#D plays infamous IF

[uldren-sov]

With O's valentine story being SO good and cute I was thinking just wtf Seven's could be (beyond just Whitney Houston's Where Do Broken Hearts Go playing on repeat in a sad bar lmao) and kind of got to thinking about like they still have their love of music in common. That's about the only thing they have that they share anymore (and even Seven admits this).

Music is so integral to both Seven and MC's life and it has been for so long now, and even if it may have been what they were destined for, it's still something they chose. Which I think is such a powerful thing for them to have done ...

And then all of this to say, wot if an August Rush-style AU in general, in the vein of the fairy-tale like story it has. How, despite these two people falling for each other at the wrong time, because they are so tied to music, and still so tied to the love they shared, that music - as a kind of magic - will help unite them again.

[thedeadthree]

-`. LEGS 2024 SPOTIFY WRAPPED.

tis the season besties!! the loveliest lovely @leviiackrman tagged me to share my wrapped for this year!! ty jess !!!!!! <3 (and saw @shellibisshe and @statichvm do this as well!)

TAGGING: @griffin-wood, @ruinbringer, @unholymilf, @grapecaseschoices, @risingsh0t, @chuckhansen, @arduath, @queennymeria, @jillvalentinesday, @shadowglens, @jendoe, @florbelles, @faerune, @bloodofvalyria, @loriane-elmuerto, @gortash, @full---ofstarlight, @jackiesarch, @leondaltons, @aponibolinayen, @bbrocklesnar, @d-vx, @captmactavish, @confidentandgood, @quickhacked, @katsigian, @jacobseed, @celticwoman, @alltoowelltv, @fragilestorm, @nokstella, @dekarios, @mrdekarios, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @themysteriouslou, @villainthirst, @envergothash, @inkrys, @avallachs, @gwynbleidd, @amyreads, @minaharkers, @myrkulyte, @pheedraws, @cptcassian and you!

[grapecaseschoices]

I'm so curious as to how hiyam, lala and ori would fare in the world of bg3. What race, class and subclass what they be and would they be a dark urge or a regular tav? And who would they romance and who would they not stand? 🫣

haha. this is such a tough question. especially since i am not dnd world expert [or whatever is between expert and novice]. so come on the journey wif meeee~~

Hiyam:

Hiyam is someone who cares about appearance and success. She cares about her looks, music, and isn't the most social of people -- though she knows how to flirt.

So I feel she might be an undark being. Maybe half/full-drow or duergar. I'm leaning the latter because it seems that drow society is Intense and I don't feel that such an intense society would actually beget Hiyam, though she would probably fit there after birth. Also duergar are dwarves -- and dwarves are creatures of pride [from what I can see] and can be quite snobbish. Plus the duergar we've met are DICKS.

I can see her being a bard, because music. But also because I feel it would get the same reaction from the duergar society as it got from her parents: WTF.

Duergar value toil above all else. Showing emotions other than grim determination or wrath is frowned on in their culture, but they can sometimes seem joyful when at work. They have the typical dwarven appreciation for order, tradition, and impeccable craftsmanship, but their goods are purely utilitarian, disdaining aesthetic or artistic value.

So I can see her being like the cultural hard-work but being like well I like flash and substance, and everyone was like .... was she dropped in the head? Also, I feel Bard works because Hiyam is a flirt -- and she has the allure of a songstress. She isn't traditionally charismatic but she does draw people. Plus vicious mockery and tasha's hideous laughter is perfect for her lmao. I think College of Valour would work best for her because music tells a tale -- I mean most mine do, but she definitely I feel uses her music to recount her experiences or hint at things. But also to talk about certain things she finds important.

Like her beat was definitely upbeat political popsong in game:

"Try as you might but we're not goin' without a fight." "The people have spoken and our spirits aren't broken." "We're a million awoken hearts. We're a million bright lights." "Yeah, we're a million eternities. You try to break us but we'll always be free."

Alternatively, I think half-orc could work for her as well.

Lala:

I want to say Lala is human. Because off the top of my head, I feel they best fit that sort of whimsical race? But maybe gnome. They would be a fat gnome, lmao

Gnome Cunning: You have an advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma Saving Throws.

I would lean with Forest. Because tho they aren't RECLUSIVE but 1. the speak with animals [which lala would mostly just use to speak with cats] and 2. they do value their quiet and own space. They're not very out to the party [tho they are the one to walk to their own beat]. [Though would deep gnome indulge the love of black and rocker aesthetics~? lmao.]

Also for CLASS. Druid doesn't seem -- from what I've seen about druids though they're nature-y, they seem to be very fixated re: a certain ORDER. I suppose they could be like Integrity and do their own thing. Or a barbearian like Kendis.

Would Bard be a cop out? In another life Lala was a math teacher. So, Wizard lmao. [Though infamous Lala probably should be a bard or at least have a background as entertainer. If they were a bard, I feel they'd be college of Lore.] Tentatively I say Divinity or Transmutation sublcass.

Ori:

Ori is defiinitely human. Or half-elf. Jack of all trade: skilled in all, master of none. I also like the 'belonging' element that hits half-elfs, tho. Especially since Ori is mixed and also trans.

I wish artificer was a thing in BG3. Because Ori liked to make model planes and etc. Still does iin infamous but it was a whole connect thing in another time I played him. I really don't know what he would be.

[chemicalbrew]

hi. if i wanted to get into a xeno series which one do you recommend i should start with? i've also been thinking of starting a trails/kiseki series but which one of those fellas should i start with too?

RE: Xeno: there are three different 'arcs' in this series, each related to the other moreso in theming than continuous story\plots. But within each subset there is a definite play order.

There's Xenogears, a single ps1 game from 1998 with troubled development that was supposed to be (iirc) part five of six and spans 2 discs, with the second one famously consisting mostly of text dumps with very brief gameplay breaks. It's easily the most complex work in the series plot-wise, with much of its lore literally hidden away in an artbook. I can't say I regret trying to get into it, but it was very intimidating, and I have no idea why I even bothered to try and do it when I was, like, 16.

There's Xenosaga, a trilogy of games on the ps2. These games are my personal weak point (the only ones I haven't watched\played), which I do plan to eventually fix in the future, but for now, I guess I'll just mention that they exist. This series was also planned to have six episodes rather than three, but from what I was told, it managed to have an ending stretch far less abrupt than Gears.

And then there's Xenoblade, which is easily the most accessible both in the literal sense with the games available on the Switch and in the 'having a digestible plot' sense. It's also, naturally, the most popular part of the franchise and the easiest jumping in point. Technically you can play 1 and 2 in either order, but playing in the exact order (1 then 2) tends to have more impact when it comes to certain story beats. I believe you have to play both before touching 3, though, but I can't vouch for this, because I still haven't played 3 yet (haha, I'm a fraud /j)

Xenogears and the first Xenosaga game had soundtracks composed by Yasunori Mitsuda (of Chrono Trigger\Cross fame), and he also contributed to some extent to Xenoblade 1\2. I'm mentioning this because Mitsuda is my favorite video game composer because this might help spark your interest!

RE: Trails\Kiseki: thankfully, this is much more straightforward. Play in release order, and don't skip anything! (Trails in the Sky FC-SC-3rd, Trails from Zero-to Azure, Trails of Cold Steel I-IV, Trails into Reverie).

Some people tend to suggest you start with Cold Steel instead, because it has a stronger start than Sky FC and also has more modern conveniences, but doing that will make things more complex down the line, since Cold Steel III and onward assume you know what happened in all previous games, including Zero and Azure. Therefore, you would have to have a sudden change in style\look just two games in! I don't see the merit of doing this, unless you really can't stomach the slow burn that Sky offers.

There's also a spinoff called Nayuta: Endless Trails that's scheduled to have an official English release next year. It is (or at least, appears to be) related to the series in nothing but name, but it is a very fun game in its own right with a banger soundtrack to boot, though it plays nothing like the rest of the series, being an action RPG with sectioned-off stages rather than a turnbased RPG set in a hub town\continent. I still can't believe such a niche title is finally getting what it deserves! <3

[prokopetz]

One of the more frequent anecdotes you'll hear from Dungeons & Dragons podcasters is that any time they switch to a system other than D&D, even for a one-off arc, they immediately experience a large drop in listenership – sometimes up to eighty percent! – only to see most of those listeners come back once they switch back to D&D.

What's interesting about this is that the greater part of D&D podcast listeners do not play Dungeons & Dragons. They might have a general idea of what the game's rules look like based on what they've been able to passively absorb from listening to the podcast, but they don't have regular groups, they don't own the rulebooks or maintain subscriptions to the e-book service, and many of them have never rolled a d20 in their lives.

How, then, do we account for that sudden drop in listenership? Why does which system a tabletop roleplaying podcast is using matter so much if most listeners neither know nor care about the rules?

The answer is, unfortunately, quite simple.

In many ways, advocacy for indie RPGs has never moved past Ron Edwards' infamous argument that playing Dungeons & Dragons causes actual, physical brain damage. Deep down, a lot of indie RPG advocacy seems to believe there's something sinister in the structure of D&D that's responsible for what they regard as its unaccountable popularity. You can see this in everything from the casual assumption that D&D players aren't "really" having fun (and all that's needed to convert them to other systems is to show them they've been tricked into falsely believing they're enjoying an objectively un-fun activity), to the rambling thinkpieces that talk about getting folks to try other games like they're liberating people from the fucking Matrix.

Yet we come back to the same problem: how can the mechanical structure of D&D be implicated for its culturally dominant position in the minds of those who've never picked up a twenty-sided die?

The truth is that Dungeons & Dragons enjoys cultural dominance, both within the hobby and elsewhere, because it's owned by the same multinational corporation that owns Monopoly and My Little Pony, and benefits from all the marketing strength its owner can bring to bear. The problem, in brief, is brand loyalty. The aforementioned podcasts lose listeners in droves whenever they give a non-D&D system a spin because all most of those departing listeners care about is whether the thing that they're listening to is called "Dungeons & Dragons". The structural particulars of the mechanics are irrelevant.

The bitter pill we've got to swallow as indie RPG authors is that we can't fix brand loyalty in tabletop RPGs by fucking around with the shape of the dice. There are lots of productive causes we can support to help address the problem, but they mostly have do to with intellectual property and antitrust regulations and such, which are areas where our finely honed ability to debate the correct way to pretend to be an elf is of very limited utility.

Like, I enjoy an abstruse argument about the ideology of dice-rolling as much as the next nerd, but let's not fool ourselves that we're speaking truth to power here. The gamer who just wants to roll dice to hit the dragon with their sword is not your enemy.

[dezertvideogames]

The Subnautica of other fears

Subnautica is a game infamous for it's almost all ocean planet, underwater worldbuilding, and deep sea gameplay. It's also the bane of all thalassaphobia peeps.

So here's the subnautica of other phobias

Claustrophobia Fear of Tight/Cramped Spaces - The Forest Series : After a plane crash leaves you stranded in a strange forests, something increasingly becomes... wrong. The caves around don't help.

Scopophobia Fear of being watched or the center of attention - Brighter Day : A weirdcore horror game where something is definitely watching you and definitely following you.

Entomophobia/Arachnophobia - Grounded : You play a group of kids who are stuck in a "honey I shrunk the kids" incident. They are forced to venture across their yard, and survive the various common insects around.

Megalophobia Fear of very very very big things - The Utility Room : An experience. More of an experience then a game and fever dreamish, worth it, and mysterious all the way. It's almost as if the universe accidentally left one strange dev room behind.

Nyctophobia Fear of darkness - Amnesia: The Bunker (from the Amnesia series) : It's a first-person survival horror. You play a French man trapped in a bunker during WW1, while being hunted by something inside its darkness.

Autophobia Fear of being/feeling alone - Firewatch : You work in a national park in order to watch out for fires. Traveling across the Wyoming wilderness takes a complicated turn.

Hemophobia Fear of blood or bleeding - Iron Lung : What awaits you in the deep of a strange moon. Trapped in a submarine you have no choice but to find out.

Amaxophobia Fear of car accidents or being run over - Decimate Drive : After freeing yourself from a kidnapping, the world you wake up to is full of hostile cars.

