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candlewaxandp0lar0ids · 1 year

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jealousy jealousy || Changbin x Reader

Summary: It's as you're working with Changbin on a school project — and he's being as infuriating as he always is — that he invites you to go see 3racha perform in a bar that night. You decide to take the opportunity, because you do find the group talented, and also, what could possibly go wrong?

Word count: 4.3k

Genres: college AU, rapper!Changbin

Warnings & Tags: jealousy, academic rivals to lovers, alcohol consumption, brief sleazy behavior from someone else, consensual kiss while under the influence, light angst, oc has insecurities

series masterlist

A/N: Similarly to the I.N. oneshot, please ignore the thing about music if you know better and it doesn't make sense, my years of studying music theory are far behind me :') Hope you'll enjoy the piece, would appreciate to know your thoughts on it if you do!

If you had had your say on this assignment or on your choice for a partner, you wouldn’t be sitting there, across from Seo Changbin, in his fucking studio, watching him nod his head as he’s working on the arrangement you’re supposed to turn in next week.

“The guidelines say we’re supposed to use an unusual time signature,” you say, partly to be annoying and partly because he’s literally using 4/4, which, like, come on. It’s like he’s trying to go against the rules.

“They’re used for a reason,” he replies after a good thirty seconds of silence, which could be because he was ignoring you or because he can’t multitask. “It’s more important to turn in something that’s good than something that follows the guidelines.”

“That’s not mutually exclusive.”

“You can’t let others tell you what to do,” he insists, still looking at his screen. “You have to make your own decisions based on what’s good for—”

“It sounds like you just can’t take a challenge,” you interrupt him and this time, he turns around to glare at you. For a second, he looks offended, which was the reaction you were going for and, you have to say, it brings you an evil satisfaction. Then a corner of his lips lift and he smirks.

You really don’t like how attractive you find that look on him.

“You think that’s going to work on me?”

You grit your teeth. Well, rationale and logic weren’t getting you anywhere so far, so this was at least worth a try.

“I’m not looking forward to you tanking my grade,” you reply with a shrug, attempting, and probably failing, to look nonchalant.

This time he scoffs before going back to the computer.

“It’s not going to tank our grade. The teacher values quality more than following the rules, and even if he didn’t, you shouldn’t change yourself to make someone happy.”

Valuable life advice, you’re sure. It just does not apply whatsoever when a grade is at stake. Unfortunately though, he is right about this teacher valuing ‘quality’, though you don’t like how subjective his view of it appears to be. You think there should be metrics when it comes to grading your students. Either way, so far Changbin’s been fucking breezing through this class because the teacher just adores everything he puts out. You think it’s a gross display of favoritism and you suspect that it has a lot to do with 3racha’s popularity, but everyone’s too busy making heart eyes at the golden boy to think about it.

And, look, you like 3racha. You think they’re talented. You don’t know where Chan finds the time to do music while being captain of the swimming team and all the other stuff he’s doing — seriously, when does he sleep —, you think Jisung’s a very talented singer, rapper, producer — basically a one man group already without needing to add the other two in— and Changbin’s… Yeah. Changbin’s good. There’s no way you could deny that. That’s not the problem.

The problem is that it doesn’t seem to have crossed his mind that there are some people in here who don’t have a record deal lined up for them as soon as they walk out of their graduation. Some people who are not going to have full creative control over their stuff until they’ve really established themselves, if that ever happens. Some people who also just simply enjoy figuring out a way of making something interesting, something good in ways they wouldn’t have thought of if they hadn’t been forced to deal with an obstacle of some sort barring them from picking the easiest solution.

The problem is that, as you reluctantly have to admit, Changbin isn’t picking the easiest solution. In fact, once you notice what he’s doing, you can’t help but lean forward on your seat, all your attention on him and his hands moving on the keyboard. Shit. It seems, infuriatingly, that he had a point.

“What’d you think?” he asks once he’s done, and you blink yourself back to reality after having watched him work his magic.

“It’s smart,” you admit. You’re not the type to lie just because you have an issue with him. “Using tertiary rhythms in 4/4 to give the impression of another time signature… Yeah. It’s good.”

You can practically see his ego getting bigger with every word you say. Dammit, you almost wish he were a hack.

“But,” you add, a little too be annoying and a little because you have an actual point to make, “I think you should start off with binary rhythms.”

Changbin visibly deflates, then frowns, and you realize belatedly that you might have been able to push back on the use of the time signature then and there. You think he’d have given in, if you still didn’t like the end result, but that hadn’t even occurred to you.

“Why?” he asks, folding his — impressive — arms over his chest. “That’d be boring.”

You shake your head, pushing yourself up next to him and taking the mouse out of his hands to start making the changes that are clear as day in your mind. The gesture seems to outrage him, but if you’re being honest that’s actually a plus in your book, so, tough to be him.

“You start out with something familiar,” you explain as you’re working, “to lull the listener into a false sense of security. Then you hit them with the unusual to have a bigger impact and to make them wonder how the piece got there. That way, they’ll think they’ll know exactly what you’re going for from the start and be more surprised when you go for something else.”

There are a few seconds of silence after that, before Changbin also leans forward, his body suddenly much closer to yours.

“You have to work on the transition some more if you’re going for that,” he says, and his breath tickles your cheek. “��cause it’s just gonna feel jarring if you don’t.”

“I was getting to that,” you say with a click of your tongue, elbowing him in the stomach in an attempt to keep him from messing with your work. Through the first, soft layer, you come in contact with strong abs, which doesn’t surprise you considering how much time he’s rumored to spend at the gym.

Not that you’re paying attention to these rumors or anything. It’s just— Know your enemy, or something.

He does manage to use his muscles pretty easily to get the mouse back, and after an undignified shriek when he wraps an arm around your body to lift you up and get you away, you admit defeat. If your cheeks are warm now, it’s just because of the effort.

It’s also the reason your heart beats faster, and it’s got nothing to do with the satisfied grin Changbin shoots back at you once he’s back in front of the computer.

“Hey,” he says as he’s working, “you know 3racha’s having a concert tonight?”

Of course you do.

“I heard about it.”

“You should come. I can get you in.”

You raise an eyebrow. You’ve never actually seen 3racha perform. Tickets to their stuff aren’t that easy to get on campus or around i, and you’re also busy working your ass off most of the time, whether it’s for classes or at your part-time job. But you have tonight off, and considering this assignment is going nicely…

You bite your lower lip as you consider it. You’re not really looking forward to the screaming crowd looking at Changbin like he’s a god, but you are interested in the actual show. You’ve heard so much about them, and the stars aligning for a ticket offer and not having to work…

Ah, fuck it.

“Okay.”

Changbin’s head whips back in your direction.

“What?”

You take a step back, shoulders instinctively coming up to your ears. Your defenses come back up in a matter of seconds.

“If you don’t want me there, you shouldn’t have—”

“No, you should come!” he protests, and then his voice gets softer. “I’d be super happy if you came, I just didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“Of course I am,” you say with a shrug.

Changbin turns around towards the computer, but not before you catch a bright smile on his lips. Not his signature smirk. A bright, genuine smile.

And this time, you have no excuse when your heart skips a beat.

