#this was a year of 0 experimentation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

assriels · 10 days

Text

lessons in touch

pairing: azriel x f!reader

summary: azriel’s curiosity and penchant for spying reveals exactly why you’ve been more…enthusiastic in bed lately

word count: 5.8k :0

warnings: smut (not super detailed)!! 18+ mdni pls, az being nosy

a/n: this is one of my faves so far :’) i have this persistent silly headcanon that az is the biggest busybody of them all and that’s why he’s so good at his job

masterlist

banners by @/cafekitsune <3

Sex between you and Azriel was far from boring. It was a well known secret that Azriel had a predilection towards kink and experimentation, so your adventures with him between the sheets never left either of you dissatisfied. Far from it, actually.

Being with him was always pleasurable, wonderful, and unrivaled by any you’d had before him. During girls night, you had always attested to his prowess, said that his skills of observation extended past the battlefield and very much into the bedroom. And his wingspan…you would neither confirm nor deny whether the theory around Illyrian males and their wingspan was true, much to their chagrin, but the mischievous smirk that curled your lips was all they needed to confirm their suspicions.

Azriel was a skilled lover; he knew your ins and outs, understood almost innately how to coax pleasure from you with a simple, well placed brush of his fingers. More often than not, Azriel had you in a puddle on the floor before he could even take his pants off. Which, ordinarily, was a more than welcome skill — you loved how well he knew you, adored how he loved you so much that his brain was like a file cabinet of information about things you liked.

But you’d grown frustrated lately, more and more desiring to reduce Azriel to the same pleasure filled putty that he so often did with you. His composure was infuriatingly ironclad; you knew he felt the same primal, overwhelming desire that you did — such was the nature of the mating bond — but he was much better at masking it.

In short, you wanted to know what made him tick, what made him beg and whimper and plead with you to touch him. You’d been mated for a year now, and while his desire for you never waned, you had yet to find the one thing that made him sink to his knees and beg the way he so easily coaxed you to do for him.

It was no secret that your mate had a bold competitive streak. But your own stubbornness rivaled his own, leading to long, long card game nights and sparring matches — much to everyone else’s entertainment.

Though you knew you had no reason to feel such competitiveness when matters of the bedroom were concerned, you couldn’t help but feel a twinge of annoyance that Azriel had so easily figured out how to make you squirm in a multitude of ways — with all your cards on the table — while you were still somewhat in the dark about his most favored bedroom inclinations. Azriel kept the secrets of his hand close to his chest.

So you vowed to yourself that you’d figure it out, test his composure to see how exactly to make that beautiful, calm countenance crack. It was like a game, but one you were more than willing to play and even more determined to win.

Ever the observer however, Azriel caught on to the changes in your excitement beneath the sheets, amusement and adoration coursing through his veins as he reveled in your sudden vigor, never shying away from a challenge.

You had been more experimental in your bedroom endeavors as of late, asking him to bend you this way and that, introducing things that he never thought you’d be interested in — not that he was complaining in the slightest. Though your differences were strikingly obvious, Azriel would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about where your sudden interest in various sexual niches had sprung from.

Initially, it was all fun and games; if you wanted to explore then so be it — he’d match you stroke for stroke every time. But eventually, his nosiness had wedged its way deep into each crevice of his mind until he was all-consumed, curiosity devolving into a burgeoning anxiety.

Was something wrong?

Azriel was positive that if you were bored you would tell him. Had you heard something from one of the others that spurred you to want to explore more? Had you felt as though you had to introduce novelty every time to please him?

You had to have known that was far from the truth; no matter your state, Azriel had always made it clear to you that you were the most exquisite creature he’d ever had the privilege of knowing, let alone laying with. He didn’t think there was anything wrong…at least not for him. Maybe you felt like something was missing.

“Penny for your thoughts, brother?”

Rhys’s voice snapped him out of his anxious musings. Azriel hadn’t realized that he was pacing so furiously he could have worn a hole through the floor. Both Rhysand and Cassian had been watching with amusement glinting in their eyes. After all, it was a rare sight to see their ordinarily calm and stoic shadowsinger so worked up.

The same poker face Azriel had worn to win countless games of cards against his brothers masked his features now, but the twitch in his brow and the near missable ruffling of his wings were tells that Cassian and Rhysand were well acquainted with.

The shadowsinger had never perfected his stone faced indifference when he was thinking of you.

Cassian ventured a guess, “Have you upset Y/N?”

Cassian had meant to tease, but the way Azriel stayed silent had his eyebrow arching in question. Azriel ignored the curious glance from his brother as his mind ran in circles once more.

Had he upset you? Was your sudden experimentation in bed some roundabout way of telling him that he had done something to hurt you? No, no…that didn’t make sense, he was being illogical.

Or…Had he somehow missed picking up on something that you liked?

Your sudden interest in sexual exploration was far from a problem, but he got the niggling sense that you were up to something, playing a game that he wasn’t privy to. And he wanted in.

Azriel was private by nature, never revealing more of his relationship with you than absolutely necessary to his brothers, not wanting to overshare in fear that he’d fall victim to their incessant teasing. But this…maybe it would be useful to get their opinions about your sudden change in interests? Cassian and Rhys were both mated males afterall, and maybe there was something Azriel was missing. He would never admit it to anyone but himself, but he fell victim to his crippling neuroticism more times than he’d like to. Curiosity and anxiety were two sides of the same coin.

So he indulged and told his brothers of your sudden vigor in bed, enthusiasm to try something new every single time. You’d been insatiable as of late and he didn’t know why; nothing had changed that he knew of and it was concerning him, he couldn’t stand not knowing.

“So,” Rhys started tentatively, narrowing his eyes in confusion, not quite grasping the issue that Azriel was so hesitant to endorse. “Y/N is trying new things in bed.”

And elsewhere, Azriel thought with a ghost of a smile on his lips. He’d leave that part out, though; Rhys probably wouldn’t appreciate knowing the details about the going-ons in the dining room of the townhouse. And the gardens. And the hallways.

“And you’re complaining?” Cassian asked, incredulous, similarly at a loss for his brother’s concern.

“I’m not complaining, Cass,” Azriel groaned and slumped unceremoniously into a chair (much like an irritated school child who’d been caught doing something they weren’t supposed to), immediately regretting his poorly thought out decision to confide in his brothers. “I’m just confused. I don’t know what she wants.”

“Have you considered asking her?” Rhys inquired, infuriatingly teasing smile curving his lips.

Azriel deadpanned and clicked his tongue, not believing that Rhys would assume he was so inept at communicating with his lover, “Of course I’ve asked. She just says nothing’s changed. I believe her, but it’s still bothering me and I don’t know why.”

Both Cassian and Rhys resisted the urge to laugh, mentally conversing about how Azriel’s affections for you often reduced him to an adolescent-like lovesickness, begging and willing to please. Az had been this way since they were children; fiercely competitive and subsequently pouty if he didn’t have the upper hand, always wanting to know and learn everything he could.

This side of the shadowsinger was one that did not make an appearance often, reserving itself until he was around the few he trusted wholeheartedly.

The past couple of centuries saw even less of this endearingly childish and competitive Azriel – even around his closest friends – as Night Court duties and his identity as Spymaster overshadowed most opportunities to be vulnerable in his relationships.

But when you came around, light began to spark beneath the shadowy depths of Azriel’s countenance as you slowly coaxed him to trust and love as fiercely as everyone knew he was capable of, with the reckless abandon that his childhood self so easily embodied.

“Maybe check her nightstand,” Cassian teased with a wink, only half joking, as a quiet happiness bubbled within him at the small glimpses of Azriel’s vulnerability. “Some of Nesta’s best kept secrets are hidden there.”

Before Azriel could furrow his brow and chastise his brother for snooping through his mate’s belongings, a realization hit him.

Nesta.

You had been spending an awfully large amount of time with the eldest Archeron sister in the library lately, choosing to hole up there in lieu of your other hobbies when you weren’t training or engaging in your various other Night Court duties.

But Nesta would be a dead end. There was no way he could approach her without tipping you off to his secret sleuthing. Though he and Nesta were friends, her loyalties laid with you; there was an unexplainable female camaraderie between you – a chosen sisterhood, if you will – and if he asked if she knew anything about what was going on, she’d go running to you, mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

The conversation with his brothers was about as helpful as he initially thought it would be, and he let himself succumb to their jokes about how wrapped around your finger he was. Azriel had endured it graciously, knowing better than anyone that they were right, that he was indeed wrapped so tightly around your little finger that he was unsure of where he ended and you began. That he would gratefully stay in the palm of your hand for as long as you would allow.

But that night, after you had told him not to wait up for you because you’d be having drinks with Feyre and Mor, Cassian’s voice reverberated insistently in his mind.

Check her nightstand…best kept secrets…

Azriel resisted the urge to snoop for all of ten minutes before his inherent nosiness clouded his judgment and got the better of him; afterall, his love for secrets is what made him such an effective spymaster. Before he knew it, he was rolling onto your side of the bed, inquisitive hands pulling open your bedside drawer.

Hidden among the small stack of books he had given you was a thick novel with a cover he recognized, but gave no second thought.

It was a book you said Nesta had lent you. When he asked if you liked it you said it was “only okay” and that you’d let him know if he should read it when you were finished. Despite your lukewarm review, however, it had never left your side, and he had found you on more than one occasion cozied up with it in your hands, cheeks dusted with a heat he knew all too well.

Azriel was well aware of the content of the books Nesta favored, often lending a reluctant ear to a whiny Cassian whenever she paid more attention to her books than him.

But there was no way your sudden excitement for novelty in the bedroom could be inspired by Nesta’s smutty recommendations…right? He leafed through, assessing hazel eyes quickly skimming the paragraphs, catching glimpses of the prose that had you so enraptured.

Azriel felt the back of his neck heat.

It was smut, as he assumed. But this was truly…filth. Pure, unadulterated, filthy smut.

Azriel was a lover of all books, never having been one to categorize or judge them by popular opinion. And, to be completely fair, he had read a decent amount of books filled with sex and romance.

But…he was sure that the acts detailed in this one would make even the Court of Nightmares’s debauchery look saintly. Even Azriel, who had been correctly assumed to be the kinkiest of the Inner Circle, felt tame in comparison to the words flickering across the pages of your book. How did you read this with such impassivity on your face?

Azriel snapped the book shut with such force the pages blew a cool, gentle breeze onto his heating face. He tried – and failed – to not picture you in the position the main character in your book was described in, unintentionally sending a soft hum of his burgeoning arousal down your bond. He was beginning to understand your desire to replicate the more salacious scenes detailed in your novels.

Having fun without me, Az? Came your teasing inquiry in his mind, as he meticulously replaced all of your belongings into your nightstand.

Don’t be nosy, he quipped back, extremely aware of the irony of his statement. And then after a beat he added, answering your question with a sincerity that never failed to grip your heart, Never without you, love.