Final Boss Games:

Lethal Company

Fun with friends :D

Genre: Indie Comedy Horror

Takes place on alien planets in outerspace

It's multiplayer, and very fun, but as soon as it hits the fan the sound design works hard to immerse you in the sudden loneliness. The games sound design is one the major players of Lethal Company's fear. As soon as a friend walks away the proximity chat teaches you just how separated you now are.

Before you know it you have had something unfriendly following behind you, and finally finding the silhouette of a friend in the dark you are betrayed by the creatures of the Lethal Company universe.

Fear of Darkness

Fear of Loneliness

Fear of Being Watched

Fear of Outerspace

The Metro Series

Genre: Survival Horror Shooter

You play the beautiful and amazing Artyom Chynornyj in the post-apocalyptic world of Metro. Developed by Ukrainians and based off the Russian book series + Polish fanon writing community.

The world of Metro is unfair and unforgiving, full of mutated creatures, and the leftover souls that the destruction of humanity left in it's wake. Crawl across the underground of Russian cities, or panic across the even more dangerous world of the destroyed above.

Fear of Darkness

Fear of Wild Animals

Fear of Deep Water

Fear of Ghost/The Supernatural

Fear of Insects/Spider

Fear of Heights

Fear of Dead Bodies

Fear of the Cold

No Man's Sky

The scariest game I've ever played. I don't know why, but this game freaks me out. I know the picture I chose was harmless, but I did that on purpose.

This game is beautiful, but don't let that fool ya. This world will leave you no hesitation lost in the unpredictable randomly generated horrors of space. From planet that are all water, to colossus creatures you see for only a split second, to the infinite colorless expanse of space.

Megalphobes and astrophobes, this is your subnautica

Fear of Outerspace

Fear of Darkness

Fear of Cramped Spaces

Fear of the Unknown

Fear of Very Very Very Big Things

Fear of Deep Water

Fear of Loneliness

Fear of Caves

Fear of the Supernatural

[starflirts]

I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU (HOW YOU'RE THE ONE THAT I TURN TO)

in which you and percy must navigate the intricacy of love and glory in the midst of terror percy jackson x ares! reader, wc: 1.8k, warning: violence, description of wounds/blood, note: thank you so much for requesting!!! and yes, i picked the quest members randomly SUE ME

Percy was busy this summer. On top of his daily activities at camp, the Oracle had bestowed on him a particularly tedious quest which he eagerly accepted, not one to miss out on adventure. But the last few days have been tough for everyone. The quest Percy and his friends had taken on proved to be way more demanding than expected and monsters seemed to constantly appear out of nowhere. Looking over his shoulder to ensure everyone was okay, he noticed you trailing behind Annabeth and Thalia, backpack slung over your shoulder. Even with tired eyes and a couple of cuts on your face, you were the prettiest being he’d ever seen.

“I think we can stop here for the night,” his voice cuts into the silence of the early evening. “we’re not far off our destination and if Thalia's mapping is correct we might be a few days early. That’s great news !” 

The rest of the group nodded, each setting down their bags and stretching. “Thalia and I are gonna settle here, call us if you guys need anything.” Annabeth said, to which Percy acquiesced.

As soon as they moved off, Percy's gaze turned to you, sitting on a rock with your backpack on your knees, looking away.  

“Hey angel,” he approached you, one hand brushing your arm before settling himself by your side. “How are you holding up ?”

Looking at him for a brief second, you shrugged, opting to play with your dagger, a gift from your father, the infamous god of war. 

Taking your silence for an invitation to continue, Percy adds: “I can’t believe we made it this far so quickly you know ? Everything is going smoothly and if we get back to camp this early Chiron might see us fit for another outing !” 

His words feel like pit scorpion stingers and you close your eyes, huffing through your nose. That's when he notices how taut your shoulders are. He frowns, attempting to meet your eyes. “Hey, what’s wrong ?” he tentatively rubs your back. “Do you need anything ? I might have a few snacks Grover packed before we left..”

The mention of your friend back at camp half-blood makes your stomach clench. You miss Grover, you miss camp. Hades, Mr D’s stupid shirts are even starting to grow on you. This quest seemed to go on forever and you wished Percy wouldn’t be so stubborn about it. Putting your stuff away you sigh, looking up towards the stars slowly coming out of hiding. “I don’t need anything Percy.” you answer dryly. 

You can see him from the corner of your eye, looking at you skeptically. “Is this because we’re still on the road ? You know the worst is over, I think we’re in the clear about monsters and all… And then, if everything goes exactly as planned we’ll be back at camp in a couple of days.”

You press the heel of your hands against your eyes, as if his voice was enough to give you a headache. “I don’t care, Percy. I don’t wanna know about that stupid plan or those stupid monsters. The quest is the only thing that has been coming out of your mouth ever since Chiron told you to go talk to the Oracle. Even when we’re at camp you only seem to care about going away !” you finally snap, staring at him crossly. 

Percy’s confused, you can see it in the way his brows furrow. “Listen, it’s- it’s important, okay ? These quests, these prophecies, they’re vital if you want to prove yourself, to grow stronger ! How do you think we’d be doing in the real world without this ?”

You sigh, toying with your bracelet, a gift your boyfriend had given you last summer. “That’s not what I meant Percy ! You’re just so… You give your all to all of this and I understand, I admire you for that ! But it sucks to see you risk everything so often, to see you come back all hurt and bruised.” 

“Would you like it better if I stayed at camp and did nothing then ?” it’s his turn to get upset, arms crossed as he stares at you. 

“No ! Of course not ! I just wished you knew how to take care of yourself and others at the same time ! You’re all up in your head sometimes, barely acknowledging me, or anyone else for that matter !” you let out an annoyed laugh. 

“Oh so you’re mad because we can’t hang out like we used to ? Come on, you know how serious that is ! Of course I care about you but this is important too !”

You scoff, turning away from the boy. “Glory is important to you, I get it ! It’s what runs in your blood. But why can’t you see how it affects others, me ?”   

Percy runs a hand in his hair, obviously distressed. He calls out your name, a hint of dejection in his voice. “I think the journey has taken a toll on you. We should talk about it, about us ! You don’t mean that.” he reaches out but you step away. “Yeah, right. Is there even an us right now ? Maybe I’m just a hindrance. You’d definitely do greater things without me pestering you” you breathe out, angrily wiping your eyes. 

Your words slice his heart and you can see a twinge of sadness in his eyes. “Come on–”

He barely has time to finish this sentence when Annabeth yells from behind: “Watch out !” Briskly turning around, the boy is faced with two enormous hellhounds. Drawing out his beloved Riptide, Percy slashes the air, attempting to get the monsters to back off. When the two creatures jump forward instead, Percy’s mind goes blank. He can only think about everyone’s survival. In his line of vision, he can see Annabeth and Thalia actively defending themselves. But he can’t see nor hear you and that’s enough to make his heart beat ten times quicker. He can’t afford to diverge his attention right now but he knows you, he knows you can put up a fight. You’re not the pride of Ares’ cabin for nothing after all. 

One down, Percy thinks as his sword pierces through the monster’s fur. Brushing off the dust sticking to his face with bloodied knuckles, he turns around in horror as he hears a bloodcurdling scream. Your scream. His feet drive him to you as fast as they can, only to find you wrestling with the remaining hellhound on the ground, its fangs sinking into your flesh. 

Percy sees red. He lunges at the creature, weapon raised. Within a few minutes, what remains of the monster is the flickering black dust disappearing in the moonlight. Out of breath, Percy rushes to your side when he notices you’re not getting up. 

“Hey hey ! It’s over, you’re- you're okay.” His hands on your shoulders, “C’mon, we gotta get you up.” He tries to get you in a seating position but the whimper you let out makes his heart clench. You grab his shoulder with a shaky hand, throat prickling as you attempt to tell him something. 

“Hurts Percy…it hurts…” and that’s when he notices the gash on your lower stomach, shirt ripped to shreds and blood dripping down. A wave of nausea hits him but he holds on, applying pressure on your wound. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, we’re- we’re gonna get you back to camp, we’re gonna help you. Just… Just talk to me yn, don’t close your eyes.” Percy’s hands shake as he tries to keep you conscious while Thalia and Annabeth fumble around him with a makeshift stretcher. 

Even now, Percy is still amazed at how fast they all ran back to camp, guilt plaguing his mind as Chiron and a couple of dryads took your inert body and carried you to the infirmary. 

The next few days are awful. Percy’s at the edge of your bed night and day, feeding you nectar and ambrosia, dabbing the sweat off your forehead when you strike up a fever, helplessly watching a kid from the Apollo cabin change your bandages. When you finally come out, he’s sat at the edge of your bed, head in his hands. 

The sun peaking out from the closed curtains is still too bright when you open your eyes. You frown, slowly raising your arm to cover them. The rustling of sheets has Percy whipping his head in your direction and even in your daze, you can see his shoulders sag with relief.

“Hey…” he says softly. 

“Wha– what happened ?” you speak out, voice husky.  

He’s sitting next to you within seconds, hand gently holding yours. You can see he’s trying really hard to find the right words, to tell you exactly how his nightmare played out. “We…We were on the way back to camp after our quest. We were all exhausted and- and we fought… I’m so sorry yn,” he pauses, voice shaky. “We didn’t have time to talk things through… Two hellhounds appeared out of nowhere and by the time I turned to look for you I– I  saw you on the ground. You were fighting the monster but he got you really bad and when he was gone I wanted to see if you were okay and– and you weren’t.. There was so much blood and you were in so much pain and–”

You squeeze his hand twice, cutting him off. He looks at you and this time you can clearly see the tears forming at his lash line. 

“It’s okay Percy,” you smile weakly, thumb drawing circles on his skin. “We made it, you made it.”

He shakes his head, closing his eyes for a few seconds. “No, no it’s not. I was terrified when we brought you here. I was mad at myself for fighting with you and I was so, so scared to lose you. I kept repeating our last interaction in my head and thinking that those words might’ve been our last made me realize how stupid I am for not noticing how I hurt you. You’re right. I get too much in my head. And… I can’t do anything when I’m not with you. I know this might sound silly but I need you with me all the time.”

You let out a small chuckle. “It’s fine Percy. I am partially to blame too y’know… I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I– I didn’t mean what I said. Of course there’s still an us. I guess I got too much in my head too.” you smile at him sheepishly. “And I hope you know I wouldn’t deal so nicely with any of this demigod bullshit if you weren’t by my side all the time.” you add with a mischievous smirk and Percy’s heart swells. 

Resting his forehead against yours, his hands are on your face, thumbs stroking your cheekbones. “We’ll be alright angel. We’ll always be alright as long as we’re together.”

[ellitx]

Entrapment | Alastor x Reader

Okay, hear me out. Alastor being a darling husband he is with his darling wifey is cute and all, but what about a darling wanting to escape from Alastor himself?

word count: 2.3k

warnings: alastor is enough to be a warning already, depictions of blood and gore, toxic and unhealthy dynamic

When you were still alive, he always had his eyes on you and controlled you like his little puppet. You hated it, you hated being commanded and controlled for every little thing you did and if you even dared run away from him, he’d always manage to find you. You hate every atomic part of his existence so much that you’d be willing to kill yourself just so you could escape and get that taste of freedom.

But you can’t and he won’t let you.

Alastor would never allow the tip of the knife nor even a simple piece of office equipment reach your hands. And if someone has the audacity to touch his play toy, it’s time to say goodbye.

You know he’s a malicious murderer, and he knows that you know about it. If you’re feeling brave enough to tell it to the police then go ahead, because by the time you report this to them and leave the station, the next day you find yourself throwing up yesterday’s dinner upon hearing the cops were all dead.

No one will ever believe you that the infamous radio host of your city is a murderer. For a puny citizen like you, what power do you hold to convince everyone? They’ll laugh it off and say you’re crazy.

But it’s crazier how they are all deceived by the facade he puts on. His knife plunged into the chest of your coworker, their blood spluttering on his cheek.

Alastor’s wide smile was strained and wicked, the image of the blood dripping from your head and lips when he entered the broadcasting booth was as clear as his collection of polished knives.

The audacity to lay a hand on you and push you down the stairs. Do they have the right to push you off? Of course not! He’s the only one who could torment you until you break!

He’s the only one who could tarnish your being and leave a wounded mark on your soul and heart, a reminder for you there’s no one but himself who could make you so powerless and helpless.

