#apex novelties

[atomic-chronoscaph]

art by Robert Crumb (1971)

[tomoleary]

Bobby London - Left-Field Funnies #1 Cover Original Art (Apex Novelties, 1972) Source

[mrrubbersuitman]

https://www.etsy.com/.../best-buy-comics-r-crumb-vol-1-1... FN/VF Best Buy Comics 1, first print. Regularly $25.00, on sale through the link until 12/10 for $20.00

[pvrkacciosan]

The price for life

A/n: ahhhh, I'm a sucker for the dad! drivers content

Synopsis: One of the many pains of pregnancy.

Pairing: Charles Leclerc X Pregnant Fem!reader

Warnings: throwing up, morning sickness. Google translated french, dear old Charles getting a little handsy

Word Count: 1K

The novelty hadn't worn off on you yet it seemed, Laying awake in the early morning, it had become a habit to simple run your hand over the forming bump on your lower stomach.

Being around the fifteen week mark, it was safe to say that you child had definitely began to make themselves known.

It was such strange sensation and notion for you to know that there was a growing life inside you, one which you had made with your fiance.

Who currently was snoring lightly from beside you, sleeping soundful his back exposed. You had always preferred to sleep next to him, when he didn't wear a shirt, the direct contact to his skin proved to be an excellent body warmer, and currently with this pregnancy you had manage to get what you wanted, by simple using the excuse that it was his child that made you want such things.

Charles would simple smile and heed to your requests without question. Pulling the sheet closer to your body, you shifted closer to him, drawing a hand up to drawn patterns on the bare flesh of his back,

There wasn't a clear amount of time that passed before the sleeping body beside you began to stir, Leaning in closer, you pulled your body until your lips where level with his shoulder,

Pressing a firm kiss to the exposed skin, You watched softly as Charles's head titled up an rolled around to now face you, he offered you a lazy smile, eyes still sleep dulled.

"Morning, My love" you pressed another kiss to the same point on his shoulder, hugging his arm lightly under the covers, His hand drifted through the sheets until it grazed the bump, Charles held there while he rolled over to face you now,

Resting his hand onto the bone of you hip he settled with rubbing the pad of his thump along the underside of the swell. Lifting your shirt to gain proper contact with the warmth flesh,

"How are you this morning, Ma chérie? " Charles's morning voice was rough, and shot shivers down your whole body, He blinked in waiting for your response, smirking when he realised your hesitation,

"Fine" you nodded, perhaps to try and convince him that his words hadn't affect you too much, despite the way your body leaned closer to his in that moments, the bump between you pressing closer to his torso,

Charles giggled at your obvious coverup, leaning in to press his lips to yours, in a swift sweet kiss, his hand trailing up to caress the underside of the swollen skin, it tickled at first causing you to gasp lightly against his mouth, Charles took full advantage off that, using the opening to deepen the kiss further,

Having his hands right where he wanted them, He pulled you closer, rolling until you had no choice but to straddle his lap if you wanted to continue.

"Beaucoup mieux" (much better) You pulled back as Charles took a second to take the sight of you on him in the early morning light streaming in through your shared bedroom window.

Wearing nothing but your underwear and one of Charles shirts, it left your legs exposed when you sat on his lower stomach, Charles began to run his hands up your leg, starting from your knee, moving incredibly slow up the apex of your thighs.

Leaning forward against him, you rocked your hips down into his pelvis to cause some sort of friction, before kissing him once more.

Charles had groaned, tilting his head back slightly right before you recapture his mouth, You let a content giggle leave you, pulling away to place your forehead to his when he smoothed his hands against the sides of your stomach once more,

He shifted slightly, you watched his gaze as he looked around to glance down at you stomach, replacing one of your own hands, to rested it atop his.

"We did that" His whisper was riddled with disbelief, shock even, a pleasurable one, rooted from joy. Happiness for the life he was about to lead with you.

It took everything in him to pull one of his hands away, but he did so to cup the side of your face and pull you back towards him.

It was then you felt the familiar feeling, which you hoped you had manage to shake being this far into the pregnancy. Apparently not, as you pushed off from Charles chest, and leaping off the bed in one swift movement, you darted for the bathroom across the hall from your shared room.

The bile burned the back off your throat as it forced its way up, there was no stopping it as you managed to crouch to the toilet intime.

There was the sound of soft footsteps padding your way, Without even having to turn you knew Charles was leant into the doorframe,

"I'm not that repulsive am I?"

You spat into the bowl before glaring at him over your shoulder,

"Ughhh, I thought I got passed this last week" You rested your head against the side of your arm, kneeling on the cool floor now.

Charles moved closer, you felt the brush of his finger at the nape of your neck when he began gathering up your hair, you held up your other wrist, Charles took the hair band from around it.

"I'll go grab you some water," he stated after tying your hair back away from your face,

And just like that he dashed off, when he reappeared he was now dressed in a simple comfortable looking black hoodie, and a glass of water in hand.

When he placed the glass next to you, he reached into the hoodie pockets and pulled out a strip of anti-sickness tablets, which you had gotten used to taking during the first few weeks of your pregnancy.

Charles had been amazing with you, and there was't a doubt in your mind that without him, you wouldn't have been able to mentally get through the beginning of this pregnancy.

Gratefully taking the pills you sipped them down with some of the water,

"Thank you Charles." You hoped he picked up on the severity of which you tried to emphasis into your words,

He reached across to take your hand, he looked in thought, kissing you hand where your engagement ring sat,

"Well you know, ma mère would kill me for not taking good care of the two newest Leclercs" He rose to move, you gripped to his hand before it slipped from your hold, halting him where he stood,

"I don't know what I would do without you"

Charles answering smile was devilish, "Probably wouldn't be pregnant and throwing up right now"

"Oh my god, I hate you"

Charles laughed and pulled from your grasp, "You love me really, deep down" his voice grew softer as he moved towards the kitchen,

Bringing the water back up to you lips, you smiled. He was right.

Deep down somewhere, you did love him. especially enough to return the favour, Trying to contain you giggle you leaned you head back,

"Oh my Charles the baby kicked!"

He ran so quickly into the room, he slipped and collided with the door frame, stopping in his track when he saw you smirking up at him,

"Just kidding" you smiled sweetly, blinking innocently

"I hate you" he was already moving from the room.

"You love me deep down!" you yelled back,

His hand reappeared to flip his middle finger to you, Your laughter bouncing off the walls,

What the hell where you bringing this poor child into.

[artbyblastweave]

Recently a post has been doing the rounds about military propaganda in the latest COD, yea yeah, sky’s blue, fork in kitchen, et al et al. This got me thinking about the shooters I actually play, and one thing that strikes me about the multiplayer shooters I play is that a lot of them dodge that same major discourse bullet by expressly grounding themselves in amorality and Kafka-esque dysfunction- a structural fingerwag towards their own content, acting as a paradoxical green-light to enjoy the game with no sense of moral injury. And there’s a big example of one that didn’t do this that kinda winds up with egg on its face as a result. 

To start with, I’m thinking about Team Fortress 2. The original Team Fortress, inasmuch as it’s possible for a game where you shoot each other with real firearms to be apolitical, was fairly apolitical. The soldiers had no markers of identity beyond their arbitrary team affiliation; the fighting was over no discernable real-life resource or point of political tension; the environments were decontextualized labs and facilities. It was platonic violence. 

Team Fortress 2 rolls around. Now that the general novelty of a 3d multiplayer class shooter has eroded, development stalls out on the following aesthetic problem; you can’t have semi-realistic militaristic character models rocket-jumping themselves across the map in the early 2000s. The cartoonishness is too dissonant when you’ve got similar semi-realistic militaristic characters in much more “grounded” games. Eventually they resolve this by taking the other tack, leaning into the cartoonishness, crafting character models so completely bombastic and over the top that no action taken in gameplay, no matter how absurd, will ever feel dissonant. This philosophy extends into the map design; the environments are farcical. Military instillations built mere yards from each other, with paper-thin pretenses of being civilian facilities despite the constant gun battles occurring inside. It’s self parody. And when the game extends to the point of having lore and worldbuilding, the idiocy becomes diegetic. This is a conflict fought on the behalf of idiots, by idiots, over idiot-goals, in spaces designed by idiots. It’s completely amoral, but it’s also contained amorality, since the fighting doesn’t spill out of these Helleresque Designated Pointless Fight Zones- and that leaves the mercs sympathetic enough that you can play them as protagonists in stories that take place “off-the-clock” without a ton of tonal dissonance. I can’t stress enough that the TF2 protagonists are amoral PMCs who work for callous megacorps. In a vacuum, this is not a well-regarded Kind Of Guy around here. There is some implementation of this broad concept that would invite a shitload of discourse that I’ve never seen materialize!

