#I hate hate hate hate hate it

[gently-decaying-flowers]

can’t tell if i’d rather have a salad or a bullet lodged into my skull

[fanarchoslashivist]

“Do you remember what my favorite food is?”

"ChocolaTE?" Jack’s voice cracked as he tried to concentrate on something other than Aster’s warm breath against his cheek.

"That's right. I love it, I love the taste, I love the texture, I love the range of flavors you can make, I love the entire difficult process it takes to create it, from drying the beans to tempering, but my very favorite chocolate is a very special one I make only for myself. It's bitter, too bitter for a human palette, worse than the darkest baking chocolate you could imagine, but for a Pooka like me it's just perfect. You see, it's not just the theobromine in chocolate that we like, but a specific concentration of procyanidins that give it that special bitter flavor. Unfortunately it's bad for us, or good, it's hard to really describe what happens to a Pooka's body when we eat it.”

Aster nosed under Jack’s ear, breathing loudly for the sole purpose of making Jack shudder from the sound. “You see Pooka don't have a liver or kidneys the way you humans do, like how some foods are poisonous to dogs and cats because their body can't process it, we Pooka though, we have a different way to cleanse our system of things that could hurt us.'' The Ps in his voice were unfair, the way Aster’s lips and breath would brush against his skin with every ‘pooka’. “Our body converts everything we consume into fat, it's the best way to store energy, and we can go a very long time between eating because daily meals don't affect us at all. Our body only uses energy after it is stored, it's actually very dangerous for a Pooka to lose too much body fat because a meal would take too long to be turned into the energy our organs need you see. Drawbacks of being shapeshifters.

“So when we started practicing magic we ended up being very good at it, because magic is just energy. Other races didn't have the body mass to use their own energy, so they took it from the air around them, the way you survive off eating all the energy around you leaving only ice behind. There is so much of your body's energy being used just to exist, even digestion requires energy, but Pooka are made to store energy for our long fasting years back when we evolved, so in a time of such abundance as the Golden Age our bodies were uniquely able to convert all that fat directly into magic, amazing right?”

Jack nodded, swallowing. He didn’t think he was supposed to answer, but he also really didn’t want to do anything that would make the warm body against his leave.

“Except that converting energy into magic is very taxing, while Pooka have the best range in terms of endurance, we can only ever use our magic at a rate our bodies can convert fat into energy, so casting truly powerful magic is difficult if you are on your own.

“But imagine you had something that was so poisonous to your species, in a form that metabolized too quickly, that eating it would force your body to burn all the fat stores not immediately necessary to live as fast as possible to expel it. Like your body was forcing you to throw up something foul to get it out of you, but it was already in your bloodstream as soon as you ate it, and the only way to get it out was to burn all the blood up out of your veins and start from scratch.”

Aster pulled back then, just far enough to look Jack in the eye, hold his gaze as he explained it. “Thats chocolate to a Pooka, it forces our bodies to burn energy as fast as possible, letting us access magic on levels we could never dream, it's a powerful and painful process, your whole body burning with it, it's addicting, its poison, and it's my very favorite flavor in the whole universe.” His green eyes glowed like a fresh patch of meadow grass sprouting in a snowy field. A hunter’s trap.“Now tell me Jack, why you think I, who works every day with my very favorite thing, the thing I want more than everything else but can't ever have, for thousands of years, why you think I wouldn't have the level of self control needed to keep my hands to myself around the person I like?”

Jack bit his lip, unable to offer any excuse, and Aster’s smile pulled deep to one side in disappointment, more a wince than a smirk.

“You were very cute, trying to flirt with me. I'll be honest and say I was happy you showed interest this soon, I thought I would have to wait at least twenty years before I started to seduce you. I wanted to take things slow with you, considering your experience so far, but I'm not such a good guy that I wouldn't be happy to skip a few steps in the healing process; we could work on it later after all.”

“Then why?”

“Because you made me mad.”