Do they have the right to make you so confused? To put all the blame on you, as if you were the worst person in the world? To try their best to tear you apart piece by piece? Because, after all, it’s always the fault of someone else, right? The audacity to hurt you more than any human has ever hurt another human being before… The nerve to be sure you will never find true happiness again because you're now scarred for life.

He thrust the blade again, the rains of scarlet droplets continued to pour until his face and glasses were doused.

But he didn’t let it hinder him from making sure they were as good as dead. He lifted his head and took a glimpse at the sky above. It was gloomy, gray, and dark. Not much sunshine.

Alastor smiled, stabbing the knife at the corpse's chest before wiping off his glasses with his clean napkin. Then an idea clicked onto him.

It's the perfect time to give you a little visit.

He laughed under his breath and stood up straight.

He knew his outfit was not in good condition, but oh well... Perhaps, he’d instead leave a gift for you on your porch. Oh, how he wished he could make an unexpected appearance, just to witness the shock and horror on your face as Alastor comes to the hospital drenched in a coat of glistening crimson.

The anticipation of your reaction fueled his excitement, the more he thought about it, the bigger his grin became. If this would truly happen, it will surely be a sight to behold.

Still fragile from your time in the hospital, you stepped through the threshold of your home.

You missed the sight of its familiar structure, the only space you feel safe and protected, away from Alastor and your colleagues.

A sense of relief washed over you. The familiar sights and comforting aura of your own space enveloped you like a warm embrace. But something was different, something unexpected awaited you.

There on the polished surface of your entryway sat an elegantly wrapped box, its rich paper adorned with intricate patterns and tied with a luxurious ribbon. Your fingers traced the smooth edges of the packaging and you checked for any signs who sent it. Alas, no name was found.

Who could have left this for you? And why now, upon your return from the hospital?

You had a bad feeling about it.

As you carefully untied the ribbon and peeled back the layers of paper, you stared wide-eyed at the contents hidden within.

Severed limbs, skin deathly pale and stiff.

Your stomach turned violently and you threw the box away from you, the gift spilling across the floor.

"Oh god, oh my god, what the fuck?!"

You were shaking. What was this? Was this a threat? A sick joke? Your heart thudded heavily in your chest, each beat pounding like thunder. You took a step back and stumbled, falling hard to the floor.

It didn't stop there.

Wounds inflicted on every part of your body, the scars on you began to open, rendering the healing done by doctors and nurses useless.

Wounds made by knives, claws, scissors, guns. Every imaginable instrument of torture. You cried out loud. Your voice pierced the quiet of the night, disturbing the tranquility of the neighborhood.

It was a perpetual and horrid nightmare. Just closing your eyes for even a millisecond, the image of his wide creepy smile flashed before you. You could hear his dark cackles, enjoying the sight of your vulnerable form as he tormented you in and out of your work.

“Run as far as you want, dear. In the end, I’ll always be ahead of you.”

The worst part was not knowing when he would strike next. He could appear anywhere at any time.

And it was all because of his sick game.

You didn't know what to do anymore. How long did you have to keep running from him? How many more days did you have to hide from the world? You were so tired of this, tired of having to live in fear of the monster that hunted you.

But God had finally heard your pleas and granted the wish you’ve been wanting for so long. So when the news came to you that the notorious radio host was dead, relief and happiness flooded every vein in your body.

You rejoiced, celebrating the death of the one who had terrorized you for a long time.

The nightmare was finally over.

The radio station was sullen by the news of their popular host, but you didn’t care. Your work became more efficient. You didn’t feel the need to be so wary and anxious by every move you made in the station. You have finally gained your freedom and the chain that was tied to him has shattered.

This was the best thing you could ever ask for.

Even on your deathbed, it was the best dream. Years without Alastor torturing and tormenting you was bliss. A man’s greatest wealth of freedom.

But then, the dream quickly turned into a nightmare, for it was never over. The demon who you thought was dead rose once again. It was only then you realized that he was never human in the first place. He was a monster.

And now, it was you who were caught in his web.

"My, what a wonderful reunion. Did you miss me, darling?”

The demon before you was mysterious.

Unfamiliar.

But his aura and voice screamed for you, the alarms in your body ringing, to run away from him as far as you possibly can.

The wide smile plastered on his face was all too familiar. Too familiar to be hated in the living and the dead. You’d be a fool if you didn’t recognize it.

You knew who he was. You just kept on denying what was the truth, brushing all the facts laid before you beneath the rag, and keeping your pretty little head away from the politics of Hell.

A demon who is powerful, dangerous, and cruel.

A demon who was feared by the other demons in Hell. A demon who is not to be messed with.

Alastor. The Radio Demon.

It was a miracle, or rather a curse, that you were brought back to life. But now you are a prisoner to this Hell. Trapped inside an inescapable cage with a dangerous beast, you could only hope that your second death would come quickly and peacefully.

But it seemed that fate was not on your side, and Alastor was the ever cruel demon. He did not scar you easily and instead prolonged your suffering, making your life a living torture.

Beads of sweat rolled from your temple. Your hands began to tremble and you felt yourself slowly succumbing to your fear. You had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

You were cornered, trapped.

Alastor had you where he wanted.

You watched him closely, eyes locked on him and every single movement. If he did something, you would see it.

"Are you frightened, dear?" he asked. His eyes met yours and he smiled. "There is no need to be afraid."

"Stay back! Don't touch me!" you shouted at him. The corners of his lips curled up, his smile turning sinister.

"Now, now, let's not act too hastily."

His gloved hand reached out and caressed your cheek, sending shivers down your spine. His red eyes bore into your soul, burning with hunger.

You couldn't bear to look at him. You didn't want him touching you.

"Don't," you whimpered.

"Don't be afraid. You have no reason to be afraid."

Rivers of tears streamed down your cheeks as the fear overwhelmed you. You didn't want him touching you. This man... He was the same one who hurt you, who ruined you.

"Why? Why are you doing this? Why are you here?"

The smile on his face grew wider.

"Do I need a reason? It’s obvious why we’re here," he replied, cocking his head to the side, eyes piercing through your eyes and consuming every little bit of your reactions in his head.

You gulped and stepped back, trying to create some distance between you and him.

"What are you going to do with me?"

He chuckled. "What a silly question! Would a little reacquaintance hurt?"

Reacquaintance? He was talking like this was a casual meeting. Like you were old friends reuniting. But this was the man who hurt you.

"What's the meaning of this?” You sobbed, shaking your head.

Alastor laughed loudly, his grin never faltering, and it makes you sick he finds everything amusing. An entertainment for his delight.

"You never fail to amuse me, dear. Aren’t you the one who killed me?” His antlers grew, his pupils changed to radio dials and his shadow stretched out of him, becoming more demonic in appearance.

You trembled. Your heart beat faster, your legs felt weak, and your mouth was dry.

"I... I…."

He stepped closer, and you stepped back.

Nothing came out of your lips. The words you wanted to say were stuck in your throat. You didn't want to look him in the eyes but his gaze held your chin up high, forcing you to face him. He smiled, and his eyes turned back to normal.

The knees that kept you upright gave in, unable to stabilize you any longer as your body slumped onto the rough pavement.

"Oh, darling," he sighed, the radio static in his voice disappeared as he crouched down. 

Your gaze remained fixed on the ground, avoiding any chance encounter with Alastor's piercing stare. Instead, your eyes trailed to his cane, a silent witness to the tense atmosphere between you.

You dared not meet those fiery red optics that seemed to delve into the depths of your very being, dissecting every nuance of your expression. Fingers clenched tightly, you seek some form of solace in the texture of the barren earth beneath you, as though it could take you amidst the storm brewing within.

Alastor took your chin between his fingers and delighted your vulnerable form. Your eyes were bloodshot and puffy and cheeks stained with tears.

"Fate has intertwined us together, dear. Run from me, I’ll always find you."

You didn't know what was more cruel—being brought to hell when you only wished for peace or being toyed around with him after death.

The nightmare you once thought had finally ceased returned to resume its cycle in the afterlife.

"I'll never get away from you..." You said, voice low and wavering. All hope was lost and so was your faith to continue living in this fiery pit of Hell.

"That's right. Good girl," He patted your head, taking a few strands of your hair and twirling it between his fingers. You fought the impulse to recoil, suppressing the urge to swat his hand away. 

The consequence of such defiance weighed heavily on your mind; after all, provoking one of hell's overlords was a gamble you weren't willing to take. So you held your ground, masking your inner turmoil beneath a facade of obedience, unsure of what consequences awaited should you dare to challenge the infernal authority before you.

In the dim light, his hand tenderly brushed away the tear tracing its path down your cheek. But as your eyes met his, a glint of something primal flickered in the darkness, casting an eerie glow upon his sharp, yellowed teeth.

Upon the moonlight, his crimson irises blazed like embers, drawing you into their hypnotic depths with an intensity that sent shivers down your spine.

"But fear not, darling. I can promise you a good time. And now that I found you again, we can pick up from where we left off. It will be just like old times."

[chlorinecake]

Okay this is my first time doing one of these but could you do like how the enhypen members would react to seeing you practice their part in the choreography of one of their songs

「 ✦ enha reaction’s WHEN YOU LEARN THEIR PART IN A DANCE CHOREOGRAPHY ✦ 」

𓂃 𓈒 or when they see you dance for the first time

idol bf ! 엔하이픈 x non idol ! f. reader ⃘ 🎧

contains ∿ 🧋 pet names, kisses & teasing genre fluff, crack, est. dating 1192 words

𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆 ✴︎

He would be quite impressed honestly, taking pride in his sweet girlfriend wanting to mirror his talent in some way.

“You gotta get the head isolation down at this part, though,” he critiqued, putting a finger to his lips while dancing Sweet Venom.

“Well, if it looks wrong, blame yourself, because that’s who I’ve been copying this whole time,” you teased, poking him in the side of his waist and making him chuckle.

“Hmm… maybe your performance just needs a little bedazzling... Be right back!”

Your boyfriend ran out of the dancing studio, telling you to close your eyes once he came back before nestling a cowgirl hat atop your head like an angel on a Christmas tree.

You reacted immediately upon seeing your reflection in the mirror, a now smiley Heeseung standing behind your frame, “What?! Wait- When did you get this?”

Literally your face right now: 😭 

“People don’t call me an ace for nothing, babe. Now c’monnn, let’s dance together this time…,” he urged in a sing-songy voice, playfully tugging at your hands while spinning you around, “I wanna see my pretty cowgirl dance for me some more...”

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐉𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆 ✴︎

“Yeah, I literally have the world’s coolest girlfriend now…,” Jay huffed proudly, giving you a kiss on the crown of your head after catching you dance in the living room.

“Now? What do you mean now?!?!,” you asked offendedly, pouting at him slightly.

“This wasn’t exactly how I planned to bring this up, but are you ready to become my Mrs. Park?”

“I've been ready since the day we met, Jay,” you smiled, burying your face in his chest while hugging him, “But I would've danced your part in a song a lot sooner if I knew it'd get me a ring...”

“Oh? So a diamond is all you want me for now? Wowwww, babe-”

You gave him a look that automatically let him know you weren't too fond of the comment he just made, “Kidding” he said, ruffling your hair playfully, “I know you love me... enough to copy me, apparently.”

“Should we break out in synchronized dancing now?” You offered, playing Sacrifice Eat Me Up from the beginning on your phone.

“Yes… but only if you can keep up with me, of course.”

*Insert Jay's infamous Roblox smirk*

𝐒𝐈𝐌 𝐉𝐀𝐄𝐘𝐔𝐍 ✴︎

The definition of 🧍‍♂️when you pulled him aside to show off the new choreography you'd been working on for the past hour.

Goofy laugher pt. 1

“Is this actually happening right now?,” he asked while laughing shyly, just after you finished ✨performing✨ for him…

“What do you mean? D-did it look bad?,” you asked worriedly, part of your heart still feeling warm though from hearing his shy giggle earlier.

“No, no, you did great, it’s just… why my part?” He continued, hoping to draw the conversation in a different direction, given how flustered he truly felt.

“Because you look hot while doing it... I felt inspired,” you said cheekily, walking up to Jake and placing your hands on his chest, Jake’s hands wrapping around your waist as he looked back down at you.

“Babe, you can’t say stuff like that then act all playful without expecting my brain to short-circuit,” he sighed, face heating up as he looked back down at your giggling frame within the hug.

