#(and probably have the leeway from the owners) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cetaceanhandiwork · 2 years

Note

hi! i sent an anon ask to beesm'god about the adversarial feeling of advertisements, i think i sent it to her instead of you bc your anon was off? idr, i got brain problems.

anyway i dont have a very deep perspective into the ads business so yeah my envisioning of a two party tug of war was like, based on like, i guess youtube/google just obfuscating any other sides from each other bc they seem like they'd be influential enough to do that.

what are the parties that're standing off ?

so in the ads business, there are always at least three parties involved:

the advertisers, who have a message they want to get out, and money to burn on it

the publishers, who have an existing audience and want to make a buck on that audience without the audience having to pay that buck

the audience, whose attention the publisher is selling to the advertiser (pet peeve: there may be some audiences whose "personal information" gets sold but that's not google's business model; the personal information is a competitive advantage and google wants to keep that all to itself. it's just used to decide whose attention gets sold to which advertiser.)

in the modern era, there is often also a fourth party: the "network" or "exchange", which acts as a middleman and matchmaker between advertisers and publishers.

the audience usually has the least power in this chart. their only real option is to decide how they interact with the publisher: installing or uninstalling adblock, dropping the pub entirely if they get too mad, etc.

advertisers, meanwhile, have a lot of leverage because they get to choose their battles. this leverage is proportional, not only to their absolute amount of money, but also their relative amount of money compared to other advertisers in the space. the less choice people have about whose money they take, the more influence the remaining people with money can exert. (raid shadow legends was able to earn its infamy, not b/c it was offering fat stacks for sponsored ad reads, but b/c it was selling sponsorships to publishers too small for anyone else to bother with.)

but the publisher (if they're big enough to work with advertisers directly) or the network (if there is one) also has leeway, b/c they get to choose what product (i.e. what sort of attention) they're offering to advertisers. they can compete on "I have an audience with such-and-such demographics", or “I have an audience that comes to me for such-and-such type of content”, etc.

and if a publisher is big enough, they always have the nuclear option of picking up their ball and going home... whether that means “taking their business to a different network/advertiser”, or “changing their business model to not rely on ad funding at all”. once again, if they form a big enough portion of an advertiser’s billboard space or a network’s inventory, this can force them to play ball. this type of leverage applies to a lot of things in tech; as a non-ads example, Twitter will probably never be kicked off the iOS app store for porn, because Apple knows that a Twitter exodus would actually cut into their userbase in a way that other smaller apps might not.

and yes, all of this is to some extent a matter of scale. google can tell small advertisers to accept its terms or go pound sand. but once you get into the same weight class - multinational corps vs other multinational corps - factors that are more structural than sheer “how big is your valuation” start to control.

okay. that all covered, let's come to the case of youtube specifically.

youtube's ads business originally had youtube as a network only. ads only appeared on content when the content's owner - the youtuber who posted it, or the rightsholding company whose music was used in it - has a deal with youtube saying "hey, run ads on my content and give me a cut".

this meant that, as a network, they had to find advertisers willing to run video ads on youtube videos.

now, the vast majority of the video ads market - both in terms of “amount of money they have to throw around” and “amount of attention they want to buy” - is TV commercials. and TV commercials are produced by marketing firms whose concept of how ads work is... very 20th century, let’s say. they exist in a universe where you run ads just to make people recognize the word “coca cola” in a positive way, not to actually get people to buy a coke (because how would you even link the adview to the purchase?) their doctrine is focused on “brand recognition”, and as a result, they care a lot about “brand safety” - a nebulous industry term that basically means “will the place where my ad is shown make me look bad”.

for youtube, this meant that in order to court the TV commerical market and their giant piles of cash, they had to make their network’s rules such that publishers (at this point in the story, YouTube partners) could only run ads on “brand safe” content as seen through the eyes of someone stuck in the 80s. no drugs or tobacco, no “obscenity”, nothing “adult”. this used to be the situation where you heard about demonetization: big YT partners who are suddenly getting $0 for a video because they said something that an automated process thinks TV advertisers might find problematic.

so now that’s what advertisers on YT have been taught to expect about how their ads will be run. certainly any very large company running ads there will now demand it.

but now, in the interests of chasing the impossible dream called “endless growth”, youtube has stepped into the publisher role as well. for non-Partner videos, ads are still being run, but all the money goes to YT itself.

except... they already made the rules, and the rules are that advertisers can rest easy that the inventory they’re buying is “brand safe”. they can’t put “unsafe” videos back in the main inventory without risking losing the TV commercial people as customers. at best they would have to make a separate category for advertisers who’re willing to pay lower prices per view in exchange for running on questionable content... but if that did exist, you’d see much the same situation as ads on Tumblr: low-quality, perplexing outsider art, shilling for brands nobody’s ever heard of, which might be considered a win in itself.

now, could youtube simply ban all “brand unsafe” ads from its platform entirely? yeah, they could. but that would mean banning, uh, major news organizations like NPR because they sometimes run segments about ethnic strife or drug addiction... and it seems like they’re not willing to lose that type of publisher either, if only for fear of another video site coming along and eating their lunch.

so we’re in a weird, half-way space, where “demonetized” videos are maybe deprioritized for being recommended by the “you may also like” algorithms, but in the end they’re also being hosted for free, because YT is caught in limbo between large (corporate-scale) publishers who it can’t afford to be shopping around for a replacement platform, and large (corporate-scale) advertisers who as a bloc control youtube’s purse strings.

28 notes · View notes

tragedicna · 5 months

Text

@avaere / unprompted.

face to face outside lambad's tavern , another night slips past the two who have found it in them to enjoy a meal and some drinks together , conversation and laughter spilling towards closing hours of the tavern . hushed by the owner , kaveh has come to wrap an arm loosely around malik's neck , fingers playing with the hair in the back of his neck . " such a shame that our conversation might come to an end here," the architect muses , his gaze lingering on malik's own , seeking for some sort of agreement to what slips out of him next , warm whispers shared as kaveh leans a little closer. " i would be very open to hear more of your delightful voice in private, to be able to gaze into your beautiful, enticing eyes a little longer and, perhaps even," fingers trace the surface of malik's back slowly , a soft ( albeit sweet ) peck placed on malik's lips, "get to wake up next to you ? "

❝ indeed , a shame . . .❞ ⸻ hands falling to kaveh's waist as he leans closer , an amused hum falling from his lips as he listens to kaveh's suggestion , he pretends to ponder the other's words . ❝ well , i should probably rest , i leave for another expedition in a few days and i need to prepare for it , ❞ malik says , a lie . malik had already done this beforehand , he always does it long before just to leave himself some leeway and time to rest . though despite his words , there's a teasing lilt to his tone as he draws kaveh closer to his own body . ❝ in private , you say , ❞ malik muses softly , ❝ very enticing . . . ❞ he says , a shiver overcoming his figure as he feels the other's hand trail down his back . ❝ you are very . . . persuasive , ❞ he says , mumbling those words against kaveh's lips , ❝ that certainly sounds like a treat , ❞ he agrees , forehead resting upon the blonde's . ❝ so ?? are you just bluffing with all those words or are you going to make good on them , mr. architect ?? ❞ malik teases lightly , leaning in to press another chaste kiss upon kaveh's lips before pulling away , though his hands remains upon the male's waist .

#( malik | answered )#thanks for sending!#avaere

1 note · View note

doomxdriven · 6 months

Text

DRABBLE: THE HEARING (PART I)

The Bakkoto, parasitic organisms that take the shape of weaponry, these days forged in secret by a process remembered only by the Kumoi (a cadet branch of the more prominent Kasumiōji Clan). Amagai was the owner of such a weapon, and had kept the true nature of his Bakkoto hidden for ages now with the help of Kido, having successfully passed the weapon off as a Zanpakuto.

However, Amagai should have figured that eventually, Central 46 would take notice, the nosy bastards.

"With exception to the Greater Nobility and their Ancestral blades, it has never come to pass that a Shinigami could wield two different Zanpakuto," one of the Central 46 judges said, "which means that you are--"

"I don't see why the Nobility is always the exception to rules and stuff," Amagai cheekily interrupted, "I think we should be talking more about that, all the leeway they get over everyone else, never seemed fair."

The presiding judge glares at Amagai, and then without addressing his statement (because of course they wouldn't talk about that) they pick up where they left off, "which means you are one of two things, Captain Amagai, special, or a liar."

"Special sounds about right for me I'd say," Amagai replied in a jestful though arguably flippant manner, "I don't do the whole lying thing, unless my seated officers are asking me how much paperwork I've done, but only then, honest!"

Many of the surrounding judges grumble in the wake of Amagai's remarks, none too pleased with his attitude. The judge who has spoken before seems especially annoyed however, and they continue on, pointing at Amagai as they sharply say;

"Mind yourself, Captain Amagai-- we will prove here today whether or not you truly wield a second, unique Zanpakuto, and if it turns out you do not, we will also uncover the true nature of whatever that weapon truly is."

The nerve of these uppity geezers and other leeches, Amagai wished he could light this whole chamber up in flames right now, take all of these bastards out… but it was too soon for that. The day would come when Amagai put Central 46 to the flames, but for now, he needed to keep a leveled head and bullshit his way through this hearing.

"I really feel like none of this is necessary," Amagai replied, giving a casual shrug, "feel like we could all be spending our time on more important things, but alright, how are we going to do this?"

Amagai goes to draws his second 'Zanpakuto', which to everyone in the room, would appear as a tanto-like blade, and he then waves it around for all to see, while half-jokingly and half-contemptuously saying, "You all want to hold it? Pass it around maybe? Give it the old taste test? Be my guests."

The presiding judge sighs deeply, and then motions to the chamber doors, before announcing, "We have brought three experts to weigh in on these matters today; 11th Division Captain Zaraki Kenpachi, Grand Kido Chief Bansui, and his Excellency Ōetsu Nimaiya."

As the doors to the Central 46 Assembly Hall begin to slowly open, Amagai turns to glance at them, and then back at the presiding judge, replying, "Why those three specifically?"

Ōetsu Nimaiya… they were the creator of the Zanpakuto, if Amagai remembered correctly, so he understood why they might be called here. That was going to be a massive problem in and of itself, but why did they call Zaraki, and the head of the Kido Corps? Nimaiya was probably all these Central 46 bastards needed to unravel the little scheme Amagai had been running here with his Bakkoto, so were the other two just insult to injury?

"Kenpachi Zaraki," the presiding judge went on to reply, "has crossed blades with you multiple times in the past, and can provide firsthand, reliable testimony as to the nature of your supposed second 'Zanpakuto', the Grand Kido Chief can ensure there is no interference from high level Kido-related machinations during today's proceedings, and his Excellency Ōetsu Nimaiya will--"

The doors to the Assembly Hall fully open, but only one figure is standing there, hunched over, cloaked, and yawning as they finish the presiding judge's sentence, "-- not be… joining us, for today's, proceedings."

Multiple gasps and surprised grunts can be heard sweeping across the Assembly Hall as the various judges and wise men all turn their attention to the newly arrived Bansui, the Kido Corps Grand Kido Chief.

"Captain… Zaraki Kenpachi, has gotten lost, on his way here, and shall not… make it, in time. Whereas… Lord Ōetsu Nimaiya has… declined, today's summons, and sends his…" Bansui reaches into his cloak and pulls out a piece of paper, presumably a letter from Nimaiya themselves, which he then reads from and says imitative, " 'coolest apologies'."

Listening to all of this, suddenly Amagai doesn't feel as worried about this hearing, but Bansui was still here, the Grand Kido Chief, supposedly the strongest Kido user in the entire Soul Society, they could still be a problem if they started poking around the illusions he had set up around his Bakkoto.

"It's just going to be you then, Grand Kido Chief," Amagai asks, briefly turning to look at Bansui before turning back to the presiding judge, "or does this mean we can call all of this off and go home?"

The presiding judge, clearly frustrated beyond brelief and rubbing both of their temples, stands up and steps away from their podium for a moment, where they begin to congregate with a few other judges in the background.

In the meantime, Bansui languidly descends the stairs that led to the Assembly Hall stage where Amagai currently was, eying the 3rd Division Captain closely, and their supposed 'second' Zanpakuto.

Amagai, at this point, turns around and spots the approaching Bansui, feeling a little uneasy with every step closer they took, wondering what their actions here might be today if this hearing was to go ahead. More than that, Amagai just didn't like the vibe of this guy-- he had heard rumours about Bansui and the Kido Corps over the years, none of which painted a pretty picture, and he started wondering if some of those rumours might be true.

"Hey now, no need to come all the way down here buddy, you can stay up there, it's fine," Amagai jovially called out to Bansui while waving at them, "I don't think these guys are going to follow through with any of this now anyway."

Bansui, in return, is silent, continuing downward toward Amagai, their one visible eye now meeting his, staring right through him.

Amagai went to continue, "er, uh, or you can come down here I guess, if you really feel like it--"

The presiding judge would suddenly return to their podium and announce, "It has been decided that today's hearing shall go forward as planned despite the absence of two experts."

Amagai, turning slowly to look up at the presiding judge and all the others who had also returned to their places, mouths under his breath, "damn it."

#headcanons: amagai #headcanons: bansui #//this may or may not 100% tie into the 'main' shared canon of my bleach muses here but its def smth that occurs for amagai during his #//captaincy.#//be it for his exiled verse or the verse where he stays captain #//part 2 will be done... eventually SFSGHJFSGHJDH

0 notes

beyondstaff · 1 year

Text

Employed vs. Virtual Assistant: What’s the Difference?

Ever wondered how easier life would be if you had an extra set of hands?

