#Scroll Roll Manufacturer

[sugar-plum-writer]

Company Cam-Girl <3

Tags: Gang-bang [Toji, Sukuna, Gojo and Suguru]; Use of toys [vibrator]; slight-bondage; size-kink; camera; public-exposure; nsfw + more nsfw; porn with slight plot; manhandling; unprotected sex; spanking; over-stimulation; cream pie; c*mplay; rough sex; lot's and lot's of very dirty talk; explicit; MNDI!; (18+); smut

A/n: This is probably the most explicit thing I might have written; my hazy imagination is getting too much. This period is killing me so it's just pure filth, this is pure porn with a little plot so MDNI!

Synopsis: What happens when a slight back talk results in getting railed and over stimulated like crazy by 4 big men in the sex-toy company?

Word count: 2.6k

[Pic not mine I randomly found it on the internet; I'll change it the owner requests ]

Your heels clicked on the floor as you walked, the place you worked was- explicit to say the least. You would have never expected to work in a company like this when you graduated- literally; a sex toy manufacturing company? beyond your wildest dreams

You were working here all because of pure desperation. Broke with college debts does not make life easy. The position gave good pay, insurance, good bonus, what else could you ask for? hence you continued working.

You worked in the marketing department which was a headache as it sometimes made you wonder how to advertise certain devices.

"Y/n- the manager is calling you to discuss the latest high-intensity vibrator ad!", one of your colleagues yelled giving you the papers and walking away

You looked at the paper which outlined the build, the components, the types of intensity, movements, etc normal people would look away and even be embarrassed but- after a while, it became average to you like another Tuesday.

"Alright, tell him I'll be there, " you yelled, browsing the pages as you entered the office.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"This design is so outdated… we need a new design-", Suguru muttered as he sat at his desk scrolling annoyed, the cigarette hanging off his lips

Toji clicked his tongue as he leaned back on his chair, "Damn if only we could experiment it on someone and record everything down", his deep voice sent a shiver down your spine

"I could always get a hook-up to try it out~", Gojo muttered with a smirk, "I don't mind"

"You fools", Sukuna scorned, "A hook-up won't give accurate data- her fucking brain will just be mushy, ask any questions-", he rolled his eyes, "her replies will just be fucking moans"

"Don't any of you have a girlfriend or somethin'?", Toji groaned as he grabbed his beer bottle, drowning it down, "You can get her and we can experiment"

"Nah- I asked my ex once she nearly threw a god-damn vase at my face", chuckling Gojo scrolled through his phone

"Ah, shit-"

With a groan, they collectively sighed. The atmosphere in the room was tense- after all, they were your superiors, you were just a mere girl from the PR department

"um- excuse me", clenching the papers tight you looked at them all, "T-The documents have an error-", you tried to keep your voice stable

"Oh shut up woman", Sukuna glared as he walked towards you, "Can't you read the room? or are you senseless?"

"Huh-?", rage-filled your veins, you were already annoyed with overwork- been working so hard not to let it get to you but this- this was the last straw.

"You are the senseless one!", you snapped back, "You assholes can't even design a vibrator properly! Look at you discussing this shit!", you scorned and shoved the paper on Sukunas face as you glared at the others

"What did you just say you fucking bitch-", Sukuna grabbed your jaw pinning you against the wall

"You deaf?", glaring into his eyes you scoffed, "I said you assholes cannot even design a fucking vibrator"

"Yo, calm down", Gojo yelled as he made his way towards you and Sukuna

"Fuck off-", his grip on you tightened choking you

"What a pain in the ass", Toji grabbed Sukuna with Suguru and pulled him back

"Tch", groaning he let go of you while Gojo picked up the fallen papers

"You alright?", Sugurus eyes locked with yours- something about his cold black eyes- gave you goosebumps all over your skin

"Y-Yeah" Gasping for air you coughed as you looked at Sukuna who was starting to calm down more

"You said we can't design a vibrator, right?" Toji smirked with a dangerous glint in his eyes

"Y-Yeah..", You backed away afraid. Something about his expression makes you instinctively back away as if your body subconsciously tried to protect itself

"Why not be our test subject? we lacked one anyways~", with a sneer he leaned in. The atmosphere in the room changed as all eyes were on you.

"Your fool brain finally came up with a good idea", grinning Sukuna fixed his blazer, "What do you say woman? or are you too scared?"

"W-What!? no way never!", you immediately shook your head shaking it crazily

"Awwww come on~ it'll be fun I promise!", Gojo nudged you wrapping his arm around your shoulder

"No way!", slapping his hand away you glared

"See you said we can't design good vibrators", putting out the cigarette in his mouth Suguru shrugged, "Have you ever even used one of our vibrators to know if it's bad? ever cummed dripping wet?"

You blushed hard, "W-what explicit nonsense are you even saying!?", shoving the papers on his face you scowled

"Oh~ is someone scared?" smugly Sukuna leaned in and whispered near your ears, his hot breath sending shivers down your spine

"N-No I'm not! It's just a vibrator!", shoving him away you tried to push the men away

"Great!", standing behind you Gojo wrapped his arms around your waist pulling you close, "I'll even let you try out my new designs baby~"

"Hey! Bun-head, grab the newest vibrators and bring them here", Sukuna yelled, "We found a pussy to try it on!" he chuckled deviously

"What-!?" before you could say anything Toji cut you off, "Bring some lube too, I just know she's tight as fuck", smirking he looked into your eyes

"Alright, alright- I'll even bring a camera to record it. Need the data", with this- Suguru went to get all the items whistling

All while you stood stunned- how did you even end up like this? How did a small comeback develop to- well- this?!

"You did it to yourself, baby girl, ~ if only you hadn't opened that darn mouth of yours", with a chuckle Gojo whispered near your ears

"oh well, I'll look after you well~"

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Is the Pussy visible?" Gojo leaned in as he looked at the screen of the camera

"Yeah, just gotta zoom in more", Suguru adjusted the camera, the RBG ratio, etc as he zoomed in

With your legs spread apart on Sukunas desk- your panties are removed as your cunt's all visible in the camera. Rather than an office it looked like a porn production set.

"Hm…she's tight", Toji looked at your cunt, "I wonder when's the last time she got fucked", Sukuna muttered

"Shut up!? what the fuck do you think you are even saying-", embarrassed you looked at both of them annoyed, "Just by looking at my- my pussy you think you can say such things?"

"Doll, I have seen enough to know what pussy has not been fucked and how well it was fucked", chuckling Sukuna smirked

Hearing Sukuna's comment Toji, Gojo and Suguru snickered

"Damn right", smiling smugly Suguru stood up and walked towards you

"You-", too stunned to speak you just lower your head, "How can they say such things!?" you think as you take a sharp breath blushing; almost embarrassed with the explicitness but it was low-key hot.

You hated to admit it but you were aroused as fuck. The cool air brushed against your cunt making the walls quiver, 4 hot guys gazing at you as they discuss what's the best way to record your pussy holding vibrators in the office. It made you get even more wet with your cunt oozing out and dripping, making a mess on Sukuna's desk.

"Look she's already dripping and making a mess how cute~ how needy", Gojo chuckled

"Well can't leave her like this can we?" with a smirk rolling up his sleeves Sukuna started circling his fingers around your clitoris- flicking it a bit making you gasp

"W-wait!" trying to stabilize yourself at the sudden wave of pleasure you try to focus elsewhere, your hands and body trembled at the way he abused your clitoris

"Where's your mind goin'?" Toji cups your breasts and starts kneading them, pinching and flicking the nipples making you squirm and moan

"T-Toji wait ah-" your eyes widen as your feel Sukunas fingers do deeper stretching you out ruthlessly, "She's tight- Fuck", he gritted his teeth

Tossing your head back you try to cover your mouth but it was instantly pulled away by Toji, "Can't have you cover your mouth now can we sweetheart?", smugly he pulled your shirt up and tied your hands with it

"Nice boobs you got here", Gojo brushed his hand against your breasts, fondling them, "I wonder how hard the nipples can get heh~", smirking he brought his lips closer to your nipples and started sucking on them making you moan even louder, "Gojo- ah! 'tis too much wait-!" earning only a chuckle from him as he sucked even harder biting it

"The Vibrator No 1 is ready~ let's see how well you take it darling", smirking Suguru stood beside Sukuna- turning the vibrator on and putting it down on your cunt grinding it, the movements so good you felt you were on cloud 9; while Sukuna continued to move his fingers deeper stretching you out.

"Smile for the camera doll", smirking Sukuna slapped your pussy which stinged a bit but also made you so fucking wet it was embarrassing

The intense stimulation from the vibrator immediately made you arch your back, toss your head back and let out the loudest moans you could muster, it was stimulating- too stimulating.

It was too much- your poor pussy could not stand so much abuse. It was all puffy, sobbing wet, begging for mercy as it dripped and oozed pre-cum. Tears stained your cheeks as you whined and moaned

Your breasts were off even worse, the biting and sucking of Gojo had swollen your nipples so much. The bite marks covering your breasts stung but also gave you so much pleasure wanting more

"Fuck- who knew we had such a natural cam-girl?", licking his lips Toji just watched your expressions hungrily wanting to devour you

"I know right? Should have fucked her and filled her up first", chuckling Suguru increased the intensity of the vibrator to it's highest limit making you gasp and moan, squirm all at once, "Let's see how loud she can scream eh?"

"Oh my God! it's too much ah-" tossing your head back you squeezed your thighs shut as your eyes rolled back and you climaxed instantly because of the intensity

"Stay still, how bratty", slapping your thighs Sukuna spread your legs open forcefully holding them down, his fingers covered in your release, "Heh- who said the vibrator was bad huh? look at the amount of cum", smirking he licked it off his fingers making you blush harder and be even wetter.

"D-Don't-!" you frantically tried to wipe your cum off his fingers too bad Toji held your arms down all tied up

"I wanna taste some too~", licking his lips smugly Gojo with a quick movement shoved his fingers inside your cunt and licked it

"How sweet I can eat her out forever~ Try some Suguru"

"Oh don't mind if I do~"

Seeing them taste your cum from their fingers made you almost lose your mind and your brain felt mushy. The camera still recording everything that they were doing to you. It was so crazy

"Hah- finally stretched out, what a good fucking pussy", Sukuna smirked satisfied

"We can finally put the vibrator in~ shall we put two?", Gojo chuckled as he gazed at your cunt

"I think she can take it~" smugly Toji looked you in the eyes, "She's such a good girl after all. Aren't you baby?"

"Well" with a sneer Suguru finally put the vibrator inside you with the highest intensity, "Let's see what she can do, go at it girl show what you got~"

Hungrily they all gazed at you, their eyes those of starving wolves who wanted to completely devour you, fill you up- breed you so fucking well like the way you deserve. You had no idea what a raging boner they had seeing you and your cunt.

"Oh my god- ah- hah~", moaning you squirm as the vibrator continued to hit all the right spots- making your whole body-shake, your walls clenching so tight- holding on for dear life; "Fuck it's so good!", biting your lips you closed your eyes as you felt your brain going numb.

It felt like it was designed specifically for you, the way it hit your G-spot was driving you mad. It kept pushing you over the edge again and again.

"Shit", biting his lips Sukuna approached you, his hard-on evident, bulging fully, so big it made you wonder if it would even fit.

"Moaning like a whore just from a mere vibrator", unbuckling his pants he removed the vibrator making you sequel and whimper

"Guy's let's give her the best fuck of her life shall we?", smirking he positioned himself to your entrance and slammed in without warning, doing deep, hard and fast thrusts- hitting your G-spot again and again

"Fuck, so good, shit how was I missing out on such good pussy"

The vibrator already broke your brain in the beginning and now feeling Sukuna fuck you, so big- so hard- filling you up so well drove you even more over the edge. Your throat had gone dry from all the moaning

Toji, Gojo and Suguru also unable to keep their hand to themselves any longer; unbuckled their belts with their hard on started jerking off standing beside you, letting out grunts and moans imagining fucking you. Making you suck on their dicks like the good girl you were.

Seeing how big they all were you wondered how your poor cunt will ever be able to take them all inside.

Your vision was going white with all the pleasure as you clenched around Sukuna's dick, squeezing him so tight he tossed his head back pussy drunk just wanting to feel you all around him.

You don't know many hours went by all you know is they all took their turns fucking you- in all positions, filling you up with their cum; praising you and telling how much of a good girl you are, how well you are taking them.

You were fully- completely knocked out and brain fucked. The office fully messy from the desk to the couch and all vibrators gone.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

The next moment you wake up, sharp pain shoots up and down your body as you groan.

"Oh look who woke up, our cam-girl", chucking Toji sat beside you while the others crowded around you

That's when everything hit you all at once and you look down finding yourself completely and utterly naked.

"You took us all in so well baby~ my dicks never been more satisfied", Gojo lifted you making you sit on his lap and kissed your neck

"S-Shut up! I need to go!" you blushed hard and tried to stand up but tripped

"What a brat, you really think you can stand? how annoying, you were better brain fucked", Sukuna immediately grabs you supporting you to not fall

"You!-" feeling your blood boil you immediately try to open your mouth to yell all kinds of profanities

"Oh she's awake", Suguru entered the room smirking, "Still naked is she? are we going for another round? Because I am down"

"I'll die if we do another round!?" in panic you look at them all in the eyes earning a chuckle and a light slap on your ass from Sukuna making you whine

"Shut up you aren't going anywhere from today onwards you are our girl"

"Huh!?", you gasp in shock

"Everything we did is recorded", Gojo chuckled grinning, "Suguru even finished processing it darling~ thank you for your-", he tossed a vibrator to you and winked, "lovely data"

You stand utterly stunned knowing there is no way out from this, they'll eat you alive whenever they please. You are officially the company's cam-girl and test-subject.

Congrats on your promotion~ <3

My Masterlist!

[mostlymaudlin]

would you still love me if i was a worm?

ive always wanted to manufacture a situation where andrew gets to ask neil this bc i just think he deserves to be a ridiculous bf who seeks validation in silly, petty ways <3 and i think I’ve finally got something — it’s def silly but that’s the point lmfao

Andrew wakes when Neil gets up to pee.

