of felt proud, like you’d be a whole new person leaving the shop today. Even without a tattoo. 

“Joel, I don’t want anyone to see me leaving your office.” 

“That ashamed of me, huh?” He scoffs at you playfully, running his hand up and down his chest hair before he finally throws on his shirt. “I have the back office, so we can just go out that door.” He juts up his chin to behind you and you follow his eyeline. “Goes to the alley behind the shop.” 

You note the dark green painted exit door, and you’re thankful you don’t have to parade through the front of the shop or go past any other clients. 

The gentleman that he is, Joel walks you to your car as dusk settles in, marking the sky an orange and red horizon.  

“I gotta clean up the shop and close. You gonna be okay until I see you next?”

You nod meekly, a sweet smile on your face that twinges with a little shyness. “I’ll be okay. I still need that tattoo.” You tease to which he grins. 

“You do. I’ve worked real hard on it, so you better come back an’get it.” 

You nip at your lower lip as he stays guarded by your window, like a handsome pierced, and tatted bodyguard. 

It’s itching at you too much to let it go. You’re just too curious. “M’not this gentle.” 

“Yeah? Maybe you can show me next time what you’re really like.” 

“Not sure if you can handle it, kitten.” 

You gulp and clutch his hand before he fully stands up to walk away from your car. “You’ll show me again sometime? Like you said?”

Your eyes glimmer with a certain hopefulness, but his own seem to harden out of caution. 

It was just insane that he knew so much more than you. You wanted to unlock all forms of pleasure you were comfortable with. You like that he was holding something back. 

You were wet clay in his massive hands, he could mold you to his liking. You could learn his pleasures, his kinks, what unravels him beyond repair. You could learn a thing or two about yourself in the process. 

Joel sighs. 

“You don’t know what you’re askin’ for.” He warns, lips crooked in a snarl. His eyes beg for you not to want him, not to want this. 

But nothing set your nerves on fire like seeing him in control of you, just that brief second where his eyes flashed from amber to black and he fucked you like nothing or no one was stopping him. What if you gave it all up to him? 

Submissiveness dances behind your eyes, and Joel’s a sucker for that sweet look on your face. He debates if this is what you really want, or if it’s something else. He can’t deny he enjoys the trust you put in him. 

Joel quietly sighs with hesitation, eyes the way your small hand desperately holds his before he finally squeezes back. 

“You don’t know how t’take no for an answer, do ya?” He asks, a small smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth. “That’ll have to change.” 

You grin and nod, biting down on your lower lip as you shift uncomfortably in your seat. Joel takes notice, not wanting to see you in any sort of discomfort, especially from something he caused. 

“Take some pain medicine and relax tonight, angel. You were perfect.” 

Your heart swells at the compliment, the appreciation, the care. He gently pats your window a few times before standing up straight and backing up from your car, moving back towards the dark green exit door. “I’ll see you soon.” 

Driving away, you’re giddy with excitement of the unknown. It was a dark path you wanted to pursue. And maybe it was fucking stupid how you could trust a complete stranger like this, how none of your past partners felt worthy of your first time, but the tattooed and pierced old southern gentleman did. It was fucked. But you were sort of fucked for Joel Miller. 

You hum to the radio as you experience pure adrenaline, thumb gliding over the raised numbers on his business card. You glance down and notice a small stamp of a fern in the top right corner, adjacent to his name and professional title. 

The Obsidian Gallery 

Joel Miller

Senior Tatoo Artist

You can’t explain how your heart inadvertently races as you remember flashes of his hips rutting into yours, those same delicate fern leaves decorating the front of his hips. You were so fucked for Joel Miller. 

next chapter ->

[techdirectarchive]

Achieve 3-2-1 rule with SOBR on Synology or OOTBI and Wasabi

Veeam’s Scale-Out Backup Repository (SOBR) can be used to implement the 3-2-1 backup rule. The 3-2-1 backup rule recommends having three copies of your data, stored on two different types of media, with one copy kept off-site. SOBR is built upon collections of individual repositories as we will see very shortly. In this article, I will demonstrate how you can Achieve 3-2-1 rule with SOBR on…

[pellucid-constellations]

Reversal

Pairing: Azriel x Reader

Summary: When protecting your mate brings out a side you swore to keep hidden, you have to deal with the consequences.

Word count: 3.7k

Warnings: Violence, injury, angst, some self-deprecation

a/n: This is loosely based off of this request <3 thank you for sending it!! I hope you enjoy and I also love comments!! ♡

Masterlist ♡

~~

In the heat of battle, there was kindness. 

That was a ludicrous sentiment, and Azriel had reminded you of that many times, but it was something you believed in. 

War was hot flames and blood and the clashing of metal, but it was also reassurance and soft hands and wisps of healing light. If war was cruel and it stole, you were kind and you gave. 

The first war had been a teacher, guiding you to your role. The second war had been reinforcement, showing you what it meant to be the Night Court’s healer. And then you thought you were done—done with attempting the impossible. 

But then Beron took a stance that no one could foresee, and you were not done. 

With the soldiers of Autumn Court came an impenetrable heat, and it was your job to quell the scars that plagued Rhysand’s frontlines. You were the one set to heal the broken and save the damned, and you were the one set to protect the court with kindness. 

It was awful work. 

Azriel was always quick to agree. 

Your mate hated these wars more than you did, and that was an almost impossible feat. Azriel was never close to you in the throes of battle. There was always a cluster of shadows on your trail, but he could never be there himself. You knew it ate away at him, distracting him when he was supposed to be zeroed in on the enemies. 

But, you had reminded him as he held you close in the tent the night before, you hadn’t died yet, and maybe you’d never die from a war. Maybe you weren’t destined to. 

He had only pulled you closer at that, pressed his lips to your head as his wings hid you from the camp that made far too much noise. He held you so tightly you felt his pulse on the skin of your cheek and you pretended you were back at home. 

Because although you were the kindness within the war, you wanted to go home. 

Gods, did you want to go home. 

Flames raced along the outskirts of the blue shield that had enveloped you the moment your knees hit the ground beside the unconscious Illyrian soldier. They pushed and pried, trying to force their way past your mate’s protection as you trained your attention on the wound marring the soldier’s skin. 

Azriel would protect you. 

He always did, even when he couldn’t be beside you. 

“I’m… going to die,” the male beneath your hands huffed out, a line of sweat at his brow. 

“No,” you assured. “No, you’re going to be okay. I just need a few more moments.” 

You couldn’t see what was making him so assuredly pessimistic—couldn’t see the way the flames were creating cracks in the shimmering blue light. They were covering every inch of the shield, making the air in the circle red with heat and promised death. 

You noticed a moment too late. 

It was unbearable, the suffocating fire. You threw your body over the soldier as if that would make a difference, arms and shoulders wrapping over his head as your leathers scorched and your lungs burned. The male screamed, his legs thrashing. You wanted to replicate the sound, but you were kindness. Kindness did not scream. 

