#‘’enough—’’ ENOUGH IS STUPID AND SUBJECTIVE AND A CONSTRUCT

[carmineskiesandspidereyes]

I will not succumb to the “I did my best and it was not enough” mindset I will not succumb to the “I did my best and it was not enough” mindset I will not succumb to the “I did my best and it was not enough” mindset I will not succumb to the “I did my best and it was not enough” mindset I will not succumb to the “I did my best and it was not enough” mindset I will n

[deafenedsaltwater]

Closeups w info under cut

Someone comes into Airy's office, and they get stared at, and then he misdiagnoses their issue/gives them a bunch of crackers saying, "You're hungry." No matter what you come in with, if it isn't a visible injury, Airy assumes you haven't eaten enough

Mephone4 and affiliated TAs probably run all the computer related classes as well, depending on curriculum, including coding classes, keyboarding, and classes that are just for certification (ex. Microsoft..?? Idk I took that class like last year. I miss coding classes, but the teacher SUCKED!!)

Mepad... we've all had the very, very tall TA who just wants to help, yeah? That's Mepad

Mephone4 DOES NOT want to do this with his life. He spends any time he can to watch reality TV and puts 'Just Dance' on for any grade level students

4S surprisingly would have knowledge imo. He'd call the students stupid and give them the harshest feedbsck, but he'd get the job done. Most definitely a shouter.

Floory would be along for the ride. Go, Floory, unqualified TA goals!!

Animatic runs every Psychical Ed Class. Works students to the bone, does the workouts alongside them, and still has energy to be found taking a jog after school

Crayon box's subject was an easy pick... the crayons would be TAs, I just didn't have the room for them, so I gave her the earrings !!

Popcorn sucks at his whole thing. She'll assign roles and stuff but give no notes or constructive criticism. Always arguing worthless shit over the phone in class, something wild happening every other day

Daddy Longerson is band because Sacri makes music. Also, he doesn't play an instrument. He does acappella. (Cue the elimination theme)

All of Clock's classes would start with "IT'S TIME FOR THE TIME," and then they'd say, "The world spins round, and time... time-"

Underrated X fact, also why I think of em as genderfluid >:]

X relies on positive reinforcement for teaching, whereas Four goes for verbal punishment, etc. X still isn't good at math. Just relies on Four, but the students still like X more for being nice.

Donut was probably a substitute teacher, Two is off being a luncher, Announcer may or may not be the principal. Idk, I haven't seen bfdi, bfb, tpot, etc, just algebralien comps.

[cannebady]

The worst thing by far about all the fuckin' fur was how hot it was when he'd get properly nervous. It was mostly annoying, Husk thought, because he never used to get this fuckin' nervous, but these days he feels like he sweats through his fur at least every other day.

It's a byproduct of exposure to Angel Dust, he thinks (and fuck is the spider aptly named). Initially, it was anger that got him heated, being subjected to the spider trampling on his painstakingly constructed boundaries, then it was the realization that under the performance, Anthony was a spitfire with a vulnerable streak a mile wide and legs even longer. In other words, Husk's fuckin type, both topside and in Hell.

Which brings him to now; sweating through his fuckin bowtie as he paces outside Angel's room, hands so damp that the fuckin' paper wrapped around the stupid bouquet that he couldn't not buy for a certain leggy demon was getting damp and who the fuck wanted to open their door to see a sweaty, anxious, drunk failure of an overlord handing them damp shitty flowers?

Probably not the prettiest guy Husk has ever laid eyes on. His best guy, even if only in his own head.

But he'd heard Angel and Vaggie talking about her plans for her anniversary with Charlie and how much Charlie loves getting flowers. Angel's eyes had sparked up a bit, mentioning that he used to bring those home for his mother and sister, back when he'd been alive, but hadn't ever received any.

Husk knew how to spot a weak spot, and Angel was projecting to anyone paying attention, "I'm a hopeless romantic that would burst into heart shaped confetti if someone gave me flowers" and the thought hadn't left Husk's mind since.

So on his way back to the hotel, when he'd spotted a white and blush bouquet that reminded him of fur he wanted to dig his claws into and-

Well.

So he bought the stupid fuckin' flowers and now he's being a big fuckin' coward again as he's still pacing and sweating and definitely not knocking on the door and saying, "You deserve only the best, baby", and handing the (sweaty, damp, probably embarrassing) bouquet to the guy he spends every waking moment thinking about.

It's not that he even expects anything to come of it. He has nothing to offer besides a well mixed drink and an ear to bend, so he hasn't got any expectations, he just thinks that maybe someone should make Angel feel a bit less like he exists only in service to others. And sure, maybe in his drunkest flights of fancy lately he thought that maybe, just maybe, he could be the kind of guy to get a gift like Angel and care for it. Care for him.

Stupid.

He should just leave the flowers against the door.

Yeah.

But as he drops them against the door, cringing at the sweaty paw stain against the soft pink paper, the door moves inward and there he is.

Nine feet of the most gorgeous man Husk's ever been so close to, ever been lucky enough to be close to, staring at him with wide eyes and fuck, he's gotta get out of here.

"I-" he starts, but his coward voices fucks off to parts unknown, leaving only his rapid breathing and the distant sounds of the Pride ring to fill the space.

"Heya Husky," Angel says, sounded a little breathless himself.

Don't think about that.

"What's all this?" he finishes and is staring right at Husk as he tries to figure out an explanation that doesn't turn him into a pathetic creep with a hopeless crush. Fuck he's too old for this.

"Saw 'em, thought you might like' em," he settles on. True, but vague.

Coward.

"Ya got me flowers, Whiskers?" Angel says, voice a bit high, tight. His eyes are blown wide, and his mouth is open a little, like he can't get enough air in and Husk understands because he stopped breathing himself the moment the door opened.

He doesn't respond right away. Husk's been a gambling man since before Hell. Maybe this is worth gambling in, because Angel looks about a second from collapsing in his own doorway and there are only so many things that could mean.

He stands, pressing the bouquet into Angel's second set of hands, damn the fuckin' sweat and anxiety. The only way forward is though and it's the only honest way to go.

"You deserve beautiful things, sweetheart." he says, channeling a man he once was, that had the right words and tone to make someone look his way, to make them feel seen.

Those mismatched eyes go huge and glassy, and Husk is about a quarter of the way to a panic attack before he's pulled into the tightest hug he's ever experienced.

"Ya can't say things like that and expect me not ta squeeze ya, Husky," Angel murmurs into his neck, sets of arms wrapping Husk up entirely, fingers dug into his fur (he hopes he isn't too sweaty, hopes he's nice to touch).

"You deserve to hear nice things too," he whispers, and his voice is low and strained, fuckin' obviously besotted.

He feels all those lanky limbs tremble a bit (oh fuckin', Christ his knees are weak, I did that, fuck), before he decides to give into his impulse to drag his claws through that fluffy hair that's always falling into Angel's (gorgeous, incomparable, hypnotizing) eyes.

"Husk," Angel nearly whines, breathing going a bit funny at that and Husk decides to roll the dice one last time.

"Fuck it. Can I kiss you, Legs?" he says, aiming for sexy and ending up closer to desperate.

There's a shit starting grin creeping across that beautiful face when he pulls back to wait for Angel's response.

"I dunno Husky, can you?" Angel snarks and oh fuck him (literally, figuratively, any fuckin' way).

"Brat," he breathes before he pulls down to align their mouths and oh fuckin' fuck that's good.

Angel's lips are syrupy soft and sweet, tasting of vanilla and peaches and all of the good things pieces of shit like Husk shouldn't get to taste. He makes a perfect huffing whine right into Husk's mouth and he has to pull back before he loses his composure entirely.

He wants Angel, wants to show him what it's like to have someone only aim to please him, and he will, he thinks. Just not yet.

He cups the side of Angel's face, giving him one last kiss before pulling back.

Angel's eyes are half lidded and he looks like every wet dream Husk's ever had. This isn't Angel Dust, the porn star. This is Anthony, and he's fuckin' perfect.

He reaches down and tangles his claws with one of Angel's hands, rubbing a thumb along a soft cheek bone.

"Have dinner with me," he says.

"Ya wanna have dinner," Angel says, "after a kiss like that?"

"I want to do a whole lot more," he replies because he knows Angel wants to hear it and, fuck it, he wants Angel to know it. "But I want to do this right. So, dinner tomorrow?"

Angel is looking at him like he's trying to solve a very difficult riddle. It goes on long enough that he wonders if he should apologize for overstepping. Fuck knows he's not in his right mind (how could he be, standing so close to Angel like this).

But then it's like the sun breaks through and he gets one of those rare, fuckin' stunning, smiles.

"Yeah, I'll have dinner with ya, kitten," he says, breathless and playful.

"Alright then, it's a date," he says, just so that Angel knows what he's offering (so he knows it's being accepted), "Wear something nice. I ain't takin' you to any kinda dive." Because he wants that to be clear too.

He can be a gentleman, when he's fucked to be.

"Oh," Angel says and he's blushing high up on his cheeks and Husk can fucking feel the heat of it.

He raises up onto his toes to kiss one of those honeyed blushes, before bestowing another kiss to the back of the hand he's still holding.

"Goodnight, sweetheart," he says before forcing himself to walk away (lest he never leave at all).

He only looks back once he's ready to turn the corner down the hallway, and sees Angel brushing his cheek where Husk's lips had been and cradling the flowers to his chest as gently as he does with Fat Nuggets.

Maybe Husk's onto something here. Maybe caring for (loving, because that's what it is whether he's ready to name it or not) Angel is something he'll be good at. Fuck knows the spider makes it easy.

If he weren't a very jaded, former overlord he'd be skipping back to his room on a fuckin' cloud.

As it is, there's just a little pep in his step, like some of the weight of the world's been lifted from his shoulders.

[parisoonic]

I'm in love with how you draw characters (especially when you draw sniperscout and demoman in general), I'm unsure if you've answered a question like this before, but how do you figure out what to do with face shapes? It's hard to explain but the way you over-exaggerate certain features to make their design pop is so cool to me and I've never been able to do it for myself. That, and making faces look like.. well, faces.

thank you so much!!! hopefully i'm understanding you right...

Regarding the face shapes in TF2...we're all standing on the shoulders of the (excellent) design work already done and laid out. The characters have really nice distinct face shapes with some general overlap before you even consider that a lot of them have facial accessories which you can pick and choose from to help push facial silhouettes and peel apart characters that are a little similar.

Naff threshold filter heads to show silhouettes lol In order to exaggerate them - it's mainly about pushing and pulling the existing proportions and ratios of their faces IE: Making Medic's/Soldier's/Heavy's stupid large-chins even longer but sacrificing some of their forehead or eye-region. Varied proportions have a lot of 'rhythm' or 'appeal' and typically the human face can break down into the forehead (+ hair), eyes (I like to do a Batman style mask but people will often use the nose to form a triangle too) and then....everything else (chin, cheek etc).