You, like most, will probably be put off by the prospect of all the formalities that are required of a long-drawn-out employment process. Let’s face it, you have tasks that could be taken care of. You’ll be relieved to learn that hiring a permanent staff is not your only choice.

Businesses are increasingly turning to virtual assistants (VAs) in recent years. According to the demands of the profession, they might work either full-time, part time or for a set number of hours. Ultimately looking to fill the requirements of a client.

Employee vs. Virtual Assistant

It’s crucial to define the distinction between a virtual assistant and an employee before moving on to the advantages of using one.

An employee. This is a person you hire as a permanent part of your team to fill a certain position. They often work beside you at a workstation on your premises. You pay them a salary and provide them with a variety of employment perks.

A Virtual Assistant. This is a freelancer whom you hire to perform certain tasks for you from a remote location. You pay them a fee based on the amount of work completed. That’s all. In most other ways, they look for themselves.

Why you should hire a Virtual Assistant

There are several advantages to hiring flexible, remote help. Here, we go in to a little more detail on these:

A Virtual Assistant is frequently much more than a home-based administrator. They come with all of the necessary talents and they can be trained in-house at a lower cost.

They could also provide a wide range of specialized talents that go much beyond what you may anticipate from an administrator. However, they can possess a wide range of abilities. Some specialize in SEO, copywriting, digital marketing, logistics, social media marketing, and picture and video editing. As a result, you should have no trouble finding one that meets your requirements. Check out this list of tasks to delegate to your virtual assistant.

Employers would not invest in overhead if they hired a VA on a project-based, part-time, and short-term basis. As a result, they can always operate inside their budget.

To be more competitive, virtual assistants expand their knowledge and abilities. This means that a business owner is not required to pay for training unless he/she so desires. However, it must be remembered that training on any in-house systems must be taken care of.

A Virtual assistant can be hired from anywhere in the world. As a result, individuals have a higher chance of finding the ideal alternative for their requirements.

Business owners can hire a virtual assistant with a flexible work schedule – they could fit around you!

Why should you hire a full-time employee?

There are occasions when hiring a full-time employee is the greatest option. For example, if you wish to set the hours and location where someone works for you. Perhaps you require the physical presence of someone in your office. Perhaps you believe it would be preferable to have greater leeway in training someone to perfectly match the function you require. Developing a team member may be quite rewarding.

However, it is occasionally worthwhile to take the time to consider if work is the best alternative. It’s considerably more difficult to reverse after contracts are signed and employees are on your payroll. As a result, some of our customers elect to hire a Virtual Assistant to assist them in determining if they actually need a permanent team member to execute a position. This allows them to explore with various sorts and amounts of help before making a well-informed decision.

Virtual Assistant vs employee: Which option is right for you?

If you’re unsure whether to hire a Virtual Assistant or an employee, we can help you make the proper decision. Whether you are concerned about your budget or are simply unclear if a Virtual Assistant is a suitable fit for you, schedule a meeting so we can go over our strategy and how our services might help your organization.

To more information please,

Visit :- https://beyondstaff.co.uk/

Call :-+44 (020) 3011 0324

#benefitsofremotestaff #beyondstaff #virtual assistant #london #unitedkingdom #employee

0 notes

goldingaccountancy · 1 year

Text

How to Get the Most out of Your Account Preparation Services

Having an effective business plan will not get you anywhere if you don’t have the right account preparation services in place. Without a solid implementation strategy, your business plan will only go so far. It’s imperative to have a working relationship with the right people and businesses to ensure that your company is strategically thinking when it comes to its business development and expansion plans. With this in mind, we’ve put together this article that covers everything from what an account preparation service is, to the proper way to hire one and how to get the most out of your account preparation services. Read on for all of the details!

What is an Account Preparation Service?

An account preparation service, also known as an audit, is a comprehensive review of a company’s financial records that is often done by certified accountants and attorneys. These professionals will comb through your financial documents, records, and accounts to make sure they are in good order. They will also check the veracity of all the information you’ve provided, such as the completeness of your contact information, the accuracy of your addresses, and the legitimacy of your business expenses. You can find an account preparation service by looking up “accountants” or “accountant services” in your local phone book or online directory.

Why Should You Hire an Account Preparation Service?

Hiring an account preparation service is a financial advisory service that helps businesses like yours stay in compliance with financial regulations. Accountants and lawyers conduct audits to make sure that your financial records are in order. They will ensure that you’re compliant with tax guidelines, have insurance coverage for your assets, and are able to file your taxes properly. The certified accountants and lawyers who work for account preparation services are often referred to as auditors.

The Best Way to Hire an Account Preparation Service

There are many ways to choose a provider of accounting and financial services. Some companies provide certain services only to businesses that they are contracted to audit, while others will provide their services to the general public. The general rule of thumb is that if you want certain services, you should probably look into hiring a certain type of accountant.

Find a service provider with experience. Accountants generally work for larger clients, while financial advisors work for smaller clients and individuals. If you are a small business, you may want to look into hiring an online accountant. You can find many of these providers online. Make sure the credentials of the accountant you hire are valid. If you are using an online accountant, make sure that the accountant is a certified accountant and has passed any relevant certification exams.

Hire a qualified workforce. Many accountancy services require at least some level of accounting knowledge or have specific skill sets required for certain areas of accounting, such as QuickBooks Intermediate for small business owners. Make sure that the accountant you hire has appropriate certifications, such as accounting professsional for certified financial analysts.

The Proper Way to Hire an Account Preparation Service

To get the most out of your account preparation services, you will want to find a provider with whom you have a good working relationship. This will give you the leeway to requests that might otherwise be denied. You can find a number of ways to cultivate a relationship with accountants and financial advisors, including:

Having the right person spearhead your account preparation services. A qualified accountant can help you with planning and forecasting, while a financial advisor can help you with capitalizing on new opportunities and opportunities for growth.

Helping your accountant and financial advisor understand your company. Make sure that both your accountant and financial advisor are on the same page when it comes to your company’s financial condition and where you need to focus your efforts for growth.

How to Get the Most out of Your Account Preparation Services

Once you have a relationship with a particular provider, the next thing you will want to do is get the most out of that relationship. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. Hire an accountant that functions more as an accountant than a financial advisor. If you are having a hard time understanding the nuances of your company’s finances, consider hiring an accountant who specializes in your industry.

Don’t make assumptions. Accountants like to be able to make recommendations and draw conclusions for their clients. This is beneficial both for you and your accountant.

Keep up your business continuity. Keep in mind that your accountant will often be your back-up plan should something happen to your primary accounting provider. Make sure that you have proper financial documentation that you can easily access no matter where you are.

Don’t be afraid to seek outside advice. When you’re first starting out, you may feel like you need to do everything by yourself. However, once your company starts to grow, you will most likely need professional assistance on a regular basis.

Final Words

An effective business plan will get you nowhere if you don't have the right account preparation services in place. Without a solid implementation strategy, your business plan will only go so far. It's imperative to have a working relationship with the right people and businesses to ensure that your company is strategically thinking when it comes to its business development and expansion plans.

#account preparation services essex

0 notes

seiyasabi · 3 years

Text

Bulls in the Bronx

(So…. long story short, I’m now a hucow simp. Thanks a lot @/biskywrites and @/dark-side-blog2 for making me this way (ﾉД`) lol, all jokes aside, I wanna suck some tiddy milk from a buff man ;)) Anyways, this is Yandere Hucow(Hubull?) Bokuto x Fem Reader ;0 This fic allows me to flex my farming knowledge lol, bc my grandparents owned ponies and dogs.

TW: !Noncon!, !dubcon!, creampie!, he hits you twice!, somnophilia!, predator vs prey?, manipulation!, cumflation!, breeding kink!, size kink!, ur a farmhand!, lactation!, tiddie sucking!, Asshole farmer Ushi, etc..

Please don’t proceed if any of the above are triggering! Also, sorry if Bokuto is too OOC lol)

“Bokuto got into the lackweed again,” You can’t suppress the laugh that explodes from your mouth. The idea of the biggest hucow (hubull??) on the ranch freaking out (again), because he’s now dripping milk is hilarious.

“Where on Earth does he keep finding those damn weeds?” The other farmhand laughs as well, stooping down to fill two buckets with water.

“I think those grass seeds were cross contaminated, the other hucows also started to lactate a lot more than usual. But, it’s kinda funny that our best breeder is dripping like a heifer,” Chuckling in acknowledgement, you can’t help but feel a pang of pity. Poor Bo, he’s probably really self conscious at the moment.

“Maybe I should go check on him-” Your coworker almost drops the bucket she’s filling, looking up at you as if you just grew three heads.

“Why would you do that? Did you forget that he’s going in rut soon?” Frowning, you glance down at the floor in mild shame.

“Well, yes, but he isn’t supposed to start until next week! Plus, I’m not ovulating right now, so I won’t trigger him,” The other girl thinks for a moment, before nodding slowly.

“I suppose it’d be fine. If anything, he may calm down if his favourite handler is there,” Nodding, you grab two buckets from the shelf beside you. Squatting down next to your coworker, you place a bucket underneath a faucet, turning the circular handle to the left. A gush of cool water rushes out, quickly filling the plastic pail. Quickly switching it out for the empty one, you wait a few more moments, before turning off the rushing water. Grabbing the handles of the buckets, you lift them whilst standing to your feet, using your legs instead of your back.

Nodding towards the other girl, you bid her farewell. Turning on your heel, you tromp towards the bull pens. The large red barn is quite a far distance from the shed you were once in, causing you to break out in a light sweat. It doesn’t help that it’s mid spring, causing the farm to be quite warm.

Setting the buckets down on the dirt ground, you wipe your brow with the back of your hand. Huffing out a deep breath, you quickly move the concrete slab keeping the barn closed away from the sliding door, before shoving it open. The sound of the cowbell on the red and white door handle on the inside clinks noisily, queuing a symphony of deep ‘moos.’

Picking up the buckets with bent knees, you hurry inside, relishing the feeling of the barn’s fans on your sweaty skin, “Hey guys, is the barn cool enough for you?” Grumbles and shifting of large bodies are all you get in response, causing you to laugh, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Gunning it for a certain grey haired bull’s stall, a bright smile makes its way onto your face, “Hey, Koutarou, how’re you feeling?”

He’s currently laying on his bed of compact hay, tears sliding down his handsome face. His cute ears are droopy, his bell earring not jingling with life like normal. His tears drip between his septum piercing, and drop onto his well defined abdomen, “Not good, (Your Name).”

With a small gasp, you set down the pails rather harshly, some of the cool liquid sloshing onto the wooden floor. Hurrying towards him, you sit on the prickly ‘mattress,’ “What’s wrong? I heard that you’re lac-” A small sob leaves his lips at your words, causing you to grab his hand reassuringly, “Are the other guys making fun of you? I can go yell at them if you’d like!”

The buff bull-man sits up, one arm covering his chest self-consciously, “No! They’re not being mean,” He grips your hand almost to the point that it’s painful, “I-it’s just… my chest hurts, real bad.”

Nodding in understanding, you motion towards his covered pecs, “Let me see, Bubs. I’ll see what I can do.”

His face flushes bright red, “But it’s embarrassing!” You shush him sweetly, releasing his hand to coax his arm away from his chest.

“It’s okay, I won’t make fun of you! I just wanna help you,” After a moment of hesitance, he obeys, revealing his swollen, red nipples.

The area around his nipples is raised as well, showing just how much his milk is backed up.

Eyes softening even more, you delicately rub both pecs, “You’re alright, Bubs. This happens to the cows sometimes when we don’t milk them as much as we need to. If you’d like, I can go find a pump!”

“No! I don’t wanna pump!” You jump slightly, and move away from him, only for his hands to trap your own to his chest. More tears gather in his eyes, as he becomes distraught, “I don’t want my milk to go to waste!”

Taken aback, you nod, although you don’t understand his reasoning, “Kou, why’re you acting like this? You know we don’t get rid of milk, we sell your guys’ milk at the market.”

He shakes his head, “I don’t want you to sell it. I want you to drink it,” The look of shock on your face is mistaken as disgust, causing him to cry even more, “Do you think I’m weird? Why do you look like that?” Seeing the bull act so sensitive is adorable, but you feel as though you have to comfort him.

“No, no, it’s okay! I’m not weirded out, I’m just surprised. I’ll go get a bucket-”

“No bucket!” Sighing at his weird behaviour, you cock an eyebrow at him.

“Then how am I supposed to collect it?” A big grin crosses his teary face.

“Drink from me! I promise I’ll be good!” Shifting in discomfort, an anxious sweat starts to form on your brow.

“Ahaha, that’s funny, Kou. You know I can’t do that,” More tears well up in his eyes, squeezing your heart painfully, “Don’t look at me like that, Bubs. I don’t think your owner would like me getting so close-”

“I don’t mind,” Ushijima’s voice booms throughout the barn, scaring the living daylights out of you. Whipping your head around, you make eye contact with the large male, an uncharacteristic smirk on his face, “As long as my star bull is happy, I’m happy.”

Kou releases your hands, only to grab your face, forcing you to look at him, “See! He doesn’t care! Please, (Nickname), please help me! My udders hurt so bad!”

With Ushijima’s eyes on you, and Koutarou’s sad and pain filled face, you finally relent, “Okay, okay! Don’t freak out, Bubs, I’ll help. You just gotta let me go.”

He releases you quickly, before shoving your head towards his chest. The jingling of his earring is heard, telling you that his ears are no longer pressed down on the top of his head. You hear heavy footsteps walk away from his stall, probably gathering the bulls to let them graze outside.