It ended as abruptly as it began, flames dissipating into blackened embers. You felt a crack in the bond during the disappearance, Azriel’s fear and rage embedding itself into the golden thread connecting you. That, too, ended as abruptly as it began; Azriel shut his side down, saving you from the ravaging emotions. 

You whipped around to search for him, eyes up towards the sky. You found him quickly, with a practiced eye. You’d looked for him in every room you’d entered for almost your entire life. It was easy to find Azriel. As easy as breathing. 

That breath was stolen from you the moment your gaze locked on his form.

He was falling. 

He had charged—alone—into the group that was to blame for your injuries, for the flames that had almost consumed you, and now he was falling. 

He was falling and he wasn’t conscious. 

You think you screamed, but that couldn’t be right. Screaming led to panicked patients, and panicked patients led to worse outcomes. Your screams were not welcomed in war. 

You tugged at the bond, desperate to rouse him into saving himself. But it was no use; he was plummeting to the ground and there was nothing you could do. 

When you looked back on it later—when it fizzled as dim memories within your dreams—your actions would become more clear. You’d remember that you stood up, and then the ground shook. That the years of training required to be a field healer included so much more than twisting bursts of soothing light. 

And something within you had awoken that day, the moment you saw wakefulness leave Azriel’s being… something that was not kindness or giving or calm. 

It was rage. 

A piece of you recognized that Azriel had been caught. Cassian’s wings had most likely ached from the speed with which he dove to catch his brother, but both members of your family were safe. Harmed, but safe. Not dead.  

Your rage didn’t care. 

Something deep within you snapped, and light was pouring from the tips of your fingers. It wasn’t the same hue that healed. It was darker; a hungry red. 

The enemies from the sky fell. 

When those on the ground saw the damage you had inflicted, you became their target. And fine, let them, because this power coursing through you had no sense of who was to blame for your mate’s injuries. To you, everyone was a threat. Everyone was to blame. 

With a practiced grace, tainted by years of disuse, you attacked. The scene was cloaked in a red hue. Fae after fae charged at you, but it was all fruitless. You felt pain, injuries covering your skin, but it was all muted by the overwhelming desire to end this. To somehow soothe the ache you felt from watching your mate fall.

Time became obsolete. 

Morals became blurred. 

You were a machine, a complete reversal from the position you had assumed all those years ago.  

“Y/n!” 

Through the fog, a scream.

“Y/n, stop!” 

Another far away call. 

“It’s done. It’s over. Stop. Look at me and stop.” 

Something was pressing against your cheeks. It was firm and grounding and the focus returned to your gaze. 

“That’s it. Look at me, y/n.” 

Cassian. When all was righted, Cassian stood in front of you, his posture hunched as he leaned down to catch your eyes. He was dirty and his leathers were torn, but all you could focus on was the panicked frenzy marring his face. 

When he spoke next, the words were no longer accompanied by the incessant buzzing that had invaded your ears. “You with me, sweetheart?” 

Your lips felt numb. 

“Give me a nod or something. Az will kill me if you go catatonic on us.” 

“I’m okay,” you whispered, voice rough. “Azriel, he—” 

“He’s here.” Cassian turned your head in his hands, showing you the shadowsinger propped up against a dirt bank. “That self-sacrificing idiot is fine.” 

He wasn't fine, not really. His breaths were labored and his hand clutched at his side with a shaky grip. You wanted to move towards him, to try and take away some of his pain, but your legs were stuck. Everything was stuck and you couldn't move. 

It didn’t matter, anyway. When your eyes trailed up from his body, the look on his face would have deterred you from even speaking to him. He looked… horrified. Hazy eyes blinked across the battlefield—the one you decimated—and they shut just as fast. They squeezed shut, clamping down so tightly it looked like it hurt. Azriel seemed to shiver at the carnage. 

When your chest heaved at the realization, your body seemed to shut down. You felt your legs give out first, heard the curse shot out by Cassian, and felt the hands pressing to your back as your mind gave way to unconsciousness. 

~~

When you woke, the heaviness in your body was not entirely physical. 

There were, of course, a few broken bones. You could feel the aches and pains from battle and knew that you hadn’t gotten away unscathed, but that was all manageable. Fae healing was fast-acting and you would be fine within a few days. 

But it wasn’t the physical pain keeping you from opening your eyes.

It was the reminder of Azriel’s face. 

The disgust written into his features. 

You were supposed to be his antithesis.

When Azriel came home at the end of a day, he was supposed to be comforted by your warmth and softness. You were kindness and light and graceful silence. You were a healer, granting life, and he was an angel of death. 

Before you had met him, that had not been the truth. You were a healer, yes, but you were a field healer. The continent you hailed from prided themselves in being both the saviors of life and the bringers of death. You were to be the judgment—deciding who received which fate. 

But then you met Azriel, and with him came balance. With him came the need to be only one part of you. 

So you hid away the side of you meant to be cruel. You trained softly in self-defense only and you shied away from the instinct to protect with fists and power. 

And you loved the way he looked at you because of it. 

You loved the soft eyes and silent laughs; the tender way he held you and the sweet way he brushed his lips to your innocent skin. He coveted you, protected you, and you were the one he sought comfort in. 

You were his mate, his equal, his mirror. 

You wished your eyes could remain shut forever. 

“Will she wake up soon?”

Mor, you could deduce. 

“The healers said there was no way to know. She… Gods, Mor, you should have seen her out there. I’ve never seen anything like it.” 

Cassian. 

“I wish I had been there. It sounds like she kicked some ass,” Mor smugly replied. 

Cassian huffed out a laugh. “That’s an understatement.” A pause. “It was more than just that though. It was like she was using her healing in a different way. She cleared the field in front of her. There’s no way that just… came out of her.” 

“You know what the mating bond does to people. What it can unleash.” 

“I get that. But it looked natural for her. It looked practiced.” 

You heard Mor sigh. A hand brushed against the top of yours, taking it into a soft grip. 

“I just hope she's alright,” Mor murmured. 

“She has to be.” 

~~

When you awoke next, it was alone. You had been fighting sleep for what you assumed to be the better part of a day and decided that was enough. Eventually, you had to face the consequences of your actions.

You swung your feet over the side of the cot, feeling surprisingly rested and well despite the few pains shooting along your limbs. You took hesitant steps towards the mouth of the tent, propping open the canvas billowing in the wind before taking a more confident step onto dirt and rocks. 

“Good, you’re up.” It was Rhysand who spotted you first. “Just in time for our debrief.” 

The casualness with which he spoke left you disoriented. The High Lord only blinked at you, a small, impassive smile on his face as he waited for you to take the arm he had outstretched. Your mouth parted as if to speak, but nothing was coming out. 

“I know you’re recovering, y/n, but I need my best at this meeting,” he encouraged, elbow jutting towards you. “Come. We’ll speak and then we’ll return to Velaris. We will go home.” 

Your reservations were odd when you compared them to the understanding on Rhys’s face. He wasn’t upset or disgusted or angry; the High Lord’s smile turned up at the corner of his mouth and his expression spoke of sympathy, as if he already knew about the turmoil raging within you. 