A lot of hero-or-character-based multiplayer games do this, abandoning any pretense of player heroism or productivity in the conceit in a way that shields them from a lot of moral and logical criticisms. Apex Legends and Monday Night Combat are explicitly in-universe bloodsports. Atlas Reactor and Rogue Company are cyberpunk corp-on-corp warfare. Dirty Bomb is about loosely affiliated mercenaries picking over the remains of an evacuated city. I think that Valorant is PMCs in a resource war (Not completely sure on this one.) The never-released Battlecry was expressly tied to actual nation-states, an alternate history where great powers fight wars via singularly-powerful champions instead of via traditional warfare. And in Battleborn the PCs were a hastily-assembled coalition of smaller hastily-assembled coalitions, which means that it makes perfect sense that any combination of these people might be fighting alongside or against each other, at any given time.

Here we see commonalities. Amoral participants. Larger governing bodies delineating clear fight zones centered on specific, if deliberately silly or petty, goals. Most crucially, PCs that are very loosely affiliated with each other, such that you’d see them in different configurations, fight to fight, day to day, as they’re contracted or shuffled around by the powers that be.

You know a game that doesn’t do any of this? Overwatch. 

Overwatch gets 80% of the way to being a superhero universe; it falls short primarily because Blizzard chose not to explicitly market it as such, but it’s got everything short of the purposeful brand designation- powered heroes, super science, codenames, Faceless Hydraesque terrorist groups with shadowy, powered enforcers. There are specific allegiances implied by this; specific policy and interpersonal goals implied by this that aren’t really reflected in six-on-six grudge matches in a smattering of inexplicably depopulated civilian environments. There are roughly half-a-dozen villains associated with Talon, four or five independent villainous mercenaries, and everyone else is a would-be superhero. Why is most of the core roster of the world’s premier superhero team performing some kind of terror attack in London? Why is a woman who murdered a civil rights leader trying to stop them, with the help of two avowed anti-Omnic mercenaries and three Omnics? Why did a cryogenics researcher weaponize her tech and come along for the ride? Why are a dozen envoys from tech conglomerates, grassroots movements, and paramilitary defense forces throwing down over a Gazebo in a charming Greek resort? Fuck if I know. Fuck if the writers know!

So, to round it out, I think that there’s a structural difficulty for multiplayer shooters to stand for something, or advance a philosophy, or whatever. The smart ones embrace this by shielding themselves in ablative nihilism, preemptively deflecting criticism by painting the gameplay as hollow and barbaric, but fun! But Overwatch- Overwatch 2′s tagline is “Get back in the fight.” What Fight? Why? Against Who? Call Of Duty might be a horrific mouthpiece for militarism and imperialism, but when it valorizes the military, it’s at least picking a side! Overwatch is just so strange to me because it’s somehow got the worst of both worlds- it uses these heroic, aspirational language and visuals to hype up a gameplay loop that’s ultimately the exact same kind of cynical, aimless abattoir as the games that are smart enough to explicitly be about amoral paid killers!

[pedroacrossthestreet]

Some Nights

Pairing: Jackson!Joel x f!Reader Rating: E Word Count: 980 A/N: Look at me being all fancy with a fic header. As you can tell, I've never made one before. This is really short, really soft, I was feeling needy when I wrote it.

Some nights are like this. When you are both sated, bellies full of warm food, bodies clean and smelling of soap. You’re comfortable. A level of content that didn’t seem possible before Jackson. 

You lay on a mattress on your back, let your legs stretch against soft sheets, relishing in the novelty that you now have clothes to sleep in which were different to what you’d worn in the day. Your right shoulder is pressed against Joel’s left, and it’s surreal how normal this all is. 

Joel’s right arm is draped over his stomach, reaching so his hand is on your thigh, a constant pressure that keeps you grounded. You sigh as he squeezes your flesh through the material of your pyjamas. You can feel each fingertip, eyes closed and concentrating on the sensation of being held so casually and yet so significantly. 

Your eyebrow twitches as you feel him move beside you, and he notices, hushes you gently in the dark as he adjusts. You lift your head for him when he snakes his left arm under your neck, pulling you further into his embrace. The hand on your thigh remains firm, dragging your leg over both of his to open you up. 

When his hand smooths up your thigh, it’s slow, never breaking contact with you as it glides up to your groin. You moan lightly as his thumb pushes at the apex of your thighs, long fingers curled underneath at the crease where the plumpness of your ass begins. He moves again, curls into you so he’s laid on his side, the arm behind your head shifts so that he can cradle your skull.

“Joel…” You whisper, low and breathy, and he hums in response, presses a firm kiss to your temple as his fingers tangle in your hair. 

Some nights are like this. Slow and steady as he teases you apart. 

The pressure on your leg disappears, and you whimper, eyes scrunched shut as you listen to the sound of him sucking on his fingers, and then his hand is back. Underneath your waistband this time. He spreads you with his thumb and ring finger before he presses two slicked fingers against your clit. 

You gasp at the sensation, roll your hips slightly to chase the contact. He presses another kiss to your cheek, open mouthed and lingering as he moves his hand firmly down your core and back up again. 

He moans against your skin when he presses his index finger inside you, and it’s gone before you are able to acknowledge its presence. He circles your clit, keeps the pressure firm and you grind up against his hand. 

Soon, the sound of your arousal joins your laboured breathing and his wet kisses. “Joel,” you whine again. Not sure what you want but needing to say his name. 

“I’ve got you…” he whispers against your damp skin, keeping his movements torturously slow as he builds you up. 

You lift the leg which isn’t slung over his hips, bending at the knee and clutching your shin, anything to spread yourself wider for him. He kisses further down your jaw and you arch your neck, tilting away from him to give him more skin to suck on. 

Blindly, you reach your right hand from between your bodies, fumbling for his head to pull at his hair, anchoring him to your neck. He grunts, shifts again, and you can feel him hard against your hip. You whine, the consistency of the swipes of his fingers against your clit spreading a warmth throughout your body that you never want to end. 

In this moment, you feel like you could last forever, and you want to. Joel knows your body, and he never takes for granted the time you both have now. The comfort of safety allowing himself to indulge.

You’re pliant in his hands as he pulls you apart in such a way that your orgasm creeps up slowly. No man has ever made you cum like this before, so full bodily, and you think that you’ve never trusted another man with your soul like this before. 

Breathy laughter fills the room, and it takes you a while to realise that it belongs to you. The smile on your face is blissful, and your body shakes with your stunned convulsions. 

Joel shifts again next to you, removing his hand from your pyjamas, and then you hear the sound of your slick on his hand as he wraps his fingers around his cock. You open your eyes finally, humming contently as you let go of your shin to reach across to him, but he shakes his head, face so close to yours that his nose brushes against your own. 

He moans into your open mouth, and you know he needs this fast, faster than your liquified muscles could give him right now, so you settle for resting your hand on his hip. You tighten the grip of your fingers in his hair, holding him at bay, forcing him to look at you as his jaw hangs slack and his gasped groans increase. You nod at him, whispering encouragement, and he cums with a strangled noise that he quickly stifles with clenched teeth, breathing heavily through his nose. You caress his hip as his hand slows, stroking the remainder of his spend across your exposed stomach. 

Your voice is low as you talk him down, fingers now entwining softly in his curls as you coax him back against the pillows. 

You can relax now, Joel.

He obliges, smoothing his hand over the cooling mess he left on your skin as he curls into your warmth. You kiss the top of his head softly, breathing in the smell of him as he does the same to your neck. 

Some nights are like this, and neither of you can quite believe it’s real. 

[tinyclownhours]

Human Hermit Crabs

I turned the silly little prompt I sent to @so-very-small into a full fic. Enjoy :)

Summary: Human gets abducted by giant aliens and sold as a novelty pet in an intergalactic souvenir shop, only to be rescued by a rugged space explorer.

Word Count: 5781

Cw: Abduction, dehumanisation (it's nothing too bad, but the MC is seen as a pet/object by the other aliens), mentions of death and humans being sold as pets/objects.