It doesn’t come off as a shock to you that 3racha are really fucking good on stage. You didn’t have any trouble getting into the bar after giving your name, which Changbin had told you would be enough. It had taken a little more, uh, elbow work to get reasonably close to the stage, because the place was already pretty filled up. The people there are almost all from the college, but there are a few groups of mostly young men — some looking like they’re too young to have been let in — that stick out as well.

You make yourself comfortable as you wait, sending the occasional glare at people pushing you. Lots of girls there, you note, and you don’t think they’re all there for the music, which you find amusing. You certainly don’t judge. That’s something that the people from the labels would have noted, and it’s not like there’s a wrong way of enjoying a group.

The crowd goes wild around you when Jisung — or rather J-One, his stage name — jumps on stage, practically vibrating with energy. You don’t really catch what he’s saying, both because it’s too loud and because he’s speaking too fast. You are, however, acutely aware of the way he presents himself, of his cocky grin, of the way he sticks his tongue out and wipes at his lower lip with his thumb.

He’s followed on stage by Changbin, who, unlike him, barely looks like he’s acting. Yeah, his stage persona is raw confidence, supercharged with charisma, but he doesn’t bother doing much of anything — though you think he’s flexing his muscles a little more than usual. Except, of course, when he gives the audience that fucking smirk of his.

And suddenly, you’re very, very aware of how hot it is in the room.

Chan’s the last one to get on, and he does so with a roar of “Are you ready?”. Everyone goes insane, and you find yourself being pushed around by the people around you jumping up and down. Though you’re not quite giving in just yet, you do enjoy the enthusiasm. If half of what you’ve heard about them is true, they certainly deserve the hype. Seeing the wide, uncontainable smile on Chan’s face at the crowd reaction, as he can’t keep up with his stage persona for a few seconds, just makes your heart swell.

Then, after getting the crowd even more riled up, they get started with their set. You’re familiar with all the songs, of course. Music is ideally going to become your job and you want to keep yourself updated, but also, you do find them to be good. Even the stuff that’s not to your personal taste is always backed up by an actual creative idea, which is not something you’d say about a lot of pop songs that get blasted on the radio every day. It makes their music feel new, and yeah, sometimes it means it’s not that easily accessible and it’s going to turn some people off, but it sure makes you respect their artistic integrity.

They’re also giving themselves on stage, 100%. And, because there’s just no point in denying it now, Changbin looks ridiculously fucking hot doing it. It makes all sorts of things tingle in your stomach and lower when he growls in the mic. You haven't been able to look away for a second.

Outside of the general hotness — you’re human, what can you say — you can’t help but appreciate everything else, everything musical. How easily he rides the beat, how music seems to inhabit his body, how skillfully he’s crafted the verses and choruses and made them feel— You’re not sure how to phrase it. They’re not predictable, but they are obvious. It feels like there would be no other way of doing them, no better way of phrasing them, no arrangement that would be more efficient. It has to be that way.

And it’s as they’re reaching the peak of their last song that dread washes over you, seeping straight to your bones.

You find Changbin annoying. You think he’s cocky, overconfident, and that he doesn’t pay enough attention to others. You also don’t like the way he gets everything handed to him on a silver platter and that, unlike you, he doesn’t have to split his time between work and college. But if you’re being honest, that’s not nearly enough of a reason to dislike him. The guy wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s always happy to help out, maybe even lets people take advantage a little bit. And he’s so, so fucking talented. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t find all of that attractive.

The problem, as you’re staring at him on stage, is that the question that is truly at the center of it all, the one you’ve refused to ask yourself all this time as you kept working your ass off and he kept doing better than you, just came up to the surface, and you can’t avoid it any longer.

What if you just don’t have it?

Look, you believe in hard work, but you find it hard to deny that some people just have something else. Call it talent, call it luck, whatever. Changbin’s got it.

You’re not sure you do.

You just might keep working and working and working and never get to the level he’s at. You might just not have the thing that makes him able to come up with hooks that stay inside your head for days on end.

What’s been your dream job for almost a decade now might remain forever out of reach.

As the crowd erupts in cheers around you, and 3racha stay on the stage, breathing heavily, sweat dripping down their forehead, the future you’ve always wished for doesn’t quite shatter completely in front of your eyes, but it takes a nasty crack that ripples onto its entire surface.

You turn around, away from the stage. You hadn’t planned on that, but fuck it.

You need a drink.

Even as you down two drinks a little too quick and gesture for a third, you know this is a bad idea. You’re running straight into a wall, you’re going to regret this so much tomorrow, and you’re doing it anyway. This isn’t like you. You make the good decision, the right decision, you do what’s smart, what you should do.

Except apparently, none of that is enough, and that thought gets you to ingest the third drink as well, the burning taste of alcohol a welcome distraction.

“You can really knock these back,” a voice comments next to you.

You glance at the guy who’s already way too close in your personal space for a stranger. Normally, you would roll your eyes and you’d never even consider entertaining it. Who even hits on someone after they’ve seen them try their best to get intoxicated in as short an amount of time as possible?

Tonight though, his maths has paid off, because you welcome the distraction.

If you’re going to be making bad decisions, why stop at one, right?

You spin yourself towards him, rest your elbow on the counter and put your head on your hand in a pretty unnatural pose. You’re not quite coordinated — not usually, and certainly not with that amount of alcohol in your blood — but it doesn’t appear to throw him off.

“Sure can,�� you say — it might come off slurred, you can’t tell, “but the question is, can you?”

He raises an eyebrow, but he looks amused. Honestly, he’s giving sleazy vibes, a little too happy to be running into someone trying to get wasted, you just— you just don’t give a fuck right now. You feel like you’ve watched the life slip forever out of your reach, and you just want to forget about it, forget about how you may never get a job and never live from what you want to do most in the world, forget about fucking Seo Changbin and how ridiculously talented he is when you’re— Yeah, you’re ordering another drink.

The guy offers to pay for you, and you’re not going to say no. He makes a dumb comment about it which you think is supposed to be a joke and you laugh way too hard, throwing your head back in a tried and tested move.

As you make painful small talk with him while waiting for your drink, you’re struck by how mediocre he seems to be. When you’re around Changbin, as annoying as he can be, the conversation’s just… brilliant. He’s interesting, he’s actually smart, he has stuff to say, and talking to him makes you feel, well, annoyed, sure, but it’s also challenging. He never bores you.

It’s been less than a minute, and you already wish that guy would shut up.

He doesn’t. He seems intent on smothering you with facts about his life that he probably believes to be impressive — his money, his job, his connections —, like you don’t know why he’s doing it. It’s almost insulting that he seems to believe that he’s seducing you with all of that fairly mundane stuff, when really, the attention you’re giving him has nothing to do with, well, him.

He’s moved on to putting his arm around your shoulders in the least subtle way known to man when you hear your name and you turn back around.

There’s Changbin, eyeing you and the guy, looking half pissed, half concerned.

“Oh, hey,” you say. “You were really good.”

His eyebrows knit, but then a smile that he can’t seem to hold back lifts a corner of his lips. It’s not arrogant for once, almost bashful actually.

“You thought so?”

So good that it gave you an existential crisis, so, yeah, you did.

“Yeah, you guys weren’t bad,” the dude behind you chimes in, and since you’ve got your back turned to him, you openly roll your eyes, which Changbin can’t miss. You doubt the guy knows shit about the time and efforts that had to go into that set, or into the writing of the song before even getting onto the stage, for that matter. “A bit derivative,” he adds, like an asshole, “but you might go on to do great stuff.”

