#because the deeper sections are quite deep

[hzdtrees]

Caves

[lychgate]

Echo brain comic?? My beloved?

this one's pretty new and id like to in the least get some segments drawn up if i can

i went balls deep in depth about my personal ideas of Echo's structure and how it works, it has much more writing rn then art lemme get some snippets:

tech and echo begin digging around in his wiring as echo's health has lately began to decline rapidly. Blood transfusions are becoming daily, exhaustion occurs much quicker, and newest to the issues are these seemingly random seizures. They've attempted many outside options at remedying the problem but it was becoming urgently clear that the only way to get answers would be to open up his system and understand exactly how his body operates from the inside out. Echo is mostly on edge because he fears finding the answer that is he's just doomed to die soon, and that his body was in no way sustainable outside of that fridge. He fears the idea of dying so much that he has manic considerations of being put back in some sort of stasis chamber. Death, which he never feared prior to the citadel, but now he's come to be you know uhhh quite traumatized from it. But he also hates the idea of that fridge!! caught between two terrible options, wowie here ill add some more breakdown of that in a read more if anyone is interested in paragraphs of bullshit:

as for a brief descriptor on the shit on his head and body, from this paragraph:

Tech: these rivets across your skull are not simple ports one can just plug into. They're a very unique structure, containing an extremely delicate, but long system of thin metallic fibers wiring throughout your brain. These 'rivets' then act as anchors to those metal fibers, which then respond to very specific electric signals that we can access at the nodes on the surface here. If the signals sent are not exact. Well. Echo: yeah I get it I get it.

and some write up on how Tech begins to diagnose the problem:

Eventually Tech will find his way into deeper functions of the brain, finding shortcuts that were already developed by the Techno Union scientists for the sake of their own equipment likely. Categorized sections for monitoring all sorts of chemicals and levels within Echo's body, most of which were left on an automatic function to regulate.

Tech begins to understand that the key issue is that this program, and these automatic functions, were fitted for exactly the stasis chamber Echo had been put in, and if they want to begin fixing Echos phsyical body, he would have to start going in and coding line for line, functions that pertain to the body on a sustainability outside that fridge. Some functions were completely turned off, being that Echo was getting fed certain synthesized chemicals thru the machine, his brain had to be telling itself NOT to produce said things naturally.

But it's all very finicky work that requires continuous maintenance and updates, not much unlike a patch update to any other computer program, except this is Echo's life. It's an impossible amount of code to do in any short time frame, and so Tech will begin splicing lines of code from similar organic droids with systems of similar complexity.

They handle these sessions once per week, giving time for Echo's body to catch up and adjust. At first he begins feeling some nausea, his heart rate starts rising, but he insists something feels good about it and urges Tech to keep going. Echo begins to feel warmth back in his body, his mood increases, after about a month hair begins to grow again, muscle mass fills in what once was skeletal limbs, nail beds regain a lively shine. Besides a few errors in updates like over producing a chemical or small bouts of insomnia, everything seems On Course.

and then:

So now we get into the meat of the drama, which is a lot of Echo mania and identity issues:

By this point Tech has outfitted much easier screw on parts so they can go in and out of this program faster (the set up previously was hours of work) so pulling that up he theorizes that he will have to do more then just reverse programs that the Techno Union set up. Tech now believes he'll have to create NEW systems, as the old program appears to be getting corrupted from all of Tech's editing. The seizures are, at this point to their best guess, coming from this. That parts of his brain are literally crashing, and soon he's going to start having more serious issues like bro is gonna just have a massive stroke at some point. Tech points that out all regular voice and Echo is just 'great im back in the mental swamp' Now that Echo's learned that he has corrupted files eating away at his brain, and that the chance of having a massive stroke is like inevitable, he's back to feeling like anxious shit. It doesn't help that this will take Tech a lot of time to figure out. Truthfully he's putting as much effort as he can into it, but this is when Echo begins to get Really mentally unwell. He's both worrying and also trying NOT to worry out of fear that it's going to complicate the program even more. Echo begins to have identity issues, coming to rely more on the mechanics then the organics that make him. He doesn't feel like a human with robot parts anymore, he feels like a robot with human parts.

and it keeps going like there's parts where echo is begging Tech to up programs on dopamine generation and Tech has to turn him down cause that would just be creating an addiction problem, situations where Echo starts trying to mess with his own brain, situations where he tries to kill Tech, its a lot of rambling but im not a writer, like i can't write for shit and I'd like to try and draw it instead

[owlhousetarot]

How do you keep it all running? You've inspired me to make my own deck based on a show I love, but how do you find these moments? Do you go in and analyze scenes from the show? Do they come to you in random thought? I just don't feel as organized or like it's coming together, so what's your process cause I get the feeling it would help me greatly.

OHHHHHH IVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO ASK ABOUT MY PROCESS ASSIGNING CARDS!!

First of all, that's so cool I've inspired you to make your own fandom deck! It's a really fun way to develop your artistic abilities and to analyze a piece of media, and I was definitely inspired by fandom decks that I've seen made by other people. Now for my ramble:

My process for assigning designs to all the cards took quite some time, and a great deal of thought. The first real "step" was to watch the show through like five times beforehand, which was easy because I had already done that by the time I decided to start this deck! It's important to have a good understanding of the characters, overall plot, and themes of the show to make sure your choices fit. It's also really helpful to take in analysis of these things from the fandom and not just yourself, because a lot of the time people will have identified themes or analyzed characters to a deeper extent or in ways you never would have thought to!