An apex predator. That is what Henry had lived his entire life believing he was. Everyone knew humans were on top of the food chain. Even in situations where they were wildly outmatched in pure strength, it was their intelligence that kept them on top. The only one who could realistically hurt him was his own kind, he had thought. As long as he kept his head down, he could get by without trouble. Oh, how foolish he had been…

He was curled up at the far end of the glass cage, leaning against the cold wall as he breathed in a shallow manner. He was cold, and he was shivering ever so slightly. Every now and again a giant figure would glide past the outside of his cage, browsing all of the curiosities the shop had to offer, him included…

He thought back to that day, the 15th of October. The day when his perception of reality had been utterly shattered. It was a crisp autumn evening and Henry had been strolling around on a walk out by the countryside where he lived. There was rarely anyone out where he walked. Maybe that’s why they chose him…

He still remembered the feeling of being sucked up into the air, the feeling of his stomach dropping while he looked down at the ground becoming smaller and smaller below him until he was swallowed up by the sky. Or at least he thought. The pure terror and panic were still fresh in his mind, as he looked around the gigantic spaceship that he’d been beamed up into. He had seen the giant alien smirk down at him, roughly grabbing his body in his callus fist while he inspected him. Henry felt his stomach turn as he thought back to how the giant poacher had looked over him after putting a metal collar around his throat, calling him a “beautiful specimen” before carrying him off and throwing him into a crowded cage full of other humans, all of them equally confused and terrified. 

He remembered how horrific it had been initially, being sold as some sort of tiny novelty pet in this intergalactic souvenir shop. He was trembling almost if not every waking hour of the day, and would freeze up anytime someone walked past his cage. Rush hour was hell for him… Nowadays he was too exhausted to even lift a finger. Most customers took note of his sickly appearance, being so pale and thin he looked like he was one second away from crumbling into dust. Which he supposed was good, since most of them lost interest in him after a few seconds of inspection. It seemed like all of them knew. All of them knew he didn’t have long. And why buy a pet that you knew wasn't going to make it? He never bought those scrawny and off-colored goldfish at the pet store when he was a child. No one did, why would they? If it wasn’t for the fact that he was dying, he might’ve seen the cosmic irony of him ignoring those goldfish as a child only to feel some sort of comradery towards them now.

He was the last human left in the cage, all of his other fellow captives had either been sold off or passed away due to the horrid living conditions they’d all been exposed to for the last month. Unfortunately for Henry, he had been a stubborn one, as the owner of the shop commented quite frequently. It was clear he was just waiting for Henry to disappear so that he could order a fresh batch of captives to abuse with horrible housing.

The cage was small and made entirely of glass which stripped away any privacy any of them could’ve gotten. There wasn’t any padding or places to sleep comfortably. Besides, even if they did have someplace to sleep, the clunky metal collars made it a little hard to get comfortable. They had been provided with some sort of strange wood shavings on the cage floor, which quite possibly couldn’t have been any more itchy and uncomfortable. Any food they were provided with seemed deprived of any hint of nutrients and only provided Henry with temporary relief by filling his stomach with something to quell the searing pain of hunger. Lastly, they were put through so much distress, with the top of their cage being completely open for all of the shop's open hours, meaning that anyone could pick them up and manhandle them as they pleased in order to figure out if they liked the tiny human or not.

In the beginning, Henry had suffered quite a lot of stress at the (literal) hands of the shop's customers. A lot of them had been kids, or so he assumed, considering they were smaller and much less delicate with how they handled the poor humans. Henry had witnessed one too many of his fellow merchandise be dropped from tens of feet up in the air by those clumsy monsters. Some were quote-on-quote fine, getting lucky and only breaking a few bones. Others died upon impact. Although, Henry was starting to wonder which ones were actually the lucky ones…

Other times there were the odd tourists who walked in and were fascinated by the cage of humans. Most of them were quite handsy, pulling and playing with each one of their limbs as if they were just dolls. Of course, tourists are just what Henry called them. They were all bulky giants with what seemed to be purple scales and multiple eyes spread across their entire body. They were all just loud and quite frankly, too curious for his liking. It reminded him of the horror stories he’d read online by people recalling their experiences with obnoxious tourists… But he supposes that it was through them that he learned what the metal collars were for. There was a sign taped onto the side of the cage that read “Translator included!”, which many of them would read aloud and then condescendingly speak with them and try to get them to repeat words to them. Henry wasn’t quite sure why they were given translators. He wasn’t complaining of course, this whole ordeal would have been a thousand times worse if he hadn’t gotten a helpful (if a bit rude) explanation from the store owner as to what was going on when he first came into the store. However, he didn’t understand the appeal of a pet that could speak. Wouldn’t it feel weird to have a pet that could share its honest opinions with its owner? Surely they couldn’t think they enjoyed being here and would act like small puppy dogs once they brought them home? Henry wasn’t sure considering the way so many of them spoke to their purchased goods while leaving the store, all while ignoring their screaming and crying with soft coos and laughter. Maybe they were all sadists and didn’t care. It sure seemed like they didn’t.

His least favorite was the obnoxious teenagers that would come in, pick up and touch every single one of them, taking photos, tapping the glass, and being generally insufferable. A week or so ago a group of them came in and tried to get Henry’s attention. When he didn’t react to whatever they were doing, one of them grabbed the edges of the cage and started shaking it. 

But luckily, he didn’t have to deal with that now that he barely had any energy to move. Now that he was weak and unresponsive, he wasn’t entertaining anymore. Safe to say, Henry knew that they knew that he didn’t have much time left. On particularly desperate days he considered begging one of them to take him with them. He could try to perform his role as a souvenir if it meant getting out of there and maybe getting a shot at living life. But how good of a life was he really going to live if this was the standard?

Henry was pulled out of his thoughts as the shop owner walked by. He looked down at him with a scowl, eyebrows knit together as he picked up the full food bowl inside of the cage. He sighed in annoyance and walked away with it, presumably going to throw away the old pellets and replace them with new ones. Not that it mattered in Henry’s eyes. They were always dry and disgusting, and he wasn’t eating any longer.

He looked around the store, since his cage was placed at the very back he had a comfortable view of the entire thing. Despite being only one room, it was huge from his perspective, larger than a big football arena. Today seemed slower than usual. There were barely any customers. Three to be exact. A couple looking at some novelty junk, and a man at the end of the store. Was it a man? Henry wasn’t quite sure about alien biology, especially considering none of them looked to be the same species. Come to think of it, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen that type of alien before. He kept a small list in his head to pass the time, and there were a couple of regularly reoccurring species that came through, some of the less common ones, and then there were wildcards like the man in the back.

His skin was dark, and he had large pointed ears. His eyes were sharp and yellow, and unlike the store owner and most of the regular aliens, his eyes sat at the front of his face, rather than the sides, just like Henry himself. It’s funny. He almost looked a little human if it weren’t for some of his more alien-esque features. From where Henry was sitting, he actually didn’t look half bad for a horrifying gigantic alien. His eyes seemed so cold and hyper-focused… And that’s when Henry realized, much to his horror, that the giant had been eyeing him, staring at him intensely. And Henry had been staring back.

He quickly averted his gaze, feeling his heart skip a beat as a small dose of adrenaline rushed through his veins for the first time in what felt like forever. That was… Weird. Why did he react like that? He didn’t think he had the energy to fear these creatures any longer. But something about him was making Henry nervous. Really nervous. Maybe it was the aliens' new and darker appearance. Maybe it was the way he seemed taller than most of the other aliens he had encountered. Maybe it was that cold stare… Or maybe it was the fact that forward-facing eyes only belonged to predators. Henry didn’t know. But something about him didn’t feel right. He turned to glance back at him only to bite his tongue and let out a muffled yelp as the alien now towered over his cage. Somehow, in the span of a couple of seconds, he had walked from the back of the store all the way to the cage in the front. 

His eyes seemed to drill into Henry as he looked and inspected him. Henry had an even better look at his face from this angle. He could see that the alien looked more reptile-like than most, having two small slotted holes where his nose should be and his pupils were narrow slits rather than round balls like humans had. Henry looked up at him with his tired eyes. Usually, he would look away and be unresponsive to disinterest whatever customer had their eyes on him, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the alien. 

He must’ve looked so pathetic. Small, and exhausted. Having to lean up against a corner to keep himself up. He hadn’t looked in the mirror in quite a while but he could only imagine how messy his hair must’ve been, how heavy the eyebags under his eyes must’ve gotten, and he didn’t even want to think about how pale and delicate he must’ve looked with how little he had been eating. For whatever reason, Henry felt ashamed. Like he was falling short under the judging eyes staring down at him.

Suddenly, Henry caught the slightest twitch of one of the aliens' long ears. He could see his eyes widen slightly for just a second, before he quickly walked off to a nearby shelf, looking at the different merchandise. It was only then that Henry picked up on the footsteps approaching his cage. He could see the store owner walking out with a new bowl of kibble and a basket of cleaning supplies. It was time for him to clean the cage. Henry prepared himself mentally as the store owner reached into the cage and pulled him out. The feeling of his leathery hands enveloping his tiny body made his skin crawl. Luckily it didn’t last long since the store owner quickly set him down into a separate open plastic box on the register counter. He then turned around to the cage and began the process of cleaning it. 