“Sorry,” Neil whispers, brushing his knuckles against the back of Andrew’s hand as he slips out of their bed.

Andrew doesn’t bother trying to fall back asleep immediately. He’ll just wake up again when Neil returns. Instead, he pulls his phone from under the pillow and scrolls through iFunny, staring blearily at memes that do not live up to the app’s name and fighting sleep.

By the time Neil gets back, Andrew has lost the ability to move his heavy thumb, his eyes drooping as he stares at a pixelated screenshot of a screenshot of a Tweet posted to Facebook. Neil takes the phone out of his lax grip, turning off the screen and shoving it back under the pillows.

“Go to sleep,” Neil whispers. Andrew opens one eye to glare at him. He would still be sleeping if Neil hadn’t chugged a whole can of seltzer water right before bed and damned them both. Unfortunately for Andrew, the act of looking at Neil in his rumpled, tired state only makes his chest go tight in that angry, riotous way that only Neil can inspire in him. He shifts closer to Neil, pushing at his shoulder until Neil gets the message and rolls onto his side. Andrew presses up against Neil’s back, shoving his face into his bedhead and inhaling deeply. One arm wraps tightly around Neil’s waist, the other wiggles underneath the pillow they now share. Andrew throws a knee over Neil’s thigh for good measure. Neil sighs happily, resting his palm over the back of Andrew’s hand where it rests on his chest.

The lure of sleep threatens to pull him back under, but the meme he’d been staring at is still burned into the backs of his eyelids.

“Hey,” Andrew murmurs into Neil’s hair. Neil hums in acknowledgment. “Would you still love me if I was a worm?”

Neil stiffens for a second, and it takes a beat for Andrew to register that they don’t really use that word. They talked about it once, a few years ago. Neither of them have anything against it, but agreed it felt shallow. Andrew thinks the word sometimes, when his brain is too lazy to be specific about what exactly Neil stirs in him. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just a word. He presses a kiss to Neil’s shoulder, and Neil relaxes immediately.

“I don’t know,” Neil says. “Why would you be a worm? How would I even know who you were?”

“You’re supposed to say yes,” Andrew says, squeezing in reprimand. “That your feelings for me transcend species.”

“Okay, well, mine don’t,” Neil says. “Worms are gross.”

In a flash of irritation, Andrew releases Neil and rolls back to his own side of the bed.

“Andrew,” Neil says, sitting up. “You can’t seriously be upset about this.”

“I can do whatever I want,” Andrew says.

“I mean, yeah,” Neil says, interrupted by a yawn. “But you’re not a worm. And I do love you.”

Andrew wrinkles his nose, flopping onto his back. “That’s gross.”

Neil huffs. He reaches a hand toward Andrew, waiting for Andrew to roll his eyes and nod before running his fingers through Andrew’s hair.

“It’s true,” Neil says. “And also based on reality.”

“Whatever,” Andrew says, he catches Neil’s wrist and tugs. “Come here.”

They resume their earlier position. When they finally settle, the slow, steady rhythm of Neil’s chest rising and falling has Andrew’s consciousness slipping. He jolts a bit when Neil speaks again.

“Would you love me if I was a worm?”

“Yes,” Andrew says, even though Neil is so annoying that Andrew should squeeze him until he pops.

“What would that even look like?” Neil asks. “Would you kiss my worm body?”

“I’d put you in a little worm enclosure,” Andrew murmurs, eyes closed. “I’d get you good worm food and toys, and keep you in a room where you could see Exy games on TV.“

“Oh,” Neil says. “That’s really nice, actually.”

“Mmhmmm.”

“I’d do that too,” Neil says, yawning again. “But different. I’ll think about it more tomorrow.”

Andrew doesn’t really care anymore. He’s warm, and he’s human, he’s holding a warm and human Neil. Sleep finally pulls him back under.

[starlightomatic]

i want to ask that this post only be reblogged by jews, because this is an intracommunity conversation i want to have.

i recently made a post about october 7th, which i ended with acknowledging what's going on in gaza and a discussion of the bigger picture. a couple of people reblogged this with something like "in case the beginning made you want to scroll, read to the end."

my initial reaction here was being upset; the first half of the post would have been valid on its own, and it's fucked up to see a post about pain the OP is connected to and automatically assume it's propaganda.

so i added an addition about that, and here are some of the things i said:

if describing my multiple personal connections to a woman burned alive made you roll your eyes and want to ignore it, i urge you to sit with that response and strip it of the associations of other posts you've seen, and look at the bare truth: someone describing their personal connections to a woman burned alive made you want to roll your eyes and ignore it.

and:

and i'm not talking about folks with compassion fatigue who just didn't want to hear more about death and violence -- that is very understandable. it's for those ready to toss this in the "bad post" bin because they automatically assumed it was propaganda.

and:

a lot of you have been receiving significant amounts of propaganda for months that is training you to read anything that reference october 7th victims of death, rape, injury, or trauma, or reference hostages, as fake and a warning sign that someone is an Enemy. you are not immune to propaganda and you need to really reflect on how you evaluate information if this is where it's gotten to.

and

what brought you to the place where you're automatically suspicious, distrustful, and dismissive of people relating certain experiences? what messages have you received about who to listen to and who to dismiss, about what's true and what's probably lies?

and:

i know that in large part it's because october 7th is weaponized to silence palestinians and manufacture consent for genocide. what tools can you use to recognize when that is and isn't happening? can you seek out voices who don't do that, and are able to hold both truths?

and:

what would it look like to not either dismiss or weaponize?

writing this made me realize, we need to talk about something. we have needed to talk about it for a long time.

i have seen exactly this same dynamic occur when it comes to people discussing gaza.

i have seen folks in the jumblr community and in other jewish communities on and offline view any post or discussion about gaza as propaganda, as a way to dismiss october 7th. i have seen people view every claim about what is happening there through a lens of suspicion and distrust. i have seen people assuming ulterior motives, assuming that people could not have been genuinely motivated by care and concern but must have some other harmful purpose.

i've fallen into this too, unfortunately.

and i understand why this is happening. when you're dismissed, in mourning, and hurt, it's going to make you more reactive, and likely to assume worst intent.

so i want to use the things i asked in my post as a framework for recognizing when this is happening.

when is our instinct to ignore or scroll past posts about gaza and palestine? can we pause first before dismissing?

how often do we view something as propaganda and distrust it? what would it mean if it is propaganda; what would it mean if it's not? how useful is the term propaganda in the first place; can something have a political goal and still be true?

what messages have you received about palestinians and their goals that would lead you to dismiss the information they're sharing? if propaganda is a useful term, what propaganda has been aimed at you and played to your existing sympathies? what palestinian narratives have you been trained to dismiss, ignore, mistrust or suspect?

to what extent do you assume that discussion of gaza is intended to dismiss or deny october 7th, or is disingenous? can you recognize when that is or isn't happening? can you seek out voices who don't do that, and are able to hold both truths -- but actually both truths, not just lip service?

what would it look like not to dismiss gaza? what would it look like to speak up about gaza? what would it look like to be rooted in truths and our own experiences and values, and to speak up about gaza in that framework?

What would it look like to know and internalize that while someone like me might have eight confirmed second-degree connections to people killed on October 7th, a Palestinian in diaspora might have dozens, or more?

What would it look like to internalize that while I never got to visit Nahal Oz and a man once dropped me off at a bus stop on his way to Be'eri, a Palestinian in diaspora has many towns that were destroyed before they were even born.

Can we hold our own pain, and our own very valid anger at the ways we're mistrusted and dismissed, without slipping into mistrusting and dismissing the pain of others?

Can we reach out to our communities and ask them to take the crisis in Gaza seriously? Can we evaluate whether we and our communities are materially complicit in that crisis, and speak out against it if that is the case? Can we call in the people in our lives who dismiss or excuse this? Can we support the people of Gaza via donations? Can we reach out to our political leaders to put pressure on them to end this war?

[the1975attheirverybest]

Being Funny In A Foreign Language

Chapter 4- Oh Caroline.

read all other chapters here

Warnings: brief depictions of mental illness. Light smut.

———

Matty crawled, shirtless, in the artificial grass towards peanut. He learned from doing this bit of the show every night that, there are some days when he finds it completely routine —just a performer doing the scripted bit that he worked hard to orchestrate for a very specific purpose—and there are other days, like today, when the entire experience feels uncanny. A real lived experience of his personal life being broadcast for the world to see. He is face to face(literally; their faces are inches apart) with his own naked likeness; comforting it, stroking its arm gently, treating it with care and tenderness.

He laid right behind peanut and wrapped his arms around his body double, spooning him in front of thousands of cheering fans. This was always the strangest part. He’s all too aware of the worlds eyes on his every move even as he attempts to drop the act and be vulnerable. The thing about manufactured vulnerability is, though, that it’s always inherently, at its essence, an act. some nights, he wondered, as he laid there next to himself, how much was manufactured and how much was vulnerable.

Tonight, his thoughts drifted back to that brief moment of respite that he experienced in Amelia’s arms. He kissed a line along the expanse of peanuts shoulders, tightening his arms around him. When the platform lowered again, taking peanut away with it, Matty rolled on his back. Tears rolled down his cheeks as the screens in the venue displayed a close-up zoomed in on him.

Moments later, the platform came back up, a guitar and a microphone ready for “Be My Mistake.”

***

Matty and Amelia never spoke of that night after it happened. They found it difficult to speak about anything at all. A fact that unnerved Matty endlessly. But he didn’t know how to be around her anymore. Every time he tried, he found himself clinging too tightly to a pretense of normalcy; trying so hard to act as though nothing had changed between them. He couldn’t bare the way it made him feel, even worse, he couldn’t bare the fact that it was his fault their friendship had now broken.

He leaned into the routines of tour life. Waking up, working out, writing, performing, and getting ready to do it all again in a different city the next day. That is, until he woke up on the morning of the first day of their week off.

His first mistake was not getting out of bed as soon as he’d woken up. What was intended as a relaxed start to the day turned into Matty not getting out of bed at all. After hours of endless scrolling, unanswered texts, and ignored notification, he set down his phone and noticed the lump in his throat. He turned to the other side of the bed, pulling the duvet protectively over himself and squeezing his eyes shut. He felt stuck. Like the whole world around him was moving at whirlwind speeds while he laid there, perfectly still. Even the thoughts inside his mind and the beating heart in his chest seemed to move faster than he could handle. He tucked his knees up into his chest and tried to breathe through the worst of it.

It was 6 pm before Matty had managed to get himself out of bed. And it wasn’t long before he returned to it. The first two nights of the week went by without him leaving his hotel room.

***

“Amelia! Joshua! Welcome back!” The couple turned around to find Mark, sipping on A cocktail at the hotel bar.

“Mark, you’re here.” Amelia hugged him.

“Did you kids have a good trip?”

Mark always made Amelia smile and put her at ease. She thought it was his warm paternal energy, a comfort to have around when you find yourself in a strange and unfamiliar place every other day while on tour. But, perhaps it was even more than that, Mark genuinely cared about each of the boys, their friends, and there partners. He was sincere when he asked to hear about their trip to Joshua’s hometown, and whether or not the weather over there was good. It was clear to everyone why Matty loved working with Mark.

“What about you? You guys must have cut your short trip if you’re already here drinking tonight.” Amelia observed.

“Oh we never went anywhere.” Mark sipped on his drink. “I mean, I think George and Charli are off on holiday. Reckon Adam’s out of town as well. Seen Ross out and about. Not entirely sure where Matty is but he’s in town.”

Amelia couldn’t shake that feeling in her gut. Mark’s words echoed through her mind as the elevator shot them up to the top floor. Not entirely sure where Matty is, but he’s in town. That doesn’t make any sense. Matty often used his days off in the US between New York or, if he was feeling messy, LA. For him to not pack up and go somewhere, when he has an entire week to do was he pleased, was very unusual.

She looked down the dimly lit hallway as she stepped off the elevator. Matty’s room was somewhere in the darkness. Something told her she needed to be there.

“Hun?,” she whispered, tapping Joshua’s shoulder. “Would you mind taking my suitcase and heading in without me? I- just wanna check on Matty.”

***

“Amelia” Matty barely mustered when he opened the door to her knocking.

She scanned him head to toe, noting that he was in a t shirt and boxers. “You don’t seem happy to see me.”

“Just….erm.” He scratched his head “thought you were room service or— house keeping or something.”

It was difficult for Amelia to keep a straight face while looking at the dark circles underneath his eyes, his unshaven face, his defeated look. But she knew Matty well enough to tiptoe around these observations. “Aren’t you gonna let me in?”

Matty hesitated, briefly, but it was Amelia. He could never turn her away. “Yeah. Right. Come in.”

She surveyed her surroundings, her heart shattered into a million pieces. The empty bottles everywhere, the clothes piled up in different corners, his guitar laying diagonally across the floor, various cables and wires everywhere, plates of uneaten food resting on the entertainment unit and the dresser. Everywhere she looked, there were signs telling her that she was already far too late.

“Oh, gosh. Matty…” words escaped her.

Matty averted his gaze, embarrassed.

Her hands reached out to him but Matty stepped back moving out of her reach.

“N-no, no. It’s fine. I’m…I’m fine. You should go-“

“Just wanna keep you company. Can I? Can I just sit with you for a little while?”

“Amelia, please-“

“You need help. Why won’t you let me help you?” She walked over to the couch, pushing the random books and papers that had covered it into a corner and sitting down.

Matty paced back and forth anxiously. “Because I don’t wanna get it wrong! I don’t want to do this- this- depression thing the wrong way-“

“Do you hear how insane you sound right now?

“No; you’re insane. You’re insane. I- listen to me. This thing within me- It’s not attractive or broody or anything. It’s- this!” He gestured passionately at his surroundings. “There’s nothing glamorous or artsy about how I feel. I cry a lot. And drink a lot. And I haven’t had a shower since the show a few days ago and- and I’m scared. All the fuckin time. I’m somewhere between terrified and completely numb.”

Matty felt the ground underneath him shift, losing balance, he quickly sat down next to her with a loud thud of his body hitting the couch.

“You get dizzy?” She asked, already knowing the answer. “Whens the last time you ate anything?”