You try to push away from where your head is being smushed, but the bull gives you no leeway, “Why aren’t you drinking?” The male practically whines, as you whack his shoulder lightly.

“I’m being smothered in between your tiddies, Kou,” You chuckle in slight discomfort, but he finally allows you up. Moving towards his most swollen nipple (the left one), you pinch it between your thumb and forefinger, causing a small stream of milk to come streaming out.

A small moan leaves the large man’s lips, as he shoves you once again face first into his chest, “Don’t tease, (Nickname), I feel like I’m dying!” A flash of empathy goes through your heart.

Removing your hand from his nipple, you take a deep breath, and latch yourself onto him.Your chapstick covered lips are soft against his sensitive skin, causing him to keen. When you suckle, a tidal wave of milk bursts into your mouth. Luckily, it doesn’t taste very bad; his milk tastes like vanilla, causing you start to slurp it up like a babe.

Your one hand kneads his other pec to soothe him, “Fu-fuck, you’re making me feel so good!” You don’t bother trying to say anything, instead, you just suck harder. Your unoccupied hand squeezes his tit that you’re currently nursing on, causing him to pump out more of his yummy milk.

After a few long moments, you release his nipple. A drop of milk trickles down your chin, which the large bull laughs at. A thick finger wipes off the excess, pushing itself into your mouth. A tender look is in the grey haired man’s eyes, as he kisses your forehead.

“Thank you, pretty girl. Can you do the other one, please?” Now that he’s no longer in a painfilled state, he’s back to his normal, boyish self. Nodding, you lick your lips, before latching on to his other nipple. He barely chokes back a moan, his hand gripping the back of your head.

You suck as hard as you can without hurting him, pretending his nipple was a straw to a thick ass milkshake. Between your massaging and sucking, his teat no longer feels as painful as it once did.

Pulling away, you give him a wry smile, “There, all better. Well, I should pour your water into your trough now,” Standing up with wobbly legs, you move towards the filled buckets. Picking them up one by one, you pour it in with unsteady hands. Why are you so shaky right now? “Well, I should get going now. I hope you feel better later,” You try to walk out of his stall, only to be yanked back into Bokuto’s lap. Both empty pails fall to the ground unceremoniously, clattering loudly through the empty barn.

“Don’t leave me, Lovely, I need you,” His warm skin against yours feels nice, and you suddenly feel sleepy.

“Kou, I’m tired. I think-I think I’m gonna take a nap,” He runs his fingers (through your hair/over your scalp), tantalising you into drifting off.

“That’s alright, (Nickname), I’ll watch after you,” With a muffled ‘Mhm,’ you fall into a deep slumber.

When you awoke, you woke to your body shaking. Brow furrowing, you blearily open your eyes, only to see a tuft of grey hair in between your bent, spread legs.

His long tongue is currently fucking in and out of your dripping cunt, his thumb rubbing against your clit.

“Ku-Kou? Wha-“ He looks up immediately, a look of shock on his strong features.

“I-It’s Not what it looks like! I-I just wanted a taste!” You groggily push at his head, catching his ears slightly, causing a small jingling to sound throughout the empty barn.

“You didn’t ask, why, why are you-“ He grabs your hand, kissing each knuckle with a slobbering kiss.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Let me make you feel good! You taste so good,” You yank your hand back, trying to kick off the hand that currently wrapped around your right thigh.

“Get off of me! Bokuto, you-you’re doing this without my consent! I thought we were friends!” You shout, pushing at his face harshly. He grabs one of your hands, trying to kiss it, only for your other to clap him upside the face harshly, “Don’t! You’ve already done enough.”

Kicking him away (even though he’s much larger and stronger than you, meaning he just moved away), you stand to your feet, pulling back up your halfway down jeans and panties.

Snatching up the buckets previously discarded, you don’t even shoot the crying bull a glance, just turning on your heel, and stomping away.

Tears of your own drip down your face, humiliation and betrayal weighing down your aching heart.

Forcefully sliding open the barn doors, you run from it, catching the eye of a certain green haired farmer.

It seems Bokuto fucked up.

But that’s okay, when he goes into rut, there’ll be nothing keeping him from breeding you full of his massive calves.

You avoided the bull barn like the plague for the next week. The hucows are very pleasant company. They treat you as if you’re their young, making you feel well loved.

That is, until Hachi asked you why you’ve been avoiding Bokuto. She’d told you that he hasn’t acted the same, in fact, he’s acted depressed and withdrawn.

Since then, you’ve stuck with aquatic life. The fish, swans, and ducks don’t give you that much trouble.

But, when you come back from the pond and fish pools, the farm is ensued with panic. Apparently, Bokuto’s finally gone into rut.

And, unfortunately for you, he’s on the prowl for you.

So, when your coworker runs up to you, begging for you to calm him, you turn on your heel, and start walking back towards the pond. They can figure this out themselves, you’re not going to sacrifice yourself to someone who tried to take advantage of you.

Sadly, that doesn’t work out.

You’re immediately stopped by Ushijima, his broad form blocking you from advancing forward, “Where do you think you’re going?” His arms are crossed, an angry scowl on his usually handsome features.

“I forgot something at the pond,” You lie, smoothly, “I’m going to go grab it real quick-”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” His strong voice booms, “What you’re going to do, is march yourself into the barn, and make my prized bull happy.”

Your own scowl forms on your pretty face, “I will do nothing of the sort. Interspecies sex is illegal! You can fire me for all I care, I’m not going in there!” You try to move around his large form, only to be manhandled into a chokehold.

His left arm is wrapped around your neck, your back to his chest, and your face being held in a large hand, “Interspecies sex is legal when a human and hybrid are mates,” He hisses through gritted teeth, and you struggle in his hold, “If you don’t go in there, I’ll drag you in.”

“Fuck you,” You spit, “I’ll fucking castrate you!” You kick backwards, landing a solid hit on the large man’s groin. With a loud yell, you’re let go, allowing you to run towards the farm’s parking area. Pulling your truck’s keys from your pocket, you haul ass, not bothering to look behind you.

The barns and sheds fly past you, as you run through the open field leading to the car park. You suddenly hear loud footsteps follow after you, and you assume that it’s Ushijima, that is, until you hear them, “(Nickname)! (Nickname), where are you going? Why are you running away from me?” Bokuto’s voice rings out at top volume, hurting your ears. His voice a lot more gravely than before, and without looking at him, you know that he most likely looks crazed.

You don’t respond, trying to pick up the pace. You click the unlock button one time, only unlocking the driver’s side door. Because you had a head start, you cleared the field in less than three seconds, allowing you to hop into your truck, and lock the doors. Shoving the key into the ignition, all whilst buckling your seatbelt, you press on the brake, and turn it, only to hear the spluttering of your failing ignition, “Come on! Don’t do this-” Bokuto slams into the driver’s side door at top speed, rocking your large vehicle harshly. His hands and face are pressed against the window, his expression looking like that of a kicked puppy. You then notice the fact that the buff male is completely naked, his impossibly large cock bobbing against his toned stomach.

“Why are you trying to leave? I need you so badly, pretty-pretty. Why don’t you open the door, and we can figure this out? I promise I’ll make you feel good, after all, us bulls pride ourselves in taking care of our mates,” You cringe in disgust, not bothering to answer him. Instead, you continue to fiddle with your ignition, muttering expletives under your breath. His large hands start to beat on your driver-side window, trying to gain your attention, “(Nickname), come out already! Ushi already cut your fuel line, so you’re not going anywhere! Come on, I just wanna make you feel good-”

It was your turn to cut him off, “Shut up! We aren’t friends anymore, Bokuto, much less lovers! Just leave me the fuck alone! I’m sure many of the cows would love to help you through your rut, why can’t you just ask them?” Tears of frustration dot your eyelashes, as you pop open your glove box and search for your phone. Catching sight of the black cased (phone type), you snatch it from its confines with a loud ‘Aha,’ “Don’t make me call the Farmer’s Union, Bokuto. I’ll report you and Ushijima for-”

“You won’t! You love me too much!” His frantic words raise in volume, as he hit the glass even harder than before, “You wouldn’t put me down! Come on, (Nickname), why won’t you call me ‘Bubs’ anymore? I love you!” You swipe open your phone, and go to the contacts. Pulling up the Farmer’s Union phone number, you go to press ‘call,’ only for the shattering of glass to halt you.

You scream in both fear and shock, throwing up your hands to protect your face. This, in turn, causes you to drop your phone. In this time, Bokuto is able to grab you by your arms, and drag you towards the broken window. Your seatbelt keeps you in place, causing him to pull you even harder, and making you scream in pain.

You use your arm to whack his against the broken glass on your truck’s window area. He releases you in a moment of pain, allowing you to unbuckle yourself, and throw yourself to the passenger side. Once there, you unlock the door, and bolt towards the road.

“(Your Name), come back here! Stop being so difficult!” You pay him no mind, a few meters away from the busy road. Noticing a car speeding towards the area you’re running to, you push yourself even harder, trying to throw yourself into the road. Unfortunately, you’re grabbed by two buff arms that encircle your waist. They use all of their strength to smash you into their chest from behind, knocking the air from your lungs, “Are you crazy? You could’ve been hurt!” You thrash and try to bite at him, causing Bokuto to backhand you across the face, “Now look what you made me do! If you’d been good, I wouldn’t have had to do that!”

To be completely honest, you’re in shock. Bokuto has never raised a hand at you, and that slap wasn’t a warning tap. No, that was him using a good majority of his strength, causing your cheek to throb painfully.

You continue to thrash and curse after freezing for a moment, drawing the eyes of concerned coworkers, “Let go of me! What the fuck is wrong with you? Put me down!” You try to kick him in the junk, only to kick him on the inside of his thigh. In retaliation, he backhands you again, this time on the other cheek. Gasps and whispers are heard from those around you, drawing the large hucow’s eyes.

“There’s nothing to see here, guys! Just my mate making a scene,” He shakes you a bit to shut you up, causing you to become disoriented. The farmhands and other hybrids look like they’re about to step in, only for Ushijima himself to show up.

“What Bokuto said is correct,” His harsh gaze is on you, his hand gripping his dick, “She’s just making a scene. Let them through.”

They reluctantly go back to their business, as Koutarou guns it to the empty bull barn. Ushijima only watches as you’re dragged to the large building, as tears drip down your face in fear, and his fist at his side clenches in fury.

Stomping into the barn, Bokuto makes quick work of getting to his stall. Once inside, he tosses you on the hay mattress, and straddles your waist. With pawing hands, he rips your t-shirt and jeans off of you, leaving you in your bra and underwear, along with your boots and socks. Yanking off your boots, be tossed them out of his ‘room,’ as you try to throw punches at his muscular chest. He grunts, but doesn’t stop.

With beefy fingers, he yanks off your bra, ripping it in two. Your tits jiggle at his harsh movements, making him lick his lips in enjoyment. He then rips off your cotton panties, exposing your cunny to his hungry eyes.

“You’re beautiful, pretty-pretty. I can’t wait to see you stuffed with my calves,” You shake your head no rapidly, pushing his hands away from where they rest on your hips.

“No! Stop it, Bokuto! I thought we were friends!” He tightens his grip on your pelvis, forcing your legs open.

“That’s Not my name, (Nickname), you know that. Now, you know that I’m way more than just your friend-I’m your mate, and you know that I’ll provide for you and our calves,” With grubby fingers, he rubs at your clit, trying to draw a good reaction from you.

You squirm in response, trying to wriggle out of his one handed grip. You shove at his chest, but he remains unmoved, choosing to press down harder than before, “Stop it! Let me go!”

He inserts his middle finger into your moist cunny, forcing it in and out. You try to kick him in the head only for him to catch your leg with the hand that previously held your hip, “If you wanted me to eat you out that bad, you should’ve just said so, pretty girl,” Before you can refuse, he throws your legs over his shoulders, and dives in.

His long tongue fucks in and out of your hole, one of his thumbs rubbing your clit. A loud whine escapes your throat before you can stop it, making you feel a wave of disgust for yourself. Bokuto shouldn’t be making you feel good, he’s assaulting you, after all.

But, when his tongue brushed against your g-spot, you can’t help but convulse in pleasure. Thighs quaking, you try to stop yourself from cumming.

“St-stop! I’m, I’m gonna-“ He stops before you can cum, instead, pushing your hips down to where his cock lays against his abs. Forcing the bulbous head against your tiny hole, he pushes harshly, trying to fuck into you like an animal, “No! No! You’re too big! You’re going to tear my-“ With one powerful thrust, he forces his way inside, and you can’t help but scream.

Tears drip down your face at the feeling, your pussy feeling like it’s been ripped open. Bokuto grabs your head, and forces it against his chest, practically making you take one of his pink nipples into your mouth. You’re immediately met with the taste of his vanilla milk, drinking it up as the hucow starts to buck into you at a lightning fast pace.

Your teeth bite down on his nipple, but instead of being angry, he just moans in lust, “Yes! Yes, pretty girl, you’re taking me so well!”

His hand that isn’t cradling your head goes to your tummy, feeling his huge length moving underneath your skin. He presses down a bit, causing another wanton moan to leave to both of you. With this thought in mind, he picks up the pace, practically fucking you into unconsciousness.

Eyes rolling back, your ruined cunny gushed pathetically, coating you and the bull with your juices, “(Nickname), you’re so pretty when you cum,” He continues his breakneck pace, getting close to orgasm himself, “I’m gonna fill you up so good, that you’ll be dripping with my fun for days! Your little womb will be bloated with my fertile cum!”

You try to speak, but you can’t, just continuing to suck his yummy milk from his teat. Walls fluttering with another orgasm, you feel yourself clamping down on his enormous cock.