Just then, Henry saw the couple leave the shop and the reptilian man turned back around and faced him. He looked back to the shop owner, who had just emptied all the wood shavings and was scrubbing the cage clean, before looking back at Henry. After a few seconds, he swiftly approached the plastic container. It was truly impressive to see just how swift and soundless he was when he walked. Henry looked up at him with uncertainty and a small frown, and he swore he could see the man’s eyes soften just a little bit. He was lying on his side, too weak and shaky to try and crawl away from the descending hand that soon covered his entire vision. His breath hitched slightly when he felt the surprisingly soft fingers gingerly wrap around his sides before pulling him up and out of the plastic container. 

He didn’t know if this alien was extremely confident in his ability to go unnoticed or if he was just stupid, stealing a human mere feet away from the store owner. He debated making any sort of noise, but at this point, he honestly couldn’t be bothered by what would happen to him. He could die at the hands of a mysterious stranger or in a glass pet cage… One of those felt at least more dignified and less pathetic, and it also came with the possibility of not dying, depending on this alien’s intentions.

He felt the warmth of the man’s hand envelop him, between that and the soft padded insides of the jacket pocket he was placed into, this was the most comfort he’d been provided with for weeks. He could feel the giant shift around, probably walking to exit the store. He was afforded a small window to the outside world through the pocket opening, and could see some of the other shitty products that lined the store walls as they walked out. However, his sight was robbed of him as the alien's hand once again blocked his view. Henry tensed up as it got closer, only to feel it gently cover him. At first, he was confused until he heard that voice he had despised for weeks.

“Have a great day, we hope to see you again soon!” It was so loud and near. They were walking past the store owner. Henry tensed up as he realized this, and the giant could probably tell since he started to stroke his back with his thumb oh so gently. Henry couldn’t help but melt into the touch. By all means, he should be terrified. He had just been kidnapped… again. But is it really kidnapping if you get kidnapped away from a kidnapper??? Or would that be more of a rescue? Henry supposed it all had to do with the giant's intentions. He could be planning to torture and kill him for all he knew. But right now in this moment, he was handling him like he was the most delicate thing in the world, and that tenderness was something Henry needed desperately after three whole weeks of rough manhandling.

“Have a good day to you as well.” The giant spoke, Henry felt his breath hitch again as his heart skipped a beat. His voice was deep and velvety, he swore he could almost feel the base all the way down from his pocket. He felt the alien speed up a little once they were out of the store. He had stopped stroking Henry’s back and was now speed-walking somewhere. After a short while he sped up further, breaking into a jog. Henry let out a small yelp as the hand now enveloped him, still careful but holding him in place. It wasn’t before long that he could hear the sound of a mechanical whirring followed by air pressure and steam release, most likely a spaceship door opening. Henry’s suspicions were confirmed when he felt them walk upwards, probably on a ramp. He could see some hints of LED lights peeking through the gaps in the pocket opening and soon enough he was pulled out. 

Henry was set down in what appears to be the ship cup holder. The alien was using both hands to tap on buttons and pull levers that Henry could not begin to understand. Soon enough, the ship engine roared, and with the slow and precise pull on what appeared to be the startup leaver, the ship started taking off. Henry let out a small noise of displeasure when the alien suddenly covered the cup holder with his palm. However, Henry was thankful for it when only a mere second later, after pressing a button, the ship blasted off as if instantly and Henry’s body jerked backward. He probably would have fallen out of the cup had he not been covered. 

The ship soon smoothed out into an unnoticeable yet fast speed. The alien slowly uncovered said cup holder and placed his hand on the wheel. Henry looked up at the giant and fiddled with his fingers. They were alone now… What should he do? Should he say hi? Why was this so awkward all of a sudden?!

The air was tense as none of them seemed willing to make the first move… The reality of what had just happened was starting to settle into Henry. Had he just left the safety of the store for some stranger? Dread started to seep into his stomach as he wondered what this giant was possibly planning to do with him. 

Said Giant soon pressed another button on the spaceship panel before turning to look at Henry. He could probably see just how scared Henry was, considering his eyes once again softened just a little too much.

“Hey…” He spoke, and it shook Henry to his core. Just then, sitting curled up in the cup holder, having this gigantic alien looming over him after having taken him so effortlessly, Henry felt truly small. Almost insignificant. As if nothing he could say, do, or think was worth anything. He remembered when he thought he was on top of it all, that there wasn’t any predator that could harm him as long as he remained smart, only to find out that he was deemed as so uínsignificant that he was sold as a fucking novelty product… The alien above him could crush and dispose of him within a second, like how he would trap and dispose of mice and vermin that invaded his home back on Earth. He wondered if this was how they felt moments before he handed them over to the local pest control. His heart wept for them, for now, he knew just how it felt to be small.

He was pulled out of his thoughts as the giant slowly reached out and started stroking his arm with the back of his finger. Henry looked into his eyes only to see none of the previous sharpness, but rather nothing than affection and softness. “You’re okay… It’s okay. You’re safe now. I’m not gonna hurt you, alright?” 

…

Looking down at the tiny human sitting in his cup holder, it was evident that he was terrified. The poor thing was shaking, and his eyes were wide as pinpricks. He hadn’t done this in quite some time, not since he was a teenager. And even though it was a little messed up, seeing the shivering tiny almost brought Kazurix some sort of nostalgia. Most if not all of them reacted this way initially. And in the less extreme cases, Kazurix thought their little shaking forms were quite cute. 

He continued to stroke to the little guys arm as gently as he could. The human was curled up, but it was quite clear he didn't have the strength to curl up completely. Just how malnourished was he? It was evident from his sickly appearance that he, like most humans, hadn’t been taken care of very well. His skin was pale, eyes tired, and his blonde hair was tangled and matted. As soon as he’d calmed the human down, he’d get something to eat. They’d have to start slow, with some liquid food to not overwhelm his stomach, but after that, they’d gradually be able to make their way into actual food. It’s a good thing Kazurix always kept liquid food on him. As much as he told himself he’d stop doing this, he always kept some emergency rescue supplies.

He looked down at the trembling human. He didn’t seem to be rejecting the physical touch. That was a good sign. But he wasn’t responding either. The alien took a deep breath and tried something a little more direct.

”What’s your name?” He asked, prompting the little human to speak. He had to show that he wasn’t a threat to him. He could see his eyebrows knit together as he processed the question. He seemed hesitant for a few seconds, but Kazurix remained patient.

“…H-Henry…” The tiny squeaked out. Kazurix's heart almost melted. He had forgotten just how attached he got to these guys. He smiled softly, being careful not to show his teeth.

“It’s nice to meet you, Henry.” He spoke, continuing to stroke Henry’s arm. “My name is Kazurix. But you can call me Kazu if the full name is too hard to pronounce.” The way he said his full name wasn’t even really how you said it, he had to simplify the phonemes a lot since most humans couldn’t pronounce it. Henry nodded at him. Every movement he made seemed to take so much effort on his part. 

“Do you want something to eat? I have some nutrient paste that should give you some energy back without being too much for your stomach to handle.” He reassured him, standing up from his seat. His ear twitched as he picked up on the small gasp that had escaped the human once he stood up. He crouched down in front of the cup holder to be a little more on the human’s level, while still keeping a little bit of a distance from him to give him some space.

“I… I-I…” The human, Henry, started before resorting to a simple nod. Kazurix nodded back at him.

“Alright. I’m going to pick you up now. I’ll be careful.” He warned before snaking his hands underneath and behind the human. He gingerly scooped the tiny one up into his palms. He was lying there, looking up at Kazurix with those big eyes. At least they weren’t as wide as before. Now they were back to those tired, sad doe eyes that had single-handedly convinced Kazurix to take the human with him. He walked over to the small kitchen space on the ship and put Henry on the counter. He propped him up against the wall, ensuring he wouldn’t fall to either side. Then he opened the cooling box and searched around for the nutrient paste. He wasn’t sure where it was since he hadn’t had to use it in so long. It was a good thing they lasted so long…

Finally, he found the tube. He pulled it out. It was supposed to taste sweet. He hoped it did. Kazurix squeezed out a small dollop of the paste onto one of the small capsules left over from a bottle he’d thrown away, creating a small makeshift plate for the human so he didn’t have to be hand-fed. He watched as Henry cautiously inspected the food before looking up at him.

“I don’t have anything you could use as a spoon.” The human's eyes widened only a little before he shook his head.

