#Remote Control Programing/Problem

[foone]

A fun thing about computer skills is that as you have more of them, the number of computer problems you have doesn't go down.

This is because as a beginner, you have troubles because you don't have much knowledge.

But then you learn a bunch more, and now you've got the skills to do a bunch of stuff, so you run into a lot of problems because you're doing so much stuff, and only an expert could figure them out.

But then one day you are an expert. You can reprogram everything and build new hardware! You understand all the various layers of tech!

And your problems are now legendary. You are trying things no one else has ever tried. You Google them and get zero results, or at best one forum post from 1997. You discover bugs in the silicon of obscure processors. You crash your compiler. Your software gets cited in academic papers because you accidently discovered a new mathematical proof while trying to remote control a vibrator. You can't use the wifi on your main laptop because you wrote your own uefi implementation and Intel has a bug in their firmware that they haven't fixed yet, no matter how much you email them. You post on mastodon about your technical issue and the most common replies are names of psychiatric medications. You have written your own OS but there arent many programs for it because no one else understands how they have to write apps as a small federation of coroutine-based microservices. You ask for help and get Pagliacci'd, constantly.

But this is the natural of computer skills: as you know more, your problems don't get easier, they just get weirder.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cleantech has an enshittification problem

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

EVs won't save the planet. Ultimately, the material bill for billions of individual vehicles and the unavoidable geometry of more cars-more traffic-more roads-greater distances-more cars dictate that the future of our cities and planet requires public transit – lots of it.

But no matter how much public transit we install, there's always going to be some personal vehicles on the road, and not just bikes, ebikes and scooters. Between deliveries, accessibility, and stubbornly low-density regions, there's going to be a lot of cars, vans and trucks on the road for the foreseeable future, and these should be electric.

Beyond that irreducible minimum of personal vehicles, there's the fact that individuals can't install their own public transit system; in places that lack the political will or means to create working transit, EVs are a way for people to significantly reduce their personal emissions.

In policy circles, EV adoption is treated as a logistical and financial issue, so governments have focused on making EVs affordable and increasing the density of charging stations. As an EV owner, I can affirm that affordability and logistics were important concerns when we were shopping for a car.

But there's a third EV problem that is almost entirely off policy radar: enshittification.

An EV is a rolling computer in a fancy case with a squishy person inside of it. While this can sound scary, there are lots of cool implications for this. For example, your EV could download your local power company's tariff schedule and preferentially charge itself when the rates are lowest; they could also coordinate with the utility to reduce charging when loads are peaking. You can start them with your phone. Your repair technician can run extensive remote diagnostics on them and help you solve many problems from the road. New features can be delivered over the air.

That's just for starters, but there's so much more in the future. After all, the signal virtue of a digital computer is its flexibility. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing complete, universal, Von Neumann machine, which can run every valid program. If a feature is computationally tractable – from automated parallel parking to advanced collision prevention – it can run on a car.

The problem is that this digital flexibility presents a moral hazard to EV manufacturers. EVs are designed to make any kind of unauthorized, owner-selected modification into an IP rights violation ("IP" in this case is "any law that lets me control the conduct of my customers or competitors"):

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

EVs are also designed so that the manufacturer can unilaterally exert control over them or alter their operation. EVs – even more than conventional vehicles – are designed to be remotely killswitched in order to help manufacturers and dealers pressure people into paying their car notes on time:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

Manufacturers can reach into your car and change how much of your battery you can access:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

They can lock your car and have it send its location to a repo man, then greet him by blinking its lights, honking its horn, and pulling out of its parking space:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

And of course, they can detect when you've asked independent mechanic to service your car and then punish you by degrading its functionality:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2024/06/26/two-of-eight-claims-in-tesla-anti-trust-lawsuit-will-move-forward/

This is "twiddling" – unilaterally and irreversibly altering the functionality of a product or service, secure in the knowledge that IP law will prevent anyone from twiddling back by restoring the gadget to a preferred configuration:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

The thing is, for an EV, twiddling is the best case scenario. As bad as it is for the company that made your EV to change how it works whenever they feel like picking your pocket, that's infinitely preferable to the manufacturer going bankrupt and bricking your car.

That's what just happened to owners of Fisker EVs, cars that cost $40-70k. Cars are long-term purchases. An EV should last 12-20 years, or even longer if you pay to swap the battery pack. Fisker was founded in 2016 and shipped its first Ocean SUV in 2023. The company is now bankrupt:

https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chapter-11-official/

Fisker called its vehicles "software-based cars" and they weren't kidding. Without continuous software updates and server access, those Fisker Ocean SUVs are turning into bricks. What's more, the company designed the car from the ground up to make any kind of independent service and support into a felony, by wrapping the whole thing in overlapping layers of IP. That means that no one can step in with a module that jailbreaks the Fisker and drops in an alternative firmware that will keep the fleet rolling.

This is the third EV risk – not just finance, not just charger infrastructure, but the possibility that any whizzy, cool new EV company will go bust and brick your $70k cleantech investment, irreversibly transforming your car into 5,500 lb worth of e-waste.

This confers a huge advantage onto the big automakers like VW, Kia, Ford, etc. Tesla gets a pass, too, because it achieved critical mass before people started to wise up to the risk of twiddling and bricking. If you're making a serious investment in a product you expect to use for 20 years, are you really gonna buy it from a two-year old startup with six months' capital in the bank?

The incumbency advantage here means that the big automakers won't have any reason to sink a lot of money into R&D, because they won't have to worry about hungry startups with cool new ideas eating their lunches. They can maintain the cozy cartel that has seen cars stagnate for decades, with the majority of "innovation" taking the form of shitty, extractive and ill-starred ideas like touchscreen controls and an accelerator pedal that you have to rent by the month:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price

Put that way, it's clear that this isn't an EV problem, it's a cleantech problem. Cleantech has all the problems of EVs: it requires a large capital expenditure, it will be "smart," and it is expected to last for decades. That's rooftop solar, heat-pumps, smart thermostat sensor arrays, and home storage batteries.

And just as with EVs, policymakers have focused on infrastructure and affordability without paying any attention to the enshittification risks. Your rooftop solar will likely be controlled via a Solaredge box – a terrible technology that stops working if it can't reach the internet for a protracted period (that's right, your home solar stops working if the grid fails!).

I found this out the hard way during the covid lockdowns, when Solaredge terminated its 3G cellular contract and notified me that I would have to replace the modem in my system or it would stop working. This was at the height of the supply-chain crisis and there was a long waiting list for any replacement modems, with wifi cards (that used your home internet rather than a cellular connection) completely sold out for most of a year.

There are good reasons to connect rooftop solar arrays to the internet – it's not just so that Solaredge can enshittify my service. Solar arrays that coordinate with the grid can make it much easier and safer to manage a grid that was designed for centralized power production and is being retrofitted for distributed generation, one roof at a time.

But when the imperatives of extraction and efficiency go to war, extraction always wins. After all, the Solaredge system is already in place and solar installers are largely ignorant of, and indifferent to, the reasons that a homeowner might want to directly control and monitor their system via local controls that don't roundtrip through the cloud.

Somewhere in the hindbrain of any prospective solar purchaser is the experience with bricked and enshittified "smart" gadgets, and the knowledge that anything they buy from a cool startup with lots of great ideas for improving production, monitoring, and/or costs poses the risk of having your 20 year investment bricked after just a few years – and, thanks to the extractive imperative, no one will be able to step in and restore your ex-solar array to good working order.

I make the majority of my living from books, which means that my pay is very "lumpy" – I get large sums when I publish a book and very little in between. For many years, I've used these payments to make big purchases, rather than financing them over long periods where I can't predict my income. We've used my book payments to put in solar, then an induction stove, then a battery. We used one to buy out the lease on our EV. And just a month ago, we used the money from my upcoming Enshittification book to put in a heat pump (with enough left over to pay for a pair of long-overdue cataract surgeries, scheduled for the fall).

When we started shopping for heat pumps, it was clear that this was a very exciting sector. First of all, heat pumps are kind of magic, so efficient and effective it's almost surreal. But beyond the basic tech – which has been around since the late 1940s – there is a vast ferment of cool digital features coming from exciting and innovative startups.

By nature, I'm the kid of person who likes these digital features. I started out as a computer programmer, and while I haven't written production code since the previous millennium, I've been in and around the tech industry for my whole adult life. But when it came time to buy a heat-pump – an investment that I expected to last for 20 years or more – there was no way I was going to buy one of these cool new digitally enhanced pumps, no matter how much the reviewers loved them. Sure, they'd work well, but it's precisely because I'm so knowledgeable about high tech that I could see that they would fail very, very badly.

You may think EVs are bullshit, and they are – though there will always be room for some personal vehicles, and it's better for people in transit deserts to drive EVs than gas-guzzlers. You may think rooftop solar is a dead-end and be all-in on utility scale solar (I think we need both, especially given the grid-disrupting extreme climate events on our horizon). But there's still a wide range of cleantech – induction tops, heat pumps, smart thermostats – that are capital intensive, have a long duty cycle, and have good reasons to be digitized and networked.

Take home storage batteries: your utility can push its rate card to your battery every time they change their prices, and your battery can use that information to decide when to let your house tap into the grid, and when to switch over to powering your home with the solar you've stored up during the day. This is a very old and proven pattern in tech: the old Fidonet BBS network used a version of this, with each BBS timing its calls to other nodes to coincide with the cheapest long-distance rates, so that messages for distant systems could be passed on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet

Cleantech is a very dynamic sector, even if its triumphs are largely unheralded. There's a quiet revolution underway in generation, storage and transmission of renewable power, and a complimentary revolution in power-consumption in vehicles and homes:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/12/s-curve/#anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-eventually-stops

But cleantech is too important to leave to the incumbents, who are addicted to enshittification and planned obsolescence. These giant, financialized firms lack the discipline and culture to make products that have the features – and cost savings – to make them appealing to the very wide range of buyers who must transition as soon as possible, for the sake of the very planet.

It's not enough for our policymakers to focus on financing and infrastructure barriers to cleantech adoption. We also need a policy-level response to enshittification.

Ideally, every cleantech device would be designed so that it was impossible to enshittify – which would also make it impossible to brick:

Based on free software (best), or with source code escrowed with a trustee who must release the code if the company enters administration (distant second-best);

All patents in a royalty-free patent-pool (best); or in a trust that will release them into a royalty-free pool if the company enters administration (distant second-best);

No parts-pairing or other DRM permitted (best); or with parts-pairing utilities available to all parties on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (distant second-best);

All diagnostic and error codes in the public domain, with all codes in the clear within the device (best); or with decoding utilities available on demand to all comers on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (distant second-best).

There's an obvious business objection to this: it will reduce investment in innovative cleantech because investors will perceive these restrictions as limits on the expected profits of their portfolio companies. It's true: these measures are designed to prevent rent-extraction and other enshittificatory practices by cleantech companies, and to the extent that investors are counting on enshittification rents, this might prevent them from investing.

But that has to be balanced against the way that a general prohibition on enshittificatory practices will inspire consumer confidence in innovative and novel cleantech products, because buyers will know that their investments will be protected over the whole expected lifespan of the product, even if the startup goes bust (nearly every startup goes bust). These measures mean that a company with a cool product will have a much larger customer-base to sell to. Those additional sales more than offset the loss of expected revenue from cheating and screwing your customers by twiddling them to death.

There's also an obvious legal objection to this: creating these policies will require a huge amount of action from Congress and the executive branch, a whole whack of new rules and laws to make them happen, and each will attract court-challenges.

That's also true, though it shouldn't stop us from trying to get legal reforms. As a matter of public policy, it's terrible and fucked up that companies can enshittify the things we buy and leave us with no remedy.

However, we don't have to wait for legal reform to make this work. We can take a shortcut with procurement – the things governments buy with public money. The feds, the states and localities buy a lot of cleantech: for public facilities, for public housing, for public use. Prudent public policy dictates that governments should refuse to buy any tech unless it is designed to be enshittification-resistant.

This is an old and honorable tradition in policymaking. Lincoln insisted that the rifles he bought for the Union Army come with interoperable tooling and ammo, for obvious reasons. No one wants to be the Commander in Chief who shows up on the battlefield and says, "Sorry, boys, war's postponed, our sole supplier decided to stop making ammunition."

By creating a market for enshittification-proof cleantech, governments can ensure that the public always has the option of buying an EV that can't be bricked even if the maker goes bust, a heat-pump whose digital features can be replaced or maintained by a third party of your choosing, a solar controller that coordinates with the grid in ways that serve their owners – not the manufacturers' shareholders.

We're going to have to change a lot to survive the coming years. Sure, there's a lot of scary ways that things can go wrong, but there's plenty about our world that should change, and plenty of ways those changes could be for the better. It's not enough for policymakers to focus on ensuring that we can afford to buy whatever badly thought-through, extractive tech the biggest companies want to foist on us – we also need a focus on making cleantech fit for purpose, truly smart, reliable and resilient.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

Image: 臺灣古寫真上色 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raid_on_Kagi_City_1945.jpg

Grendelkhan (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ground_mounted_solar_panels.gk.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[lucyandalexiafan]

blow off steam | Alexia Putellas x reader | part 1

summary: since Alexia got injured two weeks ago, it's obviously that she needs to blow off steam; so, after the umpteenth attempt by her to have your attention, you ask her to take control, to completely dominate you.

Warnings: dom!Alexia, sub!reader, kneel at Alexia's feet, Alexia' fingers that fuck reader's mouth while reader in kneeling in front of her, humping shoe, face slaps (three times), humiliations, degradations, use of pet names / slut, light jelaous!Alexia, dirty talk, praise, hair pulling.

words: 3131

Do not copy, translate or claim my works and fics as your own; if I find out I will report them and block you. Instead, write to me, my directs are always open, and ask me if you can publish your work/fic inspired by one of mine. However, you can reblog them!