“Depends….what day is it?”

“Oh for fucks sakes, Matthew!”

Matty leaned his head against her shoulder, cuddling into her. “I don’t want to eat. Please don’t make me do it.” He whispered as he closed his eyes.

Amelia remained perfectly still at first, allowing him to get comfortable. When she was certain that he wouldn’t spook or pull away, she slowly reached for his hair, stroking it gently as she spoke to him in her softest tone. “You been keeping up with the gym?”

Matty shook his head.

“Jiujitsu?”

“No.”

“Have you been sleeping?”

“Everything feels like sleeping. Like daydreaming or sleep-walking.”

They were both silent for a moment.

“What do you need right now? Can i- call down for some food? Do you…wanna go to sleep? I-“

“I need you.”He lifted his head off her shoulder and turned to look at her, pressing his forehead to hers, “please, Amelia? Just this once?” His nose brushed against hers, his lips a hairs breadth away from hers, begging for her to kiss him.

Amelia’s hands rested on either side of his face. “Will you let me take care of you?” She kissed him.

***

She pulled the shirt over his head, tossing it to the floor. When she reached for the waistband of his underwear, Matty’s hands quickly stopped her.

“Uhh-umm I’m still- erm…having t-trouble there.”

“Oh. Ok-okay. That’s alright.” She smiled at him reassuringly. “Is there a…specific reason or— I mean is everything alright? Medically speaking….” Her words were clumsy, anxiety building in her stomach as she recalled how badly she’d fumbled this conversation the first time around.

Matty simply shrugged.

“You really need to learn to take care of yourself, Matty.”

Matty laid down, looking up at the ceiling. He whispered. “I don’t deserve to.”

“Don’t say that!”

“I’ve fucked everything up- I-“ he gasped as she brought her lips to the skin of his stomach, peppering him with kisses.

“I have an idea…” she mumbled, barely speaking in between kisses. “We should…come up with a system. Teach you how to let go.”

Matty’s brows furrowed. “System?”

She looked up at him through her lashes, pausing her loving for a moment to give me a slightly coy smile. “For your dopamine addicted weirdly wired brain….rewards for doing the right things, and….” She bit at his skin sharply, making him jolt and wince. “Punishments for doing the wrong things.”

“Might as well start there.” He spoke quickly. “I’ve done a lot of wrong things. Hurt you. Hurt the guys by risking their careers…well, if you believe Twitter, I’ve hurt entire demographics-“

She silenced him with a firm kiss. “I make the rules.” She whispered in his ear, smiling, “you hear that?”

Matty nodded slowly.

“We’ll come up with rules and expectations. They should mostly be around taking care of you. Making sure you get better.”

“Amelia, you don’t have to do all that. I-“

“Yeah, yeah. That conversation is for a bit later. For now, tell me, you ever been fucked in the ass?”

[goodluckdetective]

FIC: FIVE HOURS (Tumblr Edition)

Ship: Durge/Astarion but this is a fic about Astarion

Fandom: BG3

Warnings: Astarion backstory is referenced in passing

Rating: PG-13

AO3

Summary: 

Being controlled by one’s dark urge is hard, but watching someone you care for lose themselves might be harder. Or Astarion and five hours spent watching over someone he can no longer recognize. (How do you keep hating yourself as a monster when you've started to fall for one?)

Notes:

Hello, I took one look at vampire man and Durge and went “ah yes, the drama of falling in love with someone who sees themselves as a monster.” This fic does have a custom dark urge/durge because I don’t think it hits as hard otherwise, but it’s very much a fic about Astarion. Rune in this piece is me holding up a mirror and going “if you’re gonna to see the humanity in this person, then why do you refuse to do it for yourself” while Astarion hisses like a cat. Sorry bud, get perceived. All you need to know about Rune is that they’re a NB human wild magic sorcerer (they/them) A big thanks to @dykezambo and Rose for being my beta readers. I salute you.

Fic is below the cut

HOUR ONE:

Astarion thinks it might still be some sort of sick prank until Rune Tavernus’ eyes roll up into the back of their head and they collapse to the ground in a heap.

A prank would make more sense than this, Astarion thinks, as he scrambles onto his feet and towards the unconscious sorcerer. Rune wasn’t much of a prankster, but they did have some wit and a streak of dark humor to match. What the point would be of a prank like this was beyond Astarion, but in his head he can manufacture a bizarre scenario where Rune thinks it would be funny to give Astarion a taste of his own medicine with a sinister wake-up call. And yes, the whole explanation of “killing the one they cared most for” didn't fit the prank theory, Rune wouldn’t play with his feelings so brazenly, but when one's occasional bedmate starts rambling about being forced to kill you, a cruel trick tends to be a kinder explanation. 

And then Rune passed out and that idea had gone out the metaphorical window.

“Shit,” Astarion says, pressing his palm to their forehead. Rune runs warm to Astarion, almost everyone does, but they feel clammy to the touch. Their short white hair is almost damp with sweat and sticks to their forehead. He shakes them, once, then twice, calling their name with increasing volume, but they don’t stir. That in itself is alarming; Rune is not a deep sleeper. In fact, they’re known for sleeping poorly, waking up from unremembered dreams with a choked-off scream. Every morning they chug whatever caffeinated beverage Halsin brews as soon as it’s cool enough not to burn their tongue. 

Rune doesn’t rouse even after a minute of shaking. Astarion considers waking Shadowheart, but the whole business with Alfira gives him enough pause to instead first go for the rope in his pack. Rune had been back to normal by morning when she was slain; if this is similar, then Astarion would just have to wait until dawn for a full explanation. With a great deal of effort on his part, he drags Rune to an open bedroll closest to the fire and binds their arms together as well as their legs, feeling somewhat like out of body. 

(He tries hard to not think of a pig prepared for slaughter. He tries harder to not think about how Cazador might have tied up the people he brought home the very same way.) 

“You know, this was not the situation I was envisioning when the idea of you and rope came to mind,” he says, because making a flirty joke is familiar and Gods knows he needs something familiar right now. This is a situation he can handle better as Astarion the rake, who lets nothing get too close, who brushes off mortal peril with a quick comment and a fake grin. When he’s sure the ropes are tight, he walks over to his bedroll, and grabs a blanket to sit on, a light scroll, a book, and after some hesitation, his daggers. 

(He’s not going to need them, he isn’t. Rune gave him these daggers and told him to “keep them as sharp as your fangs” should he choose to use them.)

(He desperately hopes he’s not going to need them).

Once his supplies are grabbed and organized, he places the blanket on the ground and sits on it. He casts light on a nearby wilted plant, and sits back. He looks at the sorcerer he has bedded in a gambit for security and thinks about how said gambit turned on its head when he found he actually rather liked the person who offered to cast him minor illusion to see his own reflection and provided their blood in a land of shadows because “you shouldn’t starve.”

“I will admit this isn’t how I wanted to spend my evening, but I suppose I’ll survive.” He reaches for his book and opens it, even though he doubts he’s going to be able to focus enough to read a word. “Hopefully, this is all a false alarm, and I can simply catch up on this chapter. Do you think the Count will actually manage to make any progress in his grand plan, or is he going to keep dithering about Waterdeep for another thirty pages?”

(The book was also a gift from Rune, though it was not the first one the sorcerer gave him. A day after reaching the Blighted Village, Astarion had sneaked back from his midnight meal to find the human grumbling over a slightly burnt text near the fire. Hoping to distract them from the fact he was awake in the first place, Astarion had inquired about the books’ contents, only to find himself the audience for a tirade about overly complicated murder plots. Apparently, Rune had strong opinions on the accuracy of snakes climbing ropes. From that point on, Astarion had found himself part of the world’s strangest murder mystery book club, where the pair both tried to guess how the murder took place and then endlessly complained about how overcomplicated it was when stabbing them in an alley would work just fine). 

Rune does not reply. Astarion doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Instead of debating it further, he instead tries to turn his attention to the text in front of him, and hopes that Rune is wrong and the only thing that will occur this night is Astarion getting some reading in and Rune waking up with some neck pain.

HOUR TWO: 

Rune wakes up around ten minutes after the first hour mark. 

That isn’t quite correct. Something wakes up around the ten minute mark. It is not Rune.

Astarion knows it before they even open their mouth. From the moment they wake up, they struggle against their own bindings, jerking much like a wounded animal caught in a trap. When their eyes open, there are none of the emotions he’s used to seeing in their expression, instead an empty raw look that reminds Astarion of a starving hound. Before he can say a word, they snarl at him.

“I see my rope is sadly going to good use,” Astarion says, putting the book aside and getting on his knees in case he needs to stand and get away. He doubts it, those knots should hold and Rune doesn’t seem to be capable of casting spells at the moment, but it's best to be cautious. 

“I will rip out your tongue and swallow it whole,” Rune says in a voice that does not sound like Rune at all. It’s a whole octave lower, and there’s a throaty edge to it, like the human has inhaled smoke.

“I know I tease quite a bit, but ripping out my tongue is rather excessive, don’t you think?” The banter doesn’t land, it’s almost like Rune can’t even hear him. Astarion wonders if they will even remember this in the morning. 

He hopes not. He can remember watching his body follow Cazador’s every order as he tried desperately to claw back control. It is a fate he would not wish on any of his companions. 

It occurs to him that this could be like a possession. It would make the most sense, and the impulse to wake up Shadowheart returns. Rune hisses and snaps forward, trying to bite one of his hands and Astarion steps back. He can see drool and blood from their now broken lip fall onto the bedroll. 

( He can see himself in a coffin, snapping at the rat Cazador is holding out for him with a wicked smile .)

No, he won’t wake her. Not yet at least, not unless morning comes without a respite. Instead he shakes his head, tries to keep his voice light. 

“Ah, ah, ah, we ask before we bite.”

Rune snaps at him again, struggling at the bindings and Astarion can smell the blood from broken skin on their wrists and lip. His own mouth waters and he ignores it.

If there is one thing he learned in Cazador’s halls, it was how to be hungry. 

HOUR THREE:

After an hour, the thing that has taken Rune’s face stops threatening to murder him and starts growling instead. Despite it being off-putting, Astarion is thankful for the respite, as all the comments about ways to display his internal organs were getting old. 

“You’re cute, you know.,” he says, too tired to think through what he’s saying. “In another life we might have been friends.”

It’s an odd thought that comes to mind, the concept of him meeting whatever this is back when he was under Cazador’s boot. What would he make of someone like this, who growled murderous insults and clawed at the ground as if the dirt could draw blood? Interesting perhaps? Maybe pitiful? An asset against Cazador?

(He knows what he would have done. He would have dragged them back to the manor and not had a second thought as soon as Cazador had them in his clutches. He would have gone back to the rooms and thought nothing more of a human with white hair, a lanky build and a soft smile. He would have continued on and not known that should he have met that same human during the day, they would ask him about the embroidery on his sleeves and tease him that magistrates were actually in contact with the hells. He would not even know the human’s name when the sun rose to a world they no longer occupied).

(He cannot think about this. He refuses). 

He feels like he’s going to be sick. 

“On second thought,” he says, looking away from Rune. The shadow lands around them seem darker at night. He finds himself desperate for the sun. “It’s probably for the best that we didn't meet at all.”

The thing that is not Rune growls again, with more energy this time. 

“Growl all you want but it won’t stop the dawn. This will be over soon.”

HOUR FOUR:

Whatever is controlling Rune goes back to insults eventually, though their voice frayed from all the growling. Astarion ignores most of them, until one in particular captures his attention.

“I will wed you with a delicate veil of blood blooming over your white curls.”

Astarion stares at Rune, or whatever is possessing them, with a rather shocked expression. It says something about his life, or undeath, he supposes, that the word “wed” is the one that caught him off guard in that sentence, not the rest of it. Marriage is not a concept he has thought about in relationship to himself for at least a century. When he was younger it had its allure, Astarion was serious when he said Wyll was the type of man he dreamed of marrying when he was thirteen, but now? He’s a spawn, for Gods sake. Creatures like him either die or become vampire lords: there are no other endings. 

He does not say any of this out loud. Instead he goes for a quip. 

“Marriage? Darling, I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, we’re not even-“

He cuts off. They’re not even what? More than bedmates? That’s not right: he hasn’t bedded Rune since they entered the shadowlands and Rune has made no complaint about it at all. Not even friends? That didn’t seem right either. He’s not sure how to label how he feels about this human, but when one offers to draw your scars in the dirt so you can see them and you actually let them, you were probably at least friends.  Exclusive? No, that also doesn’t fit. Astarion hasn’t bothered to lie with anyone else in camp and Rune hasn’t either, even when Astarion made it clear he didn’t mind. And it wasn’t like Rune didn’t have options to pick from: Lae’Zel’s proposal had been quite direct and Astarion had bit the inside of his cheek to not laugh as their usually composed sorcerer flushed peach pink. Gale had made an attempt as well, though Rune didn’t tell him about that one until afterwards. 

“I’ve spoiled you too much for even the lover of a Goddess. How flattering!” They were in Rune’s tent at the time, a mage light cast upon a blue crystal Rune kept around for decor. It was one of the few pieces of decoration they kept around consistently, as the human tended to switch things out, trying to figure out what they liked and what they didn’t from the ruins of their memory. Rune had returned from a talk with Gale with a moderate flush and after a glass of terrible wine and some cajoling, Astarion had gotten the whole story out of them.

Rune tilted their head and shook it slightly. Their hair was rumpled from a day of casting electricity magic, and Astarion resisted the urge to curl his fingers into one of the white cowlicks. Something about the lack of polish Astarion found endearing.  

“No, no, not that,” they said. “It’s just, well for one, I don’t like him like that. And even if I did, well-” Rune took a sip of their wine, finishing off the glass. “His last relationship wasn’t good for him-”

“Darling, you cannot kill the Goddess of magic,” Astarion said, noticing a hard glint in their eyes. It wasn’t like Astarion was on board with the idea as a concept, the Goddess sounded dreadful, but he rather liked existing and fighting Gods was a speedy way to die. He didn’t mind Rune’s more violent tendencies, but he’d rather they not get themselves smited. 