“O-Oh! N-No, it’s okay! I- Uhm-“ He took a shaky breath before reaching his shaky hand up. “I wasn’t expecting any utensils… I wasn’t even expecting any food at all.” Once he was handed the capsule he looked away. “Thank you…” Kazurix smiled.

“You’re welcome.” He was once again reminded of why he did this so much. Most of them took a while to warm up to him, but once they did they were so sweet. He had nursed his fair share of humans back to health. Some of them were incredibly grateful, and some of them were reluctantly so. There were of course the poor humans who were so traumatized that they sadly never let their guard down around him, even after he proved himself as a non-threat. But he nonetheless cared for each and every one of them… Although, he was surprised as to how willing Henry had seemed to be. Usually, they were a lot more hesitant and afraid in the beginning, and while he was both of those things, Henry still thanked Kazurix politely and didn’t put up a fight as he was picked up… He knew there was something about him the second he walked into that store.

He hadn’t expected to rescue a human today, but fate was a funny thing. He had flown his sister and her girlfriend to the intergalactic travel center since the two of them were going on a little trip together. He knew he would’ve run into one of those tourist shops eventually. It was inevitable at such a crossroads of different alien cultures and species, but his heart still dropped when he saw one. He figured they must’ve shut down the human souvenir section, right? The last time he rescued one of them was years ago, it had to have become outdated at this point, right? But alas, walking into the shop he was immediately greeted by a glass cage with a tiny human inside of it. His heart broke for the poor guy, leaned up into a corner of the cage and breathing shallowly. Two people were looking down at him and discussing him, so he took that time to slink past them and into the back of the store. It wasn’t too far away from the cage since the store was quite small and narrow. That was bad.

He preferred to do rescues in larger stores, especially ones where the human section was tucked away between shelves and not out in the open. As the two left to look at some cheap garbage in the store, Kazurix wondered if he even could rescue this tiny. The store owner walked out to grab the bowl of food from the cage. It was full, meaning the human hadn’t eaten. Not that it wasn’t obvious given how scrawny he was… 

Just as he was about to call it quits and leave, the human made eye contact with him. Kazurix’s species were known for their enhanced senses - There was a reason that despite having been found out multiple times while in the middle of a rescue, Kazurix had never been caught. Some would even go as far as to say he was an apex predator of sorts, but Kazurix didn’t agree. He wouldn’t be so foolish as to assume there weren't bigger fish out there… However, his enhanced eyesight helped him see all the details of the tinies face even from so far away. He looked tired, exhausted even, and he was indeed looking at Kazurix. His eyes were sad and round, he wondered how much life had previously been filled within them, only to be stripped away by forces out of his control.

Just then, those eyes widened and the tiny looked away. That was it. Kazurix didn’t care if he got in trouble, or if this was as far away from the ideal rescue circumstances as possible, or if the tiny seemed to be one day away from death. He was going to save him… He was going to give him at least one last day of comfort.

Walking up to the cage, Kazurix could take in even more details of the pocket-sized man. He was dressed in a loose T-shirt and shorts. Probably unisized ones that the shop provided all the humans with. He was wearing a cheaper model of the universal translator collar. That was unusual for a shop this small, but convenient for Kazurix since he didn’t have to worry about how to non-verbally explain what was going on to the human once they were out of there. Then, the human looked back only to yelp at the sudden appearance of Kazurix. Sometimes he could forget how light on his feet he was despite his size. It had always come so naturally to him, but apparently, some aliens thought it was freaky. He had to stop himself from laughing when he heard the small sound that escaped the human. He kept examining him, about to reach in and take him when he heard the footsteps of the owner. He had to wait for another opening. 

He quickly walked to a nearby shelf, pretending to look at whatever junk they were selling. He could hear slight shuffling behind him, and once he heard the scooping of wooden chips he turned to the shop owner. He was cleaning out the cage… Looking around, he quickly found the human on the register counter. He crept over to him, being kept in a small plastic box. His heart broke when he saw just how powerless the little one was, lying on his side with a frown. Without hesitation, Kazurix reached into the box and picked the human up. That’s when he felt just how truly small he was. He had forgotten the tender feeling of holding someone smaller than your index finger, of just how utterly helpless they were to anything and anyone bigger than them, which was just about everyone. And that’s why he needed to do this.

The little guy didn’t even put up a fight. He was lying limply in his hand as he gently stuffed him into his open pocket. Walking by the store owner, Kazurix shielded the tiny using his hand. When the store owner spoke up and politely said goodbye to him, he could feel the poor human tense up in his pocket. He started stroking the little one tenderly, hoping to calm him down as he responded to the store owner, and quickly making his way out before he got busted. 

Everything was so unplanned and happened so fast, and looking back at it, it was a miracle that they weren’t caught. Kazurix was snapped back into reality when he heard Henry call out to him.

“Hello? Uhm… K…Karu?” He asked. Kazurix looked back down at him, eyes now focused. He could see how the human seemed to squirm under his gaze. “Could I get some more food?” He seemed almost afraid to ask. Kazurix smiled down at him, squeezing out another dollop on the small makeshift plate.

“Of course… And,” he chuckled slightly, “it’s Kazu.” He smiled, but the human’s face seemed to pale at his correction.

“O-Oh! I-I’m sorry- I didn’t mean-“ Henry scrambled to explain himself. Kazurix simply smirked in amusement. Something about this tinie's nervousness was so charming to him… 

“It’s no big deal.” He stated simply as he went back to stroking Henry’s tiny back with his finger. “Close enough. Don’t be nervous.” He smiled. The tiny paused, looking up at him hesitantly.

“…Why are you doing this?” He asked in a quiet voice, almost a whisper.

“Doing what?”

“Why did you take me? Wh-What are you going to do with me?” Kazurix could see the anxiety building up behind those eyes of his.

“…You looked so weak, and sad. I couldn’t just stand by without doing something.” He said. It was true if only a little simplified. Henry looked away, down at the pale brown paste dollop in front of him.

“…I want to go home.” His voice cracked, and Kazurix’s smile fell in an instant.

“…I know. Earth is… Quite far away from us.” He admitted, unsure if he could even get to earth from where they were right now. Not that he was going to tell Henry that. The human turned his face to the opposite side of Kazurix, but he managed to catch a glimpse of how glossy his eyes had gotten. Poor thing… He wouldn’t blame him if he broke down right now, considering all he went through.

“Hey?” Kazurix said softly. “Let me tell you something.” He moved a little closer. “I’ll get you to Earth… Okay? I promise.” The tiny human turned his head back, and Kazurix could see the small drops of tears that had built up in his eyes.

“You will?” Henry asked. Kazurix got a little closer once more.

“I will…” He reached his hand forward, extending his pinkie finger. “As soon as you feel better, I’ll take you to your home. I promise to protect you and escort you if you’ll have me as your travel companion?” He flashed the human a tender smile. Henry looked away, but this time, Kazurix could see the slight blush that spread to his ears. He couldn’t help but chuckle as the human grabbed his finger and shook it.

“Y-Yeah… That sounds nice.” He picked the paste back up and went back to eating, not before muttering a small and meek: “Thank you…”

And so it was decided. Kazurix was going to help Henry back to earth, a venture that would probably take them months… But he wasn’t about to drop that on Henry right now. He’s had a draining day as is. Although Kazurix was a little ashamed to admit it, he was almost a little happy that the journey would take a while. He’d be happy to get to know Henry more, and what’s a better way to get to know each other than a couple of months in space? He was sure they could make a couple of stops on the way so Kazurix could show off some fun places to Henry. He wouldn’t exactly be able to see them once he was dropped off on Earth anyway. He wouldn’t let anything happen to him while they were enjoying themselves.

“Of course. It’s my pleasure… Henry.” His name rolled nicely off his tongue. It’s been a hot minute since he’s last pronounced a human name. He would no doubt say it a lot more from now on.

Oh, he could tell this was going to be a fun experience.

[soylent-crocodile]

Chiropterex (Monster)

(artist unknown)

(Back in the distant era of the early 10s, my family got Netflix as a novelty. Nowadays streaming has consumed film and television like a rabid beast, but back then, my brother and I found a little British show called Primeval. Weaned on BBC nature documentaries from a young age, this was an exciting new spin on Walking with Dinosaurs, and we loved it.

The future predator is no question the most iconic creature of the series, a future bat that is both inspired by earlier spec evo and has gone on to inspire many other monster designs, including the earlier moorkutlot. It seems only fitting it be translated to Pathfinder.

By the way, I'm abandoning the proposed evolutionary history the later seasons provide- that these actually evolved to eat humans in a post-apocalyptic cityscape- and make them what I think is most obvious to me.)