Soldier, Heavy and Sniper all have REALLY similar proportional ratios but their silhouettes are really different (in both the x and z). When you add in that the 'default' way to view Soldier and Sniper is with their accessories they're all really nice and different. Funnily enough Sniper's 'eye mask' is teeny tiny with his visors off but this relationship changes with his sunglasses on. Kinda interesting... I sometimes like to think of visual vibe-based 'archetypes' when i'm drawing the tf2 guys. I don't have one for everyone yet but Heavy is sort of like 'handsome caveman' to me. Archetypally, cavemen are drawn with thick brows, small low foreheads and big chins. The 'handsome'-ness comes in when you apply a delicate approach to eyes, cheekbones, lips and with careful posing. Having this kind of visual-archetype in mind informs how I view the character as a whole and thus how i depict them! HOPEFULLY even if I drift away from how they actually look because the vibes are right...it feels right you know? There's also a sliding scale to me as to HOW you represent them. If the character is doing something goofy/stupid, drawing them less handsome and toonier can add levity. Obviouslyyyy you can have your handsome depictions making a dick joke (and that's its own sort of visual gag) but you'll notice in a lot of my images the straight-man gets drawn a little more...realistic? on-model? than the butt of the joke. It just feels more appropriate to me haha I'm using 'toonier' here to mean not only am I drawing fewer details but also exaggerating those ratios between areas of the face away from their 'default' ratio. like with most drawing-y things it's practice AND experimentation! i draw these guys differently depending on my mood and how generous i'm feeling towards their looks lol if you wanted tips on the construction of faces I really recommend checking out Griz and Norm's 'Tuesday Tips'. They're incredibly clear, concise and very approachable (and cover a variety of subjects!) Hopefully this link works? but if you search them on Pinterest and grab a cuppa, there's some AMAZING tips to be had here: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/search/pins/?q=griz%20and%20norm&rs=typed

[iwaasfairy]

┌─ “ „ FIXED

tw. cest, bit of degradation but mainly praise, spit, oral fixation, oral, choking, its kinda soft pffff so tw feelings, corruption, hajime gets off on the guilt wordcount. 4.2k

a/n.  who's surprised about more cest? exactly no one ♡♡♡ but i missed hajime nii, besides i haven't written nearly enough full length big bro iwa fics FIXED /fikst/ 1. predetermined and not subject to or able to be changed. (adj.) 2. mend or repair. (verb)

iwaizumi hajime x fem!reader

You never really knew that much about boys growing up. That’s just how it went. Hajime started playing volleyball before you were old enough to remember different. Your life was constructed around it. Every practice for him meant no free babysit for your parents, so you were dragged with mom to dance class with other moms. And they brought their equally clueless baby girls, which led to you enrolling in girls related things with girls who related.

You wouldn’t have known about boy’s things, apart from the small circle of cultivated friends Hajime allowed into his space, and yours. It wasn’t on purpose, but the outcome was still the same.

Any and all information you had about boys came straight from Hajime’s mouth, who was older. Compared to clueless you; niichan held the wisdom of a sage. You always clung to his every word, even as he grew bigger. Even as he grew more snappy, sick of dealing with his friends who were stupid boys and did stupid high school boy things. Everything you didn’t know went through niichan. Not ever the other boy spending too much time in your house, because Oikawa was a liar, and niichan would make sure you remembered it.

But you knew certain things too when you saw them, and what small amount you did know— was now rearing it’s ugly head and asking questions.

“Wh—what’s this? What are you watching?” As you shuffle out of the hall with a frown, you hold niichan’s phone away from your body with loose fingertips. Boys might not have cooties anymore in your mind, but everyone talks about how gross boys are. You don’t want to risk it. And Hajime freezes in place like he’s guilty, wide-eyed. It’s brand new. Unusual. Like hitting bullseye on the first throw, tickling your brain from within.

See, Hajime was always bigger than most in your town, athletically built, and prone to using that build full of energy and power to his advantage. That to say, he was always quicker than most to squish you into silence or grab you by the collar instead of using his words when it came to accusations. Your parents weren't around much to scold him for it. It’s what his popular best friend loved to call ‘anger issues’, wait for it to blow up.

And silent, thinly veiled panic isn’t — that.

“Why the hell are you on my phone?” Hajime’s face blanks as he puts down the remote, glances over his shoulder for supervision, and puts on his meanest glare as he scrambles up from the couch. He’d been left on little sister duty all afternoon, and now, you’d gone and made a critical error. Your friends joke about no-goes, but you never really got why ‘messing around on a boy’s phone’ was an issue.

Hajime nii clearly doesn’t agree. His biceps bulge as he crosses his arms over his chest with mouth set in a thin line, and you shuffle in place within arms’ reach of him.

“I’m not on your phone, I just found it like this on your bed.” It’s the truth, you hadn’t meant to find anything. Intent doesn’t matter to your big brother though, because he towers you as he does. It’s the best way you can describe the way he glares you down ice cold, close enough to make your skin break out in goosebumps, waiting for retaliation. If you were any of his guy friends, you’re sure they’d get a solid kick to the shin. The little sister treatment is more mean mugging you until you fidget. “I wasn’t even snooping, I just needed to get a charger,” you tack on, swinging your arms behind your back.

“Give it.”

“No,” you quip back, for no particular reason other than to win the back and forth that always starts like this.

“Give me my phone, before I choose to take it.” His hand sticks out, bigger than yours, and you lean back a little. Usually it’s just empty threats. But sometimes you pick the wrong day to argue back, until you end screaming like a banshee under him like it’s life or death. Niichan’s still young enough where it makes him feel strong not to hold back.

The second ‘no’ sticks in your throat as he leans into your space more, and you can basically taste the natural instinct to roll over before he gets there. But you can’t help yourself. You want answers. You don’t deliver the device as quickly as he wants you to. A single eyebrow raises -an I dare you- deciding whether or not to smack you over the head for your transgression.

And you should know better, but the younger sibling in you aches. You suck your bottom lip. “Why are you watching this?” you grimace as you look at the phone again, unlocking it to reveal the video of a naked girl suckling on what the deadly annoying, high-pitched whine of ‘step brother’ loud through the little phone speaker says is her brother’s… parts. It doesn’t look like anything you’ve ever seen, from the few seconds you watched. But niichan always gets into the bath before you, and you don’t peek. Ever. But judging by the groaning and moaning from the guy, it must be-

Hajime goes bright red in his face as he yanks the phone out of your hands. “Don’t play it, are you fucking stupid?” Your father is still just as busy in his office as he’s been all day, but the way he panics to turn it off would almost make you think differently.

“It’s porn, isn’t it? You’re watching porn.” You’ve heard your friends talk about porn enough to know what it is. You just don’t know why he’s watching it. “Why?”

After clicking out of the tab, your big brother makes a face that’s equal parts fed up, and embarrassed, but he doesn’t give you any of the answers you’re looking for. “Shittykawa sent me that, ’s nothing. Just- fuck, don’t touch my shit again. Or I’ll knock the sense into you, y’hear?”

“But why watch it?”

“You’re dumber than you look if you think I’ll talk to you about-” The last word isn’t even spoken, but it feels like it’s heard just as loud. Your brother watches porn. There’s a pit in your stomach. Because your brother isn’t a liar, but he also isn’t a gossip. And he doesn’t offer up important information until you ask, which always ends with you feeling left out. Late. The overly girly pout of the woman moaning rings in your mind over and over. You’ve never done that stuff to your brother. Instead of helping you out, he hoards info. It makes the hairs on your neck stand up, and you don’t know why.

When he goes to brush past you, you wrap your arms around his waist and cling to him, face to stomach as he tries to walk away. “I’m not done,” you drag out the word, “niichan, stahp-uh. St-aw-aww! You’re hurting me!” You’re really to blame for the way you struggle to hold him in place, and he isn’t one to just fold without a fight. “Niisan~ tell me why! Come on, don’t be annoying. Ughh— don- you’re annoying!” Hajime nii doesn’t just give in. You know that as well as he does.

“Get off!!” His hand is big and warm as it wraps around your neck and he shoves his thigh between your legs, lifted off the floor. You cling on, squeezing hard as he huffs and you use your whole body to try and keep him in place. “Let go of me, brat, fuckin’-uhg- you’re—” You manage to fall back halfway into the couch with Hajime’s weight on top of you in the struggle and bite it, butt landing hard on the floor as he knees you in the shoulder and protects your face just in time. “Idiot, you wanna break your nose over this shit?”

“Why are you looking at that stuff, tell me!” you demand again, through welling up tears this time. “I want to know, or else- Else I’ll ask Oikawa.” He moves just enough to cradle your face and watch you for a second, then blows out a deep breath.

“No, you don’t.” His eyes zero in on yours, and his eyebrows flatten out a little. “You’ve made your point, just stop making a scene.” After running a hand through his spiky tufts of hair, he clicks his tongue. “If I tell you, will you shut up about it?”

Your head bobs up and down quickly, always ready to indulge your brother. “Of course! Promise.” Your voice is extra sweet when you say it.

In turn, Hajime sits back down to make some room for your shoulder as you sink down against the furniture, and look up at him. “Get up from the floor, c’mon-”

“Hajime nii~,” you bristle, crossing your arms over your chest, “just say it.”

You can basically see him think about rolling his eyes, but he fights the urge to instead let out a noncommittal huff, and pats his thigh. “Suit yourself.” You swallow down a sniffle, and rest your head onto the couch. And your niichan’s eyes flick to you again, hesitating. “What d’you want me to- I- If you wanna know why I watched it, it’s- because it feels good. I like it.” Your face must give away your confusion, because he glances over his shoulder again before patting your head and running his fingers through your hair in nerves. “And it is easier for guys to… come if we watch stuff.”

“Like it?” Your lashes tickle against the fabric as you look up at him, not yet satisfied. He’s not getting away with a measly little explanation like that. “But what was the girl doing?” Niichan’s chest rumbles softly with the deep breath he takes, pulling his fingers down to squeeze the bridge of your nose instead, like it’ll shut you up. But it doesn’t, only makes you whine and push at the hand. When he speaks again, his voice is very soft, almost too much so. It makes you giddy. It warms your blood. You love when Hajime nii tells you secrets, or things you’re not supposed to know.

The low mumble reaches. “Sucking his dick.”

Sucking it. You pop your lips, and watch as he starts bouncing his leg next to your head. But the lady in the video wasn’t just sucking. You’re not sure how to word it, so just pout for a moment. It’s not like you mean to push it too far. Evidently, you do though. “Can I do that to you, niichan?”

It nails the coffin closed, because he suddenly stands up and narrows his eyes, as heat comes up all the way to his ears. “Oh my god, don’t make it sound fucked up. I’m—”

"What, what, what?" you pout, and cling to him.

"Shut. Your. Trap. Dad's gonna hear." He takes your cheeks between his index finger and thumb, and makes you really look into his eyes. “Don’t ask anyone else that. Ever, okay? I’m not- talking about this with you right now.”