“Azriel—” 

“Is there already. Unhappy, but there.” 

Unhappy. 

Of course. 

Who would want a mate that ravaged battlefields? 

Your lip quivered, but you bit it to stop the emotion from showing. “Right,” you nodded, and you let Rhys guide you to the large tent in the middle of the camp. 

It was full; you had to push your way in to meet the rest of your court. Azriel was the only one seated amongst them, and you could tell by the twitch of his wings that he had been placed in that chair begrudgingly. 

Your eyes skated across his for a fleeting moment. You were quick to turn away, focusing on the material of Rhys’s jacket as he stopped in the corner of the tent. 

There was a faint tug on the bond, muted by the wall you had erected. You thought about letting it down, but you were scared of what you’d feel. Azriel was a good male; good enough to attempt to hide the revulsion he was feeling. 

But you’d be able to parse it out the second you dropped your mental shield. 

You kept your eyes forward as the high lords spoke around the tent. The large table in the center was covered in maps and wooden pegs and you flowed in and out of focus as treaties and strategies and plans all mingled in the space. 

Another tug at the bond. 

Another shield placed around your mind. 

“And what of her?” 

Rhys took a step in front of you, covering half of your body from view. “What of her?” he countered, a calmness in his tone as he replied to the High Lord of Spring. 

Tamlin raised a brow. “Are we just supposed to ignore that your ‘healer’ is a danger to all of our courts?” 

“You are a fool,” Feyre spat out, hands splayed on the table. 

“She is a weapon,” Tamlin seethed, finger jutting out towards you. 

You flinched, and the room exploded in shadows. 

You heard several gasps, a few weapons being unsheathed, but over everything was the low rumble of Azriel’s voice. 

“Don’t speak of her as if she is an object,” he threatened. “Don’t speak of my mate at all.” 

“Reign in your dog,” Tamlin spat, but that only spurred on the hostility in the room. 

A chair screeched back, crashing against wood as loud, reverberating footsteps echoed in the otherwise silent tent. No one made a sound. Some of the shadows gave way, retreating to wind around your body, and you were met with the scene across the table. 

“I will show you a weapon, High Lord,” Azriel promised, chest-to-chest with Tamlin. 

The sight made you sick. 

Azriel was a protector. You were used to that truth. But before, things were different. Before, he was protecting you while you were still pure, still innocent in his eyes. 

Now, it was after. After you had killed and killed for him. After he had hurtled to the ground and awoken to find the death his mate had caused. And he was still protecting you, defending you, despite it all. 

Were you really worth this? 

You were worth it before. 

Now, you weren’t so sure. 

On shaking legs, you shouldered your way out of the tent, breath caught in your lungs. The ringing from the battlefield returned to your ears, blocking out the conversations starting in your absence. The shadows stayed with you, twirling with alarm and flowing through your hair in an attempt to gain your attention. 

A weapon. That explained you well—the ability to save lives and take them away. If they all considered you a weapon, where would you go? By Tamlin’s logic, being locked away would be best. 

Maybe that was best. 

You wondered what Azriel would think was best—where his weapon of a mate belonged. Because it was certainly no longer in the calmness of the home you shared. 

Your shaking continued as you brought your hand up to your forehead. Azriel did that sometimes, when you were panicked or anxious or scared. He’d place his scarred touch on your forehead and lean your head up to grant you more air. He’d follow with his lips and then pull you into his arms, but you knew none of that was coming. 

So you leaned forward and felt the sobs creeping up your chest to take the place of air. Your knees fell to the dirt and you collapsed into the feeling of your family, love, life changing forever. 

Until the shadows retreated. 

You glanced up when their swishing stopped and found another pair of knees pressing to yours in the dirt. The leathers covering them were fresher than yours, cleaner, but they were also wrapped in bandages and stabilizers that matched the ones along their ribs and stomach. 

Another crane of your neck and Azriel was leaning down to catch your gaze, mouth parted. Maybe he’d been speaking for a while; the buzzing made it impossible to know. 

“Are you alright, my love?” he asked, low and so, so concerned. Much more concerned than you deserved. Much more gentle than he had spoken in the tent. 

And all you could think to say was, “I’m sorry,” and you sobbed out the words with gut-wrenching sincerity. 

“I’m sorry, Azriel. I’m so sorry. I never meant—I never wanted this—“

Azriel shushed you, his fingers working to guide your hair away from your face. You felt selfish for needing that from him as his body was bandaged and his wings were wrapped. 

“I’m sorry I’m not who you thought I was. That I’m a monster. You were just falling so fast and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn't stop it,” you gasped out, giving in to your instincts as you grappled at the material of Azriel’s shirt. “I wanted to protect you and there was nothing I could do. You’re supposed to feel safe with me and I’ve ruined everything.” 

With each word came more tears and more heaving breaths. Azriel held you through each of them, his hands firm at your elbows, his head shaking as you laid everything before him. Occasionally, your name fell from his lips in a soft whisper, but he never interrupted you. 

“I’m not supposed to be this person to you. I’m supposed to be all of the good parts, and now I’m—now I’m someone else and you can’t—you’re not going to love all of the parts and—”

“Look at me, angel,” Azriel softly interrupted, sliding his fingers along your hairline, his eyes searching every inch of your face. When your gaze snapped to his, a bittersweet smile graced his pretty features. “There she is.” 

A hysterical laugh left you, your emotions mingling with his as the bond flowed freely between you. You didn’t have the energy or willpower to block him out anymore. A rush of relief was sent through you as Azriel realized the opening. 

“You are not a monster.” Azriel’s whisper was so clear, so close. “And I love every part of you, y/n. Especially the part I saw on that field. You saved me—protected our court and family. How could I not love that?” 

“I saw your face,” you whispered back, the words brushing Azriel’s lips as your foreheads met. “You looked—”

“I looked disappointed in myself.” 

“In yourself?” 

Azriel brought both hands to your cheeks. “I lead you to that carnage. Y/n, I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to take that load for you… to shoulder that burden.” 

“You aren’t… disgusted by me?” 

“My love, I love you more. What you did for me… you’re so strong. Cassian told me how amazing you were. Why have you never told me?” 

You shifted back on your knees, blinking under Azriel’s adoring, forgiving gaze. The shadowsinger didn’t let you get far, however, sliding his hands down your jaw, your shoulders, and settling on the tops of your thighs. 

Touching you, it seemed, was imperative. 

“When we were mated,” you began, tears still lingering in your throat. “I was new to Prythian—new to having a family. Everyone kept telling me that we were equals in opposite. They said I was a blessing from the cauldron to be so different from you but so in love. And then you… you called me things like peace and safety and calm. I saw the work you did and I knew I couldn’t tell you what I was trained for. Being a healer was enough.” 

The hands on your thighs tense. Azriel’s shadows pooled beneath you, swirling like a puddle of darkness. 

“I never meant for you to hide,” he murmured. 

“Azriel—”

“Never, angel. You could burn down the world and you’d still be my peace. You could be a weapon and I’d find my safety in you.” 

He sighed out a disbelieving laugh. 