CR3 TN Medium Animal HD5

Chiropterex are an aberrant species of roughly wolf-sized terrestrial bat, an arboreal, nocturnal apex predator of the islands it calls home, where no other land mammals have reached. They live in small family groups of about four to six members, typically consisting of a mated pair, a nest of about six children, a few children of previous years who stay around to help, and maybe one or two aunts or uncles. Typically, however, they hunt alone, feeding on seabirds and large moa-like ratites who evolved alongside them. These family groups keep in contact with each other using echolocation, and if a lone hunter runs into a struggle, it will call on the dissembled family to help.

Chiropterex are notorious man-eaters, and many a shipwrecked crew has met its end at a family of ravenous land bats. Many peoples of island cultures consider chiropterex to be evil spirits, and indeed there is at least one island where the magic of The Abyss has infected the local population of these predatory beasts.

Some outsiders have tried to domesticate chiropterex, or at the very least use them as weapons. They are a tempting subject of domestication; they are mobile, intelligent, fast-growing and have large clutch sizes, but all attempts so far have ended disastrously.

Chiropterex Companions

Starting Statistics: AC: +4 Size: Small Speed: 30ft, Climb 30ft Attacks: Bite (1d3), 2 Claw (1d4) Ability Scores: Str:10 Dex:22 Con:8 Int:2 Wis:12 Cha:7 Special Qualities: Blind, Blindsight 90ft, Scent Lv 4 Advancement: Size: Medium Attacks: Bite (1d4), 2 Claw (1d6) Ability Scores: Str +4 Dex -2 Con +2 Special Qualities: Flurry of Strikes

This hunched over creature has long, clawed arms and a bulbous head that ends in a short, needle-toothed mouth.

Misc- CR3 TN Medium Animal HD5 Init:+5 Senses: Perception:+6 Blind, Blindsight 90ft, Scent Stats- Str:14(+2) Dex:20(+5) Con:10(+0) Int:2(-4) Wis:12(+2) Cha:7(-2) BAB:+3 Space:5ft Reach:5ft Defense- HP:25(5d8) AC:19(+5 Dex, +4 Natural) Fort:+4 Ref:+9 Will:+3 CMD:21 Immunity: Gaze and other visual effects Weakness: Vulnerability to Sonic  Offense- Bite +5(1d4+2, 18-20/x2), 2 Claw +5(1d6+2) CMB:+6 Speed:30ft, Climb 30ft Special Attacks: Pounce, Flurry of Strikes +3/+3/+3/+3(1d6+2) Feats- Dodge, Mobility Skills- +11 Climb, +10 Stealth, +6 Perception(+8 Racial to Climb) Special Qualities- Flurry of Strikes Ecology- Environment- Forest, Urban (Warm) Languages- None Organization- Solitary, Family (2-4 Chiropterex, 6-8 Young Chiropterex) Treasure- None Special Abilities- Blindsight (Ex)- A chiropterex’s blindsight is echolocation-based; it cannot sense within areas of Silence or similar spells. Flurry of Strikes (Ex)- A chiropterex may, as a full-round action, give a flurry of stabbing strikes from its claws. It makes four Claw attacks at a -2 penalty each. 

[askagamedev]

Shouldn't Overwatch also have the same problem then in regards to visual clarity? I'm sure if you were to give people Juno and Brigitte people would struggle telling what their role is probably confusing Brigitte as a Tank given she has a shield just like Reinhardt. Only Baptiste has said cross on his outfit which if he didn't people might confuse him from DPS since he carries a healing grenade launcher. Yet the only character design problem ive seen people talk about is Venture.

While this is true, it's a very different situation. Overwatch is an old game, it's been running for eight years now. When Overwatch launched, there wasn't anywhere near the kind of well-established competition that there is today. When Overwatch launched, there was no Apex Legends, Paladins, Deadlock, Quake Champions, or Valorant. Further, Overwatch's launch cast was designed with incredible visual clarity - nearly every character had a silhouette and visual design that both made them distinct and conveyed their style of gameplay. There's a pair of business terms for this kind of thing - Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean.

A Blue Ocean is mostly unexplored and pristine - you're entering a market that's mostly untouched and there isn't much competition. This favors the first-mover advantage - the first ones there have more time to experiment, set things up, and learn from their mistakes. The customers/players in that market don't have anywhere else to go if they want their gameplay, so you can afford to make mistakes, iterate, and improve. Since there aren't many other games to switch to, the players will likely stick with what they are already familiar with.

A Red Ocean is a saturated market, where the waters have been dyed red with the blood of all of the dead or dying competition. There's already a lot of competition, meaning that any new product must stand out significantly from its peers or it will soon die from lack of audience. In a Red Ocean, the initial launch is much more important because you never get a second chance at that first impression. Further, audience retention is also super important because of how much competition there is - a new product might be able to draw some attention just from the novelty, but novelty wears off quick and most of the players already know the genre and the other games available. If the new game doesn't serve their needs immediately, the players won't give it the time to improve - they'll just go to one of the competitors that already does serve their needs.

We can't really compare the two games in a vacuum, we must compare the full environment that the games launched in. Overwatch had the added benefit of significantly less competition in its Blue Ocean, meaning that the playerbase really didn't have anywhere else to go while they waited for Overwatch to improve things. Concord was unable to grab attention immediately in a Red Ocean, meaning any potential audience quickly dispersed themselves among the large number of competitors already out there.

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[chickenparm]

Fidget Device (Alhaitham/afab!Reader)

AO3 LINK

Part Two

Alhaitham/afab!Reader 1,548 Words - NSFW Nonchalant Vaginal Fingering, Sleepy Feels

---

With your legs over his lap, thighs over his own as you lounge against the side of the couch, your thoughts drift and the words that are printed before you begin to lose meaning. That’s just fine; Alhaitham’s books are convoluted at the best of times, downright dry as a bone during all others. But you understand his fixation, his appreciation for them and what they hold. 

Understanding one thing doesn’t necessarily mean you understand another, and knowing Alhaitham’s reasons for losing himself so easily in his books doesn’t make it so you can find the same solace. 

The cushions of the backrest shift as your head falls against them, cheek pressed into the smooth fabric as you let your eyes rest for just a moment. Alhaitham keeps it bright in here - it lessens the strain on my eyes, he claims - but that does nothing to stave off the late evening hour and the early morning you’ve had. 

Pressure curls around your thigh, just above your knee. His palm and fingers, firm against your skin enough that you can feel the warmth of him through the layers of his gloves against your bare skin. His touch like this isn’t enough to draw you back into wakefulness - far too often have you fallen into this same position. 

Curled against his side, sharing body heat, listening to the steady turn of pages as he reads. Alhaitham is as fond of this as you are - he’d have put a stop to it long ago if he really minded. Maybe he’ll gripe when he carries you to your bed, maybe he’ll make a comment about your choice of sleeping location, but ultimately you’ll wind up back here the following night, and the one after, over and over. 

Physical comfort isn’t something he’s ever been used to. Not enough to seek it out for himself, that is. But the gentle swipe of his thumb on the inside of your bare knee is practiced and unwavering, proof of the influence you’ve had on him, no matter how small. With a quiet little sigh, you sink further into the back of the couch until the sounds that soothe you grow intangible and incoherent. 

You’ll rest here for however long Alhaitham deems fit before ferrying you to your bed himself. If you awaken before he has the chance to leave your room, he’ll fix you with a quietly exasperated stare and murmur so lowly that it makes the very air vibrate, telling you to have pleasant dreams. 

Sleep almost has you in its hold, so very close to gripping you tightly, if not for the shift of Alhaitham’s hand along your skin. The featherlight circles of his thumb move higher with his palm, with his fingers that press dips into your thighs that disappear as soon as he’s moved on. 

Skin that has gone untouched sings under his attention, first as his palm travels as high as the bottom of your shorts, then back down to your knee where he squeezes absently. A page flips with a rough rasp. Alhaitham’s hand travels back up again, fingertips dipping beneath the fabric covering your leg before drawing back once more. 

In tiny increments he pushes further, the fabric bunching higher until there’s no more for him to explore, at least if he intended to keep things proper. Then he switches to your other leg, repeating the process so patiently that it nearly lulls you back into near-slumber. 

The scent of him makes your thoughts grow sluggish - clean and airy, almost nothing at all if it weren’t for the evidence of a long day clinging to him. Sumeru spices, the book he carries at all times, the distinct scent of fresh leaves that all users of Dendro could never hope to shake. 

Fondly, you sigh as a dream begins to weave behind your eyes - a novelty in recent months, one that you find yourself enamored with, considering they all hold visions of the man touching you now. Higher still, until his fingers grow bold enough to apply the lightest bit of pressure to the apex of your thighs, above your underwear but able to rub just enough to instinctively jerk your thighs together. 