“Anyway-” Rune continued, ignoring him. “He’s a sweet man but, well.” They placed the glass on a wooden stump Rune used as a side table and tangled their fingers together. It was something they did when they were being thoughtful. “Gale seems to admire me too much for his own good. I’d ruin him.” 

That was not the answer Astarion was expecting. He sat up on his own bedroll, a feeling of apprehension coming over him.

“And what, you think I’m-” Already ruined? That stung more than Astarion cared to admit, even if it wasn’t surprising. He didn’t finish his sentence. He couldn’t. Saying it out loud made it seem too concrete, too physical, too noticeable. 

"What! No!” Rune’s eyes grew large and they shook their head violently. They tore their left hand from their right to gesture with and for a moment, Astarion feared for the fate of the wine glass on the table should they accidentally knock it off. With their right hand, they reached out and grabbed Astarion’s hand tightly, while their left reached out for his jaw, pausing a moment so he could turn away should the touch be unwanted. Astarion didn’t protest, and Rune’s hand touched his chin briefly to tilt his head up so he’d meet their eyes. “No, absolutely not. Shit, I could have phrased that better. Gods, no, Astarion, I didn’t mean it that way.”

"And in what way could you mean it?” The sneer in Astarion’s voice wasn’t intentional, but it was better than sounding hurt. 

Rune bit their lower lip, which was something Astarion often found adorable when he was in a better mood. They looked away from him, took a steadying breath, then looked back. “I’d ruin Gale because he’s a hopeless romantic. He’s sweet, but he has a nasty habit of hubris; if faced with an unstoppable problem, he’d burn himself alive to fix it. I’m not saying you’re not smart, or romantic-“

“Or beautiful, don’t forget beautiful.”

Rune chuckled, some tension leaving their shoulders. “That too, as well as quite vain.” Astarion pouted at the addendum but let the sorcerer finish. “I’m saying you’re smart enough to run away.” 

Astarion considered that for a moment. It was certainly better than what he’d originally thought, but he wasn’t quite sure if it was a compliment. What was that supposed to mean? “Are you calling me a coward now?”

Rune smiled, a little sad, and rubbed their thumb across the back of his hand. It was unfamiliar but nice. “No, no, more realistic .” They leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead, something they’d previously only done after sex. “I just know you’ll be safe, that’s all. That you wouldn’t hurt yourself for a hopeless cause.” 

Rune jerks again in their sleep, snapping Astarion out of the memory. Thinks of resignation in the sorcerer's eyes that night, how something about it ached. How familiar the sentiment felt.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Astarion says as the sorcerer spits out another cruel insult.

He’s shocked to find that he means it. 

HOUR FIVE

Astarion has spent much of life afraid, but he has never been so frightened when the dawn is an hour away and Rune has not stopped twitching.

He thought he was done with this, the idea of caring for others. After the year in the darkness, he’d swore to never care about anyone again except himself because caring was a luxury and he couldn’t even afford to buy new clothes. The tadpole has given him more freedom than he’s had in centuries but as long as Cazador was alive, caring was supposed to be off the table. 

And yet. And yet. 

Astarion intended for Rune to be a means to an end. Someone to wind around his finger like an armor against the world. But Astarion does not find himself panicking when his armor is dented or bruised. Astarion does not spend more time with his armor than necessary so it will not be lonely. Astarion does not worry that should his armor learn it was initially a means to an end of keeping him safe, it will never trust him again.

(This metaphor is rubbish, this Astarion knows. Watching someone you care for deeply scrape their wrists raw makes one less adept in turns of phrases).

For the first time all night, Rune whimpers, a small soft noise that would have frozen Astarion’s heart if it was still beating. Rune doesn’t whimper (well, not unless it was in the fun sort of way). They’re  reluctant to show weakness or accept the comfort they so freely give to others. For them to sound like this-

Astarion reaches forward and when the human doesn't try to bite him, he pushes their white hair back and out of their eyes. They were drenched in sweat, and still clammy. Before he can pull away, they lean into his hand with a sigh, seeking comfort from frozen hands, and Astarion feels his throat tighten.

“This thing can’t have you,” he says, running his thumb against their forehead wrinkles and a faded scar just over their right eyebrow. They are so covered in scars, and each day they risk gaining even more. “It won’t win.”

Rune doesn’t respond to his statement, instead breathing softly. They must have finally worn themselves out to fall asleep. Astarion considers pulling his hand back, he probably should given the threat were they to wake up again, but he finds himself reluctant to do so, instead continuing to gently stroke the sorcerer’s brow with his thumb. 

“You have no idea what you do to me, do you?” He whisperes. The birds were starting to chirp now, singing their song in anticipation of the sunrise. “Come back to yourself, and I’ll consider telling you. I think that’s a fair bargain.”

DAYBREAK:

Day comes and Rune returns with it. 

They don’t open their eyes right away, tense and still. Astarion can see them rub their hands together and they stiffen further when the sorcerer’s thumb runs across some dried blood on their palm. He doesn’t understand why until the corner of their eyes tighten and they suck in a short breath, a whisper of a sob on the precipice. 

Rune told the entire camp that when Alfira died, they’d woken up in the morning with their hands covered in blood. For them to wake up and find the same sensation present-

“It’s your own blood, darling,” Astarion says, reaching forward to place his hand on their shoulder. Their eyes open wide, and they take him in with a look that Astarion feels like he might be able to name if he lived a kinder existence. “You rubbed your wrists raw enough to bleed, I’m afraid.”

“Astarion,” they said, lips parting, some tension melting from their frame. “You’re alright.” Then, they flinch, pain crossing their features. “Ow, my neck.”

Astarion almost wants to cry at the complaint. “You might have strained it trying to bite me. Do you remember that?”

Given the sudden look of horror on Rune’s expression, they do now. 

Rune explains what they can after Astarion unties them. Most of it are things Astarion already knows; Alfira, the urges, the loss of sleep. The insight about Isobel and the butler is a new one, and he thinks back to the cape in his tent that Rune had shoved onto him like they couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. At the time, Astarion thought the gift was an attempt to curry his favor. He’s not sure how to view the gift with this new context.

“I was wondering why you didn’t want to spend much time enjoying Harper's hospitality,” Astarion muses. He watches as Rune rubs their wrists with their palms, trying to massage out the aches. They will need to see a healer for certain; Astarion knows they’ve been dabbling in the bardic arts but not enough to heal injuries. 

“I thought I couldn’t risk it,” Rune says, moving to pick up the rope. Astarion watches as they cast mending and then pull at each end. When the rope holds firm, they hand it back to Astarion. “I thought the less time I spent around there, the less likely I might slip up.”

“If you’d shared that earlier, I would have grumbled less about the horrors of the great outdoors.”

Rune shoots him an apologetic frown. “I thought telling Isobel would be enough. I never thought-“ They close their eyes briefly and sigh. “I should have considered it a possibility. I’m sorry.” When they open their eyes again, Astarion does not miss how they take a step away from him. They look towards the other tents, avoiding his gaze.

“I should tell the others.”

Astarion reaches forward and grabs their wrist. They pull back for a moment and Astarion loosens his grip to make it clear that’s an option, if they want it. But after a second passes and they don’t pull away, he pulls their hand up to inspect the rope burns and cuts. Their wrists are going to bruise a sickening greenish-yellow. 

“You don’t have to tell them if you don’t want.” Astarion says, dropping their wrist. He forces a smile, makes sure his fangs are visible. “I can keep a secret.”

Rune’s hand reaches forward and up, like they are going to touch Astarions face, then stops, dropping arruptly. Astarion finds himself disappointed by the lack of contact. How strange. 

“I know you can,” they said. “But they deserve to know that there’s a danger. I can’t hide a monster from everyone.” And with that they head off towards Lae’Zel’s tent, to start gathering everyone for an unpleasant announcement.

It takes Astarion a moment to realize the “monster” they’re talking about is Rune themselves. 

*******************

Rune tells everyone about the night once everyone is up, gathering everyone around the remains of the fire. For someone who might not have slept more than an hour last night, they’re relatively composed as they tell the story, though they don’t look anyone in the eye as is their usual habit. As the tale begins to wind down, Astarion is reluctant to look at their companions either. 

It occurs to Astarion halfway through Rune’s tale something that he should have realized much earlier: he might be content to camp with a sleeping murderer, but other people might object. In fact, most people might protest to such a situation, and he can feel himself grow colder as he realizes a grave mistake.

When Rune woke him last night, Astarion saw someone who needed their help. He’d held off from grabbing anyone else for the sake of Rune’s privacy. But he never considered they might see something else: a monster needing to be exorcized. 

He steps closer to Rune and is very glad they are wearing their gear.  Astarion doesn’t think most of the camp will attack Rune, it would be foolhardy given the prism’s like of their resident sorcerer, but fear makes people foolish and he is not betting Rune’s life. The sorcerer doesn’t appear to be paying much attention to their crowd at all, a rarity for them, speaking of an urge to maim and kill as they stare down at their raw wrists. When they bring their story to a close, their voice is a whisper from overuse.

“And that’s it,” they say, rubbing a thumb over a red mark on their left hand. “I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret, you know that, I just-it escalated so fast. I thought-no I hoped, Alfira was a one off and when I realized otherwise, well-“ A half hearted shrug. “I’m sorry for not saying anything earlier but that’s all I know.” They look up, exhausted. “I can’t promise it won’t happen again. I’m terrified it will happen again.”

Rune is looking at Astarion when he says the last part. Astarion knows what they’re trying to say, besides the obvious. The statement is one part apology and one part resignation. Permission for him to run away as fast as possible and not look back.

He should run away, that’s the thing. Or at least consider it. Astarion has spent two centuries desperately wishing for the power to just run away, and now that he has it, he should be taking it as far away from this ruinous sorcerer as possible.

He doesn’t want to. It’s ridiculous, and ludicrous and absurd, but he doesn’t want to. Not because this group offers him the closest thing he has to protection against Cazador, not because the prism might not work if he runs too far, but because the person who is now the greatest threat to his person was also the one who offered him blood when he was starving, who stole him gently used clothes because he had none, who treated him not with pity or condemnation but as a person. 

Astarion has so little he could call his own. But whatever relationship lies between him and Rune mocking poorly painted portraits and trying to solve mystery novels three chapters in was his. He will not throw it away so easily. 

Karlach speaks first. “So, how are we doing this then? I’m thinking about shifts so no one gets too tired?”

“What?” Rune sounds entirely lost and Astarion finds he doesn’t follow either. He watches as Karlach counts everyone in camp off on her fingers.

“Well, there are seven of us total, so we could probably each pick a different day and then rotate who has two shifts each tenday.”

“Do you think one of us would be suitable alone, or should we do pairs,” Lae’Zel adds, looking equally contemplative. A smile starts to spread across Astarion’s face as he realizes what they’re discussing. “Though if Astarion could hand it by himself, pairs might be a wasteful use of manpower.”

“Hey-“ Astarion says but before he can speak further, Wyll chimes in. 

“I can take tonight: I rested earlier last night anyway.”

“Are you guys offering to watch me sleep?” Rune says, staring at everyone with their mouth slightly open. It would be cute if they weren’t so incredulous. 

“Ew, that makes it sound creepy,” Karlach says. “We’re watching you in case you get all stabby again.”

“Do they even know how to properly wield a blade?” Lae’Zel eyes Rune’s arms and raises an eyebrow. “They couldn’t even open a door two days ago.”

For the first time since they’ve woken, Rune sounds something other than exhausted. “That door was solid stone-“

“Rune can wield a blade just fine,” Astarion purrs, trying to hide the relief that this is the result of this conversation. Everyone groans, Rune included.

They hash out the specifics of the rotation after that. No one mentions when Rune rubs at their eyes and takes a shuddering breath, nor do they point out how they cling to Karlach when she pulls them into a hug. Shadowheart offers to take a look at her religious texts to see if this malady might be divine in nature, while Gale offers in turn to message Tara and inquire about some texts he has back in Waterdeep. By the time Astarion and Rune are left alone, there is a full schedule set for watching the sorcerer for fits, with Astarion free to steal any extra should he wish to monopolize their time for himself without watching eyes. Rune looks an odd mix of fond and overwhelmed.

Astarion’s heart twists at that. Was that how he looked, when Rune offered him blood upon being rudely awoken? Was that how Astarion looked the next morning when everyone else learned of his affliction and no one began sharpening a stick?

Gratitude should not hurt so much. 

“I know you said it’s worth the peril but I did mean it, you know. When I said you could run. I won’t take it personally.” Rune says after a moment. They’re looking him in the eye, a sharp contrast to earlier when they were speaking about their urges. 

“You did mention it, yes. You know, you told me it wasn’t an insult but I find myself rather insulted. Do you truly expect me to cut and run?”

Rune’s chin tilts up, their face stoic, but Astarion can hear the hint of a tremble in their voice. “You should.”

Astarion thinks to last night. How Rune had woken him up and in a shaky voice told him that his life was in danger solely due to the sorcerer’s care. A care Rune apparently doesn’t expect to be returned in light of this recent revelation.

Astarion will have to remedy that. Come clean about his whole botched scheme really, which he’s frankly dreading, but some tasks are worth doing despite the mess. Now isn’t the best time but soon. He’s hoping he’ll find the right words soon enough, words that are actually his instead of automatic cloying phrases used over two centuries of hell. To stop feeling like he needs to put on an act.

“I’ve been doing quite a few things I shouldn’t do recently; walking in the sun, leaving the city, snacking on nearby sorcerers,” He turns to Rune and quirks one eyebrow. “I might as well keep at it with such excellent results.”

Rune blushes and chuckles. Their hand is right there, should Astarion wish to take it, but it doesn’t feel right, not until he tells them the entire truth at least. Hopefully it will still be there once the dust has settled.

It might be nice, he thinks, to lace his fingers between theirs and know that he’s doing so solely because he wants to. 

[generic-sonic-fan]

"i wish you would write a fic where..." prompt: metal in for repairs. what got it there, what does it think of eggman's treatment of it, and how does it feel about having presumably failed the mission it was on? (angst?? eggman being a good dad??? up to you!!)

Summary: Metal Sonic receives some repairs, and some advice.