You left him waiting for a response a little bit longer than you normally would as you attempted to control the thundering beat of your heart in your chest. You were convinced that no amount of time could ever diminish the effects that Azriel’s blatant display of love had on your composure. As much as he was wrapped around your little finger, you were just as tightly wrapped around his.

I take back what I said earlier, wait up for me.

Azriel smirked to himself, feeling a flare of triumph, It’s a date, then. Maybe I’ll find something interesting to read in the meantime.

If you caught on to his sly insinuation, you did not let on, just continued bantering with him for a few moments before returning your full attention to your friends, who were no doubt attempting to extract morsels of information from your obviously lascivious exchange with your lover.

But that night – even after Azriel had promptly fucked you into a blissful oblivion – had yielded no more information about your recent proclivity for finding a new kink, so Azriel did what he did best and spied.

He kept a watchful eye on the books you read, and tracked the times you asked him to try something new. He spent more time in the library than necessary under the guise that Rhys had put him up to some research.

Which was only half of a lie. He was in there to do reconnaissance, yes, just not for Rhys.

Azriel scanned the bookshelves for anything that seemed like it had been recently replaced, pages still clinging to the sweet scent of your skin. A title he recognized caught his eye and he slotted it out of place, flipping through the pages to confirm his suspicions.

This book was shorter than the others he’d seen you carry around, but certainly no less obscene. A smirk pulled at Azriel’s lips as he read a dog eared chapter that you had clearly marked for inspiration, recollections of your most recent tryst in his office flooding his awareness.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

You had sauntered into his small, private study at the House of Wind, short dress skimming the curves of your thighs as you bent to greet him with a kiss to his cheek. He’d been distracted at the time — surveying maps and cross referencing with ancient textbooks — and barely tore his attention away from his work long enough to squeeze your hand in greeting.

But you didn’t seem to mind, opting to make yourself comfortable and purveying the books neatly organized on his shelves. When you’d found a book you thought would be interesting enough — though probably not quite as interesting as the one you’d just finished, per Nesta’s recommendation — you settled into the armchair across Azriel’s desk, shoulders against one armrest as your legs draped over the other.

Azriel looked up at you then, soft smile curving his lips. He loved when you kept him company while he worked; somehow, whenever you were around, work never seemed nearly as daunting or overwhelming.

You met his gaze with your own grin, silently communicating your support of him in the way that only mates could, tugging gently on the bond before winking at him and resettling your attention back to the book in your lap.

The both of you worked in that wonderfully comfortable silence for a while before Azriel caught you fidgeting out of the corner of his eye. The sun had begun its routine descent below the horizon, cool breeze stirring the sheer curtains framing his windows. Though summer had plagued the days with heat and humidity, the nights were still cool as the last dregs of spring eked away.

He looked up, intending on asking if you needed anything — a blanket, maybe — but the words died swiftly in his throat when he eyed a flash of bare skin as you swung your legs to stand, showcasing just enough for him to clue in to the fact that you were indeed not wearing underwear. Or anything else under your dress, if the peak of your nipples beneath the silk was anything to go by.

Selfishly, for a brief moment, Azriel decided that maybe keeping the windows open wouldn’t be so bad.

He pried his eyes away from your form making its way back to his bookcase, and instead attempted to tamp down the raging lust stirring in his belly so he could focus. But the mental picture of what he knew lay beneath the barely there fabric of your dress coupled with your scent made the lines on the map he was studying blur into nonsense.

Though intelligent and compassionate at heart, Azriel often found himself a slave to his baser male instincts when it came to you. There was little – if anything – you could do to quell the raging need to touch you, kiss you, be near you at all hours of the day; his desire for you was a constant hum belying his daily routine. He had not one iota of self control when you were involved, much to his simultaneous thrill and chagrin.

Inwardly, he cursed himself as he stole another glance at you as you stretched onto your toes to reach a book on the top shelf.

Beauty incarnate, truly, he thought. Azriel’s eyes tracked each slope and valley of the lines of your body, taking his time to commit each curve to memory, the way he should have been doing with the maps sitting now uselessly on his desk.

You looked at him over your shoulder, small pout on your lips, “Az, can you help me? I can’t reach.”

Azriel’s heart leapt. It’s like you were doing it on purpose, and in hindsight you definitely were. But despite the gnawing adoration encouraging him to fall to his knees and worship at your feet, he stood with the cool grace of someone unperturbed by their mate’s subtle seduction.

Azriel obliged you, coming up behind you, one hand curling around your hip to steady himself as the other reached easily to the top shelf to grab the book your fingertips skimmed. As he leaned forward, you could feel the hard planes of his chest against your back and you wanted to abandon all your plans to slowly seduce Azriel into a puddle on the floor, but you remained steadfast in your decision. Nesta had pushed a book into your hands and said she tried this once with Cassian and that the resulting hours were pure heaven, and you wanted to test the theory, curiosity rivaling that of your mate’s.

You barely registered Azriel putting the book in your hands, too lost in the warmth of his familiar touch. But you composed yourself quickly, leaning back into him to kiss him in thanks, not so subtly pushing your ass back into his hips. A feeling of revelry settled in your chest when you felt him already half hard beneath his pants, his fingers curling tighter around your hip.

Oh so reluctantly, you pulled away, perfect picture of obliviousness as you plopped back down on the armchair you were occupying previously.

Azriel thought he would collapse in on himself when you went to sit back down. You had him so tightly ensnared it was like he was still in the midst of the initial mating frenzy. He briefly wondered if the mind-boggling need for you would ever go away, though part of him knew hoped it never would.

He took a moment to compose himself — if that was even possible when one’s mate was clearly playing a dangerous game of seduction — bracing himself with one arm steady against the bookshelf.

Despite how much Azriel so greatly wanted to shirk his responsibilities to bend you over his desk, he wouldn’t. Not yet anyway. The work day wasn’t quite over, and the plans he was making for you would surely last too long to finish his research afterwards. So he steeled himself and took a deep, steadying breath, willing his blood to fill his head again so he could think with some semblance of clarity.

Though at baseline, he always found it difficult to think rationally when you were around.

While Azriel was trying — and failing — to regain his composure, you were feigning extreme interest in the book you had selected at random: The History and Systems of Fae War Treaties.

If Azriel had been paying any attention to what you were reaching for, he’d have caught on to your ploy, but luckily for you the mere sight of you was enough to render him at least somewhat incapacitated.

You took a peek at him over the back of the chair, triumphant satisfaction crooking your lips into a mischievous smile. Maybe this would be the day he finally cracks, you think to yourself.

But as the sun dipped lower beneath the skyline of Velaris below, and as Azriel stubbornly worked away at his desk, you felt the tiredness of the day settle into your bones, pull you deeper into the plush leather of Azriel’s loveseat. Cassian had run you ragged with training this morning, and Rhys and Amren had your mind working tirelessly as the three of you attempted to draft a peace treaty in a meager four hours.

But you wouldn’t sleep, not yet, not until you had reduced Azriel to a beautiful, orgasmic mess in his chair. Not until the hazel of his eyes were blown dark with desire and pleading as you straddled his hips.

The next hour was a fight to stay awake as the words on the pages in your lap began to blur into obscurity, mind muddling with theories and questions — though the book was an off handed choice, you couldn’t deny that the information was coincidentally incredibly pertinent to the discussion you were having with Rhys and Amren earlier in the day.

The telltale sigh of a day’s work completed pulled your attention away from your book, gaze settling on your mate. His hair was mused in a way that told you he had spent the last however long skating his fingers through it, but as always it fell perfectly across his forehead in defiance of the tiredness creeping up his neck.

Azriel’s eyes met yours and apparently your coy seduction earlier still held his body in a vice, evident in the way he stood and stalked to you. There was a cool, domineering edge to his movements and you knew your plan had worked to a degree, but the determination you had to break him down had leeched out of you the same way the night had stolen the day’s heat.

You hummed in satisfaction as he leaned down to kiss you, the pressure gentle and so, so sweet. A stark contrast to the dark and tempting storm of desire Azriel flooded your senses with down the bond.

Never once breaking the contact of your kiss, he’d wedged a knee between your legs as one hand braced against the arm of the loveseat while the other danced at the hem of your dress, endearingly asking for permission.

Your mouth curved against his and you guided his hand up to your hip, gasping delightedly when his hand tracked further up your waist, bringing the hem of your dress up with it as he slotted your hips more comfortably against his leg.

His lips traced a scalding trail of open mouthed kisses against your jaw, your neck, a chuckle rumbling deep in his chest that had your hips rolling against him.

“So bold for me,” he said, his hand skating across your unclothed skin while he urged your hips to grind a little harder against his thigh. You gasped, the pressure so wonderfully perfect against your cunt.

Though your initial intention was to get Azriel all hot and bothered, you couldn’t deny that the game you had set yourself up in had the same effect on you; the lingering, almost lazy path his eyes swept over your body every time you shifted across from him left heat singing between your legs, untamed longing for you dancing down the golden thread between you.

“Az…” you rasped, arching your hips up to meet his still clothed body, the top of your dress pushed languidly down to your waist as Azriel played slow music on the skin of your breasts. The loveseat was a cramped fit at best, but Azriel’s surprising flexibility and dexterity made it work despite the general largeness of his wings and frame. He’d made even the smallest corners of the House work for your sexual escapades.

The memories of all the scandalous little happenings you two have been partaking in the past few months flitted across your mind’s eye like an erotic slideshow, and you groaned. Legs tightening around his in desperate search for more friction, more contact, more of him. His name on your lips again was a wanton plea, a sound so wonderfully obscene Azriel almost came in his pants.

“Hmm?” He hummed, closing his lips around your nipple, teeth gently tugging before his tongue was quick to soothe the ache. The way your hips were grinding so shamelessly against him had his head spinning with a swirling mix of lust and love, and he clung to the last shreds of self discipline he had. It was all he could do to not tear both of your clothes off and sink himself deep into your brilliant warmth.

Azriel had always been patient, mastery over his desire was a skill he’d honed meticulously over the past few centuries — though you had a way of quickly unraveling his self control with one flutter of your eyelashes. But he wanted to make this last for you, wanted to draw out your pleasure for as long as possible. So he pressed his thigh more firmly between your legs, his own hips slotting against the side of your body.

You gasped at the feel of him, of how hard he was against your hip, and you tried to reach him, tried to get him to release some of the tension you knew coiled in his belly. He groaned deep and breathless when you pressed insistently against him, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment before he continued his ministrations on your body.

Azriel’s hands were everywhere, trailing paths around your breasts, up your neck, into your hair, and between your legs the way he no doubt was doing with the maps on his desk earlier.

It was infuriating how close you were already, how swiftly the tables had turned (though you half blamed the sudden onset of your fatigue the day had cursed you with), how with one well placed touch you were on the brink of collapse at Azriel’s mercy yet again.

He was urging your hips faster now, his fingers and lips making quick work of all the places he knew would have you keening. And before you could even register that he was still fully clothed, hard cock still straining against the confines of his pants, you were falling, breathless and dizzy with release.