The next part of the process was learning the meanings of all the cards in a tarot deck. I was actually almost completely unfamiliar with tarot before starting this project, so this was a real from-the-ground-up scenario. The two websites I mainly refer to are Labyrinthos and Biddy Tarot, which both are based on the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot tradition--I didn't even know there were other types of decks before! Going through both of those websites, my first round of card assignments was based purely on my memory of the show, seeing what came to mind, if anything. There were a LOT of blank spots in my list at this point, especially in the minor arcana sections, and also a lot of initial choices that I would later change my mind about. Lots of ideas with question marks after them, and lots of cards that I listed multiple options for.

From there, it was a largely iterative process. I went back and forth watching the show and looking at the card definitions, building up my list over time, revising choices and adding ones where before I couldn't think of anything. Another resource that was really helpful at this stage was watching deck reviews/walkthroughs/deep dives on youtube. I'd especially like to shoutout Lisa Papez for her really thorough deep dives and for her Tarot for Beginners series--they gave me a much better understanding of the tarot, and a better sense of how and why to properly assign a character or scene to certain cards.

After a while, I had my list more or less complete, with at least one idea for each card. At this point I had already begun illustrating the major arcana, as those were the easiest to assign. Luckily for me, The Owl House really lends itself well to the tarot--The Fool, for example, was a no-brainer (as you might be able to tell from other TOH decks that exist out there). Now that I had a general game plan, I wanted to fine-tune my choices by taking into mind character balance and episode balance.

For character balance, I wanted to make sure that the amount of times a given character would be either the main focus or part of the focus of a given card would correlate to the size of their role in the show. Luz, of course, is the main character and features in every episode, so she is in nearly half the deck. Eda, King, Hunter, and the Hexsquad are also up there, with the rest of the cast trailing off from there. If I thought a certain character was either over- or under-represented, I would switch up certain cards or choose one option over another if I was considering multiple designs for a card. I was especially mindful that all the major characters would feature at least once in the major arcana, which led me to assigning the Chariot to Amity and Willow as a duo, and the Hanged Man to King. (The Chariot, if I may note, was one of the more difficult ones to assign in the majors. Not sure why, just not too many obvious choices came to me!)

Episode balance was a little trickier to nail down, as some episodes just have more significant moments than others do. Premiers and finales ended up with more cards than usual, as did the three season 3 specials. I tried to find at least one significant scene or character from each episode, but in the end there are four episodes that don't feature at all in this deck: Once Upon a Swap, Something Ventured Someone Framed, Really Small Problems, and Follies at the Coven Day Parade. Those are the decisions that come with the territory, though--I would rather have my card designs fit the definitions than potentially sacrificing a better choice for the sake of a less significant episode! In the end, I'm happy with the choices I've made, and I can't wait to get to all of them!

TLDR This is my general advice for designing your own fandom deck:

Familiarize yourself with the text. Analyze characters, plot points, and themes. Take inspiration from fandom analysis.

Familiarize yourself with the tarot. Consult multiple sources, and feel free to stretch the card definitions a bit if it makes sense to you (lookin' at you, two and three of wands).

Do a first pass-through from memory of the show, assigning designs as you go through the card definitions. Include multiple possibilities for those you're unsure about, or leave them blank for now.

Do a close-reading style watchthrough of the show, going through your unsure/blank cards after each episode to see if anything fits. If something better comes up for a card you were pretty sure about, add it as a possibility, or see if it could fit another card if you spin it a different way. Repeat this process until you've got a pretty full list.

Continue revising your list, keeping in mind character and episode balance. Are you under-representing your major characters? Over-representing more minor characters? Are you hitting most of the important scenes from the show/book/etc? Keeping these in mind will result in a well-rounded deck!

My final bit of advice: have fun with it! You can do whatever you want forever! There's a side character you're really fond of who appears more often than they should? Who cares! That one cool scene doesn't really fit any of the card definitions? Leave it out or make shit up! Maybe the design you choose really only fits the card's reversed definition and not the upright--that's perfectly fine! Assign that female character to one of the "male" court cards or vice versa! The tarot is not rigid; definitions are malleable and people's general understanding of the decks have shifted greatly over time. Every deck will have slightly different takes on what each of the cards mean, and yours will too. So go with what feels right!

[notallwonder]

thinking again about cme 17x06. as one does.

Spoilers.

I wasn't going to post because I wrote this in a sort of fugue state after staying up super late watching the ep over and over when it first dropped. but I like having a record of what I was thinking, such as it is.

Esp about the brief discussion of BAUgate, and how jj specifically says her beef is that emily wasn’t honest with “...us, with *me*”. emily’s “I am” is earnest, but she’s on a slightly different page than JJ cuz she follows that with “honestly, I want to quit”. Emily’s still drowning in her feelings about how the job is fucking her up, jj’s just over here trying to be real with her about their relationship. And it really sounds like there’s more to the “it’s about being honest with *me*” than just BAUgate. Like….is JJ wanting more honesty about whatever the fuck happened to them? It’s not a huge stretch. I love AJ Cook's performance. when I first got into the jemily of it all with cm I was very focused on Emily but as time has passed and I've watched and rewatched, it's become clearer that JJ a huge engine driving what makes jemily interesting to me.