1086 words

---

“Up.” Dr. Ivo Robotnik tapped the diagnostic table as he passed it on his way to gather his tools.

Metal Sonic commanded its leg to move. Its actuators grinded in response, offering one short burst of movement before stuttering. Its left leg scraped as it dragged on the ground behind it. Before it could complete the walk cycle, something snapped, and its left hip joint went limp. An attempt to balance on the remaining leg failed. An attempt to spin up its turbine to prevent collision with the floor sent a flood of error messages tumbling to the front of its processor. 

The impact darkened its visual sensors for three seconds. It used this time to dismiss the error messages. Upon regaining sight, it extended its hands across the floor ahead of it, dug its claws into the surface, and pulled. The effort of overcoming the force of friction caused its entire frame to shake. 

It grabbed onto the nearest leg of the diagnostic table. The table was manufactured out of a smooth metal, and its structure contained no additional outcroppings that could be utilized as handholds. Perhaps if it could raise its torso against the leg so it could grab the surface edge-

“Metal, that’s enough.”

Metal Sonic looked up to see its creator standing over it. He set his retrieved toolbox onto the diagnostic table, before he came around and knelt down beside it.

He placed a hand on its forehead. It had enough tactile sensors left in the region to register that much. 

“You really are perfect, aren’t you? Perfectly obedient. Hellishly determined, if I do say so myself.” He gave a small pat. “Today’s outcome wasn’t for a lack of effort, now was it?”

It found its vocalizer damaged but still responsive. It queued a negative ping, only for the noise to come out too garbled to communicate the intended meaning.

“Quiet, my boy. It’s alright.”

Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s tone was. . . unusual. As was the phrase he used. Metal Sonic searched its memory banks and found no matches for either. 

“Stay here. Don’t move, I’ll be back.”

The door closed behind him. When it opened again, joining his footsteps was the plodding of an Egg Pawn. 

“Lift him up to the diagnostic table and lay him on his back, gently.” He hissed to it. 

The Egg Pawn slid its hand beneath Metal Sonic’s frame and carried it from the ground. The Pawn laid it down on its front, before rolling it over.

“I said gently, you fool!” Dr. Ivo Robotnik slapped the Pawn's arm, kicked its shin, and pushed it away. He then shooed it out of the room with a gesture. 

He walked beside the table and began positioning Metal Sonic’s limbs to where he desired. He then opened his toolbox and began repair work. The first thing he attended to was its processor; he disappeared from visual range, and unscrewed its quill plating and its interior head paneling to reveal the delicate parts beneath. Here, Metal Sonic lost any register of tactile sensation. Dr. Ivo Robotnik existed by the suggestion of its audial sensors alone. 

“Hmm. . . only minor damage here, few snapped wires around optical processing. . .”

Its visual sensors brightened with increased resolution. Strange, it hadn’t noticed the handicap prior. Dr. Ivo Robotnik then replaced the plating he’d removed and reconnected its tactile sensors. He then tilted its head sideways and opened the access port at the nape of its neck. 

“Generate your post-action report while I work on the rest of you.” He said as he plugged in the data cable. 

Metal Sonic obeyed, and soon its internal processings scrolled up the nearby computer screen. Dr. Ivo Robotnik chose to repair its left leg first, allowing him to face the screen as well. It began the report with the simplest of data. Its speed had matched and at one point exceeded Sonic’s. Its body had been stronger and more durable. Its agility and processing speed had been superior. 

Yet it had suffered a near-complete chassis loss. 

Yet Sonic had stolen the chaos emerald away. 

It had failed, completely and utterly. It launched into a rapid-fire analysis of every frame of data it collected during the battle, attempting to sort out the reason for this outcome, only to find no pattern. It was illogical that it had failed. Its every attribute was superior. It should not have failed! 

“Oh, quit moping.” Dr. Ivo Robotnik muttered. 

Metal Sonic ceased its analysis.

“Sonic, the irritating little rodent, tends to defy all logic with his little escapades, so move on. Continue with your report.” 

That was impossible. Sonic was as much an object bound by the laws of physics as everything else was. His and its attributes were objective, quantifiable, and therefore logic could be applied-

“Believe me when I say I understand. Check the records- I’ve been in this situation countless times before.” 

Dr. Ivo Robotnik always spoke the objective and rational truth, but supplementing his statement with a quick scan of its memory banks allowed it to better grasp the concept. Indeed, its creator had been defeated by Sonic before, despite having superior technology and intelligence.

“Precisely. That’s why I say ‘there’s always next time’. Persistence and determination is my motto!” Dr. Ivo Robotnik pointed a finger into the air. “You’ll get Sonic one of these days. I have utmost confidence in your ability to do so.”

Every statement made by Dr. Ivo Robotnik was true, yet if his prior statement was also true, how could it defeat Sonic if superior attributes alone were not enough?

“Simple! You’re my technology. And my technology always triumphs. Am I clear?”

Metal Sonic gave an affirmative ping, only for its vocalizer to short out. 

“Process it. Show me you understand.”

Yes, Metal Sonic affirmed. It was superior. It would triumph because of the brilliance of the man who created it.

“Good.” Dr. Ivo Robotnik paused his work to remove the data cable from its access port. The computer screen went dark. “Now, perform a quick debug, then enter standby mode until I wake you.”

Its attention turned onto itself as it began marking files within its processor for review. It flagged one potential issue with its audial sensors. It then initiated its power-down process, shutting off its cameras and spooling down its subroutines. 

Before the process completed, it felt Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s hand on its forehead again. It recorded four words.  

“Rest well, my boy.”

[morningsofgold]

blue light dreams Velvette-centric with background staticmoth Rating: M Wordcount: 4,524 READ ON A03

Weekly status meetings between the Vees were volatile by nature. Sometimes they were mind-numbingly boring, with Vox going off on a tirade about his newest reality torture show or whatever the hell the radio demon had been up to, or with Valentino singing his own praises and showing off clips from the editing bay of his new favorite star debasing themselves for the sake of money and views.

Sometimes, meetings were considerably more entertaining, like when they brought in underperformers to beg for their lives while the Vees downed drinks from Vox’s private stash of booze. But most often, the trio bickered like children and argued over the budget and took potshots at each other, until they inevitably zoned out and started gossiping about the other overlords or scrolling on their phones.

But this week, Velvette was determined to keep the boys on track. This week, she knew what she wanted, and she intended to get it.

She arrived to the boardroom right on time, and found Vox leaning over a seated Valentino with his hand curled around Valentino’s shoulder. The two men were snickering around something between themselves, red smoke pluming in a heart from Valentino’s ever-lit cigarette. So they were “on” again this week. Fine by her; sometimes it was actually easier when Vox and Val could entertain themselves with each other instead of constantly going for each other’s throats. It usually meant that if she could convince one of them to do something, the other would follow.

“Velvette,” Vox said in that brassy, used-car salesman voice. “You’ve got hellfire in your eyes. Spend your morning dismembering interns or something?”

Velvette spread her hands on the gleaming wooden conference room table, pushing up on her tiptoes as though a few extra inches of height would convey her seriousness.

“Can we cut the chit-chat this time?” She asked, using her most professional voice. She would switch to shouting if she needed to, but it was better to go in with the velvet glove before breaking out the iron first. “I”m on a tight schedule and I’ve got a favor to ask you, Vox.”

“What else is new?” Valentino muttered with a smirk. Oh, he was in fine form today. Sometimes Valentino was tolerable, occasionally even fun to be around, but he was also spectacular at getting under Velvette’s skin when he felt like being a little shit. Which was often. “Little Miss Independent needs help cleaning up her own mess.”

Velvette tipped her chin up and spoke clearly, ignoring the anger bubbling under her skin.

“I need to run updates on Voxtek’s social media algorithm. It’s out of date, and it’s killing our engagement.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the algorithm,” Vox said, steepling his fingers as he sank down in his seat at the head of the table. An LED grin sparked to life on his face, and it could have fooled someone stupider, but Velvette knew when she was being bullshitted, and she knew when Vox was trying to placate her. “Everyone in Pentagram City is plugged into your platform, sweetheart.”

Velvette slammed her phone down onto the table, hard enough to make Valentino roll his eyes but not hard enough to crack the screen. Velvette, who often fell asleep with her phone in her hand and knew from experience exactly how much pressure it took to fracture one of Vox’s shoddily manufactured screens, tried to reign in her temper where her phone was concerned. The interns she reduced to tears were replaceable and so were the runway fashions she occasionally shredded if they fell below her expectations, but her phone was special. Not only did it host all her private dossiers on the other otherlords and plenty of photographic blackmail, it also held all her saved memes and most glamorous selfies.

“Don’t try to sweet-talk me. Do you know what the bounce rate and time-on-site metrics are looking like for the news outlets you own?” Velvette demanded, scrunching up her nose in disgust. “We’re not even close to meeting our KPIs! We’re blowing budget on Val’s porn studio but it’s sure as shit not reflected in ROI. I lost almost 2,000 followers from my personal account last month.”

Val was too busy fiddling with the olive in his martini to look up at Velvette, but not too busy to get in a jibe.

“The only word in that rant I understood was “followers”. It sounds like you’re pissed people are getting tired of looking at your face.” He idly flicked one of the bells hanging from the Fizzaroli bot loitering at this side. “Not our problem.”

Velvette wanted to tear her hair out, but she had just slicked it back into a perfect high pony, and he wasn’t about to sacrifice perfection for the sake of Valentino of all people. She had known him a long time, and if she had any family, he would probably be the closest thing to it, but sometimes he was so stupid.

“How have you gotten this far without even knowing what ROI means?” She demanded.

“I’m an artist,” Val shot back, pressing long fingers over his heart in faux-offense. He had always been a bad actor, even back when he was turning amateur tricks on camcorder for pocket money. “Not a marketer. That’s your job, Vel, and if it’s all getting to be too much for your delicate constitution, why don’t you just lay down and die and spare us the bitching?”

“An artist?” Velvette barked out a laugh, leaning towards Val across the table. She lowered her voice to its most cutting pitch. “You’re just a tacky pimp with a bloated ego, you ignorant, washed-up–”

“Say washed-up again,” Valentino said, eyes narrowing in ruby shards. He drew himself up to his full height and blew his noxious smoke into Velvette’s face. It smelled like strawberry lipgloss and cheap, sweaty latex and desperation. “Go ahead. Say it.”

“I think everyone’s getting a little heated,” Vox said, taking a long gulp from his ever-full coffee mug. “Let’s just sit down and talk this through.”

“If you would just let me patch the algorithm we wouldn’t have to fight about inane shit,” Velvette said, strapping her arms across her chest. She usually got her way by bulldozing everyone who tried to stop her, bloodshed and verbal evisceration included, but sometimes, pouting was more effective. Vox, as much as he liked to pretend that he indulged her antics only as a means to his own ends, was fond of her in his own strange way. He could sometimes be manipulated under the right conditions. Valentino could too, but he was currently staring daggers at her with smoke curling out of his nostrils, so she tried her hand with Vox instead. “Come on. I’ll be in and out in two shakes of an imp’s tail.”

“I somehow doubt that,” Vox said. “Last time I let you root around in the code the whole city went dark for four hours.”

“But that was an accident,” Velvette said, deepening her pout. “It won’t happen again! Just think of the kind of fuck-off money you could make if the alogo worked better! Voxtek ads and product placements at the top of everyone’s feeds, from here to Cannibal Town. You’d double your profit!”

“I’ll admit I don’t hate the sound of that,” Vox said, narrowing his eyes. “You promise you won’t get carried away if I give you access to the mainframe?”

“I promise,” Velvette said, batting her eyelashes for good measure.

Valentino scoffed from across the table, but Velvette ignored him. This was her area of expertise, and the best thing Valentino could do in this situation was shut up. Not that shutting up was one of his areas of expertise.

Vox held up two fingers, and a white-hot spark jumped from one to the other.

“Two hours, Velvette. That’s all I’m giving you. I’ll take socials down for two hours, and if you cant make the updates in that time, it's your head on the platter, got it? I can’t afford to lose any more revenue.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Velvette exclaimed, leaning in to press a black lipsticked kiss to Vox’s screen. He grimaced and wiped the smudge off with a nearby napkin, but he didn’t push Velvette away. Even though her affection swung as wildly as her mood and was usually just there to grease the wheels in getting her what she wanted, Velvette knew that Vox privately appreciated being appreciated. He also no doubt appreciated Valentino’s more…enthusiastic overtures of affection, but Vox and Velvette had never had that sort of relationship. Then again, they didn’t need to be fucking to understand each other perfectly, or to begrudgingly enjoy each other’s company.

“And I’m coming with you,” Vox said.

“I don’t need a chaperone, old man,” Velvette replied, bristling.

“First of all I’m not that old, and secondly, you absolutely do. What if you crash a site or send out some faulty broadcast that requires mass hypnosis to mop up? I’m not leaving you unsupervised.”

“Can I come too?” Valentino asked, blinking those big moth eyes in a way that roughly approximated innocence. “I want to watch Velvette flush her career down the toilet.”

“You can come if you reign in the attitude,” Vox said. “I don’t want any fighting in my control room.”

“Ugh,” Velvette said, scowling. “If you’re going to insist–”

“I am!” Vox sing-songed.

“Then fine. But I don’t want you two breathing down my neck and throwing off my rhythm either. Social media manipulation is a complicated process.”

“Of course, chiquita,” Valentino said in his stickiest sweet voice. “We would never meddle.” HIs smile sharpened, all teeth and malice. “Just don’t choke.”

Velvette wasted no time in goading Vox into making good on his promise, although he insisted she only make updates in the wee hours in the morning when most of the denizens of hell would be either asleep or so plastered and coked out at one of Pentagram City’s many bars that they probably wouldn’t notice a system outage.

So, that night at 3am, Velvette found herself waiting at the control room door for Vox to unlock it and let her in. He was late, as usual, probably caught up in putting out some fire, but Valentino arrived surprisingly on time. There was a sleepy squint behind his huge heart-shaped glasses. Despite being a night creature by nature and by trade, Valentino needed his beauty sleep, and he didn’t get out of bed for anything he didn’t think was going to either entertain him or make him money.