+

The conversation sated you back then, it seems. Because it doesn’t come up again until you’ve totally forgotten about it, much, much later. Late enough for you to be awoken from your sleep with an involuntary yawn. Hajime’s apartment is still pitch black, but you’re not unaware of the shape next to you as it slips into the covers with careful motions. Your chest rises and falls shallowly, before you nose pushes into his chest and he settles. “Sorry.”

“M’n -rom d’airport, miss you,” you slur, and also curl up further into Hajime’s heat, who doesn’t bother to try and understand you. You’re not even sure yourself. Only that you don’t want him to move, and that the gentle soothing motion of his heavy hand on your hip is nice. “Hm?”

“You’re taking up my side,” his voice rattles your skull with how deep and low it feels this close to your brain.

“‘M not leaving, you’re warm. Wanna stay here. Forever.” It’s enough to have him give in, slide an arm under your side and drape you up a little higher onto his pillow to really slide in nice and close next to you. Chest to chest, and your face to his collar. It isn’t the first time you’ve cuddled, or felt his thighs force some room between your legs to slide one of his between.

But it’s weird. You can still feel his eyes on your face, magnetic in the twilight. They trail paths all over, suffocatingly so. When you open your eyes as much as the call of sleep will allow, your lashes almost brush his nose, and it tickles, and your big brother’s breath dusts over your cheeks. “Wanna get more sleep before I have to go back home.” You justify, but Hajime doesn’t nod, doesn’t disagree either. He just looks, too close to your face. Your sleepiness doesn’t matter so much when your heart patters against your ribs. It’s just - like ice sliding down your spine, you can feel how your stomach turns inside you, and how hot the air feels. Why is it weird?

You’re older now. You know better now. There’s a whisper, a soft “niichan,” anything to break the tension. It is breathier than you mean it to come out. You just want to know if he feels nauseous too, sensing the same feeling of hell pressing down on your chest as the room seems to come closer. He seems to come closer too. He’s always so bright, so present in your mind. Whether you’re halfway across the world or kept

in his arms. And then pillowy lips connect with yours, nose brushing along your matching one, and your lips are pushed open by a wet, warm tongue. A hot flash travels down your throat as you try not to skitter away at the feeling. It takes a few seconds for your brain to catch up. Why is it different? Why? Why’s your belly burning with a strange sort of pressure? Tonight’s the last night you’ll be spending in Hajime’s apartment for a while, maybe.

His tongue slides into your mouth and tangles with yours, tasting of watermelon and mint mouthwash, and his heart beats slower against your chest. He’s just so close, and you feel like you’re drifting off into dreamland with how warm you feel melting into him. “M-nii -chan,” your voice comes, and a hand grabs your cheek to pull your face closer to his. You’re instantly reminded… of that high pitched moan of that girl on that video.

“Shh, ‘s okay. I’ve got you,” he noses along your jaw, before pressing a lingering kiss right in the middle of your bobbing throat. You don’t expect him to sit up. You don’t expect him to slide his arm under your knees and move you sideways, and to come back to your face for more warm, sloppy, wrong kisses. “I love you. I love you.” This is… wrong, isn’t it? It’s incest, and wrong. The word that haunted you ever since you learned it’s meaning. He groans your name in the quiet, and you automatically reply with a soft moan. Can’t help it. The kissing turns into deeper, needier, panting and spit on your bottom lip before he slides the calloused tips of his fingers over the exposed sliver of your tummy and up.

Hooking your flimsy cotton onto his fingers and pulling at it until he reaches the swell of your tits, but not revealing anything yet. You shake, and your legs spread apart. There’s a pressure on your bladder, on the lowest part of your belly, where heat collects itself and drips out of you into your panties— and it should be more embarrassing than it is. But your pout is kissed by your devoted, all-knowing big brother, and you wrap your arms around his neck to pull him closer.

“Let me- wanna show you somethin’ now.” His breathing against you feels like heaven, sweetening your blood until you can barely think straight over the smacking mouths and dripping of spit and your cunt and the swirling fire in your loins. “You’re so fucking- pretty.” His chest rubs against your tits, and his fingers pinch the skin where your breasts blush with heat, squeezing with a low rumble of his voice. He wants to say something, but doesn’t get the words out, clearly, as he shuts himself up in your lips, then your throat, down to your tits. Your pussy’s glowing, and your mind foggy- something you can’t pinpoint to either sleep or the moment, and is most likely both combined.

Hajime nii’s boxers are barely clinging onto his thighs with the way it’s tented around his cock when he pulls back, taking a long look just like you are. He’s hot, physically burning under your eyes. But also… filled out so much. He was always broad, but now it’s just distracting. Carved from marble and dusted with gold. It’s childish, petulant even, how you take in the sight and moan with your hands pawing at his shirt, but so fucking true. You’re overcome with it, with love for him.

And niichan seems similarly affected as you are, because there’s a furrow between his brows that only relaxes when he stares at your blushy, spit-covered lips, your heaving chest, the sticky patch of your panties as you’re laid spread on his bed.

His hand comes to yours, letting you wrap your fingers around his, but he doesn’t move beyond that. Only breathes deeply, and stares at the way you tangle your fingers between his. “Niichan, please,” you whine, pulling, tugging, demanding him into motion until he places his free hand onto his chubbed cock and squeezes himself through the fabric. The wet patch of his gray boxers clings uncomfortably to his cockhead, and you suck your lip between your teeth. “Show me, niichan. I wa- wan’ you to, please.”

You’re the one sitting up first, grabbing a handful of your own tits to whimper as his fist stays screwed around his cock— and have to lean yourself all the way down to nose at the inside of his thigh before he finally moves again. “Oh- fuck.” His hips jerk as he rubs himself against your cheek once, and when you moan, again. Large hands and long fingers splay out over your head to keep you in place as gently as he can manage as you let your spit-slick tongue rub against him as he fucks into the air and you chase. You only manage a little glance up between your lashes at his heavy petting and desperate few pumps against the softness of your mouth, but it’s plenty.

Plenty to see the blown out pupils and bead of sweat rolling down his neck, his ears and cheeks a dusty pink. Your big brother groans when you brush your thumb over the sticky patch of the fabric and wrap a ring of fingers around him, forcing the covered head to pop into your soft mouth with a loud kissy noise. “I- Fucking hell, get o- oh,” he doesn’t let you stay latched on, tangling his fingers in your hair and holding you away as he shudders, “you wan’it? That makes you feel good, does it?” The pull of your hair feels good though, pussy clenching around nothing again.

“Mhm, being under my big brudder makes me feel good.” You can’t keep yourself from nuzzling into his hand when he releases you to get up onto his knees, and watch as he shoves the boxers down his thick thighs with slower motions than you wish he’d use. It’s a little unfair. Even in the low light, you can see the glossiness of his cockhead, the little trail of hair leading you all the way down to right between muscular legs- and your nails drag down the skin with a needy whine until he rests the heavy tip back onto your lips. Onto your squirming, little tongue.

Hajime’s breathing comes to a halt as you lick up the slit and glance up at him, and move your hand to reach under his cock too. “Mh-niichan? You wanted this, right? for how long?”

His eyes go half lidded as he hums. “Long.”

Another long lick sliding down, your spit coats the bottom of his twitching cock until you’re happily nestled at the base and press kisses down. “Is that why you only watch sister porn?”

He groans your name with a tight grunt, and you can see the way his chest caves. You guess it doesn’t really matter. Worse sins have been committed just tonight than your big brother fondling you in his bed, and pressing you down on his lap. But the way it flushes his neck and makes his eyes narrow is so satisfying, you almost don’t know what to do with yourself when he pushes you away from him to roll you onto your back, long fingers finding your neck. The press scares you for a split second, before the pressure makes way for entirely too much pleasure. “Still a fucking brat.” His olive irises flash as he watches you drop open your mouth again, and pull at his shirt with a moan.

“Take this off~ niichan, please. Please.” His shirt is discarded somewhere next to the bed, before he allows you to place your lips back to the thumping, blood-filled head of his cock and wrap them around it. It feels good, really good— and he tastes like Hajime, slowly starting to rock onto your tongue as his hand tightens in your hair.

“Wan- uhuh, fuck, I want to cum down your throat so bad. Use-m- my little sister’s mouth.” He’s heavy, and thick, and spit gets everywhere as you do your very best to hollow your cheeks around his hard cock each time he pushes a little farther in. But of course you gag when he pushes past your tongue into your tight throat, and grunts out your name. He pulls back to let you take a breath but fucks right back into you, now rocking his hips harder and deeper. You gag, and Hajime hums. “Tch, messy little sister. Good, tho- feels so good-” Your fingers squeeze around the part where you can’t quite reach, other hand on his balls, while spit goes everywhere.

“Fuck, I’m fucking my sister’s mouth, this is- so fucked.” You suck harder, and Hajime’s cock twitches in your mouth. “Uh- love— you, uhuh, that’s a good girl.” Your lips are stretched wide, and your throat burns around the intrusion, but the feeling just makes you so lightheaded. Floating off from the world as he cups your face with two hands and jackhammers into your mouth until you can’t tell up from down. Your muffled, sloppy ‘niichan, niichan’ only makes his shoulders raise higher, abs flexed each time he makes you bottom out around him, each time tears run down your face. Even when you gag and push back against him. “You love your big brother too, right?”

“Mhm,” you’re choking on it and enjoying it, breath flooding your lungs each time he pulls back far enough to let you— before you have to grab his thigh and open your teary eyes to glance up at him. “Niichan, Hajime nii, p-please. Want your cock, i-inside, want to be my big brother’s cockslut, plea~se.”

He hauls you up from him by your shoulders, rolls you onto your back as he stares into your eyes. Pupils blown wide, with the pretty sliver of green, he bites his lip so hard it must hurt. “Why— you keep saying shit like that, thinking I’m not going to react? Stop poking.” His long fingers glide from your shoulder up to your neck again, and squeeze just enough to have you seeing little stars that vanish when you look at them. It feels good. Hajime feels so good. With the light of the moon dusting along his edges, you slowly spread your legs on both sides of his body, and blink.

“Mean it. Mn-gh, nii~chan. Want your cock to fill me up, I wan’it so bad. Want you.” He looks rabid as he dips down to shove a thumb between your lips for you to suck, lingering in that heady feeling. More. You moan it around his finger as he pushes on your tongue, but he’s already distracted with the way you’re peeling your own panties down your legs, and how the stings of slick stretch from the fabric all the way to your gushing cunt. “Pl-uh-ese, nii-dan.” Your lewd sucking of his finger and the way you pull your lower legs around his glutes seems to be too much for him.

“Love ya, Hajime niichan.”

You feel his lips crash to yours before his cock is shoved into you, but it’s the latter that instantly has your arms wrap around his muscular back to cling on. Because he’s thick, heavy, and burning hot inside you. Wetness clicks and squelches as he slides all the way in and swallows up your moan. He pulls out, and slams back in hard enough to make your legs jerk. You feel him in your belly. You feel him in your throat. You feel him in your soul too, as he sucks your tongue and cups your cheek and palms your tits all at once. As he pulls out and hits a spot inside you you didn’t even know about, and fucks you so good it makes your toes curl.