I’ve seen folks theorize that Emily’s knowledge of BAUgate is what caused the perceived distance between her & JJ in s16, but I personally don’t fully buy into that. Emily became unit chief in 2017ish, and section chief presumably sometime in 2020-2022. It’s unclear when she was briefed on BAUgate. She tells Luke about it like it’s mostly a done deal she inherited the problem/information, the issue was apparently dealt with, and she made a judgment call about informing them. But as he pointed out, you know once it’s on the Internet it lives forever. She’s can't be naive about that. And I think she's glossing over it a bit to try to calm him down. We’ve been given no indication that Rossi had this info, though he probably knew broad strokes, and he was UC for some amount of time. My guess is she was briefed in detail on BAUgate when she became SC. So I guess BAUgate could be a component of s16 tension with JJ, especially insofar as this is a big unspoken thing that Emily has shouldered alone in order to shelter her team/friends, and is potentially emblematic of a larger pattern of Emily withholding information and not feeling free to be open with JJ as a friend because of her professional responsibilities. But I think if we take their distance seriously it has to go deeper than this one thing. Because the weirdness between them goes back further than evolution. It’s also in the way JJ chose to fuck off to New Orleans instead of taking over as UC as Emily planned. [where does this fit in the “we don’t quit” narrative that JJ spins?]. It’s in the way we don’t know exactly why JJ & Will decided to move back to Virginia. It’s in the way some awkwardness, resentment, isolation, hurt, whatever brewed between them during the pandemic years (and before!), and perhaps unspoken history made it difficult for them to be normal with one another on a personal level.

To me, the weirdness of their interactions in s16 is most egregious in the lack of direct comfort/interaction after JJ & Luke were blown up in the shipping container. And maybe a little in the fact that Emily so happily greeted Will, of all people, when they all returned from California (made me laugh so hard my god). But the relative stiffness of their interactions has been consistent since season 12/13, I think (thinking about the what ifs/if onlys convo). As though one or both of them were making an effort to be professional but not too personal, or keep it benign and surface level because dealing openly with whatever they had going on deep down would be too painful.

I’m so glad this convo happened in a more relaxed setting. They were going to have a talk at the office! it would have been more buttoned up, might have even played more into the underlying tension between them. It wouldn’t have been JJ trying to keep Emily from quitting. Could have been harder for Emily to really hear all of what JJ was saying to her, in that environment.

Speaking of all of what JJ was saying. !!!

I agree this is a confession of love. And it’s fucking beautiful. It’s JJ being vulnerable about how much Emily’s presence in her life means to her. JJ’s telling Emily that they are stronger than their predecessors in part *because they have been a source of strength for each other, for years.* Paris, the miscarriage, yes. And, and. JJ is and has always been so strong as an individual. But Emily was also JJ’s quiet strength in Georgia, the hospital waiting room, the stalking case, the bank robbery, in Reid & Penelope’s abduction, in East Allegheny. JJ saw and believed in Emily’s humanity - her hidden dreams - from early days. She pulled her through those bleak 7 months in exile. How many times has JJ taken the sting out of Emily's mood like she did on the jet in 11x19 Tribute? JJ is making herself a source of strength for Emily, right here in this conversation (*make* them fire you!, don’t just roll over). They have such a history of mutuality: of comradery, kindness, deep care, showing up. It’s not romantic in name but can easily be read that way. It’s *really* fucking romantic, even if it’s platonic. Do you know what I mean???????

I’m obsessed with AJ Cook’s choices throughout. OBSESSED.

The way JJ pauses for that moment after “it gives me you”, making steady eye contact, letting it really sink in. She got brave, and it landed. Then she kind of rolls her eyes at herself, maybe a little annoyed at the tears starting to come, maybe a little embarrassed that she’s letting this truth out into the world.

And the “Always.” Dropping eye contact, retreating from the moment a bit. A bit afraid to watch Emily’s reaction - but also she does very deliberately look directly at Emily again for a split second! That “Always” has carried a torch, for a very long time. That “Always” at least never admitted to Emily how much it hurt when she left. How much the distance has hurt.

~ I’ve been through hell in this job but it brought us together (I love you). You’ve kept me going through awful things (I love you). Of course I’ll support you whatever you decide (I love you). I’ll always support you even when you leave me (I love you). You’ve left me before and it hurt and it didn’t stop me from loving you (I love you). Please hang on; please stay; please come back to me (I love you, I love you, I love you). ~

*gentle screaming*

And, oh my god, Emily’s reactions. Emily had no idea this conversation was going to go where it did. Immediately defensive when JJ mentions Paris - she’s still in the part of the game where she’s protesting being convinced to stay, and Paris feels like a low blow. The way she crumples into “oh goddammit” when JJ brings up the miscarriage. Oh now it’s clear this is going deeper. Like, WHAT is the full story there??!! JJ was pregnant when she came to Emily’s rescue, right? So the attack and miscarriage happened while Emily was tucked away in Paris. We know JJ was Emily’s only(?) connection to her real life in that period, and here’s confirmation that Emily was a lifeline for JJ during that time as well, perhaps implying that she wasn’t confiding in her husband, at least not fully. You know how JJ tends to keep the hard things to herself, and she was forced to keep secrets for her safety and Emily’s safety. But she shared this with Emily. Maybe Emily had to push her (she “didn’t quit” on JJ), but they were already both in the dark, so to speak, so JJ could let herself lean on that support without bringing that darkness into her home life. Emily’s “goddammit” to me sounds like: memories of grief upon grief upon desperate isolation. Sounds like: I put those memories away and it took something out of me to do it. Sounds like: That was when their love for each other deepened, grew richer and more complex. That was when something more might have started to bloom between them, some doomed but lovely unnamed thing. And then it was locked away. And JJ has the audacity to acknowledge it? Now? Emily’s been spiraling about what’s the point of fighting this battle, when I feel like I’m losing myself? And JJ calls up the memory of this awful, bleak time when they both felt horrendously lost and they *got each other through it.* I mean. I MEAN