“Come to rain on my parade, pissant?” Velvette said, not bothering to look up from the editorial lingerie shoot she was color-correcting on her phone. Call her a micromanager, but there were some things she didn’t trust her employees to do right.

“I’m too tired to fight,” Valentino said with a yawn, bending from his considerable height so he could rest his chin on Velvette’s shoulder and spy on what she was doing. “Hey, is this that collaboration you did with that succubus influencer who hosts the pop-up orgies? Not bad, not bad…You don’t see many racks like that anymore. She interested in doing a little freelance camming on the side?”

“Not on your life,” Velvette muttered. She wanted to be meaner to him, but she was feeling the late hour as well, and she was more focused on the task at hand than verbally sparring with Valentino. “At least not until her modeling contract is up with me.”

“Suit yourself,” Valentino said, winding a claw through one of Velvette’s curls. “But there’s no harm in slipping her my number, right?”

“Okay you two,” Vox said, appearing around the corner. He looked slightly disheveled from the day, and was wearing his shirt sleeves bunched up around his elbows. Velvette doubted he had been to bed at all that night. “Let’s get this over with. Do you two remember the rules?”

“Yes, Vox,” Valentino and Velvette sighed in longsuffering unison.

“What are the rules?” Vox said, politely but with a menacing flash in his eyes.

“Don’t touch any screens,” Valentino said.

“And don’t push any buttons without your permission,” Velvette put in.

“And don’t broadcast your secret stash of Alastor footage to the whole city,” Valentino sniggered.

“Very funny,” Vox said flatly, his mouth glitching into a perturbed line. “Watch that mouth, Valentino.”

“But you usually love what I do with my mouth,” Valentino said with a wide grin.

“You two are disgusting,” Velvette said. “Just open the door, Vox.”

Vox produced a glowing access card from his breast pocket and slid it into the port on the door. A moment later, the light above their heads flashed green and the heavy metal door slid open with a pneumatic hiss. Inside the control room, wall to wall screens filled the cramped space with an eerie blue glow. The control room hadn’t been designed with multiple people in mind, and there was only one chair in front of the custom display. This was where Vox sat when he spied on the citizens of Pentagram City, or when he overrode the many channels he controlled for an emergency broadcast. It was also where Velvette, with Vox’s express permission, patched up Voxtek’s bloated social media platform when it inevitably crashed, or made her algorithmic updates. Velvette would rather spend her time setting trends and controlling narratives, but sometimes, getting her hands dirty in the digital realm was necessary.

“Tell me again why you’re so obsessed with this?” Vox asked sidelong to Velvette, ushering her into the room. Valentino followed, ducking to avoid hitting his head on the low doorway.

“You just focus on working your magic and I’ll work mine,” Velvette said. She was smiling at him to put him at ease, but privately, the nerves were starting to set in. Calibrating the algorithm wasn’t easy on a good day, when she had unlimited time and wasn’t dealing with an audience, but she wasn’t about to let Vox and Val see her sweat. She was the social media overlord, after all. She hadn’t gotten this far by cracking under pressure.

“Say no more,” Vox said, and snapped his fingers. The largest screen in the room flashed from a screensaver to a secure login page, and Velvette tapped in her password with her manicured nails. Then she took a seat, breathed in deep through her nose, and pulled up the backend of the social media site where she spent most of her work (and leisure) hours.

“Hey,” Valentino said, lighting a new cigarette and squinting at the screen. Even with his glasses on, Velvette doubted he could make out the tiny script. “Think you can bump up the trailer for my newest fetish flick in the algo when you have a second? It keeps getting buried in chatter about the last extermination, and I spent way too much money on all that custom leather gear to have it flop.”

“While you’re at it, Velvette,” Vox put in, “Could you suppress all keywords related to that stupid hotel? I’m tired of hearing about it.”

“No free favors,” Velvette said, tapping away at the keys. She tried to block Val and Vox out, focusing instead on manipulating the complex series of digital commandments that made up the algorithm. She had constructed it herself, with input from the other Vees of course, and it had been designed to speak only in her language.

The algorithm was a complex beast, but it served Velvette’s ultimate end of making sure Voxtek media and products were always trending, that the gossip magazines were always buzzing about Valentino’s favorite show ponies, and, most importantly, that the messaging Velvette devised was absolutely inescapable.

There was no such thing as gospel truth in Hell, but if there was, it might have been written in Velvette’s tidy cursive. From breaking scandals to PR relationships and coverage of tragedies in the other rings, Velvette controlled it all.

Velvette grew increasingly irritated as the new commands she wrote for the website failed to graft onto the existing algorithm. It was part computer program, part living thing, and sometimes, it fought back. The large screen flickered dangerously as she tried to force the commands though, but Velvette kept pushing. She wouldn’t be bested. Not this time.

“Take a breath, pumpkin,” Vox said in a voice he no doubt thought was soothing. “You’ve still got an hour and a half. No need to rush.”

“Could you get off my dick, please?” Velvette responded.

“Whoa!” Valentino said. “No need to get testy. All that frowning is going to give you wrinkles.”

“It’s not listening to me,” Velvette said through grit teeth. “I don’t understand. It should listen to me.”

Vox and Val exchanged a look over Velvette’s shoulder, one they probably hoped she wouldn’t catch. It was a look of genuine concern.

“What’s eating you, Velvette?” Valentino asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, pulling up yet another window. It promptly crashed. Velvette groaned and smacked the display.

“Easy on the merchandise,” Vox said in warning, but then his voice softened slightly. “Seriously, what’s up with you?”

Velvette said nothing, just tried to force another command through again. And again. And again. Each time, she was met with an error message. When she tried and failed a fourth time, the tears started to sting at her eyes. She pushed away from the sea of screens in Vox’s swivel chair and smacked the escape key, shutting down the whole process and rerouting herself back to the password screen.

“No one is listening to me anymore,” she said, trying to keep the grief and fury out of her voice. She hated crying in front of anyone, especially Vox and Valentino, but they were perhaps the only two people in hell who could witness such a thing and live to tell the tale. Her fingers turned to claws at her side. “No matter what I do. My influence is slipping.”

“Babydoll!” Valentino exclaimed, and the worst part was, he sounded truly appalled to see her so upset. His hands came to rest on her shoulders, rubbing soothing circles into her clavicles. “That’s not true. Everybody loves you. Even better, everybody fears you. You’re the head bitch in charge!”

“My engagement is in the gutter,” she sniffed. “Nobody wants to look at me anymore. They’re bored of me, and they’d rather waste their clicks on whatever new shiny piece of ass is out there strutting around, calling themselves a crime boss and livestreaming their kills. Street criminals, Val; I’m losing to street criminals!”

“Velvette,” Vox said, drawing out her name in that syrupy way that had no doubt convinced hundreds of small-time entertainers to sell their souls away for a shot at a primetime TV slot. “It kills me to see you so down on yourself. So you’ve lost a couple thousand followers, so what? I say fuck em.”

“I’m…” Velvette’s lip wobbled dangerously, and she was sure that the waterworks would unleash with whatever she said next. “I’m going out of fashion.”

Valentino and Vox tutted while she furiously wiped tears off her face, and Vox produced a baby blue handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it into her hands. The Vees might have hated each other some days, and the peace between them might be tenuous at best, worn away by infighting and power-grabs, but underneath it all, they looked out for each other. This was not the first time the boys had talked Velvette down from a complete spiral, which usually happened whenever the internet turned on her. Velvette might be tough as nails, and she knew how to hold her own in a fight, but when it came to the quivering adoration of the masses, she was an addict in need of her fix.

“What if I’m getting too old?” She moaned. “I’m still the youngest overlord, but I’m not as young as I used to be. Maybe I should cut my hair, or get a hellhound as a statement pet.”

“Why don’t you show some tits and ass?” Valentino said brightly, doing his best to be helpful. “Even just a bit of sideboob. I can set up a whole boudoir shoot for you; we’ll keep it classy.”

“No, that’s a last-ditch effort spotlight grab,” Velvette said. “If I bust that out, what have I got left? What’s the point of me if I can’t hold people’s attention? I might as well just retire to fucking Tahiti.”

“Nobody’s going to Tahiti,” Vox said. “We’d be bored out of our minds without you.”

“Yeah?” Velvette asked, daubing her eyes.

“Yeah,” Valentino responded, still rubbing that pressure point on her clavicle. It was surprisingly steadying, and Velvette found herself grateful for the touch. “And you know why? Because you’re goddamn good at your job. You earned your spot. You’re really gonna let some two-bit drug dealers with shaky phone footage take the crown from you?”

“No,” Velvette said, still feeling rotten on the inside.

“I think we’ve all had a long day,” Vox said, stepping into the role of defacto leader, which they all rotated through as necessary. “How about we sleep on this and try again tomorrow?”

“I can’t,” Velvette said, suddenly feeling exhausted to the bone. “I need to check up on the new content mill and make sure they’re still pumping out those phony articles, and then I should probably run through my to-do list for tomorrow because Satan knows my airhead PA can’t be trusted, and then–”

“Velvette,” Val said, as gentle as she had ever heard him. “Wanna sleep in the nest with me and Vox tonight?”

“Bold of you to assume I’m going to end up in your room tonight,” Vox muttered.

“Bold of you to think anyone believes you when you play hard to get,” Val responded breezily, then turned back to Velvette. “Does that sound nice?”

Velvette finished drying her tears, and looked over her shoulder to the looming computer. She probably had about an hour left on the clock per her arrangement with Vox, and maybe, if she tried harder, she could do something with that time. Or maybe, she would just fail again. Either option sounded exhausting.

“Yes,” She admitted. “That sounds nice.”

Valentino’s quarters took up considerable real estate in the Vee complex, with a large sunken living room for entertaining (read: sex parties) a big kitchen for cooking gourmet (read: mixing drinks and reheating delivery) and a massive master bedroom outfitted with dim rosy lighting and a stunning view of the city outside. Valentino’s bed, which Velvette had – at first disparagingly and then with affection – started referring to as his “nest” was a futon the size of a California King swathed in sheets and throw pillows, with a gauzy web strung above and around it. The resulting effect was cocoon-like, and the gauze curtains provided a sense of seclusion from the outside world.

Velvette hauled her pink pinstriped silk pajamas, her matching silk hair wrap, and her toothbrush down from her room, then primped for bed in Valentino’s bathroom while Vox and Val talked in low, unhurried tones outside.

She could pretend all she wanted to be disgusted by her concern for her, but deep down she was grateful that someone cared, and she did feel a little bit lighter after crying out her frustrations. At the end of the day, there was no one nastier and more self-serving than Vox and Valentino than Velvette herself, and there was a strange sense of camaraderie born from that. Sure, they stabbed each other in the back from time to time and they fought often, but who else could possibly understand Velvette’s black heart better than the two demons she had chosen to throw her lot in with?

Velvette emerged from the bathroom to find Vox and Val already in the bed, thankfully keeping the PDA to a minimum. Valentino gave her one of her showman’s grins and held an arm out to her, and moments later, she was nestled between them, her cheek pillowed on Valentino’s chest, one of Vox’s arms draped lightly over her waist.

Neither of them had ever made a pass at her, mostly because they were too busy breaking up and getting back together every ten seconds, and because they knew that Velvette would bite their fingers off if they ever tried. They were two of the most brutal overlords in hell, but sometimes, though she would never admit it, they were the only people Velvette felt safe with.

“Tomorrow,” Velvette said, her words muffled by Valentino’s chest. “Tomorrow I’ll try again. I’ll come up with something spectacular and awful. A gorgeous train wreck nobody can look away from.”

“And I’m sure you’ll be right back on top,” Vox said with a yawn. His display was already dimming.

Velvette mindlessly unlocked her phone and clicked on the search alert she had set up for her name, scowling at the results.

“No doomscrolling before bed,” Vox said, and tapped her screen with a glowing fingertip. The cellular display winked out.

“Hey!” Velvette snapped.

Valentino just pulled her in closer, burrowing down in the expensive sheets.

“If you’re going to sleep over, I don’t want you keeping me awake with all that blue light. And don’t kick me out of my own bed again.”

“No promises,” Velvette said, giving in to drowsiness despite her best efforts. She often ended up tangled in the blankets like a beached starfish, pushing Vox and Valentino to the edge of the bed, but they always forgave her.

“Do you really think people are still scared of me?” Velvette muttered. It was a thought she was almost afraid to voice aloud.

“So scared of you,” Valentino said, turning the lights down even lower. “And I’m sure whatever that twisted little mind comes up with next will be enough to scare the piss out of anyone stupid enough to think they stand a chance against you.”

“Thanks, Val,” Velvette said, so quiet she wasn’t sure he heard her. She didn’t like thanking people, as a general rule.

“Get some sleep, babydoll,” Valentino said. Velvette was aware his ability to soothe her after a spiral was the result of a long career of lying to and manipulating the people who answered to him, but sometimes, Velvette caught a flash of genuineness underneath the facade. And Vox, for all his bluster and bravado, had been known to shut down entire productions when she reached the end of her rope to make sure Velvette got what she needed. Velvette wasn’t grateful for either of them. The only person she was grateful to on any given day was herself. But she had to admit, in times like these, she didn’t hate having them around.

“Goodnight boys,” she said, letting her eyes slide shut. Vox sidled up beside her and switched on his hypnotic screensaver, the one that always knocked her out faster than two benzos and a glass of white wine.

Moments later, Velvette was asleep.

[sunshinechildskywalker]

Hat for Wormie

Hi, friends! Here's some Post-ROTJ AU Luke & Vader hurt/comfort; I found this buried in my Google Docs and thought I'd brush it up and post since it's been a while! This will also be up on Ao3 shortly

I hope I give you some good feels! :)

“Is this for me?” Luke asked as he tentatively reached his hand into the tube-like package and pulled out a chrome cylinder. Luke’s father did not even spare the package a glance, his interest focused solely on his scrolling through his datapad. 

“It must be, young one. My name is not officially listed under this residence.” Luke turned the mysterious object over in his hands, scrutinizing it. The light glinted off the chrome in such a manufactured style. 

“It looks like it's from Coruscant,” Luke observed as he continued examining it. 