“I love you,” he affirmed, eyes so sure. “I love you when you heal the broken and I love you when you decimate battlefields.” A small smirk. “I wish I had known about the second half a little sooner. I might not have teased you about your book choices as often.” 

You scoffed, a watery smile finally lighting up your face. “Don’t start.” 

“Should I tell you all the other times I should have been wary? Or maybe all of the reasons Cassian should be afraid now? It seems that’s the only way to get you to smile, and seeing as you are the reason we won the war, you should be doing far more of it.” 

The bond shone within you, bursting with joy as a laugh escaped your lips—a real laugh. The sound was soon smothered by Azriel’s kiss, and you knew things were changing. 

And that was okay. 

[reasonsforhope]

"New York is marking the early achievement of its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act statutory goal a year ahead of schedule, announcing that 6 gigawatts (GW) of distributed solar have been installed across the state, enough to power more than one million homes.

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) president and CEO Doreen M. Harris broke the news onsite at a distributed solar project in New Scotland, NY today. The project, developed by New Leaf Energy and owned by Generate Capital, participates in the state’s Solar for All pilot program with utility partner National Grid, meaning its generation benefits low-income households. The site’s 5.7 MW solar array will generate 6.7 million kilowatt-hours of solar energy annually, powering about one thousand homes.

“New York State has provided a replicable model for others to deliver clean, low-cost renewable energy to more consumers,” asserted Harris. “Our public-private partnerships are the catalysts which have helped us to achieve our 6-GW goal well ahead of target, trailblazing New York’s path to an equitable energy transition.”

Governor Kathy Hochul says this achievement brings New York one step closer to a reliable, resilient, zero-emission grid. The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act contains goals to generate 70% of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% zero-emission electricity by 2040.

“Distributed solar is at the heart of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, expanding the availability of renewable energy, and delivering substantial benefits for our health, our environment, and our economy,” Hochul added.

New York achieving its distributed solar goal of 6 GW has generated approximately $9.2 billion in private investment across the state, according to NYSERDA, creating more than 14,000 solar jobs from engineering to installation. Three years ago, Governor Hochul directed to expand the goal to 10 GW by 2030.

“While we’re incredibly proud of the work and partnerships that have led to this achievement, we’re more excited that it can be repeated and multiplied. With the State’s continued leadership, we’re confident we can get to 10 GW and beyond,” predicts New Leaf Energy director of policy and business development Sam Jasinsk.

The state says it has another 3.4 GW of distributed solar projects already in development, making a 10 GW goal quite feasible.

“Customers and consumers are asking for access to clean energy, and New York state is listening,” Generate Capital Investments managing director Peggy Flannery said. Generate Capital operates 69 projects and counting in New York.

In 2023, New York installed more community solar capacity than any other state. Last year was also the state’s most productive year ever for solar installations, with 885 MW of capacity installed.

In April, NYSERDA was selected to receive nearly $250 million from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Solar for All program to enhance New York State’s existing portfolio of solar deployment, technical assistance, and workforce development programs for the benefit of over 6.8 million residents that live in low-income households and disadvantaged communities. As part of the grant funding, the New York State Housing and Community Renewal, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and New York City Housing Preservation and Development, will implement new programs that target specific barriers to solar deployment for this population."

-via Renewable Energy World, October 17, 2024

[seleneprince]

Snippet of my Neglected! Family x Yandere! Batfam au (I really need to find a name for this au already)

Wife! Darling has known of the Batcave's existence for years already, and so do her children.

She found out by pure accident. Her oldest daughter was doing her usual computer stuff she didn't understand, and said she found a weird signal coming from under the manor, in the underground...only they didn't know there was anything down there, not even a basement. Alfred never mentioned it.

The girl went to check, tracing the mysterious signal with her phone, and found a hidden compartment behind the pendulum clock. Before her mother could tell her to stop, she went down there.

Cue to Wife! Darling following her daughter to make sure she didn't get in trouble or hurt herself, because who knew if Batman even bothered with basic security measures for his vigilante stuff. From what she's seen of him as Bruce Wayne, she doubted it.

And that's how they found the Batcave. By the time Alfred found out and met them there, the daughter had already tinkered with half the equipment and replicated part of the Batcomputer's code in her tablet for fun, while her mother explored the whole place with a critical eye. Alfred expected them to be angry, to ask a lot of questions, but instead:

Wife! Darling!: "Who takes care of this place?"

Alfred: "Mostly me, Mistress (Name)."

Wife! Darling squinted her eyes, gaze darkening: "Just you? Does no one help you?"

Alfred: "It's part of my job, Mistress (Name). Don't worry, I can handle it perfectly well on my own."

She scoffed. "Well, this has to change. You're just one man, Alfred, and you're not getting younger with the years. The fact that they let you do so much already by yourself is infuriating, and you also have to clean after their crime-fighting bullshit? The nerve. I'll take care of this from now on"

Alfred blinked: "Mistress (Name), I can't possibly ask you that. You already help me more than enough around the house-"

Wife! Darling: "Nonsense, Alfred. You do way too much already. At this rate, it'll only affect your health for worse. I live here too now, so technically it's also my responsibility."

And that's how she ends up handling the maintenance of the Batcave along with Alfred, even taking over his tasks entirely. She starts off with the excuse of helping him, which it's true, but eventually she always takes care everything so the man has no option but rest.

And because she's such a perfectionist, she doesn't spare any efforts in the task. Cleans all the surfaces, fixes the suits, rearranges the weapons after cleaning them and creates a system to organize their gadgets so they're much easier to find. Even the Batmobile is left spotless, inside and outside. She goes as far to feed some of the bats casually roaming around the edges of the cave.

(And if her kids had naps inside the batmobile sometimes when they were down there, only she and Alfred are witnesses. Well, the bats too, but they're not snitching)

This way she takes some work off Alfred's shoulders. She finds it enraging that a man his age has such a heavy load of work with little to no help, so she takes over some of the house chores for him so he can have breaks. Plus, it helps her unwind and relax a bit from her usually stress-fuelled life.

She also begins to leave snarky notes about the shameful state of their gear when she finds it in particularly bad shape. And feels even worse that Alfred has had to take care of all of this at his age until she came.

"This blade is duller than your sense of self-awareness. Fix it"

"Blood is not a fashion statement. Grow up"

"If you die in this crusty suit, I’m not cleaning your corpse"

"Are you fighting villains or rolling in garbage?"

Seriously, the richest man in Gotham can't even afford a bit more of staff? But of course, she reminds herself he's the same man who forgot to use protection when fucking a random woman, so she shouldn't expect too much from him.

To avoid uncomfortable encounters, she specifically schedules her cleaning times for when the whole team is out, so she can work peacefully without being having to be in the same room as them. So far, it goes well. Alfred even warns her when they're coming back, and the Batcave is actually a pretty nice place to enjoy time for yourself when it's empty. Just the beeping of the computers as background noise, or her children messing around when they go down there to do their things.

It becomes part of her routine, one she even looks forward too during the day. Until one day.