Nb: English is not my first language and I’m not sure if it’s “blow off steam” or “blow of some steam”. I searched online but I didn’t understood, so I’m sorry if it’s wrong the way that I used

I turn off the TV interrupting the program that Ale is watching, the umpteenth trashy program.

Since she was injured two weeks ago, she has become unbearable.

She doesn't come to the field during training hours anymore, she doesn't go out, she doesn't cook, and she doesn't do anything other than be on the phone and watch stupid programs on any TV channel or streaming platform.

It doesn't bother me that she behaves like this or, at least, I understand her, I try to understand her; so I do everything for both of us without protesting, without emphasizing how to take care of the house, shopping all the different type of food required by our diets, cooking different dishes for me and her every lunch and dinner (due to the variation of her diet), do not combine well with the study for my master's degree, with the research I am doing, and with my training with the team.

I don't protest, I don't snort, I don't say anything. 

I accept any comment about how overcooked the chicken is, about the fact that the bread had to be soft wheat and not whole wheat, about how messy the kitchen is.

I didn't even comment on the fact that she delegated the care of her dog to me alone, even though she can walk.

I accepted to study all night and write those essays at unreasonable hours, risking not completing my homework or showing up not prepared enough for meetings with university tutors, as well as showing up for training tired, exhausted and with less and less energy.

But today... today it's too much.

I had started studying in the kitchen, on the counter, because I had started cooking dinner and lunch for tomorrow; Ale was watching television. She knows, she knows, how much I hate having too much noise around, how much the overstimulation is a problem for me because of my ADHD, how much I go into crisis when there is too much chaos around me, no longer being able to concentrate and control myself, always ending up looking around, trying to figure out where all the voices are coming from and, when there are too many, ending up on the verge of tears.

She knows it.

But, despite this, she had started using TikTok at maximum volume at the same time as the television, creating an annoying chaos that could not even be masked by the music that passed through my headphones.

I had asked her to turn down the volume several times, I had even texted her asking her to stop because I had to study, telling her that it was important that I end that essay within three days, before the last game before the Christmas holidays.

After half an hour of trying I couldn't take it anymore, I got up, took the remote control and turned off the television.

"What are you doing?" she asks irritated.

The sharp voice.

I bite my lip.

We haven't had sex in two weeks and I haven't had an orgasm for three, and seeing her so angry floods my belly with sharps of pleasure.

Ever since we had started experimenting with sex, since Ale had started to be dominant in bed and I had started to feel free enough and trust her enough to be completely submissive, we had established 'rules'; one of the ones we started experimenting with first was about orgasms. 

No orgasms that aren't given by her or that she doesn't allow me to have.

It had not only increased libido and feeling in bed, but also communication. Since we had established this rule, we had begun to talk much more about sex, to describe how we felt and to provoke ourselves; I had begun to no longer feel embarrassed to express my sex urge or tell her what I needed. 

Begging her for what I needed.

So, after exactly three weeks since my last orgasm, I'm extremely needy.

Ale, at the same time, is extremely angry, disappointed, and resentful, about the injury and I know, I'm sure, that she would like to blow off steam on me, on my body, but she is afraid to ask for it, to do it. She's afraid because she's never done it before, because she's always afraid of hurting me and because she knows what I've been through in the past.

So now, because she doesn't want to express this need, she is short-tempered, rude, arrogant.

I kneel on the ground, in front of her, my legs slightly apart.

I look into her eyes.

She swallows the saliva, the phone still in her hand, as she jams her eyes into mine.

"I would like you to take control – I say, my voice trembling with embarrassment – I need you to blow off steam on me and I need to be dominated, to let you be in control"

I bite my lip.

The fear that he will refuse, that she will say no, that she will think I am crazy, increases when she does not respond immediately.

"You don't know what you're asking for, little girl" 

The low voice, the seraphic tone.

"I want you to take control Reina, I want you to punish me, I want you to use my body"

She lay her phone on the couch.

"You don't have to do it for me, i-"

"I want it, Ale, I need it as much as you do" I whisper, pleading, looking into her eyes.

Nails playing with a little skin on my index finger.

She nods.

"Are there any things you don't want me to use or do?" the tone is the one she uses on the field when she's the team captain.

That confident tone, which admits no reply.

"No, Reina"

I touch her right calf with one hand, the need for physical contact advancing in me; I play with her skin, just massage her.

She grins, looking at me.

She looks at me, her face slightly tilted.

She bites her lip, as if pondering my request.

"Now I'm going to make you a list of items or practices and you have to tell me with safewords which ones are green, which ones are yellow, and which ones are red, okay? – I nod – What are your safewords?"

"Green to continue, yellow to slow down, red to stop"

"Good girl - I twitch my thighs, a knot in my belly, as her hand brushes my cheek, a satisfied look as she looks down on me – then let's get started"

After a few minutes, I had established green orgasm denial, spanking with hands and belt, the use of the collar with the leash, the use of ropes or more generally in bondage, penetrative sex with both fingers and dildos, the use of plugs and strap-ons, degradation; yellow overstimulation and preventing me from speaking by putting objects in my mouth; red blindfold. However, I asked her if she could use pet names from time to time to reassure me, so the degradation and humiliation were not the only channels of communication during a scene we were experiencing for the first time.

I clasp my hands on my thighs, my belly invaded by contractions of pleasure.

"Have you had any orgasms since the last time I got you one?" the tone is so low that it gives me goosebumps.

"No, Reina" I hurry to answer; a marked blush colors my cheeks and neck because no matter how much we talked about sex, how much we started experimenting in bed more than a year ago, I will never stop being embarrassed when we talk about these things.

She grinns with satisfaction.

"Something as needy as you hasn't had an orgasm in three weeks, hm? – she asks as she strokes my cheek with her thumb, a fake smile of pity adorns her face – Does your need to be a good girl, to please me, also beat your need of an orgasm?"

I look down immediately, my cheeks burning with embarrassment.

How can she make me so submissive, so needy, with just one question?

The panties are soaked, I feel them being uncomfortably attached to my intimacy.

"Yes, Reina, I just want to please you"

She moans openly at my answer and I see the muscles in her legs twitch.

I close my eyes to the sound.

"I don't think I told you that you can not look me in the eye"

I look at her, eyes slightly wider, position more rigid as I try to hold her gaze.

"I'm sorry Reina," I whisper guiltily.

We haven't even started and I'm already breaking the rules?

She looks at me for a moment and then her gaze, that sadistic, excited look, softens; a sweet, loving smile replaces the grin that had begun to adorn her face since she began to list what she could and couldn't do tonight.

"Amor, this is the last chance I'll give you to stop everything before we start, before I start punishing you and then take you to the bedroom, where only the safewords will make me stop – the suddenly cautious, sweet tone, like it's never been in the last two weeks – I'm not going to get angry, resentful or irritated if you tell me you don't want to go on anymore or that you're not sure anymore, baby, but I want you to tell me before you start because I don't want to start without being sure that you want it as much as I do; we will cuddle and maybe watching a film, order some takeaway food"

Her hand on my cheek, the back of my index and middle fingers caressing my skin.

I look at her, every fear gone, every tension leaves my body. 

She is always her, the sweet, caring, loving girlfriend who would never hurt me or continue something I don't want. 

No matter how much she needs to blow off steam, she would never hurt me.

I shake my head.

"I... I want to do it Reina, but-but only if you want it completely too" I answer, my voice trembling with embarrassment, but my gaze fixed on hers.

She smiles.

Her beautiful smile.

"I love it when you call me Reina, I'll never stop saying it" she whispers as she runs her thumb over my bottom lip, as she frees it from the grip of my teeth.

I open my lips allowing her to stick it past my teeth, into my mouth; she pushes it all in, until she hits my chin with her palm. I lick it slowly as I look straight into her eyes.

After a while she replaces it with her index and middle fingers, pushing them into my mouth slowly, and then she starts to move them, as if to fuck my mouth.

I go along with it, licking her fingers, opening and closing my lips against her skin. 

She groans looking at me.

"So submissive, at my feet, while you call me Reina – she pushes her fingers harder into my mouth, until she touches my chin with her palm again, and touching the back of my throat, gagging me – My dirty filthy slut"

I gasp.

I place my hands on her knees, as if looking for a support to hold on to while she fucks my mouth with her fingers.

She sneers.

I look at her from below, her lips slightly open twisted into a grin, her eyes veiled by sadism, her cheeks flushed, her tongue occasionally caressing her lips, her brow furrowed, the hair of her forelock escaping the grip behind her ears.

"Hands behind your back, I don't think I told you you can touch me" 

I groan in surprise as I hurry to do what she says, squeezing one hand into the other until my nails are in my palm.

The tips of her fingers touch the back of my throat with each thrust, and with every moan I make, she grins; She tells me to breathe through the nose when she realizes that, due to gagging, I struggle to breathe through my mouth.

She continues like this for some time that seems like minutes, she fucks my mouth with her fingers, her gaze alternating between my eyes and my mouth, a sadistic grin, until she takes them off completely.

I moan, finally free to breathe through my mouth.

She wipes the fingers against my cheeks, the back on one cheek, the inside on the other; the trickle of saliva that still connects them to my lips.

She puts her hand on my right cheek and I know what's going to happen.

"Disobedient little girl – the first slap is light against my skin, more for the scene than for anything else – Twice you disobey my orders and I didn't even touch you"

I gasp looking at her, her lips still slightly parted.

Then, as she walked away, her hand hits my cheek.

We both moan at the same time, her greasing and lowest, mine louder.

No matter how much I expected it, it's getting more and more exciting every time.

"Color, little girl?" she asks, an attentive look on my face trying to understand what I think about the slap.

"Green... green Reina" I moan.

"Dirty little," she whispers as she caresses my face, "So needy just because I fucked your mouth, hm?" she asks, as she runs her fingers over my lips, but without pushing them any further.

"Yes-yes Reina," I say cautiously in response.

Then, suddenly, she moves one leg between mine until I feel her foot, covered by her favorite and most expensive pair of shoes, in contact with my intimacy.

"Hump my shoe, slut" 

It's an order said as she leans back on the couch. She opens her arms, resting them on the headboard of the sofa.

I wade at her, my eyes wide open with the request, but my pupils probably dilated with excitement. I'm incredulous.

"Color, little girl?" she asks when, after a few seconds, I don't move, her voice warm, lovely.

"G-green Reina – I whisper hesitantly, realizing the time that has passed, realizing that by doing so I was disobeying – I'm sorry"

She moves her torso toward me, her hand grabbing a hand of my hair. "Do you want to add a third punishment to the two you've already earned, hm? – I answer with a faint no, Reina – Then, move" she continues, her tone suddenly more authoritative and dominant, no longer disguised as feigned pity, her back coming back into contact with the sofa.

I bite my lip and moan when I feel her shoe move slightly against my clit.

"C-can I put my hands on your leg Reina?" I ask, my voice faint, the need to touch her, for physical contact.

"Aw, little girl, can't you even keep your balance? Okay, grab my leg. You can lean against it however you want," the mocking tone.

My hands grab her calf.

My torso is against her shin as I slowly begin to move.

I'm wearing thin shorts and panties made of almost non-existent fabric, so with every movement I feel the relief of the shoelaces against my clit.

I moan, I whine, unashamed.

I squeeze her leg as I rest my head on the lower part of her inner thigh, just above the knee, breaking eye contact. 

As soon as the tip of her shoe starts to move against me, putting pressure on my hole, I start moving faster and faster; I'm not sensual, I'm not pretty bent over her, my back arched out, my head down.

"Dirty little slut," she says while her hand scratches my scalp "How does it feel to hump against a so expensive shoe that I've been looking for months in any shop in Barcelona, to be so slutty that you seek satisfaction and pleasure by rubbing yourself on a shoe without shame?"

I whine in humiliation.

"Please Reina, can I... can I-"

Her hand clenches in my hair, forcing me to look at her.

"Don't even try. This is just the beginning – she hits my cheek again – Did you think it would be so easy after disobeying me?"

I bite my lip, looking at her with the most puppy look I'm capable of; my vision slightly clouded by excitement and tears.

I open my mouth a couple of times, attempting to speak, but no sound other than a moan comes out.

When she notices that I am not responding, she stops moving her foot. "Color?"

"Green" I answer immediately, as I continue to move on her shoe, hoping that she will move again.

The shoelaces against my clit.

The contractions of pleasure in the lower abdomen.

She grinns as she looks at me.

She reaches down to kiss me, her hand still in my hair.

Then, as it all began, she moves the shoe away from my intimacy.

"How do you feel, hm? What would people say if they could see you like this, at my feet, desperate after humped my shoe like a slut, hmm? What would our teammates say if they saw you like that? – she grins, the hand that makes pat pat on my head – How do you think Aitana and Ona would react, mh?"

I close my eyes.

"None of them will be able to make you feel like that, reduce you like that, like I do. Not even Lucia. It doesn't matter how hard they try"

"Please, please," I whisper as I tighten my fingers around her knee.

The humiliation becomes pleasure, contractions of pleasure stronger and stronger, when she starts talking about the team, about my friends, about Lucy.

Of her jealousy of Lucy, caused by the fact that we are so close friends and that she is also dominant in bed; the eldest is openly dominant in bed, while Ale is much more modest in making her sexual performances public to the team. Modesty for which I am grateful, but which makes her feel clearly in competition with the English player.

"Please what, little one?"

Cheeks that burn when I hear the pet name.