I love Emily’s shocked reaction as JJ’s confession lands. Either Emily’s feelings never breached the platonic barrier (not my interpretation!), or she put away the possibility years ago and did her damnedest to not look back. You can see her wheels turning, her uncertainty about what JJ’s revealed, her wanting to tread carefully. And when Rossi texts and she has to make a choice? JJ’s looking at her with those big blue eyes. Time to table the full depth of the moment. Sprinkle in a little bravado. The thing about being an adult is, you still have to go to all hands meetings while you’re having an earth shattering realization.

……..

Another thing about “it gives me you.” JJ has probably resigned herself to the fact that working at the BAU is the only way she gets to “have” this much of Emily. It’s part of why she came back from New Orleans, even if never acknowledged or articulated.

You know it’s a good scene when it makes me want to watch a bunch of other scenes. Even scenes I hate. Like…I want to revisit Reid talking Emily off the ledge, the truth or dare confession (loathsome!), the scene where Emily decides to stay on as UC in s12 (love this one). The Forever People (Mr Macbeth my beloved).

Honestly maybe JJ’s poly and she doesn’t know it, hasn’t let herself consider it. She’s evidently got a lot of love to give. And that needn’t be framed as some kind of betrayal of her vows or callous carelessness with her friend’s hearts, not to my mind. Plus, like, three cheers for letting your love for someone simply be what it is, however amorphous or uncategorizable, however little you can or want to act on it.

*******

Oh my god I’ve watched this scene over and over and over. I have total brain worms about it. I feel insane. I forgot to eat lunch and dinner

*******

Jennifer Jareau. This is AJ Cook’s season, it’s her show now. I am all the way in forever and ever

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when CME socials started posting Jemily stuff and AJ said “ultimate Jemily moment” and Paget lightly teased……I just laughed. Like, okay, sure, ancient CBS procedural. Sure, my little carousel of disappointments. Sure. LOL. After all these years, they are not going to go there, and I wouldn’t even want them to.

I did not in a million years expect them to crack open the door like this. I still don’t think they’re going to break up JJ & Will. I am not expecting a Jemily kiss. But after this episode - the pathway to such a thing is clearer than it was. And now I think if they did choose to go there, they could maybe (maybe!!) even do it well. Shocking development. Has a lot to do with AJ's performance tbh. The writing is fine, despite the way it seems to twist the facts of canon around bts reality. But she's the one laying JJ's heart bare.

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If this is it, the full extent of JJ’s and Emily’s scenes together this season (which would be weird!), I will still walk away with warm feelings. I’m honestly feeling so grateful for the way this episode gave them room to honor the history of these characters.

Grab your keys. Let’s fuckin’ roll.

[billlydear]

For your requests , would I please be able to request something where Reader is a fellow lifeguard with Billy? + They have a more hidden relationship going on, and all the kids and the other women are a little suspicious? ♡

Only if your requests are open, of course!

LUNCH BREAK - BILLY HARGROVE X READER

W.C 442 - REQUEST - MASTERLIST - CREDIT TO GIF OWNER

Hauling toddlers out of the deep end seems to be your life's work. There are signs posted every three meters, WARNING: Deeper than 3 feet past this point. Must know how to swim.

And yet, every ten minutes, another gaggle of floaty-clad babies paddle over into the deep water and their parents do nothing.

You've got one now, hooked under your arm. The little girl babbles happily up at you despite the glare on your face directed towards her mother, and you stalk over to her chair with wet feet that slap against the pavement roughly.

"Your daughter is going to drown," You drawl, dropping Holly off with her dazed mother, "I know you hate your husband but that's no excuse to kill his offspring."

You don't give her or her friends time to process what you'd said, rushing off to the tower on the opposite side of the pool. You scale the ladder with ease, but when your foot slips one one of the rungs, Billy's hand shoots out to tighten over your hand.

"Jesus, are you oka-"

"Stop being so alluring," You huff, and it doesn't help that you're face-level with his exposed, sweat-beaded, muscled thighs, "You're gonna cause an accident. These mothers are too busy staring at you to pay attention to their kids, and if I have to fish another sticky-fingered brat out of the 8-foot section, I'll quit."

He chuckles deep in his chest, the sound warm as he tucks a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

"Easy," He soothes, shifting in his seat, "I can't help it, this is just me."

"You could put on a shirt," You grumble, "But if you're not going to, I think I deserve a kiss for every kid I save today because of your- your boobs."

"Deal," He snickers, his eyes flicking to your own chest, "We rotate in twenty. let's take our lunch break in the locker room."

"Boys' this time," You nod, already starting your descent down the ladder, "I don't want my friends' moms to see me naked again!"

Said mothers watch you enviously as you stomp back over to the deep end, glaring at a three-year-old until they rush back to shallow waters. You swear Karen Wheeler tries tripping you as you walk past her chair, but you dodge it skillfully. You know that she'll hear you and Billy taking your 'lunch break' later when she strips out of the bathing suit she'd bought for your boyfriend to ogle. And she'll definitely think about it as she leaves with her daughter in her day clothes, a reminder of the miserable man who'd given her both.