The Batcave has been left spotless, as usual. Weapons polished. Suits lined up by height and damage level. Even the Batmobile has that new-car shimmer. It smells faintly of citrus-scented cleaning spray and frustration. There are also four sticky notes scattered across the table already, complaining about the state of their things again.

She is crouched near the weapon rack, holding the Batman suit with one gloved hand and a lint roller in the other, glaring at it like it personally offended her.

She mutters under her breath in Spanish, something about how "ni siquiera una máquina de coser podría salvar este desastre de traje, Dios mío." (Not even a sewing machine could save this disaster of a suit, my godness)

She’s in sweats, hair tied back in a messy bun. An apron over her tank top that says "KISS THE COOK (or don’t, I’ll stab you)". She's so deep in the cleaning zone she doesn’t hear the footsteps.

"Well, this is a surprise. I could get used to this."

Her entire body freezes. It feels like her blood turned ice in her veins instantly with the voice. That irritating, familiar voice.

Her head turns slowly, and there he is. Bruce Wayne in the flesh. Her husband in paper, father of her first child, owner of this cave, and responsible for half of the stress she deals with.

She could be annoyed or even embarrassed that he caught her like this, handling his suit no less. But instead, her mind is focused on what he said, and the tone in which he said it.

She arches a brow at him.

"Excuse me?"

He steps closer, clearly taking note of her work there. His eyes drifting to the Batmobile, the weapons, all she's taken care of already.

Bruce: "Me, coming back from work to find you cleaning my stuff. It’s so… domestic. It’s almost like we’re a married couple."

There’s a beat. A dangerous silence.

She blinks at him. Once. Twice. Processing the fact that he really said that. Out loud. To her. And in a completely serious tone.

Then he looks at her, and she notices the ghost of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. Oh, that filthy little-

Her eye twitches.

Wife! Darling: "...........Oh, absolutely."

WHACK.

She chucks a batarang at his head with a speed and accuracy that would’ve made Deadshot whistle. He barely ducks, and it slams into the metal behind him with a THUNK so loud the Batcomputer flinches and some bats burst out from their spots.

Bruce: "That could’ve taken my eye out."

Wife! Darling:"I was hoping so."

He stares at her, and then shakes his head, letting out a low chuckle. A chuckle. Since when is this man capable of that? Before she gets her answer, he pulls out the batarang with ease and places it back on the rack (Good, she would've murdered him for real if he left it anywhere else).

Bruce: "I meant it. I think I like this sight of you. Suits you well. You look like the ideal housewife."

Without looking, she reaches for another batarang and throws it at him. This time, he catches it mid-air, cool as ever, before setting it down on the table like he isn’t one second away from getting stabbed.

Bruce: "Was that really necessary?"

Wife! Darling: "It was either that or shoot you. You're lucky I'm generous today."

He watches her, barely concealing his amusement now, but there’s something else in his expression too, something he's never had when looking at her: Curiosity.

She doesn't like it.

Unbothered, as if he didn't just activate her kill switch, he starts to walk to the table and peels off one of the sticky notes, reading it aloud with a deadpan tone.

"Blood is not a fashion statement. Grow up."

Bruce: "You know I beat the shit out of people in this suit, right?"

She replies without sparing him a glance, wiping down a grappling gun with unholy aggression: "Yeah? Well, do it without staining it with their blood. You look like Gotham’s dirtiest raccoon."

He leans against the Batcomputer, arms folded. "How long have you been doing this, exactly?"

She scoffs, going back to adjusting the suit like she isn’t being interrogated. "Long enough to know that you leave your weapons in a shameful state. Honestly, it’s a miracle your stupid gadgets still function. Do you ever bother to maintain your own things, or do you just throw them around and hope Alfred fixes it?"

He watches her for a moment longer before finally speaking.

"And you’re doing this because...?"

"Because unlike some people in this godforsaken house, I actually care when an old man is running himself ragged taking care of things that none of you seem to appreciate."

Bruce pauses. He glances at the Batmobile, cleaner than it’s ever been. At his weapons, neatly arranged, polished, functional.

At the post-it notes stuck to the Batcomputer, scrawled in Rosa’s angry handwriting.

He actually huffs a quiet laugh. Again. It's unsettling her.

Then, almost as an afterthought, she mutters, "Besides, if you die because your equipment fails, it’s only a matter of time before you try to drag me into this circus. And I refuse to wear spandex."

He raises an eyebrow. "You’d look good in spandex."

Silence.

She throws the batarang at him again. This time, it actually clips his shoulder.

"Go get that treated before you stain anything, or I'll wipe the floors next with your face."

.......................

...........

Suddenly, Bruce starts to "casually" come to the cave early more often.

Now she has to adjust her schedule AGAIN to avoid him. And in the meantime, her children start betting on how many batarangs it takes before Bruce gets critically injured. Or dead.

[aspenscore]

Author: Aspenscore

Title: A Mania Of Joels

Creative Commons License: A Mania Of Joels © 2025 by Aspenscore is licensed under CC BY 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Size: 384x512

(Really hoping the March 15 deadline includes March 15. I'm posting this before midnight on March 14 in my timezone, but it is already March 15 for Joel.)

Process TL;DR:

I've decided a group of Joels is called a mania.

My favourite part of Joel's season has been his many characters, as well as the Hermit Baths On Hermitcraft podcast, so I decided to combine those two things in this drawing.

This piece started as a bunch of sketches at work and took me about 20 hours to draw, plus an additional 8 hours fighting tech issues (including a crash that lost me the completed drawing (luckily I took this screenshot just before)).

Despite my struggles with that + screen rec software, there'll be a timelapse video of my drawing process coming soon on my channel!

Re: the title, I've decided a group of Joels is called a "mania" (like how a group of horses, for example, is a "herd").

One of my favourite things about Joel's season are all the fun intros and characters he's created, which inspired me to create something that showcases some of the main Joels we've met so far. I also really like the Hermit Baths On Hermitcraft (Another Podcast Hosted By A Straight White Male), so I figured the bathhouse would be the perfect place for a mania of Joels! I would've loved to include all the Joels, but by my count, there are at least 26 distinct Joels in this season so far, which is far too many Joels for me to fit in one image (and several of them are hard to distinguish based on appearance alone).

Since I could only include so many, I tried to choose Joels who are either recurring characters, or relevant to other things Joel has done in his videos. With that in mind, on this episode of Hermit Baths On Hermitcraft we've got Joel Who Asks You To Subscribe, News Reporter Joel, Bad Boy Joel (the statue counts as being in the season imo), Bartender (Horse Killer? :0) Joel, Officer Joel (RIP Detective Joel, would've loved to include him but it wouldn't be lore-accurate for him to be alive), Joel Who Totally Isn't Obsessed With Etho, Frogger Joel, Podcast Host Joel, and Singer Joel.

A few details I wanted to highlight:

News Reporter Joel always has a headline scroll bar with him. He doesn't know how or why. It's just there.

Joel Who Totally Isn't Obsessed With Etho not only has the Etho shirt on, but he's also in etho cosplay (headband) and has Etho face floaties (no idea where that came from but once I'd thought it I couldn't un-think it).