“‘S our secret, okay?” he pants when he pulls back, lifting your legs to your chest. And you’re already nodding your head up and down before he has to ask more, letting out the shakiest whimper.

Your voice is extra sweet when you hum. “Of course. Promise~.”

All Rights Reserved © IWAASFAIRY 2022. Works are exclusive to this Tumblr.

[adventuringblind]

Picking at my Sins

Oscar piastri x reader

Genre: Angst, smut?

Summary: Reader comes from a religious background and struggles with self worth. Oscar is there to pick up the pieces.

Warnings: religious trauma, alluded to SH, panic attacks, talks of sex

Notes: mmmmmm definitely not self projecting or anything

Masterlist

The one thing nobody teaches in church is that innocence is simply a construct in the human mind. No one is ever truly innocent. Especially those who you expect to always love and respect you. The ones who preach to always follow the rules.

They turned their back on her. A mistake that wasn't even hers led to her entire church turning their backs on her. She was left to fend with nothing. Her parents were facing the same issue, only they were the ones who started it.

It was for that reason she left.

She wouldn't call herself innocent. Simply inexperienced. She knows what she would like to try but hasn't been able to do so.

She was alone for so long. A new place makes it hard to make friends. Especially since she has a religious background, people tend to immediately think the worst.

She met Oscar in October of 2022. It was cold and rainy that evening. She needed something from the store, and she didn't have a car, so she'd settled for walking in the torrential down pour.

Alcohol. She needed alcohol after a lengthy conversation with her mom that didn't end well and a ten hour shift at a job she gets minimum wage for. Then, to feed her depressed mood, she went to the nearest park with a pretty view, sat on the bench, and drank straight from the bottle.

She's not sure how long she'd been here, but it was long enough that she was shivering and drenched. The liquor barely touched. How had religion touched that, too? Why does she feel sick at the idea of putting her mouth to the bottle?

The park is deserted, and she assumes that it'll remain that way. It doesn't. And at some point, a male comes running towards her. He's probably just out for some kind of workout he can't pause even for the weather.

She assumes he'll run right by her. He doesn't. Imstead he stops to make conversation. Then he sits with her. Then they walk together to somewhere out of the rain.

That is how she found herself talking to the Australian any moment she got. It's how she made a friend who didn't care that she couldn't stomach eating food at times because it could cause imperfections. A friend who let her rant about her ridiculous situation.

Then, a friend became a lover. He asked her out in January. He asked her to that same park which they had met months earlier. He told her they didn't have to do anything quickly. That he was willing to help her figure it out. He truly saw her for who she was and wanted to continue having stupid conversations and finding weird locations to explore.

She worked through things slowly. Many panic attacks were had. The first time she dyed her hair, she cried. Her first time wearing clothes that revealed more than they should have, she also cried. She couldn't even wear them out due to the sheer amount of overwhelming feelings.

Then she left to travel with Oscar. He dragged her around the world with him. Asking nothing in return aside from loving him unconditionally and being his pillar through the stress of a rookie season.

He was so gentle through everything. Honest with her about every misconception she had about life. Reminded her daily that being herself wasn't a sin.

The one thing she hadn't been able to get past was intimacy. It is the most taboo subject to speak about in a church. Aside from hearing that it's bad unless you're married. If it happens any other way, then you'd be punished. Shunned by all. Labeled as wicked and disgusting.

Hand holding was the first step. That came pretty easy while they were friends even. Then he kissed her and she kissed back and even though she was clumsy it was amazing.

The kiss was followed by the first of many panic attacks. A nasty thing that had her wailing and clawing at her skin.

Eventually, she got past that. Though she picked up new habits that probably weren't the best. Oscar made it a point to keep her hands occupied in more productive ways. Even if it felt childish like coloring in a colorbook. They went through three of them in a month. It became a way that they both relax.

She felt herself getting more comfortable with touch after that. Even getting far enough to get clothes off.

And then she wanted to have him completely. He was so gentle through the entire thing. Always asking how she felt. The girl felt utterly clueless and fumbled with everything, but she didn't panic. Maybe it was the overwhelming feeling of love that kept those dark thoughts out of her brain.

It was a month later that it all came crashing down. Her parents had found her. They showed up at her flat while Oscar was there.

She'd never seen the Aussie so defensive. He'd always been so laid back. Until she watched him tell her parents to get out in a horrifyingly stern voice.

It didn't matter, though. The damage had already been done. They'd already yelled about how awful she'd become. The female had just hung her head and listened. It came like muscle memory.

Oscar did get them out eventually. They left in a flurry of shouts as Oscar closed the door and locked it. Then he started from square one again.

That's when the panic attacks during sex started. She couldn't stop the thoughts. They snuck up on her. One second, she was in bliss, and the next, she was trying to claw her skin off her body. The overwhelming disgust with herself seemed to set in after that.

But Oscar was there, every time. He would hold her. Get her cleaned up. Place bandages where her nails had managed to rip skin. Then he’d occupy her mind with anything far away from the topics of intimacy and sex. He’d let her initiate contact so he didn’t scare her.

Sometime, he gets asked by friends (Lando) about his personal life. Why the two aren’t often see going out together. Why she prefers to do a shot then drink mocktails for the rest of the night.

And Oscar always gives the same over used response. “Cause I’d rather see her smiling then picking herself apart over make believe sins.”

[preservationofnormalcy]

[Director Council 9/11/24 Meeting. 5/7 Administrators in Attendance]

Attending: 

[Redacted] Walker, OPN Director

Orson Knight, Security

Ceceilia, Archival & Records

B. L. Z. Bubb, Board of Infernal Affairs

Harrison Chou, Abnormal Technology

Josiah Carter, Psychotronics

Ambrose Delgado, Applied Thaumaturgy

Subject: Dr. Ambrose Delgado re: QuantumSim 677777 Project Funding 

Transcript begins below:

Chou:] Have you all read the simulation transcript?

Knight:] Enough that I don’t like whatever the hell this is.

Chou:] I was just as surprised as you were when it mentioned you by name.

Knight:] I don’t like some robot telling me I’m a goddamned psychopath, Chou. 

Cece:] Clearly this is all a construction. Isn’t that right, Doctor?

Delgado:] That’s…that’s right. As some of you may know, uh. Harrison?

Chou:] Yes, we have a diagram.

Delgado:] As some of you may know, our current models of greater reality construction indicate that many-worlds is only partially correct. Not all decisions or hinge points have any potential to “split” - in fact, uh, very few of them do, by orders of magnitude, and even fewer of those actually cause any kind of split into another reality. For a while, we knew that the…energy created when a decision could cause a split was observable, but being as how it only existed for a few zeptoseconds we didn’t have anything sensitive enough to decode what we call “quantum potentiality.” 

Carter:] The possibility matrix of something happening without it actually happening.

Delgado:] That’s right. Until, uh, recently. My developments in subjective chronomancy have borne fruit in that we were able to stretch those few zeptoseconds to up to twenty zeptoseconds, which has a lot of implications for–

Cece:] Ambrose. 

Delgado:] Yes, on task. The QuantumSim model combines cutting-edge quantum potentiality scanning with lowercase-ai LLM technology, scanning the, as Mr Carter put it, possibility matrix and extrapolating a potential “alternate universe” from it.

Cece:] We’re certain that none of what we saw is…real in any way?

Chou:] ALICE and I are confident of that. A realistic model, but no real entity was created during Dr Delgado’s experiment.

Bubb:] Seems like a waste of money if it’s not real.

Delgado:] I think you may find that the knowledge gained during these simulations will become invaluable. Finding out alternate possibilities, calculating probability values, we could eventually map out the mathematical certainty of any one action or event. 

Chou:] This is something CHARLEMAGNE is capable of, but thus far he has been unwilling or unable to share it with us. 

Delgado:] You’ve been awfully quiet, Director. 

DW:] Wipe that goddamned smile off your face, Delgado.

DW:] I would like to request a moment with Doctor Delgado. Alone. You are all dismissed.

Delgado:] ….uh, ma’am. Director, did I say something–

DW:] I’m upset, Delgado. I nearly just asked if you were fucking stupid, but I didn’t. Because I know you’re not. Clearly, obviously, you aren’t. 

Delgado:] I don’t underst–

DW:] You know that you are one of the very few people on this entire planet that know anything about me? Because of the station and content of your work, you are privy to certain details only known by people who walked out that door right now.

DW:] Did you think for a SECOND about how I’d react to this?

Delgado:] M-ma’am, I….I thought you’d…appreciate the ability to–

DW:] I don’t. I want this buried, Doctor. 

Delgado:] I…unfortunately I–

DW:] You published the paper to ETCetRA. 

Delgado:] Yes. As…as a wizard it’s part of my rites that I have to report any large breakthroughs to ETCetRa proper. The paper is going through review as we speak.

DW:] Of course. 

Delgado:] Ma’am, I’m sorry, that’s not something I can–

DW:] I’d never ask you directly to damage our connection to the European Thaumaturgical Centre, Doctor. 

Delgado:] Of course. I see.

DW:] You’ve already let Schrödinger’s cat out of the bag. We just have to wait and see whether it’s alive or dead.

Delgado:] Box, director.

DW:] What? 

Delgado:] Schrödinger’s cat, it was in a–

DW:] Shut it down, Doctor. I don’t want your simulation transcript to leave this room. 

Delgado:] Yes. Of course, Director. I’ll see what I can do.

DW:] Tell my secretary to bring me a drink. 

Delgado:] Of course. 

DW:] ...one more thing, Doctor. How did it get so close?

Delgado:]Ma'am?

DW:] Eerily close.

Delgado:]I don't–

DW:] We called it the Bureau of Abnormal Affairs.

Delgado:] ....what–

DW:] You are dismissed, Doctor Delgado.

[callmearcturus]

ITP my job finds a new even more horrific way to lowkey torture employees (and that's not an exaggerated usage of "torture" funnily enough)

"hey arc what's up, you been quiet"

funny story

so the casually cruel fuckheads at my job sent IT around to every desk to do something with the phones.

they set every ringer to maximum volume and disabled the ability to lower the volume or mute the ringer. so every desk phone, regardless of department, is connected to the main queue and whether you are meant to be answering calls or not, your phone rings at 90 to 100 dB.

I have very well-controlled anxiety. i've been to therapy, I take medication, I know recovery techniques. I've been living with this my entire life. but: my primary anxiety trigger is sudden loud sounds, to the point that I always make sure to take my lunch when they are testing the fire alarms and I once turned down a nice secretarial gig bc it was for a construction company.

so for the past few days, I've been subjected to constant, inconsistent loud noises.

I've already burst into tears twice and had to take 4 emergency breaks in the stairwell to get control of my breathing to avert a panic attack.

I talked to my boss (my direct boss, who is a wonderful man who has my eternal loyalty, not the vicious thoughtless fuckhead who runs the company) and he literally directed me to "put your earbuds in and turn on the sound canceling. if anyone notices, I'll cover for you." like, it's that fucking bad.