The night had been far from over. You came twice more in that godsdamned loveseat – once with his fingers buried inside you and another time with his head between your legs – before he whisked you away to your bedroom where you finally, finally felt the delicious stretch of him inside you.

By the time the sun was making its appearance over the horizon once more, you had lost count of how many times Azriel had you begging.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

Though your spicy little rendezvous in his office – and encore in the bedroom – wasn’t quite an exact replica of what played out in the book you had apparently just read, Azriel had thought your coy seduction had its intended effect. He’d been so fucking desperate for you that he couldn’t wait until you were out of his study to have you coming for him.

But, as he skimmed the pages of the chapter you marked, he couldn’t help but think that maybe he wouldn’t mind being fully at the mercy of your whims, wouldn’t mind submitting to the pleasure that you so easily coaxed from him. He was already always so eager to please you, so willing to crawl to the ends of the earth for you if you had so much as suggested you wanted him to.

“Azriel?” Nesta’s voice dripped with wicked amusement, effectively pulling him from his erotic reverie. “I never thought I’d see you in this section of the library.”

Fuck.

He hadn’t anticipated that he’d run into Nesta, a severely idiotic oversight on his part considering the House’s library was something akin to her own personal sanctuary. Azriel turned slowly on his heels to face her, mind working in overdrive to come up with a viable excuse for him being there.

“Nesta,” was all he came up with. Pathetic.

Her smirk turned deadly when she realized he was floundering. Arms crossed over her chest, chin tilted ever so slightly upwards, she looked the very portrait of smug amusement; he would expect nothing less of his friend who moonlighted as Lady Death.

Nesta’s eyes dropped to the book he forgot he was holding, and her eyebrows shot up in understanding, “Ah, I just recommended that one to Y/N. She gave it a hefty five stars. Said it was…intriguing.”

Nesta’s sly comments were enough to confirm Azriel’s suspicions that you were taking bedroom inspiration from the arsenal of smutty books the House stocked. And, with the way Nesta was biting her tongue, he could tell that she knew exactly why he was there.

Cassian, that fucking mouthy bastard.

Before Azriel could open his mouth to tell her that it wasn’t what it looked like – even though they both knew it was exactly what it looked like – Nesta stalked past him, pulling books off the shelf with striking precision. With a stack of five books balanced on one hand, she took the one Azriel was holding and reshelved it.

“These are Y/N’s favorite,” she said, this time with a little bit more softness and understanding as she placed them gingerly in his arms. “I’m sure she’d love if you read them.”

Azriel scanned each cover, a fond smile working to tilt the corners of his lips. You did love these; he had been familiar with these covers long before you were even mated, always keeping a lovingly watchful eye on the things you enjoyed, filing the knowledge away in his mind for later.

“Thanks, Nesta,” he said sincerely, adoration for you filling his chest with warmth as he remembered the excitement lighting your eyes while you read these books, cute flush radiating off your cheeks.

Nesta only nodded, giving his shoulder an encouraging few pats as she stalked off to another aisle, no doubt scouring the shelves for a new read.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

Azriel told himself that he’d only read a few chapters — for research — but he hadn’t realized that he’d spent the better half of his day off lounging on the loveseat in his study.

Despite his previous reservations around the smutty books you’d so lovingly treasured, he found he was enjoying them — and not just for the well written, detailed sex scenes that you were pulling ideas from. He was two-thirds of the way through the second book, in the midst of the big climax, when you snuck up on him.

“It seems you’ve discovered my dirty little secret,” you said coyly, arms coming up behind him to snake around his shoulders.

Azriel jumped at your sudden appearance, inwardly cursing himself for teaching you how to sneak up on someone so effectively. He closed the book swiftly, feeling a flustered blush creep up his neck.

You pouted and rested your chin on his shoulder, “Aw, you were just getting to the best part! Don’t stop reading on my account.”

Azriel groaned but gave in, leaning back into your touch, “Don’t tease me.”

“I would never tease you, my love,” you said mockingly before kissing his cheek. “It is really the best part, though. The paint scene—“

Before you could regale the details of the main characters’ sexual escapades, Azriel took your chin in his fingers and slotted his lips over yours in a silent plea to stop your innocent tormenting. He reveled in the way you kissed him back without pause; he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the way you loved him as eagerly as he did you.

“Dirty little secret, huh?” He quipped, lips brushing yours as a bemused smirk lifted the corners of his mouth. You rolled your eyes as you made your way around the back of the chair, gesturing for him to uncross his legs so you could settle yourself on his lap.

Your weight was a welcome comfort as he continued prodding you, “Is this why you’ve been so…eager lately?”

“I didn’t think you’d notice,” you admitted, winding your arms around his neck as he scoffed in mock disbelief.

“Give me some credit love, I notice everything when it comes to you.” Came his quick response.

You pursed your lips, half in childish dissatisfaction that your little game was over, “I just wanted to know how to get you to beg for me. I needed ideas.”

Your nonchalance belied the wicked sensuality of your words and he chuckled, wrapping his wings around you both before mapping a scathing trail of kisses up your neck. The pillowy feel of his lips brushing your ear made you shudder, his teeth nibbling playfully at your earlobe as he hummed deep in his chest, “We have a lifetime together, there’s no rush. But since you want it so badly, shall I show you how well I can beg for you?”

Azriel’s offer sent an exhilarating shiver down your spine, and you so desperately wanted to give in, wanted to watch him come undone beneath you as he pleaded with you to touch him. But you shook your head despite yourself, competitive stubbornness the only barrier between you and what you wanted.

“I want to earn it, make you want me so bad you can’t help yourself.”

Your words were a breathy murmur that nearly had Azriel flipping you over right there on the too small lounge chair, but he resisted, prioritizing his assurances that you were the only thing he wanted every second of every day.

“That’s the thing, beloved,” he whispered in your ear, deep voice doused in honey reverberating in your bones as your desire flared so wildly it made you lightheaded. His hand, calloused palms rough against your skin, skated beneath the hem of your dress to grab hold of your hip and move you so you were straddling him.

This was the image you played over and over in your mind. The unbridled, unrestrained look of pleading in his eyes that blew his pupils wide, that had his hips shifting against yours in a display of just how much he wanted you.

“I always want you,” he continued. “I’d beg for you like I am dying of dehydration and you are my oasis. Just ask, and I’ll do exactly as you say.”

You were mesmerized, finger tracing the sharp contours of his jawline before ending at his chin, tilting his gaze up with the same practiced dominance you’d seen him slip into countless times before. You savored the way he shuddered at your touch, pretty lips parting as his chest heaved.

The corner of your mouth quirked, your breath a ghost over his lips, “Show me, then.”

2K notes · View notes

buckyalpine · 5 months

Text

Edit to add: thought it saved with tw, non con, dark winter soldier

I wanna fuck the beefy winter soldier who uses me like a sex doll, just a hole to fuck. I want him to shove it in whenever he wants, fully focused on pleasuring his dick and nothing else. He’s chasing that pleasure at the tip of his pink cock that feels so good, grunting and groaning, wide touch hands holding you down in place.

Imagine he comes to finish a mission, breaking into a large mansion in the middle of the night only to find no ones home except the sweet little maid, still dressed in her tiny uniform, finishing up in the master bedroom.

You freeze on the spot, ready to beg him to spare your life as he shut the door behind him, swiftly locking it. He's programed to kill but you're evoking something new inside him. He feels pressure between his legs, his cock aching with need, a new desperate desire he needs to quench.

You know that scene with the red henley, his thick, muscular body throwing others around with 0 effort. I want that but with no clothes on. Clothes make his body feel too hot. He takes it all off when he stalks over to you, rock hard cock bobbing between his legs when he grabs and throws you over his shoulder. He might as well be an animal, precum dripping from the head down to the floor from your smell alone.

He’s absolutely unhinged.

Hasn’t had an orgasm in years.

Nearly nonverbal as he gets ready to take what he wants.

Your heart races, too scared to cry while he shoves your legs apart, groaning at your sweet scent. He tears your clothes off with his bare hands before experimentally pumping his cock, moaning at the bit of relief it gives him.

He needs more.

"P-Please-please no-Oh God!" You cry out as he shoves his cock in with one swift motion, pounding you with no remorse, grunting and panting, inhaling the scent of your perfect and something distinctly you as he snarls against your neck.

It feels so good, the serum in his veins making his cock swell with each thrust, thick drops of precum already marking you from the inside. His sole focus is to get rid of the achy feeling in his dick by using you, wanting to stop the heavy feeling in his balls. They're too heavy, too swollen, too full, it fucking hurts and your cunt feels so good, wrapped around his cock.

He moans louder with each thrust, pleasure licking up his spine, your needy little squeals just adding to how good it all feels. He loves the sting of your nails scratching down his arms, your tight pussy quivering and fluttering around him.

He sits back on his heels to watch the sight of his cock going in and out, your sensitive button throbbing between your legs. He gives it a flick, fucking you harder when he realizes touching you there makes you scream. He flicks and rubs at it wildly, loving how much tighter you get when he does that.

He gives you no warning when he pulls out and manhandles you till your face is pushed into the mattress with your ass high in the air, his cock reaching a much deeper angle in this position. He grabs onto your hips with both hands and slams you to meet the sharp snap of his hips, muttering something in a language you don't understand.

You can tell he's close, feeling him harden further inside you, his pace starting to falter. He's panting harder, head thrown back feeling that release get closer and closer. He gives you a final harsh thrust before burring himself in as deep as he could go, letting out a deep guttural moan as he starts to spill into you, his hot cum pouring out endlessly.

He wants to stop but he can't, waves of pleasure continuing to wash over him each time he thinks he's almost done, letting your body go limp while he flops on top and practically ruts and humps himself until he's finally soft and spent. He pulls out, searing the sight of his seed dripping out to memory before throwing his clothes back on. The empty feeling makes you whimper.

"moya khoroshaya devochka" [my good girl] he murmurs before leaving, already deciding he's ready to go rogue just to add this location to his list of places to revisit.

This wasn't meant to be part of the story but imagine he does come back to take what he wants and you let him. A few weeks later you feel insanely nauseous, throwing up every time you eat, exhausted and constantly wanting to nap.

When he sneaks in again, your scent in different and he knows. You're confused when he doesn't ravish you. Instead he wordlessly puts his hand on your belly. You look at him with confusion, especially when he picks you up softly and puts you to bed instead, keeping his hand back on your tummy.

"nash malysh" [our baby] he says softly and slowly, hoping you'd understand. Of course you quickly piece it together, only snapping out of your shock feeling his cold metal hand cup your cheek.

He makes love to you that night.

He's not sure why. He knows he has to be gentle with you. He should end you, end this mess before it goes any further but its too late. He's soft and slow. He holds you close and moves with such care, giving you deep thrusts with the roll of his hips. He lets his hands lace with yours, pinning you against the bed, squeezing them comfortingly as if to let you know he's not going anywhere.

He knows he doesn't have a lot of time. You'll be showing soon.

He'll figure something out.

Idk why tf I can't just write fics with the winter soldier where he fucks and leaves. It always ends with some stupid fluff which I didn't intend to add.