Her fingers forcing my chin to look at her.

Her blonde hair is tousled.

"Touch me, please Reina... I-I need to-"

Humiliation breaks through my legs, which I immediately clench.

To be at her feet, to call her Reina, to be so desperate.

"I just want you, Reina... I... on-only you. No one else," she moans, "I beg you."

"Get up, go to our room and strip. I want you on the bed, on hands and knees. In less than ten minutes I'll be there."

[sexhaver]

definitely one of the most difficult moments of my professional career was when i was doing tech support for [REDACTED]'s automated biomed research lab and like. hang on lemme greentext this

>tell them i can fix this issue in half an hour with a remote support session (aka Teamviewer)

>"you want to... control our computers???? over the internet????? like some kind of HACKER???????"

>their IT submits my request to upper management and after two weeks they reluctantly allow me to get remote access to their systems

>by logging into a virtual machine using a 20-digit password and then using a specific program inside of that virtual machine

>while sharing my screen with someone from their IT team the entire time

>finally get remote access to the PC with the issue

>go to open log files to start troubleshooting

>ERROR: User does not have read permissions.

>what the fuck

>ask their IT guy why it's saying that

>"...because we don't want you looking at our stuff, duh?"

>take deep breath before calmly explaining that i need to open files in order to fix their problem

>IT guy submits my request to upper management

>after another week i go through the whole process again but can actually open the log file this time

>cool, it's exactly the issue i thought it was and i know exactly how to solve it

>open the relevant settings file, change a single number, hit Save

>ERROR: User does not have write permissions.

>what the FUCK

>ask IT guy how i'm supposed to fix their system if i can't change literally anything on it

>takes 20 minutes of arguing to get him to admit that maybe i need write access

>he submits the request to upper management

>a week goes by

>upper management denies it

>says i can just verbally tell the IT guy on the call what to type and he'll do it for me

>deep breaths. deep breaths.

>start third remote session

>go to open the relevant .log file in notepad, which isn't the default program it opens with for some reason

>they fucking disabled right clicking

>[REDACTED] has a $118 billion market cap btw

>manage to walk the IT guy through using the command line (which he had never seen before and was scared of) to edit the relevant file

>three weeks go by

>new support ticket in my inbox

>"why didn't your fix fix this completely unrelated issue?"

>they still won't give me write access

>VP of [REDACTED] yells at me in our weekly meeting for taking so long to fix a third unrelated issue they never submitted a ticket for and is also not actually an "issue" but an intended feature of our software that they don't like

>i went to college for this

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for Jan behind the cut; "the one where Clark is trans and Kon is not". tw: internalized not-technically-transphobia-but-it-kinda-reads-that-way. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

The team’s meeting up this weekend and Kon didn’t have anything else to do before said meet-up, so she’s at Mount Justice earlier than everybody else and trying to be, like–trying to be a boy about it. Like, just–however she’s supposed to do that. 

However he’s supposed to–supposed to– 

She goes to the training room and punches the reinforced heavy bag ‘til it splits. 

That’s what a boy would do, right? If a real guy were upset, or frustrated, or–whatever, he’d go take it out on a punching bag or something like that. 

Except a real guy wouldn’t be upset about this, because this wouldn’t be happening to a real guy. 

Part of Kon thinks she’d probably do that kind of shit anyway–punching out her problems and whatever instead of talking to somebody about ‘em or anthing like that–but would she? Like, for real? Would she really do that, if everyone didn’t think–if everyone hadn’t always thought– 

Everyone calls her a boy. Everyone’s always called her that. Cadmus was trying to make a man when they programmed all her mental uploads and education and Serling talked about cooking up hybrid-effective hormones for her and Mickey told her they could work out the surgeries for her when she was old enough–even if she wasn’t still working there, even–and–and– 

Kon’s not a boy. She’s not. 

But she’s not Supergirl either. 

And she’s never gonna get to be. 

Kon leaves the split-open and wrecked heavy bag hanging there leaking ball bearings and sand and leaves the training room without bothering with hitting the locker room, wishing she could just strip off the binder she isn’t supposed to wear when she works out anyway and ditch the packer and the Superboy suit and–and she doesn’t know, exactly. Maybe grow out her hair, or just cut it different. Get a fucking pixie cut, for all she cares. Try out–try some things. Paint her nails, or buy some eyeliner or lipstick, or just . . . whatever. Wear something different. 

She could pierce her other ear, maybe. She could get a different costume. She could . . . she could just . . . 

She couldn’t do any of that. She can’t do any of that. Kara gets to wear a skirt and have long pretty hair and be–and Match just could if he wanted to, because it wouldn’t matter because why the fuck would anyone at the Agenda care as long as he kept being an asshole for them when they told him to, but she–she– 

How even would she, when– 

Kon crashes on the couch and turns on the TV and puts on Wendy the Werewolf Stalker for all of four seconds before Wendy pops up on-screen in a cute little crop top and ruffled skirt like Kon could never, ever wear and it takes literally all of her self-control to not dissemble the remote. Or the TV. 

Or the base. 

She turns off the TV, buries the remote in the couch, and storms off to the kitchen to, like–get a fucking snack or something, she doesn’t know. The others are gonna be here soon, it’s gotta look like–like a boy was here. So like–breaking the heavy bag and leaving a mess and vegging out in front of the TV and raiding the pantry and–and shit like that. That’s what a boy would do, right? Take over the space, take up space, be–be–

Just be one, Kon guesses. 

But she’s not, so she just has to do what she thinks other people would expect her to and hope she’s getting it right. 

She digs through the pantry and gets out, like–the greasy, salty snacks, and leaves the sweet ones behind. Doesn’t go for any of the chocolate or the candy or–just, just what a boy would eat, would like, would– 

This is so stupid. She’s so stupid. She–she knows it’s not just–just stupid shit like if she eats fucking chocolate instead of chips or pretzels. She knows it’s not just if she flirts up other girls or takes up space or makes a mess or if she’s loud enough. 

If she was actually a boy, she’d just be a boy, no matter what. 

But she’s not. 

Kon rips open a bag of pork rinds, eats exactly two, and then just spits them out in the trash and leaves the whole messy pile of snacks on the counter and stalks off again, her hands jammed down hard in her jacket pockets and shoulders hunched up and glasses shoved up tight on her face. She just–she just wants to go. She wants to leave. 

She wants to be like she’s supposed to be.

[werecreature-addicted]

Honestly maybe not monster related I'd love to be a robot.

I'd love to pour syrup into myself to cause problems possibly causing slight electrical issues making me glitch and overheat to make my owner take time out of their day to have their arms inside me, cleaning and fixing my chords and repairing any damage sweetly, if sternly getting onto me about being so clumsy.

robots are monsters to me although as we've established I've got pretty loose standards.

I like the idea of being able to program someone. make it feel like they're getting a blowjob while you're across the room on your laptop just typing away and inputting signals. it's like a remote-controlled vibrator but for their whole body.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

It started with a plane crash. A fiery wreck over Washington, the kind of tragedy that demands real leadership, real answers, real action. But what did we get? Donald J. Trump—our twice-impeached, four-times-indicted, spray-tanned emperor of grievance—pointing a greasy, ketchup-stained finger at “diversity.”

Never mind the grueling, years-long training required to become an air traffic controller. Never mind the chronic staffing shortages, the overworked employees grinding six days a week, and the outdated facilities running America’s airways into the ground. No, according to Trump, the real problem was that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had dared to hire people who weren’t white enough.

"This is just one reason why our Country WAS going to hell!!!" he screamed into the digital void, frothing at the mouth like a man who just discovered his Diet Coke button had been disabled. He ranted about “brilliant people” being replaced by “diversity hires,” as if air traffic control is some kind of woke art project instead of an actual life-or-death job.

And if that wasn’t enough, Trump took things further—because he always does. Like a vengeful god with a grudge against history itself, he unleashed a sweeping executive order banning the federal government from acknowledging that different kinds of people exist. Black History Month? Gone. Martin Luther King Jr. Day? Paused indefinitely. Juneteenth? Don’t even think about it. Holocaust Remembrance Day? Erased faster than a sticky note on Ivanka’s burner phone.

The message was clear: America’s government is now a safe space for people who want to pretend diversity never happened.

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) dutifully fell in line, scrubbing its calendar of anything remotely inclusive. The Pentagon followed, declaring that "cultural awareness months" were now a thing of the past. The Office of Personnel Management sent out a grimly efficient memo ordering every department to purge “gender ideology” from public-facing websites by 5 p.m. sharp. No more pronouns in email signatures, no more employee resource groups, no more recognition of anyone who isn’t a straight, white, God-fearing man in a flag pin.

And just to hammer the point home, the Justice Department released a victory lap memo declaring DEI programs “shameful” and a “waste of taxpayer dollars.” Because apparently, nothing wastes money like hiring people who can actually do the job.

Even the CIA—an agency that relies on diversity for its literal survival—jumped on board. Former intelligence officials warned that strangling off diverse talent pipelines would cripple national security, depriving the U.S. of much-needed language skills and cultural knowledge. But who needs informed spies when you can have a monoculture of aging white men grumbling about the good old days?

All of this would be laughable if it weren’t so terrifying. This isn’t policy—it’s a tantrum. It’s Trump waging a personal culture war against reality, trying to bend the world back to a time when no one questioned his place at the top. He doesn’t want to govern; he wants revenge. Revenge against the ghost of Barack Obama, against the progress made under Biden, against the idea that America belongs to anyone other than the angry, paranoid voters who put him back in power.

And what about the people who actually keep the country running? The air traffic controllers working under brutal conditions? The intelligence officers risking their lives abroad? The civil servants trying to hold together a government that’s rotting from the inside? They get nothing. No support. No respect. Just a government-issued decree that their identities no longer exist.

Meanwhile, Trump is still expected to sign a proclamation for Black History Month—because nothing says deeply held values like banning an event on Monday and celebrating it on Tuesday. It’s a grift, a con, a flimsy cover for the fact that his only real goal is to make America feel like one of his golf courses: exclusive, overpriced, and entirely staffed by people he doesn’t have to think about.

This is the new reality. The federal government is no longer allowed to recognize the diversity of its own citizens. The air traffic controllers who keep our skies safe are being thrown under the bus in the name of racial resentment. And Trump, as always, is playing to the cheapest seats, hoping his base is too blinded by rage to notice that none of this actually makes their lives better.

America isn’t going to hell. But under Trump, it’s going somewhere worse: backward.

(Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail)

[marshmallowprotection]

saeyoungs reaction to his mc getting hurt like physically. When i say hurt i mean stuff like,, a door slaming on her finger so hard it leaves a bruise under her finger nail....totally not relating to my current problem or anythin

(It hurts like hell when i have to type or write or literally do anything with my fingers plssendhelp)

Saeyoung is such a worrywart when it comes to his MC. He never wants to see the people he loves in pain, and trust me, if he had a way for someone to transport their pain and give it to him instead, he'd take it in a heartbeat. But, that's not how things work and he's got to find other ways to help you feel better instead of turning into the container for all hurt and no comfort. You appreciate the idea he suggested but you don't want him to hurt, either!

What you need to know about him is that he will baby you until the end of time if that’s what you want. If you’re someone who strives to take care of yourself first and foremost, you might run into issues with Saeyoung as a partner because he’s comfortable taking care of you for the rest of your lives. It doesn't matter if you get a little injury or a big one, if he can do anything to make sure you don't have to experience pain, he'll do it in a heartbeat.

Do you want him to feed you? Okay, he’s ordered food and it’s on the way. How do you want him to do it? With a fork, a spoon, or by hand? Take your pick. There's no wrong answer! Oh, would it be better if he programmed Meowy to feed you? It might take a while to get them to hold a spoon properly... they're just a robot cat, after all, but hey, this man wants what you want! If you want a cat to help you instead of his hands, then by God, you're getting the cat!

You squeezed your hand the wrong way and now it hurts? Okay, he's got ice ready and you're going to sit down! Whatever you have to get done can be done by him, or at the very least, he can work on typing or writing something for you so you don't stress out your hand even more than it's already been. Just call him your assistant, he'll put on the outfit he wears when he pretends to be Jaehee! She is the best assistant in the world. Taking a hint of her power helps him be better for you!

Of course, he's already in the process of trying to develop something that will let you use voice to text properly in the future if something like this happens and he can't prevent it. 

You don't want him to take care of everything for you? Okay, he's not going to corner you or make you do something you don't want to do, but he will be honest with you when you're overdoing it. It's okay to want to take care of things on your own but it's important to make sure you're getting an adequate amount of rest as well. Isn't that what you've always told him? He can use those words you so often used on him in the past with ease. Those words matter to you just as much as they do for him. Stop pushing yourself when you need a break. This is for the best!

The list goes on and on. 

However, if what you're looking for is his instant reaction you getting hurt? Well... his reflexes are sharp. The minute he hears something in his bunker that sounds even remotely like you or Saeran in distress? He drops whatever he's doing to come and find you. Seeing you with tears in your eyes is painful, but getting to the bottom of your pain is what he has to do so he can make it better. He stumbles over most of his words trying to understand what happened even if you're not yet in a place where you can explain.

It doesn't take too much for him to eliminate possible scenarios the more he studies what you look like after you have an accident, but the adrenaline rush does make it a bit hard to focus on anything but the sound of you in pain. It doesn’t matter if you get a paper cut or a broken arm, to him it’s all the same and he wants to mend what he can as soon as possible. 

Of course, it should be said that the minute he can help you get things under control is when he needs a moment to collect himself. It's not hard for him to get worked up when he's afraid of something terrible happening to his loved ones, and he doesn't want you to comfort him when he should be comforting you. It shouldn't be all about him, after all. It's great to know that you are an understanding person who knows he's not trying to make it about himself, but he gets frustrated whenever he can't control his emotional response to something as small as a paper cut.