[glacierruler]

Patton Sanders Analysis

Taglist: @januscorner @pandagobrr @icycove @cutebisexualmess @oatmeal-stans-the-trash-rat

@part-time-zombie

Post Under the Read More, it is long!

This is an analysis of Patton Sanders. Putting this here right now, I relate to Patton Sanders a lot. This is of the official episodes, and not the Asides!

Patton Sanders is Thomas’s morality and emotions.

Very important distinction is that he is Thomas’s morality not The Morality. He is not the arbiter of right and wrong, he is the aspect of Thomas that was raised a certain way to believe that certain things were right or wrong.

Within the first episode, Patton is acting as Morality first. This is important because that’s how he always seems to act as first. He always tries to be Morality and then emotions. However, this is not beneficial.

In the first episode he asks Thomas, “What positive impacts do you inevitably hope to bring to this world?”

Thomas is surprised by this, as it seems that Morality is more of a comic relief character in the beginning in his eyes. While probably due to the fact that the series was not initially supposed to be more than a few episodes long iirc, it can also be taken another way. It’s a way to show that Patton is smarter, and does think a lot deeper than how he appears to. Because he’s always trying to be happy (as happy is a good emotion. We’ll get into emotions and morality in a bit). However, when Thomas notes that it is surprising for Patton to say something like that, Patton points to his and Logan’s glasses, noticing that they’re the same.

Why does he do this? What could he possibly gain from doing this? I believe this is because he doesn’t wish to be seen as the deep philosophical side, but as the Happy Pappy Patton (something he says in a later episode). Being deep like this could effect how the other sides see him, and (like all the sides) doesn’t want to be seen that way.

There are a few other things to note in the first episode, when talking about his flaws, Patton says, “you can be a bit selfish with your food and your other belongings.” Which is notably something that Thomas does, but in the section where they talk about his good attributes, the moral side states “you believe there’s good in everyone,” which is something that Thomas thinks. And it’s our first clue to just how hard on Thomas, and himself, that Patton really is. If you can say something you’re doing wrong morally but can’t say an action that you’re taking to do something correct, it begs the question, how hard are you one yourself?

Morality is learned, it is not something you’re born just knowing right off the bat. This is important, because it’s important to keep in mind that Patton’s views are Thomas’s views on morality.

In A New Year of Lying to Myself… In Song!!! Morality and Logic butt heads, Patton is attempting to use his sway over Thomas to have him learn to cook more, while Logan wants him to learn something new. Patton doesn’t seem to quite believe it when Logan tells him that Thomas has “cooked in the kitchen plenty of times” since the WAY TOO ADULT (way too adult), and asks for proof. And I’m struck with why, since Thomas is them wouldn’t Patton be able to see Thomas cooking? While Logan is Logic and contains information Thomas learns, like cooking (therefore it making sense that Logan would be perhaps a little more aware than Patton), Patton is at the forefront of Thomas’s morality. And he had deemed it morally good for Thomas to cook. It would be completely reasonable to assume that Patton would be aware of that. Unless the only reason he deemed it morally correct is because, and I’m quoting to the best of my ability since this is said when Roman, Patton, and Logan are speaking over each other, “The basic essential things, that you need to learn to seriously become an adult to succeed at adulting.” (Again, very much trying to hear what he was saying in order to get this quote, I may be slightly off on what he said). Based on this, he views it as something everyone who is an adult does and knows how to do. Which very much reminds me of how neurodivergents like myself mask. We don’t know how to do something and so we’re hard on ourselves for not being able to do it, yet it’s something that otherwise isn’t important to us or how we function. I think this is Patton’s views on Thomas cooking. He believes it essential to how Thomas can take care of and survive on his own, which is why it’s morally correct to learn, however it isn’t actually something he deems important enough to pay attention to.

Also Patton already has an aversion to lying in this episode. He doesn’t try to seem positive and upbeat in this, or attempt to be gracious to Thomas about New Years goals. He just agrees, not wanting to lie as that’s wrong but not seeing anything positive he could say in Thomas’s defence (which again, leads me to believe he is extremely hard on Thomas and in turn himself. This is corroborated in other episodes as well).

Thankfully Logic, Morality, and Princey reach an agreement of small goals that Thomas could make in that episode. (Which solves that episode’s problems, but not Thomas’s of being hard on himself, this is something I hope to revisit.)

One of the first times Patton encourages Roman, from what I’ve seen, is in I’M IN A DISNEY SHOW!! (I’m in a disney show!!) This is because Roman is excited about the fact that Thomas was in a disney show, despite being there himself. He was achieving his hopes and dreams, and Roman was excited. Virgil tells him “You were there… princey, we’re both factors of his personality.” This prompts Patton to tell Anxiety to let Roman express his emotions. While I agree with the sentiment, I think this is the first we see of the sense of emotions and morality feed into the ego. Which will end up being a problem (As we will discuss later in this essay).

Patton then proceeds to tell Thomas that “I just want to support you in everything you do. Plus I saw you had some leftover pizza?” While I completely believe the sentiment of that first statement is true, by saying he wants pizza right after he is undermining that first statement. And I think that’s because he only cares to the point of where Thomas is happy when it comes to Thomas’s hopes and dreams. (This is because he Morality and Emotions, this is Not because he Unsympathetic, I want to make this clear. While I am being critical of Patton, I am in no way shape or form calling him unsympathetic!) This interaction is proof that while Patton wants Thomas to be happy and morally in the right when it comes to how he’s happy he doesn’t seem to care.