But you can’t, at least not easily. He’s already thought of your mindless reaction, having pushed your outer leg off his lap until your foot hits the floor, locking it between his own. You’re by no means spread lewdly, but it feels that way with how easily he pushes aside the fabric covering you to drag his fingers along you with a distinctive wet sound. 

And he isn’t even looking.

Blinking wearily up at him, unable to keep yourself from studying his side profile that doesn’t look perturbed in the slightest, you quietly murmur his name as a question. He doesn’t answer, except for pressing his thumb to your clit and circling with a startling harshness that nearly has you biting your tongue in surprise. 

This is new. Novel, territory that’s never been explored before, much less talked about. Alhaitham hates surprises, dislikes unnecessary spontaneity, and that means he’s been stewing over whatever this is for… quite a while. 

“A-Alhaitham, why are-”

“Sh-sh-sh,” he deftly turns the page with the barest movement of his thumb, easily prepping for the next page as his eyes dart over printed words, “go back to sleep if you want. Don’t pay me any mind.”

As if that were possible. Not while his index finger prods searchingly, intention clear before he finds the right angle to slip his middle finger inside you, guided by the wetness he’s coaxed from you. Even one feels strange, almost as foreign as this sudden turn of events stemming from seemingly nothing at all. 

Yet, there’s a persistent hardness beneath your thigh across his lap, one that throbs with his own need to the extent you can feel his very heartbeat as he shifts to press it fully against you. If it’s an invitation of sorts, it’s one he very clearly doesn’t want you to accept, as his elbow easily knocks your slow-reaching hand away. 

“Sleep. Or be still. Whichever you’d like.”

I don’t care is implied, something he doesn’t need to say when it’s obvious he’s doing this just as much for himself as he is for you. Rather than reach for his cock, you bury your fingers in the fabric over his shoulder. Weaving between the layers, you find the smooth skin of his shoulder and grasp for any purchase you can find against him. 

Desperately you want to curl toward him, to cling closer and accept what he’s offering, freely give what he’s taking. But you’re stunned, tense and frozen as one finger turns to two, his reach inside you growing more dexterous and fervent. His foot shifts, his grip that keeps your legs spread is lost on purpose, and your thighs snap shut and trap his hand against you. 

But the lack of space doesn’t seem to bother him, his thumb rubbing as easily as it had prior, his fingers pushing just as deep, his eyelashes not batting a single time as he flips the page again. The only change in his expression is the narrowing of his eyes for a brief moment, but it’s not toward you - something in the book has set his thoughts in motion. 

Steadily, without pause or any sign of slowing, Alhaitham pinpoints the exact curl of his fingers that has you bucking against him. The ease that he can replicate it, over and over under you’re shamelessly writhing in his lap, would be the most embarrassing part if he weren’t looking at you now, taking in the sight of your lost control.

“Finish whenever you’d like. I’m in no hurry.” 

His response to your breathless pleas is so very nonchalant, as if he weren’t fingering you open on the couch without any warning. As if your nails weren’t digging into his shoulder as your head tosses back, cushions barely keep you from hurting yourself. The quirk of his lips is what ruins you, the quiet show of his approval doing things to you that had only been innocent up to this very point. 

Limp in his lap, breathing heavy and gazing up dreamily, you almost zone out and miss the way his fingers withdraw from you and immediately go to his mouth. Both fingers press past his lips, all the way to the knuckle. The sharp line of his jaw shifts as his tongue licks his digits clean, lashes fluttering for just long enough that you’d miss it if you weren’t absolutely enraptured with his movements. 

As an afterthought, he drags the pad of his thumb slowly across his tongue, then looks down his face at you with a single raised brow. Almost as if he expects you to say something, but so far gone that all you can do is let your body grow boneless and your eyes to fall closed with palpable relief. 

When your eyes open again, you’re in your bed, carefully tucked in the blankets. The bed shifts as Alhaitham leans over you, lips barely dusting over your forehead. 

Have pleasant dreams, he murmurs, the half-cocked smirk he wears is easily felt against your skin as he lingers a little too long. 

[llamagoddessofficial]

I hope I'm not unwelcome here, I was wondering. How do you think the boys would react to a siren MC that was another variety of deep sea siren~? I've been writing a fic with the reader as a deep sea eel siren and it's on my mind since I adore your siren au thoughts!

Ohoooooo

I fuckin love the concept of a gorgeous, dangerous eel Mc. Sleek and dark and powerful. I feel like a deep sea Mc would be bigger than her pelagic counterpart... much closer to the skeletons in size. Not to mention, she’d have some other unique traits, like heightened senses and bioluminescence. 

Sans: She is, for once, something he isn’t used to seeing on his usual menu. Orca are surface dwellers. She’s a curiosity; he adores curiosities. Especially pretty ones. He’s cautious, because she’s clearly a predator, he works slowly... stalking her from a distance, then approaching fast and ducking away at the last second, baiting her into lashing out so he can see how her attacks work. It doesn’t take him long to figure out what her deal is. He’s enamoured with this beautiful, fierce novelty from the deep.

Sans frightens her. He didn’t, at first; he looked like a puny version of the much bigger, much toothier whales who occasionally make the long journey to her depths. But then he started moving- and she realised his danger wasn’t his body, it was his adaptability. He could kill her if he wanted to.

And yet... there’s something about his intelligence. Something about his powerful form as he swims. Something about his unreadable calm, soft smile around her, razor sharp eyelights taking in every detail... she can’t help it, she’s drawn to him. 

Red: ... C’mon. We know this dance by now. She’s big, she’s beautiful, she’s strong- not only that, but she’s mysterious and elegant, a dangerous predator from the depths all decorated in glittering lights. It’s like he’s at a cocktail party and a 6ft buff woman just walked in, wearing a black velvet dress and diamonds- he’s shootin his shot, and nothing will stop him. He likes his ladies capable of killing him. He makes a couple stupid eel-related pickup lines (“girl, are you a coral-dwelling eel? cus you’re my a-moray.” “I’m a conger, not a m- wait,”) and her baffled flustered reactions just cement his growing interest.

Red is... a lot. Not necessarily in a bad way. He keeps shocking her by making her laugh (“gulper? jeez, i hardly know her.”) and she likes the company and conversation. Deep sea sirens don’t tend to do the whole ‘group’ thing, but that doesn’t mean it can’t get lonely, down there in the endless night. 

She also likes the patterns on his body- you don’t see many pretty markings when you live in near pitch-black. He likes when she can’t help but touch them.

Skull: Finally. Finally. Another creature from the deep, another siren like him, who understands his mannerisms and his way of life. A siren who’ll see him as kin, who won’t view him as some kind of strange, unknowable alien. Being around her makes him soft and giddy, he lights up his bioluminescence any chance he gets, he enjoys having that point of bonding with her (he’s smug the others don’t understand their secret language of lights). He gets the overwhelming sensation they were meant to be together... the abyss is so huge, so endless, and yet somehow they found one another? It can’t be chance. The stars aligned. He knows her smell now- he’ll follow her wherever she goes.

A deep sea Mc would definitely feel more comfortable around Skull than she does around the other two sirens. They’re so similar, and she’s much more used to monsters like him; big, dark, strong, slow. She’s still careful around him considering he’s the more frightening apex predator where they’re from- being familiar with something doesn’t make it any less dangerous. But when his tentacles flash and she flashes back, it feels like stumbling across someone who speaks your mother tongue in a land full of strangers.

[pupintransit]

Something fun i've noticed in the last couple days is that the novelty of my pussy has worn off.

I mean, realistically that's the goal right? You go through untold eons of feeling wrong about your body, you take the opportunity to correct it, and by X units of time it feels normal. Like you've always had this body, like walking around and simply vibing was always your reality. I remember that I possessed a penis and testes and i remember what they looked like on my body, but how they felt is becoming more and more of a distant memory.

My vulva feels natural to me now. I think all of the mental remapping my brain had to do in order to get accustomed to the change is over and done with. My folds and textures are second nature to me now, like i can look at myself in a mirror and think "Yes, I know what that part of me is supposed to look and feel like now, i don't actually have to reach down there to find it."

I reach down anyway of course. Have i mentioned how much fun masturbating is yet? I could literally do it for hours now and it feels just as natural as jerking my cock did. Moreso!