Learning that he can't control every aspect of life is something that he's learning how to accept everyday, but it's just one of those things that's going to take a while to confront. He can't get rid of all the pain you experience or the pain you may experience and that's a hard pill to swallow. He's working on it, but just know he does appreciate it when you try to help him feel better when he finds it difficult not to cry over a paper cut. It's not just about the paper cut, after all. It's the fear of losing his loved ones before he can protect them.

[wallisninety-six]

I hope all people roll their eyes at capitalists freaking out about low fertility rates worldwide- I’m sorry, but there’s no way you can ever make me give two fucks about and freak out about declining birth rates worldwide

“But it’s gonna be disastrous for the economy and labor force!” Okay, that’s an economy problem. More of a problem for an economy that’s laser-focused on non-stop growth to even remotely work well and falls into crisis mode when that growth just slows, don’t blame birth rates for a shitty economic system’s inherent flaws

And beyond that, if people across the world are too scared (because of climate change and shootings), too broke (slave-wages and intense income inequality), and too little time to spend with family, loved-ones, making dreams a reality, and little effective welfare programs to birth and raise kids, then why listen to the fearmongerings of a wealthy class that put us in this situation to begin with?

It’s even worse when many countries (including/mainly the US) are being openly hostile to the things that can keep population increases at bay- with attempts to take away birth control and abortion, this all leaves an even worse bad taste in my mouth and shows an even worse, extra dimension to all this. People are hurting in the name of god & economy. Forcing birthrates down is bad & flawed enough- forcing it up is lunacy

And besides, is society really going to be *better* if we *force* a huge population increase for the *sake* of an extremely broken and flawed economy? Hell no, it’s not like things got any better when the population went from 6 billion to 8 billion from the 2000s to now.

Declining birth rates spreading worldwide show that an extremely industrial, capitalist world that has shaped and grew humanity astronomically for decades, is hitting a major wall- and if “the economy” can’t handle a demographic shift that seems destined to happen without sputtering into permanent crisis, then it should be left in the dustbin of history for good.

[sir-adamus]

https://www.tumblr.com/sir-adamus/774215670367961088/watching-sorta-stupids-vol-7-reaction-and?source=share

That makes me question what was the point of the Atlesian Knights. I guess Ironwood only wanted mindless robots that wouldn't ask questions to work for him.

you know how in Jurassic Park, Hammond keeps talking about how he 'spared no expense' when it came to the running of the park, and the film reveals some massive, gaping problems with the management because the IT system was run by one guy that they didn't even pay well enough that he was willing to sabotage InGen for their competitors?

it's like that. the image of security and safety and Atlas superiority (prioritising the aesthetics over practicality for. robot soldiers. 'a little less scary' why is that a priority to you James? where are you deploying the robots in places that civilians might be scared of them?) and 'removing the human element from the battlefield' was more important than designing those things to be able to take a hit, or programming them to actually use what they're working with (we see in volume 8 when Watts takes control of one that they're capable of sprinting and have explosives in their chests that can be remote detonated, which would both be really useful if you're sending them into Grimm territory. but no, it's always a constant slow march, and they're down in one hit to a Grimm. or a civilian armed with a trash can. or Qrow ripping them apart with his bare hands - plus they were likely made by whichever military contractor bid the lowest)

the only times we see them used to any degree of effectiveness was a) with older models which were clunkier and more durable, b) in larger numbers and c) within enclosed spaces (Black trailer where they were able to pressure Blake and Adam for a minute within the train car, and in the opening to JLxRWBY part 2 when the girls were trying to connect a portal to Earth when there were more deploying than they were destroying)

it's also just a demonstration of how fucked the priorities were in Atlas that the fragile robot drones were primarily deployed for the military when there were much better jobs they were suited for (like. Dust mining. which is repeatedly shown to be horrendously dangerous and life-threatening. cheaply produced robots that can be piloted remotely would reduce the risk to life and limb, not to mention the established long term health risks inherent to Dust mining)

but no. Ironwood doesn't trust anyone so we get his papier-mâché tin cans consistently wasting military money, which is super funny when it keeps backfiring on him

[swappingbryn]

I was, to be totally honest, average in every way, average height, average looking, average job, even an average looking girlfriend. Sadly, there was nothing out of the ordinary about me, except how I died. Which is that I died on a hike in the remote wilderness in 1990, and wasn’t found for three weeks. I honestly wasn’t aware that I died, I kept wandering around and it wasn’t until I saw a group of people and thought I’d finally be able to get out of the woods, that I discovered that they had just found my body and I realized I was a ghost. In my shock, I didn’t seize the opportunity to escape, and then everyone was gone and I couldn’t leave the woods.

I didn’t see another person until 2000, and then it was just a Boy Scout troop camping, I tried to possess the Scout Master, but I couldn’t maintain control for long.

Then in 2005, I saw a guy looking around and taking pictures, and I tried to possess him, but it only lasted a few minutes and I lost control. He was unfazed and just carried on with his day. However in 2010, that’s when my luck changed. It turns out that guy was a developer, and he’d bought a bunch of land here and was going to build. This meant lots of new people. Lumberjacks to remove trees, construction workers building, and eventually businesses, customers and residents. This meant lots more practice. And finally in 2020, a gym opened up and I was able to find a body and put all my practice to work. It took a while, but I settled on Jake.

He loved showing off his body and strutting around, so I knew I wanted him. I knew with that body, a body I would have never been able to achieve if I had lived, I’d be able to get a hot wife, start a new, better life. So I forced my way in, put my decade of hard work to use and was able to take full control.

When I got back to his apartment, I decided to use a phone program I’d heard about to “Tinder” to find a date. But there was a problem, no matter how many woman I looked at, no matter how much I knew they were hot, I couldn’t get aroused. I started looking at my new phone and discovered lots of naked and semi naked pics of guys. I didn’t know it, but Jake was gay, *I* was gay now. I tried to leave this body, but it wouldn’t work. I was stuck, all my hard work had made me so skilled at taking over a body, keeping control, that not even I could force my soul out. I was trapped as a hot, hung gay man, and I’m something called a “bottom” too.

[kalikalahansa]

For those looking to diaper-train - what are the questions people ask when they're barking up the wrong tree? Is there a wrong way to approach all of this, or is this the sort of thing where there's no wrong answer as long as you stay padded?

The most frequent barking-up-the-wrong-tree question I personally get is "how do I make spiralling happen?" I have no idea how to make spiralling happen. It's like asking me how to make tachycardia happen. It's an emergent response by the body to 24/7 and/or untraining. I don't think people are bad or wrong for wanting it to be a neat trick they can use to switch off their continence extra fast, but if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. As it is, I have the barest idea of what might predispose people to maybe experiencing it, but nothing like statistical power.

Another barking-up-the-wrong-tree question is "I live with [one or more people who'll react negatively to some aspect of my untraining which I may not be able to avoid their becoming aware of]. How do I untrain?" This question obviously has variants, so it might be:

"I live with my parents. I've never had continence issues. How do I untrain?"

"I live with my girlfriend. I know [for certain, let's say] she wouldn't accept my AB/DL or untraining. How do I untrain?"

The answer is you don't. You wait until the circumstances are better or you act to make them better. I would also suggest "or you decide that untraining is less important to you than keeping this person around" but as previously noted I am sceptical that that's actually possible; untraining reflects a basic psychological urge so it can't be suppressed fully in the end.

In terms of wrong ways of going about this —

I think one of the worse things you can do is hold yourself to matching other people's timelines, like you should have certain results at a certain time. I know some guides to untraining do give a timeline of results, but I don't think they should. We don't have science in this community; the closest thing we have to a scientific authority is BitterGrey of Understanding Infantilism, who's co-author on a few scholarly journal articles about AB/DL, and he hasn't specifically covered this.

I think even expecting steady constant progress is a problem. alwaysdiapered's timeline in The Twelve Month Diaper-Training Program, which I would otherwise disapprove of because it's one of those results timelines I mentioned above, acknowledges that progress comes in fits and starts. You do have to make subjective judgment calls about when there's been no progress for long enough that it's a problem, and when to start trying new things, but the simple lack of constant progress is not itself proof that something is wrong. You basically have to go from vibes.

A less common thing I get is people asking me whether they should try to make themselves have accidents. There are some very limited circumstances in which I think setting yourself up to experience either extreme urgency or involuntary voiding can help leapfrog your progress, assuming you acquainted yourself with appropriate relevant medical information beforehand so you don't end up like that poor lady from the Hold Your Wee For a Wii contest. None of the ways you can make yourself have accidents are remotely suitable bases for untraining. Artificially causing accidents is creating a force that overcomes your control or at least maximally strongly incentivises you to let go, but it doesn't diminish your control; if anything, it may make you use it for longer and more intensely. To untrain, you don't have to make your body more forcefully void, you have to make it easier for yourself to void so that your body can void with the lowest amount of force possible, an amount so low you can't even feel it.

"No wrong answer as long as you stay padded" is a remarkably appropriate turn of words. I know a few untrainers, but a lot more 24/7 wearers who have never had any intention of untraining. All the ones I know who have been in diapers for at least several years — 5 years or thereabouts probably — have had significant continence issues. All the ones who have been in diapers 10+ years that I know of — what you might call the lifers — currently have to be in them and are not seriously expecting to get out of them. Untraining comes for anyone who stays padded long enough. It's just a question of how fast and how hard you get there.

[secret-fiction]

Sonic Boom: Those Who're Made Fools

As April Fools day is upon them, Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends must content with a series of pranks that go a little farther than they would like.

Below is a oneshot Sonic Boom Fanfiction that I started and finished today, April fools day 2024. I have not time to edit because my scope for this got out of hand, so I'll share it now as to release it within Apr 1st my time. I'll release an edited version later this week. _________________________

While Sonic the Hedgehog would usually be sleeping in, the cool breeze blowing through his hut and swaying the hammock he lay on beckoned him awake. He declined this request to wake up at a normal time and curled up further. However his body began to shiver and his mind was dragged into enough consciousness to realize that the cool breeze was actually a freezing wind. His eyes shot open, seeing a light flurry of snowflakes blowing over him, already building up drifts in his beachside hut.

“What the f-, flakes? Snow??” said Sonic as he wobbled while standing up.

The warm light of sunrise was peering through his windows and the island outside looked as tropical as it should. The culprit, Sonic deduced, was likely the large yellow painted machine that looked like a window air-conditioner if it were on an industrial scale. 

A letter lifted off of the pile of mail he kept strewn on the ground and into his face. It was the invitation to Amy’s birthday event this evening. Thus, it was also April Fools day.

“Either Tails actually got his sleep schedule in check just to get me first, or I need to have a chat with him about staying up all night again,” said Sonic aloud, ears turning to listen for any unseen listener. 

The wind then picked up, and the snow flurries began to sting as they struck him. In fact it was more of a semi-frozen rain now. Everything in Sonic’s hut was quickly being coated with bits of water and ice which then turned into a slick layer over everything. He grumbled and shivered, then dashed to his door to find the off switch. The machine however blocked the entire doorway, and there were no controls on the side facing Sonic.

“Aw what the heck?!” Sonic tried to push the machine out of his door but found his feet slipping on the frozen and wet floor. “TAILS! I don’t wanna break your new toy here, but I will!”

Sonic heard no response aside from the torrent of wind and freezing rain, which grew strong enough to send him slipping onto his face and sliding away to the far wall. He grumbled, stood up, and placed his feet on the wall. With one strong kick he spin-dashed into the machine, sending pieces of it flying as it fell out of his doorframe. 

“Brrr, jeez,” said Sonic as he stood up and looked around, seeing no sign of Tails, “don’t tell me he already ran off to prepare another prank. This one was already a bit much… Guess I’ll have to teach him a lesson on restraint…”

With resolve filling his eyes, Sonic the Hedgehog took off running across the beach in a blur. The machine was left behind on his front porch, a problem for later perhaps.

A potential problem for Sonic immediately descended from a hidden perch in the trees of the jungle to the machine. They fluttered with insectoid wings and had a green colour to match the jungle canopy. They landed atop Tails’ machine, and yanked a kunai dagger out of the machine's control panel before returning heading for their next target.

____________

The drone of power tools echoed throughout Tails’ workshop as usual while he assembled a new gadget. Progress was going good by his insane standards of pacing, so he took a step back to look over the device. Lifting the goggles off of his eyes, which bore a giddiness bright enough to almost hide his dark eyebags. This projector he was modifying would surely be perfect for setting the mood at Amy’s event this evening. All he needed to do now was program a remote for ease of use, something he was learning other cared about when using technology, and then-

A swinging sound from his mail chute on the door pulled Tails’ attention away. Could it be Sonic’s counter attack already? He chuckled to himself, picturing Sonic popping out of a pile of harmless snow with a dumbfounded look on his face. Upon approach however he saw that it was clearly from Amy. It bore fancy calligraphy for the address and her custom rose wax seal which was slightly cracked, likely from its journey. 

“Oh, she must be excited,” muttered Tails to himself before biting the letter to open it with his teeth. 

Tails immediately regretted his lazy choice of letter opening when a pink cloud of a gas blasted from the letter and filled the workshop, and his mouth. The taste of floral air freshener made him gag and spit. Then the overwhelming smell filled his nose. It should smell pleasant, but the flower scent was so overwhelming and suffocating that Tails had to cover his snout. He then scrambled for the nearest window. 

“What The FLYING FFff-!” Tails gritted his teeth and compressed his fit into a soft growl. 