There’s nothing bashful about Changbin’s smile now. He doesn’t look hurt or anything, but he seems to be thinking that the guy’s a real fucking moron.

“Thanks,” he says, sarcasm dripping in his voice which the dude doesn’t catch. Then his eyes fall on the glasses in front of you, and back to the hand on your shoulder. “Is that all yours?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m questioning my existence,” you reply with a shrug. “So that seemed like a good idea.”

Changbin looks confused for a second, but not completely deterred by your lack of coherence.

“’kay, then I think I should take you home.”

That’s objectively a good idea, and the more time you’re spending looking at him and talking to him, the less you want to keep talking to the other dude, actually.

“Hey,” the guy in question says from behind you, “I got there first. Find someone else, dude.”

Changbin’s eyes harden instantly and he takes a threatening step forward. He’s shorter than the man, but significantly larger. You just so happen to not be drunk enough to watch them fight. You blame your dad’s genes for making you somewhat good at handling your alcohol, because you wish you were hammered enough not to care right now. You push yourself on your feet, a bit unsteady, and put your hand on Changbin’s arm — totally to stop him and not at all to stop yourself from face planting. His muscles, you discover with some interest, are not just impressive but also extremely hard, perhaps because he’s prepared to fight.

“It’s good,” you say, “thanks for the drinks but he’s right, I need to get home.”

The man’s face contorts with anger.

“You can pay for your own drinks, you fucking—”

One of Changbin’s arms wrap around your waist, and then he takes a step forward, easily getting you out of the way while keeping you against him, to grab the man by the collar.

“Want to finish that sentence, asshole?”

If you were sober, you’d think something judgmental about men and aggressiveness. Right now, you mostly, uh, think it’s very very hot of him. Being pressed into his hard body makes your heart rate spike up, and in that state, it’s so hard to deny how attracted you are to him.

The guy backs down quickly, sputtering an apology, and then Changbin’s dragging you away, keeping his arm around you to ensure you stay on your feet.

“You okay?” he asks. His eyes scan your body, focusing back on your face when he finds nothing.

Alcohol has a tendency of making you even snappier than you usually are. Right now, though, hearing the genuine worry in his voice, you feel that part of you melting away.

“I’m good, Changbin. I think I just— I just need to get home.”

And though he’d be the last person you’d take help from if you were sober, he seems like the perfect pick at the moment.

You make it to the campus without too much trouble. It’s not like your legs don’t carry you anymore, just that you don’t walk quite straight, but Changbin doesn’t let go of you for one second of that walk, monitoring you the whole time, and then he insists on getting you back to your room as well. At least you live alone, because that is not something you’d like to have to explain.

“Did something happen?” Changbin asks, finally, as you’re making it up the steps, like he just can’t keep it in anymore. Your mind, which had been peacefully quiet this whole time, filled with his warmth and his presence, is flooded with noise again. It takes you a few long, painful seconds before you come up with something to say.

“Do you think I’m any good at this?” you ask just as you’re reaching your floor.

He shoots you a weird look.

“Good at what?”

Right, he wasn’t privy to everything that was going on in your mind.

“You know,” you say with a vague gesture. “Music. Producing. What we do.”

“Of course you’re good at it,” he scoffs like it’s the most obvious thing ever. “You’re super creative. You can follow all the stupid rules the teachers give us and still turn something good in. You think I’d let you work on my stuff in my studio if I didn’t think you were good?”

It’s his tone that gets to you, you think. Changbin’s honest to a fault, from what you’ve seen, but he says this so matter-of-factly, so casually, that it’s hard to question, even for just a second, that he doesn’t believe what he’s saying. You know it will take a moment to sink in, that Changbin has that kind of confidence in you when even you don’t, but, even if the thoughts will definitely come back later, it’s like he dispelled them all in just a few sentences.

It’s as you’re coming to a stop in front of your door that he almost jumps with realization.

“Wait a second. Did that fucker say—”

And then you kiss him. It’s not that hard, from the position you were in, to pivot into wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your lips against his, which you find to be soft and plump. He tenses for a second before his hand tightens on your waist and he kisses you back hungrily. If he can taste the alcohol on your lips, it doesn’t seem to bother him. His hand holds you close to him with almost bruising strength, but it remains chastely on your waist, his only movements coming from his lips and tongue.

His teeth graze against your lower lip, pulling on it, and it sends shivers through your whole body, but this is when you pull away from him. Despite his previous stillness, his head moves forward, chasing your lips for just a few seconds longer.

When you open your eyes, you find him panting, cheeks and ears a pronounced shade of red. It’s— extremely cute, if you’re being honest.

“Thank you for taking me home,” you say.

“Y—Yeah,” he says, glancing away when his voice cracks. “Yeah,” he repeats, “any time.”

“I’m gonna go to bed now,” you say, though you still haven’t taken your arms from around him.

“That’s good,” he says with a decisive nod. “’cause, you know, you’re drunk, and I wouldn’t wanna— You should go to bed.”

It makes you giggle, but you still decide give yourself a second more, during which you put your head on your shoulder, and Changbin just lets you, his hand rubbing circles on your back. When you still don’t move, he clears his throat.

“D’you want me to carry you?”

“Seriously?”

His response to that is to lift you up princess-style, one arm under your knees and the other under your back. He lets out a grunt as he lifts you, but then stabilizes himself and manages to get you through the door.

You know that you’ll have some things to seriously think about when you wake up with a throbbing headache, but in that moment, you just laugh and let him carry you to your bed, because having his arms around make you feel safe.

He makes you feel like you’re going to be okay.

Taglist: @lethallyprotected @jisuperboard

#stray kids #changbin #seo changbin #changbin x reader #seo changbin x reader #stray kids imagine #skz #changbin imagine #stray kids x reader #skz x reader #skz imagine #skz fanfic #stray kids fanfic #changbin fanfic #candywrites

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modelbus · 3 months

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I've been in the worst writing slump... so I've defaulted to Kaz Brekker (oops). This didn't get as far as I wanted it to, but it's about 2k words!

Be warned: This contains death (murder), kidnapping, violence, skin trading, mentioned sex work, human trafficking (called "the skin trade" in here), weaponry, and I think that's it!

Pairing: Kaz Brekker x Gn!Reader

Tricked Target

Time is as good as the kruge in your pockets in the Barrel. You know this well, considering you have little of both; money and time. Or perhaps you have too much time. It simply depends on how one sees it, you suppose.

Someone might take you pouring over papers on a desk as a waste of time. See the mahogany wood, stained dark, and curl their lips as the sheer money it must've taken to buy.

Someone else might realize this isn't your office, isn't your desk, and keep their mouth shut.

Tonight, that happens to be an unfortunate man named Zade Oren. Tied in his leather chair, black ropes expertly woven, a gag stuffed in his mouth, and both Achilles slashed for good measure, he learned his lesson.

Don't piss you off.

And although he isn't technically keeping his mouth shut of his own free will, it still technically counts. You give him the slightest of glances, just enough to monitor the tears dripping down his face from wide eyes, before returning to the papers you're rifling through.

"This would be easier if you had just cooperated." You muse aloud, flicking through a ledger before abandoning it. "But you guys never do."

He makes a pathetic sort of whimpering that makes you grin.