With one last mighty thrust, he seats himself fully inside of you, cumming directly against your unprotected cervix. A muffled scream erupts from your chest, as you feel your womb expand with copious amounts of beeile cum. Releasing his nipple, you throw your head back, a loud cry echoes throughout the barn, as you squirt once more around his cock.

Now completely filled to the brim, you pass out from the trauma. Entirely exhausted, Koutarou grins down at your bloated form. He rubs your tummy like a Buddha statue, kissing it tenderly.

“You’ll be a good Mommy, I’m sure of it,” he then trails his hand up your abdomen, groping your right tit, “You’ll look so pretty all milky and filled with my calves.”

The sound of a throat clearing gains Bokuto’s attention, as he practically throws his naked body over yours. A loud ‘moo’ of warning escapes his chest, even when he notices that the person is just Ushijima.

“I see that she mates with you well,” His eyes trail over your sleeping face, not straying downwards, “I hope this means that you’ll enter more shows.”

Bo smiles, “Yes. Now I need to show off, so my mate thinks I’m an eligible male.”

Nodding, Ushijima turns on his heal, making his way to leave the barn, “I hope your children take after you in strength. (Your Name) is a lot prettier than you are, so maybe they’ll be pleasing to the eye as well.”

Snorting, the grey haired man’s ears twitch, jingling throughout the room, “You bet she is. She’s perfect.”

#yandere bokuto #bokuto koutarou #yandere haikyuu #yandere haikyuu imagines #yandere haikyuu x reader #yandere koutarou #bokuto x reader #bokuto imagines #bokuto haikyuu #hybrid au #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu au

2K notes · View notes

liviuswrites · 3 years

Text

Sasuke kind of loves where Naruto lives, though he isn’t quite sure why.

He likes the smell of salt by the sea when they open the window, and he likes how Naruto looks outside on the shoreline, wind in his hair and water at his feet. He likes how Naruto looks at home, even when a storm rages, he’s always right where he belongs. He likes the cozy feeling of the Uzumaki household, it’s just a house on a small island, where Naruto knows all the local shop owner’s, wearing them down with barter, but they still always smile at him when he walks through the door.

Sasuke desperately wants to kiss him.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” Naruto jumps onto his bed, where Sasuke is half-laying against his headboard, schoolwork open on his lap.

Sasuke raises his eyebrows, as if he would reveal that information out loud in actual words. He and Naruto were currently caught in something. It felt inevitable, like they’d been caught in things before.

“If you purposely have terrible perminship to cover up your logs,” Sasuke proposes instead.

Naruto squints at him, clearly not buying it.

“I’m not gonna get caught.” Something a little mischievous appears in those ocean blue eyes. “Sweet of you though, to worry about me.”

His gaze turns a little more searching, and Sasuke always feels a particular way, when Naruto looks like that. Sasuke doesn’t personally think his thoughts are all that different from anyone else’s, but sometimes, it feels like Naruto wants to know every single one, like he’s never had access before, like he has to soak up everything he can, before it’s gone. It makes Sasuke’s chest hurt, and if anyone were to ask, he could never justify why.

Naruto asks again. “What were you really thinking about?”

It’s a nudge. Sasuke doesn’t know why Naruto does that — uses that careful, more gentle tone — except that maybe he worries about overstepping. Maybe he’s worried that Sasuke was thinking about his father’s recent death, and just hadn’t wanted to say so out loud.

“I like where you live,” Sasuke gives.

There’s a small release of tension in Naruto, and Sasuke watches it fall away under that hideously patterned orange shirt. Naruto has an attachment to a specific color scheme that must go back lifetimes for how stubbornly he clings to it. Sasuke has tried to sway him from it to no avail, and it’s easier to think about that, rather than what if he gives the answer Naruto is so scared of. He’s not quite sure what it is, or how to prevent it; he’s not sure he could guess it, even if he tried.

“Guess it can be hard, moving around so much,” Naruto offers, by leeway of giving room for Sasuke to expand.

“I don’t mind it,” Sasuke says and he means it. Though, he hesitates, gaze lifting. “I just... like it a little more here.”

It costs him to say these things, sometimes, like a lump caught in his throat, but it’s always worth it when he can manage.

Naruto’s smile is immediate, small and knowing. “Are you trying to say something, Uchiha?”

Sasuke can’t run from that challenge. Naruto is already moving in any case, there’s no time to even consider running, as he shifts over Sasuke to lean down, as Sasuke’s arms curl up and around—

Sasuke freezes. “Naruto,” he says.

Kushina looms over them, tapping a frying pan against her hand like a baseball bat. Naruto pauses at Sasuke’s pause, catching on and following where Sasuke’s eyes are looking, and turns to—

Scramble for his life.

He makes it to the edge of the bed, before Kushina has pulled off his jacket, which Naruto quickly twists and sheds, but unfortunately, not everyone is blessed with grace, as Kushina yanks on the sleeve just in time to offset his balance, sending him to the floor with a yelp. Flat on his back, Naruto holds his hands up in surrender, and laughs the most sheepish, red-handed laugh that Sasuke has ever heard. It threatens a small smile at his lips, but Sasuke isn’t idiotic enough to piss off Naruto’s mother.

“Naruto!” Kushina raises her voice, standing over him. “What did I say about leaving the door open when Sasuke is over!”

“It’s not like that, Ma, really—”

“It’s a little like that,” Sasuke corrects, because what? He values honesty. His job is to make Naruto’s parents like him, not to take the heat.

Naruto throws him a look of betrayal, and his eyes narrow even further when they notice the tiny quirk in Sasuke’s mouth. Sasuke refuses to take the bait, raising his eyebrows with false innocence. Naruto needs to get in trouble once in a while. Otherwise, he’ll get caught for the things he should actually get in trouble for.

“Door open,” Kushina growls. “I won’t allow my son to be a delinquent, yanno!”

Naruto nods with such enthusiastic agreement, a bobblehead would be jealous. Satisfied, she turns to Sasuke and smiles. “Nice to see you again, Sasuke. Say hi to your mom for me when you go home before your curfew. No more sneaking through my obedient’s son’s window, okay?”

Saskue nods, politely. He likes Naruto’s mother. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and all that.

Though, he does appreciate her for what she did for his mom. Since Kushina suggested she come back to her hometown after the funeral, his mom has been doing better. It’s been strange, to see his mom function in a completely different element, where the shopkeepers talk about her and Kushina getting in trouble together as little girls. Before coming to the island, he didn’t even know his mother had friends.

It’s been... nice.

Kushina takes her frying pan and her leave. Naruto groans, sitting back up.

“I hadn’t even kissed you yet,” he complains. “She has some freakish sixth sense.”

“Well, you are a delinquent.” Sasuke plays devil’s advocate. “And I did crawl through your window.”

It’s difficult to find alone time on a small island, especially on a small island where the guy you keep trying to make out with knows everyone, and while his own mom is a little more... laid back than Naruto’s, at least in terms of open doors, Sasuke doesn’t want to cause her any trouble right now. He thinks Naruto inherently understands this, because he never suggests his house.

“Who’s side are you on?” Naruto huffs. “And I dunno what you think you’ve pieced together, but I’m not a delinquent.”

It’s almost a mutter, and Sauke gets the impression that he’s not a delinquent, but he is something. Sasuke watches Naruto stand back up, eyeing the door where his mom left, like he’s seriously considering bolting it shut, while Sasuke contemplates on revealing what he has pieced together. It just seems pointless when he’s relatively certain Naruto won’t tell him the rest, if not to protect whatever he’s involved in, then to protect Sasuke’s deniability if he ever does get caught.

“Smuggling—” That’s all Sasuke gets out before Naruto is tackling him and clamping a hand over his mouth.

The clock ticks as Naruto watches the door like prey waiting in the brush, holding its final breaths. When there’s no sign of either of his parents, he turns back to Sasuke with a firm look of warning, before removing his hand.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Is that it?” Naruto asks. “A stroke, an aneurysm?”

“I was aiming for brain aneurysm, actually, until I remembered you need a brain for that,” Sasuke points out with a smug smirk that he knows will drive Naruto up the wall.

He enjoys watching Naruto’s hackles rise.

“Just because you—Ugh,” Naruto eloquently voices, like he might start pulling on his hair. Sasuke quirks an eyebrow in encouragement, that may or may not be a trap. He wants to know the truth. If he’s reached the correct conclusion about Naruto’s spare time activity. “It’s not something you want to be involved in, okay? Why can’t you just drop it already?”

There’s a desperate note in Naruto’s voice, an askance for Sasuke to stop. Out of worry. Out of concern. But that’s why he can’t drop it. Why the hell does Naruto always sound like that?

“Are you in some sort of trouble?” Sasuke finds himself asking, and the backlash is immediate. Not from Naruto. Naruto just blinks at him, looking vaguely startled at Sasuke’s flinch, and then just confused. The internal backlash strikes with enough ferocity for everyone involved. He’s showing too many cards. He knows he is, and he can see the rigidity of his father’s face, too soft, those eyes said, too emotional, and Itachi’s quiet agreeance, it’s better this way.

Sasuke pushes at Naruto’s chest, telling him to get off without words. “Curfew is in a few—”

“No, Sasuke.” Naruto grabs his wrist, halting movement. Sasuke refuses to look at him, too open, too exposed. “No.”

Words can’t find their way out of his mouth, so he stays silent. The salt in the air suddenly feels far too thick.

“It’s not like that,” Naruto reassures, quickly. He lets go of Sasuke’s wrist, leaning back onto his own thighs to give them room. Sasuke studies a spot on the wall, until Naruto’s apparent distress draws his eyes back over, watching him push a hand through blond hair. Those frustrated blue eyes have taken partial to the wall too. “It’s... complicated.”

Sasuke observes the frown in his mouth. He’s already shown his cards. It’s too late to take it back.

Maybe it’s an argument worth committing to. It’s a foreign concept to Sasuke outside of his family. He hasn’t had many friends in his life, and even those he would consider friends, he’s never found much of a point in fighting. If they want to be stupid, then they can be stupid. Sasuke is hardly domestic enough to start little arguments. He can remove himself if he doesn’t want to be involved. Until now, apparently.

He cares if Naruto is stupid.

“Complicated sounds dangerous,” Sasuke tests. “You’re not denying it’s dangerous.”

Naruto’s mouth thins. His eyes refuse to come back to Sasuke, and Sasuke knows what it means. Naruto isn’t willing to argue.

He’s not willing to talk about it.

Sasuke waits, carefully, for what feels like several stabbing heartbeats. Naruto probably regrets it — the first time he took Sasuke out on his boat, gifted to him on his sixteenth birthday, two years ago. Traveling by boat was the only way to get to the mainland, and Kushina made Naruto his official guide when he and his mom first arrived, to both of their horrors.

He and Naruto incidentally met the day before at school, eleven kids to a grade. It would be hard to miss each other.

Naruto took him out anyway, and they grumbled and bickered for a majority of it, and they’d ended the night with Choji’s famous Kraken Skewers. Sasuke isn’t the biggest fan of squid, but he ate it anyway, after being convinced by Naruto that it was a crime against humanity not to try it.

On their way back, growing comfortable around Naruto at an unusual rate, he started poking around and noticed the logs. His memory has always been pristine, and he knew there were more crates underneath the deck than what it said on his logs. Naruto played it off, I crate over extra goods sometimes, Naruto admitted, caught and rubbing the back of his neck, there’s this girl...

Sasuke completely bought it, he didn’t even question it, in fact he immediately told Naruto he didn’t need to hear it. He’d been around enough guys his own age to know they were annoyingly obsessed with girls and Sasuke had no shared interest.

In hindsight, there’s a good chance Naruto had a hunch and wielded it as a weapon of redirection.

Given, the illusion was shattered when Naruto kissed him.

He probably wasn’t sneaking extra goods to a mainland girl, but it was a decent cover. Especially when the maritime patrol were mostly older men, who liked to reminisce in their testosterone riddled days as a teenager, or whatever the fuck. Sasuke wonders how many times that story worked, and how many different ones Naruto has told.

Sasuke began to notice more, how easily Naruto crawled in and out of his bedroom window, like he’d done it a thousand times, the bags under his eyes, the way he could anchor his boat in the dark, not a single light needed. Sasuke can tell apart Naruto’s real smiles and ones that meant something different, like he was sad, or just a little too tired of something heavier than this island could hold.

But Naruto thinks he can hold it. And he thinks he can do it alone.

Sasuke collects his study books and shoves them into his bag, sliding out from underneath Naruto and off the bed. Naruto still won’t look at him, hands resting on his knees, and mouth pinched.

“You know I’ll figure it out,” Sasuke says. It’s not a threat. It’s just the truth.

He pauses in Naruto’s doorway before leaving. He hesitates. He can’t help that he notices these things. One day, the pieces will fall into place, and it will all click together, whether he or Naruto wants it to or not.

“You should decide how you want that to happen.”

He doesn’t notice Naruto frown at the door when he walks out.

#SNStober2021 #Domestic #Domestic Supernatural Island AU?#Where Naruto smuggles demons and spirits over seas back into their realm #It's dangerous tho!#Doesn't want Sasuke to get hurt #SNS #SasuNaru #NaruSasu #Excited to participate in SNStober #!

80 notes · View notes

aspiringauthorintraining · 3 years

Text

Sands of Eon (1/2)

(A/N): Buckle your seatbelts, cause this is a long one! Read with sad music to really get in the mood. Cause I wrote this with sad music playing in the background lol.

“Do you have a wish, Xiao? I’ll write it on your lantern.”