One by one Tails swung each window open. Then he opened the garage door of the hangar portion of the workshop. That didn’t dilute the air freshener smell fast enough so he turned on every industrial fan he could. Soon he resorted to his emergency eye and face wash station, shoving a pile of boxes that surrounded it out of the way. The torrent of water on his face face made his eyes stop stinging so bad and got most of the taste out of his mouth. But his nose was still completely overwhelmed. 

“I can’t work like this!! Why should I work like this?!” said Tails as he shook the water off of his head. 

The ring of his doorbell drew Tails’ irritated red eyes to the door. Opening it revealed a fast food bag of which he couldn’t smell at all sitting on his welcomemat. This was definitely another prank, and the fact that he was hungry now that he thought about him annoyed him more. So he leaned forward and kicked the bag away before turning to slam his door shut.

“Hey woah!” said Sonic, jumped down from atop the workshop roof, “what’s up? Not hungry?”

Tails glared at Sonic, and glanced at the bucket of ice and snow in Sonic grasp.

“Okay to be fair you really-” Sonic coughed and waved a hand in front of his muzzle, “wow bud isn’t that a bit much air freshener? It’s kinda distracting.” 

“Yes! And I guess Amy thinks that’s funny, since evidently you had a much more lazy prank in mind,” said Tails.

“Amy?” said Sonic, “She usually doesn’t take time for anything more elaborate than what you can buy at the joke store.”

“Yeah, except when she asks for help with her party tonight.” Tails walked to his work table and plugged his nose with tissue paper before pushing the projector project aside. “Let’s see how she likes my help now, heheheh…”

“Tails you’re getting a bit maniacal,” said Sonic, “seriously, don’t go overboard again. It just smells a bit too nice in here.”

“You don’t mess with someone's sense of smell and get off easy,” said Tails.

“Okay, well, can I ask your opinion on something first?” said Sonic

Tails turned to face Sonic, only to get a bit of half melted snow in his face. 

“I’ll ask for your help fixing my house later!” said Sonic before dropping the bucket and dashing away.

Tails grumbled, wiped the snow off his face, then grabbed any errant material he had lying around to build his revenge on Amy. After a moment or two he started thinking about what Sonic had said.

“...Fix his house? What?” 

In his state of sensory overload and anger, Tails failed to notice a figure move from the jungle canopy outside a nearby window. It stood tall, then began leaping between trees toward the village.

____________

The hum of Amy Rose’s voice trailed through her house as she happily prepared for the rest of the day. Her daily twenty-four step quill-styling routine was now ready, she was dressed, and every surface of the room was covered in decorations and snacks to be assorted. Sure she always had a bit of anxiety about the fact her birthday falls on the first of April, the day of fools fooling other fools. But that worry was now barely present after living the last couple years dealing with attacks from Dr. Eggman at any random time. 

Working out a block of time in her schedule to deal with an inevitable attack or crisis meant Amy had all the time she needed to still have a fun birthday. She smiled to herself while looking over a stack of colourful papers she had printed, it was hard to suppress her enthusiasm at having her friends over tonight. Truly the real power of one's birthday was the leverage it put everyone else to try your favorite forms of entertainment.

“Alright, let’s get this next part right,” said Amy to herself as she organized the papers, character sheets. “This is my one chance this year to convince the other that this’ll be fun. And this time I’m right.”

Amy’s smile faltered slightly as she remembered her failure to convince Sonic and the others that playing out her favorite musicals was fun. Really she should’ve known that’d be too much. This time though, a simple role playing game, she can get them to agree to do this more often.

A knock on her door made Amy jump and gasp with a smile. She waved her hands a bit to lower her giddiness, taking a deep breath. Then she skipped over to the door.

Greeting her outside was a basket with a bow on it, sitting just past her welcomemat. Amy’s heart skipped a beat, but she quickly recognized Knuckles’ handwriting. “Hope you like these colourful rocks!” It wasn’t a romantic gesture from Sonic, but still nice. With a sigh and a soft smile she stepped forward to see what varieties of polished stones Knuckles had-

Her boot fell through her welcomemat, and Amy stumbled into the hole the had been hidden just under it. It was a short fall, but she landed on her face and splattered some liquid all over herself. It took a few seconds of sitting still to process what just happened.

“What the F-Ow…” said Amy, as she stood up, eyes stinging from the oily fluid coating her. “What is this stuff?”

The smell, and once her vision cleared, the black colouration showed Amy that this was actually just oil. Used oil, most likely motor oil, from a motor, filled with gunk, that was now in her quills… and her whole dress.

“Are, You, SERIOUS?!” shouted Amy, “isn’t this a bit much!?” 

Amy sighed, but tried not to let this ruin her mood. It was meant as harmless fun, even if it was ruining her morning. It wasn't usual for Knuckles to be that deceptive though, even though signs pointed to him being involved with how good he is at digging. Perhaps Tails put him up to this, considering the use of engine oil. But why would he? This is usually a thing between him and Sonic.

After a moment to glower, Amy decided to climb out of the small hole. The dirty motor oil made this tricky however, as she fell back in several times. By the time she heard the swishing of Tails’ tails mid flight, and a nefarious chuckle, she had worked through her patience.

“TAILS! Get down here this instant!!” 

Amy heard a gasp, then the patter of footsteps. Tails leaned over the hole and looked at her with a strange squint. She in turn gave him the most stern look she could.

“This is really obnoxious, especially for you!” said Amy.

“Yeah, like you don’t know a thing about obnoxious pranks,” said Tails, glancing away from Amy’s eye contact.

“There’s Motor Oil In My Quills Tails!!” said Amy.

Tails leaned out of Amy’s sight, she heard him put something down on her deck, before he leaned back over the hole. “Who put a hole full over motor oil here anyway?”

“...It wasn’t you?” 

“No! This is lazy, and just mean!” said Tails as she gestured energetically, “I’d at least be way more creative for something this mean! Or just less mean if I don’t have time to be creative.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult your… prowess with pranking methods,” said Amy, “Please get me out of here.”

“Oh yeah, sure.”

With ease, Tails lifted Amy out of the hole and dropped her on the deck before landing himself. She pretended not to notice him immediately kicking a really haphazardly thrown together looking device out of sight. 

“Uh, Amy,” said Tails as he rubbed the back of his head, not noticing the oil stain he was leaving there from his glove, “do you happen to know anything about the perfume filling my workshop.”

“What? What happened?” said Amy.

Tails made eye contact with Amy, a look of anger quickly fading to regret. “I-I’m sorry, someone else must’ve put that perfume bomb in my mailbox then.”

“...Probably Eggman, right?”

“He… He’s not good at all at being that sneaky though…” Tails squinted as he looked at the hole, “And this does look like it was dug by claws, natural or those glove things people can get. And I guess Knuckles can be sneaky sometimes?”

“Okay but how would he do this without your help?” said Amy.

“...I dunno, could’ve gone to a mechanic,” said Tails, “But this is something he’d try to do to Sonic for April fools, not you.”

Just overhead, as Amy & Tails started talking about their problems, a sneaky individual leapt and flew away from the top of a palm tree. 

_________________

It was much easier for Knuckles to find specific rocks when they were in the ground. The polished stones he’d put in a gift basket for Amy evaded him in a way most minerals couldn’t. He’d been forced into retracing his steps to the best of his ability, now out on the jungle trails just outside of the Village. However all he could find was litter and Sticks’ traps.

“Oh come one gift basket, where’d you go?!” said Knuckles aloud, “I need you to be a good friend to Amy!”

The gift basket didn’t answer, only the rustling leaves did. Of course Knuckles could quickly gather some neat looking plants, but it wouldn’t have the same meaning to it. He slapped himself on the head trying to remember where he could’ve left the basket. After the week he spent picking out the perfect colourful stones it sickened him to just lose that gift. 

Searching the edges of the trail closely, Knuckles came across a tree with a nook inside it. The colours inside excited him for a moment, until he realized that it was only foraged fruit and not his basket of rocks. His stomach grumbled now, and the smell and look of the berries there enticed him. Then when he noticed a doodle carved in the bark next to the nook in the tree, depicting a simple Sticks the Badger giving a thumbs up, he smiled.

“Oh! Awesome! I really gotta thank Sticks for these snack stocks she leaves out.” said Knuckles

As Knuckles stepped close enough to reach into the nook of this tree, something snagged on his leg. He instinctively kicked, and felt something wrap tight around his leg and pull him upward. He gave a yell as the complex and well hidden snare trap hung him upside down from the top of the tree, several feet out of reach of the collection of berries. 

“Ah dang! I set off one of Sticks’ traps again…” said Knuckles as he folded his arms. “Wait, why was there a trap there, when there was a friendly and welcoming sign?! That’s like, the opposite of making sense!”

Knuckles grumbled to himself. If it took Sticks too long to find him then he’d have less time to find his gift basket. Then even less time to beat Sonic & Tails in the April Fools prank war.

“Wait, I think I know what’s going on…. Sticks is trying to make me an April Fool!” said Knuckles, slapping his face in shock. “Oh man I’ve never had to deal with a prank battle involving her before.”

“Knuckles! What’re you doing up there!” shouted the voice of Amy Rose.

“Amy?!” Knuckles looked down to see Amy with several paper towels in her hands and a bag over her shoulder. “Thank goodness you’re here! Sticks got me in a prank-snare thing! Who knows what she’ll do next!”

Amy’s eyes widened, then squinted. “Knuckles, Stick doesn’t do April Fools day!”

“Oh wait, really?”

“No, she stays in her burrow all day, remember?” 

Knuckles thought about that. He did begin to recall Sticks’ distaste for the idea of April Fools day the first time it was ‘explained’ to her. That was one crappy day, Sonic only barely survived. 

“Oh yeah!” Knuckles leaned up and grabbed the robe tied to his legs, then ripped it apart with his raw strength. He landed on his feet next to Amy and sighed in relief. “I was worried I’d have to stay up there all day. Good thing this rope doesn’t actually belong to Sticks.”

“Hey, I had a question for you,” said Amy.

“Oh yeah, I was gonna ask you about the oily smell but I can wait,” said Knuckles.

“...Yeah you didn’t dig that pit in front of my house then.”

“A pit?” 

“Yeah, sorry, I thought you tried and succeeded to prank me.”

“Oh wow! If I were you I’dve like, punched me in the snoz,” said Knuckles as he looked over just how messed up Amy’s quills were, “man, I’m glad you’re  so reasonable Amy, it’s nice knowing you have faith in the rest of us.”

“Heheh, yeah,” said Amy, tucking the bag over her shoulder behind herself. The spice-laden cupcakes inside will have to wait before burning someone's mouth up.

Seeing where Amy and Knuckles’ conversation was going, the hidden figure in the canopy fluttered away. Only one more member left to find. 

_____________

No amount of fresh air from outside could alleviate the tension in Sticks the Badger’s nerves. She’d just managed to will herself out the door of her burrow, knowing that the number of traps and practical alarms she’d placed around would warn of any intrusion. None of the others were going to mess with her this year, she knew that, they assured her and she trusted them. She desperately wanted to just trust them. 

“C’mon, you promised Amy you’d go to her party…” Sticks muttered, glaring down at her boots. 

The sound of a bell jingle made her ear twitch and her body stand even more tense than before. She glanced over, seeing no sign of anyone there. That upset her more than anything she could’ve seen prowling toward her burrow. Her teeth clenched together hard enough to become sore again.

Sticks looked in the direction of the other makeshift alarms, and more broadly the edges of the jungle near her burrow. To her relief and wraith, someone was here and it wasn’t only her. That camouflaged figure staying perfectly still in the trees evidently didn’t realize to what extent Sticks had memorized the area around her living space.

Being sure to not look to close in the direction of the figure, Sticks started walking into the jungle. The peripheral view she had gave her enough information about the size and shape of this stalking figure that she was confident about what to listen for. After only a few steps she heard the sound of it sticking to a new tree, a light thud very subtle but distinct from the tropical woodpeckers. 

“Heh, see, It’s not any of your friends,” Sticks muttered, trying then to steady her breath.

Based on the pace of when the figure hopped between trees, Stick knew exactly which snare to pass under. With a hand on her boomerang she listened as she walked. In short order, the figure fell into the trap as Sticks heard the snare suddenly tighten above her. She turned on her heel and threw the boomerang, letting herself snarl just a bit. 

The sight of a scarf and large insectoid wings is all Sticks could see of the figure through a cloud of blue glitter as they were pulled away into the air. Sticks heard a snap from her rope, and saw the figure dodge the boomerang and duck behind a tree. Then the boomerang came back and knocked the figure down, triggering a chain reaction among Sticks’ traps.

Nets and leaves went flying throughout the air as several trees sprung loose from the ropes of the traps. Sticks dived behind a safe tree and tried to watch the figure, but they managed to escape her sight and each trap they triggered. Eventually she heard the drone of their large wings as they disappeared into the jungle. The only sign they left behind was a spot of blue glitter on every tree they’d touched. 

“Sticks!” shouted Knuckles, “What was all that?! Are you alright”

“I’ve only heard legends, but if my guess is right… some sort of Ninja,” said Sticks.

Knuckles gasped, “a Ninja?! AWESOME!”

“Wait you’ve heard of ‘em?” said Sticks, “The rest of you hardly ever know what I’m talking about.”

“Well when you watch enough tv you learn what a Ninja is,” said Knuckles.

“TV? Darn, I should’ve known…” said Sticks as she walked out to find her boomerang, “wait, why’re you out here?”

“Oh yeah, Amy wanted me to find you. We have a problem.”