You aren't a bad person. After all, you only enjoy the blood on your hands when it's from the right person. The type of person you have at your mercy right now, for example. If anything, you're as close to good as it gets in the barrel. A type of vigilante, rather than one of the profit-seeking groups.

Dime Lions, Black Tips, Razorgulls, The Liddies, Harley's Pointers. Now those are some bad organizations. You're still on the fence about The Dregs; you've seen them do as much good as they have bad. Mostly due to the smaller organization within them. Or maybe the Crows aren't part of the Dregs anymore; you don't care. They're not of interest to you.

"Ah. Here we go." You hum, finding a record of a transaction. Zade gives a feeble cry. Useless, these men who beg for their lives. As if you'll ever give them back.

The transaction seems harmless enough. Four pearls for a sum of money. A sum far too large to be worth even some really fucking nice pearls. And, most importantly, names of the buyer and seller. Your eyes ghost over Zade's name as the buyer, focusing on the seller's name instead.

Then, you crumple up the paper and stuffs it in your pocket.

Pearls. What a stupid code name. The sellers determine it, and they're never very creative with code names. Always something valuable, never something believable.

All it takes is one person (you, in this case) to see what it really means.

Kids.

"I should be going, I think." You finally say, straightening. "Don't worry, don't worry. No more people need to get hurt anymore."

Zade slumps in relief, and you let a wicked grin stretch over your face.

"Oh, no, you've misunderstood. No people will be harmed by me tonight. But you're not really a person, are you?" Your head tilts, watching the panic wash over his features.

Like a cat toying with a mouse, you are. It's just so amusing though, to witness the fear. To let them experience what they've instilled in so many others. That despair? It's precious.

Your knife is sinking into his chest before he can protest any more. Pushing past the hard bone, sinking into his heart with a sick squelch. By the time you pull it out, he's already dead.

"Fool." You sigh, leaving him there and striding over to the window. Let his guards find him later, you don't care.

And when you hoist yourself out the window, scaling onto the roof, the office is almost as you found it. Only his dead body and a note to proclaim the kill as justified.

It reads the same as always: Hurt a kid and I'll hurt you next.

The Avenger is the name people like to call you. Or the rumors of you. Most of Ketterdam has the wrong ideas about you, but you aren't fixing to correct them. False assumptions only make your job far easier.

Honestly, you'd rather be called a protector. But avenger works just as fine. It gets the point across.

A shiver runs up your spine when you're standing on the rooftop, but a cursory glance around shows nobody. You didn't expect it to, but still. The feeling of eyes following you has only gotten stronger recently, but seeing as nobody has attempted to kill you yet you assume it's fine.

Some people are just too curious for their own good and like being spies. As long as they aren't fucking up your plans, you really don't care. Honestly. The feeling of eyes is perfectly fine with you.

"You could say hi. I don't bite." You murmur into the still air, but to no avail.

The feeling doesn't leave as you head back to your home, a dingy apartment near a lot of the gambling dens. It's rented from a landlord who couldn't give less of a shit—she's never met the guy—which was perfect for you. And the place was cheap, which was a big bonus. Not that you were hurting for money, because you had no problems about stealing from those you killed, but you preferred to use it for better things.

Like buying new knives.

Dropping back down to the alleys, your feet hit the cobbles without a single sound. Subtlety was an art form, one everyone had to perfect in the barrel. Unless they were rich enough to get away without it, but you were not. Sadly.

There's footsteps behind her, and you turn to glare at the stranger. Give them a silent warning to mind their own fucking business.

Luck is not on your side today though, because they lunge at you with outstretched hands and a knife. You dodge, slamming your body into a wall to avoid the attack, hands scrambling for your own daggers.

The attacker is big, an ugly snarl stretched out across his mug, a beard covering half his face. Professional, if you had to guess, and definitely after you. Oh, joy.

This time, you don't give him the opening he wants. You dart forward, metal gleaming, knowing that the only way to walk away is to remove the obstacle in your path. In other words: kill him.

You both scramble, your knife digging into his forearm due to a nicely executed move on his part, but you abandon it in his arm to stab at him with another. A hand on your arm, metal meeting metal, it's a raw fight. Evenly matched.

But you must be off, must be mentally occupied, because you don't hear the footsteps behind you until it's too late. It's not until something slams into your head, sending you staggering with black spots, do you realize someone else is here.

"And that's meant to be the Avenger?" The person behind you scoffs.

"They put up a pretty good fight before you came in." Burly guy answers, stepping toward you.

His shoes are the last thing you see before your eyes roll back.

There's a hood over your head.

When you blinks your eyes open, you're met with complete and utter darkness. Although you want to panic—desperately—you don't. You can feel the ropes tying you to some type of chair, your wrists pulled together behind the back of it and your ankles tied to the legs of the chair.

Panicking now wouldn't do anything for you, so you just sit in silence.

But you're frustrated. So frustrated that you let your guard drop, that you've gotten yourself into this situation. You refuse to be another Mar, refuses to be the second Avenger that befalls the fate they tried to prevent.

"Makes sense now why he's wanting 'em." Someone is saying, and you try to subtly tilt your head to listen in. "He's always collecting 'em dangerous skinny ones."

"Putting together his own little menagerie." A second voice joins in, laughing.

The words have you tensing, against all instincts. Are they selling you to the menagerie?

Everyone knows what the menagerie is. Girls, tricked into sex work—and sometimes men—and people all too willing to take advantage of them. One of the things you worked against, and, subsequently, one of your worst nightmares.

"Serves this one right. Sardonic, isn't it?"

"You mean ironic?"

"What the difference?"

Oh, saints. You haven't just been kidnapped, but you've been kidnapped by idiots.

"Both of you stop. He'll be here soon." And that's a third voice. Only two people grabbed you, and you're willing to bet this third is the boss.

You don't recognize the voice, but you haven't exactly heard the voices of many people that are high in the chain in the Barrel. Not unless it's them begging for life, and you never hear from them again after.

But now you know for certain that they won't be sending you to the actual menagerie at least. The double confirmation is nice, even if the unknown is a whole other worry.

A door opens somewhere, and there's an abrupt rush of footsteps.

"You're early!" Probably boss guy shouts way too loudly. "The Avenger is all ready for you, but still knocked out."

"How long ago did you grab them?" Oh, that's a new voice. Faintly familiar, although you can't tell from where.

It's been a long time since you've felt so helpless. Like things were out of your carefully measured control. Not since you came home to an empty apartment, a person missing from it.

"A few hours." Probably boss answers. You don't need your eyes to know he's leering at you.

"...and how hard did you hit? Saints."

"They're alive, ain't they? Pay up."

"How much did we agree on again?" A cool voice asks, and your head jerks up. You know that voice, you've stalked the owner of that voice.

Kaz Brekker.

"Oh, look at that. It lives." Probably boss laughs cruelly, and you attempt a glare at him through the hood. "And you know how much we agreed on. Hand it over, Brekker."

And there's your confirmation. Your didn't just imagine it; Kaz Brekker is buying you. Why? You've never interfered with his dealings. In fact, after confirming he isn't into the skin deal, you actively stayed out of his business. You definitely didn't need more enemies than you already have.

The sound of Kruge being exchanged, followed by gleeful exclamations, makes you grit your teeth. If Brekker wants a shot at you, he'll have to do a lot more than pay some money.