“No need. I don’t have a lantern nor do I have the desire to make one.” He quickly shut down your offer, no sound of amusement or humor found in his tone. But unfortunately for him, you were used to his constant rejection and came prepared this time.

Grabbing another lantern from under the table, you pushed it towards him with a smile.

“Well, lucky for you, I already made you one.” you laughed, seeing his surprised reaction at the lantern in his hands. “No need to thank me.” you added.

“I don’t-”

You interrupted him before he could say no. “I already made it, and I don’t need two wishes. And like I said, I’ll even write it for you if you want.” Seeing his hesitation, you offered him a deal. “I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours.”

Xiao, knowing you weren’t going to give up until he relented, nodded reluctantly.

You clapped your hands happily at his defeat.

“My wish is to become someone who can protect the great and mighty Xiao!” you exclaimed, showing him your lantern.

To become someone who can protect the great and mighty Xiao.

- (Y/N)

The adeptus gave you a puzzled look after confirming for himself that you had indeed written the same wish verbatim, onto your lantern.

“Well, you protect Liyue, right? But who protects you?” you asked the yaksha. And you predicted that he would say something along the lines of “not needing the protection of a mere human” or what not, so you chimed in again. “Of course, I’m not as powerful as you are. So my protection will mostly be in the form of Almond Tofus and my company. And I'll always be here for you, whenever you need me.”

“I have no need of you, nor your company.”

You tried not to smile at the fact he didn’t mention not needing Almond Tofus.

“I’m lonely. You’re lonely. So we can be lonely together, then.” Shrugging, you changed the subject before he could retort back. “So, what’s your wish then?”

At the conversation returning back to the topic of his wish, he let out another sigh.

“Hand me the brush, I’ll write it.”

As he silently wrote down his own wish on his lantern, you wondered whether he insisted on writing it himself because he was embarrassed to say his wish out loud. Or was it because he didn’t like your handwriting? You figured it would most likely be the latter. But upon noticing the slight blush dusted onto his cheeks, you couldn't help but second-guess yourself.

And after a short moment later, he handed the writing utensil and lantern back to you.

“You sure you don’t want to come with me to release the lanterns?” you asked him, hopeful that maybe this year would be the year to finally convince the recluse man of joining the festivities. “We can release it on the mountain, instead of in the city if you would feel more comfortable?”

“I would feel more comfortable staying here.” he replied firmly. His tone didn’t give away any leeway of changing his mind, so you decided that the lanterns would have to do this year. But hey, at least he participated.

After gathering your things, you made your way down the steps of the inn, and into the direction of the road leading back to the city. You waved a goodbye up to Xiao, who just watched your retreating figure. It was only when you stopped walking to frantically wave at him, that he gave a half-hearted wave back. He probably breathed a sigh of relief at your absence, once you left his view. But still, the half-hearted action brought a smile to your lips, and it remained with you the rest of the way home.

Once the Lantern Rite festival ended, the Xiao lanterns disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.

You had been tempted to keep Xiao's lantern after the festival, knowing it was the first, but you hoped not the last, lantern Xiao had written a wish on. But the lanterns were meant to be released, not kept. And it wasn't hard to keep the wishes written on yours and Xiao's lanterns to your memory.

In the following days after the Lantern Rite festival, you spent your time contemplating how to go about making your lantern wish become a reality. But as you wracked your brain, continuously pondering over the problem, you were left with one resounding question.

What really could you do for Xiao?

You didn’t have much to offer the yaksha. You were neither rich nor someone with immense power that could rival his. Your company, which you weren’t even sure whether he enjoyed or not, was the only thing you had going for you. Well, that and making him Almond Tofus.

So then, nothing, it seemed.

You sure talked big for someone who had nothing to back it up with.

That was until one day, when you came across a certain object in a treasure chest in your adventures.

“It’d be best if you destroy that, and forget you ever saw it, (Y/N).” the archon responded to your question.

“Why? Isn’t it just another hourglass artifact?”

You figured asking Zhongli about the item would be your best bet. With how old he truly was, the Geo Archon had an immense knowledge of everything, and if anyone knew what the artifact was, it would have to be him.

“That’s one of the artifacts that was lost during the Archon War. It’s far more powerful than any used these days.” The funeral parlor owner took another sip of his tea, before continuing. “It’s infused with the raw power of a god, so it has special abilities.”

“Like?”

The man should've known that you weren’t going to follow his advice from the start. He let out a defeated sigh, before elaborating further. “There were rumors that the god who created that specific artifact had received the Sands of Eon from Time itself.”

“Time is a person- I mean a living being?!”

“Again, just rumors.” he noted. “And supposedly, by infusing the artifact with his own power, it could bend the laws of time.”

Your eyes grew wide at the new information. “So you’re saying this artifact could, in theory, turn back time.”

“In theory, yes.”

How could such a powerful artifact have washed up shore and land into your hands?

You decided to ask him one last question, already getting a slight headache at the information just revealed.

“What happened to the god?”

“It was said that the first and only time he used the piece was after watching his people massacred during the Archon War. He used it to save his people; warning them of the future events beforehand, buying them enough time to flee. Consequently, the price he paid for saving all his people was was at the cost of his own life.”

He left you with some parting final words as you left the funeral parlor, to sort out your thoughts.

“There's always a price for changing the past, (Y/N).”

Your first thought had been to give the artifact to Xiao, allowing him to go back in time to when he made a contract with the evil god, Kubira, who used him as a bloodhound. But remembering the fate of the original owner of the artifact prevented you from doing so.

It was then you were reminded of your lantern wish.

To become someone who can protect the great and mighty Xiao.

This was the answer to your wish.

You could use it yourself, and stop Xiao from forming the contract with whatever means necessary. You made a promise to protect him and by doing this you would be able to. There would be no pain or suffering for him to endure if you were successful. And once you realized that this was the the only way to truly protect your friend, you knew there was no turning back.

You gave yourself a month to prepare. Reading up on everything there was to the Archon War to prevent a change into the outcome, with your sudden appearance in the past. It was also meant a month of pestering Zhongli; asking about anything that wasn't recorded or lost in Liyue's history. You researched everything you could about the evil god, Kubira, as well, in order to prevent the infamous past contract that sealed Xiao's fate.

And it was, perhaps, the first time you were ever thankful to have grown up alone. No close ties with anyone, no family to miss once you left. Sure you had friends, but they could continue to live on without you.

The only one person you realized that you would truly miss and regret leaving behind, was the same person you were going back into the past for. You wondered if he would be okay once you left. You were the only one who pushed through his constant rejection and intimidating demeanor to truly get to know him and to be able to call him a friend.

But if you were successful in changing the past, would he even be able remember you?

The night before your departure, you visited Xiao at the Wangshu Inn, with a bowl of his favorite dish.

The adeptus who didn’t know a word about your plan, paused at the forlorn look you had as you watched him eat his food. It was already strange to him that you were just watching him, instead of asking him how his day was or telling him who you had met on your way over like always. And the forced way you nonchalantly brushed off your watering eyes as seasonal allergies confused him even more. Something was off about the way you were acting. And the question you proceeded to ask him was the icing on the cake.

“Hey, Xiao. If I went missing for some time, would you miss me?”

If you had asked this in the first year you met him, he would’ve probably responded with a relieved no. But currently, he remained silent at your question.

Had your efforts to befriend him pay off? Did you actually manage to squeeze into his heart, and make yourself a little home?

“…I would miss your Almond Tofus.” he replied after a long minute, paired with a straight face.

Well, it was better than a no.

During the early stages of your "friendship" with Xiao, the words, "get lost" were thrown in your direction every time you had come to visit. So to you, his current answer was certainly an improvement.

“Is it really that hard to say, “Yes, (Y/N). I would miss you so much. Don’t ever leave me” ?” you drawled, trying not to laugh when he briefly choked on his food at your choice of words.

Gulping down his water, he cleared his throat loudly. “Ehem. F-fine, I guess I would notice your absence.”

Sure, it wasn’t the confession you were hoping for, but you would take it.

You gave him a small smile, turning your attention to the view from the top floor balcony.

Taking in a deep breath, you gathered up the courage to speak your next words.

“Hey, Xiao.”

You looked at him with another smile, this one not quite reaching your eyes. You took a silent moment to memorize his face, down to every detail. When you reached his eyes, you tried to keep yourself from getting lost in the amber pools. But with one look at them, you failed miserably, falling straight into their depths. And with your undivided attention given to his eyes, you failed to notice the slight reddening of his cheeks.

“Thank you for protecting Liyue. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for being my first love. And most of all, thank you for always being there for me.”

You stood up quietly, holding onto the same bittersweet smile on your face as you neared him. And before he was given the chance to register your words, you quickly left a soft kiss on his cheek; disappearing down the stairs without another glance back.

Regaining his conscious a moment later, he was about to chase after you, knowing you couldn’t have gone far. But a folded letter on the table in front of him distracted him momentarily, giving you enough time to escape.

Xiao,

I thought long and hard about what I could do for you after saying those big words about protecting you. And I think this is the best way to do that.

I know you won’t remember any of this once I come back, if I come back. You probably won’t even remember me. But that’s okay. I’ll be fine, being the only one who remembers, if it means you’ll have a better future. So don’t let my efforts go to waste! Eat something other than Almond Tofu and snow. Make and surround yourself with friends. I hope I showed you that humans can be worthwhile friends too. And don’t ever think that you deserve solitude, because you deserve so much more than that.

Thank you again for everything. I never felt alone when i was with you. I’m still not even sure if you consider us friends, but your friendship meant the world to me. So I’m going to have to insist that we are friends.

I don’t have any regrets leaving. I lived and I loved thanks to you. So now it’s your turn.

I hope you can live your new life without any regrets or burdens weighing you down.

Love Always,

(Y/N).

Part 2 here!

(A/N): i made it into a two part, because it was taking too much scrolling to read everything lol. Also why is Xiao’s story so sad? I did some research before writing and like I’m crying dude.

Like, comment, subscribe, ring the bell for notifications for more videos. jk lol, this isn’t youtube. Just play some Genshin.

#genshin impact imagine #genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x you #genshin x you #xiao x reader #genshin impact xiao #genshin xiao #xiao imagine #xiao x you #genshin xiao imagine #genshin imagine #no beta we die like hilichurls lol

222 notes · View notes

shtern-and-art · 3 years

Text

In The Dark – a cryptid AU about Bad and Skeppy – part 2.

All text is captioned under the cut!

THE STORY

Bad told Skeppy that he is- he was a human, a long, long time ago. And Skeppy didn’t really suspect this, no. But, when the rare rays of sunlight snuck under the canopies, and danced across Bad’s features… sometimes, in those flashes of light Skeppy did see a human face. It happened just a few times before. And if after that conversation, at times of silence and comfort with just the two of them, the white eyes faded out to green more often, Skeppy didn’t mention it. He just collected those moments, like his pretty shards of glass – dark on first sight, but shining brilliantly, when you look through them at a sunny day.

Skeppy keeps them close, and doesn’t ask yet, doesn’t pry in too deep at first. Because he knows even more about this town’s story now. About all the animal attacks many years ago, about woodcutters killed and thrown out of the forest, or hanged up on the trees by “the mafia”. About how quickly the tree logging business was shut down after the big “accident” on one of the forest stations. About the photo he saw, in the little museum near the closed factory, with families of the major business owners of the town. And one of the faces he saw on that picture was the same that shined with gentle kindness, between the flickering of shadows, when Bad sneakily tangled wildflowers in Skeppy’s hair.

Bad never speaks about his past, and why he despises people of the town so much. And with trial and error Skeppy learns that asking doesn’t get him anywhere. It only gets Bad to fuss up, and disappear to nap in the deeper woods for a few days. It is a long way to where they can talk about it directly, without someone freaking out.

Anyway, the woodcutting business is slowly coming back to town, and more and more people and workers are wandering around the forest. So Bad has plenty of reasons to be irritated already, and they both have so many fun pranks to pull on the locals to get distracted and pleasantly pass the time.

THE PAST

The trick of it all, is that the forest is old. And the forest is alive, like an animal in its depth might be. And a while back, in the 40-50s, the wood logging company started cutting way deeper into the woods than before. Going to far, not letting the land recover, chasing that profit on increasing sales. The business was doing amazing – by destroying the calm existence of the forest, hurting it’s body and mind, and not giving anything back.

And in many places, they could’ve done all this and more without immediate consequences. But this land was old. And this forest was alive. And, when scared and hurt, living things can bare teeth and lash out to protect themselves.

The forest was in distress, and angry, and its feelings were feelings off all the living things inside of it. Over time, the animals started getting sick, and more aggressive, venturing into the town, possessed by the shared pain and fear. That pain and fear seeped through the land, and in the town, too, distrust and crime rates started rising up. All was unwell. And, of course, it was very bad for business.

Said business was run by several prominent families in the town. The tree logging factory and the adjacent businesses were all tied together economically and through the reliance on the forest being there on their doorstep. And the people running those businesses more or less knew about what this forest was, how it was. Everyone from the town who was around long enough understood – at least in some way – that these woods are more alive and dangerous than many others. And with several years of disturbing happenings occurring more and more, not many of these business owners could deny the supernatural element of their troubles.

And so, they began looking for the ways to make it better. To appease and calm down the spirit of the forest. It was a real group effort, a whole ass multi-family project. Even if some family members and younger kids didn’t fully believe in all this “occult pagan stuff” – they still tolerated it, and went along. Because families and communities stick together. And what harm can come from building some altars in the woods? Or a few chickens spilling blood on the old rocks near the abandoned trails? They will go on the grill same afternoon anyway.