His smile fell fully away now as he stared Jack down. “You treated me like I was someone who would take from you Jack, like I was some predator that would be lured away by a bird if it drug its wing and limped on the ground. It was insulting. Do you know what healthy people do when they figure out they like someone, Frostbite? When they realize that maybe that person likes them back?”

“They date?”

“They talk.'' Aster said flatly. “They talk to each other about their feelings, or their attraction if they don't have feelings, but they make it known that they are interested in each other and they communicate their needs. Maybe it's poor communication, maybe one of them wants something the other can’t give, maybe they give a little more than they should and hurt themselves, but what they don't do, if they have any respect for the other person, is set themselves to be taken advantage of.”

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, trying not to let the insult rile him up again. He didn’t want this to be a one sided lecture, but he wasn’t going to swallow down his hurt. “Did you ever wonder how it would make me feel?” He asked, searching Jack’s surprised face. Did you consider my perspective at all? When you realized I wanted you and set up that little show of touching yourself where I could hear, calling my name, acting like if you were just tempting enough I would attack you and damn the consequences?” Jack’s guilty look told him he hadn’t. “Some of us have more respect than that.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said softly, meeting his eyes again, and Aster knew he was, knew that if he laid it all out to Jack, his history, his insecurities, Jack would understand, and probably feel even worse. The problem was that this wasn’t the time for that, or the direction he wanted this to go.

Jack had wanted this to lead in a specific direction, and he wasn’t opposed to that, he just wanted to make absolutely certain Jack knew what he was getting himself into; and also punish him a bit. No less than what Aster had gone through that night laying in bed hearing Jack whimper his name through the walls.

“The problem, Jack, is that you got so used to not getting what you ask for you've decided to stop asking, you've given up, and now you expect people to take what they want from you regardless of if you get hurt.” That angered him more than trying to use him did. That Jack’s first instinct was to expect his consent to be inconsequential, that he considered Aster as someone who would violate it. It burned in his gut like acid. “I won't accept that. If all you want is to have some fun, enjoy a mutual attraction, with none of the emotional attachment then fine, I can give you that for a while, I can appreciate your usual affection regardless of if it's love or friendship, my people don't really have a distinction, culturally, between that.” He took Jack’s chin in one hand to force his sad, guilty eyes to face him head on. “But I at least will demand your respect. So no, I'm not going to meet you halfway in this, not right now. I'm not going to let you make me do all the hard work just because you want some wild animal sex, I'm a person, and if you want me to touch you then from here on out you have to ask me.”

Jack’s expression shifted, confused.

“If you want me to kiss you,” he ran the coarse pad of his thumb across Jack’s lips, ��then you will have to use your words and ask for it,” Jack’s mouth parted as he drew in a shaky breath, pupils expanding under his stare. “Every little desire in your head is going to come out of your mouth and I will decide if I'm going to agree to it or not. Do you understand?” He demanded

“Yes.” Jack’s voice was like the whistle through his teeth.

“Good. Now, tell me.” Aster placed his hand back on the counter at Jack’s elbow, pressing him down with his weight again, “What do you want?”

“I…I...?” Jack's mind fumbled, his tongue suddenly heavy and awkward as he tried to think of what to say. What he was allowed to ask, in the face of his sin. "Could you kiss me?" His voice was very small in the request, awaiting rejection.

"I could," Aster said. "I'd very much like that, if you want it."

"I do, I want that." Jack felt like he was going to cry, afraid he would mess this up, mess everything up like he always did. “If you want it too.”

Bunny leaned down then in answer, he was so soft, the skin of his cleft lips thick and pliant against Jack's, the constant flexing of Aster's nose against Jack's cheek. It felt like he was pressing his face against a fuzzy gel filled heat pack. Everything tingled where it touched and he felt like he was being given the sweetest possible candy as consolation even though he had broken the crystal bowl in his attempt to steal it.

And then Bunny licked him.

He hadn't really known what he wanted in terms of a kiss, just that every time he looked at Bunny, could feel or smell his breath as they spoke, he wanted to lean forward and bite him; he didn't know what he expected to feel if he ever followed through with it, or what the urge to do it was being caused by, he just knew it was something he suddenly wanted to do, and then that battery on the tip of your tongue tingle would jolt through him and fill him with heat. Now it was like he was pressing down hard on a joke shop hand zapper.