“Perhaps if you open it instead of toying with it, you may discover an answer,” his father jested, Luke being the only one to recognize any humor through the vocoder. His lips tugged up in a small smile. 

“Well, here goes.” After a brief second of struggling with the lid, Luke popped open the package to reveal rolled cloth of some kind. He upturned the cylinder to dump the contents into his hand. Luke’s eyebrows furrowed as he set down the package and unfolded the dingy, forest-green article. 

But as soon as he laid eyes on the all too familiar goggles attached to this mystery material, the mystery was immediately solved. 

His hat. 

Luke hurriedly unfolded it to confirm. Yes, this was it, the hat he had worn on Tatooine all those years ago. With all the time he’d worn this hat and milestones he’d met with it resting on his head, it was practically a symbol of his childhood. 

As he turned it over, he spotted a note tucked neatly inside the brim. 

Hey wormie,

Found this the other day, thought you might want it back. Geez, it's only been four years since you lent it to me. Thanks, your aunt can stitch like hell.  

-K

Aunt Beru- she had dwelled in Luke’s thoughts for longer than he'd like to admit, but he’d omitted this particular detail from his father. He didn't need to worry him unnecessarily, he could deal with his emotions on his own, especially in the case in which his father was partially to blame for the deaths of his aunt and uncle. This would only add more guilt upon his father's shoulders than already residing there, the last thing Luke wanted to take part in. 

Luke was almost scared to look inside the hat to see if it was true, to confirm that this wasn't just a mistaken delivery, but sure enough, the stitching was all hers. Luke ran his thumb over the intertwined thread of the stiching, feeling almost as if he were running his thumb over her dainty hand again. How he longed to be with her, just once more. Just a squeeze of hands one last time, just a hand running through his shaggy, sun-kissed hair once mo-

“Luke?” The young man was startled back into reality, but didn't bring his eyes up to his father who was now looking solely at him, nor move his fingers from the stitching. The thread against his skin was becoming soothing, almost as if she were here comforting him now. 

“Luke?” his father’s tone grew tentative, seeming to sense Luke’s rising emotion. 

Luke cleared his throat, realizing it had constricted to be incredibly tight. He could hardly swallow, let alone produce clear sound. 

“My hat,” he managed, shocked at how hoarse his voice had grown. He couldn’t take his eyes off this hat, the one he reluctantly accepted from his aunt while he imagined the comments his friends would make, but tried to hide his feelings so as not to hurt hers. 

“This...hat?” his father asked as he approached carefully, clearly unsure how to probe. Luke nodded, his eyes never leaving the stitching. 

“Aunt Beru made it for me,” Luke whispered, failing at his attempt to send the lump in his throat back down. Luke’s father, still woefully unaccustomed to responding to these kinds of emotions, set an unsure hand on his son’s shoulder. 

“Luke…” His tentative response was interrupted by an abrupt sob; Luke’s walls had started to tumble, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. His head dangled forward as his expression crumpled, tears beginning their escape quickly. 

His father froze, his hand immediately jolting back as he seemed to believe he caused Luke harm and cued his crying. As Luke’s shoulders shook with the series of sobs and tears that followed, his father carefully replaced his hand on his shoulder to steady him. Luke clutched the hat so incredibly close to his chest, bringing it as close to his being as possible 

“Son,” his father tried to comfort as he tentatively patted Luke’s shoulder. Although Luke tried to stifle them, his sobs grew even louder, the noise sounding foreign to himself as it echoed off the walls. 

Just as his father settled his hand on Luke’s shoulder and tried to pull him in close, Luke turned towards his father and nestled himself into his chest. He sniffled hard, and his father set a hand on Luke’s back. 

“Child,” his father said softly. “You are upset about your guardians?” Luke nodded against his armored chest. 

“I...I’m so happy to...be here with...with you,” Luke managed as he tried to catch his breath. “But, I….I miss them…so much.” His father ran a careful hand up and down Luke’s back, sighing in a dark shade of regret. 

“I know, child.” Luke couldn’t help but sniffle hard again, more sobs tumbling out of his throat. “You have not allowed yourself to grieve properly, have you?” After a long moment of hesitance, Luke shook his head. 

“I can’t,” he admitted, then sighed. “It’s all my fault, anyway. I should have been home.”

“Now that is a false statement,” his father argued. “Those were my troops’ actions. If you must assign blame, I am the one who most deserves it.” Luke shook his head, pressing harder into his father’s chest, but still wasn’t convinced he didn’t contribute to their deaths.

“I just…” Luke began, but sighed as he felt the words die on his tongue, feeling like they weren’t worth putting out into the galaxy.

“Just what, son?” his father asked. Luke felt his throat tighten once again, but finally managed to articulate his thoughts.

“I just wonder what she would think of me now,” he choked out. “After everything I’ve done.” His father paused, but continued to run a tentative hand up and down Luke’s back.

“I did not know Beru well, but I do know any parental figure of yours would think nothing less of you, Luke,” his father said. Luke’s father held him just a little tighter. “You did what you must. We all did.”

[pizza-is-my-buziness]

Fictober Prompt Day Fourteen! Prompt: "If you don't stop now..."

Pairing: Jill Valentine/Carlos Oliveira (Resident Evil)

Read below!

“What about this one? The Fifty-Foot Moon Woman.” 

Carlos snorts out a laugh, scooping rice onto his plate and immediately smothering it with curry sauce. “Seen it.” 

Even without looking at her, Carlos can easily picture the eye roll that Jill gives him, accompanied by a huff. The couch shifts as she leans back against it, drawing her knees up to her chest as she continues to flip through the different movie titles. “Of course you have,” she mutters. “You’ve seen everything.”

“It’s called being a connoisseur,” Carlos says, adding a piece of naan to his plate. “I can show you the ropes.”

Which is something Carlos thinks they’ve been doing a decent job of during their Friday night “date nights,” which include takeout from one of the many places around their apartment and watching as many B-grade horror movies they possibly can before one or both of them falls asleep thanks to the exhaustion of the week. Unfortunately, sometimes having to go off to save the world from those who would like to turn it into some sort of bioweapon wasteland interrupt the routine but for the most part they’ve managed to uphold the tradition for nearly as long as Carlos can remember, the movie nights first starting out as a way to forget about the rest of the world for an hour or two and laugh about the cheap special effects and manufactured danger. Now the hours he knows will be solely dedicated to takeout and time spent with Jill by his side are truly what get him through most weeks. 

Jill ignores his comment, brow furrowing as she continues to scroll through their choices. “Radioactive Muskrats from Mars.” 

Carlos hopes whoever had been in charge of naming these masterpieces fifty years before had gotten a raise. “Seen it.” 

Jill looks at him, narrowing her eyes. “You’ve actually seen…” Then she stops, shaking her head. “Of course. Why would I think any differently,” she grumbles, returning her attention to the TV. 

“How can you see a movie with a title like that and not watch it?” Certainly when he’d been a kid and stumbled upon that movie with his brothers they hadn’t been able to look away, as enraptured by the giant murderous muskrats as they were by every cheesy, terrible black-and-white flick that played in the wee hours of the night. 

After a few beats of silence, Jill suggests, “What about Killer Cat People?” 

Okay, yeah, he’s seen it, but when Carlos responds, he decides to keep that little fact to himself. “Suena bien. Fire it up, Supercop.” 

Satisfied, Jill clicks on the title, leaning forward to grab her own plate of food before settling back once more on the couch. Her shoulder brushes against his, the heat of her body immediately settling over Carlos in a way that eases the tension his muscles seem to always carry, leaving him feeling more relaxed than he has since he’d woken up that morning to the sensation of Jill easing herself out of bed at the sound of the rudely blaring alarm. The movie starts, dramatic orchestral music filling the living room right before a grave narrator intones about the dangers of mixing science and…cats apparently. Honestly, Carlos stopped expecting for the movies to make any sort of sense long, long ago.

It only takes about ten minutes before Jill frowns, brow furrowing into a deep V as she studies the screen. “So wait…they were trying to make some sort of super spy by mixing cat and people DNA and they didn’t think something like this would happen?”

He’s still working on trying to convince Jill that it’s better just to live in the moment with these types of things. 

“Isn’t that how those types of people think?” Carlos arches his eyebrows as he looks at her. 

Jill presses her lips together. “Okay…fair.” 

On screen, the damsel in distress is making sure to earn that title, screaming as the shadow of a cat person creeps across the wall and doing nothing to get herself out of that particular situation, and Carlos chuckles to himself, using his bread to wipe the last of the curry from his plate. With his stomach full and the living room bathed in the comforting black and white flickering light, his body seems to grow even heavier, exhaustion making his limbs languid. The second Jill finishes her dinner and sets her plate on the coffee table, Carlos shifts his position so that he can lean in closer, bypassing her shoulder in favor of letting his head rest in her lap, even if it does leave his legs dangling off the other end of the couch.

Jill hums, a sort of amused, contented sound, her fingers settling against the curve of his shoulder, the warmth of her palm making his skin buzz in response. He’s easy that way, especially when it comes to Jill.

“I don’t understand why-” 

“I thought we talked about this,” Carlos remarks, smile lazy, voice sounding as heavy as his muscles feel, low and throaty, “you can’t look for logic in these movies.”

“Becoming a cat person immediately makes you evil,” Jill finishes, ignoring his words of wisdom. “It’s not like every cat in the world is evil.” 

Carlos shifts, trying to resist the urge to close his eyes. “Maybe that impulse comes from the human part.”

That, at least, earns him a laugh.

Jill’s hand moves from his shoulder, fingers absently slipping through his hair and brushing across the nape of his neck, only to repeat the gesture, nails scratching lightly at his scalp. Carlos sighs, lids growing heavier by the moment. “Jill…” 

“Hmm?” She sounds distracted and when Carlos cracks one eye open to look at her, Jill’s attention is fully on the screen, her touch surely subconscious. 

“If you don’t stop now…” It’s not like he wants her to, but they’ve barely made it through even half of one movie, and Carlos is pretty sure if he fell asleep now it would be some sort of record. 

Jill’s movement pauses, fingers loosely tangled in his hair, and she glances down at him. “Oh, sorry.” 

She goes to move her hand away and warning her off suddenly seems like the worst idea Carlos thinks he’s ever had.

“Actually, I’m fine, it’s fine, eres buena.” Carlos reaches for her wrist. “Carry on, querida.”

“Sure you’re not going to fall asleep?” Jill seems highly amused by this possibility. 

“You know, I think that’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Carlos says with a sigh, one that goes from feigned weariness to genuine contentment when Jill’s fingers brush against his scalp once more. “Besides…” he hesitates for only a second before adding, “I’ve already seen this one.”

“Carlos!”  

[samueldays]

Thoughts on crafting systems

I have ranted a few times about how RPG (and CRPG) crafting systems fail in various ways. I want to offer a tongue-in-cheek universal crafting system for use in any game, then make some observations from various games and try to form a bit of general theory and positive suggestions.

The universal crafting system is this: "It takes twice as long and costs twice as much for your player character to make it, because your player character has specialized in Swords&Spells, not specialized in Anvils&Tannins."

Professional artificer NPCs with a costly immobile workshop, established contacts, years of experience, pounds of reagents, specialized tools, et cetera, et cetera, are almost certainly going to do a faster and better job than your wandering murderhobo PC. This goes double for any games in industrial, cyberpunk, space age, or similar settings, where your products are likely coming out of an assembly line that vastly outdoes anything an individual worker can do, even if that individual knows Haste. You can buy an assembly line factory with the gold you got from the dragon's hoard, but the manufacturing process is still not you doing it.

Now let me gesture at when this argument does and doesn't apply.

For D&D, it applies because while your party's druid might brew their own potions, it's almost certain your party is not going to brew potions and write scrolls and forge swords and enchant armor and learn the five different spells required to craft the Ring of Stars and muck around with extradimensional space to create a Bag of Holding and muck around with planar energies to create the Greater Chasuble of Frobblebrotz. D&D has a lot of magic items to craft and wear ('christmas tree syndrome') and you're going to be depending on NPCs for most if not all of them.

For M&M, it doesn't apply because your protagonist is plausibly the only one in the world who knows how to create his super-science invention, and/or the only one with access to the materials required to build it. There are few or no NPCs that the work can be farmed out to. Also, owning a workshop in M&M is much cheaper (1/5th of a build point), and its immobility is less restrictive when you can own a private jet.

For Shadowrun, it applies because Ares Macrotechnology makes your gun and Ares Macrotechnology makes your accessories. You get a bit of choice in which six of the bazillion tactical operator accessories you want to put on the gun. This customization is not crafting in the sense I'm talking about here.

For various "stranded on a [desert island/space station/arctic outpost/hell dimension]" games, it doesn't apply because there are few or no NPCs at all, artificers or not.

Exalted provides an interesting edge case, because on one hand your protagonist is an omnicompetent superhero (or supervillain) similar to M&M, on the other hand there's the Realm of the Scarlet Empress populated with another ten thousand of those. Also the Exalted 3e crafting system is unusually terrible even by the standards of crafting systems.

So... what is up with D&D? Why does it have a crafting system for magic items? Well, in a sense it doesn't. (I'm specifically referring to D&D 3e here because of its convenient public SRD rules.) What D&D 3e has is effectively a conversion system for turning Experience Points into Gold Pieces at a fixed rate. If you want a +1 Flaming Longsword, you could go to the magic items store and pay eight thousand gold, or you could pay four thousand gold and 320 experience points to enchant a longsword. The enchanted longsword can then help you recover the XP by stabbing trolls. Unlike the crafting systems of every other game mentioned above, this D&D process doesn't have a roll. There is no failure chance. There is no skill check. There's also no mention of tools or ingredients required, only "prerequisites" of being a level X caster who knows spell Y and feat Z.

D&D 3e's bizarre "crafting" conversion system also works in another way that I think was partly accidental: The ingredient cost of item enchantment is simply calculated as half the item's [marginal] retail price.

Retail price is in turn calculated by out-of-universe authors who are operating primarily on a system of "how beneficial is this magic item to PCs?" without regard for whether there's market demand or NPC interest. This makes for bizarre economics, but functional PC-centered gameplay. It's also without regard for intuitive notions of "how much magic" might be involved. For example, the Unguent of Timelessness.