(and i'm not alone! there's a guy in another department who is a former army guy or former cop, and he's shaken bc it's just loud sudden noises surrounding him, it's horrible.)

so, i flat out took today off bc I needed a mental health day and to talk to my doctor. my doctor, who I think might literally want to fistfight the CEO of my company at this point bc this is cruelty for no fucking reason, is writing me a strongly worded accomodation request and getting me some extra drugs to help me not freak out

but its a fucking nightmare and it's affecting everything. i got all the classic warning signs of depression: i don't want to do my normal hobbies, i don't want to talk to friends (i'm forcing myself to do it, I'm old hat at this), I don't want to eat, and i want to lay down int he dark a lot.

SO. IT'S BAD. But we're working on it.

My boss and I have a pact, that I'm sticking around until he throws in the towel and leaves, but I had to tell him "this needs to stop or I need to look for another job, no matter how much I love this stupid goddamn job, i can't physically do this"

so that's what's up.

[starjunkyard]

Good god ep18 s6. House dealing (god-awfully .Full disclosure. The episode opens with house drinking himself half to death with zero regard for himself to the point of unintentionally breaking into his neighbours house and passing out there) with wilson getting back together with his ex-wife while the patient of the episode grapples with his possibly reciprocated love for the woman he loves but cannot Have because she's engaged to be wed with his friend.......... Thirteen egging the patient on to tell her how he really feels but he genuinely Cant Bring Himself To because "my friend's a great guy . He's rich, smart, and he'll treat her well. Me-- I'd do everything I could for her. But it wouldn't be much. And she... she deserves the best." And the episode ends with house resignedly throwing away the sealed envelope that held all the dirt he hired lucas to get on wilson's ex wife to try and break them upOhhhhhhhh oh. OHHHHHHHHHHHHH Ouhhhhhhh. Ouhhhhh the acknowledgement that house would do everything & anything & more for wilson Give .all of himself To Wilson and it still wouldn't be enough because house is House. Because even at his best-- house would still be house and because of that house would never be able to give wilson what he wants What he Needs. Wilson doesn't. Need the misanthropic bastard he's been in love with for 20 years who bites and spits at any threat or sign of emotional intimacy or vulnerability. What wilson. Needs is a woman . A wife and two kids and a white picket fence because that's all wilson is

Its the foundation of his entire self that would bring everything else down with it if it were to crumble. The face that wilson has spent his entire Life honing and sculpting and perfecting to present as the Perfect Hardworking American Man and Son. The perfect husband and treasured son with his own big shiny department and a stainless-white doctor's coat and the Exact Man a woman would Need

What is wilson. who is he What is left of him if he is not needed by a woman; not needed nor wanted any longer by the world he's lived his entire life by to please. What is James Wilson if not what everyone else expects him to be

House is the antithesis to all of that. A man rough and abrasive as sandpaper who makes wilson selfish makes him emotional and stupid. Who encourages wilson to lash out and fight and get angry and stand up for himself and be the exact opposite of what he's worked his entire life to be. Instead of accepting and taking wilson's painstakingly pedantically constructed facade at face value House fucking. Crashes through the walls with a bulldozer. Snatches the mask right off of wilson's face and dangles it over his head goading wilson to go ahead; try and get it back

Wilson is so deathly terrified at the idea of breaking out of the norms he himself has walled himself into-- he can't Bear to think of any other future for himself that is anything other than wholly and completely unnoticeable average monotonous unextraordinary

and House is the exact opposite of unnoticeable average monotonous unextraordinary. House is the apple of Eden that rests on the other side of wilson's pristine-white picket fence. The object of Wilson's every true desire that simultaneously threatens to doom and tear down everything wilson regards protects worships as the one untouchable unquestionable unchangeable truth of his life

House loses before it even starts. No one can compete with that; not even house. By nature, house can never be what wilson needs. What wilson truly desires or wants or needs is another subject entirely, something im genuinely not sure wilson could even grapple with, let alone come to terms with canonically. I fully believe wilson and house are the loves of each other's lives but house will never be what wilson "needs" or "wants" no matter what he does or changes about himself. They love each other more than anything and they want each other and they cant live without each other but House-- intrensically, by nature-- cannot be what Wilson wants.

[grizzlyofthesea]

"What is the wish that will make your Soul Gem shine?"

I made a magical girl form for myself in the event that I'd be stupid/desperate enough to make a contract with Kyubey.

My wish would be to incite a sustainable, inclusive, equitable, and cruelty-free scientific revolution. I'm into astronomy, so I decided that my Soul Gem would look like a star in its "jewelry" form. Its color is teal because that's the result I got on a "What color is your magic?" personality quiz. Simple as that.

Since my wish pertains to science, my outfit naturally has a lab coat and goggles. The coat is made out of a transparent PVC-type material. The overall aesthetic combines Georgian/Victorian menswear with vaporwave. I just thought it would be fun.

The goggles are functional for one of my unique abilities; I can use them to analyze another being's abilities and weaknesses. My other special power is the ability to create constructs out of laser meshes.

My weapon is a telescope ray gun...thing. In "ranged mode," it of course fires lasers. The trigger and handle can retract for "melee mode," allowing the telescope to serve as a more effective battering weapon. It can also act as an actual telescope.

I drew it, but (1) it's incomplete, and (2) it's pictured with some spoiler-y parts of the design. Proceed with caution if you have not yet completed Madoka Magica.

Now we get into the witch stuff.

My witch name is Cosimo. My Grief Seed has a shooting star design on it, with the tail shaped to look like a grid/lattice. My Witch's Kiss is a planet with two rings and a two-tailed comet above it. The planet's coloration references Annie Jump Cannon's mnemonic for star types/temperatures: Oh, Be A Fine Guy/Girl, Kiss Me.

Everything from here on out is still uncolored. Major details are set in stone, but minor ones are subject to change.

Cosimo is the Supernova Witch, with an erratic nature. She is serene and calculating on the outside, but she will lash out in a panic as soon as she feels that she has lost control. Those who fall too close to her surface are spaghettified and can never hope to leave again.

**Cosimo is approximately 10 meters in diameter, and she changes color/temperature based on her mood. The bluer/hotter she is, the angrier or more stressed she is. Red indicates lethargy or sadness. Yellow-white is her perfect, happy medium.**

Familiar #1 is Amadeo. He is the Supernova Witch's trusted receptionist. He cheerfully greets guests and keeps them up to date about the witch's interests. However, his speeches are so long that they bore people into a deep slumber.

**I imagine his mouth to squash and stretch instead of moving organically. Think of Natsuki's mouth during certain parts of Doki Doki Literature Club.**

Familiar #2 is Orsina. Orsina is the Supernova Witch's talented groundskeeper and architect. She builds, maintains, and destroys parts of the labyrinth according to the witch's whims. She is praised for her work but prone to becoming jealous of the other familiars. Also comes in a right-handed variant.

**The substance dripping from Orsina's wrist is thick, viscous, and burning hot. Individual Orsinas may have different colors of skin or fingernails, too.**

Anyway, that's all. I had fun coming up with all this.

[stillness-in-green]

Project Update/Survey of Interest: The AFO Retcon Essay

Having cleared out the inbox, I thought I'd let everyone know where I am on one of the big projects I've been alluding to for a long while now, the big meta post/essay arguing that the possession plot (and therefore AFO as primary endgame villain) is, in so many words, a big stupid retcon. That essay is - for reasons I'll get into shortly - on the brink of a major change in focus, so I'd also like to gauge how much interest people have in its potential new form. Because it would be another huge one, make no mistake.

(Hit the jump.)

So, I recently started dabbling with a new word processor program and thought I'd try learning the ropes with the retcon essay; I then spent the better part of two weeks combing through chatlogs and my blog archive trying to compile all the evidence I'd want to consider to make that argument. Two nights ago, I looked at the list I had - almost fifty bullet points! - and had the horribly demoralizing realization that...

...You guys, I just don't think I believe it anymore.

Now, that's not to say I've come around on the possession plot, because I definitely haven't! Rather, my trust in Horikoshi as a writer has been so badly eroded by the state of the writing in the endgame that I no longer think even the earlier material is reliable evidence for where the story was going.

To pick the most prominent example, I always regarded AFO telling Best Jeanist at Kamino that his quirk "wouldn't suit Tomura" as one of my strongest pieces of evidence that the possession plot had not been in the cards at that time. After all, who in hell cares what quirks would or would not suit Tomura if AFO's plan, as stated in Chapter 380, was that he would wholly subsume Tomura's will?

Now, however - and Chapter 380 is a big part of this, too! - I look back on that moment and just think, wearily, "Was that ever true, or was Horikoshi just lying to us already, and the only difference between then and now is that back then the lies could hold for hundreds of chapters, whereas now they're revealed within a matter of pages?"

A chat friend letting me vent suggested that perhaps the line was just intended to foreshadow Shigaraki getting All For One (and therefore all the quirks held within it) and Horikoshi just didn't think through all the implications AFO's phrasing had on how that plot was going to go. That may be true, and it's a more generous read than I could muster at the time, but the end result is the same: If I can't trust that the writing was ever an accurate reflection of the characters and their intentions, I can't in good faith construct an argument relying on that writing.

What I think I can do, however, if people are interested, is broaden the overall thrust to something much bigger than just AFO.

I'm currently toying with the idea of a treatise-in-four-parts about the problems in the endgame. Each part would cover one major branch of related issues - they might need to be broken down into sub-parts themselves, if they run long enough! The whole thing would likely be much longer and more involved than my chapter posts; think something more like the PLF mass arrest essay. Following are my current ideas for how those four parts would fall out, as well as some example talking points for each:

Part 1: Shigaraki and the PLF. Would cover Shigaraki as a villain and what he and the forces he'd amassed circa the end of My Villain Academia stood to bring to the endgame, both ideologically and tactically. Would also cover where they actually wound up and some considerations as to why.           Example Subpoints: Demanding accountability from Hero Society rather than just focusing blame on singular evils; Shigaraki as representative of all previous Villains; the MLA's shift in portrayal between MVA and the endgame; the ludicrous string of nerfs Toga was subjected to; whether the MLA was only ever intended to be a mass of numbers to whittle down the equally massive numbers of the Heroes or whether they were reduced to that after poor reader reception.

Part 2: All For One's Impact. Would focus on the sharp drop in moral complexity AFO both suffered himself compared to his pre-Tartarus characterization and inflicted on the endgame both himself and with the caliber of minions he brought to the story.           Example Subpoints: AFO's inconsistent characterization; the moral reductiveness of the Demon Lord as endgame Villain; AFO and Yoichi's personal history; Vestige mechanics; the impact of AFO's inconsistency on Ujiko's portrayal; the Sekoto Peak Problem; the characterization and handling of the Tartarus escapees.