"Get out." Brekker says after a moment, cutting the guys who kidnapped you off.

"This is our-"

"Get. Out."

Nobody makes him repeat it a third time, as is evidenced by the sound of footsteps fading away.

He's bossy, but he has the power to be. The cool indifference in his tone, the brilliant business plays he's made. Scrappy, like you, but far more powerful. There's a raw hunger in him you don't have; that nobody but him has.

It's scary as hell.

"Untie them."

There's movement around you, and then the hood is yanked off. You squint, blinking a few times, before focusing on the irritatingly put-together man in front of you. Although looking roughly the same age as you, the Barrel makes anyone be adults far too fast.

Brekker stares down at you, gloved hands clasped onto his cane. Behind him, a Suli girl hovers. Inej, his wraith. A spy, as far as anyone knows. Not an assassin. So that means whoever is working on untying you is Jesper.

"You're in quite the situation." He notes dully, but there's a wicked gleam in his eyes.

It only makes you glare harder. "Thanks, I'm aware."

The rope around your wrists falls away and you bring your hands to your lap, but don't move to untie your ankles. There's a sharpshooter behind you and a girl with knives in front of you; You aren't completely stupid. And that's not to mention the damage you know Brekker can do too.

"I have a deal for you." Brekker says after a moment, taking a step forward. He switches his crow-headed cane to his left hand, holding out his right for a handshake.

You don't take it. "What's the deal?"

"I don't think you're in a position to be asking questions."

"What's. The. Deal?"

"Perhaps I didn't make it clear. Take the deal right now, or we'll dump your body in the harbor to drown."

Well. That's not a lot of options. Everyone knows to negotiate all terms of a deal before accepting, but what choice do you have? He's brilliant for this move, and you hate him for it. Saving your life, buying you, just to force you into a deal to live.

Before you can talk yourself out of it, reason why this is such a horrible idea, you're shaking his hand.

"Screw you." You spit out, life-saving be damned. Your grip tightens, just to spite him. Although his lips tug down, he doesn't pull away.

His reply is passive.

"Welcome to the crows."

#soc #six of crows #six of crows kaz #soc kaz #kaz brekker x you #kaz brekker imagine #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker #grishaverse #the crows #kazzle dazzle

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prettieinpink · 8 months

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being smart makes u prettier !!

If you’re somebody who’s not an active student rn, you’re on holiday, you want to become more smarter, looking for brain exercises before studying or you just want to be smarter without studying everyday this post is 4 u!!!!

READ!!!!!!!

This is crazy to me, the amount of people who don’t read is so high. You don’t even have to read a hard-copy book, just reading an article is literally enough to keep your brain exercising.

Some benefits i’ve noticed with reading consistently are my memory is literally boosted and my vocabulary is better. Though, i’ve only started reading every night like 2 months ago.

It does not need to be an educational or extensive literature book. Even some random book like an fantasy romance is gonna give you the same benefits.

Start writing whatever

This goes in pair with reading, but writing is literally the best brain exercise ever. Even if its journaling or some stupid short story, it all counts plus its really fun

One you begin writing, your mind just becomes less cluttered and you’re just less stressed. And its a perfect creative outlet for those who arent as artsy

Focus meditations

Before literally any task, whether its deep or shallow work but its still exerts your mental energy, do a focus meditation

Helped me become 10x productive and its so much easier to get into the flow of work

So important if you're an student or studying anything!!!

Download elevate!!

Its available on IOS but idk about androids

Basically it's an app where you can do three mental exercises each day, and it keeps track of your progress and gives you highlights after each session

It helps with mental maths, communication, eloquence and general writing!

Learning how to think on your own

It's crazy to me how much people rely on the internet. You do not need to scroll pinterest each time for outfit inspiration, searching up writing prompts each time you write or even ask the internet for personal advice

When people are bored, so instead of just being bored they decide to consume a whole lot of content that is not nourishing the mind

Its definitely okay to do, but not always

So take a step back, and ask yourself, ‘could I really survive a day of doing tasks without once using any source of the internet?’ ‘is this media allowing my mind to flourish? Or is it killing it?’

Thinking by yourself is now such a valuable skill, if you don't have it, DEVELOP IT.

Randomly research everything

If u get curious about something don’t just let it float in your head, taking up mental space

Instead research it! Even the little things like an random flower, how are playgrounds manufactured, the history of beds or the most expensive pencil ever.

conservations are so easy 4 me now because i know a lot of random stuff that the usual person doesn't care about! It makes it so easy for you to stand out too

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ghsotlv · 1 month

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Hihihiii! May I perhaps request Heavy and Scout with an S/O who gives em their drawings as some sort of a love language? You can ignore this if this isn't exactly your cuppa tea, thanks mate:]

sorry this took so long !!!

SCOUT

-He thinks this is so adorable!! Scout hangs up your drawings in his room, or even on the kitchen fridge to brag about how his "boo" drew him something so wonderful!

-He WILL show it off, with your permission of course. Every merc has either been told, or seen your art, with him going around telling them how artistic you are and how lucky he is to have such an creative s/o.

-Scout draws too, so be prepared to be given drawings from him back! He loves drawing with you, he thinks its super romantic, Though, he wont show it. He'll say "ion like all this mushy stuff" but he'll come through either way, because he loves you so much, and he enjoys it.

-If you draw scout, he will break down, actually. like a blushing mess, imagine his sweetheart thinking hes valuable enough to them that they have the idea to draw him, PLUS ITS GOOD ART!??!! The boys heart is overflowing. Be prepared to be HUGGED A WHOLEEEE LOT!

HEAVY

-When you hand him the drawing he stares at it, making u feel uneasy about how he feels about it, until you hear a ''Little y/n, drew this for me...??'' you start doubting yourself when you hear him finish his sentence "this..this is nice'' as your met with a blushing red heavy.

-HEAVY LOVESSS YOUR ART. HE EATS IT UP.

-He WILL ask for you to draw for him way more often, he hangs them up on his wall or any where honestly he sees fit.

-''Heavy likes this.. very much'' like AWW!

-He has one of his favorites in his pocket and will pull it out to show medic whenever he has a check up. He has even shown his mom, and sisters.

-He thinks its so adorable how someone so little could hold so much creativity!! Heavy is your number 1 fan.

#scout x reader #tf2 scout #scout headcanons #heavy x reader #tf2 heavy #heavy headcanons #tf2 x reader #tf2 #team fortress 2

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clinicallyinsanedumpsterrabbit · 3 months

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Weremoth Dave!

I shall now proceed to go into way too much explanation for this one off drawing under the cut that potentially turns this into a whole ass au

Now, time to talk about the backrooms where this drawing au thing takes place, more specifically death moths.

So, death moths in the backrooms are kinda like giant bees, but moths, so they make a honey like substance called moth jelly that has a ton of benefits in small amounts but can be addictive and detrimental in larger doses.

So naturally dave the known drug addict gets hooked on the stuff and eventually ends up drinking way way too much moth jelly which has a side effect in that large of a dose, causing moth like mutations, so tada, weremoth Dave, a weremoth that appears to be tame-able but just Jack, because while the weremoth mutations definitely reduced his ability to speak by messing with his vocal cords, because of just how much his brain is already tainted, it stayed relatively unaffected just purely because there wasn't much to affect in the first place.