“Well, did I at least do your part in the dance any justice or did that make your brain-malfunctioning even worse?,” you pouted with puppy-dog eyes as if to persuade his anger, even though you already could tell he liked it.

“No, love… I'm just in shock, honestly... you did criminally well.”

*Insert second-hand embarrassment from Jake's corny ahh pun*

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐍 ✴︎

Sunghoon was initially kinda salty about you having locked yourself up in the garage all morning on his day off, but all those feelings went away once he caught on to what you were up to.

“Hey, I didn’t say you could come in here,” you yelped, just as your boyfriend barged in the garage, catching you mid dance move.

You had been practicing Chaconne because you knew it was one of his favorite songs and you figured it'd cheer him to see you supporting his interests.

“Don’t mind me,” he started, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, “I’m just observing... please, continue.”

“God, Hoon, you’re embarrassing me,” you whined, covering your face from the way he was staring you up and down in this moment.

“It’s cute, though… watching you stress yourself out trying to dance like me when the pro's been one call away this whole time.”

The pro?, you thought to yourself, the self-proclaimed title being enough to snap you out of your bashfulness.

“I might’ve been practicing for a while, but I’m already doing some parts better than you,” you scoffed competitively, making him laugh at your words to the point where his dimples started showing.

“Cocky and shy? What an interesting combination… did you get that from me, too?”

𝐊𝐈𝐌 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐎𝐎 ✴︎

Sunoo smiled knowingly as he walked into the dance studio, grabbing a nearby rag to pat-dry the sweat on your face, “you’ve been avoiding me all day and working out like crazy, so what’s going on?”

“I’ve been working on this tough choreography, actually … but since you’re here, maybe you can help?”

“Oh, okay,” he chirped, watching as you started to dance out the steps to Fever, stopping when you got to the part you’d been struggling with.

“How do you do this part? It just looks so much better when you do it…,” your voice stalled as you saw his cheeks expand with a smile on the mirror, “SUNOO!?”

Goofy laugher pt. 2–

The guy was quite literally laughing his ass off at you right now, feeling both a mix of embarrassment and flattery at your actions.

He noticed you pouting, covering his mouth to stall his giggles before speaking, “I’m sorry babe, you just looked so cute while dancing, I couldn’t hold back!”

“It’s supposed to look sexy though,” you whined, knowing that it’d get him to hug you in response.

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐖𝐎𝐍 ✴︎

“So is this your new idea of teasing me?,” Jungwon asked upon getting back home from work, the first thing in sight being you in front of the TV, quite literally passing the mic to one of his fancams.

You audibly scoffed at his words, pausing the video and giving him a look, “This is hardly teasing, Wonie… just ‘cause I’m your girlfriend, it doesn’t mean I can’t fangirl over you from time to time…”

He sat his duffel bag on the ground, walking up to give you his usual ‘I’m home’ kiss and hug before responding, “Fine then… but you definitely need to keep practicing that footwork if you want me to take you seriously.”

“Heyyy,” you whined, playfully smacking his shoulder which only made him laugh at how adorable you look, “now who’s teasing?”

𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐀 𝐑𝐈𝐊𝐈 ✴︎

“Okay, I do not stick my butt out like that when I do it. Watch,” Niki corrected, initially having cringed upon catching you dance Bite Me, but had now turned your little activity into a whole ass dance-off.

“Yes, you 110% do... you always have to babygirl-ify the dance moves,” you replied matter-of-factly, starting from the pre-chorus and flipping your hair more than necessary just like him.

“I know you’re about to start spewing trash whenever you use made up words,” he scoffed with fake annoyance, trying to hide the smile tugging at his lips after seeing you dance so passionately.

“Stop, I can tell you’re smiling! Just admit that you’re impressed by me, Riki, and take the L… or W since you have a talented girlfriend…”

“Fine… you’re right… I am highly impressed… both by your dancing skills and choice of vocabulary,” he confessed playfully, giving you a side hug and kissing the top on your head.

“Maybe we should work towards debuting as a couple duo now... I just know that everyone would bias us…,” he thought out loud, making you giggle at his words.

tysm for reading this quick lil fic ✗⚬ﾒ𝟶 a/n ℓօⓥe always ⋆⋆⋆

𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐦 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ( 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 💌 ) @squoxle @nikisdubblchococake @wonbinisbabygurl @ashgonedash @yourmomscuntis2tighy @watamotee33 @addictedtohobi @microwvdstrawb3rri3s

[lady-of-endless]

Reactions to their s/o wearing Valentine lingerie as a surprise? (Law, Corazon, and Katakuri pls❣️)

Their reaction to lingerie for Valentine's Day headcanons (Trafalgar D Water Law, Rosiante Donquixote - Corazon, Charlotte Katakuri)

Author's Note: Slightly nsfw! These 3 in a spicy request? Yes, please...Thank you so much for this one, I love it too much! Happy Valentine's Day, btw 💕 Hope you'll like those!

Trafalgar D Water Law

- Your lingerie of choice for him would be dark red, a classic and a reminder of what day it is. He never cared for Valentine's Day before you, it's possible for him to forget about it.

- Let's assume that you want to tease him, to finally get revenge for all the times he teased you mercilessly. You're wearing a loose top and somehow, as you were walking, with him behind you, the top dropped from your shoulder, revealing a red strap. You made it look like an accident but he saw right through you. Law squints his eyes noticing the strap and his stare goes a little lower on your body. As he assumed, he also noticed a red band peeking from the waistband of your trousers.

- Your little game stops when you hear from behind the infamous words: "Room - Shambles". When you blink you're precisely in the middle of his bedroom because of his ability.

- Once you reveal the lingerie fully, you'll hear the longest sigh he ever let out, slowly shaking his head. His eyes will scan each detail of it. Even if he keeps his composure, the dilatation of his pupils betrays him. He puts his hands in his pockets so that you won't see him clenching his fists.

- Law will tell you to stay where you are in the middle of his bedroom as he slowly starts circling you, a growing smirk on his face. You can tell he likes what he sees and that he's putting his wants on hold. Why? Because he wants to get you a nice blush on your cheeks to match the lingerie, he would say. Expect slow and soft touches of his fingers along your back and waist, and then unexpected slaps of the elastic of the lingerie against your skin as he pulls on it and lets it go. He won't stop until you're begging for him to stop messing around. He hopes that moment comes fast because it's hard for him to resist.

- He won't even ask for permission to rip it off. If you're complaining, he'll just shut you up by biting your lip and saying that he'll get you a new one.

Rosiante Donquixote (Corazon)

- Your lingerie of choice for him would be white and lacey or pastel pink with some embroidered little hearts like the ones from his favorite shirt. However, I think that the white lacey lingerie would destroy him.

- You don't want to tease him but you do want it to be a surprise he'll discover. You two are in a heated private moment on a couch. Corazon starts praising, and complimenting you because he couldn't do it during the day because of his disguise and slowly unbutton your shirt. As he kisses your neck with a blush on his face, he opens his eyes and notices the lingerie. He stops in his tracks.

- His flustered expression switches to a slightly serious one. You think that the speed of his changing expressions is because of his skill as a spy but right now, it's because his mind got clouded by obscene ideas. He asks you to stand up and strip so that he can see it fully. "Can you do it for me?"

- You take off everything else, revealing the lingerie while he leans back on the couch, legs slightly spread, eyes fixated on you. He takes in the full image and he feels the need to light up a cigarette and tame a drag to prevent himself from jumping on you.

- Corazon won't need to act as mute anymore because he genuinely became mute at that moment. However, his hungry stare spoke louder than words. He'll gesture you to come closer and sit on his thigh. As you're sitting there, he'll let his fingers softly slide over the details of the garments as he sighs.

- He's not going to rip it off, he appreciates the look too much. And also, he likes playing with those ribbons and bows like you're his present.

Charlotte Katakuri

- Your lingerie of choice for him will be black lingerie with lots of straps. We've seen his aesthetic with that black vest, boots, a lot of belts, and straps. How would it be if you decided to go for it as well? It would be the end of him.

- Once you start to undress and reveal your surprise for him. Katakuri's eyes will grow wider and his breathing will become slightly shallow. He has always admired how soft your features are and to see you in such a bold outfit? He'll pull onto his scarf a little higher on his face to hide his blush and he'll clear his throat because of how unsure of his voice.

- Sure, you look absolutely gorgeous, but what gets him more flustered is the fact that you wanted to wear that, especially for him. That's what gets him weak.

- Because he is so damn tall, he can't see the full set properly. He will just kneel before you, putting his large hands on your hips and pulling your body close to his face, looking up at you with enamored eyes.

(something like this but he's kneeling: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/74/6e/98/746e981b15d3019deea14edcd9dd3df4--forgive-me-romantic-places.jpg )

- He'll start kissing your hips, still looking up at you, hands sliding to your thighs. Please run your fingers through his hair as he does this. There's something about seeing Katakuri, this mountain of a man, a warrior, feeling so comfortable being at someone's mercy. He's bewitched with you and he wants to take his time to show his adoration before letting himself indulge in his desires.

- He'll ask for your permission before ripping it to pieces, grunting. Expect him to even rip a part of it with his teeth, as he gets more impatient.

[spirit-lanterns]

FAST AND FURIOUS

synopsis: you catch the eye of the infamous street racer.

featuring: kafka, serval, seele, stelle, bronya

rating: 18+ n.s.fw (men and minors dni)

warnings: street racer! AU, dom! afab female reader (bronya), sub! afab female reader (kafka, serval, seele, stelle), car se.x, fingering, se.x while driving, cunnilingus, face riding, strap on, illegal street racing (obviously).

art credits: initial D

KAFKA

Street racer Kafka! Who catches you staring at her when she pulls up to the starting line in her sleek, jet black car. It’s smooth and elegant, just like her, as she beckons you to come over to her window, gloved finger enticing you to come closer…

Street racer Kafka! Who takes your hand into hers and plants a sweet kiss to your wrist. Her bold, red lipstick marks you as hers as she flashes you a flirty wink through the window. “For good luck, sweet girl. When I win, I want to take you home with me…”

Street racer Kafka! Who smirks when you shamelessly grow flustered and agree, letting you walk back to the crowd as she gets ready to win the race of a lifetime for you. She had plans of where to take you tonight after all. You were the one she was after, not the prize money…

Street racer Kafka! Who, as you may have guessed, wins the race by a landslide as she pulls back up to the starting line and gets out of the car, smirking and sweeping back her sweaty hair as she wanted nothing more than to get her prize. You. 

Street racer Kafka! Who chuckles as you fawn over her and pulls you in by the waist to kiss you, placing her sunglasses over your head and officially sealing you as her prize for tonight. And maybe forever, who knows…

Street racer Kafka! Who drives you back to her hotel with you in her car. Her hand on your thigh as you can’t help but follow it as it goes up up up… practically stroking up to your clothed pussy and playing with the buckle of your shorts. “I don’t think I can wait anymore, sweet girl…” Kafka purrs lowly, one hand on the wheel while the other begins to tug your shorts downward. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep my eyes on the road…”

Street racer Kafka! Who slips her fingers into your panties and starts massaging your clit with her eyes glued to the road, her experienced driving making you wetter than you already were as she was just so good at multitasking. 

Street racer Kafka! Who starts plunging her fingers deep into your walls and driving her fingers faster as she accelerates. The car streaking down the road as the adrenaline of speeding and getting fucked by Kafka at the same time had you squirming and squeezing at her fingers. “Let’s see if I can get you to finish in time…” She laughs softly, deciding it was time for the main event.

Street racer Kafka! Who has you squirting all over her hand and passenger seat as she pulls up to the hotel parking lot with a smirk, slowly pulling out her fingers from beneath you and humming in satisfaction at the mess. “Looks like I won again…”

SERVAL

Street racer Serval! Who is an experienced mechanic and personally built her car to make it the fastest anyone has ever seen. Not only is it fast, it’s flashy, and Serval grins with confidence as she leans against the hood of her car with her arms folded, waiting for the race to start.