1K notes · View notes

cowboybabeop · 16 days

Text

Vault-Tec Vaults; Game Origin & Location

Hi I'm going to back to my "Fallout Blog" roots. Here is a summary of all of the vaults and experiments (starting with a timeline) because I'm insane ^_^ I had to add a weird break bc I literally hit the tumblr character limit, but I used it to section off the major spoilers for the TV series :)

Timeline

The Great War: October 23rd, 2077

Fallout Bible: Compendium of added lore by the creators.

Fallout 76: 2102

Fallout 1: 2161

Fallout Tactics: 2197

Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel: 2208

Fallout 2: 2241

Fallout 3: 2277

Fallout: New Vegas: 2281

Fallout 4: 2287

Fallout TV Series: 2296

Corporate Vault - Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel - Texas

A control group vault meant for Vault-Tec employees to continue research, primarily on FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) during the war.

Vault 0 - Fallout Tactics - Colorado

A control group vault with geniuses kept in cryogenic stasis, with their minds interlinked into an entity called The Calculator.

Vault 3 - Fallout: New Vegas - Nevada

A control vault. Residents ended up opening the vault doors when the lower levels flooded. Eventually the vault was overrun by Fiends.

Vault 4 - Fallout TV series - California

A test vault that was filled with residents prior to the bombs dropping. Experimentation on human subjects led to most of the original residents being killed in a revolt. In 2296 the vault is still thriving, while kidnapping surface survivors and continuing to experiment on them. The vault offered refuge for many inhabitants of Shady Sands.

Vault 8 (Vault City) - Fallout 2 - Nevada

A control group vault that remained closed until 2241. Instead of receiving two G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) devices, Vault 8 received just one and a replacement water chip that was supposed to go to Vault 13.

Vault 11 - Fallout: New Vegas - Nevada

Every year the residents were told to sacrifice a fellow resident, with the threat of everyone's death if they did not. In reality, the system would praise them for NOT sacrificing an individual and the vault door would be unlocked. This message finally played after only five residents remained.

Vault 12 - Fallout 1 - California

A seemingly normal, safe vault with an ulterior motive to study the effects of radiation on the inhabitants. The door never fully sealed, and in 2083 the ghoul residents left to found Necropolis.

Vault 13 - Fallout 1 & Fallout 2- California

Your home vault as the Vault Dweller. A rather normal vault, however due to a shipping mishap Vault 13 received an additional G.E.C.K. device (that was supposed to go to Vault 8) instead of a replacement water chip. Thus, leaving the Vault Dweller to leave the vault in search for a replacement when their only water chip breaks.

Vault 15 - Fallout 1 & Fallout 2 - California

A vault that experimented with incredibly diverse ideologies and backgrounds. The vault became severely overpopulated in 2097 and the dwellers decided to open the door. Shady Sands was created using Vault 15's G.E.C.K. and the local raider gangs all have origins from this vault.

Vault 17 - Fallout: New Vegas - Mention Only

Inhabitants were kidnapped and transformed into Super Mutants. Lily originates from this vault.

Vault 19 - Fallout: New Vegas - Somewhere in CA/NV/AZ/UT

Paranoia was induced by noises, lights, and segregation. The vault was divided into two sections, Red and Blue, with a separate overseer for each sector.

Vault 21 - Fallout: New Vegas - Nevada

An almost normal vault, with the exception of a culture and society built around gambling. All major decisions were made through gambling, with the decision to open the doors and become part of New Vegas being "won" in a game of Blackjack.

Vault 22 - Fallout: New Vegas - Somewhere in CA/NV/AZ/UT

A vault dedicated to studying agriculture. A fungus designed to kill pests on plants became capable of infected human hosts. Vault 22 is curiously green on the outside by the time The Courier arrives at the location.

Vault 24 - Fallout: New Vegas - Mention Only

Remnants of a Vault 24 jumpsuit are found in the FNV game files.

Vault 27 - Fallout Bible - Mention Only

A vault designed to be deliberately overcrowded with not enough means to sustain the inhabitants.

Vault 29 - Fallout 76 - Mention Only

Only children younger than 15 were allowed in this vault, with their parents being sent to other vaults. Harold is believed to originate from this vault.

//TV SHOW SPOILERS//

Vault 31 - Fallout TV Series - California

Part of 3 interconnected vaults, serving as cryogenic home for the managers and higher ups of Vault-Tec.

Vault 32 - Fallout TV Series - California

Part of 3 interconnected vaults, serving as a healthy breeding pool for Vault 31 and 33. Somewhere around 2294, Vault 32 failed and the residents resorted to murder, cannibalism, or suicide.

Vault 33 - Fallout TV Series - California

Lucy MacLean's home vault. Part of 3 interconnected vaults, serving as a healthy breeding pool for Vault 31 and 32.

//END OF TV SHOW SPOILERS//

Vault 36 - Fallout Bible - Mention Only

The only food in this vault consisted of thin, watery gruel.

Vault 34 - Fallout: New Vegas - Somewhere in CA/NV/AZ/UT

The vault was purposefully overstocked with guns with the overseer being able to give/deny access to residents. This inevitably led to it's downfall, and those who revolted and raided the armory relocated above as The Boomers in 2231.

Vault 42 - Fallout Bible - Mention Only

No lightbulbs over 40W were provided.

Vault 43 - Fallout Bible - Mention Only

A vault containing 20 men, 10 women, and one panther.

Vault 51 - Fallout 76 - West Virginia

A vault with a supercomputer as the overseer. Interference from the computer led to most of the residents being murdered by other residents.

Vault 53 - Fallout Bible - Mention Only

Most equipment was designed to break down every few months in order to stress out inhabitants.

Vault 55 - Fallout Bible - Mention Only

No entertainment tapes were provided.

Vault 56 - Fallout Bible - Mention Only

The only entertainment tapes provided were of one terrible comedian.

Vault 63 - Fallout 76 - West Virginia

The inside of the vault remains sealed, with the outside door being all that is accessible to the player character. Other parts of the vault are revealed through cut content.

Vault 65 - Fallout 76 - Mention Only

Remnants of the vault remain in Fallout 76 cut content.

Vault 68 - Fallout Bible - Mention Only

The vault contained 999 men and 1 woman.

Vault 69 - Fallout Bible - Mention Only

The vault contained 999 women and 1 man.

Vault 75 - Fallout 4 - Massachusetts

A secret experimenting in refining human genetics through selective breeding, genetic modification, and hormonal treatments. The vault's concept was made by Stanislaus Braun.

Vault 76 - Fallout 76 - West Virginia

The home vault of the player character in 76. It was a control vault, set to open after 25 years. This is when the player character leaves the vault.

Vault 77 - Fallout 3 - Mention Only

Mentioned by slavers in Paradise Falls, this vault was rumored to only contain one man and a box of puppets.

Vault 79 - Fallout 76 - West Virginia

A vault dedicated to hoarding the country's gold reserves.

Vault 81 - Fallout 4 - Massachusetts

Designed to develop a cure for every possible sickness or ailment. Residents were unknowingly sprayed with diseases by nozzles hidden in their rooms. The first vault overseer had thought this to be cruel, cut off the scientists from the rest of the vault and cut the nozzles from spraying residents before the experiments could begin.

Vault 87 - Fallout 3 - Somewhere in VA/PA/MD

The original vault experiment for 87 was scrapped, and it became a research center for FEV, leaving the vault wildly radioactive and inhabited only by super mutants by the time you access it as the Lone Wanderer.

Vault 88 - Fallout 4 - Massachusetts

An unfinished vault inhabited by ghouls.

Vault 92 - Fallout 3 - Somewhere in VA/PA/MD

The best musicians were sent to this vault to "preserve musical talent", but truthfully residents were subjected to subliminal messages mixed into white noise. Eventually some of the musicians went into random, murderous, psychotic rages that led to the end of the experiment.

Vault 94 - Fallout 76 - West Virginia

A vault with non-violent faith-centric inhabitants. The vault opened one year later to search for survivors. The vault became overrun by wastelanders and raiders that destroyed their G.E.C.K. and their nuclear reactor. The vault was swarmed with radiation and is now overrun by mirelurks.

Vault 95 - Fallout 4 - Massachusetts

A vault designed to get people clean and sober. After a successful 5 years, a Vault-Tec agent brought out a hidden stash of drugs for other residents to find.

Vault 96 - Fallout 76 - West Virginia

A vault with a focus on agriculture, animals, genetics, and mutations. The original residents were killed in a failed escape attempt, and the vault was then used by West-Tek scientist Edgar Blackburn to continue research on FEV.

Vault 100 - Fallout 3 - Mention Only

Remnants of Vault 100 can be found in game files and cut content.

Vault 101 - Fallout 3 - Somewhere in VA/PA/MD

The home vault for the Lone Wanderer. This vault was meant to never open and Vault 101 did not receive a G.E.C.K. However, the overseer of the vault pretty quickly broke this rule and occasional survey teams were sent to the surface. Several residents of Megaton are the result of these survey teams. Daddy James found the vault after the birth of the Lone Wanderer and negotiated his doctoral services in exchange for shelter.

Vault 106 - Fallout 3 - Somewhere in VA/PA/MD

Psychoactive drugs slowly released into the air of Vault 106, causing the vault to be filled with psychotic survivors by the time the Lone Wanderer visits.

Vault 108 - Fallout 3 - Somewhere in VA/PA/MD

A slew of experiments occurred in this vault. The elected overseer was dying of cancer, the primary power supply of the vault was scheduled to fail after 20 years, the backup power supply would not be enough to power ALL of the vault, the vault was given three times the normal amount of weapons, and the vault was not given entertainment. With a majority of scientists, one of the inner experiments involved repeatedly cloning the same man... Gary.

Vault 111 - Fallout 4 - Massachusetts

Your home vault as the Sole Survivor. All residents were meant to unknowingly stay in cryostasis, with scientists overlooking them. However, conflicts arose among those unfrozen, leading to the vault door eventually being opened.

Vault 112 - Fallout 3 - Somewhere in VA/PA/MD

Residents lived in a virtual reality simulation to create their "perfect life" with their overseer, Stanislaus Braun, a scientist who proceeded to use the residents as playthings. Braun continuously murdered residents, then wiped their memories and reset the simulation.

Vault 114 - Fallout 4 - Massachusetts

An unfinished vault meant for only the wealthy. Vault-Tec exaggerated the luxury of the vault, gave residents very small rooms, communal bathing and dining areas, and a homeless drug-addicted overseer named Soup Can Harry.

Vault 118 - Fallout 4 - Maine

An Unfinished Vault meant to house both a handful of ultra-rich and hundreds of working class individuals to observe how they would interact within the same space.

Vault 120 - Fallout 4 & Fallout 76 - Mention Only

The vault itself was meant to mimic the underwater atmosphere of Bioshock. The game was cut from Fallout 4, but remnants can be found in Fallout 76 game files.