I definitely took some creative liberties as I could find hardly anything about weremoths, which I take personal offence to /silly

So in short, dave drink too much moth juice, become moth, jack have to take care of moth dave, moth dave only able to make cute squeaks as words

Also because dave was a hermaphroditic species before the mutations he may be able to produce his own moth jelly, because I said so. And hey a nice little extremely valuable income source for the two goobers, yippee

#dsaf #day shift at freddy's #dayshift at freddy's #art #digital art #dsaf dave #dsaf jack #davesport #I feel kinda weird tagging this as backrooms related for some reason so i wont

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jayrockin · 1 year

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As a sequential art student how do I become as weird as you? Like do you have an illustration or seqa degree? I saw that you take science classes for funzee but what are your major inspirations? Like what made you realize you wanted to draw your own strange little people?😸

I have a biology degree 😅 Making great use of it, as you can see.

I draw pretty much compulsively, and I have been since I could hold a marker in my chubby toddler fist. I also grew up on the 00's internet with no supervision and read a bunch of webcomics and webmedia projects I was way too young for. Lots of illegally uploaded manga as well, of course. I drew comics because I read comics, they were just the medium I grew up saturated in.

I wouldn't describe my major creative influences as unanimously "good," as many of the formative comics of my youth were unfocused serialized disasters drawn by furries, weebs, transformation fetishists, and other such weirdos in their spare time. I think those kinds of unfiltered, self indulgent web projects with zero concern for broad appeal are interesting even when they're bad, though. They're such a clear window into the person who made them, and people are very interesting to me.

If you are looking to make your stuff weirder, just become more unapologetic about filling your art with the things you are interested in. Artists avoiding sincerity will find themselves with a more highly marketable product less vulnerable to criticism, but less invested in their own creations. Audience critique is valuable but if you try to please the people with irony poisoning, you will end up processing out everything that makes it interesting.

Learn what you want from your art, view critique through that lens. Allow your work to be goofy and imperfect and revealing. Allow sincerity to loop it back around to being genuinely cool. Become cringe and free.

#secondary lesson: become unapologetic about not including things in your work you dont give a shit about #jaytext #writing

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bettsfic · 6 months

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What are some qualities of a “good” writer in your opinion?

i can't really articulate in general terms but i did find an example recently. (i wrote these out as examples in the writing log i kept while i was at this residency.)

this is from The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, a book about the Vietnam War:

If Rat told you, for example, that he’d slept with four girls one night, you could figure it was about a girl and a half. It wasn’t a question of deceit. Just the opposite: he wanted to heat up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt. For Rat Kiley, I think, facts were formed by sensation.

what i love about this paragraph, this whole book really, is that it has a strong sense of voice. the humor of "a girl and a half." the fragment of "just the opposite" and the placement of "i think." there's a rhythm here. to me it reads as though every word was chosen because every other word was considered and dismissed.

next i attempted to read Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes, which is also about the Vietnam War. here's a paragraph that happens a few pages into the book that was so bad i put the book down and never picked it back up:

Bass handed him some coffee in an empty C-ration fruit cocktail can and then poured another can for Hamilton, who had dumped his radio in front of his and Mellas’s hooch and was sitting on it. Hamilton took the coffee, raised the can to Bass in toast, and wrapped his fingers around the can to warm them.

this paragraph from Matterhorn is littered with unnecessary descriptive adjectives among bodily action that's not needed and serves only to show the detail of the C-ration fruit cocktail can. that information is better placed elsewhere, where it might be more relevant and interesting to the narrator. there is no tension in this paragraph. it's only bodily direction as if in a film, and because this is prose, that's not needed unless it's relevant to the conflict. in this case, the conflict is that our narrator, Mellas, is absolutely terrified and trying to scheme however he can to get out of the combat zone. but do you get any sense of that urgency in this paragraph? no, it's just things happening.

i think good writers (and i use that term loosely, because we all determine good writing based on our personal tastes and the art/media we've encountered in our lives thus far) draft these kinds of sentences for the sake of knowing where their characters are in time and space but eventually cut them, even if they love the image of the C-ration fruit cocktail can. but if you love the C-ration fruit cocktail can, you can lend it meaning. you can honor it by making it matter to the narrator. here it's just kind of thrown in along with the other details, like a valuable antique thrown into a pile of junk. that antique deserves to sit on a shelf and be admired.

maybe the C-ration fruit cocktail can arrives in drafting totally on its own. in revision--when you're going through the pile of junk looking for valuable things--is when you find it again and go, "oh, this is good, i need this." you know so much about your story that you know how to find what's valuable, what sings. so when i say that in TTTC every word was chosen because every other word was considered and dismissed, what i'm saying is that O'Brien meticulously went through that pile, found the good stuff, and put it on the shelf in a beautiful way.

that's where creative skill comes from, i think. the endurance to consider, to make millions of little choices meaningfully.

#writing advice

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vcendent · 5 months

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art vs industry

Sometimes I'm having a good day, but then sometimes I think about how industry is actively killing creative fields and that goes away. People no longer go to woodworkers for tables and chairs and cabinets, but instead pick from one of hundreds of mass-produced designs made out of cheap particle board instead of paying a carpenter for furniture that is both made to last generations and leaves room for customization. With the growth of population and international trade, the convenience and low production costs are beneficial in some aspects, but how many local craftsmen across the world were put out of business? How many people witnessed their craft die before their eyes? There is no heart or identity put into mass produced items; be it furniture, ceramics, metalwork, or home decor; and at the end of the day everybody ends up with the same, carbon copy stuff in their homes.

I'm a big fan of animated movies, and I see this same thing happening too. When was the last time western audiences saw a new 2D animated movie hit theatres? I can't speak for other countries, but, at least in America, I believe The Princess and the Frog was the last major 2D movie released and that was back in 2009. Major studios nowadays are unwilling to spend the time and money that it would take to pay traditional animators who have spent years honing their craft to go frame by frame, and to pay painters to create scene backgrounds. We talk a lot about machines replacing jobs, but when the machines come, artistry professions are some of the first to be axed (in part because industry does not see artistry as "valuable" professions). Art, music, and writing are no longer seen as "real" jobs because they belong to the creative field and there's this inane idea that anyone who goes into those fields will be unsuccessful and starving. I'm not saying that 3D animation is bad, it has its own merits and required skills and can be just as impressive as anything 2D, but it has smothered 2D animation and reduced it largely to studios that cannot afford the tech to animate 3D.

And now we have this whole AI thing to deal with, stealing existing artists' work to "train" it to take over those few professions that, until now, required actual people to do them. Internet artists have already been dealing with people complaining about the price of art for years and now have to face their work being stolen to train AI. With AI technology, anyone who undervalues the work of the artist can now get something generated at little or no cost to them, all at the expense of the artists themselves. Why would studios pay script writers when they could just get an algorithm to do it without pay? Why pay actors to bring characters to life or pay models to pose for ads when CGI has progressed enough we could digitally render humans and cut out having to pay people entirely? Why use practical effects or film on location when green screens and adding in-post is faster and so much cheaper? It's no wonder we had the SAG-AFTRA strike. AI has already been trained to write children's books and produce music, continuing down this road will replace authors and musicians too at the convenience of cost. How much longer until the actual, real-life people behind all forms of artistry become completely obsolete?