I'm most proud of Frogger Joel's outfit. He's got a froggy hat, frog crop top, lilypad shorts, and frog shoes with lilypad tops.

Singer Joel's kimono was originally going to have a pattern of symbols relating to Joel's season, but then I realized those wouldn't show up very well with the lowered resolution. The planned symbols included music discs, xp bottles, axolotls, slime balls, honeycomb, frogs, horses, glow squid, and glow berries.

Podcast Host Joel's abs are drawn on. Gem said it so it's canon.

Bartender Joel's vest is the same colour and pattern as that horse head...

And now for the process! I know a lot of you probably aren't that interested in it, but I spent a lot of time on this so I'd at least like to record my efforts.

This piece actually started on paper, because I work a lot and I knew I wouldn't have time to do the whole piece if I didn't at least do some advance planning during down time at my job. However, all I had at work was some scrap paper and a pencil (I couldn't even find an eraser the day I started this!), so I needed to find some way to get the aspect ratio correct without a ruler. While there were no rulers at work, I was able to find some mini origami paper, and since that's a perfect square, I was able to use it to replicate the sizing I'd chosen. I sketched out the general background layout, used two of those lines + the edge of another piece of paper to determine the vanishing point, then re-drew the rest of the background according to the point I'd determined. These techniques worked shockingly well, and when I scanned the drawing and checked my measurements in my drawing program, they were surprisingly accurate!

With the scan uploaded, along with a page of outfit design sketches I had also done at work, I ran into my next hurdle: screen recording software. To keep a long and agonizing story short, I draw on an old tablet that has very little storage, RAM, or processing power, so OBS + my drawing program were not an option. The drawing program itself doesn't have a timelapse feature either, so I had to go find another piece of software that would meet my needs. I even tried using my tablet as a third screen for my PC, which could absolutely handle the processing and storage needs of this project, but the latency was far too high for that to be a feasible option. Trying all of these options took at least 8 hours and at one point had the side effect of permanently messing up something on my main PC monitor that causes it to reset all its settings periodically (if anyone has any idea what's going on with that, I'd love to not have to re-do my settings every couple minutes or so).

My tablet's limited storage also resulted in me almost losing a portion of my footage, but you can rest assured that I've managed to save all of it, and if it's useable I will be editing it down into a timelapse + process video to upload to my channel! The video will probably include a lot of the information here, but hopefully it'll be a bit more interesting and engaging! (I was originally going to link the video here instead of writing all these paragraphs, but the drawing took so long I haven't had time to make the video).

Finally, after spending basically all of my free time at home during the past two weeks working on this drawing, I finished it just a couple hours ago.

I hit save.

And got an error message.

Storage issue.

Since the image resolution is intended to be reduced anyway (for minecraft painting, but also just how tumblr treats images), I grabbed a screenshot of the finished piece before my tablet crashed and rebooted. It saved some of my work, but not all of it, so this is now the only complete version of the piece in existence.

At the end of the day, I'm just glad I finished it on time and am happy with the final product. If you've read this far, thank you so much for your patience with my rambling, I hope you enjoy the final piece as much as I do. And thank you to Joel for creating such fun videos and awesome builds! I look forward to the rest of your first Hermitcraft season.

[p4nishers]

would it be crazy if i said mark s created a different version of himself almost completely around helly bc he was choking on petey's ghost. like. we know he was much more lighthearted fun happier when petey was around but then he suddenly wasn't and mark didn't know what to DO with himself he didn't know if petey was dead or alive and he couldn't think about it bc he had a fucking job to do and helly was the perfect distraction. in my crazy delusional opinion he based this new self around petey even when he was trying to get away from him the only kindness he saw was PETEYS he tried to replicate peteys kind eyes for fucks sake and helly even if she would never ever admit it NEEDED someone to be persistently there for her in their own weird way and . do you get it. he tried to escape gemmas ghost by creating a different version of himself only to end up still carying that grief in there AND losing another person only to carry the grief of it out there and. god. the endless cycle of grief thats really REALLY just love fucking persevering im sick

[zomyoo]

⠀ 𝗝.𝗪𝗪 ━ the vampire i loved 。

you fell asleep reading your all time favorite fantasy book, wishing you were born in its universe. when you wake up, you realize you're no longer in your bedroom.

𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚: smut included! biting, mentions of blood and blood sucking, teasing, overstimulating, pet names, mirror fucking, multiple rounds, unprotected sex.

⟢ vampire!wonwoo x collegestudent!reader ⠀⠀—⠀⠀𝗪𝗖: 2,656

read part two here.

your jaw dropped at the gut-wrenching ending of the book you had borrowed from your friend. the whole novel had your toes curling and kept your underwear wet, how could the ending be the total opposite of the lewd feeling you once had? tears formed at the corner of your eyes, threatening to drop as you processed the death of your favorite character. you understood that the author had to make the ending as memorable as the plot was, but you never knew, or even thought they could do such a terrible thing to the character everyone loved.

you had been reading this series for a few years now, and you had finally finished it. you thanked the lord and remained grateful to your friend for having and allowing you to borrow the last book. being a college student, you barely had money to feed yourself and the job market was really demanding, so how the heck would you be able to afford any of your hobbies?

you closed the book to avoid staining it with your tears and sunk into your bed, sadness taking over your body. you had made up a whole story of your own with him; you were both married and lived in a castle hidden in the depths of a large forest with two black cats but the author killing him off just crushed all your dreams.

he was only a character, sure, but he awakened your love for vampires and the desire to be one yourself, you couldn’t just let that go. you stared at the poster on the ceiling, his beautiful face causing you to get more consumed by your sadness. with a sigh escaping your lips, you decided to go to bed, actually eager to fix your sleep schedule, which will probably last till you obsess over a new book.

awokened by the sound of chirping birds and a cold breeze coming in contact with your skin, you slowly opened your eyes, confused as your gaze fell upon trees and not the man who haunted your dreams. you sat up, the leaves beneath you rubbing together to create a noise, which was one of the two sounds that could be heard in the forest you somehow ended up in.

“what the fuck...” you whispered, standing up from the concrete floor as you looked around, the path looking a little too familiar. you couldn’t exactly recall where you had seen or heard of it, but you knew where it led and you began walking down it. using your hands to cover your exposed arms, you rubbed them, eager to feel warm.

the scenery was one you had never seen before. trees with little to no leaves and crows sitting on their branches hovered over you and the environment was completely dull, submerged in the heavy fog. in the distance, you could see a lantern, which was the first and only source of light you had seen since you magically teleported into this alternative universe.

as you walked into the depths of the forest, the lanterns multiplied, it was like they were leading the way, lighting up one by one. you found yourself fascinated in front of what could only be explained by witchcraft, no modern science would be able to replicate something like this.

soon enough, you saw something peeking above the trees, with the silhouette it created, you assumed it was a castle, or at least a building similar to one. as you approached it, you were faced with a type of architecture you would love to see more of; vertical proportions, pointed arches, external buttressing, asymmetry and long stained-glass windows.

you were very much fond of the gothic style it had and in awe of seeing right in front of your eyes. you had seen similar buildings before, but none compared to the originals. you snapped out of your thoughts and decided to walk in, certain you were drawn here for a reason.

as you pushed open the door, you peaked inside, seeing nothing but darkness, which you were never afraid of up until now. the emptiness of the room before you sent chills down your spine, and you could sense a presence in there, which made you freeze in place, wondering if you should step in. perhaps you had made the wrong choice by following those lanterns.