_________________

“Hoh Hoh Hoh!” laughed Dr. Eggman as he sat in his room of many monitors. On the largest screen the unfortunate situations of Sonic and his friends played out on loop. His assistants, Orbot and Cubot, waited patiently for him to get his fill of laughs in. As did the green Preying Mantis Ninja standing with their arms behind their back. 

“Look at his face as he slips on his face!” said Dr Eggman, hitting his control panel and laughing, “he’s helpless against a bit of wind and freezing rain! I gotta remember that!”

“Uh boss,” said Orbot, “now that we’ve played these recordings on loop 20 times, perhaps we ought to worry about what Sonic and the others are going to do to retaliate?”

“Oh yeah, what did you build for Sonic to blow up today boss?” said Cubot.

“I didn’t build anything for today,” said Dr. Eggman.

“But eeh… that means they’re gonna break something else,” said Cubot.

“No you nincomputer!” Dr. Eggman stood up from his fancy swiveling chair, “they don’t even know who’s responsible for the appropriation of their pranks! It’s genius you see!”

“But sir, who else would antagonize them like that other than you?” said Orbat.

“Why this mischievous freelancer of course!” said Dr. Eggman, putting one of his hand on the Mantis’ shoulder and giving them a friendly shake.

“I did in fact sabotage their joy today,” said The Mantis, standing stiff and waiting for Dr. Eggman to release them.

“Yes you did! And you got four out five of them! That's four stars out of five in my book! I knew I wouldn’t regret hiring you out of that catalog.”

“Oh yeah, you were like ‘I better not regret this!’” said Cubot, taking up an Eggman-like pose.

Dr. Eggman glared at Cubot, then coughed and turned to look down at the Mantis. “Your contract said I’ve got your services for the whole day, yes?”

“I am standing here for that reason, yes,” said the Mantis.

“Good, now let’s show them who’s really responsible for their misfortune! I’ll even let you partake in gloating with me!” said Dr. Eggman.

“I do not have ‘gloat’ in my skillset. Thus I would perform poorly at that task,” said the Mantis.

“...I can teach you a bit about it on the way.”

___________________

“Alright team, if we’re going to have fun during my birthday, and Sonic & Tails are gonna have a fair ‘battle of annoyance,’ we gotta deal with that person who's trying to ruin our day!” said Amy Rose to the rest of Team Sonic. They had assembled at the Teams agreed DPZ, De-Prankified Zone, the Meh Burger dining lot. 

“Who, other than Eggman, would go to these lengths anyway?” said Tails, “that’s what’s really bothering me. Have we done anything to someone recently?”

“Well there’s people who get ‘parasocially angry’,” said Sonic with finger quotes. “Could be literally anyone who doesn’t vibe with our brand of swagger and has no life of their own.”

“Ninja’s are notoriously without a life,” said Knuckles. 

“And good at blending in…” said Sticks, turning and eyeing a family sitting at a nearby table with suspicion.

“That I have seen,” said Sonic.

“Oh yeah, did you manage to hire-” started Amy, before the attention-demanding voice of Dr. Eggman rudely interrupted her. 

“MUAHAHAHAH!” bellowed Dr. Eggman from his flying eggmobile. His threatening presence caused the other patrons of meh burger to steadily flee, after only gathering their food, napkins, and food packets. “Have you had misfortune today Sonic?”

“Are you going to have some misfortune?” said Sonic, leaning forward but staying seated.

“Not today, Hedgehog! For you see, I have the upper hand.”

Some patrons scooted by the teams table as Tails said “Have you actually built a badnik we haven’t seen before, or are you just trying to hype up Mega again?”

“Grr, I don’t use that one that often!” said Dr. Eggman

“Uh, yeah, you kinda do,” said Sonic.

“It’s frankly embarrassing how often you pull out the same badniks on us,” said Amy, “the people of this village can’t even be bothered to put energy into fleeing from you anymore, that’s how stale you’ve gotten.”

“Yeah, and you use the same robots all the time!” said Knuckles.

“Yeah, okay, so maybe I can’t churn out new super badniks at an insane rate, but I’ve got standards for my health! I’m not gonna crunch my schedule if you lot won’t even respect what I build!”

Sonic turned and stared at Tails for a moment, who took a bit to notice. “What?”

Sonic titled his head and raised an eyebrow.

“What??”

“Does Egghead actually have a better sense of self care than you these days?” said Sonic.

Tails folded his arms and looked away from Sonic. 

“If you all could be bothered to pay attention for more than a second!” shouted Dr. Eggman, “You might notice-”

The crash of a soda cup hitting the ground drew everyone’s attention to Sticks. She’d turned round and snarled as she tightly gripped the wrist of the Mantis Ninja, who appeared to have been attempting to tie a small wire to Sticks’ leg. 

“Well, colour me impressed,” said Dr. Eggman with a widening grin.

Sonic recognized the smile and immediately dashed toward Dr. Eggman. Then Eggman pressed a button, and something tightened on Sonic’s leg. He fell onto his face then saw that a thin wire tied to his leg led to a small round black badnik with the shape of a spider. Three more wires protruding from this badnik were tied to Tails, Amy, and Knuckles, who were all sent to the floor by the momentum of Sonic’s dash. 

“Ow FUCK!” shouted Tails.

“Tails what the F-! You can’t say that!” said Sonic.

“Actually,” said Knuckles as he pushed the dining table off of himself, “I’m with Tails, this fucking hurts.”

“I’ve had enough of Eggman’s shit today too,” said Amy.

“Goddammit, could you guys at least try to keep the Team PG?” said Sonic.

“It’s no use anyway,” Said Sticks, still grippin the Mantis, “It’s not like we’re getting fucking renewed anytime soon.”

“...What?” said the Mantis, with the second emotion to appear on their face being sheer bafflement. 

Sticks responded by punching the Mantis in the face. The force allowed them to pull out of her grasp and dart away, diving behind the counter to the despair of the service worker there. Still Sticks gave chase, throwing her boomerang. 

The Mantis responded with a flying kunai that struck Sticks’ boomerang and changed its trajectory. Truly Ninja’s are as dangerous as Sticks worried, as she found it hard to follow the boomerangs flight path. She only saw it just before it was about to strike her in the face.

Then a second kunai hit the boomerang, deflecting it away from Sticks. Everyone looked over to see a floating hand. Actually, it was attached to a  well blended figure, whose colours changed from that of the background to purple. 

“Chaotix agency, Espio,” said Espio the Chameleon.

“Oh he’s good,” said Amy, “how much money did Vector want?”

“Not too much,” said Sonic as he stood up and struggled against the wires of the spider badnik, “they said if we were actually dealing with another Ninja we’d get a discount.”

“That… doesn’t make sense,” said Tails.

“The honor of testing my skills against another trained in these arts,” said Espio as he stepped closer to the Mantis, “is worth a quarter of my boss’ revenue.”

The Mantis nodded, “so be it.”

“What is even happening anymore?” said Dr. Eggman, “this was supposed to be when you all cower at the genius of my Tripping-bot in conjunction with my competent hiring judgment!”

“Well Egghead, you’re not the only one who gets the ‘spies and assassins’ catalog,” said Sonic.

“That’s it,” said Sticks, “two Ninja’s is too much for me to worry about! I’ve got something more important to be doing!”

Sticks the Badger proceeded to leave… without her friends even. Sonic and the others exchanged a glance and shrug. 

“Alright, no more delaying! Ninja, attack!” shouted Dr. Eggman.

“Go get em Espio!” said Sonic.

The two Ninja’s locked eyes, raised their kunai, and charged at each other. Just before an intense clash of blades, both Espio and the Mantis dodged toward different directions, hiding behind different tables. 

Meanwhile Knuckles managed to get a footing against tension of the wire from the Spider Badnik. Seeing this, Dr. Eggman attacked team Sonic with the base missiles and laser on his eggmobile. 

Two epic battles played out over the next few minutes. One where Team Sonic steadily overcame the problem of being tied together. At Amy’s suggestion, Knuckles took the lead of which direction they would all move, and even threw the other within range of Eggman. Via taunting Tails tricked eggman into blasting the cord tying him to the others, and started flying interference. 

Eventually Tails lured Dr. Eggman close enough to the ground for Sonic, Amy, and Knuckles to time a jump together and all land on Dr Eggman's vehicle. Just in time too, as he had finally grabbed ahold of Tails and was about to throw hands. From there all four of the team beat up Dr. Eggman and his eggmobile until he finally admitted defeat, which took an impressive amount of blows to make him do. 

All the while the two Ninja’s engaged in the most intense battle of their lives up till now. The Mantis used their flight advantage to duck behind elevated positions and look for Espio. However Espio knew this and compensated with his camouflage and speed. From the perspective of everyone else and each other however, they both remained completely out of sight. Some customers even started returning to the meh burger, unaware of the intense battle going on between tables and booths.

“...Are either of them still here?” asked Amy.

“ I literally can’t tell,” said Sonic.

“Well one of those ninja knives just appeared in my shoe, and I’m sure it wasn’t there before,” said Knuckles.

“They must be so fast!” said Tails.

“And sneaky,” said Sonic.

…

“This is so boring,” said Sonic as he sat down in a chair.

“Yep,”

“I’m afraid so,”

“Maybe I could build a Ninja tracker?” said Tails. 

“If this fight takes that long, I think we’re better off-” Sonic leaned back in his chair as he talked, and to everyone's surprise tripped the Mantis Ninja who stumbled out into the open.

The Mantis immediately opened their wings to take flight, but were stopped as Espio charge out of nowhere horn first into their torso. The two Ninjas tumbled to the ground with the sounds of struggle. Once everyone managed to realize what was happening Espio had his kunai at the Mantis’ neck.

“Damn,” said the Mantis.

“Yep,” said Espio.

The two stood up and dusted themselves off. Espio quickly went to retrieve his scattered ninja weapons while the Mantis adjusted their scarf. 

“Apologies Doctorate Eggman,” said the Mantis, “I was bested in the duel. Here is an adjusted invoice. Call my number if you have questions.”

“Right…” said Dr. Eggman.

Sonic and the others went over to Espio to congratulate him. Though the chameleon kept a stoic pose, Amy at least could tell he seemed to appreciate the praise.

“For the discount,” said Epsio and he pulled a pocket register out and started typing into it, “please write down all the thoughts you had about my performance for my boss to see.”

“Yeah I’ll tell vector you did a good job,” said Sonic.

“How will you be paying?”

“I have a card,” said Amy.

“But it’s your birthday!” said Knuckles.

“Yeah, we can cover it, right Sonic?” said Tails.

“Uh… yeah, I’ll just… hafta to buy a smaller gift for Amy,” said Sonic.

“D’aw,” Amy smiled warmly at Sonic, that comment fully recovered her mood from earlier, despite the battle damage to her dress and quills. “Don’t worry Sonic, having more money for later is a perfect birthday gift.”

“Oh, yeah, sure thing Ames,” said Sonic.

______________

While his mood was a bit soured, Dr Eggman took some pleasure in knowing he at least inconvenienced Sonic and his friends today. That was worth something. Now he just needed to figure out how best to word that to Orbot and Cubot as to make it sound like he didn’t lose. 

That train of thought was halted when Dr. Eggman got within view of his lair. Smoke poured out of several portions of the structures, and loose wires threw sparks all over the place. Several of his defensive badniks were flying and walking circles around the base in full alert, but it was clear they had no idea where the culprit of this mess was. Dr. Eggman grumbled and flew in closer to evaluate the damage.

“No who had time to do this?!” Eggman said to the badniks. 

From behind a rock, Orbot and Cubot peeked out and pointed to the top of the base, Orbot saying “she did…”

“Wha-” Dr. Eggman was cut off by Sticks the Badger landing on his Eggmobile and driving an obsidian shortsword into its control panel. He screamed in genuine terror as they crashed to the ground.

Dr. Eggman felt himself tumbling until he lay flat on his back, then Stick jumped onto his chest and bared her teeth, putting a hand on his collar. 

“I have WAY too much to worry about, without dealing with this damned ‘Fools Holiday!’”

“Wait, I-” muttered Dr. Eggman.

“Shut up!”

Dr. Eggman shut up.

“When I hafta to worry just that much more, it actually hurts! And I’m not willing to spare you that pain!” Sticks took a few heavy breaths and made sure Eggman was looking her in the eyes. “Now, are you EVER, going to make me hafta to worry about an ‘April Fools’ again?!”

“Well… when you ask so nicely…”

Stick growled like a wild badger.

“No no of course not! Jeez! I’ll leave you alone if you leave me alone!” said Dr. Eggman. 

Sticks’ posture immediately softened and she released Dr. Eggman's collar. She let out a sigh and said “thanks,” before stepping off of Eggman’s chest and lying on the ground.

“Uh… don't mention it,” said Dr. Eggman.

“Yeah, of course… Sorry I hafta be so mean…” 

“I'm going… to go inside, and hide.”

Sticks gave him a thumbs up and continued to just lie on the ground in front of his base's door.

[booboodaddysblog]

Disappointment

Part two

Warnings: smut, self pleasure, teasing, cursing, misunderstanding, disappointment, crying, arguing

Words: 4275

——

Why is it so hard to get along in a relationship? One person is silent, the other wants to talk. This is not how it should be.

Colin is a quiet and calm person. He has trouble talking about what he feels, what hurts him. He keeps everything inside, all his pain. He blocks out when something doesn't go his way in his personal life. He is suffocating. This could also be a sign of fear, fear of what might come. He is afraid that he might not be able to cope.

His silence makes people turn away from him. They stop trusting him, and as a result he is left alone, alone with himself and his thoughts.

——-

When he went downstairs he found the living room in semi-darkness. Only the skipping lights from the TV screen illuminated the room. Marg was sitting on the couch, holding the remote control in her hand and switching programs in boredom, not knowing what she wanted to watch. He watched her from a distance and slowly approached. He sighed deeply giving himself encouragement. He knew that this evening would not be easy.