Industry is just driving the cost of people-made crafts up and up with every mass produced product and every streamlined shortcut to reduce costs, which only makes it harder and harder for artists of all kinds to make a living, as very few people want to pay for the time and skill of artists when they could just pick something off a shelf or feed AI a prompt and get something satisfactory enough, yet not what they actually wanted, for so much cheaper.

#this isnt my usual type of post but this genuinely upsets me #my rants #industry is killing creative fields #art #writing #acting #screenwriting #animation #2d animation #3d animation #crafts #ai #ai generation #sag aftra #sag afra strike #pay your writers #pay your artists #pay your craftsmen #support all forms of artistry

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writing-with-sophia · 4 months

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I usually find myself using the same range of ages in my stories (young adults, teens), and just plotting a crime story, I realized how unrealistic it was to have almost every single character in early stages of adulthood, especially the team researching the case. Of course I have in mind a lack of experience in certain things for them and stuff but it's pretty hard for me to do older or much younger characters idk why 😭 what would u recommend? Is it somehow bad not to have a variety of ages or making it less realistic? It makes me feel like I'm doing a teen novel, sry for my english and uh ty <3

How to include a broader spectrum of ages in stories

Well, in fact, it's not necessarily bad to focus on a specific age range in your stories, as long as it serves the narrative and the themes you want to explore. If you find it difficult to write for a wide range of ages, you can certainly focus on teenagers. A story about young detectives can also be engaging and exciting, right? But if you want to incorporate a variety of ages to add depth and richness to your story, here are a few suggestions to help you:

Tip 1: Develop characters

Create well-rounded characters of different ages, each with their own distinct personalities, perspectives, and life experiences. Develop their backstories, motivations, and goals in a way that reflects the impact of their age on their thoughts and actions.

Then, explore how age can influence characters' motivations, goals, and challenges. Older characters may bring wisdom, life experiences, and a different perspective, while younger characters may have a sense of idealism, curiosity, and growth potential. By considering age-related motivations, you can create more dynamic and believable characters.

Tip 2: Build relationships for characters

At different ages, people develop various types of relationships. For example, a 16-year-old girl may have relationships with peers, teachers, and family members, while an adult man may have relationships with family, coworkers, and friends in social settings.

Relationships between older mentors and younger proteges, or clashes between generations, can add depth and conflict to your story. These interactions can also provide opportunities for growth and learning for your characters.

Tip 3: Pay attention to characters' dialogue and language

The vocabulary, tone, and communication styles of characters from different age groups are different. Younger characters may use contemporary slang or have a more informal way of speaking, while older characters may have a more formal or seasoned approach. You can observe closely how the elders around you communicate and make notes in a notebook.

Tip 4: Research

If you find it challenging to write characters of different ages, consider conducting research or seeking firsthand experiences from people of those age groups. As mentioned above, you can make a small notebook to record the words, actions and behaviors of people around you in certain situations. Reality is always a great source of information if you know how to take advantage of it.

Tip 5: Beta and feedback

You can share your work with beta readers or writing groups that include individuals from various age groups. Their feedback can offer valuable insights and help you refine the portrayal of different age groups in your story.

Remember, storytelling is an art, and there are no set rules. Ultimately, it's about finding a balance that aligns with your creative vision while ensuring your story resonates with a diverse audience. Embracing a variety of ages can add depth and realism to your stories, expanding the scope of your narratives and making them more relatable to readers of different backgrounds and experiences.

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sun-stricken · 2 months

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i love gray's friendships with female characters, at least through tenrou arc! like that he's at once the "cool guy," sweet underneath, kinda flirty, and embarrasses a little easily - it's very easy to come up with HCs for his female friendships and you can't often say that about the cool rival guys(TM) in anime!

like for cana - -they're were the OG kids in the guild and i like the idea that cana felt like she could complain about boy troubles to gray -they were also friends with benefits at some point 👀 they broke it off very amicably and cana still rants to him about "girl stuff." he always finds it boring when she starts but eventually he gets invested and starts ranting with her, by this point mira also joins in on their gossiping <3

for erza - -she was definitely his first crush/love around his own age and one of the reasons he responded so strongly when he saw her crying alone, was because he was reminded of when ur used to do the same thing since she lost ultear (like the flashbacks in tenrou island arc of her sobbing while clutching ultear's old baby clothes). except back then, he didn't know how to help and just pretended he never saw anything, and it's one of his biggest regrets. so he decided to do something about erza even if he was really clumsy at it. -eventually he learned ice-making and wielding all those weapons because he asked erza to help teach him (even if he had to swallow his pride to do it). at first it's just between them but eventually a lot of the guild gets invested and watches their sparring sessions - levy helps him find books about specific swordplay techniques based on erza's recommendations -once, erza criticizes his fighting style and says she can read every move because he keeps playing it safe and is constantly on the defensive; she urges him to be more spontaneous and unpredictable because that kind of creativity is well-suited for maker mages. so during the fight, she's got him pinned (as usual) and the guild thinks it's over until, on a whim, he suddenly kisses her... and in erza's shock he manages to unpin himself and hold his own ice dagger at her throat instead. the guild's holding their breath and thinks erza's gonna beat him up LMAO, and gray also immediately tries to apologize and grovel, but erza simply brushes it off and says he was the smarter fighter that time, so he won fair and square. they both don't know that it was the other's first kiss 👀 -to thank erza for training him, gray gifted her those diamond-knife earrings (i figured bc he also wears that cross necklace and occasionally earrings...) - he's not really sure if she even likes them because she didn't show too much interest in jewelry/makeup/anything that isn't strictly practical, but to this day, he's never seen her take them off -erza made him quit smoking lmao, he used to be smoking buddies with mira until they both quit. he still doesn't do it but sometimes at a town event or similar occasion, he might indulge in a cig or two - nothing more. but he never does it in front of erza -gray standing up to erza in galuna island arc is like a guild legend now. people always bring it up when they introduce him to a newcomer; gray feels kinda embarrassed and uncomfortable by it and tries to apologize to erza about it, but she says she doesn't mind at all and he taught her a valuable lesson that day

for lucy - -sometimes he sits in on her and levy's discussions about the short stories she's writing and her eventual novel. he doesn't really throw out too many ideas, he just prefers to listen because he's reminded of the tales of adventure that ur used to tell him and lyon after dinner. sometimes lucy asks him about his home country and stuff so she can write short informational articles about it in sorcerer weekly, and he's happy to reminisce. -he really does find lucy's apartment comfortable because it has multiple thermostats. lucy always keeps the laundry area a little cooler just for gray whenever he drops by, since she knows he likes sitting there

for ultear - -it's a little hard to look her in the eyes sometimes because she resembles ur so much, but gray always appreciates her presence. sometimes ultear asks him to talk about little things about her mother, like her favorite foods or a story about her, and gray's always happy to indulge. lyon joins in too when he can! -once lyon hit on her in front of gray much to the latter's complete mortification, but ultear just burst out laughing and lyon turned brick red (there's an unspoken plea from lyon to never bring that incident up, but gray's just waiting for the chance to use it against him) -he always feels a little jolt in his chest when there's something ultear subconsciously does that's just like ur - they both put their hands on their hips the same way when they're pleased, she dots her "i's" with big circles like ur did, and they have similar tastes in food. gray doesn't know whether to feel pleased or pained -ultear thinks gray's stripping habit is endearing -ur was kinda gray's first puppy crush in the early says of being her student (before she became like a mother to him), and sometimes he wonders if he might end up feelings similarly about ultear if they spent more time together -ultear gave him a very rudimentary communication lacrima where you can tell the other person's mood/general state of mind if you let a little of your magic flow into it. sometimes gray uses it at night to see if she and crime sorciere are doing okay <3

i love exploring Grays relationship with others so much, also this is so long and as much as i love it i cant think of things to add on to it

but this absolutely needs to be shown to the world and praised bc holy shit this great and im definitely stealing at least 90% of these