I'm taking a minute now and trying to remember the feeling of my balls dangling between my legs. I can describe it; sweaty, delicate, loose if the temperature was a little too warm. It sort of felt like a floppy stress ball that you weren't supposed to squeeze too tightly. I can recall, too, how those physical sensations made me feel, and remembering is making me physically uncomfortable already. Now though, when i turn my minds eye toward my body those sensations are absent. Of course they would be, right? I don't have those parts anymore. But I did for 30 whole ass years. It was a fundamental component of my being, and now i can only recall those feelings if i but an active effort into doing so. How dope is that shit?

I know folks who have said that their pre-op memories get changed ever so slightly after they get gender affirming surgery. Say you're thinking about a vacation you were on were the shower in your hotel wasn't working, and you get blasted with freezing water when it should have been nice and warm. That version of you would have your post-op or post-HRT body instead of what you had back when that memory was formed. That's so interesting to me! I'm not at that stage yet but i'm really excited to see if it's something i experience.

I think now's a good moment to mention something, and against my better judgement I'll probably write about how this relates to The Discourse™️ of my flavour of nonbinary, but your dysphoria doesn't actually have to be crippling in order to qualify to gender affirming care. I could still masturbate and wash myself pre-op without significant distress, for example. You don't have to "earn" it by proving you're sufficiently. If HRT or gender affirming surgery would improve your quality of life, if you can explain that without lying to your care providers and demonstrate you understand the medical risks, then that's all you need to do to "earn" your medical care. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you, even if they themselves are transgender.

Especially if they themeselves are transgender.

If you're pushing back against nonbinary indenities, or people "inventing" new genders, labels, and definitions, or even just against kink in the trans community, i hate to tell you that it won't make the people oppressing us think you're one of the good ones. Us living authentically isn't setting the trans acceptance movement back, it's what it's supposed to allow us to do in the first place. I would really encourage you to rexamine why you have those beliefs, and why me getting a cunt installed as someone who passes as cisgender constitutes a net negative for our community.

Anyway that concludes the ranting portion of today's mini-essay.

Every time i think i've hit an apex with my joy it keeps getting stronger and stronger. This is the best decision i've ever made, not just because it made my body finally make sense to me, but because it made feeling normal so boring. I can't ask for a better outcome than that.

[tomoleary]

Robert Crumb "Stoned Agin!" Inside Back Cover Original Art (Apex Novelties, 1971)

[semisolidmind]

I have totally fallen in love with Fuwa Fuwa Panic and have decided to join in on making my own human and mascot couple for this world. Forgive me if this gets a bit long. 😅

The human is Ai Yukimura, a young woman a year or two older than Emi. A professional ice skater in Tokyo who was caught in a professional slump, trying to figure out what to do next after a string of low rankings hit her and her confidence hard. But, when the mascots came, that quickly became her last priority. Being chased by a group of low level mascots, she locked herself in the one place she always felt safe: the local ice skating rink. She heads further into the building trying to stay as far from the doors as possible just in case when the sound of skates sliding and hitting the ice catches her ears. It's only when reaching the innermost part of the rink and seeing a giant anthro unicorn landing a double axel only to stop when he catches sight of her that she realize she's in trouble...

Shigeru is the unicorn mascot designed for the rink. A fairlt flamboyant princely kind of character meant to appeal to young girls in particular and put into the mascot program by the rinks owners under the impression that it would simply be a way to draw drum up more business with the novelty of a living mascot. What happened instead was that the owners were jumped by some feral mascots and Shigeru took the opportunity to make the rink his palace. He wasn't expecting anyone, let alone a human, to enter the place with all the chaos outside. While disappointed since he's quite the extrovert, he also took it as an opportunity to test his skills. That was all he felt his life would be until he saw he had an unexpected audience.

Ai is terrified the moment she sees him. Shigeru is immediately in love when he sees her.

He calls her his "ojo-sama", his princess, and assures her that he will never harm her. He's very touchy feely, hugging her and holding or kissing her hands while showering her with compliments about her beauty or how she skates. He actually leaves his palace to get his princess everything she could ever need or want, putting in the work to make the ice rink into a true palace the two of them can call home. And all while Ai's trying not to have a nervous breakdown or set him off in a way that spells the end for her.

She doesn't trust him or the things he says, but she forces herself to bare with it. She knows that he's a far lesser evil than what she had experienced before taking refuge in the rink. She thinks he doesn't know, but he does. And it just makes him double down on making sure Ai knows how safe and loved she is with him.

It's a very delicate dance. Ai being scared of Shigeru, but knowing that he's her best bet to stay alive while this lovesick unicorn tries the best he can to show his princess that he'll never hurt her and only wants to love, care for, and skate with her forever.

What makes this even harder for Shigeru to get through to Ai is when the odd mascot or human somehow manages to enter their home. Usually, Shigeru is able to turn on his natural charm and dissuade them from sticking around. Despite how much he obviously doesn't want to share Ai or her attention, his extroversion makes him very amicable and usually their guests leave without any blood needing to be spilled. But, if a mascot or human proves to be dangerous to either his beloved ojo-sama's life or their relationship, well...

Shigeru may be a fool in love that isn't as bulky or physically intimidating as his fellow apex mascots. But, he's agile with a ton of lower body strength and weapons literally at his feet he won' hesitate to use. Even if it just makes her fear him more, the prince will do anything to protect his princess and their beautiful little kingdom of ice.

i liked the idea of a yandere plushie unicorn prince, oddly enough

[empirearchives]

The Dome of the Halle au Blé — Ironwork in Paris in the 19th Century

The Halle au Blé under demolition in 1887

The Halle au Blé was transformed into the Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection. Though most of the original building was changed, the iron dome designed in 1807 was kept in tact.

The iron dome of the Halle au Blé (which housed the grain exchange of Paris during the 18th and 19th century), was the largest iron structure in the world at the time of its construction between 1807 and 1813.

The original dome of the Halle au Blé was made of wood and burned down in a fire in 1802.

The replacement dome, upgraded to cast iron, was designed by François Bélanger. The design was sent to a committee headed by Becquay-Beaupré, and was approved by Napoleon in 1807.

Bélanger's elegant and audacious design was submitted to Crétet, who consulted with Napoleon. The emperor approved the project in a decree of September 4, 1807. Napoleon was interested enough in the project to visit the site during construction, and he personally dedicated the dome. Actual construction began in 1809 with cast iron produced at Le Creusot, but the dome was not ultimately completed until 1813, having cost 700,000 francs, seven times more than the original estimate.

Bélanger’s iron dome is important because it was the largest iron structure of its day, and it was several decades before another of such magnitude was constructed. The elegant and slender ribs of the dome seen from 40 meters below create an illusion of lightness far surpassing that which is possible with other traditional framing materials.

The novelty of the use of iron and the thinner dimensions made the Halle au Blé a notable attraction in Napoleon’s day and throughout the 19th century. Pierre Fontaine, whom Napoleon had named First Architect and who had argued with the emperor regarding the Vendôme Column, the Temple of Glory, the Pantheon, the Pont des Arts, the Pont des Invalides, and the Pont d'lena, found the dome to be much more satisfying in its use of iron than these other structures.

“This work,” he wrote, “is one of the most remarkable which has been erected under the present regime.” In fact, many of the Parisian guidebooks of the last century give ample treatment to its description, since the dome was considered to be one of the significant landmarks of the capital.

Conversion to the Bourse de Commerce:

The engineer Cosmo Canovetti was charged in 1887 with the reconstruction of the Halle au Blé and its conversion into the Bourse de Commerce. In order to determine whether to retain or reconstruct the dome, Canovetti examined it for any deterioration. He calculated the bending moments by means of funicular polygons, a process unknown to Bélanger, in order to determine whether the additional weight of a roof covering over part of the dome would create any structural problems. Canovetti found the structure adequate, and he observed that Bélanger had understood well the appropriate ratio of diminution to give the ribs from their spring points on the masonry wall to their apex at the compression ring which forms the lantern base.

Source:

Building with Iron: A Napoleonic Controversy, Frances H. Steiner, Technology and Culture, Volume 22, Number 4, October 1981, pp. 700-724 (Article), Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

3. "What did they expect? Twenty cents per hour is dog's pay. I'm surprised they showed up to work at all."

+1 Communism

NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "Oh, but they did -- they did show up to work, and not alone. There were also acne-ridden *girlfriends* and gorilla-like *boyfriends* loitering near the ice cream stand."

"And they already had *the bear*..." She closes her eyes as if remembering something painful.

"What about the bear?"

"It didn't work out?"

NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "*The bear*..." she repeats, pressing thumbs into her temples, like trying to suppress a headache.

"It didn't work out?"

NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "Of course not. The bear was terrifying. No one wants ice-cream *guarded* by a hostile apex predator. To make matters worse, the fridge didn't work too well either, and half the ice cream came out malformed and partially melted."