In The MIND vs. The HEART (The Mind vs. The Heart) is when we get the confirmation that Morality is also deeper emotions and empathy.

I think that this bit of diologue from Thomas himself illustrates Patton’s constant struggle. “Dad guy. You  encourage me to do what’s right and strive to do the most good in this world that I possibly can. And I appreciate that. But a lot of times I spread myself too thin. I also tend to make others a priority over me, and their feelings a priority over mine.” Patton is Morality, he has learned to put other’s emotions over his own. He has learned to put other people before him.

Another problem I believe Patton to have is not listening to others because he believes himself to always be in the right. He is morality after all, he knows what he’s doing, he believes that his default is to be good so therefore he is good. So in a lot of the videos, whenever he’s not specifically addressed, or has some sort of stake in it he tends to go off and do his own thing. If Thomas isn’t feeling bad, and if he isn’t doing something that is deemed morally wrong by Patton, then what is Patton supposed to do.

However, as seen in all of this, he is also Thomas’s emotions. He is not just how Thomas views right and wrong, but how he feels in each and every situation. Having to handle not only what’s right and wrong, but Thomas’s emotions is a hard job. But it’s the job he has. And he can’t be wrong, because if he’s wrong, if he’s in the wrong. Then Thomas is, and then Thomas is a bad person, in Pattons point of view. While one of Patton’s fears might be spiders, I believe an even greater one is if he was wrong the whole time, if because he was wrong and Thomas was wrong, that he led Thomas to be a bad person. And this is only really brought to the front by Janus. While the others tell Patton he’s being too hard on Thomas, Janus shows it in the form of Frog Patton hurting Thomas. I think one of the reasons it’s so hard for Patton to understand this is because he doesn’t want to be anything other than Thomas’s Happy Pappy Patton. Nothing more than the morality and positive emotions that keep Thomas upbeat. If he’s anything other than that then he believes he’s failed as a side. He solves the tinier problems without addressing the bigger ones because he didn’t understand what exactly he was doing wrong.

Yes, he had been told he was being overbearing, spreading Thomas too thin. But he was never told how detrimental that was, how wrong for Thomas it was. He just knew that he and Logan butted heads about it a lot because of Thomas’s schedule. After all, he can’t be wrong, he’s the moral side, the side that knows right and wrong. And Roman, Virgil, and Logan all enhance this idea so much! In Growing Up, they tell Patton to stick to knowing the difference between right and wrong, and then go and ask him for help. They consistently tear Patton down to Just Morality or Just Emotions depending on the video. And at the beginning of the series they barely listen to him as is. I think this fundamentally changes in both MOVING ON (Moving On) parts 1 and 2. This is where they start to realize he’s not just Morality or Happy Emotions. But Morality and All of Thomas’s Emotions in general.

“I feel guilty for still feeling this way for so long.” Patton doesn’t like feeling horrible, especially not for long periods of time. Possibly because he’s been taught that negative emotions are bad, possibly because it makes Thomas feel bad and he feels guilty. But with him being Morality as well… It makes it so that negative emotions feed into the Thomas Is Doing Something Wrong complex, meaning he has to figure out what’s going on and sort that out while dealing with, you guessed it, emotions! It’s a loop, a repeating pattern of events that he doesn’t know how to stop, and It Is Of My Opinion that that is because while Morality is something learned, after a while it feels like something that is engrained into your being.

There is also a habit of whenever Roman is feeling down or bruised of Patton going to and helping him. Which isn’t necessarily bad, however we don’t see the other sides do this nearly as often. In Am I ORIGINAL? (Am I Original?) Patton is the first to reassure Roman that content doesn’t have to be original, after Thomas tells him that he could never disappoint him. And then, in the very next episode, Patton is the only one reassuring Princey after his ego has been bruised. And I think this really sets up a sideline of Patton being there for Roman and helping him out, which makes Roman really rely on him a lot. This is also emphasized in The Sanders Sides 12 SIDES OF CHRISTMAS (The Sanders Sides 12 Sides Of Christmas), when all the sides are getting onto Roman’s song lyric for Virgil, and Patton has to be the one to tell all of them to be nice to the princely side. (Janus also uses this fact in Can Lying Be Good, to try to get Roman to side with him). Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if your source of ego is getting fed by only one facet of your personality that can end up being a devastating blow when that part is proven to be faulty or wrong.

While there have been attempts to reign Patton in, I don’t think he fully understood that how hard he was being on Thomas was ultimately harming him. As none of them were nearly bad as the events that transpired to get us to the Selfishness vs Selflessness and Putting Other’s First. “Roman I thought you fought for honor? Why are you pushing Thomas to be dishonest?” This is what Patton says to Roman about possibly lying to his friend’s to go to the callback. This seems inconsequential, but I wonder if Roman would have made the same decision had Patton not said that. In Putting Other’s First, Janus and Patton butt heads, arguing about Morality and Why People Should Do Things. And Roman takes Patton’s side. I think this is due to the fact that while he knew Thomas wouldn’t be happy at the wedding, he also ‘knew’ that it was the right thing to do because Patton is (Thomas’s) Morality, and Patton has to be right about this. Not only that but Patton has been there for him time and time again and he wanted to return the favor. Be a prince.