Part 3: Team Hero Is The Fucking Worst. Would focus on the multitudinous problems with the presentation and methodologies of the Heroes in the endgame. Might be two parts if it gets long enough that I decide to split it up into, like, one part on the adults/Pro Heroes and one on the kids or something.           Example Subpoints: The story's bad faith attempts to portray agents of government authority as scrappy, determined underdogs; why it's impossible to believe that the current heroic cast will be able to enact a satisfying resolution to all the structural problems the story has raised; That Stupid Fucking Mech Fight; the constant refusal to let consequences stick to the Heroes; the way the story both undercuts and oversells Deku as a protagonist, and the impact that has on the broader narrative; One For All and more Vestige Mechanics; The Problem of Hawks; the hospital riot; the Todoroki family's inaction.

Part 4: Other Issues. A catch-all area for anything else I trip over that doesn't fit in any of the categories above, or problems of a more meta-narrative sort.           Very Preliminary Example Subpoints: The lazy portrayal of civilian characters; meta-narrative examples of the unreliability of BNHA's late-stage writing, from simple errors overlooked in the highly demanding grind of Shonen Jump serialization to the much more damning abuse of the reader's expectations of the comic medium; idk probably lots of other stuff, I Have Many Problems.

That said, I now have to ask, how interested are you all in a project like that? A fair amount of it would be recycled from my chapter posts, but obviously it would cover stuff I never got to in those, and would be able to be written with more hindsight (especially if it's written mostly or entirely after the series ends!), as opposed to the constant problem of reacting to the story week-to-week.

I basically stopped writing the chapter posts for reasons of incessant negativity, and obviously, this would be more of that, but I mind the negativity a lot less when it's A) able to be more comprehensive and focused than meandering and piecemeal and B) in the form of a large project I can work on as I have the energy for it rather than a brand new project every single week. And, as I trust stuff like MVA In Memoriam and On Heteromorphobia make clear, I do like the idea of putting together a good, comprehensive, easy-to-reference tract on all those problems, as opposed to just letting my issues remain scattered across multiple years of chapter thoughts and bnha critical tags!

That said, it's a big project, and I do vent about these issues pretty constantly with chat and irl friends, so if there's not much interest from followers here, I would not find it hard to just let the whole thing go and turn my eyes to less intimidating fare instead.

(Current other projects include the usual roster of BNHA fic, another mid-length meta piece in the mode of the BNHA vs. Helck comparison from a while back, this time on Mamoru Hosoda's Belle, and a horrible temptation to try and write something thoughtful and even-handed about demons in Frieren: Beyond Journey's End to combat the reductive-ass takes on both sides of the argument I've been seeing all over the internet since its anime started. Also, every week I go without seeing a single damn MachtxGluck fanfic on AO3 is a week I get closer to trying to figure out a way into writing it myself.)

Do let me know! Also, feel free to chip in with anything you'd like to see me specifically talk about in an endgame analysis!

[daisychainsandbowties]

thoughts on autistic beatrice 

i got a couple asks about this, so here we go.

speaking. despite her talent for linguistics, and her fascination with language, Beatrice does sometimes have periods where she is non-verbal. alternates with days where she needs to talk a lot. Lilith usually gets subjected to her talkativeness on these occasions - or rather, she subjects herself to it, willingly. knows how to respond and manage and help when things are a lot. she is quite content to sit and listen and poke fun while Beatrice lets all of the thoughts out of her head. 

Bea has areas of specific focus, and likes to tell convoluted stories to reach her point bc it’s how her brain likes to do things, and Lilith is one of the rare people who will simply listen, who is not impatient. Bea has been trained to think in straight lines, but there is a natural obliqueness to her thought processes. & especially when she is tired and/or hurt it unravels out of her. 

it takes a long time for her to trust anyone enough to actually relax and do that kind of stimming, but once things are easier it’s at least once a week, and Lilith pretty much drops everything to go sit with her in the library or down by the cliff or in the sun by one of the outer walls. this is astonishing to Bea, because nobody in her life has been willing to listen to her talk before, for hours. 

for Lilith it’s like watching the sun rise, & Bea transforms when she’s able to let all of the many myriad & often beautiful thoughts she has find their way out. to have them held and appreciated.

special interests. i think for sure Bea is really interested in math & physics & linguistics & probably a bit of architecture (my girl knew how to convert dirra to feet = math nerd AND architecture nerd, for sure). 

re: physics - Bea is just really interested in the mechanics of the universe, & it’s kind of an adjacent interest when you throw knives, because there is math involved & a bit of physics knowledge, especially for her throws which are from unpredictable distances (usually knife-throwing is done at standard distances with more or less consistent trajectories. whereas Bea throws in consistently unpredictable circumstances, often at moving targets).

she likes spiders and pretty much all fields of biology - anatomy, entomology, biophysics (she was a bit obsessed with gravitational tropism & how they grew plants in space), biochem, physiology of all kinds. definitely used to do architectural sketches for fun. knows all about how buildings have been constructed over the centuries. likes spiders because misunderstood, solitary, & just rlly rlly interesting as creatures. linguistics for obvious reasons. aka ‘if i learn ten languages i will be able to talk to people’ = cue not knowing what to say to people in ten languages. i’m gonna say she likes prime numbers. the mystery of them, the way they are so strange and self-contained.

routine! Bea is big into routine. it helps her to deal with the parts of her life that will always be chaotic - OCS activities are pretty much chaotic by default, because possession and demons don’t keep people-hours. 

she NEEDS to go running every day & Lilith is usually the only one who can keep pace with her, so they get up in the predawn dark most mornings and run until the sun rises. they don’t talk while they run, but they have a sort of silent conversation going on. gentle competition and mutual egging-on. performing stupid little parkour tricks where no one can see them. once or twice they go down by the beach and end up trying to toss each other into the ocean. 

when they get back Beatrice has muesli (she always has muesli, when she can) & she has this specific blue bowl and this specific spoon. everyone knows not to touch it (and Lilith knows too but still does dickhead things like hide it, but she gives it back almost immediately. just likes to see Bea’s face scrunch up like an emoji. she calls it ‘your haughty little stare’. 

Lilith peels an orange while Beatrice makes up her breakfast (picking the banana chips out. ‘why don’t you just get the brand without banana chips.’ ‘you wouldn’t understand.’) Lilith scatters orange peel everywhere on purpose and Beatrice goes around after sweeping them into her palm, which makes her hands smell like citrus (and, incidentally, exactly like Lilith’s, all day long).

time-blindness/interoception. Beatrice loses time. has a habit of going into a trance or just hyper-focussing on things. in those instances Mary or Lilith or Cam will find her just Staring and they always go to fetch Shannon, because she has a knack; she’s a gentle stirring presence, and she goes and puts her palms on Bea’s face and gets her eyes to focus on her. narrows the world down to simple touch. leads with a couple of innocent questions about math or sometimes jellyfish, or any of the topics Bea likes. 

this is what she needs. Mary is the steady voice that pulls everyone together in a fight, but Shannon has the measure of Beatrice. she knows to ask questions, to lure her out of her stupor with positive things. gentle, stirring. usually there’s nothing bad about losing the time, except that she can end up with throbbing headaches from dehydration.

but it’s time her brain needs, to be away from other people, because Beatrice has observed and catalogued and she is pretty good at the social side of things. yet it is exhausting. & sometimes she needs a hour or two to just exist in her own orbit.

eye-contact. when she’s comfy she tends to stray away from eye-contact, just because other body language is better and not so overwhelming as eyes, but martial arts taught her how important the eyes are for betraying intent, so she looks. but if she trust ppl there’s less eye contact. what there is, then, means more. 

she and Lilith are almost entirely absent of eye-contact when alone with each other. they are parallel play pros, and they save eye-contact for fighting, though Lilith is extraordinarily good at NOT giving away anything with her eyes. she can be beating the crap out of two people at once and look like she’s grocery shopping, but when she’s in the swing of things there’s often a manic glee to her eyes. & Bea likes that because it’s uncomplicated and wild and honest. but yeah, Mary occasionally goes to Shannon - ‘hey, do you think Beatrice would know the answer if i asked her what colour Lilith’s eyes are?’

speaking (contd.) Bea does have a tendency to forget about inflection in speech. has a monotone a lot of the time, which other people mistake for condescension. she can be very persuasive, but when she’s comfortable her voice keeps this unerringly constant pitch.

doesn’t tend to have the wild wavers you expect when ppl are with their friends; actually gets flatter & more even the more enthused she is. so she’ll be telling Lilith about how spiders can walk upside down on glass & the pitch, if you measured it, would be a straight line, but this speaks to Lilith’s brain too, because it isn’t jumping on distinctions in sound & getting anxious over it. 

if you pay attention to the rest of Bea’s body language it’s easy to see how excited she is, but that doesn’t manifest in her voice so much. oh she can emote vocally with the best of them (cut to the museum heist scene where Vincent kidnaps Ava) but calm relaxed Bea is going to be rocking that monotone.

food. for the first while in cat’s cradle Beatrice has trouble with mealtimes. it was never her forte - always the first down to breakfast in boarding school, so eventually the ppl setting up just left a bowl out for her & the tureen of muesli, and a milk bottle still slick with dew from sitting on the stoop with all the others. 

it’s the social aspect, mostly, and the change of routine, that get to her. plus Beatrice just isn’t motivated by food at all - for her it’s like, due to interoception, and some sensory preferences, though Bea’s a good soldier and can just ignore texture and taste if she has to. 

she doesn’t like the tables in the vaulted hall or the weird dim lighting, and all the other nuns talking in hushed voices so they become this susurration of sound. so she just skips lunch, or dinner. 

Lilith insists that she could care less, & she only tells Mary because otherwise she’ll get a lecture about responsibility and the new recruits, and also Bea is the best fighter besides her, and she doesn’t want to win just because the little twit forgets to eat. 

initially Mary just insists that Bea goes to meals with her. that doesn’t really help too much; Bea goes where she’s told, but yk you can lead a horse to water, can’t make them drink.

one day Mary goes and sits down next to Bea while she’s reading one day out in the courtyard, & hands her a cup of pudding from a bunch of surplus (and almost expired) MREs that the OCS bulk-bought ages ago. & Bea, skeptical but obedient, open it up & tries it & Mary, privately, thinks it’s chalky and overly sweet, but Bea adores it. she reads the nutritional info and is weirdly psyched by how ‘full of food groups’ it is. (Mary shrugs, but Lilith gets it; she also grew up craving salt and protein and portions larger than a palm). 

Mary bulk buys even more of them, & soon the Trio™ start carrying them around. Shannon has a bunch in her backpack, and Mary keeps them in the glove box of the van. Lilith sometimes just has one in the pocket of her hoodie, so that when it’s a Hard Day they can all reliably take Bea out into the sun with a bit of breeze coming up over the cliffside, & pass her a horrible calorie-dense protein pudding monstrosity.

it works, though. once Bea has Lilith to cling to she doesn’t mind going to the official means, & also Mother Superion takes her in her office & tells her she can go to the kitchen or eat in MS’s office if she’s not feeling it any evening. it works, and Beatrice manages to win against Lilith two out of five times in training, and she looks better and more than she has in her whole life, because the ppl around her FINALLY care about what she needs.

touch. Bea actually really likes it. flinches, at first, when Mary throws an arm around her, or when Shannon goes to her after a hard fight and presses their foreheads together, and leaves her sooty thumb-prints on Bea’s cheeks from holding her face. 