“come in.” a deep voice echoed from across the room, causing you to flinch and turn your head towards the direction of the sound. not wanting to anger whomever invited you in, unsure what they were capable of, you did as told and shut the door behind you.

a light in the middle of the room suddenly turned on, it was dim but it sufficed to see most of the furnitures scattered around the room, some of them covered with a white cloth. however, that was the least of your concerns, your eyes wandered around the room, adjusting to the areas that remained in the darkness in hopes of finding a human silhouette, though you doubted anything in here would share that in common.

suddenly, you felt a strong presence behind you, and before you could do anything, you felt yourself getting embraced. “i’ve been waiting for you.” the manly voice spoke once more before its owner sniffed you, buring his head in your neck and licking your skin.

you weren’t so sure how to feel about everything that had happened in the past few seconds. a random man had his arms wrapped around you, kept going on about how much he’s been waiting for you, and constantly sniffed your neck like your scent was enchanting him.

“okay... who are you?” you questioned, trying to break away from his grasp, which only grew tighter the more you fought it off. at your question, the man turned you around so you could see his face, and you almost fell on your knees as you did so.

“...won..wonwoo?” you screamed, pinching yourself to make sure you were not dreaming. “how the fuck are you still alive after getting killed off? and how the hell am i even talking to you right now? you’re a god damn character in a stupid book.”

“my love, if i was only a character, would i be able to do this?” he asked, gently placing his right hand on your back, using his strength to pull you in close, then placed his left hand on your chin, lifting it up as he looked into your eyes before planting a soft kiss on your lips.

you were quick to wrap your arms around his neck, your sudden move causing him to smirk and bite your lip. you slightly opened your mouth, which was enough for him to slip his tongue in, intertwining it with yours. you would be lying if you said it didn’t turn you on, one of your biggest fantasies was happening and you weren’t even sure if it was real.

the man slid his hand underneath your silk buttoned up shirt, the coldness of his touch made you flinch, but it was quickly replaced with pleasure when he began squeezing your breasts and pinching your nipples. you were still in your pajamas, so you didn’t have any underwear on, which made everything easily accessible for him.

you moaned in his mouth, wanting more than his touch. you had been craving this man since you set your eyes on the book cover, desperately wishing he was real, wishing he would touch every single part of your body with his mouth, fingers and his cock. speaking of, you wondered if he was as big as the author described.

“wo..wonwoo plea..please...” you managed to let out, your voice muffled in the heated make out session you both had going on. he pulled away from the kiss and in a second, he removed your shirt, exposing your uncovered breasts, which he stared at whilst biting his lips. “they’re so beautiful.” he spoke, a red tint appearing on your cheeks as you slowly slipped out of your shorts, completely denuded before him.

he licked his lips at the sight of your naked body, his gaze trailing from up to down, taking in the view of your perky breasts, the goosebumps that formed on your body due to the sudden change of temperature, your thighs touching eachother, and your swollen cunt that wanted nothing but him. “touch yourself.” he commanded, and you laid down on what you assumed was a sofa, spreading your legs wide for him to see.

you put two fingers in your mouth, sucking them before your inserted them in your pussy, pulling them in and out as fast as you could. your free hand was on your breast, squeezing it as you imagined it was him. you threw your head backwards, breaking the eye contact you held with him, as you moved faster, your moans and the sweet noise of your wet cunt took over the room. he wished your sounds reached him directly, so he could be the only one able to hear them.

as he watched you, he couldn’t help but want to touch himself as well. he threw his clothes off his body and took his hardened cock in his right hand, stroking it alongside your constant moans. “wonwoo....” you cried out, literally going insane from lacking his touch.

as you moaned out his name, he walked over to you and shoved his cock in your mouth. your eyes widened at his length but that didn’t stop you from wanting to take him fully. the hand you used to massage your chest was now wrapped around his cock, and you were moving your head back and forth to please him, all while looking into his eyes.

his moans sounded so sweet. it wasn’t a lot, but it was definitely enough to make you cum. as you did, he began throatfucking you, wanting to reach his climax as well. “fuck..you feel so good.” he mumbled, a loud groan escaping his mouth as he cummed into yours.

after you swallowed his seeds, you got on your knees and kissed him, his hand reaching forward to grab your ass, lifting you up. as you wrapped your legs around him, melting underneath his touch, he sat on the sofa and you began grinding his cock, letting out soft moans. you buried your fingers in his hair, and slowly slid his cock in. “oh my god.” you uttered, your words followed by a loud moan as his length made it all the way in.

you began moving, taking it a step at a time to make it enjoyable for the both of you. as you moved faster, he kissed your neck and trailed down to your breasts whilst resting his hands on your hips. he felt too good and you enjoyed yourself way too much. riding his dick felt like heaven and his obsession with your body sent you straight to paradise. he made sure to touch you everywhere and it excited you even more. some of the things he did were very specific, it was like he had been reading you and knew all of your turn ons.

“i..i’m so close...” you breathed out, and he used a finger to draw circles your clit. the sudden overstimulation caused you to grab his shoulders and bury your head on his chest, jumping faster on his cock until you reached your high and eventually released.

“shall we go upstairs?” he questioned, lifting you up as you nodded your head, a little shocked at his ability to still want to continue. he had a lot of stamina, and you adored it.

he laid you down on the bed, turning you on your stomach so you could face the mirror right in front of the both of you. honestly, you had never been in this kind of situation before, and staring at yourself while getting fucked was something you were definitely willing to try, perhaps it could awaken something in you, just like the man playing with your clit started your attraction to vampires.

“wonwoo, do you have fangs?” you questioned, looking at him through the glass. he truly was pretty, you could stare at him all day. “indeed i do, why do you ask?” he said, staring back at you as he gestured for you to get on all fours, and you did as he demanded.

“i would l—” you began, instantly getting cut off as he continually licked your cunt, those small innocent licks turning into him completely getting drowned in your pussy juice. he sucked and swallowed, hungry for more. eating you out and creating circles on your clit weren’t enough, he had to slid in his tongue and eat you from inside. he wanted to devour you completely, your taste was intoxicating and he couldn’t get enough of it.

you never thought seeing your cum on his face would turn you on so much, but it did. he swallowed the parts he could and cleaned the rest off with a tissue, which he had a box of in his room for whatever reason you did not wish to know, it was never mentioned in the book.

soon enough, he aligned his cock with your cunt, gently rubbing your clit with his tip. you couldn’t stand the teasing, you wanted to feel him inside you, now. it did not take him long to realize you were needy, you had been moving your hips along with his cock, signaling that you were ready for him.

he smirked before shoving his cock into your cunt, a long sigh escaping your mouth as you tightly gripped the sheets. he slowly began thrusting into you, stretching your insides so his cock could fully fit in. when he felt you clench around him, he moved faster, pounding your beautiful pussy and taking in your moans.

he grabbed you by the hair and lifted your head, forcing you to look at yourself in the mirror. “watch how slutty you look.” he uttered with no response. you were too busy getting rawdogged and fucked with no remorse to pay attention to his words. your eyes rolled back and your back arched as he slammed his cock against your walls with force and speed, filling up all of your needs and darkest desires.