He sat down on the couch next to her and looked at her. He was not interested in what was happening on the TV screen. His attention was focused only on her. He watched her face and the dancing colors reflecting off the screen on her smooth skin.

Marg felt his gaze on her. She looked at him and smiled slightly. She returned her gaze to the screen.

He returned the smile and spoke quietly.

- When will there be pizza. I'm really hungry - wasn't exactly what Marg expected, but he tried to somehow alleviate their gloomy mood.

She looked at him again, this time she raised her eyebrows and replied as if in a huff.

- I received information that the delivery of the pizza will be delayed. They are having some problems, but they should bring it back soon - she sighed quietly.

- Oh, so that's the reason for the delay.... Okay… hmm… so… in that case, can I ask you a simple question? - he looked at her with concern.

- Of course, baby, ask - she smiled at him.

- I was just wondering... would you mind turning off the TV? I'd rather spend this time just with you, do you mind?

He also smiled gently, looked at her with hopeful eyes, thought that spending time just the two of them would help fix the little misunderstanding they had before.

- Sure. There's nothing interesting on this TV anyway. Just commercials - she turned off the TV and put the remote on the table in front of her.

He watched her as she put the remote control down on the table. His body was really tense and he could feel his heart beating quite fast as he tried to calm down. He couldn't help but look at her.

- Would you mind if I asked you to give me a little hug? - he whispered.

- Honey, you don't even have to ask. You can hug me whenever you feel like it - she smiled gently.

- Thank you…

He gently hugged her and laid his head on her chest. He wrapped his arms around her. His heart beat faster again. He began to breathe deeply. He inhaled and exhaled. He really needed this now. He only hoped that this evening would already be peaceful. He dreamed of nothing more than cuddling and relaxing after a hard day. He didn't want to mention the unpleasant incident in the bathroom.

- I want you to know that I am not angry with you - she said and started stroking his soft hair. She inhaled the scent and closed her eyes. She sighed, hugging him.

- You’re not? Really... you really aren’t?

He looked at her with a little more hope in his eyes. She wasn't angry with him and that maybe she understood how he felt. He also hoped that he could relax and forget about the unpleasantness. His body relaxed slightly.

- Of course, dear. I understand that you are tired. I want you to feel good, I won't force you to do anything - she kissed him on the nose and smiled broadly.

He returned the smile. Suddenly he felt excitement, her body close to him and her scent still tempted him, but he decided to keep it to himself, for now. He hugged her even tighter.

Suddenly they heard the doorbell ring.

- Oh, it's probably the pizza delivery guy - she got up from the couch and went to open the door.

Reluctantly, he released her from his embrace.

She put the pizza on the table.

- I invite you to the table, dinner is ready - she laughed and sat at the table, waiting for Colin.

He got up from the couch and walked over to the table, sat down and took a deep breath again. He was still trying to get rid of intrusive thoughts. He wanted to somehow make up to her for his bad behavior.

- I would like to apologize to you. I admit that I was a little.... I shouldn't have pushed you away like that. I know that your hormones make you feel more excited....

She was already about to put a slice of pizza on her plate when she looked at Colin and raised her eyebrows.

- Finish the sentence, please. What's on your mind?

She finally put a piece of pizza on her plate and looked at Colin, waiting for an answer.

- I just wanted to say that I'm a little apprehensive about all of this. The fact that I'm going to become a father. It's all happening so fast... I just feel like.... I don't know... I feel like I'm really selfish and I don't know if I'll be able to behave differently... - he took a piece of pizza and took a bite. He was afraid to look at Marg - I just want to make sure it's not a burden on you, or that you feel like I'm pressuring you.... Or that I'm not enough for you... - he finally looked at her, waited for a reaction.

She looked at him and chewed a piece of pizza she had just bitten into. She wondered what to answer. Finally, she swallowed and answered.

- I don't know why you are still upset about what happened in the shower. Forget about it, because nothing happened. It's all because of my hormones. I feel arousal all the time - she bit into the pizza again - I just thought of that... and maybe when you can't satisfy me.... I'll just manage on my own - she said with her mouth full and smiled.

- W…wait, y…you… you want…

He froze and felt his heart speed up again. He simply could not believe what she said. She said it so calmly... he was so confused... his brain had surges on the coils. He suddenly realized that he had a recently bitten piece of pizza in his mouth. Instead of chewing it, he sat with his mouth open and stared at Marg.

She also stopped eating and started looking at him.

- What, you don't like that I want to masturbate when you won't be around to satisfy me?

- I…

He swallowed a slice of pizza. He was still a bit thoughtful imagining how Marg was pleasing herself. He tried to find the right words to answer her.

- No, n…no… I'm not saying I don't like it.... just... why don't you ask me for help? Instead of... do it yourself...

- You usually have the strength to satisfy me. I only want to masturbate when you don't have the strength and are tired. Like today, for example.

She took another slice of pizza from the box and bit into it.

- But I still… - he sighed quietly.

Maybe she was right, just trying to accommodate him when he felt tired or was too exhausted to have sex with her. It only still bothered him that she just took matters into her own hands... especially if there was another way to do it.

- But what if just.... what if...

- What if what? - she said with her mouth full.

- What if I... what if I help you with this...

His face began to redden slightly when he said this. He could feel the tension coming off him. He tried to overcome the fact that sometimes she could manage without him.... but on the other hand... he wanted to help her... doing it together....

She nodded her head as confirmation.

- Sure. But since you're tired today. I feel like playing with myself, if that's not a problem for you. I can still feel the excitement. If I don't have an orgasm, I won't be able to sleep. I need to get rid of this tension - she bit into a piece of pizza again - If you want you can watch me masturbate - she said with her mouth full.

- But…

She made him speechless again. His heart was beating even faster now and he was beginning to feel even more excited. The way she said it... with such lightness... as if it was the most normal thing in the world for her.... He felt very insecure at the thought of doing this together, but it sounded really attractive to him.... But he couldn't decide what he thought about it, excitement and tension were taking over for now.

- But what? - she said again with her mouth full.

- I was… I was just thinking…

It was really hard for him to find the right answer. What she was proposing to him was so dirty and he felt very excited, but his own thoughts were starting to confuse him. At this point, he no longer knew what would be better. Offering to help her, or just sitting and staring with his tongue hanging out. And he knew… he knew that he would be drooling like a puppy.

- What’s on your mind, Colin? Tell me.

- Y...you... understand that what you just suggested is very.... very hot, right?

He finally said it with a big stutter and an even redder face. He felt the embarrassment take over him, but at the same time he felt excited about the idea now. He just didn't know what to do at the moment.... he was in shock. All he was able to do now was stare at her with his mouth open. He didn't control it anymore.

- So… Colin… would you like to watch? - she smirked at him.

- Y…yes, I... I would... - he whispered.

He still sounded a little uncertain. His body felt even more tension. When she said that.... his body was no longer listening to him. He felt that his pants had become really tight. He felt like taking them down. He tried to hide it, but he didn't want to act like a teenager just starting his sex life. But that's exactly how he felt.

- Hmm... tell me more, darling. What do you think about this idea? Did you swallow your tongue or what? I know how you can talk dirty. Don't pretend to be such a saint now. Make some effort - she smiled sweetly at him.

- To be honest... - swallowed his saliva loudly - I think it's a great idea and.... I think I will enjoy it very much… - he grunted - I can't wait.

It wasn't quite what Marg wanted to hear.

- Okay… Great, I'm very happy. Let's finish eating. We'll go back to the living room. I'll sit on the couch and start touching myself... and you'll sit opposite me, in the armchair... and watch me pleasure myself - she smiled broadly at him.

Colin began to choke and cough. Tears began to roll into his eyes. He hit his chest several times with his fist to start breathing normally again.

- O…okay… n…now... really n…now? - he looked at her with wide-open eyes.

Once again, he began to imagine the whole situation. The very conversation made him feel that he couldn't stand it any longer. His cock hurt, it was so swollen. He grabbed it through his pants and squeezed it lightly. He trembled and closed his eyes.

- Of course, there is nothing to wait for!

- Oh... okay... I... for now I will just watch....

When he said this, he suddenly felt a little more confident in doing it… watching her... as strange an experience as it may seem... he never...

He knew that watching her would be hot and it would be something new for him... He just had to calm the excitement in his head and focus on what she was going to show him. He began to breathe deeply.

- Are you okay, Colin? - she walked over to him and grabbed his hand to help him get up from the table.

- Yeah… yes, I’m fine - he kissed her hand.

- In that case, let's go to the living room - she led him toward the armchair - sit down and relax - she leaned over him and kissed him softly. She stepped back, licked her lips and bit them lightly.

He watched her with his eyes wide open. He was afraid to blink to avoid missing anything. The way she bit her own lips and licked her lips... it made him start to lose his mind. He found that he had to hide the feeling, otherwise his excitement would only increase before anything had a chance to start. Now it was all about Marg, not him.

Marg walked over to the couch and sat down on it. She started right away, did not wait for anything. She began to touch her breasts. She massaged them and slowly slid her hands lower and lower. While she was doing this, she looked into Colin's eyes and watched his reactions.

He definitely liked what he saw. Her subtle touch... but as she began to move her hands farther and farther down, his stomach began to twist slightly as his excitement grew in him. He looked at her in awe, and she didn't take her eyes off him either.

Suddenly she stood up and slipped off her sweatpants along with her panties. She tossed them on the floor. She sat down on the couch again and spread her legs. Colin was shown a beautiful view. Her pink, beautiful pussy was glistening from her sweet juices.

- How do you like what you see? - she asked.

She started to stagger her fingers in small circles around her clit. She licked her lips and began to moan. She accelerated the movements of her fingers.

- I love it... this is just perfect... everything about you is just... so beautiful.

He struggled to keep the sounds of pleasure from leaving his mouth. He felt like touching himself, but he was like under a spell. Marg cast a spell on him. He couldn't move. He felt so excited that he could lose himself in one touch from her.

As she massaged her clit, with the fingers of her other hand she began to massage her pussy entrance. She gently dipped one finger into it and pulled it out.

- Talk to me, Colin - she whispered.

She began to moan loudly and closed her eyes. Her breath hitched.

- U…um... w…what should I... would you like to hear any particular?

He felt his breathing stop. He still felt tempted to just touch himself and even join her, but he still had a certain level of self-control. He preferred to do nothing and say nothing. He felt safer that way.

- Yes... yes... tell me how I should touch myself. I will do anything you want!

She plunged one finger into her pussy and moaned really loudly. She tilted her head back in delight. Her body arched its back. She slid her finger in and out. All the while she massaged her clit.

- Hmm… well…

This evening and this whole situation, made his brain completely stop cooperating with him. Now Marg was giving him the ability to control her movements, but he couldn't say anything. Having momentary power over her body was very tempting. He was so tempted by it that he didn't know what to do say.

- Ohhhh... Colin tell me how should I touch myself! - she moaned loudly again. This time she looked deeply into his eyes.

- Y…you s…should try…

He felt his heart beating fast. He never felt shame in these matters. Usually he didn't say it, he preferred to show it... he felt strange... but he had to do it for her, after all, she herself asked for it.... He began to speak, not sure if he could hide his blush. He was glad that the living room was quite dark.

- Y…you should try to use more fingers - he hoped it was just what she expected.

- Oh yes! Yes! - she slid another finger inside her. She cried out in delight. Her back arched again. While doing this, she kept looking into his eyes - Colin start touching yourself. I know you feel like it - she moaned.

- But… - he was speechless again.

What was wrong with him. He sighed quietly once again. It seemed that she really wanted to see him do it, while she was doing it too. He felt very embarrassed, he didn't have that much courage compared to her, but he couldn't deny that she was right and he wanted to do it too.

- Do it Colin... just like me... give yourself pleasure in front of me!

He felt a great temptation to just do it, only there was something he didn't want to admit... he was ashamed... Finally he let out a deep breath and just had to admit it now.

- But what if I’m not…

- You’re not that what? - she moaned so loudly.

- I’m not that good as you are…

Marg stopped touching herself for a moment and looked at Colin with a raised eyebrow.

- Don't make fun of me. I know you know how to make yourself happy. Show me, please - saying this, she looked deeply into his eyes and bit her lip.

- I'm not making... I…I'm serious, I'm not that great...

Marg was very tempting to him. The way she looked at him, the things she said to him, and especially the things she did... But he didn't want her to know.... At least not yet, it was something important to him and he wasn't ready to show her something so intimate to him yet.

- Take off your pants and show me how the hell you touch yourself! - she moaned really loudly, she was close to orgasm.

- I…

His mind was now a complete mess, the amount of excitement and pleasure flowing through him was almost unbearable. He still didn't know why he was so nervous. After all, he knew how to do it, but he didn't want to show it to her so soon, he felt very ashamed.

- Oh my god! Oh... I'm so close! Take off your pants, pull out your dick and fuck me, Colin! Now!

- After all... a…after all, you were supposed to do it yourself... m…me now... god…

- Damn you, Colin! - she shouted at him.

- What did you say? - he looked at her confused.

Colin felt thrown off balance by her sudden change of mood.

She didn't say anything anymore. She stopped paying attention to him. She focused completely on her pleasure. She moaned loudly, her whole body trembling... her back arched hard....

- Oh my god!!

She cried out loudly and reached fulfillment. She closed her eyes and lay down on the couch. Her breath hitched...

- Fuck you… - she whispered to Colin, who sat with his mouth wide open… shocked…

Colin sat shocked, not knowing what to say. He wasn't able to move... when suddenly he moaned loudly and felt his pants become wet... he came... he didn't even touch himself... He quickly grabbed a pillow and covered his pants. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back.