The spirit of the forest is just, well. A spirit. It’s not exactly sentient, it’s more like a mushi, or a very smart animal, or a thunderstorm – half-personified, semi-aware, just a force of nature taking form and prominence. It just exists, and lives, and it is not human. So, taking leeways with appeasing and calming it down should be ok, right? It’s not like the forest spirit would care, if people will make even with the land by taking care of it, and letting it heal with time… or just perform a cool ritual, and give the forest an equal sacrifice in return for its pain.

Replanting the trees and reworking the business is way too expensive and time consuming anyway. So, they try, and research, and try… And the forest barely takes note of their efforts. And the creepiness, and all the bodies keep piling up, all the bad press is getting harder to contain… It starts to seem, that to really break equal the sacrifice should be of an equal or a greater value than the hurt they’ve caused.

So, in a tragically escalating turn of events, several heads of the families came to the conclusion, that the proper sacrifice, the one that will hold, should be one of their own. A human sacrifice – a life of-, and from people connected to the land, those who caused the forest distress.

It wasn’t the main plan, of course. Probably. Not from the start, for sure. Things just turned out this way, you know. It was just an option on the table. And it just happened that things were going especially terrible, down the drain so fast, and it just happened that they had a good option, a person who was there, and-

It was just so convenient. The accountant in their clique, the newer guy who just recently joined old wealthy families in running the town, build his own business from ground up through the years. He had a son, 20-something. That quiet but loud one, that they barely noticed. And it’s sad, of course, that it had to come to this. And tragic, yes. A real sacrifice. But, really conveniently, no skin of the main businessmen’s back.

They can even keep the distance, and ask their kids/grandkids to mark him for the ritual. None of them really liked the guy anyway. They all were just forced to hang out sometimes, because of status and all that.

So, they’ll gladly go on to make the special paste, or whatever, and make sure the guy touches it. Even if the kids may not believe in all this ritual stuff fully – it’s still fun, and creepy, and that guy was so-o-o stuck-up-ish anyway. Always pretending to be so perfect and proper, you know. Didn’t even partake in all their fun ritual stuff all year. Fuck him, draw a little mark on his raincoat with old herbs and dirt, on the soles of his shoes too, and the inside of his jacket. All 6 of kids got to draw a little finger-painting on something of his, and they all watched him leave to visit his grandma in a cabin deep in the woods.

By the time Darryl got to the grandma’s house, late at evening, the bouquet of flowers he brought her was overgrown with wildflowers.

The voice coming from the dark bedroom, asking him to come in was ever so slightly off grandma’s usual stern tone. So, Darryl didn’t go in, of course. He had his hands full with the pastry bags, and the sweet smelling flowers, spilling out from their paper raping. And when grandma came out – moving just a bit too smoothly for her age, staring at him just a tad more intense than any human would – Darryl excused himself to go chop more firewood behind the house.

And standing there, under the light rain and weak backyard light with only the old, dull iron axe for himself, he knew that his grandma always had a distant, and a bit scary presence, but… The creature in the house was not her. And he knew that something was watching him from the forest – and from the window of the house – dozens of inhuman eyes staring right at him. Waiting.

He tried to run, of course, to get back to town. But the car started to die halfway. And the other kids, the 6 that followed him into the woods, to make sure he stays put… They were right there to take him deeper through the trees, away from main roads. Perhaps, they, too, were scared, and saw the glimpses of white fur far off in-between all other animals following them. But it was too late, they were too deep, and Darryl lost his glasses, struggling on the way to the clearing they decided to stop at.

There was no going back now. The ritual was in motion, gears turning, and the forest took the offer that was promised – the blood of the youth that was tied to the earth. All 7 of them, who partook in the offering, and touched the herbs and blood, and the sigils made with them – because this is how the ritual works, if you really, actually read through and research it.

The kids, or, more likely, their parents, didn’t. And so, after that night, none of them ever came out of the forest. Well, not in one piece, at least. Six badly mangled bodies (some partially eaten by wild animals) were recovered couple days later, and it was blamed on the mafia taking revenge on the local businessmen for some dealings going bad.

The tree logging company and the adjacent businesses didn’t really had a chance to recover after that. Not after several years of lawsuits and bad rumors, and not after loosing most of their kids – one of the bodies was even never found!

And with that tragedy and the following scandals, no one really noticed at first, but the animal attacks quieted down, and people stopped disappearing in the woods. But, in retrospect, it made sense – with mafia moving on from the totally defeated and bankrupt rivals.

THE FOREST SPIRIT

So, yes. The ritual kind of worked, the forest took what was offered, like water running down the newly dug out path. At that time, going down that path, the forest was angry, and hurting, it felt helpless and betrayed. And so did Darryl – just as strongly. And here they were, getting dragged down the same path, connected through it, unable to stop it all. In that shared intensity, being so similar in the moment, tangled through the flow of the ritual, they… kind of became the same thing.

Its normal for the forest spirit to have a vessel – an animal from that forest that carries out it’s will. And over time, those vessels can change, when the time comes, or something big happens with the forest. And there, at that moment, close to death, and merging with the forest spirit, Darryl became it’s next vessel, too.

It’s normal for the forest spirit to possess other forest life sometimes – they act out it’s feelings, if they get too strong. This is a natural prosses, easy like breathing, happening purely on instinct. Usually forest spirits do not possess fully sentient beings (or don’t do it for long). Because people and thigs similar to them, they have more self-awareness and recollection. They can not follow the impulses of the forest so blindly.

What happened here was a freak accident, an accidental turn of unexpected events… Because even after dying, and coming back to life no longer human, even connected to land and the forest so deeply now, being literally a part of them. Even with all of that… Darryl couldn’t get too “possessed”, like other animals or vessels would. That could probably happen, but only if those feelings would be really big, all encompassing, and – matched his own. If they shared them fully and strongly, with the forest, like at the time when for a few minutes they became one.

BAD

When Bad’s sense of self slowly came back to him, he was no longer human. And, after being connected to supernatural world so deeply, he knew of many non-human things just on instinct. He knew what happened with him (what was done to him). Knew that the people who did it paid for it right after, and will be doing so for the years to come. Bad knew that he, himself, will be here, in the forest, for all the years to come. That he’ll never be able to come back to his old life, or even say proper goodbyes.

Not that he’d want to, though. Most people in the town, and especially from his family’s newer circle didn’t like him. For his dad finally making it big and “forgetting the roots”, for Bad being too perfect of an example to compare other not so helpful sons to. And, of course, for Bad being too close to not fitting the perfect example of what a proper young bachelor should be. But the Darryl they whispered, and spread crude rumors about was dead. And Bad didn’t have to try to- or pretend to like them back.

He didn't have to deal with it anymore: with all the greed, maliciousness and distrust of the people and “the business”, all the lies. He was no longer part of them – now outright – didn’t have to deal with them, or pretend to be anything he wasn’t.

They could just. Stay out of each other’s way.

It was pretty easy to do now, since Bad had lost most of the human cravings due to his supernatural nature, and his pain. Pain, and anger, and- So, yes, sure, he could keep people out, just like the forest spirit wanted, and have everyone leave him alone, like they both wanted.

RAT

Forest was already not as seething, and the tree logging business was shutting down, and Bad’s restless, half-dazed wandering between the trees was at least somewhat calming. At some point, Bad found a small wolf puppy deep in the brush. It was really small, weak, and completely alone. Its fur was as white as Bad’s new hair, and its eyes glowed, exactly like the ones Bad saw watching him from the shadows, back on the last day he was human.

This was the previous host of the spirit of the forest, Bad saw it now. He knew that it was born in these woods, and took on the spirit of them just after being born, and carried out it’s will for many, many decades, until Bad came along, and took this wolf’s place. And now its job was done. And it was dying. Slowly fading away to become part of the forest again.

There was some sort of solidarity between them, stumbling into each other between the gears of nature and time. Or, at least, Bad felt it in the moment. And, well, he didn’t have much to do, and fussing over and taking care of a little pathetic puppy the size of a rat was way more pleasant way to pass the time, than just endlessly feeling all the things Bad felt all the time.

So, he took care of Rat (yes, the Rat) for a while, took on hunting for her, and learnt to sleep in the minds of the forest creatures, while she rested. Time lost nearly all of it’s meaning for Bad, but it did pass, more and more of it. And Rat got better, and grew back into a full wolf, and lived past the life-span of all other wolfs born after the ritual. She went on to live on her own, but stayed close by, always keeping Bad in her sites. She joined him on the hunts, and watched over Bad, while he slumbered in the shadows.

Bad had no idea why, but her fur still rippled under moonlight, and her growl rumbled the earth, like some of the power of the forest remained in her still.

Masterpost / first meeting /part 1 / part 2 / part 3

71 notes · View notes

starrysupercell · 3 years

Text

Brawlers' Pets Headcanon Dump!! (Some are canon but I just go into detail)

I've left out most of the ones I've covered in depth already, which include the Townsfolk Trio (1, 2, 3, 4,), Buzz and Surge, (1, 2) The Coworkers (not mine originally, but I’m on board!!) and Mortis.

Shelly: Used to have a pet chicken when she was younger that she saved from being slaughtered. The bird followed her around everywhere and lived a full happy life. Lived to an old chicken age ❤

Currently, she has Kit, a lil tiny kitten. She spoils her greatly. Superb pet owner! She trusts only a few people to watch her cat, which includes Primo, Piper, Edgar and Lou. ...I can see Colt being mildly allergic to cats tbh, so he's off the table... (He will either still pet and fawn over Kit and deal with the slight repercussions, or he's one of those folks who refuse to admit that cats are cute in their own way. Can't decide yet!)

Also since Princess Shelly has that Frog gun, she'll probably get a pet frog soon too!

~☆~

Lou: One secret Sugar Glider named Cane that he lets roam around in the Snowtel against Mr. P's wishes. He's a good pet owner, but sometimes he loses track of the cutie because of the free range he allows her. Shenanigans arise when P feels something shifty is going on. Gale has his back if he's in the know, however. He will say "No, I haven't seen anything strange, Mr. P." to his boss' face while seeing the Sugar Glider descending to Lou from the second floor into his hands.

Once, Lou had to hide Cane inside his machinery for a couple of minutes while P was around. It felt 😵 absolutely awful. Ever since then, he's taken to being more mindful of her. It IS irresponsible to have Cane roaming around in a large place without supervision.

~☆~

Gale: Pet snake named Twister. He's a decent owner, and would be better if he weren't so overworked. He does make time for him as best as he can. Luckily, if push comes to shove, he's found that if he mentions his lament to see his pet snake around/to fellow pet snake owner Byron, there will either be a personal offer for extra caretaking or Mr. P will be sent a notice encouraging more leeway for his employee.

~☆~

Mike: a Canary named Canary. The funny/odd thing about Mike is that he CLAIMS to be a grumpy fellow, but there's no supporting evidence of that anywhere! Birds take time and patience to train (personal experience), and Canary is so attached to him, so why u lying, Mike??

Anyway, he does not let anyone handle Canary at all. I think I said before that he would trust Jacky with her, but I changed my mind. There's just no convincing him! He's also a top notch owner because birds don't like loud noises and that's why he keeps Canary under his hard hat.

~☆~

Belle: a horse named Elodie. The one we see in the GA animation! Elodie is dependable, fierce and used to the fast paced lifestyle Belle puts her through. Elodie gets regular coat brushes, healthy diet, exercise (+ extra when she's brought for a heist).

If anyone else tries to ride her, Elodie will simply not budge... Not unless Belle outright hands her reins to somebody else. A tough horse for a wild gal. (Oh, I've technically covered her, but it's okay.)

~☆~

Emz: Pet *inhales* OPOSSUM. You can't change my mind 💜💜 Her name is Molly. She found her when Uncle Frank made her take out the trash (because she will learn to do basic household chores) And she came across a lil baby possum trying to climb up a tree nearby. "EW." She said, but it was fuzzy and cute and the ears looked too big for its head.... anyway it took a while to be able to catch the skittish creature. She brought her inside and the rest is history. (She forgot to put the trash in the can. Frank was disappointed, but Ash was way way worse.)

~☆~

Jessie: Pam and (mostly) Nani said no to a real pet, but ever-crafty Jessie came up with Scrappy! The other Turrets in her Skins are all different robots too with different names and personalities, as I've covered before!

I also like to think that when she's older and lives with Penny (or a different partner/on her own, depending on your preference, but Watter Canon under this roof 😤), she gets a real dog. Border Collie, perhaps. And Penny would probably get a noisy Parrot. Of course, that's wayyy into the future... post Starr Park~

~☆~

Stu- Frilled-neck Lizard! Since Edgar has a Tarantula, someone needed a lizard. And like. This is just so fitting tbh. I can't explain it. He found the lizard as he was just rolling along one day and picked it up and took him home.

I don't know what's going through Stu's head but he probably named the boy something like Rocket Blast Extravaganza. He takes really great care of him and presses his face against the glass tank to stare at him adoringly. He looked up how to take care of reptiles properly. He Will get another one soon.

~☆~

As a recap for the Fantasy AU!

Wizard Byron’s Owl/Familiar is named Eglantine, and Barley’s Unicorn Steer is named Hana. (Y’all will look at them because I love their names, I put effort.)

~☆~

...Loan Shark Byron has one or two sharks bc he’s crazy.

#Brawl Stars #Too Many Brawlers #Headcanons #Pets #Surge's pet is still Max btw /j #I hope that's all the pet posts I've made!!!