Yet Patton learned, by turning into a frog, that he was hurting Thomas. That while he might be doing what he believes to be Morally Correct, because of his actions, his beliefs, Thomas was being hurt. And he realized that what Janus was saying was true, and he was able to visualize just how badly he was hurting Thomas. But with how it ended up going down, it came at the expense of hurting Roman, of (I believe unintentionally) shattering the ego.

As per my first(not nearly as extensive) analysis, I said “Patton absolutely believes going to the wedding was the correct choice, but Thomas had been excited to be fulfilling his dreams of being an actor. And so the excitement of his friends getting married was dampened by the fact that he missed out on what could’ve been a dream job. And not only that, but now because Thomas is bummed about missing this opportunity, Patton feels guilty about the disappointment, because his friends are getting married and he should be happy and even excited about it. But he isn’t. And so, while morally Thomas did the right thing(according to Patton), because he isn’t happy about what’s happened, that essentially traps Patton in this circle of guilt. Guilt for the choice that Thomas made not making Thomas happy; and guilt for being at Lee and Mary-Lee’s wedding to celebrate and not being ecstatic for them.”

[imustbenuts]

Dragons, Snakes, and the Missing Link

tl;dr The Missing Link is the Naga deity from Buddhism/Hinduism. (featuring jesus ichiban)

lowercase bc im tired today...

has anyone ever wondered how similar looking eastern dragons and snakes are?

the eastern dragon originates from china tradition, and is associated with the heavens, rain, thunder, fortune, strength and benevolence. it is also associated with whimsicality, being that the heavens and nature tend to be very whimsical when it came to the lives of people.

(originates from china, kind... of. bc theres more to this chinese origin. more under the cut)

further, it is said that should an emperor witness a dragon, they are guaranteed to be a good ruler and bring an era of peace and prosperity. this is effectively an approval from the heavens, ie, the Mandate of Heaven, and was as useful as the Divine Right of Kings argument for why rulers should rule.

its not too surprising that kiryu ends up also having a say in choosing Daigo or Terada as successors. (although he might have fucked up with terada, but Daigo became someone who is a good fit if not for the overwhelming odds stacked against him... theres also an arguement that kiryu wasn't quite Like A Dragon just yet in y1.)

so dragons are super duper important. and kiryu the character embodies what a dragon is, cool!

but then, we have... majima. who has the snake as a secondary motif of his irezumi, and i think has a secondary possible role that hasnt been pointed out yet in EN afaik

so, ive done some digging for why people think majima has the snake motif, and one possible explanation is that snakes are associated with immortality, a messenger to the heavens, which does fit majima. juxtaposed to the short bloomed sakura in his irezumi, it reads like a very elaborate art piece with layers of too many meaning, majima is fascinating. anyway.

this article goes into even deeper details why snakes are popularly paired up with the hannya mask, but are kind of vague about it:

what i want to zero in is... this word: Naga.

to understand why the dragon is linked to naga, i need to explain 2 things. what the heck is a naga, and how buddhism traveled.

what's a naga?

a naga is this.... not the guy sitting in the middle, that's buddha. but the multi-headed serpent itself:

so okay. this section is a very short summary and are worth reading more on your own, but here's the run down.

nagas are a class of serpent deity originating from hinduism. buddhism came due to a multitude of factors including rejecting hinduism's social caste system. as a result, it shares many deities with hinduism, including naga.

nagas can be depicted as multiheaded or single headed, and can transform between and in-between their snake and human form. nagas are based on cobras. in south and southeast asia, the naga is often depicted with a flap around the neck as characteristic of a cobra. or sometimes without the flap at all even.

this also means in some interpretations, nagas are as dangerous as they are benevolent/beneficial to humans (probably with the correct aptitude). this duality of good but bad if pissed off isn't at all exclusive to nagas, but in fact rather common with this sphere of deities. (sound familiar?)

in buddhism, the most well known one is Mucalinda, who protects and shelters buddha in his meditation to attain enlightenment. hence all those pictures above

interestingly, their abode is the deep, deep waters. :)

they are a very, very important deity in buddhism due to their strong and close role to buddha, but because buddhism frames gods as just other higher beings trying to escape the cycle of samsara, the nagas are seen as a protector rather than be a god to worship. cool? ok.

journey to the... far eastern japan

for how buddhism traveled, its something like this (source):

something to be clear about with this: buddhism did not arrive in japan without alteration. where ever buddhism traveled, it got reinterpreted as it moved on, absorbing local folklore and myth in the process, and then splashed about back and forth before hitting japan's shores. (but the scriptures was imported in its original form to my understanding. so the colloquial understanding is different from india's own.)

and hence why buddhism in japan is specifically called shinto buddhism: its a special blend.

with the case of nagas specifically, they seem to have entered china, and got mixed with the eastern dragon, and then passed onto korea and japan. some folklore of the dragon are also said to originally be stories about nagas, which we can see with the still present association with water and some divine knowledge.

but, the nagas by this point have lost their human form and gained bitty limbs and whiskers and claws and now soar through the skies rather than stay on the ground. or look a little goofy even.

(this dancing toothless dragon took off on douyin. i can attest to and confirm how much the chinese love goofy ass looking dragons)

in the chinese language, the sanskrit word naga was actually translated as dragon as well. hence all this mixing and remixing of things in the colloquial. notably also there was a chinese emperor known as Emperor Wu of Liang who was so fascinated with buddhism that he imported and promoted the religion, and likely appropriated aspects of the naga and mixed it with the dragon.