Street racer Serval! Who notices you admiring her car (and her) and smirks to summon you over for a closer look. “Don’t be shy, you can take a closer look…” she grins, taking your hand as she shows you all the special little features of her car. “Pretty isn’t she? She’s a beauty, just like you…” 

Street racer Serval! Who sighs when the crowd gathers to finally start the race, a smile stretching upon her lips before casting a small wink over to you. “Wish me luck, princess. I’m winning this for you!” She flashes you a blinding smile and gets into her car, revving up the engine as she prepares for sweet, sweet victory.

Street racer Serval! Who wins her race with ease and gets out of the car with satisfaction, fist pumping the air before taking her custom helmet off and smirking. “Phew…that was a close one…!”  she laughs out humbley, dropping her helmet to the floor as she waves you over to come join her on the stand. 

Street racer Serval! Who’s all sweaty and messy from the ride, yet still looks hot as ever as she pulls you in for a hug and lifts you off the ground, so happy to have won for you. “Taking you out to eat, what do you say?” She smiles flirtatiously, looking at you with hope in her eyes. Of course you agreed…

Street racer Serval! Who took you out to eat but not in the way you were expecting. Her face buried deep in your folds as she licked and speared her tongue into your hole to taste all you had to offer. “Tastes like victory alright…” she couldn’t help but joke, lifting up your thighs to keep you spread as she ate you out quicker than she could even drive her car.

Street racer Serval! Who was currently eating you out on her winning car in an abandoned parking lot after the race. Your legs spread over the top of her painted hood, as she wanted nothing more than to see your cum drip down your legs and onto the glossy paint that she herself had applied. “Don’t worry, I could always give her a good ole scrub. For now though, you could make a mess of her however you please…”

Street racer Serval! Who groans when she sees how much you leak onto her car, glistening cum sliding down her hood as she smirks and licks it all up…

SEELE

Street racer Seele! Who is rough around the edges and comes in with a slightly scarred yet durable car. She was a champion racer long before this race, and this car was the one that helped her win on many numerous occasions…

Street racer Seele! Who can’t help but let her eyes wander through the crowd and spot you smiling in the distance. Her cheeks go red at the sight before she blushes and looks away, grumbling to herself and scratching the back of her neck nervously. 

Street racer Seele! Who was usually very confident and snarky before her races. Seele was known to be a very reckless and “go with the flow” kind of driver so she had survived many dangerous stunts and tricks. However, it was her first time racing in front of such a pretty girl like yourself, and she couldn’t help but want to show off to you. 

Street racer Seele! Who blushes as you hand her a water bottle and say “good luck!” to her in that sweet little voice of yours. It had Seele smiling awkwardly as she flashes you a confident smirk. “Thanks. That money is as good as mine…”

Street racer Seele! Who speeds through the road and decides to go the extra mile to show off to you on the cameras. Taking a quick yet very dangerous detour with ease and sliding right through to first place. 

Street racer Seele! Who’s slick back hair is all wild and messy the moment she gets out of her car, heart thumping from the adrenaline as she just pulled off some of the most dangerous stunts known to man for you. The moment she sees you cheering and running over, she laughs and shyly takes your hand, squeezing it before kissing the top of it charmingly. “You’re a cute cheerleader…”

Street racer Seele! Who blushes madly when you grab her hand and whisper seductively in her ear. Telling her how she “deserves a wild ride tonight and should go a round or two” with you. The racer too flustered to even fathom the thought of saying no to you. 

Street racer Seele! Who is gasping for air underneath your cunt as you ride her face to your heart’s content. Hands gripping on her dark purple as you moan and writhe at her tongue thrusting in and out of you. She’s so fast, so lithe. The leather of her gloves gripped your hips firmly as she drove your body back and forth on her tongue, savoring the tang and precum of your body…

Street racer Seele! Who looks up at you dreamily in the dusk of her backseat car. Breath coursing through her throat as she groans and pushes her nose deeper against your clit, too sex-drunk in her prize to notice how you’re tensing up on her touch. Too dumb to realize until it was too late, as you creamed all over her face and let it spill down on the leather seats of her car…

STELLE

Street racer Stelle! Who arrives at the race in a battered up and beaten down car. Does she care? Of course not. This trashed up car is her baby and she loves it! No matter how many people laugh at her…

Street racer Stelle! Who just looks so cute and happy to be there as she looks around with big ole puppy dog-like eyes. She spots you smiling at her in the distance and gives you a playful wave. Honestly, you felt bad that everyone was laughing at her vehicle, she was just too cute! And she didn’t deserve to be teased like this…

Street racer Stelle! Who seems to ignore all the teasing and flashes you the most confident of smiles! She jogs up to you with contagious excitement and shakes your hand as you approach. “I saw you looking at my car. Do you like it? I scrapped it myself…!” Ahhhhh that was adorable and you couldn’t help but agree. How could you not love this woman? She was adorable!

Street racer Stelle! Who tosses you a good luck charm before running back to go start her car. It was a small, battered up raccoon keychain with the fur all matted and gray from use. You didn’t mind, in fact your heart swooned at the sight as the little chubby raccoon plush reminded you of the goofy woman.

Street racer Stelle! Who…surprisingly wins the race!? When she gets out of her car she has a look of pure shock and adrenaline before grinning and fist bumping the air. “Noice!” She chants, looking over at you in the crowd with a smile. “My good luck charm worked…!”

Street racer Stelle! Who is way too happy about winning the race with her dingy old car. So much so that she rushes up to you and gives you a big hug, lifting you off the ground with hidden strength and smiling ever so sunnily. She has to show her gratitude! She has to!

Street racer Stelle! Who shows her gratitude to you by pounding into you with a strap on she had in her car. Happy grunts emitting from the overgrown puppy woman, as she sinks her cock deeper into your walls and loving how you twitched and gripped onto her shoulders for dear life. “Is that good? I hope it’s good…nngh…mmpf…”

Street racer Stelle! Who doesn’t stop when you climax for a second time, or a third, or a fourth. Her relentless stamina allows her to keep plowing you with your legs in the air as she spears you open with all that she has. “Thank you…thank you thank you thank you…” she’s so grateful and happy to please, gasping and kissing your neck feverishly. “You deserve more…I’ll give you more…”

Street racer Stelle! Who leaves your legs sore and neck covered in bites the following morning. The poor puppy woman looking at you with an apologetic gaze, before murmuring a small “Sorry…” when she sees you unable to walk…

BRONYA

Street racer Bronya! Who is the heiress of a wealthy family but sneaks out at night to drive in street races. She always pulls up in a sleek, brand new and expensive car that she borrowed from her mom, but that’s okay because her family has like eleven others hidden away in their garage…

Street racer Bronya! Who people thought was too delicate and princess-like to race in such dangerous events, yet here she was. Dressed in leather attire and a stone cold look on her face as she prepared herself for the race. She’s not overconfident or cocky, but you could tell she was a professional given how calm she was at the starting line. 

Street racer Bronya! Who glances at you through the crowd and keeps silent as she watches. You’re a pretty face, and it’s cute how curious you look as you admire her expensive uniform and car. ‘I suppose I could treat her for the night…’ Bronya thinks, ‘Perhaps I’ll even get her to experience the ride with me…’

Street racer Bronya! Who somehow gets you to sit in the passenger seat of her car before the big race. Her calm nature puts you at ease despite how dangerous street racing can be. “No need to worry, I’ll keep you safe.” She says softly, a gentle smile splayed on her lips. As she kicks the engine to start…

Street racer Bronya! Who’s car is so fast and sleek, it sends your heart rate racing. Despite the speed bursts however, Bronya makes sure to keep one hand over your chest to protect you everytime she makes a sharp turn. Gray eyes sharp and focused, as she keeps a hand on the steering wheel while protecting you at the same time.

Street racer Bronya! Who streaks through the finish line with you cheering on beside her. A soft chuckle emitting from her throat before glancing over at you. “How was that? Pretty nice, hm?” She blushes when you suddenly lean in to kiss her cheek, eyes wide before laughing bashfully at the reward. “Ah…thank you…”

Street racer Bronya! Who somehow found herself gasping in her seat with your fingers playfully teasing her. Unable to hear what you were saying as the most she could make out was “so good…” and “you deserve this, doll…”

Street racer Bronya! Who is just so surprisingly cute and whiny under that cold exterior. Gripping onto your wrist and trying to push your fingers even deeper while she moves her other hand to unzip the leather racing uniform. As the zipper is seperated, Bronya’s cute breasts spill out from beneath the confines and urge you to move over and fondle them. You cooed at how cute she was reacting to your touch, as she was acting like such a spoiled princess that you always knew she was…

Street racer Bronya! Who realizes she has to get back home before her mother wakes up, but decides ‘fuck it’ and continues riding your fingers with lust. Tongue lolled out in utter ecstasy as she drives your fingers faster than she could drive her car…

[uldren-sov]

scott pilgrim AU where the new LI has to defeat Camy's Seven Evil Exes

Or one Evil Ex Named Seven

[blueskittlesart]

i kinda really wanna see a big ol vent/rant from you about genshin now lol. I would read an essay

I'm not sure you understand the insanity you just unlocked in me but ok

genshin impact is probably the clearest modern example i can think of of capitalism absolutely eviscerating a creative project. For context, I started playing genshin in 2021, just after the 1.4 update. it was venti's first rerun/the first windblume festival if that means something to you. and I really genuinely thought that it might have had something special. It was a gacha that didn't FEEL like a gacha, which was a huge feat to me.

it began with a very simple story pitch--you, the protagonist, are one of a set of twin siblings traveling through space. you come upon a seemingly unassuming world and your attempts to continue your journey are suddenly stopped by a mysterious, all-powerful figure. you are separated from your sibling and wake up alone on the shores of this planet you were attempting to leave together. throughout that opening cutscene and scattered through the world and your character's dialog there are implications that all is not as it seems, that your character is something unique to this world and that they possess powers and abilities that you've yet to unlock. You are told that you must travel the seven nations of this world in order to find your sibling, which is great--a simple, zelda-like objective which drives the player to explore the secondary narratives of the world. none of this is bad on the surface. in fact i'd argue it's pretty good. there's a ton that can be done with these story bones. even at launch the map and combat system were full of potential as well.

Note: for ease of reading, i'm going to label the different storylines of the game now. A-plot refers to the central objective of the entire game; the find-your-sibling plot and everything that encompasses, including the abyss order/dain, the heavenly principles, the fake sky, etc. B-plot refers to the secondary objective present in each new nation, usually meeting the archon and/or solving a problem for the archon. (A and B-plots will occasionally intersect.) C-plot refers to any story, location, or background information which remains in permanent gameplay but which isn't directly related to the A or B-plots, such as dragonspine, the chasm, enkanomiya, etc. D-plot refers to any story, location, or background information which is confined to limited-time events and does NOT remain in permanent gameplay, regardless of its connection or lack thereof to the A and B-plots, such as the golden apple archipelago, the infamous albedo/dragonspine event, the infamous kaeya/diluc event, etc. Lore as i will refer to it in this post refers to any information which is present in permanent gameplay but which is not directly told to the player within the A or B-plot story quests and objectives, including books, weapon, artifact, and item descriptions, world quest dialog and puzzles, etc.

So now we're in mid-2021, there are two nations' worth of B-plot story quests released in full, and we've run into our first problem, which is that the game isn't finished yet. I don't have any actual information about how the game was/is written, but based on what i've observed over the past few years, my best guess is that the A-plot has been fully written since the beginning, at least in some form. there were very early-game events and information pertaining to the A-plot that would take years to see any actual payoff in the main story quests (kaeya's origin story, the 1.3 scaramouche fake-sky drop, the flowers in lumine's hair, etc.) but those kinds of A-plot story easter eggs very quickly dropped off when the game absolutely EXPLODED during the pandemic.

this sudden burst in popularity was the true beginning of the end for genshin, i think, because suddenly they had a HUGE fanbase that desperately wanted more content faster than they could pump out new A-plot or even B-plot story quests. one of the most pervasive complaints about the game when I began playing in 2021 was that there was nothing to do between story quests. update 1.4 (which was the update I started playing at) was important in that it was the first time since genshin's release over a year before that players recieved any new A-plot, in the form of the archon quest We Will Be Reunited, also known as the quest with the most fucking misleading name of all time. you'll never guess what doesn't fucking happen during this quest. anyways. we were a year into gameplay, two nations out of seven released and a third on the not-so-distant horizon, and it seemed obvious that players were owed some sort of A-plot payoff. and that's very much what WWBR was advertised as, from the quest's name to the banners full of art of the twins staring wistfully at each other. The thing is, what i'm describing as A-plot payoff was actually. not really A-plot payoff at all. WWBR was the reveal that the protagonist's sibling was working with the abyss order, and that the abyss order was connected somehow to Khaenri'ah, which at this point casual players would only have known about from THAT QUEST and MAYBE kaeya's character descriptions if they were diligent enough to get him to friendship level 10 (which, btw there is no indication that you should do to get important context about the story of the game, because kaeya is a 4-star starter character and the only character in the entire game that actually has genuinely important story hidden in his character descriptions.) So what I'm calling A-plot payoff felt at the time a lot less like A-plot payoff than it did like an abyss sibling cameo in an attempt to satiate everyone who was begging for more story. We actually gained almost net 0 information. this is very quickly going to become a pattern.