560 notes · View notes

cupcraft · 8 months

Text

Ranboo rebrand stream important stuff in one single post!:

if anything i missed pls rb and add on!

chat etiquette! They are going to be more strict with this (but not for new chatters honest mistakes).

Ban 101 -> the number 1 rule:

racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, discrimination. Instant ban, no excuse. Even bigoted jokes! 0 tolerance! you will be banned from even viewing the streams. This even counts on doing it on other streamer's chats/platforms if found out!

More rules: be funny (please!) and chill and kind and use emotes (including BTTV), dont spam chat (will be fixed/enforced bc of past issues),

other tidbits/news:

the vtuber/stuff will evolve over time, there are different vtuber outfits/costumes planned (ex they have an mcc outfit already!), the room in the background will change, they will be reaching out to ppl for collabs (feel free to recommend people but do not spam their chats!), planning to do more irl streams (will be weird/experimental and they will go wild! They will be making weird stuff!), they also have plans that they are excited to tell and its been a long time coming (this may be the cake video but i couldnt tell in stream), ranboo bakes a cake 2 will be coming TOMORROW on youtube (23 mins and incredible! they laughed at themself), ranboo plans to do experimental stuff on youtube (they have gotten into film lately!), founder's cut of gen 1 of genloss will be coming out 2-3 months ?? date/end of year, the vtuber ranjacket will be a part of the merch drop prototype at vidcon (physical jacket!), will be doing competitive/events with people (like organized little thing) (content/what it is undetermined) and he wants it to be obscure and random, ranboowaslive will start to ramp up a bit (more clips/compilations to come esp if you dont enjoy long vod watching), ranboo will be eating a nintendo DS cartridge live on stream (a joke!), MORE SURPRISES KEPT AS A SECRET + tiny plans in the works, they are moving into the new place/still have boxes to unpack (vtuber lore), he may finish the last of us part 2, subathon (really like back to back fun streams/long streams/playthrough of long games like omori) in january probably, splatoon may return,

What does the new era mean/qna stuff?

talking about old content is fine as long as you recognize that it is the PAST and not the kind of content ranboo makes now. Do not "put them back in the box".

Vtuber: will not be used all the time. They will do facecam streams too. Depends on how he feels.

why the r800: the 8 looks like a b LMAO

this is just the start of rebrand. He will re-establish a lot, things will be easier to find/reorganized, slowly over the weeks things will be changing.

what will happen tothe alt twitter (ranaltboo)?: new pfp, same energy (see below my shitty sc). art creds to mochi!

not only just a rebrand for him and the look of the content. But also it is a rebrand of how they act around and view their own content. they may not be as in the community as he has been (liking fanart/in chat/etc.) out of recommendation from people! If ranboo needs to be aware of something THEY HAVE PEOPLE to make him aware of important issues/emergencies and they will be focusing more on themself and the content overall. they are thankful to be allowed to do this, as they dont want to keep seeing things they dont want to see/have that anxiety. Less scrolling = more content!

They will probably have longer streams again!

will move to more mature jokes/phrases and may have content labels on the streams. Overall, streams will be pg-13 mostly.

TITS stands for twitch integrated throwing system [insert ranboo's giggle here]

All proceeds donated to ranboo's channel only go to charity! Not to them at all! They have a list of charities that he supports and will be changed 1-3 months at a time like usual!

Please make stuff. This is how he gets ppl who edit and the emote makers/artists. Not forced. Just encouraging ppl who make stuff to make stuff and he appreciates it and loves it! Even if it is not about him just make it! AND SUPPORT ARTISTS BOOBERS!

#ranboo.liveblog #ranboo #ranboolive #main tagging bc this is important i think!#pleek rb if you want!

351 notes · View notes

time-woods · 6 months

Note

ur art is so advanced for a teenager!! have you been taking classes or are you self taught?? :0

self taught for the most part ! i went to a fine arts highschool for 3 years but they focused on traditional art and i already knew the fundamentals so it was mainly experimental and furthering our growth without much external intervention- but all my digital art stuff is self taught- mainly cause i always refuse to watch tutorials on new programs-

(i recommend actually watching stuff cause i only figured out a few months ago that i can color pick the transparent bg and use it with my brushes..)

#asks #im very stubborn when it comes to teaching myself new stuff- aka refusing tutorials until i absolutely have 2 watch them

306 notes · View notes

mysticstronomy · 4 months

Text

WHAT IS QUARK MATTER??

Blog#363

Wednesday, January 3rd, 2024.

Welcome back,

Deep within the atoms that make up our bodies and even within the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei, are tiny particles called quarks

Quarks are the ultimate building blocks of visible matter in the universe.

If we could zoom in on an atom in your body, we would see that it consists of electrons swarming in orbits around a nucleus of protons and neutrons.

And if we could zoom in on one of those protons or neutrons, we'd find that they themselves are made up of a trio of particles that are so small that they have almost no size at all, and are little more than points. These point-like particles are the quarks.

Quarks are elementary particles. Like the electron, they are not made up of any other particles. You could say that they are on the ground floor of the Standard Model of particle physics.

The existence of quarks was first theorized in 1964 in the work of two physicists, Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig, who were both at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) but who came to the conclusion that quarks exist independently of one another. Contrary to how science is often portrayed in the media, Gell-Mann and Zweig's conclusions were not an "a-ha!" moment but were instead built on the back of many years of hard work and careful discoveries by the particle physics community.

By the 1950s, physicists were building up a library of known particles. It was a bit like botany, cataloging the various types and their properties, but what was missing was an underlying theory behind their existence. This theory ultimately became known as the Standard Model, but in order to get there several vital discoveries had to be made, including that of quarks.

Most puzzling was the existence of particles called hyperons, which were unstable and decayed very quickly, but not into the particles they were expected to decay into.

Gell-Mann realized that there must be an unknown quantum property at work, which he named "strangeness" because of the unexpectedness of it all.

Quantum numbers, like strangeness, charge and spin, have to be conserved. If a particle with a specific quantum number decays, then its by-products must add up to those quantum numbers that the decayed particle had. Moreover, the quantum numbers of a given particle have "degrees of freedom" — basically the range of values that these numbers can have.

These degrees of freedom are called multiplets, and the pattern in which these multiplets could be arranged between different particles led Gell-Mann and Zweig to believe that the particles and their multiplets could be explained if each particle was formed from two or three smaller particles.

Zweig called these tiny, elementary particles "aces", but the name didn't catch on.

Gell-Mann, who was ever one for cooky and memorable names, called them quarks, derived from a line in James Joyce's experimental novel, Finnegan's Wake: "Three quarks for Muster Mark!" In the novel, the quarks refer to the three children of the main character, Mr Mark.

These quarks were referred to as "up", "down" and "strange" quarks. The up and down doesn't really refer to anything, while the strange quark had a quantum number of strangeness of –1, hence why it is called "strange", whereas the up and down quarks have a strangeness of 0.

Originally published www.space.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, January 6th, 2024)

"WHAT IS THE SPACE - TIME CONTINUUM??"

#astronomy #outer space #alternate universe #astrophysics #universe #spacecraft #white universe #space #parallel universe #astrophotography

114 notes · View notes

battle-acs-official · 5 months

Text

I'm about to go on a rant about Sasquatch.

I'm not sorry.

So.

Sasquatch. Bigfoot. Big hairy thing in the woods. What is it, and why is it so fucking hard to find?

Honestly, the simplest and most effective answer to basically any question asked about it is: "It's an Ape. Duh."

Okay, what is it? It's an Ape. A Great Ape. What specific branch is unknown, but it DEFINITELY ISN'T A GIGANTOPITHECUS DESCENDANT!!! Giganto was an Orangutan relative and Sasquatch is clearly more related to Apes like Gorilla and Chimpanzee. Stop that. Just because it was big doesn't mean that that's the only animal Sasquatch could be related to.

On the point of bigness, first, Giganto is good precedent for Apes being able to get that big, so the argument that Sasquatch couldn't as big as it's reported to be is already dead.

Why would it get so big, though? Well, why did everything else that came across the Bering land bridge get so damn big? Bountiful resources, need to adapt, freedom for experimental forms to arise due to lack of competition. Everything in the Ice Age Species Exchange did 2 things: Got really fucking big and got really fucking weird, so an ape coming over would experience the same lack of competition and adaptive pressures.

So why would we have such a hard time finding them if they've been here the whole time? Well, for starters, we do find them. Often. You just stick your fingers in your ears, close your eyes, and chant "Hoaxes and Bears! Hoaxes and Bears!". So... That's a you problem. Also, let's put ourselves in the mindset of a Sasquatch for a minute here:

You're a Sasquatch.

You're probably somewhere between Gorilla and Chimpanzee levels of intelligence.

You're hanging out, doing your thing, walking through the woods, and you enter a clearing.

The clearing is full of dead shit, fires and screaming, hairless murderous cryptids that can kill basically anything it wants.

You recognize that this thing is a threat.

You also recognize that they usually stay in or near the plains.

You also recognize that they usually don't come out at night.

You also recognize that if they can see it, they can kill it.

You make the easy connection that the best method for not being killed by these things is to go where they don't (Deep forests and inaccessible mountains) and do your thing when they're inactive (Night).

Now, practice this habit for an absolute bare minimum of the last 10,000 years (the last time the Bering land bridge was accessible, but they likely would have came over on one of the earlier openings, which was up to several million years ago) and you have an animal that is very well adapted to seeing Humans as an existential threat and keeping well the fuck away from them.

Alright, well, if they're real, why haven't we found fossils? ... My guy, do you have any idea how ludicrously difficult it is to find ANY Primate fossils? We have functionally 0 Chimpanzee fossils. We have a handful of teeth for Gorillas. Orangutans, also mostly just a couple dozen teeth. Gigantopithecus, the guy that everyone points to (erroneously) as an ancestor of Sasquatch, is only known from a partial jaw bone. Most of it's anatomy is just speculation.

For all practical purposes, there may as well not be any Primate fossils.

So now tell me why you would expect to find any Sasquatch fossils?

Well, why are primate fossils so hard to find? Forests. For a fossil to be preserved, the animal needs to either be buried swiftly after death in mostly light sediment, like sand and silt, or have their bones picked clean and, still, buried in some form of sediment quickly (like burial in a grave).

Forests rarely ever have such conditions. Most bodies are left in open air, humid, bioactive, scavenger filled conditions with very few chances to be buried (unless they end up falling in a river).

Oh, and North American forests are possibly the worst possible forests for fossil preservation, if for no other reason than fucking porcupines. Little bastards actively EAT BONES. So, yeah, finding fossils in NA forests is nigh impossible for an already nigh impossible animal to expect a fossil from.

Alright, but that doesn't explain why we can't find them. Well, for starters, we do, you guys just call all the witnesses liars, drunks or idiots. And expecting that kind of reaction tends to dampen one's enthusiasm to tell people what you've seen...

... So that's your fault, when you really think about it.