When applied to any matter that was once alive this ointment allows that substance to resist the passage of time. Each year of actual time affects the substance as if only a day had passed.

It costs 150gp for one flask that can coat eight Medium-sized (i.e. human-sized) items. It never wears off. It even provides minor resistance to hostile magic.

By contrast, it costs 250gp for a flask of Silversheen that can coat one melee weapon, lasting one hour to make it "counts as silver" for assistance in stabbing werewolves and vampires.

Silversheen is more relevant and useful to freelance facepunchers, therefore Silversheen costs more gold, therefore Silversheen requires more expensive magical ingredients to create.

This is hilariously unrealistic and didn't catch on with other games, but in retrospect it worked out fine for D&D while just about every other game had a case of "the crafting system is terrible". I don't really mean to praise D&D 3e's crafting system here, either, but it's at least tolerable in play if occasionally absurd.

By contrast, the other systems mentioned...

M&M is quite rules-light: dispense with the notion of monetary cost, permanent items cost abstract character build points, temporary items only need time and skill checks.

Shadowrun 5e is rules-light for mundane items but overly complicated and imbalanced for magical items, with splatbook rules accidentally breaking the process wide open and letting characters turn a 20x profit. (Forbidden Arcana lets you spend refined reagents to raise the Limit by 5 on all Magic tests. The Force of a Focus is determined by a roll using Artificing+Magic [Formula Force] that says you can't spend Edge.)

Exalted 2e involved HUGE TIMEFRAMES to craft artifacts and HUGE SPEEDUP powers that gave speed multipliers from 2x to 15x, so buying several of these powers was effectively a tax on making daiklaves in less than a year. In theory there were 5 Craft subskills by elements, but in practice you took Craft (Fire) which covered the forge, almost anything metal can be fluffed as made with a forge.

Exalted 3e kept the HUGE TIMEFRAMES but also required you to spend time collecting ten rat tails, I mean crafting five mundane swords to get psyched up for crafting an artifact sword, then four more mundane swords before you could craft a second artifact sword. And it introduced multiple abstract crafting subsystem resources representing inspiration or something, idk. Resources were partly gained by crafting and partly at the end of each "story arc", also "per day but not if you timeskip", which mixed levels of abstraction to create an annoying incentive structure. You could spend subsystem resources instead of XP on raising the Craft skills, partly compensating for the fact that Exalted 3e is a game where "Melee" is a single skill for sword, club, dagger, glaive, guisarme, and flail, but "Crafts" are now many skills as finely divided as tailoring from tapestry-weaving. Also it introduced the "terminus" mechanic - if you try to make an artifact sword you must complete the project in X rolls, or else it permanently fails and you are forbidden to ever attempt that artifact again.

Lessons from Exalted 3e: don't do that.

What should you do? IMO,

1. Crafting should be rules-light.

Most RPGs are not detailed simulations of shopkeeping nor chemistry nor the economics of market supply and demand, and should not try to pretend they are. It distracts from the goblinslaying and princesssaving.

That is what D&D 3e has to say about Crafting Wands. By contrast, the SR 5e rules for Crafting Talismans take up a full page, and they're worse.

2. Ditch entire subsystems.

This is a separate point because a lot of good judgment could go into when to have a short subsystem vs. when to have no subsystem. But most RPGs get by fine with no skill dedicated to Craft (gemcutting), to take an Exalted example.

3. Design around player characters.

Immunity to Aging costs 1 build point in M&M, where characters usually have 150 to spend. To a normal person this is far more valuable than a laser gun, but the laser gun costs more points and is harder to craft as well as taking more time to build because it's more valuable to the League of Righteous Face Shooters.

Matters of "what if the heroes went around creating immortality wristwatches en masse" can be left to the DM's decision to run such a game or not, instead of trying to fix a fair price in the rules.

4. Be heavy-handed about costs.

If there are professional NPC crafters around, PCs shouldn't be able to outdo them by dabbling, usually not even be competitive. If there aren't professional NPC crafters around, you're probably playing a game where resource shortage is part of the point. Either way, crafting should not be very profitable. It might be very useful (going from having no weapon to an improvised spear) but it should be expensive enough that the PCs don't feel tempted to stop adventuring for a year and resume when they've all got +10 Godly Plate of the Whale. Calling back to 3, the PC economics should be a concern, even if the wider setting economics are not.

5. Say "No breaking the economy."

Saying this is like 1% of the effort and gets you 90% of the effect of trying to wrangle your crafting system into being sufficiently balanced to run a simulated economy. Perhaps, add a brief handwave about how offscreen NPCs don't use the crafting subsystem presented for PCs, so the rules don't generalize and can't be used to break the economy.

6. Make appropriate exceptions.

None of the previous rules are absolute, but exercise thought about why you're breaking them. Exalted, for instance, is a game about wielding massive power and suffering terrible consequences. Breaking the economy is totally up its alley.

[burningarcadesandwich-6448f9e7]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Player piano roll, antique paper scroll in original box, music.

[heydenblog]

The centrifugal pump manufacturer tells you the difference between centrifugal pump and self-priming centrifugal pump

The centrifugal pump manufacturer pointed out that in order to better discharge the gas in the moisture absorption pipe and generate a certain vacuum value when the centrifugal pump is working, the exhaust pipe must be used. For small pumps, the pump casing and water inlet must be filled with water before operation. In order to better avoid the jump of water injection, the bottom end of the water inlet is equipped with a unilateral pump bottom valve that opens when the water flows upward and closes when it flows downward; Generally, large centrifugal pumps with water seepage specifications above 300 mm are not equipped with bottom valve of water pump, but only use professional vacuum equipment to vacuum drinking water. There is no doubt that the operation of the feed pump will cause inconvenience, resulting in waste. Principle: Centrifugal pump works by using impeller rotation and then water to produce centrifugal movement. Before running the pump, make sure that the pump casing and the moisture absorption pipe are filled with water. Then run the motor to make the pump shaft push the impeller and water for high-speed running fitness exercise. The water will produce centrifugal movement and be thrown to the edge of the impeller. The water will be injected into the compressed water pipeline of the pump through the flow passage of the volute pump casing. Structure: Centrifugal pump works by using impeller rotation and centrifugal movement of water. The manufacturer of centrifugal pump pointed out that the basic structure of centrifugal pump is composed of six parts, namely, impeller, pump housing, pump shaft, rolling bearing, sealing ring and ferrule joint. Centrifugal pump manufacturer The centrifugal pump manufacturer said that the structural type of the self-priming centrifugal pump has been improved, and it has got rid of the insufficiency of the general pipeline centrifugal pump. The characteristic of self-priming centrifugal pump is that the pump shell is double volute structure. The detergent port is located on the edge of the pump impeller, and there is a large capacity vapor liquid separation chamber on the liquid outlet. Other structures are similar to single pole single suction centrifugal pumps, including sealing rings, mechanical seals, shafts and rolling bearings. When the self-priming pump is in operation for the first time, the water diversion channel must be introduced into the pump casing, and the introduction amount can exceed the pump centerline in the pump casing. After that, the fully automatic suction pipe can be operated at any time and anywhere without introducing the diversion canal, so the application is more convenient than the pipeline centrifugal pump. Principle: The principle of self-priming pump is to fill the pump casing with water (or there is water in the pump casing itself) before the pump runs. After running, the impeller runs at a high speed to make the water in the impeller channel flow to the volute. At this time, the channel generates a vacuum pump to open the seepage check valve. The gas in the suction pipe enters the pump and reaches the edge through the impeller channel. Structure: Self priming centrifugal pump is a kind of centrifugal pump, but it is different from centrifugal pump in that it has "self priming" characteristics. The basic structure of the self-priming pump is composed of a suction chamber, a liquid storage chamber, a scroll chamber, a liquid collecting hole, a vapor liquid separation chamber, etc.

What is the purpose of the vacuum pump used in the high gloss machine for mobile phone panel?

[allindiamachinery02]

Need Blown Film Extrusion Machine? All India Machinery Is The Destination!

The packaging industry is massive, and it helps in packing goods precisely so that they can reach the end-consumer safely. The Mini Model Blown Film Extrusion Machine Manufacturers In India are engaged in making excellent quality machines with the help of the latest technology and knowledge. Today, in this article, we are going to shed some light on Extrusion Blown Film, so, if you want to know about it, then keep on reading the paragraphs below. 

What Is Extrusion Blown Film?

It is a common process for the production of continuous films, which are used primarily for packaging. 

Steps Included In The Making Blown Film 

The first and foremost step in this process is to melt the plastic in the extruder. 

After melting it in the extruder, the molten polymer enters an annular die head where it is formed into a tube of plastic material. 

After exiting the die of the film tube, the plastic is pulled upwards by nip rollers, during this, compressed air is blown into the film to get the desired film thickness and width, and then chilled air is blown on and outside the tube. 

Once it's cooled down, the film approaches the nip rollers, and there the bubble of the film is gradually flattened. 

After this, the nip rollers transport the film to the in-line slitters and roll winders. 

If you or anyone you know is searching for a blown film extruder machine, then you don’t have to look for it any further, as the best manufacturer is here at your service. All India Machinery is also known as the Blown Film Extruders For Garbage Bags Manufacturers In India, as they are making the best machines as per the technology. So, if you need anyone blown film extruders, then you don’t have to worry about it anymore, because the best manufacturers are here at your service. 

About All India Machinery 

All India Machinery is one of the leading names in the country for making a wide range of machinery. The success rate of the company is very high, because for them the overall satisfaction of the client is essential, and they assure that proper guidelines are followed. It is a promise that you will get all types of machinery right under one roof at competitive market prices. For more information regarding various machinery and their prices, you can scroll through the website as their you will get all the information. 

Credit:- https://penzu.com/p/39d33354

[carboomers]

Tata Punch EV, Tata's latest investment in electric segment

Tata Punch EV, Tata’s latest investment in electric segment

Few days are left to begin 2023 and heading towards the end of the year, car manufacturing companies are introducing their forthcoming segments in the market. Now, that we have a separate market and fan base for electric cars and bikes, manufacturing companies are leaving no stone unturned to grip their markets. We have been scrolling headlines on automobiles daily and recently Tata Motors rolled…

[aluminaper]

Small Strip Release Report

Narrow strip release paper is constructed of release coated confront backing sheet stock that may be unrolled and pulled through a pair of paper slitting rollers. These rolls slit the single backing sheet 92 into numerous flexible narrow strip backing sheets, each of which is guided onto a tacky pressure sensitive adhesive coating strip by the grooved roller 89. These single blankets 93 have discharge coated face faces which can be in direct adhesion towards adhesive coating strip.

Narrow strip release paper can be an advanced material for labeling and appearance. It is obtainable in several varieties, which include coated paper, electronic sheet, and specific adhesive tape. These materials are created to hold the product and prevent the idea from slipping from the package. They also support easy removal. When you are using release paper to package your own product, make sure it's made from non-porous material.

Narrow strip release paper enters in many colors, textures, as well as sizes. It can be utilized in both dwelling and office purposes. It can be manufactured of thin plastic films or report. Narrow strip release paper can also be available in a wide range of thicknesses. The binders are manufactured that has a thin film published base and let go backing paper within strips. The strip support sheets are slit in the strip release paper according to the desired world wide web width. The strips are then applied to the adhesive finish strip.

A process for applying several arrays of relieve coated face versatile narrow strip support sheets is illustrated in FIGS. EIGHT and 11. Several strips are stacked up in parallel, overlapping strips. The process is usually repeated over once more. The backing bedding are then applied one following the other. Narrow strip release paper can be a flexible backing sheet which they can use on a selection of substrates, including bendable film, plastic, in addition to metal.

In the particular mend process, the paper fix strip is put on by brushing outwards from the biggest market of the tissue. The approval process is easier when the tissue is within an inert assert, as moisture causes problems with help. The strips tend to be brushed outward to be sure good contact. A Japanese scroll mounter can be applied the strips by simply wrapping them in the spiral around an instrument or brush manage. Afterward, they unwind the specified length along the tear.

[sneakers-and-shakes]

Manufacturing Motivation

In order to maintain consistency, you need to manufacture motivation.

I know it sounds weird to say but it’s not always possible to “find” motivation as we often say. Finding implies that it exists somewhere and you need to search for it, but how far can the search go? And what happens when you don’t find it?

The stages of starting something, whether it’s a habit or a hobby, is usually like this:

-You find that natural motivation or inspiration for something which becomes the trigger for you to actually start it, it’s your taking off point.

-Once the motivation tapers off, discipline keeps the ball rolling

-But sometimes the discipline falters, what then?

That’s when you need to take a moment to remember why you began in the first place. It sound’s cliché but this evaluation is important.

Upon reflecting you might realize you don’t need or want this thing in your life anymore, which would then save your time and effort. On the other hand, if it is something you want to keep doing consistently (and the consistency is key here) then you need to re-create that spark of motivation that got you started.

This can happen in a variety of ways and has to be tailored specifically for your case, but I’ll lay out some examples here:

Re-immerse yourself in media surrounding the habit/hobby

               Ex: If your habit is working out twice a week then maybe start watching workout videos, join a group online for support, scroll through posts related to working out which might teach you something new for you to try.

Change the way you interact with your habit/hobby

               Ex: If your habit is trying to journal every day, then change the way you’ve been doing it. Maybe switch to bullet points or pictures instead of paragraphs or try using journaling prompts.

Create or buy something related to your habit/hobby to get you excited

               Ex: Create a new workout playlist to pump yourself up, buy different colored pens to make your journaling more fun.

Do whatever makes you feel happy or excited related to that habit or hobby.

Something I did recently to manufacture motivation was buy the moisturizer I use for my nightime routine since my other one was running low. I started this nightime routine earlier this year and kept it up for a while, but in the past few weeks I’ve found myself faltering.

Just the act of going to the store and seeing all the different skin care options and picking out what now feels like “my” moisturizer re-invigorated my desire to keep up the routine.

I think people sometimes think that manufacturing motivation sounds fake, but it’s a necessary part of maintaining consistency with something. If you naturally find it again then of course, that’s great, but we can’t always get that energy and will naturally.

And that’s when we need to take it into our own hands.