As I've already alluded to, the motives behind this writing decision are transparently obvious. Genshin is a free gacha game which relies on a consistently active and engaged userbase to make its money. With fans getting restless about the lack of engaging story at the time and a new, very ambitious B-plot quest gearing up for release that would require major support from that fan base in order to remain profitable, the writers were backed into a corner. they HAD to throw the fans some sort of bone in order to keep them engaged with the A-plot, since it was originally pitched as the driving force for the story as a whole, but they were also clearly not at a stage of the writing process where it was prudent to give the player any REAL information about the A-plot. This is how we ended up with a 10-second abyss sibling cameo and an offhanded mention of Khaenri'ah, a nation whose plot-relevance was at that point still basically unknown.

The real problem is, WWBR worked. at least, it worked as intended at the time. It satiated story-focused fans in the interlude between B-plot nations, as hyv was gearing up to release inazuma, which required a lot of time in preparation. WWBR was followed almost immediately by the C-plot golden apple archipelago in 1.6, widely regarded as one of the better events of version 1. GAA was memorable especially because it was the first event that involved an entirely new, limited-time-only map, meaning the event had much more longevity than the standard events players were used to. This is, imo, most likely the update combination that led to the standard formula which hyv uses for its quests and events nowadays. the back-to-back release of WWBR and GAA satisfied both fans who wanted A-plot story AND silenced criticisms about the game lacking endgame playability, which at the time must have seemed like a goldmine to writers desperate for a solution to their content-to-fanbase ratio problem.

From here, genshin started following a standard method of release for their next three nations--inazuma, sumeru, and fontaine. the formula generally went as follows: one major version update (usually version x.0) containing a major map update which included all B-plot relevant locations in the new nation, and the first chapter of the B-plot story quest relevant to that nation. this would then be followed by 2-3 version updates which would each contain the next chapter in the nation's B-plot story quest, sequentially. After the nation's B-plot quest ended, during the downtime in which the next nation's story and map would be finalized, subsequent updates would be largely C-plot, and would contain minor expansions of the map to increase endgame playability via exploration and world quests. This is how we ended up with updates like the chasm, the several extra islands in inazuma, and the quite frankly ridiculously large sumeru map, as well as the offloaded maps like enkanomiya and the sea of bygone eras. with the possible exception of the chasm, none of these areas are A OR B-plot relevant. hyv has realized that artificially inflating the map makes their game technically more engaging during the downtime between nations. However, this comes at a price. While the scenery and set design of the game remains consistently beautiful, the actual, mechanical gameplay that populates that scenery very quickly became mind-numbingly boring if not borderline unplayable. While the 1.0 questlines were not perfect, there was at least an emphasis on the player actually DOING things. 1.0 B-plot quests would have you going to mini-dungeon temples and completing challenges which would acclimate you to the combat system while also serving narrative purpose. There were quests that required you to navigate open-world dungeons. Because your characters were lower-level, combat challenges that arose during these quests were CHALLENGES, rather than two-second buttonmashing segments. By the time we get to sumeru, though, both B-plot AND C-plot quests have become little more than moving your character from location to location and tapping through (usually unvoiced) dialog. there's no GAMEPLAY in the quests anymore, because gameplay isn't what makes money. What DOES make money is giving players 300 hidden chests to find in an open-world map segment, each of which gives them 1/80th of a gacha pull. And so the story suffers and the map gets bigger.

Along with the map expansions, downtime between nations usually also nets us one A-plot quest, usually involving the character dainslief, who was the driver of the initial WWBR quest. This is the second half of hyv's magical formula for keeping fans happy between major releases. the A-plot quests will, as a general rule, give players either very little new information or no new information at all, but will dress up the delivery in such a way that it ALMOST feels as though the protagonist has moved forward somehow. the most recent example of this writing style, the 4.7 quest bedtime story, amounts to about an hour and a half of gameplay and, while it DOES contain a segment in which the protagonist finally actually has a conversation with their sibling, that conversation literally begins with the line "I have so many questions, but for some reason I don't want to ask them right now," ensuring that the sibling will not actually be required to give away any plot-relevant information whatsoever, and the quest ends with the protagonist FORGETTING THAT THE CONVERSATION EVER HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

As I think I mentioned before, the cardinal problem of genshin impact's writing is that fans want answers faster than the writers are prepared to give them. I don't doubt that there's a game bible or relevant equivalent somewhere within hyv which contains the explanations we are currently lacking in regards to the A-plot. the game is consistent enough in its storytelling for me to believe that this isn't all just being made up as we go along. But I'm also certain that a lot of the late-game A and B-plot that is planned (especially if the Khaenri'ah is truly planned to be the 8th nation of the game) hinges on the player knowing very little about the A-plot. this would be fine if genshin was a standard single-release video game that players could work through at their own pace, but it isn't. it's unfinished, and each nation in the game releases months to years after the last, leaving the writers to scramble to fill in the gameplay gaps and players struggling to remember plot-relevant information when it's brought up literal years after they last heard it mentioned. Not only does the time between updates leave players frustrated about the lack of A-plot, it makes the A-plot harder to understand when it is brought up, because the writers are required to throw in so much dense C and D-plot just to keep engagement high enough to make the game profitable in its downtime. we joke about the insane convolution of genshin's lore, but that is first and foremost a byproduct of its financial model. the game requires engaement to be profitable, and adding lore for players to look into drives up engagement. The fact that having so much story with so little plot relevance muddies the waters and makes the A and B-plot stories considerably harder to understand doesn't matter as long as money is being made.

I want to take a quick detour here to talk about the release of sumeru specifically, because this is when I really began to clock the fact that genshin was declining. on paper, racial sensitivity issues aside (Not that they're not important, but i'm doing this deep dive from a storytelling and game design point of view, nothing else. that's a whole can of worms i don't have time to get into here) sumeru was a really promising addition to the game. The new B-plot quest which was set to drop in 3.0 was highly anticipated for several reasons. Two fan-favorite characters (kaeya and scaramouche) were expected to play major roles, because of earlier C and B-plot quests, and much of the nation's scenery that was teased in trailers and promotional content appeared to tie into the A-plot. the most exciting draw about sumeru and version 3.0, though, was the major update to the combat system.

Arguably genshin impact's most interesting feature upon release was its combat system. The map was basically a botw clone at that point, and the story quests, while decently engaging, were rough around the edges to say the least. What genshin DID have going for it was a unique real-time combat system that rewarded strategy and quick thinking.

Genshin's combat system is elemental, and on release there were 6 elemental affiliations: anemo (wind), cryo (ice), pyro (fire), hydro (water), geo (rock), and electro (electricity.) in a sort of pokemon-like system, certain elements were weak to other ones, but more importantly, certain combinations of elements could drastically boost combat stats. Players got to construct four-slot teams of characters, each with an elemental affiliation and certain "skills" which would match their element, and you were encouraged to use the interactions of these elements to build teams. very quickly, a huge community formed dedicated to optimizing teams and tiering characters. People would even make a game out of building teams specifically to do high-level damage with "bad" characters or characters who weren't designed to be damage drivers (my 100k jean burst was an incredible moment fr.) this was, of course, also a picture-perfect driver for the gacha aspect of the game, which was how players obtained new characters.

Pre-3.0, combat was... well i won't say it was balanced, but there was no elemental reaction that had any MAJOR advantage over the others. when you actually ran the numbers, i believe vaporize was the best reaction in terms of damage output, with the best team being raiden national with kazuha for EM buffs. but a well-built freeze or melt team could do similar numbers, or even better numbers depending on your artifact rolls. (ayaka permafreeze you will always be my #1.) Despite a steady stream of new characters with each update, characters from the earliest version of the game like xingqiu and xiangling were still topping the charts in terms of usefulness and versatility in teambuilding. However, as early as 1.0, players had been teased that a major update to the combat system was planned. There was a seventh element, dendro (plants) which pre-3.0 only existed as an elemental affiliation for menial enemies. there were no playable dendro characters, and the only elemental reaction that existed relating to it was very low-level and not particularly useful in combat.

Originally, dendro was projected to be added to the combat system somewhere in version 2, but its release was delayed substantially, meaning it came out along with its affiliated nation, sumeru. And as soon as it came out, it basically broke the combat system. I assume that the scaling they ended up going with may have been out of fear that players would be hesitant to integrate a new element into their pre-established team builds, and thus they may have been worried about sales on their dendro character banners, and i assume that the fact that 3 elements are required to get the highest-level reaction was an attempt to make the meta more balanced in the face of that scaling, but, well... it didn't work. At this point, the genshin impact combat meta is basically "if you're not using hyperbloom what the fuck are you doing." there's basically no reaction in the game that comes close to it in terms of both damage and ease of use. you are not going to beat a hyperbloom team with anything other than a better-built hyperbloom team. combat is now very heavily skewed in the direction of dendro, meaning that if you DON'T want to use a dendro team, you're going to be doing significantly lower numbers. And since enemies are added with each update, post-3.0 combat becomes difficult and annoying if you don't have a hyperbloom team on-hand.

The major gripe i have with dendro isn't even the scaling, though. I mentioned offhand earlier that the 1.0 B-plot questline had a section which taught you the basics of the combat system via mini-dungeons. These mini-dungeons, of course, taught you the version of the system that existed pre-3.0, so there's no tutorial for dendro reactions. Rather than integrating the tutorial into the story and world like they did in their early quests, upon playing 3.0 for the first time players were given a popup that explained, very wordily, how dendro reactions worked. there was no opportunity to test these reactions in an environment without consequences--if you wanted to try them you'd have to remember the relevant information, build yourself a team, find an enemy to try them on, and just hope you got it right. This lack of integration is something i began to notice more and more with genshin as it progressed, especially in sumeru. where in mondstadt and liyue open-world puzzles would be explained to you by an npc or via environmental context clues, in sumeru you'd be stopped while exploring every two seconds by a popup explaining some puzzle or another which, of course, you wouldn't read, because you didn't want to do the puzzle right that minute anyway, and then by the time you DID want to do that puzzle you'd have no in-game way of figuring out how to do it. The puzzle popups may seem like a small thing, but it's one of the clearest examples in the game to me of the fact that the player experience is so clearly not being prioritized here. the game doesn't even TRY to be immersive anymore. they have no qualms about pulling you out of the story to read a paragraph about how the puzzle works. they don't care how your character, in-universe, is supposed to have acquired that information. they don't care why your character, in-universe, is doing the puzzle in the first place. because they know the reason YOU are doing the puzzle, which is to unlock a hidden chest that gives you 1/80th of a gacha pull.

That was not "a quick detour" was it lmfao. ok anyways. back to the story. Now i want to talk about D-plot, meaning limited event stories, and lore as i defined it earlier, meaning contextual details not present in quests or playable story. This is where i think genshin's story becomes completely inaccessible.