Also, who's gonna fund a multiple years expedition into the most remote reaches of the continent, with people the scientific (ha, ironic) community has made a habit of condemning as quacks and hoaxers, with military grade search and reconnaissance equipment, trying to build an entirely new field of study from scratch, to find an animal that is deliberately, consciously, trying to not be found.

Oh, so you just conveniently just can't find any evidence, but it totally exists? We have hair, which is call hoaxes. We have foot, hand and full body prints, which you call hoaxes. We have dermal ridges (the stuff that makes your fingerprint, but they exist on your hands and feet), which you call hoaxes. We have photos, which you call hoaxes. We have videos, which you call hoaxes. We have audio recordings, which you call hoaxes. We have basically everything short of a physical specimen.

Well then get a physical specimen!

A) Again, they are actively trying to stay away from humans. They likely don't visit the same places twice when they see humans around.

B) Sightings are rare, brief and probably deliberate on the Sasquatch's part as a way to scare you off. You're not going to be running around the forest on your normal hike with a tranquilizer gun to quick-draw at a moment's notice and that animal is definitely not going to let itself be seen for very long.

C) Hunters usually have a habit of NOT shooting the upright, human-shaped things in the woods. Even if it very obviously looks like a Sasquatch, most people would likely hold their fire in case it's an asshole in a suit.

D) Even if you manage to shoot one, do you have a chopper to haul it out? No? Well good luck dragging a 6-10 foot tall, 400-700 pound behemoth out of the woods with nothing but your bare hands.

And finally E) I'd like to at least hope that most people would be hesitant to kill something that looks so much like a human. If you saw a mother and young, could you really bring yourself to killing them?

Any debate is welcome, just be civil.

#sasquatch #bigfoot #yeti #cryptid #cryptids #cryptozoology #cryptozoolologist

108 notes · View notes

teabutmakeitazure · 1 month

Text

Zuri's Declassified University Survival Guide

This is a post about survival tips in university (undergraduate), especially if you're an international student living alone in a different country in this circumstance. I will be adding onto this later on if there's something I want to add, so keep an eye out for update reblogs of this I guess.

General Tips:

it's okay to make mistakes. you are here to learn and grow. no one is perfect, especially in the first and second year of their studies. those are mandatory experimental years. you're not expected to get magically mature and perfect when you get to university (or college for you americans). be kind to yourself and analyse your mistakes instead of beating yourself over them.

don't bother too much about your wardrobe. just wear whatever's comfortable. you might think people care but no one does. more than half of the people at campus will be in sweats or pyjamas and if someone IS dressed up, they're probably arts kids or business majors and they're the ones with the least workload (yes i am dissing you guys I've seen your workloads stop lying).

put yourself in uncomfortable social situations. yes i said that. the only reason i somewhat learnt to make small talk and learnt to talk to strangers is because I go to every single social event that I can. it's not necessary to make friends in all of them. just talk to people, exchange contacts, laugh while the event lasts even if you never see them again. this is how you survive in the lonely dorm life. and if you make an actual good friend? amazing! it paid off. even if it didn't you'll probably network and build rapport and have acquaintances from different majors.

if you're an ethnic minority, don't be afraid. I cannot stress this enough. don't be afraid to be there and take up space. you are there because you deserve to be and qualified. sure, it sucks at times because a good amount of people won't interact with you because you're 'different' but the international students will and trust me they're the coolest bunch to be friends with (I have 0 such friends so far). most times you will have to take the initiative to talk and sometimes they won't respond or worse flat out ignore you but don't let that get you down. just don't interact with them again. the world is big. not everyone will like you and accept you. find the ones that will.

eggs and milk are your best friend. a glass of milk everyday and 2 eggs. make that a staple. eggs are also very versatile for recipes. more on that in the recipes section. also yoghurt. a smol cup of yoghurt everyday too and nuts whenever you can buy them.

always have a few pack of instant noodles at home. sometimes you have deadlines or you forgot to cook or need a quick dinner because there's so much to do and you didn't get groceries. always keep them in stock. they're a quick fix for food. I'm not promoting them for frequent dinner but it's better than starving. just eat the noodles man. there's already so much shit to keep track of just eat the damn noodles.

incorporate veggies into everything food. they're good for you. if you're like me and don't like veggies, experiment with different recipes and find the one you like best. one good way is fried rice or rice with mushrooms, veggies, and meat in the rice cooker (I don't own a rice cooker when I'm writing this). just eat your veggies and thank me later. if you don't wanna cut them up, get a pack of frozen veggies. it's better than nothing. baby steps.

meal plan. if I don't plan my entire week's food on sunday night, I do it the night before for the next day. eat out as less as you can. homemade is better even if you're a horrible cook. practice makes perfect and you'll be grateful for learning a few basic cooking skills along with your degree later on. cooking your own food also gives you the liberty to add more veggies or save money.

treat yourself to stuff sometimes. yes you deserve it even if you don't meet your goals. you're trying. be kind to yourself. get that boba.

study everything done the week by that week's weekend. do the day's content that same day and don't lag behind. utilise reading week and read. don't slack off please I'm begging you. I'll even get on my knees if I have to.

you're gonna miss home and it sucks. yes you will be having your fourth mental breakdown of the week on a wednesday night and you will be alone or hiding under the blanket as your roommate is asleep. you're gonna have to tough it out soldier. I see you and I feel you. it gets easier with time and when you're doing better, you'll feel relieved for toughing through. it's so lonely sometimes and it sucks but it's worth the pain. don't lose hope.

seniors are your friends. they will give you forbidden knowledge for free. from hidden places with good food or convenience things or just life advice exclusive to your institute, they have it all. they're also generally very friendly so don't be afraid to interact with them.

annoy the living hell out of your professor during office hours if need be and utilise the student help room for help. your tutors will be happy to help you so don't be shy to ask for help. they will appreciate you coming to them, trust me. as for your professor, they're lonely people. go to office hours if you need to, chat, ask them what you need. they'll appreciate your presence and happily help you.

the security guards and cleaning staff will be witnesses to your worst states (freshly out of bed or haven't showered in 2 days) but they don't care. they're just happy to be of service and have you around. be kind to them. greet them whenever you pass by.

sometimes coffee is bad.

if your classes start at noon or later, get an hour of exercise in the morning at around 8 or 9 am. the serotonin that will hit you will be unreal. trust me.

make local friends. they're cool people and friendly and very helpful and accommodating. I may be biased but it's true.

being a student helper, student tutor, or a research assistant looks good on your resume and helps you win more scholarships.

put headphones on when in public if you don't want to end up talking to someone you might bump into. it works.

your body also has rights. treat it with care. don't abuse it. nourish it. you should take care of your body like you would a loved one. feed it good things, clean it everyday, and so on. when you feel good by taking care of yourself, you still do better and feel more confident. wash your hair with a set schedule and use good products.

make your wardrobe easier. hang your usual shirts and maybe wear the one in front each day, the previous day's being hung in the back or in the laundry basket. it saves time.

there's no shame in not having stuff. I still don't own a proper laundry basket it all goes into an IKEA bag. you live in a dorm, not a house. sometimes not having every single kind of furniture or accessory isn't bad. don't compare your setup to others. if it's convenient, clean, and homey, it's good. you don't need those expensive lights or those expensive posters to make it seem cool. what you have and what you may collect among the way is enough.

notes on paper are better than laptop or ipad

take breaks. be kind to yourself. it is you for yourself. treat yourself with love.

manage your time by designating time blocks to a certain task. it might not always work but it will help create some discipline in the routine.

having a set everyday routine helps. you don't have to think what to do, thus saving you brain power.

use a semester planner for deadlines and important information. it's useful. I highly recommend. I also have a template if anyone wants.

write down your thoughts, what's bothering you, your feelings, everything on a piece of paper or journal at the end of the day. it'll help process your emotions and you won't have to let the thoughts and emotions fester inside you, slowly simmering and coming to a boil. remember, you are your best friend.

Recipes to help you stay afloat (they're all quick and easy dw):

right off the bat I want to say boiled jasmine rice with sunny side up eggs. you drizzle a pinch of salt onto the yolk, break it over the rice, mix it with the rice and eat it and it's just *chef's kiss*. definitely a comfort food and a very easy quick dinner.

a lot of these I found while scrolling through instagram and some are from when I was trying to lose weight. hope they're helpful!

oyakodon

one pot rice cooker rice with veggies

veggie and meat single serve in one pot

chicken wrap (primarily for weight loss I think)

chicken gyros (this guy makes amazing food)

minced meat weight loss meal prep

chickpeas (chana masala. this shit is bussin i swear)

something tomato + onion + egg

one pot veggie rice (recommended)

chicken shawarma (not dorm friendly cooking but looks delicious)

egg sandwich in one pan

potato marraka (THIS IS SO GOOD)

one pot rice cooker with meat and veggies

daal

chicken and rice

pizza style chicken wrap

five different chicken marinades for meal prep

one pot biryani

takeout style egg fried rice

rice cooker carbonara

one pot yoghurt curry chicken rice

weight loss chicken shawarma

healthier mac and cheese

chicken fajita

chicken tikka masala crunch tacos

one pan braised eggs

air fryer garlic bread pizza

another veggie and rice in rice cooker

fried rice recipe

hainanese inspired chicken rice in rice cooker

tomato orzo(?)

creamy tomato pasta

tomato and egg rice

mushroom sauce (can be eaten with rice)

creamy tomato tortellini

grilled cheese sandwich

#yes im referring to ned's declassified school survival guide #damn i miss that show #this is more for myself than anyone else #i got to compile all the recipes with this as an excuse nice #anyway hope this helped #i know I'm a yandere writing blog but i can also be helpful sometimes #zuri's declassified university survival guide #took me 2 hours but meh #college tips #university tips

44 notes · View notes

stay-midnight · 1 year

Text

Unreleased Draft #4: A Journey Through the Cosmos

Android Hwang Hyunjin x Male Reader

Synopsis: Humans went extinct decades ago, Y/N found himself waking up in an unfamiliar place with no memories of what happened, only an android and a possible second human to keep him company.

A/N • My attempt at writing third person POV i was having a hard time at this! This was suppose to be my 200 Followers special huhu but I didn't manage to finish it at that time it was long ago as well like 2021 probably😭

Author Ratings:

Plot/Idea on Scratch - 9/10, I am a sucker for sci-fi and I eat it up regularly, haha Im a science nerd what can I say I hope to do more sci fi in the futuree writing.

Writing at that time - 7/10, kinda good for a first attempt at third person but generally I dont like third person povs with x reader fics 😭! I think my wording is owkay here.

Writeability / Needed Creativity - 0/10, my love for sci fi is not comparable to my ability to actually write them, my limit is tentacle alien smut HAHAHAHA 😭.

Total Darkness.

Completely Fading.

That was all Y/N could feel, well for now I guess.

Years and years have passed in his cold sleep, that is until it was finally time.

“Wh— Where am I...?” He mumbled out, the light at the ceiling was blinding and once he sat up the chill that was surrounding him gradually disappeared. He turned to the side and noticed he was in some sort of container.

“A hospital?” He thought, weirded a bit at the moment.