He'd read in the books the line "battling for dominance" in regards to this type of kissing but he couldn't really see how that applied, even though he was sure Bunny was mad enough at him to make good use of that phrase, there just didn't feel like there was enough room for any kind of fight, there only seemed to be enough space to shift and slide around each other.

The texture of Bunny's tongue felt delightfully odd, he didn't exactly have any expectations, except that once he had wondered if it would feel scratchy like a cat's, or if it would feel like a human's, like his own. It wasn't smooth and alien, or particularly slimy feeling like he had worried when he spent time considering what kissing with tongue would feel like, all the little bumps of the human tongue that he had studied carefully in the mirror as he thought about what it felt like to feel another's in his mouth, but it felt a little different then the subtle roughness of his own.

Feeling it in his mouth, stroking against his, texture against texture, had the golden glow of adrenaline swimming through his veins, from his fingertips to his gut down to his toes.

"Hands," Aster said into his mouth and he had to blink his heavy eyes open like he was pulling himself from deep sleep. "I didn't say you could touch me."

Jack noticed then that he was gripping tightly to Bunny's shoulders, fingers clenched in the long fur. He flexed them, feeling thick and stiff from his thrumming heart. He didn't want to let go, he wanted to wrap his arms around the ridiculously thick neck and drag his hands through that massive blanket of fur and pull it tight in his fists.

Instead he brought them down to his side, held them there as Bunny continued to kiss him with firm focused strokes of his tongue, nails biting into his palm. The feel of Bunny's fur against his collarbone, his neck, his cheeks as Bunny shifted the angle of his head this way and that, sent little sparkles of electricity along his skin until it almost hurt.

“I want to touch you," he whined, head swimming with sensation.

"Then ask."

"Can I please touch you?" He nuzzled his nose into the cleft of Bunny's lip.

"Where do you want to touch?"

"Everywhere." His voice took on the edge of a toddler nearing a tantrum.

"Let's not be too greedy," Aster chided in amusement, "one step at a time. Look at me."

Jack opened his eyes and watched as Bunny leaned back, hands still braced on the counter at either side of him, and studied Jack with a satisfied tilt of his mouth.

"What do you want to touch?"

Everywhere, he wanted to repeat, but he knew that wouldn't get him what he wanted, so he tried to take the moment given to him and consider. Bunny was already extending to him so much grace, and he wanted to be worthy of that trust.

He also really wanted to dig his fingers into Bunny's shoulders and tug him back into the kiss, let his hands climb up the back of his neck and drag them down from the top of his head to between his shoulders, smooth out that long black line he fantasized about petting as he watched Bunny crouched down in his work.He wanted to cup his face, slide his fingers gently through the volume of white fur along his cheeks, twist it around his fingers into little curls.

He wanted to stroke a thumb over his ears, starting from the base and following that thick vein to the tip, feel the velvet of fur inside the pink curve of skin with his thumb and the gray silky fur of the outer shell at the same time, he wanted to see if Bunny was as sensitive to the touch as a rabbit was, if he would close his eyes and flatten his face against the nearest surface in bliss.

He wanted to watch Bunny melt into the floor, stretching himself out like a pancake under Jack's hands. He was supposed to be everything green and growing, Avatar of Spring and lover of all things botanical, but Bunny reminded him most of earth and stone; his fur the soft hazy gray-blue of distant mountains, wide shoulders a mantle of snow at the peak.

Jack wanted to see that mountain tremble, trigger the avalanche

 down the slope of his thick white fur that swept from his chest to his belly; snow that Jack just wanted to dig his fingers into and race to the bottom, burying them like a tragedy in the thick weight of it all.

"Can I touch your chest?" Jack asked finally, after careful consideration.