Already, we've covered the fact that in order to consume the very basic story, players have to be willing to wait years between A and B-plot quest releases, punctuated by irrelevant map expansions and interlude quests. I mentioned before that genshin's incompleteness is one of the major problems of its story. the fact that players have to wait years, remembering plot-relevant information that they have no way of knowing will even BE plot-relevant, for the payoff of these narratives is frustrating at best and actively malicious at worst. But in theory, there should be an obvious way to circumvent this. One could just wait until the game IS completely finished to play the whole thing. Sort of like buying a game in early access but waiting until it's actually finished to play it all the way through. that's theoretically possible. but, as i have been hammering home this whole time, genshin is a free game, and therefore genshin relies entirely on a consistently engaging fanbase in order to remain profitable. if genshin does not have a base of players who are willing to log in every day, or at the very least once every update, the game's financial model collapses on itself. therefore, genshin puts on limited-time events. this is a standard in gacha games, as a way to keep the fans consistently engaging. What is not standard, however, is the way that genshin uses these events as vessels for its story. about 19 out of 20 limited events in genshin impact will be useless menial bullshit with no effect on the story or really even the player aside from maybe making you fucking angry. 1 out of those 20, though, will be innocuously named, with nothing in the banner or event description to indicate that it's special in any way, but it will contain serious A or B-plot relevant information that exists nowhere else in the game. My personal favorite example is the infamous 1.3 scaramouche appearance, in which he showed up, told the protagonist that the sky was fake, and then immediately fucked off again. Scaramouche did not show up again until at least 2.0, and the fake sky wasn't so much as MENTIONED again until 3.2, almost TWO YEARS LATER. but there are others, such as the (almost equally infamous) albedo doppelganger event in which a major character's loyalties are called into question, or the event where major biographical information is revealed about kaeya, the only playable character with major known connections to the A-plot and Khaenri'ah. With all of these events, once the event period ends, the information contained within them vanishes from the game completely. there's no way to replay old events that you've missed, even sans rewards, so if you miss a plot-relevant event the ONLY way to catch up on that story is through word of mouth. again, this is a transparent way to keep genshin's userbase engaged during downtime between B-plot quests; if you don't log in and play every event, how will you know if you've missed something important? You might not be able to fully understand the future story if you miss out on the D-plot now!

The D-plot problem is something that I think could, in theory, be circumvented by dedicated record-keeping. if the wiki had anything resembling an easily accessible event database that marked story-relevant events and contained summaries or gameplay videos, at the very least you wouldn't have to fear being completely lost on the off chance that a random throwaway line in an event from fucking 1.3 becomes plot-relevant. but hyv obviously doesn't want that, because it undermines their financial model, and the sheer number of events and the amount of rerunning of irrelevant events they do makes the task of recording and categorizing them all daunting if not impossible.

Then, of course, there's lore. this is arguably what genshin is infamous for in certain circles of the internet. You know that unraveled video where bdg reads every book in skyrim? if you tried to do that with genshin the video would probably be about 10 hours long. and it's not just books; genshin hides (potentially) plot-relevant information in weapon and artifact descriptions, in random hidden world quests, in character bios... the list goes on. and 9 times out of 10, the information is essentially written in code. Plot-relevant characters will have multiple names, or the relevant information will refer to them as vaguely as possible, presumably to further the "mystery" and encourage theorizing among fans. but the sheer amount of information like this that exists within the game makes it all but impossible to determine what is plot-relevant and what isn't. For a topical example, the most recent A-plot quest bedtime story mentions the name Rhinedottir in connection with events in Khaenri'ah, suddenly making that name A-plot relevant. Rhinedottir is an alternate name for the character Gold, whose existence you would only have known of before this point if you'd unlocked and read the character Albedo's character bios. (Albedo is a limited-run character who hasn't been available since november 2022, btw.) the only other information about Rhinedottir permanently available in the game comes from the description of the weapon Festering Desire, which was only obtainable from a limited event back in 2020, anyway. So basically, if you wanted ANY context for that remark, you'd have to have been playing the game since AT LEAST 2022, AND you'd have to have taken the time to go over your weapon and character descriptions with a fine-toothed comb. keep in mind that as of right now (june 2024) there are 85 playable characters in this game, each with 10 unique unlockable character bio sections, and over 150 weapons, each with their own unique descriptions, not to mention over 50 artifact sets, each with 5 unique artifacts, which all have their own unique descriptions as well. there are also 51 different collections of books which contain written lore as well. the idea that any player could keep up with all this, or that anyone could even sift through it all to pick out the important things that they NEED to keep up with, is insane, especially when the game makes a point of withholding crucial plot information from its players within the A and B-plot quests. this amount of written lore only exists, again, to drive up engagement in the hopes of subsequently driving up profit. Even if the average player isn't reading and absorbing all this information, the fact that it's there coupled with the fact that the writers consistently refuse to reveal anything beyond surface-level A-plot information means that there's basically ENDLESS theory fodder. and THAT means that people will be posting their theories and talking with each other and getting into arguments. it means "genshin impact" trends on twitter. it means engagement, and engagement means money.

basically what it comes back to is that everything is so transparently money over player experience with this game. I think what we're witnessing with genshin is what i would call an end-stage gacha game--a gacha game that's gone on a little too long and gotten a little too popular, and so the veil has started to slip a little more than usual. Gachas work primarily because they operate by toeing the line between what is fun to play and what is a predatory mechanic. As long as the actual gameplay remains engaging and rewarding, players can ignore the unsavory business practices underneath. At this point, genshin has swerved too hard into the money-hungriness and is still hoping that they can use their old tried-and-true engagement farming methods to remain popular regardless. currently, it seems like those methods are still working, unfortunately. Like I said in the post that prompted this, i really can't wait for the hyv writer NDAs to expire 10 or so years down the line, because I can only imagine what an insane shitshow writing for this game must be. I want to see the tell-all articles. I want carnage.

That being said, I played genshin impact religiously from 2020 to 2023. I loved the game. Despite myself, I am still really, REALLY interested in the A-plot. I want to know what's going on with the protagonist and their sibling; where they came from, what happened to them, what the heavenly principles are, what role celestia plays in all of this. I want to know Kaeya's full backstory, what role Khaenri'ah plays in the overarching story, and what happened to it in the past. but I don't really have any faith that I ever will, because I know that as long as keeping their fans in the dark and stringing them along remains profitable, that's what hyv will continue to do.

Do I think genshin impact is unsalvagable? in its current state, yes. If I was given the ability to turn back time and convince a bunch of executives of the profitability of this venture, I would change almost nothing about the story of genshin and completely rework the mechanics of its release. I would make it a series of single-release self-contained games rather than a constantly-updating gacha. Each game would be one B-plot quest, or one nation, eight games in all, preferably released once every year. Removing the gacha mechanic, players would be given access to a certain pool of characters to build teams at the start of each game, and then periodically unlock new characters as the story progressed. for example, if you were playing the inazuma game, you'd start out with only your protag, and after progressing to a certain point in the story you'd get a pool of inazuma 4-stars to teambuild with freely. Then, as the story progressed and you met plot-relevant inazuman 5-stars you'd add them to your pool. I'd change basically nothing about the combat system except for a properly integrated introduction of dendro when it makes its appearance in sumeru. Once you completed the story in that nation, you could move onto the next game in the series if it was out, or if it wasn't, you could continue to explore the open world while waiting for the next release. Would this be as profitable as the gacha model? probably not, but what it WOULD do is allow for much more consistent pacing and writing, with the added bonus of not making your userbase feel like you'd shoot them in the head for their pocket change.

[xxgothchatonxx]

If I had a nickel for every time Nicholas Hoult played a lawyer who had a horrific encounter with an infamous Transylvanian vampire count in a remake/reimagining of an iconic Dracula film, I would have two nickels.

That's not a lot but it's funny that it happened twice... and so soon.

(But seriously, loved him as Renfield so I'm very excited to see him as Thomas "Totally Not Jonathan Harker" Hutter :D)

[buckets-and-trees]

SALT (Bucky x Reader)

Fandom: MCU Characters/Pairings: mostly-dark!mob!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader Word Count: 2.8k  Summary: True achievement in the restaurant industry requires a relentless drive. No compromises. You've risen through the ranks, and when your mentor retires, you're rightly given the mantle of executive chef at Devour. On your night of ascension, the dining room is packed, and among the guests is someone equally as relentless to get what he wants.

Content Warnings: imbalanced power dynamics, bribery, workplace manipulation, NON/DUBIOUS CONSENT, explicit language, risk of being caught, food play, knife play, nipple/breast play, vaginal fingering, forced orgasm, edging, unprotected vaginal intercourse, non-graphic cream pie (not the food kind)

Additional Notes: Written for @the-slumberparty's April Mob AU challenge. Using dark prompt #23 (bolded in the dialogue).

tagging some peeps who showed interest in the preview for this little thing: @sidepartskinnyjeans @vonalyn @winterslove1917

“You’re not serious, Stanley.”

“I am.”

You laughed and shook your head. “Sure. Whatever. I don’t have time for customer meet and greets during a normal service, let alone tonight of all nights.”

“You will do it,” Stanley insisted, “because it’s James Barnes and he’s got more money and influence than any god. He owns the mob scene in this town.”

When your maître d’ didn’t say anything more, you turned to truly look at him. 

You frowned but set down your pan with a huff. “Fine. Charlie, take over while I apparently go make an appearance.”

“Table twenty-seven,” Stanley said, handing you a clean dish towel, which you pressed against your forehead, cheeks, and neck as you headed for the door that led from kitchen to dining area, tossing the towel in the laundry bin under one of the counters. 

You pushed past the kitchen doors and walked through the dining room towards table twenty-seven, one of the handful booths and tables nestled in small alcoves that offered a little more privacy for VIP reservations, set off on a small dais with walls of green plants strategically placed to create ambience while sectioning off the area from curious eyes and a plethora of potential phone cameras. 

There were five individuals seated around the table, but he drew your attention first as you approached. He clocked your progress before any of his companions, and when he looked up, his stare fixed on you with such intensity that you took a brief pause before your next step, which he clearly noted, and the corner of his mouth ticked up in the slightest smirk. It made your blood heat with irritation, but you focused on remaining calm and professional as you stepped up to the table. 

“This was an exquisite meal, Chef,” he said, drawing the attention of his companions to you immediately.

“Thank you,” you replied. 

“Sam here hasn’t been able to shut up about it since the first course came out,” a blonde man sitting to his right said. 

“And you haven’t left even a crumb on your plate through any course, Steve,” he chided back good naturedly. 

Each of them had a girl tucked in next to them, but not the man with dark hair and steel blue eyes you still found it difficult to look away from who had to be the infamous James. His friends and their companions continued to rave for another minute or two about different parts of the meal’s courses. You expected them to be closer to the age of your parents, not much nearer yours. 

“Well, thank you again,” you finally said. “We’re pleased to have you dining at our restaurant tonight. Devour is a dream for all of us on the staff. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the kitchen to oversee final preparations for the dessert course.”

“I’m eager for what’s to come next, Chef,” he said, looking you up and down, his eyes darkening. You’d delivered the overture for your exit, but he somehow made it clear it was only with his approval that you would leave in that moment. 

Twenty minutes later, you sprinkled a touch of flaky salt over the ribbon of whiskey-laced caramel drizzled over the chocolate mousse, Charlie adorned it with a perfect rosette of the Chantilly cream, and you slid the final plate across to Stanley, who put it on the final tray and sent the waiter on his way. 

“That’s service, everyone!” you announced, and some of the staff clapped and whooped. 

You smiled, truly satisfied. Charlie bumped elbows with you, and when you turned your head to look at him, you couldn’t help the genuine smile bursting across your face. 

“Truly a triumph for you taking over,” Stanley said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“You’ve more than earned your new title as the executive chef of Devour and this kitch–“

He was cut off as there was a burst of activity at the doors coming in from the dining room. “Everyone, clear the kitchen! Out the back, please,” came a booming voice that you’d heard speak much more congenially earlier in the dining room. It was clear this man was used to giving orders and having them followed without question. 

“Excuse me,” Stanley turned to look, but on seeing who was sweeping in and ushering his staff out before him, but his tone shifted when he saw who was giving the orders – now guarded but polite, “Oh, Mr. Rogers.”

“And if I could have a word with you in particular,” Steve said, addressing Stanley and nodding towards the back. 

“Of course,” he responded.

You and Stanley exchanged a glance, and you began clearing out with the rest, but Steve put a hand on your shoulder. “Not you,” he said a little more quietly. “You stay here.”

You frowned and tilted your head as you looked up at him. He only smirked at you. 

“The rest of you, keep it moving, let’s go!”

You chewed on your bottom lip and let your hand drop to the silver surface of the counter where your fingers immediately began to drum impatiently. After a moment you turned to look over at the door to the dining room, and your breath hitched. 

He was there, leaning up against the door frame, blue eyes fixed on you. 