13 notes · View notes

artmakerproductions · 3 years

Photo

“The Crookits” (#3) - The Family Pets: 1) Hank, a guard alligator who lives in their front yard pond. Tries to eat the mailman. Loves belly rugs and sitting in the warm lap of his owners. Regularly taken to the dog park for exercise and to socialize. Has sometimes tried to sneak a “snack” or two while there. Y’know the whole “what do you got in your mouth?” and the pet immediately runs away and the owner has to chase 'em down and get them to spit it out? Pretty much that. Behaviour modelled after this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O78CxqRl7NE 2) Sweetie, a literal scaredy cat who is easily frightened by everything — except the Crookits. Loosely modelled after the cat on the poster of “The Black Cat” (1941). 3) Dexter, an undersized dust devil (assumed to have been the runt of the litter) that the family took in and adopted after a trip to the American desert one summer. Regularly fed piles of sand. Has the dementor, temperament and size of an ankle bitter.

🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 Happy spooky season everyone! 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 In THIS collaboration between me and my good buddy @mask131, we present to you our own spin on the “weird spooky family” trope that was popularized by “The Addams Family” and “The Munsters”, the ones a majority of you out there are probably the most familiar with. They are, The Crookits!

As I was first sketching up visuals, when I had the thought of making it a black family, or at least a mixed race one. To help stand out in the ‘weird spooky family’ crowd. As well as because more cartoons nowadays are featuring more non-white protagonists/characters as the leads. Plus famously, black people are hardly featured often in such gothic settings, ala Tim Burton. (If I’m correct). The father is a stay-at-home dad w/ the mother who is the breadwinner of the family runs a two-in-one business: a bed and breakfast and funeral home/mortuary. As to allow for a “guest (or guests) of the week” type formula w/ varying reactions to the family’s antics from those staying. Mixed in w/ the slice of life format for the family. As for said guests, which can end up being either monster or human. As to give some leeway w/ character making so that not every kooky character is directly related to the family. Like, a snooty and rude upper class monster family; or a typical suburban family that just finds the creepy aesthetic of the place charming. Y’know, to mix it up a bit from time to time. Perhaps rivals (both of the normal and abnormal sort) or people in the area/town who try and sabotage the business or drive the family out of town. “The Crookits”, a play on “crooked” if that wasn’t obvious X P Let us know what you think! : )

#The Crookits #digital art #drawing #creepy #spooky #alligator #cat #black cat #dust devil #pets #pet #family pet #family pets

11 notes · View notes

smol-nevi · 3 years

Text

I don't generally make this kind of thing a habit, but I think if you happen to be on the Crystal RP Discord, aka @crystal-rp-ffxiv, you should probably be aware of this kind of behavior, so here goes.

If you're on Crystal RP and the admin team decides they don't like you, you're going to be living under a microscope while they wait for you to mess up, if not bait you, probably while making up conspiracies about you as well. As for how I know this, I was a moderator for about a week's duration and saw it first-hand.

Unapologetically lengthy post. Receipts in the link above, long version below the cut.

From the first time I looked in the mod chat I knew something was wrong. I read backwards in the channel, thinking I'd acclimate myself and see what kind of rules precedents had been set and that sort of thing. I mostly just found out that they had it out for a particular member (at the time using the name Jericho) for not much reason. They'd spent a troubling amount of time over the past few months watching him and another member like vultures, believing them to be the same person and waiting for them to make some kind of mistake that would justify banning both of them...despite keeping different schedules, having different personalities and typing habits, and visibly being two different people. The admin team had come to the conclusion that Jericho was a troll who wanted to make them look bad, and anything he said or did was scrutinized to a ridiculous degree for evidence that would corroborate their belief.

Except none of the things they believed at all were true: he'd had a minor argument via DM with the head admin Benjimir Thursby's wife, Tessariel Aerlinn, who had made an overly broad statement about anime and Asian culture. Jericho had told her that overgeneralization about 'Asian culture' is potentially racist, and she became extremely angry, saying that because she's Asian, she can't be racist against Asians. After that, it seemed that Jericho was considered fair game for whatever retaliatory actions the two of them could justify.

Even a cursory glance at actual racism in Asia pokes Tessariel's statement entirely full of holes, and having personally read the conversation I didn't see anything actually inaccurate in his statement even if she believed it didn't apply to her. I asked what he had done that would merit such a response, because it felt very disproportionate to anything I'd ever seen him do publicly, and that was what I was told. The exchange via DMs had been screencapped and kept in a channel for evidence, and while I didn't get a copy of it, I did read it, and I said that I thought it sounded awfully one-sided and punitive and would have been much better as an actual conversation. I also expressed that I was concerned how much of the channel had been solely devoted to what was basically a witch hunt, considering that some of the server members had over the course of the past couple of months commented that the admins' behavior towards Jericho seemed biased.

I basically got a pat on the head and told that my opinion was "valued" but wrong. This would happen a lot over the course of the week.

Shit continued to escalate. Their favorite punching bag, who was acutely aware of the grudge by now and probably trying to be nice and discuss something that he thought they could all talk about, brought up some articles that stated that LOTRO might be having a graphical overhaul. This actually ended in him being put into some kind of time-out mute, because "everyone knows those articles are debunked already" despite them still being hosted on reputable games news sites. Back-channel, the admin consensus was that he was in fact trying to bait Benjimir and Tessariel into somehow looking stupid in public, because [paraphrasing] 'he knows how important LOTRO is to them.'

Benjimir in fact went off publicly about how he knows the dev team and they sent him 'personalized swag' for 'being himself' and that everyone should just listen to him because he's right. Someone else made a reasonable request for sources on statements that Benjimir made about the LOTRO improvements not happening, and they immediately became the team's private #2 punching bag.

The whole time I reiterated that this was really uncomfortable and I had serious concerns about the way they were handling Jericho. And as always I received a pat on the head and was told to not worry about it, there were really good reasons for it, really. He was 'bringing down the quality of discourse' on the server somehow. Benjimir decided that the only way he would unmute Jericho is if Jericho talked directly to him, and that Jericho tried to talk to any of the more level-headed members of the team first was taken as obvious evidence that he wanted to evade rules and create problems. I asked when we planned to unmute him, and Tessariel immediately jumped to the conclusion that he had messaged me, which wasn't incorrect but the way she worded it felt highly accusatory and I was beginning to feel that I was also in trouble somehow for not agreeing with the rest of the team.

Things came to a head quickly when I woke up and looked at the mod chat and they were having an animated conversation that started with Benjimir asking if it was 'bad that he was laughing at Jericho' and most of the rest of the team talking about how he was stupid, uninformed, a troll, etc. for the sin of having some misgivings about cryptocurrency, of all the things. One of the mods self-described their behavior as bullying. I said that this was extremely unprofessional and that I thought they should keep conversation to actual moderation matters, and if they had a personal disagreement with a server member they should handle it in a personal venue, not via official server moderation channels.

I was, for the final time, patted on the head, and told that this was not something they would consider, because the moderation team 'needs to be able to vent for their mental health' (never mind that the job was not stressful except for the rest of the team committing worse behavior than the server members) and that maybe I was in fact too sensitive for the job. Benjimir heavily implied that I had become too close to Jericho and was being manipulated, managed to misgender me somehow despite my having used solely male or neutral pronouns the entire time I'd been on the server, and after relating a story in which a couple of years ago a well-liked moderator left after having the same complaints as I did (which he saw nothing at all troubling about), suggested that I should be demoted to babysitting the lore channel.

So I took some time to collect receipts, which are linked at the top of the post, and told him where to shove it.

Since that time, things have actually somehow gotten worse on Crystal RP. Benjimir posted an entire page screed vaguely talking about "rampant negativity" that stated anyone with questions should DM him.

Upon DMing him with questions, Jericho was banned, the only reason given being that he was a 'poor fit' for the server in some vague way. I was immediately banned afterwards for calling out this decision as being driven by a personal vendetta in the feedback channel and let him know afterwards via DMs in no uncertain terms that I had logged everything I needed and would be building my case (and that he is an asshole). Jericho was reinstated, though I'm not sure what the conditions of his return were as that was after my ban and I didn't ask since I didn't want to stress him out further. Benjimir also reprimanded someone for discussing asexuality, stating in a DM to them that the conversation was somehow ERP related. I called him out on this via DM as well. Tessariel was not much later caught posting my last DMs to Benjimir in an entirely unrelated server, though she didn't include the part after that where I brought up his aphobia (during Pride Month, in a server with a rainbow icon no less). Benjimir for some reason decided to suddenly start following my FC's Tumblr well after our falling-out.

And as of today (6/24), Crystal RP now has seven pages of draconian rules, because it wasn't micromanaged hard enough before or something. Notably, a lot of these rules describe behaviors that they wanted to punish Jericho for but couldn't at the time justify, or that they'd like to punish me for but have nothing they can do to me. Or they exist to justify their own behavior, as now seen in the very beginning of the channel:

"This approach also provides our volunteers with leeway to act in good faith without the burden befitting a professional occupation."

"So we afford them the means to speak openly, vent, lament, candidly and yes, sometimes crassly and raw about everything and one."

Not only did they behave unprofessionally and shit-talk before, they have now encoded in the rules that this is acceptable and even good moderator behavior, because they saw someone else do it so it's fine (a lot of this wording is very similar to what I was told when I protested it). So rather than address anything I ever said past or present, Benjimir is choosing to double down and giving himself and his team explicit permission to be shitty, right in the opening paragraphs where you'd have expected a mission statement or at least some sort of welcome.

Which is about all you need to know about that server and its owners, in my estimation. I'd considered not even posting to Tumblr about it, but given that it's only getting worse, I think it should be generally known that this is how you can expect to potentially be treated.

#FFXIV #FFXIV RP #Crystal Data Center #Crystal RP #Balmung RP #Mateus RP #on one hand it's drama on the other I can and will call a spade a spade or in this case a douchebag a douchebag #this shouldn't be surprising to anyone who knows me even a little

21 notes · View notes

beyondstaff · 1 year

Text

Why a company should hire a virtual assistant?

Ever wondered how easier life would be if you had an extra set of hands?

Employee vs. Virtual Assistant

It’s crucial to define the distinction between a virtual assistant and an employee before moving on to the advantages of using one.

Why you should hire a Virtual Assistant

There are several advantages to hiring flexible, remote help. Here, we go in to a little more detail on these:

A Virtual Assistant is frequently much more than a home-based administrator. They come with all of the necessary talents and they can be trained in-house at a lower cost.

Employers would not invest in overhead if they hired a VA on a project-based, part-time, and short-term basis. As a result, they can always operate inside their budget.

A Virtual assistant can be hired from anywhere in the world. As a result, individuals have a higher chance of finding the ideal alternative for their requirements.

Business owners can hire a virtual assistant with a flexible work schedule – they could fit around you!

Why should you hire a full-time employee?

Virtual Assistant vs employee: Which option is right for you?

To know more please,

Visit us:- https://beyondstaff.co.uk/

Call us:- +44 (020) 3011 0324

#virtualassistant #unitedkingdom #london #employee #employeemanagement #fulltimeemployee

1 note · View note

crispyjenkins · 4 years

Note

B U I R, continuation of the last fic? Padawan Obi and master Dooku are freakin great. Would like to see more of jango being a disaster & a himbo for one (1) man

(my kid enabled me and i’ve been writing this between packing/moving the last week and i don’t know when i’ll be able to start something new (tonight? tomorrow? next week? lord knows), so i’m very sorry to the quinobi anon, yours is next, i promise!!

imagine that one Stiles/Malia cuddle that literally will not stop looping through my brain even though i haven’t watched teen wolf

warning for minor blood and injury, minor descriptions/implications of torture. takes place maybe three years after the last!)

It’s a little uncomfortable, trying to sleep against a wall while also trying to keep your sort-of-love-interest's headwound elevated on your own lap, and whatever remains of Obi-Wan’s internal clock protests to the surely late hour should they have been on Coruscant.

Which they’re not, of course, because Obi-Wan has apparently run out of brownie points with the Force, and all his bad luck is catching up to him all at once: getting kidnapped by the Daan for ransom is one thing, getting his shuttle knocked clean out of the sky over Odos and barely managing to protect his fellow passengers in the crash is another entirely. A concussion and a Force-suppression collar later, Obi-Wan had been thrown in a clinically-plain but entirely-dark cell with a barely-conscious Mand'alor that he hasn't seen outside of holocomms since Concord Dawn.

And some part of Obi-Wan is thankful for the excuse to see the real Jango again, not just the fuzzy holos that barely passed recognition and had to be viewed in private, but most of Obi-Wan is livid that this had only been made possible by the both of them getting snatched by the beginnings of a separatist alliance in the mid rim.

Livid that Jango has been here days longer than him, the passage of time marked in fist-shaped bruises and a bleeding lip — and Obi-Wan can't do anything about it, not cut off from the Force as he is.

The single door on the other side of the durasteel bars slides open, spilling harsh white light into the room and sending a nauseating pulse of pain through Obi-Wan's head. The Rattataki nightsister that had dragged him out of the wreckage of the shuttle all but bounces up to the bars, smile cruel in its delight. Force, but she can't be more than twenty-four standard, and already she has two red 'sabers at her hips.

“Well, isn’t that sweet,” Ventress purrs, and Obi-Wan is far too tired to deal with her posturing. He elects to ignore her, letting his head sag into the corner all while giving Jango's wrist a harsh squeeze to surreptitiously wake him, careful to keep his free hand curled around the back of Jango's neck to let him know they're not in immediate danger, but to be wary.

The Mand'alor stirs, and he had been raised a soldier, he knows better than to give himself away immediately. Instead, he keeps his muscles slack even as he takes in the situation, the breathing of a third person in the room, the slow, steady brush of Obi-Wan's thumb over his pulse.