#fairy tail #sun strickens ft #sun stricken answers #gray fullbuster #ultear milkovich #cana alberona #erza scarlet #lucy heartfilia #fairy tail headcanons #theyre not mine tho #whoever this asker is i need u to know im in love with u

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theresattrpgforthat · 4 months

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Hi, do you know any games that include traversal/spatial puzzles? Say, a character needs to figure out how to get from point A to point B in a room that has a certain sequence of puzzles: find this ball, take that ball to another room, jump over an abyss to get the ball into some slot, and a door opens. Something like in Darksiders 2 video game or other action-adventure games.

THEME: Spatial Puzzles

Hello friend! I have a feeling most of this recommendation list is going to be dungeon crawlers, because those games have so many pieces that emulate the levels of action-adventure games. The OSR has a lot of stuff that you’re probably going to like, but I think I can also include a few games that explore dungeons in different ways, in case you want some additional rules alongside your dungeon exploration. Also, keep in mind that there are a lot of system agnostic dungeons out there that can be used for a lot of different kinds of games, so even if there’s a game that doesn’t have a lot of adventures pre-written for you, they might still be a good fit for these pre-written dungeons!

Forgotten Ballad, by coolwayink.

Forgotten Ballad is a minimalist Adventure Game - TTRPG, if you prefer - heavily inspired by The Legend Of Zelda series and the OSR movement. Its simple system uses only d6 and is built around the character's items and inventory, encouraging creativity and exploration based on how the players describe their approach to problems.

This game is an excellent example of the core pillars of the OSR movement, and draws inspiration from one of the most iconic action-adventure games with especially memorable dungeons. It’s a beautiful game and while the base game has only one starting dungeon to work with, it also includes tables to help you generate your own dungeons, as well as links to supplements such as Sudden Swamps and Buried Power, which are (respectively), a goblin dungeon and a procedural adventure/dungeon-creator.

If you want a taste of the rules before picking up the full game, you can also check out the pamphlet version of the rules!

Derelict Delvers, by Cezar Capacle.

Derelict Delvers is a thrilling, action-packed sci-fi roleplaying game that immerses players in a struggle for survival and profit. The game takes place in a galaxy overrun by monstrous alien creatures, who have destroyed humanity's peaceful exploration and diplomatic efforts.

The players take on the roles of elite space troopers, scientists, and engineers who must explore derelict spaceships and space stations in order to scavenge for supplies, salvage for weapons and valuable resources, and ultimately, hunt down the monsters that threaten the very existence of mankind. They are a team of skilled specialists, who are on a mission to help humanity, but also themselves.

With a unique blend of fast-paced combat and challenging perils, players will have to work together (or alone!) to overcome the dangers of the derelict ships and outsmart the deadly aliens lurking within. They will also have to make difficult decisions that will affect the outcome of their missions, their potential profits, and their very survival.

This game can be played GM-less or even solo, but I can see it being useful for dungeon design due to the roll tables that help the GM put the rooms of the empty spaceships together. I can even see the tables being useful for other space horror games, such as Mothership. You roll for the room shape, as well as for the difficulties plaguing each room. The attached actual play on the game page showed the creation of a room with blocked vents, a jellyfish monster, and a radiation leak, which all probably need to be dealt with before the characters can move on to the next room.

Fight, Item Run, by Whimsy Machine.

Fight Item Run is a Powered by the Apocalypse tabletop roleplaying game that smashes action-packed combat and magic together with dynamic character and relationship exploration. The party begins in a chamber and there are monsters; once they’ve defeated the monsters, they proceed to the next chamber where there are more monsters. Chambers also have items, treasures, puzzles, and mysteries. When the party has collected the adequate gear to advance to the next level of the dungeon, they come to the chamber with the passage, staircase, portal, or alien warp pad to continue forward.

This game is dungeon-crawling as well as Powered-by-the-Apocalypse, which is a really interesting mix for me. It’s inspired by platforming and action-adventure games, and has a unique method of encouraging the group to collaborate in dungeon design, at least to some extent. When it comes to theme and atmosphere, the group is encouraged to collaborate - do they want to explore a crashed spaceship? A volcano temple? An icy cave system?

However, the chambers of the dungeon have special advice for the GM. There’s a whole section on creating puzzles, including 6 different puzzle types, and a series of steps to generate puzzles in the dungeon that you’re exploring. Players will have to use different moves to engage with these puzzles, such as Apply Force, Manipulate Components, or Navigate Danger. On top of this, you can populate your dungeon with monsters, sages, and key items.

The Tomb of Xul Lan Kwat, by Madeline.

10,000 years ago the god-queen Xul Lan Kwat was buried here, but now her leaking dreams threaten the world above. Animals and people awake to their skin paling, their hair falling out, their eye sockets closing over. You have been given a lead-lined chest in which you must seal the god- queen’s brain and heart to stop the flow of dreams.

This is a stat-less dungeon like I mentioned in the introduction to this rec post. It’s 7 pages long, with a grid map and details for each room. Some of the obstacles in this dungeon are combat related, such as mushroom women or pale monkeys. However, there are also interesting features such as mirrors that can give you a sneak peek into other rooms, sudden loss of vision, and crystals that could fall on curious, unsuspecting adventurers. I’d recommend using a game like Cairn or Durf for this. Cairn fits the gritty tone, and gives the GM a lot of freedom on how to adjudicate challenges, and Durf gives you a bunch of example NPCs that you can use as templates for the creatures you find in other system-agnostic settings.

Tomb of a Thousand Doors (Mausritter), by ManaDawn Tabletop Games.

Gather up picks and shovels and prepare packs as you delve deep into the forgotten stronghold of a mad mouse king - the Tomb of a Thousand Doors. A megadungeon for the rules-light fantasy adventure roleplaying game Mausritter.

It’s a deep and dark dungeon down there, and it will not be fair on a little mouse. But if you are cautious and maybe a bit daring and reckless, you may be able to retrieve unnumbered riches. And if you delve for long enough, you may just uncover the greatest treasure of all mousekind.

This dungeon is so big I think you could probably run an entire Mausritter campaign in here, and each mini-dungeon has its own unique pieces. I stopped at a random one, and landed on the Chamber of Flames: 8 octagonal connected chambers, walled with mirrors, with traps that shoot flames through each archway if you step too heavily on pressure tiles. I can see the players trying to figure out ways to avoid walking on the tiles, or making themselves super-light in order to get to the end of this tunnel.

As a system, Mausritter is fairly light in rules, so it’s easy to learn, and the emphasis on inventory means that your characters will have to learn how to use what’s in their toolbox to help them get from point A to point B. I think it’s got a lot of what you’re looking for because on top of this Megadungeon, there’s plenty of other Mausritter supplements to explore and enjoy.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #game recommendations #dnd #asks #indie ttrpg #puzzles

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