His face was unreadable, and so you tried to keep your face blank as well as he stalked toward you, coming around the plating area and to your side of the counter. 

“What is this, Mr. Barnes?”

“I’m buying this restaurant. Steve’s arranging everything with Stanley right now.”

Your brow furrowed.

“I own this kitchen, and I own you, Chef.”

You opened your mouth to protest, but he put two fingers to your lips. 

“I’m tripling your salary,” he said as he stepped right into your space, backing you up against the counter, only a breath of space between you. 

Your heart was racing for too many reasons – anger, incredulity, but also a thrill of arousal. You wanted to refuse him, but he also drew you in, and you could not deny that. You knew he was dangerous, you were infuriated by his audacity, and yet…

“You can’t turn down an offer like that,” he continued, “especially not after the years of hard work I know you put in for the executive chef apron in this kitchen. Our stories are not so different in that way. You earned this. You won’t walk away.” 

“I can–“

“But you won’t,” he cut over you. You glowered, but he ignored your slow burning anger and instead reached around behind your back to tug at the ties of your apron. Then his voice dropped down an octave as he spoke again, “Don’t fight me. You will give yourself to me.”

“I won’t.” You cocked your chin up.

“You will,” he insisted. He pulled the black apron away from your body and tossed it onto the counter behind you.

“You will give yourself to me now.” He pushed forward, pinning you to the counter with his pelvis. You tried to suppress a shaky exhale, feeling his erection pressing into you.  “Soon you will warm my bed,” he bent his head down to ghost a kiss at your temple, then another on your cheek, before he moved his mouth further down and murmured his next threat down the column of your throat, “and I promise it won’t be long until you will beg for me to take you apart without any coercion.”

When his tongue darted out over the sensitive spot just under your jaw, a whimper escaped from your chest before you could stop it, and you felt him smile against your skin. 

You squeezed your eyes shut. “Please, anyone could catch us.”

He chuckled. “Sam and Steve are preventing that,” he said, pulling away just enough to start unbuttoning your black chef’s jacket. “But,” he continued, “if you make too much noise, you’ll confirm that we’re doing anything more than talking.” 

Once he had finished with all the buttons, he pushed the coat open. Your eyes were still closed until you felt the cool edge of a knife on your sternum, and your eyes burst open again, fear and adrenaline rushing through your body, but luckily he wasn’t looking at your face, focused instead on your chest where his metal fingers skimmed lightly over the bared skin for just a moment before they gripped the fabric of your black camisole and bra while his other hand tore his knife down in a swift movement, splitting your undergarments down the middle, putting your chest on full display for his hungry eyes. He pushed the clothing out of the way fully only over your left shoulder. 

He lifted his gaze to meet your eyes again. “Dessert was exquisite, but it didn’t satisfy what I wanted.”

He reached for a nearby saucepan, which still had a ladle in it, and smiled as he gave it a stir. You watched as he took a scoop of the caramel sauce and poured a little over the round swell of your breast. It was warm, and started to slowly spread, but not enough to drip and make a mess. You imagined in his line of work, he knew how to be precise, not leave anything extra to clean up. He set the pan back down on the counter, and then reached for something else, returning with a pinch of the flaky salt that he then sprinkled over the caramel. 

For a moment he merely admired his handiwork. then his warm hand came up to cup the underside of your breast, and then his mouth descended to lap up the salted caramel from your tender flesh. Heat bloomed across your chest and straight to your head and your core, his ministrations eliciting a low moan from you. He hummed in approval, then took your nipple into his mouth. Your nipples were always very sensitive, and he was not careful with his attention there, sucking, nipping, and licking until you whimpered and tried to push him away. He kept mouthing painfully at your nipple another moment longer. 

He leaned back for a moment to look own at you, scrutinizing your face. You were not sure what he saw there, truthfully you didn’t know how to feel and what front to put up, but whatever he assessed didn’t deter him. 

He lifted one hand to your neck and then trailed the back of his fingers down your sternum, between your breasts, over your stomach, a light touch that wasn’t rushed, knowing he could draw a shiver of anticipation from you with the purposeful action. He unbuttoned your pants, and as he slipped his hand into your panties and cupped your mound, he leaned in close to your ear and softly said, “You earned this, too, Chef.”

His fingers sought your folds. “And you are wet for me.” You didn’t need to see his face to imagine the satisfaction that must be there – it was evident in his tone. His breath was hot on the shell of your ear. “Close like this,” he whispered, “I’ll still hear even the small pretty noises I’m going to draw from you with my fingers in your cunt.”

And even though you were expecting it – dreading it? – you gasped when he quickly thrust two fingers inside you, knuckles deep, and moved them expertly in and out of your tight heat, questing and quickly finding the sensitive spongy spot on the front of your pelvic wall. You bit your lip to keep keening as quiet as you could, and your arms gripped his biceps, looking for an anchor to reality. He played your pussy quickly, nimble and knowing fingers familiarizing themselves too easily with your body for your comfort. 

His thumb went to work expertly drawing tight circles over your clit, still thrusting his fingers inside you, and the additional stimulation forced you into an intense orgasm you didn’t want to give him, burrowing your face into his neck to smother your small cry of ecstasy. 

You didn’t want to see his face – undoubtedly haughty knowing he’s pleased you despite you wanting to refuse him the satisfaction – and in this you are spared at least for the moment as without pretense he abruptly spins you around and tugs your pants and underwear down your thighs. You heard the quick unbuckling of his belt and unzipping of his pants as he freed his hard length. You had only a second to brace yourself against the countertop as he gripped your hip with one hand and used his other to guide his tip to your thoroughly slick and ready opening. One full and quick thrust had him fully sheathed inside you, punching the air from your lungs. He leaned forward against your back, his mouth close to your ear again. “Feel me in there? Stretching you to the limit.” 

He rolled his hips ever so slightly, slowly, and your head fell back against his shoulder.

“Yes, Chef. Just like that.”

He pulled his hips back, then gave another slow and powerful drive into your cunt. “Feel as smooth and velvety around my cock as that caramel sauce was on my tongue.” While one hand remained on your hip, as he began to pick up the pace with his thrusts his other hand brushed up your spine, then moved around to grasp your breast, the one he’d overstimulated just a few minutes before. You whimpered and tried to jerk away, but you’re met with his strong chest up against your back. He chuckled and then began to tweak and roll the nipple between his fingers. 

You tried to pull his hand away, still whimpering. 

“I intend to leave you feeling me for days from this, Chef,” he growls in your ear. His thrusts become rougher, faster, slamming into you over and over again. Your hands pulled at his wrist torturing your nipple, but your strength was nothing to his, and soon tears were spilling down your cheeks. When an audible sob escaped your throat, he finally relented and released your breast, but then he gripped your hips with both hands, showing no mercy for your pussy as he chased his own pleasure. 

Without the pain, your body focused only on the pleasure mounting in your core now. This felt good. He felt good. His cock filled you exquisitely. You tried to rock your hips just slightly to where you know he’d hit that pleasurable spot in you again, but he controlled the movement and forced you to stay at the angle he wanted. 

“This one is for me, Chef, not you,” he grunted. 

Still, you pant together, lungs heaving, and you’re hurtling toward another orgasm. His hips stutter for a moment, and with a groan he releases his spend inside you, slowing his movements. 

You couldn’t hold back a needy whine as he pulled out of you. You looked over your shoulder at him incredulously, edged to the very moment before but then denied your second release. 

He paused after tucking his softening cock back into his boxer briefs and gripped your chin, demanding an abrasive kiss from your lips. “When you come apart on my cock, I want to watch your beautiful face and hear you beg for me.”

Years in the kitchen have taught you to hold back your words when there’s even a shade of uncertainty, and you are uncertain if you will give him what he wants or not, because you can’t deny that your body absolutely wants him, and part of your spirit does, too. Relentless power recognizing another like its own, and you hate that you’re more than a little intrigued. You don’t want to just give him what he wants, but a tiny sliver of you whispers that you shouldn’t cut off your nose just to spite him. 

You pulled up your pants while you heard him zip and buckle his own pants again. One he had tucked in his shirt, again with swift precision, he turned you back around to face him. He reached for your apron, wiped his hands, then set it back on the counter. He didn’t mess with your torn shirt and bra other than to adjust them well enough so he could close your chef coat and button that back up over your chest. 

He gazed right into your eyes again, brushing his thumb over your lips, parting them slightly, then pushing them closed again. 

“I’ll be back for more soon,” he finally said, then walked away without another word. 

Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

LINK TO PART TWO: FAT

[allieebobo]

Do you have any if recommendation?

Ooh! I have really, really bad memory(!!) but these are current faves that I have played/replayed recently that I can think of. A lot of the authors are also THE BEST HUMAN BEINGS EVER. So, double recommendation.

I probably missed a bunch out, so take this as a non-exhaustive list! In no particular order:

(Edit: Added some descriptions but yeah I got a little unhinged so I'm sorry nothing makes sense or if the quality of the write-up went down over time/did not actually give you any useful info)

WIPs with demos

Citadel, @bouncyballcitadel (I think of all the IFs on this list, this one makes me sweat the most. And I've said it once and I'll say it again: the dialogue is so snappy and well-written, and characters are SO DAMNED LOVEABLE.)

Infamous, @infamous-if (I've been manifesting Band/Musician IFs for the longest time, and then this popped up! I've even played Choice of a Rockstar, that's how desperate I was... Anyway, this is legions better than that. Angsty ex routes are my kryptonite, and Seven is just. Inevitable.)

Defiled Hearts: The Barbarian, @defiledheartsblog (I went into this wanting something juicy and fun/historical—and it's all of those things, but I didn't expect it to be so damned funny, too. The ROs are all impeccable.)

Raiders of the Caravan and Apartment 3-3, @leftski-if (A'ight listen, fantasy slice-of-life is my fave genre, and these are IT. Like, everything I never knew I needed in my life, and SO cozy/wholesome, with a cast of characters that I want to befriend in real life.)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: An Affair of the Heart @doriana-gray-games (First off, the customization in this game is INSANE, and the branching too. I've replayed a couple of times and the little variations I discover each time just blows my mind. Secondly, it's so funny and written so well. Ngl I'm not a Sherlock fan but that's just testament to how amazing this IF is.)

When Life Gives You Lemons, @when-life-gives-you-lemonssss (Modern slice-of-life with an adorable kid, a bunch of hot ROs, CC. Hill's humor, what can I say?)

Golden @milaswriting (Really interesting world-building, one of the coolest fictional cities I've read in an IF, AND I'm obsessed with the ROs, in particular K de la Renta. Also Mila is such an awesome writer, I'm beyond excited for @beyondthegame.)

A Tale of Crowns @ataleofcrowns (This game is beautiful, polished, and SO exciting. Honestly, it looks like the kind of game created by a whole-ass game studio and would cost $50 to buy, it's that good. I really got swept up by this IF—probably played it all in one go.)

Rougi @rougi-if (Again, another game with scrumptious visuals/UI and also is just so well-crafted. I love the premise too, it's so original and fresh.)

Scout: An Apocalypse Story @anya-dev (Unfortunately this one might be on hiatus but I am/was really, really obsessed.)

Wayfarer @idrellegames (Love the game mechanics of this one, and the visuals. Probably controversial, but I like the D&D / random dice effect. And I also like the fact that it feels like an old-school RPG.)

Chop shop @losergames (The premise is all I needed to be sold, really—I'd always wanted to buy GTA as a kid but my parents were like NO WAY. Anyway, this IF did not disappoint, and let me live all my childhood dreams.)

Edit: AHH! How could I forget, one of my recent faves, Folksaga @folksaga-if (Lush atmospheric writing, super unique premise—norse mythology, plus I'm head over heels for Katla).

Completed IFs

Butterfly Soup 1 and 2 @brianna-lei (these are completed and I will never not promote them. Honestly the most adorable, wholesome, funny sports/coming-of-age IF I've read)

Elsinore: After Hamlet @lapinlunairegames (Insanely cool premise, insanely cool execution)

The Thick Table Tavern @manonamora-if (I love bar/tavern games, and this one actually lets you mix drinks! Instant fave.)

Other HGs/COGs I love: Slammed, Tin Star, Fallen Hero, If it pleases the court, A Player's Heart (these last two are so underrated, though I guess cause it's mainly wlw)