- Fuck... - he whispered to himself.

- What happened? Is that what I think just happened? - she looked at him and shook her head in displeasure - oh really fuck you - she covered her eyes.

- Is... is that.... is that all you can say... - he said calmly.

He felt a little hurt by this, her reaction was quite harsh.

- Yes… you disappointed me… - she got up from the couch. She picked up her clothes from the floor and started toward the stairs upstairs - I’m going to take a shower and then sleep - she went upstairs, leaving him alone.

He sighed, drew in and let out the air loudly. He felt so many different conflicting emotions after that. He realized that he had screwed up again, but he still wanted to talk to her about it later.... And he felt that he had let her down... again... This made him feel even worse.

——-

- Good night Colin. I love you - she said while being halfway up the stairs - will you come to bed soon? - she asked quietly without looking at him.

Hearing her words, he felt even worse. She was still so loving and sweet. But her voice was sad and uncertain. He felt that he didn't deserve to sleep with her that night.

- No... I will sleep on the couch - he said quietly.

She was silent for a while. Finally, she looked at him. He was still sitting in his chair with his head lowered. He was not looking at her.

- I understand... good night... love... sleep well - she went into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Colin heard the click of the lock... she locked the door....

- She locked the door… wonderful… - he groaned quietly and covered his eyes with his hands.

He felt guilty about what had just happened. He felt tragic. He slowly got up and walked over to the couch. He sat down on it and immediately lay down. He grabbed a pillow and covered his face with it. He knew that since she had locked the door it meant that he had screwed up all over. But he still hoped that somehow they could get along.

He sat down abruptly on the couch and looked around the living room, thinking what he should do.

- I have to do something now - he said to himself to give himself some encouragement.

As soon as she closed the door behind her, she leaned against it and slid to the floor. She began to cry quietly. What had happened was really important to her. She wanted to show Colin that she was not ashamed to do something like this in front of him. It was to be more of a pleasure for him than for her. She felt stupid and remorseful now. Maybe she had done too much.

Resigned, he lay down on the couch again, his body was exhausted and his mind in a big mess, he felt so guilty about it. He didn't know what to do about it all. He felt like going to her but at the same time he didn't want to disturb her. He couldn't just lie here.... He slowly got up from the couch and slowly walked upstairs and stood in front of the bedroom door.

Marg heard a quiet knock on the door. She got up from the floor and opened it. She looked at him with sad eyes.

- Marg… I’m so so sorry… I…

He felt so bad that he had brought her to such a state. She didn't deserve it. He was such an idiot and just couldn't understand why he was like this. She was so kind and understanding to him, and he just.... he screwed it up...

- Can I come in?

- Yes… - she whispered and she moved so he could go inside.

He slowly entered the room, his heart was beating so fast and his breathing was so heavy. He felt that he had to control himself now. He didn't know what to do about the situation anymore, but he had to try.

Marg looked at him and knew he wanted to start a conversation.

- I want to sleep now... I'm very tired. I don't feel like talking.... We'll talk tomorrow - she was silent for a while - will you sleep with me? I don't want to be alone... - she said quietly.

- Sure... but… I'm really sorry about all of this... - he walked over to the bed and slowly lay down next to her.

She grabbed his hand.

- Good night... I love you - she whispered and closed her eyes.

- I love you too… - he sighed and closed his eyes.

He tried to fall asleep, but he didn’t stop overthink about every single thing that happened that day. He still felt guilty and ashamed by all that had happened, and didn't know if he would be able to sleep at all that night.

——————

Part one

Part three

[pareidoliaonthemove]

A Turn on the Stage

Colonel White has entered the Chat.

Doctor Fawn has entered the Chat.

Fawn: What can I do for you, Colonel?

White: The Mysterons have been unusually busy of late, and it’s impacting morale.

Fawn: I can’t argue with that. Last time I saw so many long faces, I was at the Melbourne Cup.

White: That’s not helpful, Doctor.

Fawn: Sorry. I presume you have some scheme in hand to deal with it?

White: I strongly object to the word ‘scheme’.

Fawn: Objection noted. I also note you’re not denying it.

White: I have decided on a way to combat the problem.

Fawn: That was unnecessarily ominous, Colonel.

White: I have given permission for a ‘variety show’ style entertainment to take place on Cloudbase. Participation is voluntary.

Fawn: That would certainly cheer people up.

Fawn: Although I am wondering why I warrant a personal notification of this show.

White: You will be taking part.

Fawn: You said participation is voluntary.

White: I’m ordering you to volunteer.

Fawn: I have a long-standing role in these shows. I have a recurring part credited as ‘audience member’.

White: You will become, I believe the accepted term is ‘ascended extra’. Think of it as a promotion.

Fawn: I think of it as many things.

Fawn: ‘Promotion’ is not one of them.

White: Nevertheless, your name is already down on the schedule. You have two weeks to finalise the details of your turn.

...

Fawn: For the sake of clarity, I am being ordered to perform a turn on the stage at the Cloudbase Variety Show. Yes?

White: Yes, Doctor. You will perform a turn on the stage.

Fawn: And this is non-negotiable?

White: It is in no way negotiable.

Fawn: Then I have no choice. On your head be it.

White: I’m sure I can cope with anything that happens.

Doctor Fawn has left the Chat.

Colonel White has left the Chat.

“Lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Green turned to find a rather harried looking Doctor Fawn approaching at speed. As soon as he was within arms length, he thrust an object at Green.

It was a moment before Green recognised a data cartridge for the ‘theaters’ projection suite. “I know you want to do a full dress rehearsal this afternoon, but I’m up to my back teeth in problems. This is the program for the backdrop projection and lighting. It’s all good to go, you just need to plug it in and it’ll run.” Fawn glanced at his watch. “Speaking of running…”

He turned on his heel and was halfway to the door before Green found his voice, “But the rehearsal…”

Fawn waved a dismissive hand at him. “Sorry, Lieutenant. There was an Incident at London Medical, I’m trying to clean it up remotely, but it’s taking some time. The projection will give you my timings, and I’ll just have to wing it on the night.”

Fawn was gone.

Green gaped at the door, Fawn hadn’t even acknowledged the Colonel the whole time he’d been in the room. He turned back to the Control Desk, dreading what he’ll find.

Colonel White was looking thoughtfully at the door. He caught Green’s eye. “I am aware of the ‘incident’ at London Medical, Lieutenant. It’s a nasty business, and we are trying to keep it confidential. That is the only reason why Fawn is not down there now, dealing with it. That the CMO visits a location is quickly public knowledge, and everything he does is discussed thoroughly. Trying to be clandestine would only fan the flames of gossip.” He indicated the data cartridge. “I am pleased to note that he feels he will be free to participate in tomorrow night’s performance, though. I understand it is much anticipated?”

Green swallowed. The implied threat in Colonel White’s words was clear. What ever Fawn was dealing with in London, he did not know about it. He refocused his attention on the data cartridge.

“Yes, sir. Everyone is wondering what he will be doing, as he has simply described it as ‘A Turn on the Stage as Commanded by Colonel White’.”

White snorted. “He was serious about ‘on my head be it’, then,” he mused.

“Sir?”

White sighed. “I’m sure you understand, Lieutenant, that Doctor Fawn would not volunteer to perform. He required prompting, in this instance, by me. He seemed to imply that his performance would not be well received, and that I would be responsible for the fall-out.”

Green stared. “Oh.” He glanced down at the cartridge in his hand. Now he was really curious.

Colonel White settled back into his customary seat, front and centre, of the theatre. Around him the applause gradually petered out for the three engineering technicians, who had just performed a very energetic three-way tango, as Lieutenant Green, in his role as Compere, took the stage to announce the next act.

There was an air of anticipation. Everyone knew who the next act was, but nobody knew what it would be.

Green held his hands up for silence. “Next, is a much anticipated performance, if, as we can deduce from the title, not entirely voluntarily. Doctor Fawn, performing ‘A Turn on the Stage as Commanded by Colonel White’!” He gestured toward the left wing, as he departed toward the right.

Nobody emerged. The house lights dimmed and the projector flared to life behind an empty stage.

White watched, incredulous, as his ‘discussion’ with Doctor Fawn was projected upon the back stage, complete with typewriter sound effects as the letters appeared upon the stage’s backdrop.

The whole conversation played out to the audience with an empty stage. Slowly the letters faded away as the projection slowly faded to blackness and the spotlights flared to life, focusing on the left wing. Doctor Fawn, dressed casually in jeans, polo shirt and sneakers, ambled out into the spotlight, hands in pocket.

He continued slowly across the stage, keeping pace with the centre of the spotlight until he reached the centre of the stage. When he paused, gave a very credible impression of remembering something, before turning on his heel and hurrying back across the stage, all firmly placed in the centre of the spotlight, which faded to blackness as Fawn disappeared back into the wings.

Stunned silence greeted this, before a nervous titter of laughter from the audience broke the wave, and a wave of laughter and applause spread throughout the audience and into the wings.

Colonel White joined in enthusiastically. Very good, Edward. You win this round.

One day he would win a battle. But today, he would enjoy the moment.

Notes:

I love malicious compliance. It is the most wonderful way of making a point without ‘antagonising’ people when head office pass down a new utterly deranged procedure.

One of these days, Colonel White is going to win one of these micro-battles with Doctor Fawn, I swear.

The standard disclaimers, I do not own Captain Scarlet, either the Original or CGI Series. (Although I do own copies on DVD.)

I do not do this for money, but for my own (in)sanity and entertainment.

[csuitebitches]

Hi! You're amazing and your page is amazing. I'm a girl who's really interested in growing and building my life. My mental illness has taken so much from me, so I feel I am starting life over this year like a little baby while everyone else is an adult. I often feel VERY insecure around friends who are normal and have achieved so much and have not made the many mistakes that I have.

I now have been isolating myself because I usually feel so ashamed of myself when I'm with them. I barely have any cooking skills as a female, I've never held a real job, I never network or connect with anyone, I have felt so miserable with a scowl on my face everyday, and I barely know what I'm doing with my life now in college.

As I am now working on my character flaws, how do I still feel I am loveable to my friends, stop pushing everyone away, and stop feeling like hiding when I'm with them?

everyone was once in your shoes. Were your friends born with their job? Were they born accomplished? Was Gordon Ramsey born with a knife in his hands? Have you seen the video of him crying because of his mentor Marco Pierre White?

Ive lightly burned my fingers, my food, set off the university dorm fire alarm because of my initial cooking skills. I’ve melted a spatula. I’ve burned countless toasts, broken glass bottles, had a whole bug infestation because I forgot to close the fridge tightly when I left uni for summer. Then I learned. I watched more YouTube videos. I practiced cooking. I can objectively say I cook better than my mom today because I made the effort to learn.

A master was also an amateur once.

“I never network with anyone” it’s good that you can admit the things you need to work on. The way you address problems like this is:

a) are there networking opportunities near you?

b) can you look up conferences and opportunities near you?

you assume that your friends have not made as many mistakes as you have. Do you go on a radio show and tell the whole world about every mistake you’ve made in your life? Even with close friends, one does not always reveal every single thing or sometimes, doesn’t feel the need to.

your journey is your own. The exam paper of your life does not have the same answers that your friends have written.

you’re not going to magically wake up accomplished, you’re going have to work towards it. And the best part is, you’re in college! That’s such a great stepping stone because you’re in an environment that’s programmed to help you grow if you can use your cards right.

can you join any extra curricular clubs or activities? Or ask your professors or the counsellor for internship opportunities? Can you organise an event like a bake sale or something for the local charity? Can you take up volunteering opportunities?

your insecurities are holding you back. You’re not any less lovable than the friends and family in your life. You have control over your own life. When you choose to actively put yourself out there, start socialising, engaging with people - which can be difficult for some people but always rewarding - you’ll start seeing change.

unfortunately the world doesn’t revolve around us. If you’re unhappy with how things are, the remote control of your life is in your hands.

you’re already working on yourself which is great. That means you have the intrinsic motivation to do something. It’s time to stop moaning and whining and start creating a plan of action.

tackle things one thing at a time. Don’t start with 10 things.

From your message it seems like:

You need help with adulting - cooking.

job - ask your college counsellor/ professor of your favourite subject for internship opportunity, on campus or off campus.

purpose -find a hobby, sport, volunteering cause, something that you like that you actually enjoy.

look at these three problems in the best positive light. It means you get to learn all these things you didn’t know! It means you’ll be able to meet new people who could become really good connections!

make your life simple. Progress doesn’t mean going from burning the kitchen down to cooking a three course meal. It means taking one week to learn how to fry an egg. It makes taking a week to learn how to make a decent pancake or some rice. It means screwing up 10 times and then finally getting it right on the 11th.

allow yourself to make mistakes. Acknowledge to yourself about them and move on.

Do not let your shame hold you back from living your life. We torture ourselves in imagination more than we actually suffer in real life.

I’ve felt embarrassed countless times in my life. I’ve slipped up, messed up, forgotten things, done what I wasn’t supposed to, held my tears back, been scolded, full blown cried, scribbled aggressively in my diary, ranted to my mom, had dramatic fights with my imaginary boss in the shower, woken up late, screwed up royally in important meetings. These are not original experiences. These are universal experiences. Anyone who is telling you that they have never felt this is a dirty liar.

I wouldn’t exchange those mistakes for the world.

How do you think I’m able to give you advice on this if I didn’t go through those similar experiences?

If you want to make changes in your life that badly, start today. Set three simple goals that are achievable. Set deadlines. Be your own parent. Get your life together.