He sat up straight and look around his surroundings, his blurry vision from the blinding light before now much clearer to him.

He was in a white room, like clean and pure white with lines of silver engraved on the wall.

What caught his attention though was another person, standing with his head bent as if he was nodding. “What is this place...”

Is he in heaven? In a experimental facility? He had a lot of questions surging through his nerves.

Where am I?

The male inside the opened ‘container’ stretched his muscles before standing up and walking over to the weird person.

He tapped his shoulder, Once. Twice.

Then the mysterious person looked up at the one who disturbed his sleep then spoke.

“Select a mode, human: Helper Mode, Human Mode, Guard Mode, Lover Mode.” He said without blinking and in a monotone voice.

The last option made the male widen his eyebrows in confusion as silence reigns over both of you for a few moment as he took in his appearance; sharp jaw, plump and huge lips, cat eyes, big nose and clear skin. He’s too perfect, what the hell.

His eyes were glowing a blue hue which fascinated the male until he opened those lips of his again, “Again, human please select a mode: Helper Mode, Huma—”

“Helper Mode.... Wait, are you a robot?” Said the fascinated one, scratching his head at what exactly is happening.

“Very well then.” He accepts before his blue irises turned into green, emerald glowing ones.

“As I was assigned to helper mode, I will do my best to attend to your needs whether you have questions or just want me to do a certain action that will benefit you.” he explained briefly and looked at the human before him for any signs of questions to his statement.

“Forgive me, Y/N for I haven’t introduced myself properly yet.”

He knows my name..?

“I am an android, for typically I don’t have a name — but my creator always called me Hyunjin. I was created to serve the last humans. You and whoever is inside that.” he stated, pointing to the other container right next to you before giving a beautiful smile.

“L-Last humans? This isn’t some kind of prank is it? Is this some kind of test..?” Y/N asked with a trembling voice and shocked eyes as he gnaw on his bottom lip.

The android smile faded, “No. You are both the last of civilization. Planet Earth was destroyed 79 earth years ago.” he asked his voice still barely holding emotions but empty.

Y/N tried to calm your head down before asking more questions again, “Where are we then? If Earth got destroyed.” You breathed out trying to process information.

“We are currently in what the Creator called the ‘Mothership’” Hyunjin hummed before sighing and made a hand signal inching Y/N to move forward and you did.

He swiped his hand and a hologram appeared behind Y/N, he looked back and stared at the figure in awe. “Is this where we are?” He spoke reaching out to the it only for the tips of his fingers to pass through it.

Hyunjin nodded, “Yes.”

~∆~

The ship looked a bit like a submarine of some sort. It looked cool but what was worrying about is how this ship works, like a car using fuel? Or just collecting the space dust - turning it into usable gas. he might have to ask Hyunjin later.

“Oh, you mentioned something about different modes you have - what exactly to they do?” Y/N spurred.

“Helper Mode is helping those in need either by medical or informational problems. Human Mode is where a personality to be built and be processed. Also to adapt. Guard mode is for fighting and protecting and lastly Lover mode is for me to give people’s physical needs by affection or to entertain sexual desires.” He explained once more thoroughly with a handsome smile on his face.

“Now, please take a rest. I am going to standby here to wait for the second human.” Hyunjin said but more in a concerning look.

“I have been asleep for seven decades and you still expect me to sleep?” Y/N pouted and looked at him with a glare. Hyunjin paid no mind and just nodded. Before standing still and looked at the other container.

Is it okay if—

“Hyunjin, switch to Human Mode if you may.” Y/N mumbled lowly but somehow Hyunjin’s advanced hearing caught on.

The android looked at Y/N before his emerald irises turned into brown orbs, looking more human so to speak. “As Human Mode was activated, I will do my best to communicate, learn and interact to add to my data and help build a complex human personality.” He said with a warm smile, taking a seat at the corner.

Wow, he seems more like a different person.

~∆~

Y/N played with his fingers in absolute boredom as you waited for the container to open.

“Hey Hyunjin? How long till that open?” He said in a frustrated tone, sighing afterwards.

“Not much long..” Hyunjin sighs with bored look on his face as he turned to the male walking in circles, deep in thought.

“In the meantime, Hyunjin, may I— uh, explore the ship?” Y/N spoke in a thrilled tone as his orbs was filled with curiousity.

“I would recommend you to stay put but as long as you stay in vicinity of this room, it should be okay since it’s easy to get lost in the ship here. O- Oh.. take this if your going.” He smiled meekly, standing up but somehow the other man couldn’t take his eyes off on how the android moves his thick and plump lips while he’s chattering.

~∆~

“Y/N..? Hello Y/N to ship?” He waves his hand on your face, laughing at you.

Y/N stared at him incredulously, silently judging his slighty robotic laugh. “Is that normal?”

“Uh....” he trailed before clearing his throat and laughing again this time more realistic.

The human smiled at it but forgot that Hyunjin was giving him omething, due to the absurd amount of time used to check the non-human.

“Take this if your going.” he said pulling something out of his pocket - a badge?

Wha—

#kpop x male reader #stray kids x male reader #midnight posts #kpop x reader #skz x male reader #skz imagines #skz scenarios #skz x reader #hwang hyunjin x male reader #hyunjin x male reader #kpop imagines #x reader #x male reader #male reader #kpop fic

168 notes · View notes

auccultist-art · 10 months

Text

artfight has been artfighting here's my attacks so far this year! i just moved house so i was busy the first few days, but since i'm without wifi now in a new place, i've had a lot of time to work on some artfight attacks

all of these are experimental but im pretty happy with them! got more sketches too im planning on working on 0:

#artfight2023 #furry #furry art #furry character #furry oc #furrydrawing #auccultist #wolf art #wolf #fursona #artfight #team werewolf #team werewolves #art fight 2023 #horse art #dragon art #furry anthro

92 notes · View notes

doctordragon · 4 months

Text

He's caused the world to almost end by releasing a fascist war criminal in an alternate timeline because he thought it was a good idea. He's stabbed an old god with a knife and killed it. He's eaten the heart of a demigod. The first thing he did upon being born was instruct someone to murder all his siblings, the start of a genocide he conducted on his own species at the tender age of 0. He betrayed his only friend only for the result to be the world he's so desperately trying to protect stabbed through the heart and bleeding out. He's an alcoholic. He's the product of rape, incest, and experimentation. He doesn't think he's capable of being loved. He went to the wisest beings in the continent for blessings and they had him beaten half to death with an image of his father. He's just a baby who throws tantrums and wrecks an inn when the Alliance king refuses more years of bloody conflict. He punches bones when his brother insults him. He gives you so many legendary cloaks that he has a closet full of them. You (the player) are arguably his closest friend in the whole world.

Wrathion is simply the best character ever.

#wrathion #world of warcraft #wow #i hate warcraft but where tf else am i supposed to find a character like wrathion

42 notes · View notes

itsbenedict · 4 months

Text

Games I Played In 2023 And Whether Or Not I Thought They Were Good (Part 1/4)

Once again, a year has passed, and I spent a considerable chunk of it on video games! Here's what I thought about [e: some of] the ones that I played.

1 - [2] - [3] - [4]

Potionomics

This game is- well, I've never played a Recettear game, but apparently it's a Recettear knockoff? You run a potion shop, and you hire adventurers to go into dungeons to get ingredients for your potion shop, and the whole thing's on a timer where you have to pay off a big debt by the end... apparently there's a formula it's aping that I'm unfamiliar with.

But it's very fun- it's got two main unique mechanics, one of which is a potion-brewing minigame about balancing ingredients in certain ratios which is challenging- and the other of which is an STS-style deckbuilder card game where you haggle with customers in lieu of combat. Both systems have a lot of depth and interesting options and I enjoyed them a lot.

Other standouts: the cast of support characters you can rank up social links with are great (love love love the coffee-addled workaholic moth girl and the comic relief cat pirates with a surprisingly dark backstory), and the fully-animated 3D character portraits are really fun and expressive.

Nitpicks: the time system having one time block reserved for the hour it takes to go home after visiting town is... an awkward choice (holdover from the Recettear structure they're aping?), and lategame you kind of cap out in potion-making capacity and it becomes kind of tricky to progress. Also the story's kinda predictable and the villains who don't later become party members are paper-thin.

Horizon: Forbidden West

God this game pisses me off.

Horizon: Zero Dawn, its predecessor, was a fun open-world game about hunting robot dinosaurs and uncovering the surprisingly elaborate story behind why there are robot dinosaurs. I enjoyed it a lot!

Forbidden West has everything Zero Dawn had... and also mountains of tedious cruft to pad out the game's runtime which all infuriates me to no end.

The story is still quite good! And the robot dinosaur fighting is still quite good! Those are the important parts, and they nailed them... but I have complained at my friends for hours about the bafflingly bad design choices that plague every other aspect of this game constantly. It's... there's so much, I want to like, make a video going into the details, but in short...

The cool and versatile weapons from the last game have been split up into piles of slightly-different weapons with different elements so you have to carry around and upgrade ten times as much crap and are forced to spec into a build that locks you out of effective experimentation

Every little noncombat action in the game has some very realistic and pretty AAA graphics animation that takes too long and wastes your time constantly during basic gameplay and kills flow dead

The very cool procedural climbing mesh thing... gets arbitrarily turned off in inexplicably oiled-up puzzle ruins that very badly want you to push a crate around in every way it's possible to push a crate around in order to waste the maximum amount of your time

Cooking "system" which is the most comprehensively useless thing anyone probably spent dozens of hours implementing in their video game

Item wheel that contains every consumable item in the game regardless of whether you currently have any and is basically unnavigable during tense situations like, say, combat, when you need it

So many repetitive sidequests about some poor fucker who went missing and might be in danger and is every single time dead to a bunch of robot dinosaurs obviously. Lot of missions designed to kill time rather than show you something cool or have interesting story.

There's a lot to like and it's super cool but god there's so much to be mad at. Respects the player's time 0%. I'm gonna go off about this more later for sure.

Disco Elysium

Oh my god, this game. It's... really something. You might be familiar with it from memes on Tumblr, about its comically inept slash deranged protagonist and his partner with the patience of a saint- but it's doing so much more than I expected from the out-of-context screencaps.

Like- yes, it's fucking hilarious. I love that about it. But it's also this incredibly detailed work of worldbuilding that creates this whole setting that's doing... some wild stuff. Like, you've maybe heard it's very political? Well, it is, but about weird alternate universe sci-fi politics that sort of halfway resemble our own, and it's thought through all of these invented social dynamics. And it's got a great sense of atmosphere- it knows when to be funny and when to be solemn and how to blend the two for maximum effect. It's a dark comedy, but it's all built on a dead-serious reality and a really effective story.

And- it is a murder mystery game about solving cases! It works very well on that level! It manages to be open-ended and let you solve things in a variety of different ways using this complex RPG stat system of creatively-designed psychological stats, while making sure the central whodunit (and a bevy of fascinating satellite mysteries) stays on track. Extremely good on a game design level.