"You can ignore me all you like, Jedi," Ventress says, certainly sounding at ease in her upper hand. "When my master arrives, your tongue will quickly loosen."

Obi-Wan simply grunts, glaring at her for all the good that will do. "I do hope he's not quite so young as yourself," he drawls, as Jango carefully shifts and tests his aches and pains. "You'll have to forgive me for finding it difficult to fear one younger than some padawans."

Ventress hisses, one hand grabbing the bars to pull herself closer. "Not all can be so perfect as you, young Master Kenobi." Jango twitches against him, and Obi-Wan doesn't need the Force to feel his rage. "I do look forward to my master showing you what real power is."

"Well, then I hope he arrives soon, before you manage to bore us to death."

"Obi-Wan," Jango murmurs in warning, stupidly alerting Ventress to his wakefulness.

To his credit, Ventress doesn’t even look like she notices, lips curling back as she waves her hand and the barred door slams to the side. It’s a careless use of the Force, Obi-Wan thinks, which is a shame because she certainly isn’t lacking in skill, though perhaps this isn’t what he should be focussing on.

Slinking into the cell followed quickly by two magnaguards from the hall, Ventress uses that skill to effortlessly grab Jango with the Force and drag him off of Obi-Wan, flinging him across the room into the arms of one of the magnaguards. The other shoves its electrostaff into Obi-Wan’s face to stop him from scrambling up to follow, Ventress leering over Obi-Wan with her fingers gliding over her ‘saber hilts.

“My master warned me of your wayward words, Master Kenobi, you are foolish to think you can use your powers against me," she hisses.

Maker, at least she's earnest. "I didn't think you'd be so quick to forget, darling," Obi-Wan says with a disarming smile, "that you've already made sure I have no powers to speak of."

Over Ventress’ shoulder, Jango jerks in the droid’s arms with a desperately angry frown aimed right at Obi-Wan, and he’s probably right: Obi-Wan really should stop antagonising their captors. It’s difficult, though, when the bleary half-light through the open door frames the fresh split at the corner of Jango’s lip, that Obi-Wan is helpless to remedy.

��Ventress snarls at him and grabs the suppression collar underneath his chin, pulling just enough to make him grunt in pain as she forces his head up to look at her; Jango doesn’t make a sound, but yanks against the magnaguard’s grip with enough force that both he and the droid stumble. Ventress pays them absolutely no mind as she leans right into Obi-Wan’s face.

“You will learn to fear us,” she whispers, sibilance bouncing around his mind like the spots that start to dance at the edges of his vision. “We have some more questions for his honor, but you get to sit here in the dark and reflect, perhaps you should meditate, Jedi, on the fate that awaits you at my master’s hands.”

Obi-Wan has just enough leeway to suck in a breath, and uses it to murmur back, “I’m starting to wonder if you even have a master, with the way you hide behind his ‘power’.”

With a ferocious snarl, Ventress yanks him clean off the floor and into the air by the collar, his surprised gasp cutting off into a wheeze as his head snaps back. Jango barks something at Ventess, though Obi-Wan can’t hear exactly what over the roar in his ears.

He scrambles at Ventress' wrist in an attempt to pull himself up enough to just kriffing breathe, to take some of his weight off his neck, but it's been days since he's eaten, and his toes barely brush the floor, and Ventress knows exactly how to manipulate his body to make it hurt. Force, he can hear Jango's voice, low, dangerous, edged in panic, and he can't make out a single word. Instead, Obi-Wan curses his height that he normally doesn't mind, for the way someone at least five years his junior can hold him so powerless so easily.

And then after an eternity, after the world starts to grey and Obi-Wan almost feels like his neck will break, she drops him, oozing smugness as he crumples to the floor and barely manages not to smack his head against the durasteel; he lacks the strength to save his knees from the same fate. He chokes and coughs on the frigid, fake air, nearly retching at his lungs' attempt to suck in all his missing oxygen at once, and he's vaguely aware of Ventress saying something to him, probably gloating. He focuses on just keeping his head off the floor.

Endlessly gentle hands brace his ribs and the back of his neck as they maneuver Obi-Wan up from his stomach to the closest wall, and Obi-Wan knows to trust these hands, that the hurried murmur cutting through the din is not Ventress, that he should probably listen to the owner of those hands.

Jango presses two fingers under Obi-Wan's jaw and checks his pulse, his holo-fuzzy face only coming into focus when the bars slam back into place and the door glides closed on the other side of the room.

"You with me, ner ca'tra?" Jango asks, tilting Obi-Wan's chin up until he nods.

Chest still jerking but forcing himself to calm, Obi-Wan looks around Jango's shoulder to the door, finding with relief that both Ventress and the magnaguards have left them in the dark once again. "Ar-Ar you alright?" he coughs, voice sounding as rough as it feels.

Jango sighs sharply and drags his hand up to push Obi-Wan's loose hair back from his face. "Force preserve me from jetiise suicidal selflessness. I'm fine, kih'jetii, I'll pretend you asked because you've gone stupid from oxygen loss."

Obi-Wan laughs, though it still sounds like a gasp, and lets the Mand'alor pull him gently into his shoulder.

"Padawan," Yan says softly, side stepping in front of the Neimoidian senator that had been talking his ear off for the past hour. Obi-Wan relaxes immediately as his master blocks out the rest of the room, the sounds and the light and the people, and he's never so thankful for Yan's height than he is when chill creeps over the back of his mind and digs its claws into his temples.

It's easier now that he's older, he has more control, has a better understanding of the Unifying Force, and under Yan's tutelage, his shields certainly aren't lacking. Visions are rare, Obi-Wan mostly gets jabs and encouragement from the Force these days, and even in dreams, events are rarely clear enough to preemptively act upon.

But sometimes it's like this, ice starting just where his spine meets his skull, swiftly growing under bone and frosting over gray matter, crystalising his mental shields until they're brittle enough to shatter. He's been under Yan's care for more than half his life now, his master can feel a vision coming on almost before Obi-Wan does, and if it weren't for the crowded ballroom around them, Obi-Wan would sob in relief when his master gently settles two fingers on his temple and supports his mind from below.

Obi-Wan chases the flashes of colour and pictures, the vague senses of warmth and rain and contentment, before rock explodes and durasteel rends. Amorphous screams slam against the inside of his skull, and he leans harder into Yan's hand to combat it, to prop himself up until he can reach out and try and catch those will-o-the-wisps of answers, of hints of where or when these flashes will matter.

"Soon," he mumbles, feeling Yan move slowly and methodically over the cracks in his mind, patching them with care. "I don't... A terrorist attack, Master Yan, I don't—"

"Easy, padawan," Yan soothes back and sets his free hand on the other side of Obi-Wan's face, like he used to before Obi-Wan had learned enough control. "The details matter not."

He lets out a harsh breath. "The details matter not. The details... Desert. Refugees. Claw marks, master, and..." Obi-Wan frowns, pinching his brows together in confusion. "The... the stolen armour. From before."

Yan rumbles unhappily. "Are you sure, Obi-Wan?"

"I'm sure," he whispers. "I would know that armour anywhere."

Mand'alor — “Sole ruler”, contended ruler of Mandalore. ner ca'tra — “my night sky”, intimate term of endearment jetiise — “Jedi” pl., sing. jetii kih'jetii — “Little Jedi”, usually offensive but the relationship between Mandalorians and Jedi are better in this ‘verse so

205 notes · View notes

thenakedgingerwrites · 3 years

Text

Cock in a Box (part 5)

AN: I had plans of a second installment to this series where Ben gets even and I’ve finally started it off. I hope you enjoy!

My revenge plot was brewing. Every pat on the back from a random gay guy, every comment about my dick or my cum show, fuck, even every razz at Kevin blowing me was another degree of heat added to my internal rage. But I couldn’t let it show, not yet.

Rodger and Mike seemed the most apologetic of my crew of friends, Brad the least. Kevin felt we were ‘fair’ since he had blown me which somehow he believed was actually worse. I contemplated whether I would have traded spots with him. He would have been fully exposed to our group but would I have blown a guy to have stayed clothed? I’m not sure.

Dan had found the whole ordeal funny but ‘nothing to worry about.’ It was ‘no big deal, so some gay guys saw your dick, who cares?’

“You looking to whip it out too then?” I had asked, playfully but with mental daggers to my words. He laughed it off and turned to talk to Sean, my younger brother. I couldn’t believe Sean had let this all happen. Sure, I had been a bit of a bully to him when we were kids but that’s just how brothers were. I couldn’t believe that he would let this happen to his brother. Even worse that he had watched!

And while there was a bit of anonymity, being in Vegas, guys now had pictures of my nudity and pictures of my face. Separate, at least, but they knew. They could post them anywhere!

I had to get even.

I had to get them worse than how they got me.

It wasn’t until I had gotten a moment alone with Anita Gudphuck, the MC of the show, that it started to become a concrete plan. I was slightly perturbed by her, or him? But the opportunity to get my ‘friends’ back was enough to create a treaty in my mind. We exchanged numbers and I began texting her.

Oh wow, you’re sadistic. She sent me that text after I outlined my plan while my friends drunkenly benefited from my free tab.

You have no idea. Can you make the changes by tomorrow? I replied to her.

Fuck yes. This will be the best show yet.

I encouraged her to make this the most crowded event yet and after tonight’s show, she was sure every gay man there would tell their friends about the secret event happening the next night that promised to top it.

Setting the trap for my friends was tough, though. As the night at the bar progressed, I began to act a bit upset and frustrated that I was the only one actually participating. That it wasn’t fair and they should have to actually play the game.

“I fucking sucked your dick for my crimes, dude, I’m exhonerated.” Kevin was still trying to convince me that we were even. As if.

Dan mentioned that, “They apparently only do those on Fridays so we missed our chance. But you can expect great wedding presents as penance.”

“You better have already gotten me great wedding presents, you dick!” I shot back.

He just shrugged and laughed it off. Mike was actually the one to say the line I was hoping for, “If they had it every night or something, I’d agree, but they don’t. Sorry Ben.”

Rodger echoed his apologies and willingness to have participated if they could. The other guys agreed or nodded along, except for Kevin that is.

Cue Anita.

“Do mine ears deceive me?” she appeared almost out of nowhere at Mike’s comment. “Marty, how’s the tongue? Still got dick taste on it?”

We laughed while Kevin pursed his lips and looked down.

Mike reitoreatted, “we were saying that a bunch of us felt bad and wish we could pay Ben back or something.”

“Well,” she admitted, “I could talk to the owner, see what I could do for an encore show tomorrow night.”

The men’s eyes went wide. I spoke first, “Oh would you?! That would be wonderful, Anita!” I turned to my ‘friends’ and brother to put their money where their mouths were, so to speak. No one was pleased about this opportunity Anita had presented us with.

Kevin, no surprise, was the first to push back. “No fucking way. I agree these dipshits should have to play but I did my part.”

Brad chimed in, “But it was your idea in the first place Kevin. The only reason you did it was to keep that a secret!”

“Which, it clearly didn’t stay that way. So I sucked a dick for nothing.”

I yelled, “nothing?! A bunch of gay guys have a picture of my dick and my face out there!”

“It’s not that big of a deal, Ben,” Kevin tried to tell me.

“It isn’t? Then it sounds like you’re happy to play?!”

He started to get upset with me. “No way Ben, I’m not doing it.”

I honestly was pissed but spoke harsher than I potentially intended to set up the trap. “Fuck you.” I looked at all of them but kept my eyes mostly on Kevin. “You guys went too far on this ‘prank.’ Honestly, I’m not sure that I can forgive you but if you have to go through the same shit as me, maybe I can.”

Dan was nervous. “Ben, we’re really sorry. Honestly.”

“A fat load of good that does when I just got blown on stage.”

They couldn’t meet my eyes. They knew they went too far but no one was eager to take my place after having seen what happened to me. They worried they’d have the same experience although they didn’t know how much more I had in store for them if this worked.

Kevin stood firm. “I’m not doing it, Ben.”

We stood there, lips locked waiting for someone to say something.

“Well this is getting awkward, boys.” Anita was the one to break the tension, slightly.

“Hardly. Fine, be that way, but you’re out of the wedding.” I said, mostly towards Kevin.

“Fuck if I care,” he replied.

“Ben, come’on.” Some of the guys tried to reason with me. That I was taking this too far.

“No, fuck him! And fuck you guys too. You’re all out. If you could do this shit to your friend and not feel obligated to pay up, then fuck you. I don’t want to see any of you again.” I spoke that last line to my brother specifically.

I stormed off. Mike tried to stop me but I shot daggers at him with my eyes.

They don’t know if you’re serious. Anita’s text came through a minute later as I walked the strip by myself. The one with the tattoo is considering it though.

That would be Mike. He was probably the most empathetic out of our group. Well I couldn’t give them any leeway or sign of weakness from my end. I had to be steadfast at my resolve to never see them again unless they participated and let me get ‘even.’

I ignored their texts and their calls. My fiance even called me once to make sure I was okay. Apparently they called her and, without giving anything specific away, said they had pranked me and I was being a poor sport. I dodged her questions on the prank and shared how little I cared for them. Sarah wasn’t exactly a fan of a few of my guy friends so she was happy to jump on the bandwagon of throwing shit their way.

I told her they were out of the wedding, yes even Sean, and while she was a bit shocked and hesitant at first, she was happy that I was looking to cut these rowdy guys from my life. After we hung up, she must have relayed my seriousness to my friend’s partners or maybe them directly, because 15 minutes later I got a text from Anita with a winky face and a text from Kevin saying just a single word: fine.

#revenge #aware

14 notes · View notes