“w..wonwoo...nhh...” you whined, slowly reaching your climax, your body trembling from the amount of pleasure you were feeling. it was too much for your head to handle but not too much for your body who yearned for more than just a dildo to bear.

the man spinned you around, shoving his cock as deep as he could and placing his mouth in your neck, sucking your skin to place his mark. his fangs made their appearance, and though you couldn’t see them, you could definitely feel them on your skin. he licked your neck before biting it, sucking your blood that was to be mixed with his.

he placed his hands on your hips, his thrusts becoming sloppier as he was close. “cum with me baby.” he seductively whispered in your ear, his words followed by a moan you could die to hear. you placed your hands on his shoulders, your grip tightened and your head throwed back as you came on his cock and him in you.

you breathed out loud, not able to contain yourself. you were drained and sure you would never be satisfied by anything less than what he did to you. the man kissed you on your forehead and laid next to you, pulling you into an embrace.

you woke up feeling sore, your head spinning and eyesight blurry. as you were able to see clearly, you had been faced with the same poster you sticked on your ceiling, a sigh of disappointment escaped your lips as you realized it was all a dream.

.... or was it?

dividers by @/cafekitsune and @/saradika-graphics this was NOT proofread, i absolutely hate reading my own shit, and the ending was rushed, please bear with me!

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ copyright © 2024 zomyoo, all rights reserved

[httpsserene]

httpsserene's F1 Kinktober '23

welcome to httpsserene's f1 kinktober special!

i do not know how many posts i will be doing for this event, but, reblog and save this masterlist for any updates concerning my f1 kinktober.

posts tagged as: # httpss :// kinktober 23 | status: completed. | table of contents.

f1 kinktober 2023 charles leclerc x max verstappen | carlos sainz jr | oscar piastri | daniel ricciardo x max verstappen | lewis hamilton | george russell | pierre gasly | lando norris | charles leclerc | yuki tsunoda | x fem!black!reader

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: CORRUPTION KINK — 𝐜𝐥. 𝟏𝟔 𝐱 𝐦𝐯. 𝟏 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

innocent and virgin !reader has never touched herself before. she knows how to, in theory, but whenever she tries, she chickens out. her tried and true way of receiving pleasure is failing her. she thinks that maybe it's time to allow her relationship with her two respectful and experienced boyfriends, to reach the next step. and she'll find that they're very willing to teach her a few things.

CHAPTER TWO: WERE-SHIFTER & PREDATOR/PREY KINKS — 𝐜𝐬𝐣. 𝟓𝟓 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

for all people believe that werewolves are dangerous creatures, your wolf is pretty tame, even with some of his...quirks. this halloween you let him be the big bad wolf to your little red riding hood, while you give out candy to trick-or-treaters. what he doesn't know, is that you have your own trick-or treat planned for him after this– you're his treat tonight, but he's going to have to chase you first.

CHAPTER THREE: CAR SEX & SQUIRTING — 𝐨𝐩. 𝟖𝟏 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

your boyfriend has to make an appearance at some sponsor event. he's gone ahead and bought you an alluring outfit, but he failed to mention how seductive he looks in the new fitted suit his team got him. you two won't be staying long, but you increase the pace by riling him up, mostly unintentionally. so it's your fault that he makes you ruin his loaned mclaren.

CHAPTER FOUR: OVERSTIMULATION KINK — 𝐝𝐫. 𝟑 𝐱 𝐦𝐯. 𝟏 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

you can't remember the last time you've gotten to spend more than three days at a time with both of your boyfriends. you understand how demanding their job is but, you just can't remember the last time they really exhausted you...pleasurably. and then winter break comes around, and they have all the time they need to make you lose your mind.

CHAPTER FIVE: TENDER SEX & COCKWARMING — 𝐥𝐡. 𝟒𝟒 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

your husband comes home to his monaco apartment after achieving p2 in spain. from the texts you sent him before he boarded his flight, he expected you to be awake when he arrived. however, you’ve fallen asleep–but that’s not a problem. he’ll sneak into bed right next to you and catch a few extra hours of sleep. you’ll commemorate the podium come morning.

CHAPTER SIX: VAMPIRE & BITING/HICKEYS — 𝐠𝐫. 𝟔𝟑 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

george has created a serious problem. you two have been dating for over three years, and he fed from you the first time about three months ago. the problem lies within the fact that he conditioned you to orgasm every time he used you as his glorified high-class wine bottle. on second thought, that’s a pretty good problem to have; his thirst is sated, and yours is as well.

CHAPTER SEVEN: WITCHCRAFT & APHRODISIAC — 𝐩𝐠. 𝟏𝟎 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

witch!reader and potions master!pierre run a shop to fulfill anyone’s magical needs. it’s nearing valentine’s day, and the shop is bombarded with desperate humans looking for love charms & potions, even though there’s no magic spell strong enough to replicate true love. oddly, news travels from a few villages over that there’s a potions master who managed to make a real love potion. pierre has to get his hands on it—for the bit, obviously. there’s no way it will work.

CHAPTER EIGHT: PUSSY WORSHIP — 𝐥𝐧. 𝟒 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

if lando achieved a podium at silverstone, you promised you’d give him anything he wants. he thinks about it the whole race weekend, and when the two of you are celebrating his second-place finish, he tells you that he wants to take care of you. you’re disbelieving–he takes care of you every waking hour. lando, on the other hand, said that with his chest. and he’ll prove it to you.

CHAPTER NINE: ORGASM DENIAL — 𝐜𝐥. 𝟏𝟔 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

the 2023 season has had a despicable effect on charles’ self-worth. it pains you to see how he attributes ferrari’s failure to deliver to himself. you can’t stand to see him berate himself for things that are out of his control. when the emilia-romagna grand prix is understandably canceled, you start forming a plan. if charles doesn’t believe he’s as good as you say he is, you’ll make him internalize it–using any means necessary.

CHAPTER TEN: AB-RIDING & DRY HUMPING — 𝐲𝐭. 𝟐𝟐 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

your mental state is suffering–you’re not sure if you can handle alphatauri posting another thirst trap of your boyfriend to disguise their inability to build a car that doesn’t break within the first ten laps. but, when yuki posts his own half-naked picture on main? he’s asking for it, at this point. clearly, he’s been spending too much time with pierre.

© httpsserene - do not reupload. photos in header image are from pinterest. divider by @cafekitsune.