(also some shit happens in this game that i was not at all expecting and can't even go into without spoilers, but- but holy fuck, the way this game opens up and the things it manages to hide in plain sight... just mind-boggling. incredibly impressive.)

Tunic

Speaking of hiding things in plain sight- neither this nor Disco Elysium came out this year, so I can't call either of them GotY, but... if they had, I'd have a hard time deciding.

Tunic is incredibly clever. On the surface, it's an isometric soulslike thing with a low-poly Zelda-y aesthetic... but there's not just the surface. There's layers and layers to this thing. The first layer it hits you with is that most of the game's UI is in a made-up rune script, which you have to learn, which is a fun challenge and caused me to spend a few hours making a tool to catalogue and decrypt the damn thing- though I eventually learned to sight-read it. But that's just- that's like, the tip of the iceberg, the most obvious twist to what this game is.

There's, like... I don't want to spoil what there's like. The whole thing is about peeling back the layers and figuring out which seemingly arbitrary aesthetic choices were secretly meaningful, and seeing how the game transforms as you figure out the different sorts of secret structure layered on top of each other. It's actually best compared to The Witness, although there's still a pretty meaty and challenging action-adventure game to tackle while you're uncovering the hidden patterns and deepest lore. It's a fascinating intellectual challenge and highly recommended to anyone who likes giving their noggin something to chew on.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Man, so... this game is very impressive, but it's in a weird place due to some awkward design decisions and cut corners.

This is a direct sequel to smash megahit Breath of the Wild... sort of. It's very weird what it's doing. It really wants to be a self-contained thing, to the point of throwing out major setting elements and story concepts from BotW entirely so it can do its own thing... but on a mechanical level, this is the same game, with some very cool new mechanics and a cool-ish new story bolted on.

(Said story... it has one extremely cool plot twist that's also a gameplay twist, delivered effectively in a nonlinear way that creates this great sense of dawning comprehension. Otherwise... kind of a nothingburger. Ganondorf is boring and has no coherent motivation, there's no explanation or real plot relevance to the [spoilers] that seem like such a central thing, and... the whole thing revolves around a technologically advanced precursor civilization that's completely different from the technologically advanced precursor civilization established by the last game, of which all evidence has been meticulously scrubbed from the world to... I guess avoid confusion? The one huge central plot beat really works, and the rest is... low-effort nonsense.)

So, mechanically... the developers made this very odd choice to... have the game take place in the exact same map from the first game, except warped and remixed by geologic upheaval just enough to force the environment designers to redo every bit of landscape more or less from scratch. Like, all the same recognizable locations, but a step to the left. In theory, not a bad idea- but then they layer on top of that a threefold expansion to the world.

TotK has three world maps- Hyrule, the sky (full of floating islands now), and a third spoilery area that's the same size as both of those. The game's economy is thus weirdly trifurcated- crucial resources are located in all three areas, so you need to go up and down and up and down a lot. And so is the game's content- there's a roughly comparable amount of stuff in BotW and TotK, but TotK splits it across three maps, making each area feel largely empty, with a lot of wasted space.

This effect is especially noticeable in Hyrule, which... if you've played BotW, you won't really find anything new there. It's all the same places with a few tweaks, so there's not much sense of discovery if you played the original. There's a bunch of landmarks and areas that exist purely because they were there before and it'd be weird for them to disappear... except now instead of some secret or loot there, there's just nothing. Wasted space. And both the sky and the other new map are pretty homogeneous and unrewarding to explore once you've seen the four or five types of things they have to offer- they're mainly made up of recycled assets.

TotK is... I think strictly better than BotW, with more content and more fun core mechanics, but it's a worse experience than BotW if you played the first one. If you haven't played BotW, Hyrule will still be fun to explore, and you probably want to jump straight to TotK.

I'm... gonna have to break this post up to get to the 21 other games I played this year, otherwise it's gonna be stupid long and take forever. Stay tuned!

1 - [2] - [3] - [4]

#game rec #tunic #disco elysium #potionomics #totk #horizon forbidden west

33 notes · View notes

kalak · 11 months

Text

Luke/mara fic rec list

These are some of the best mara/luke fics I've read - feel free to add more in rb/comments!

Repair by BananasAreForParties - Graphic Depictions of violence, fluff and angst, whump. 20k complete. Mara Jade came to Aran to trade. She acquires nutcakes, Imperials, and one Luke Skywalker, condition: damaged. Hurt/Comfort fic.

Reccer's note: Their awkward but geniune flirting in this is so cute

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, You Aren’t Even Stuck In Your Tower by PrinceJakeFireCake - fluff, secret identity, 6k complete. Mara Jade, an ex-spy for the dragon, Emperor Palpatine, now a knight of Princess Leia Organa, is on a mission to rescue the princess’ twin brother from the tower he was locked in.

A.K.A.

Someone had to write Luke as Rapunzel and I am someone

Limpet AU series by frodogenic - humor, family fluff, 89k complete. Newly returned from the Unknown Regions with Darth Vader, Admiral Piett doesn't expect much of a welcome from the New Republic. And not in a million lifetimes would he have predicted that their very first guest would be Luke Skywalker. After all, Skywalker and Vader are still mortal enemies...right?

Reccer's Note: this series is so good, like, insanely good. I keep rereading it.

Take My Breath Away by atamascolily - hanahaki disease, 1k complete. Luke collapses during a sparring session, coughing up blood--and flowers? A concerned Mara drags him to Cilghal for medical treatment, but the answers aren't what either of them expected.

Catch and Release by frangipani - rated E, sexual experimentation, 10k complete. So let me get this straight," Mara says."You decided that to entertain yourself while I'm offplanet you're going to get licensed to pilot a Mon Cal cruiser?"

He frowns. "You say it like it’s ridiculous.”

"Those ships aren't even made for human pilo--" She narrows her eyes. "Oh no, it's the challenge thing, isn’t it?"

Or the one where Luke and Mara try to bang while keeping Luke's pulse within a specific range. Absolutely 0 science knowledge went into this. Consider yourself warned.

Who Needs a Cover Anyway? by JediDryad - misunderstandings, jealousy, 1k complete. Against his better judgment, Luke agrees to act as "Jedi Ambassador" on a mission with Mara and Lando. Will he be able to keep his feelings to himself or will observing their relationship be too much?

Miscommunications by JediDryad - misunderstandings, 849 words complete. Luke sends Mara a nervous rambling message inviting her for a visit. What she receives is something quite different.

Family Planning for the Force-Sensitive by beautifultoastdream - domestic, fluff, 13k complete. Two years after Exar Kun is defeated, Mara Jade and Luke Skywalker are married. Mara is uneasily settling into life as a Jedi trainee and as the New Republic's representative to the Smugglers' Alliance. But when Karrde's vornskrs have a strange reaction to her during a routine meeting, Mara learns that something else is about to happen ... And it scares her more than C'baoth.

Slight AU from Star Wars Legends, fluff and angst.

The Trouble with Bootie Comms by frangipani - 3k complete. "I have an issue with my apartment right now," Luke said. Mara was pretty sure why.

Luminous Creatures by celinamarniss - daemons, action/adventure, enemies to friends to lovers, 30k complete. Mara has never been prouder when Asyr settles early. He shifts into the form of a night felinx when Mara is thirteen, a whole year early. It’s a good body for stealth, her trainers tell her, and praise them for it.

Luke is the last of his friends to have his dæmon settle. Speculation drifts through his childhood. What sort of animal do you think your dæmon will choose? asked by adults with indulgent smiles and between children as their dæmons flit from form to from in impromptu races across the desert sand.

Strange Bedfellows series by celinamarniss - action/adventure, humor, light angst, 37k complete.

Reccer's Note: this series has a very domestic couple feel to it and I love that.

Under the cover of Darkness by randomlyimagine - time travel, fix-it, 57k complete...ish. (there's a sequel that is tbc.) Being pulled back through in time, getting to see the Old Jedi Order, Ben, even Anakin Skywalker, before he Fell…it was an opportunity Luke had never dreamed he’d have.

If only he and Mara hadn’t been pulled back in the middle of a mission where they were undercover as Sith.

slipping into the ground or into your arms by BananasAreForParties - rated E. Fluff and angst, mutual pining, implied/referenced child abuse, 41k complete. More than colleagues. Less than friends. Better than acquaintances. They remain in balance. The Command, the dark whisper, slumbers and Mara has no desire to poke a sleeping rancor. To dance with Skywalker. . .could it ever be worth the risk?

Mara and Luke succumb to the gradual formation of their Force bond through an activity far more pleasing than fighting for their lives.

the history books forgot about us by celinamarniss - happy AU, 2k complete. Jedi apprentice Asha is sent on a quest to find the legendary Luke Skywalker. She thought he was a myth!

better tell 'em while they're here by philthestone - 4k complete. Jacen discovers a Fish in the new fountain just outside of the Old Palace's reception hall, which obviously means that the Imps are planning to take over the galaxy. Jaina thinks that everything would be alright if only Nik could remember where he put his pants.

And of course, Uncle Luke's getting married today.

(AU for the EU)

Reccer's note: recommend reading the whole series. This fic has such a human warm fuzziness to it.

Boundaries series by frangipani - rated E, smut, 106k complete. A year after the events of the Last Command, Mara is still in Coruscant attempting to fulfill her Smuggler's Alliance duties while continuing her Jedi training. Former Emperor's Hand, turned smuggler, government liaison, and Jedi apprentice...she's long known that the only way things work in the new life she's made for herself is through clearly delineated boundaries.

It's really too bad Luke Skywalker unwittingly keeps taking them apart.

The Son of Suns trilogy by blank101 (link to each installment: Into the Storm, in shadows and darkness, at the Brink of the dawn and the darkness) - graphic depictions of torture, psychological torture, sith!Luke. 721k complete. Darth Vader captures the passengers of the Millennium Falcon after their attempted escape at Cloud City, sure that Luke will convert to his cause and aid him in overthrowing the Emperor. When his plan is rebuffed he falls back on more desperate measures and hands his son over to Palpatine, who begins to systematically take apart Luke’s life to create a new Sith, turning him against his allies, his father and his beliefs with devastating consequences for both the Empire and the Alliance, as events cascade beyond anyone's control.

This is a completed trilogy, featuring Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Palpatine, Han Solo, Leia Organa, Mara Jade, Mon Mothma, and Crix Madine.

Reccer's note: I really love this one - both for the sith!Luke portrayal, and the conflicts luke and Mara go through.

Drive You Mild by obaona - sith!Luke, drama/romance, 70k complete. How do two powerful, individualistic people who were formerly enemies unite? Emperor Luke Skywalker, meet Jedi Knight Mara Jade.

Misc - archive sites/author recommendations

Mara and luke archives

Utopicworld.net

LiveJournal community

Jedimordsith, frangipani, JediDryad, celinamarniss, BananasAreForParties, and evilmouse are all great writers and you should check them out!

#luke skywalker #mara jade #skyjade #lukemara #maraluke #star wars legends #my ramblings #fic recs

90 notes · View notes