Lilith is another touch-starved bitch so they are like two polarised magnets initially, but after a while it changes. Beatrice falling asleep against Lilith in the back of the OCS fan. Bea having a panic attack and Mary climbing clear over the handbrake from the front seat (shotgun) to go and hold her very tightly, and rock her, and just say meaningless nice things.

Lilith like a deer in the headlights watching it, but eventually letting Beatrice braid her hair when her hands won’t stop shaking from the adrenaline. at once point they are hiding from possessed ppl & Lilith wraps her whole body around Bea, pressing them together into the shadows, and Beatrice is just… stunned by the closeness of it all. the lemon and sweat smell of Lilith (Bea starts stealing her shampoo after that). 

eventually she knows how to seek touch, how to ask for it & Bea and Lilith become kind of ridiculous about it (just watch the infirmary scene). they sit propping each other up, side-by-side or back-to-back. Bea with her legs flung over Lilith’s lap, reading out of a book in the library. in church playing ‘one-two-three-four, i declare a thumb war’ while Mary loses her shit in the row behind them. 

Beatrice likes braiding hair, and when she’s upset she just clings to ppl (Lilith starts calling her barnacle and also limpet) but both of them need that from each other, & most of the other sisters are just not Bea’s people; she has her three people (four, almost, when Cam arrives). 

with Mary it’s a lot of rough shoving and headlocks and kicking each other’s calves and ‘hey, think fast!’ followed by Mary chucking something at Bea. 

with Shannon it’s the face-touching, and her arms folding Bea into a hug to end all hugs. & obviously with Ava we have Beatrice the little spoon, & her quiet amazement at how much Ava likes touching her arms or pecking her on the cheek - i don’t think she was raised to believe that people might long to touch her, and where Lilith hid her longing pretty deftly, Ava is much more open about it; it’s part of what shocks her when Ava hugs her very suddenly that first time in Cat’s Cradle after the wall incident - not the touch, but the recognition of Ava’s hunger for it. i think it occurred to Beatrice that maybe Ava could not even remember the last time someone hugged her like that. i think she understands& once they’re together it’s stupid how often they are in contact with each other, but it’s Bea’s love language, i think.

sensory issues. texture is obviously a thing for Beatrice. specifically with food, but also with clothes. you’ll see (in the show) that she tends to favour clothes that are loose around the arms (part of her reasoning being that it’s easier and better to fight in loose-fitting clothes) but yeah she’s not a fan of tight clothing. likes pressure on her own terms. she likes sweaters and tank tops, men’s-section t-shirts because the weird v-shape of women’s sleeves is foul and heinous. she does like to button shirts all the way up to the top because for unknown reasons it feels safe and precise.

sound is not too bad for Bea. she’s used to a lot of shouting in martial arts training (the use of a kiai in kendo is well-established & often super loud. she kind of likes that, shrieking at the top of her lungs with permission) and also gunshots with the OCS. none of it bothers her more than gunshots are just super unpleasant to hear for anyone. 

she does enjoy asmr though. ocean sounds especially (thunder is bad unless there’s a really predictable interval between bouts of thunder) hates those deep-space ones because the bass makes her feel dizzy.

she just also really likes the sound of the people she loves talking. sometimes she can get Lilith to say more than four sentences together & it’s heaven. Ava obviously has her doe-eyed with her ability to talk about anything, to fill silences with good sound. 

Bea HATES to be shouted at, berated etc. but mostly for trauma reasons, b/c of the whole endless night her parents yelled at her before they sent her away. this is part of the reason that silence makes her a bit uneasy, unless she knows what it means. 

silence with Lilith has a few flavours; she has a happy silence, which is like a cat coming to sit in a room with you. she also has a broody silence, which Bea likes too, actually, because Lilith isn’t angry, she’s just filling the room with the noisiness of her thoughts. her angry silence makes Beatrice want to say around too, but only in the hope of mending things. Mary’s silences are usually good, or else they’re about Shannon. & Shannon has her gentle silences and her hidden silences. the fact is that silence for Bea is rarely actual silence, because she is too attentive to the meanings of silence. 

she likes Ava’s version of silence, which is talking. 

is also very very perceptive of sound - Lilith insists you can’t hear electricity OR spiders moving around, but Bea is adamant that you can, actually. she always knows when there’s a big house spider in her room bc they are NOT stealthy. it’s why she likes asmr - esp. in cat’s cradle - because it drowns out the small noises of the convent which don’t get tuned out by her brain.

light can be annoying for Bea. headcanon is that the museum heist sunglasses were not a brand new acquisition - Ava got them for Bea in Switzerland (‘you shouldn’t read in the sun if you’re gonna squint, bea’) because Beatrice got headaches from too much light, & they looked dorky so two birds with one stone. she does appreciate light, though, and loves sitting in the sun. anything that is not like England. she gets weird and sad when it rains too much. also HATES being rained on. fully sulks about it.

finally, stimming! i think when she’s upset Bea would, ideally, self-soothe by rocking. it’s why Mary does it, because Bea’s parents berated her for it so many times that her body freezes up at the thought. 

she likes to braid hair, as i said. likes tapping things, fiddling with things in her hands - reason why she’s so ‘puts hands behind back’ ‘puts hands in pockets’ ‘makes hands hold each other so they can’t do their own thing’. but yeah, in Switzerland it happens a lot more. playing with pens, tapping thumb & forefinger, tapping surfaces (very lightly), AHEM skipping stones. just keeping those guys busy. 

asmr is also stimming, btw. & so is eating the right food for the purpose of enjoying the textures. all of the touching. 

she also has mental stims! that r like… doing equations, or running through facts. counting primes. reciting as much of pi as she can in one minute, imagining a clock face and watching it move. i think so much of her stimming is probably mental, actually. rlly fun stims are finding linguistic patterns in things, or translating things back and forth - so like, from english to french to german to latin & then going back without cheating to see if any changes get imposed by counter-translating directly - also spatial reasoning in general is good stimming. thinking, how exactly would that fall? or imagining things swinging or shattering or anything like that, where you have to extrapolate a bit based on instinct and also knowledge. having to be so internal her whole life would have furnished her with a bunch of them, but i think her OCS family bring so many good visible stims to the surface too!

anyway, those are some of my thoughts on autistic bea. i love her very.

[thecorvidcurio-if]

Thoughts On Love

"What do you think love is?"

These are their answers before their routes are played. Their answers afterwards will be under the cut.

Vicente

"Love is providing for those you care about. It’s attending their needs and ensuring their safety and happiness. Love is putting those you care for before yourself."

Abby

"Love is uhhhh... I dunno! All I really have t’go on is what everyone else says, ‘n they all say different things! It's in songs ‘n stuff, uhhh— Oh! Right, it causes LOTS of drama, which is always fun! Not sure what the point of it is, though!"

Marina

"Someone can say they love you all day every day and it’d still be empty. Words are fuckin’ worthless. We are what we do, not what we say. If there's no love in the way someone acts then there's no love at all. Period."

Thea

"Ah, love… I do appreciate a good romance. In fiction, that is. In reality, it rather loses its lustre. Romance is alluring, and few can resist the... siren song, if you will. The problem arises when people confuse desire for love. You can't have love without desire, but you can most certainly have desire without love. Most of the time, people don't actually love their person of interest but just the idea of them. It’s harder to love a whole, flawed person. It’s one thing to love the way someone shines. It’s quite another to love the rest of them as well."

Kaida

"Love is non-existent. Any amount of… ‘care’ someone claims to feel for you only stems from whatever you provide for them. Once you are no longer useful or they’ve otherwise taken all you have to give… It’s frankly impressive how quickly ‘love’ gives way to the resentment of being saddled with someone who has become a useless and disposable thing. I have no interest in subjecting someone to that, and I have even less interest in being reduced to such a state again."

Shiloh

".......Mm. My….. understanding… is that love…… comes from the heart... I…. don't think my physical anatomy… has any organs….. including a heart muscle…… but I… haven't been able to check... I….. don't have a pulse…… so it stands to reason I don't…Mm. …I don’t have a heart. So….. it follows that love…… is beyond me…. Right?"

????

"Love is not something that one such as I am at liberty to consider for myself, but in a general sense, my view of it is complicated. Rarely do I see a happy ending. Not because they do not exist but, well… By the time I come around, ‘happily ever after’ has typically run its course. Even so, the pain I see is but a clear sign that love is something truly precious."

 Vicente

"Love is a house you’ve built with those you care for. It takes time and a team effort poured into a process that can be frustrating and exhausting. The quality of the result is decided by the materials used and the care taken in its construction. If you do it right, it can provide warmth and shelter even on the coldest night in the dead of winter, and there’s a comfort in knowing that those dearest to you are safe with you there."

Abby

"Love is when someone appreciates you for you, even when you're not— Even if you aren’t— Mmngh… I dunno. It’s— It’s being seen. Being really known by someone, ‘n they come closer instead of runnin’ away. ‘N you see them like they see you, even the not-fun bits, but even those bits are worth it 'cause it's them, y'know? They’re them, ‘n that's enough for you. You're enough for them, or— Or, at least, you’re not too much. They don’t, y’know— They don’t come at you with a list of all the ways you aren’t what they want you to be. They aren’t just— I dunno— Tolerating you, I guess.”

Marina

"Sometimes the people who're s'posed to love you suck absolute shit at it. So, you leave 'em behind, and you find people who put their money where their damn mouth is. People who actually give an actual, genuine fuck about your wellbeing and happiness. People who don’t have a million stupid, useless, infuriating conditions and expectations you need to meet for them to keep giving a fuck. People who don’t threaten to take their love away to keep you in line.”

Thea

"Attempting to describe what love is would be pointless. It isn’t something so easily put into words, which is perhaps why I have found it so elusive for so long. I can describe what it isn’t, though. It isn’t a role you play. It isn’t a costume you desperately try to fit into, carving away any parts of yourself that may be inconvenient. It isn't a transaction, and it isn't a competition. It isn’t something you should have to fight and beg for, and it isn’t something you can gain through expensive gifts and pretty lies. It isn’t something you can gain by twisting things to make yourself look good, because eventually things will untwist, and you’ll be seen for exactly what you are.”

Kaida

"I’m rarely ever wrong, and even more rarely ever happy to be wrong. In this, I’m… beyond pleased to be both. I… cannot say that most claims of love are honest and sincere. But... I can accept that sincere love exists, and when it does— ...I thought I understood, but I didn't, and I don't. Nothing is as I thought it was. Something I have been so sure of for thousands of years has been proven false and that's… That’s terrifying. I'm... okay with that, though. The terror of it all is far preferable to the loneliness of the alternative."