"You can." Aster said, and observed Jack's expression as he reached out to comb his fingers through the thicker section of fur below his collarbone. Pooka didn't have nipples on their torso the way humans did, their means of nursing was hidden within their pouch to protect their vulnerable kits, so the skin under Jack's exploring hand wasn't particularly sensitive, except that it was covered in thick warm fur and Jack's cool fingertips drug upwards against the grain, nails grazing skin.

"Can I touch higher?" Jack asked, sliding both hands upwards through his fur to his collarbone before starting back at the bottom again.

"yes." aster agreed.

"Here?" jack's hands went up and around his throat, stopping at the curve of his jaw and then dragging back dow, nails scraping.

"yes."

"and the back," Jack spread his fingers wide, like he would choke him, pads against his pulse as he waited, "can i touch your neck here?"

"Yes." his eyelids twitced as nails climbed up his spine to scratch at the base of his skull, cold as a trickle of water dropping from an icicle overhead, and then sliding down to his shoulders and flexing, palms flat in the groove between his deltoid and pecs.

"And here?" Jack asked, watching his closely, fingers raised just barely above the fur of his shoulder, so that every breath Aster took had the longer hairs brushing against them. "Can I touch you here?"

"yes, you can." Jack and Aster kept their eyes locked as he set his fingers, one by one, on each shoulder delicately.

"Can I grab you here?" Jack asked, eyes sliding to aster's lips again and the distance dissapearing between them. "Can I pull you closer?"

"You can." Aster followed the pull, rubbing his lips against Jacks gently, tasting their words between them.

"Can i hold you tightly?" Jack asked, and spoke over Aster's whispered 'yes', to clarify, "can I grab you like before?"

Bunny nuzzled his nose into the corner of Jack's mouth, dragging his answer out for a second, listening to the slow intentional breaths Jack took to keep his patience.

"Yes." he said finally and let Jack press hard against him, fingers biting deep into the skin of his shoulder as Jack yanked their faces together again, tongue chasing his through the air he used to answer.

[useless-switzerlandfacts]

I'm having the ~privilege to look for an appartment in Geneva, again

[usersukuna]

i'm MELTING

[willowvibin]

oh my god i hate how they moved the profile thing so much (on app)

and it makes the area you see while scrolling smaller since you now have a bar at the top that doesn’t disappear

genuinely might make me use tumblr significantly less

[luigicat117]

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[ef-1]

For those not tapped into Australian politics, King Charles is in Australia to conduct his "historic first tour to the commonwealth realm" i.e visting countries that King Charles is supposedly a monarch to.

Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe had requested an audience with King Charles for weeks prior to this visit, she wrote countless letters to speak to him. Unlike other commonwealth nations and other former Brisitish colonies, a treaty with Indigenous peoples in Australia was never formed. Their land was never ceded to the British Crown. After being denied and ignored, Lidia Thorpe, draped in a traditional possum skin cloak, stormed in the Great Hall during the reception for Charles at Parliament House in the capital shouting the following:

I literally can't even look at these photos without getting goosebumps.

[daylighteclipsed]

ENTRY LEVEL MEANS NO EXPERIENCE. IT MEANS NO PORTFOLIO OF RELEVANT SAMPLES. ENTRY LEVEL IS ENTRY LEVEL

[yellow-g0ache]

If I had a tail I'd wrap it around yours when we sit together. If u even care

[mroddmod]

the queen of the disco or whatever

[valtsv]

stuck between "psychological horror statement" and "objectively the funniest thing you could say to your real flesh and blood dad" in the father's day card aisle

[ionomycin]

temple at the end of the road

[vamprisms]

i feel like a lot of the 'i hate kids' crowd would be more tolerant if they understood that due to a kid's limited experience of the world that 4 hour flight might just be the longest they've ever had to sit still for or that trapped finger might literally be the most pain they've ever felt in their short life or they might not have ever seen a person with pink hair ever so of course they want to touch it or nobody's told them yet that they can't run around the museum and they only just learned cheetahs are the fastest animals so of course they want to put that to the test. how were they supposed to know etc etc.

[scionsthings]

Rewatching Arcane

[theygender]

You know I'm gonna be honest. I don't think all these apps really need access to my precise location