Shiloh

"Mmn. Love is…… scary…. It’s a feeling of…. flying and falling, at the same time… Everything is both hazy…. and unbearably vivid... Going too fast… while moving in slow motion…. Mm. It’s…. an ache… but it’s an ache to savour. It's… all too much… but never enough. Holding you together…. while tearing you apart….. And it's wonderful….. I’m still… fairly certain that I… don’t have an actual, physical heart, but… It sometimes… feels like I might…"

????

"I still do not know. Even having experienced it, I do not understand it. But I find that I do not want to, nor do I need to. I am simply glad to have it. That is all I need. All I ask. More than I ever thought I would receive. Just... just to have it. To be around it. That is all."

-------

Forever ago in the far off ancient time of 2017, one of the writers for Dragon Age made some tweets of the romance options he'd written responding to being asked about love. I really liked the idea so when I remembered it I thought it'd make a good warm-up, and once they were done I thought you all may enjoy them. So, here you go. I hope you all have a lovely day.

[sergeantnarwhalwrites]

OC Questionare

Thanks for the tag @winterandwords and @illarian-rambling! I'm gonna compile the questions in this one 👍🏾.

I tag: @jezifster @weirdgirlcroix @the-void-writes @revenantlore @cryptid-s-wips (Only if you want! Open tag too)

Your questions

1. Be honest, you fucking up that dance floor? (Good or bad way doesn't matter.)

2. Something you think is stupid?

3. How's that sleep schedule looking?

Robots & Gardens crew I guess.

What are you most ashamed of doing?

Green: "Killing a protester for meh money. Was desperate at the time. Hopin' not to fall on desperate times again."

Peace: "Guess I'm ashamed if I dragged anyone into an unsuccessful plan. Stresses everyone out."

Hollis: "Working my old job. Shouldn't have stuck around so long."

Donnie: "Taking on extra enhancements to do this job."

Digits: "I wouldn't really say I've got a lot of actual friends. So I've gotta be doing something."

If you had one wish, what would it be?

Green: "Enough money to support all the peoples that roam in. 'Specially the kids and Peace. Peace might hate it, but she loves me it's fine."

Peace: "No more fucking smog. I want to see the sky. I feel like I haven't seen a clear sky since I was a kid. The hell is this?"

Hollis: "That I had focused more on my music. Love helping people but I shouldn't be used to seeing demolished prosthetics and what people look like screaming and sobbing in pain. You know? But maybe that's me."

Donnie: "More accessible tech. Damn it took me three damn lifetimes to figure all of this out."

Digits: "I just want prosthetics that don't suck ass and sleep. If they pick sleep tell them to make it eternal. I'm sick of this shit."

Where is your favourite place in the world?

Green: "Gonna take ya on a nostalgia trip a bit. I'd say Peace's parents's place. But maybe the diner with the good pops. The fizzies in the glass bottles with the real sugar. Oh hell yeah. Add Peace to the mix and a silent phone and I migh've finally died."

Peace: "There's this spot by the diner right. And there used to be a patch of trees and like an itty bitty pond thing? It was kinda like a really really deep puddle after it rains. Green and I used to sit there sometimes and chug fizzies back to back till we felt like we were gonna puke. Think one of us did one time."

Hollis: "There's a couple hangout spots. But one in particular has a longue sorta thing going. And I get to play my music for a crowd. Get to play my music for the gorgeous dancers when they show. And I usually get a mouthful of a beautiful person too. It's the place to be."

Donnie: "Those rooftop garden things. A lot of them do end up shrivelled and depressing looking after the chemical rain. But the ones that flourish. Really fucking flourish. It's gorgeous. Or just my own home garden. It's nice to stare at nature after fighting all day. Or staring at screens all day."

Digits: "Is it sad if I say my place? Feeling like I'm barely there anymore. It's comfy. There's usually food. The tv works. I like my room, bed's comfy."

What is (or would be) your favorite subject in school?

Green: "History. I actually understood it the longest."

Peace: "Foreign language. Language classes in general really."

Hollis: "Shit it's been awhile. Any of the hobby classes maybe. Really liked the hands on stuff." (Electives basically).

Donnie: "Science. The really broad environmental stuff. I didn't like the smaller stuff much."

Digits: "Math and trade skills. Ended up working construction for a reason."

Have you ever played a prank on someone?

Green: "Yeah. Think I ended up gettin' my ass beat by the menace though."

Peace: "Nope. Well maybe? I helped Green out with hers sometimes. I hate when that woman pranks me. Gets her off my back if she can focus it on someone else."

Hollis: "Pulled out a chair or two. Swapped drinks. Nothing special."

Donnie: "I don't think so. I don't think I'm clever enough to come up with a good one."

Digits: "People usually prank me. But I've gotten my get back a couple times."

If you could swap bodies with anyone you know for a day, who would it be?

Green: "Hollis maybe. She's cool, maybe I could get somethin' out of it."

Peace: "Digits. And I'm making her lay the hell down."

Hollis: "Don't think I could do it. Donnie gets injured all the time. Digits's arms spazz at random. I'd give myself a concussion in Peace's body. Get killed in Green's. And would be annoyed to clean up after drunk assholes at my hangout spot as a bartender."

Donnie: "Digits maybe. Give her a mental break from her prosthetics at least."

Digits: "Green. Green all day. No I didn't answer that too fast. Fuck off."

[esotericjerks]

This is just a big Hellcanon loredump:

If you ask Sitri why about the whole Heaven vs. Hell thing, they’ll just make some kind of joke about it being a family drama. But the demon is notoriously blasé, so don’t take it seriously. Like most mass-destructing, cataclysmic warmongering, it’s rooted in greed and stupid ideological differences. 

Heaven and Hell are separate planes of existence overlaying/touching/connected to Earth/the material plane/the mortal plane. They are not actually physically above/below Earth, despite the fact that Sitri and other demons colloquially refer to Earth as “topside.” For some humans (not all—some go elsewhere), when they shuffle off their mortal coil, their immaterial consciousness may manifest in either Heaven or Hell, dependent upon numerous mysterious factors that neither side really cares to explain to anyone. It has little to do with Jesus. 

Demons reside in Hell. Some important distinctions/glossary of terms: 

Souls—Human/mortal spirits that were relocated to Hell after death on Earth.

Lesser demons—Most common kind of demon. Types of power, associated sins, and threat level vary. Human souls can become lesser demons if subjected to Hell’s influence long enough. That is also the point of “punishment” in Hell. Not really to discipline sinners, but to add more cannon fodder to the legions. 

Greater demons—Scariest and most powerful kind of demon. Some may be native born hellspawn (as in, birthed post-First War in Heaven) and some may be fallen angels. (Although not all fallen angels joined Hell's cause.)  

Unranked—Meaning not included among Hell’s meritocratic ruling class. 

Ranked—Possessing a title; either one of the 72 Spirits, one of the Four Queens, etc. 

Regarding Hell's meritocracy: 

The organization is confusing; the actual titles mean less than you think. What matters is level of influence. For example, a King with only thirty legions may be less powerful than a Marquis with fifty. 

The demons whose roles are fairly constant or fixed are those embodying a Sin (ex., Asmodeus, Beelzebub, Leviathan, etc.) or the Four Queens (Naamah, Eisheth Zenunim, Agrat Bat Mahlat, and Lilith). They rule over large territories in Hell (Circles), with other members of the 72 residing within them. (Ex., Sitri is a vassal of Asmodeus and presides over a city-state within his Circle.) 

Big Bad–whomst I conceptualize as not Lucifer or Satan, but a Third Worse Thing–rules over all of it. I general do not use an actual name for this figure. 

Demons can level-up by eating each other!

Opening portals into Hell is, like, shockingly easy. Almost any human can do it if they try. Hell wants you to visit. It’s getting back out again that’s the tricky part.

Further explanation on demonic manifestation on the mortal plane: 

To recap: less powerful demons can only manifest on Earth by possessing a human vessel or via summoning, as the confines of a magic circle function as a temporary vessel. Very powerful demons can simply tear open a hole in reality and heave their essence from one side to the other, the immaterial to the material, and condense Earth matter into a shape.  

That said, there is only so much the material plane can handle. Big Bad is not manifesting on Earth, just like God is also not doing that. It would probably cause reality to just collapse. That’s why angels and demons exist; to do dirty work.  

Topside Sitri only seems as natural as they do because they’ve been doing the human disguise thing for so long. It’s hard, constructing an entirely new physiology and operating it correctly. Even now, if you manage to hurt/distract/anger Sitri enough, the construct will slip and things'll get weird.  

This is to say: the reason why possessed people twitch and contort and vomit and all that actually has nothing to do with demons being sadistic and everything to do with them going “AHHH WHAT THE  FUCK WHAT FUCK HOW DO I WORK THIS THING”

[aibelbinzacariah]

The hidden link between science and philosophy

As a kid of various interests and likings, I have always found myself leveraging ideas of science, math, psychology, and philosophy. I don’t know if it’s the hidden interest I had in personality traits of people or if it’s the serenity I found in literature but I, never in a million years wanted to pursue it as I found it as a dead end when it comes to our world which revolves around money making.

Well… Interests can be altered to situations. But can one’s internal interests be burnt to ashes just like that? That’s enough beating around the bush. My internal liking for philosophy and forced liking for science have brought me here. This might sound stupid to one… or maybe everyone but I am trying to get it out of my head and here’s a blog for the same.

Take this example. A simple machine, let it be mechanical or electronic, absorbs heat which in turn reduces the efficiency of the system. Now make it work for days under heavy workload and you will see how its efficiency is downgraded as the days go by. Now take a look at a simple human, Make him/her work for about 12 hours with no rest and you will see their efficiency go down just like that. Now let’s assume you hate our species and force them to not sleep and again find how it affects them as a machine’s continuous workload affects it. Here you can see how severe workload and stress affect something living and nonliving in more or less the same manner with just differences in the rate/parameter.

Let’s take another example, but here I will dive deeper into computers and mainly AI.

A person who is knowledgeable and healthy would be efficient and faster at work in the domain of their expertise than someone who is illiterate and has poor health, similarly, a computer with the most efficient and fast components when fed with the right amount of data would have the best output when used right.

Keeping the outputs aside, Some critical similarities can also be found when it comes to working on certain machinery. Take AI for an example, The way neurons work in them is similar to the way human being’s neurons work (my knowledge here is limited but am open to constructive criticism) The quality and quantity of knowledge you feed to a human being and an AI model has its similarity when it comes to the output and yes let’s keep the parameter differences in mind but in the world of calculus the rates can be calculated.

If you find all this slightly acceptable but don’t see a point of it, let me carry you forward… In a world where AI growth is unpredictable, the weird ideas of philosophical approach might sound obnoxious to you but it might just be me, I find it doable. This is how we predict and calculate its growth. Here where the philosophies of living and non-living are just subjects to be laughed at, I find it extremely interesting. Maybe a follow-up of a blog could make you understand better because I have a long list of examples and experiences that make me feel the same. May it be hallucinations or dreams, As an AI student who should’ve been excavating deeply rooted meanings of works of Robert Booker, I find these connections fascinating and perhaps of certain potential. If not now, later.