(i uh had to google in chinese to check and there was more than 1 article using the word dragon for naga. so nice to be a bye-lingual👍)

another important thing, japan already has their own big snake myths such as the yamato no orochi and tsuchinoko, but as for how influenced these are with buddhism is a bit of a toss up. there's definitely an exchange of sorts but its genuinely hard to tell where the line is.

so to summarize it all up

nagas are cobras to snakes to dragons.

both the chinese dragon and naga share similarities of being nasty when upset, and beneficial and benevolent to those they choose.

but, where the dragons are associated with the heavens and rain, the snakes are associated closer to the earth. both share an affinity with water.

effectively, cobras/snakes are the base for nagas, and nagas are the base for chinese dragons. so. majima's snake is like a stealth dragon.

but where the eastern dragon (kiryu) gives approval and disappears willy nilly, the naga (majima) stays and protect to the death.

meaning, kiryu is like a dragon, and majima may have always been like a dragon all along too B). theres also further theming with yin yang with these two, with kiryu being the passionate fire and majima being the naturing water. but thats a whole other detour. this post is getting long and insane enough as it is

oh, but buddhism isnt buddhism without the enlightened buddha. so while i havent played 3-6 yet i bet its this daigo guy whose name literally means Big Enlightenment.

大悟

you cant tell me hes got a irezumi of some buddhism/hinduism deity acala and have a name heavily associated with buddhist wisdom for no reason. and that he got effectively put into the position of the emperor of the kanto yakuza.

and given aaaaaall that ive written about above in regards to the intended function of these mythological deities/creatures, daigo fits the position of either emperor or buddha to a T.

now, a little personal opinion here, but it seems like RGG began rejecting the classism that comes along with the emperor system and really embraced the buddhist roots more as time goes on.

i say this bc even though i mentioned buddhism coming about partially as a rejection of the caste system, the social structure in old and current china and japan still has strong classism, rooted and continuing off old myth and religion (blame those old rulers for this). we see these in the theme of rgg and how even in the yakuza world theres a clear hierarchy, and in 7's civilian theres a clear undesired class of people.

then there's ichiban who keeps rejecting all of those judgey nonsense

ichibannnnn

interestingly theres also the bit where ichiban got handpicked by kiryu as well as a successor of sorts:

and also kiryu telling majima explicitly to support ichiban after hes gone in IW in that scene. theres also some little fun bits about how ichiban is framed as jesus christ:

and that according to some buddhist interpretation, jesus christ qualifies as Big Enlightened buddha material

so. uh. yeah.

majima is going to play a significant role in 9 i think.

idk how to conclude this but. i understand the writer and im going fucking insane as you might have noticed about 7/10 through this long post. anyway thanks for reading. become nuts with me.

[sarahscribbles]

𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐋𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞?

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐋𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐱 𝐟!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: 𝐒𝐦𝐮𝐭

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 𝟑.𝟕𝐤

𝐋𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝟏𝟐 𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

The distinctive, strong whoosh of the grand double doors as they were forced back against the air was the first thing you heard, followed almost instantly by a distant, echoing bang as they were pushed back into the ornate golden frame. 

Then came the heavy, purposeful footsteps bounding down the stairs and into the endless maze that was the Royal Library, footsteps that signaled a hunt had begun. 

Despite being hidden deep within the outer perimeter and shielded by shelves that ran over twelve deep, you instinctively held your breath, ceasing all movement no matter how small lest the soft rustle of your gown or curl of your breath betray your location. The muted golden shelves were cool when you rested a hand upon them as if soothing you while you attempted to follow the sound of his footsteps on the flagstones, a steady, rhythmic sound that had goosebumps erupt along your skin and sent your heart thundering like one of Odin’s war drums. 

He had come searching for you. 

That he knew the library was the first place you would run was a testament to how well he knew you, how deeply the tendrils of your life already intertwined with his, and you wondered then how long it would take him to find you. For how long would he stalk through the endless rows until he cornered you in the short aisle of Midgardian history - chosen specifically as the very last place he would think to look?

With Loki, he would likely scour every inch of the library until he did find you, no matter how long it took him. 

Only a few rows over his footsteps continued to fall heavy and measured on the stone floor, each prowling step sending your heart leaping in your chest, yet he was still far enough away that you didn’t fear discovery. 

Yet. 

With each step he took northwards you moved south, feeling an instant giddy energy rush through you at the game of cat and mouse you were now engaged in. Each quiet step backwards brought you away from the Midgardian history shelves and deeper into Vanir geography. Not quite as safe, but stretching far enough back into the opposite section of the library that you would remain hidden for a little while longer, or until his search brought him full circle.

Because he would search for you.

He had been holding back for decades, refusing to act on the feelings that you knew swirled within him like molten flames. Every stray touch that sent sparks shooting through your blood, every lingering darkened glance heavy with lust from across a room, every outwardly innocent comment dripping with innuendo; they all betrayed how the younger prince hungered for you, how he yearned to take you to his bed. 

Yet, in spite of every electric touch that fizzled in your blood, almost a century later you had still to feel his lips against your skin, had still to actually feel how desperately he wanted you.

But, no matter how badly you burned for him, how desperately you wanted to feel his solid body on top of yours, you refused to the one to break. 

You refused to chase him. 

You had entered the Allmother’s private library only a half hour earlier, wishing to only return the thick volumes of healing magic that you had borrowed and return to your chambers, but Loki had already been sitting at the ornate marble table in the middle of the floor when the doors banged closed in your wake. The sight of him there - legs splayed wide beneath the table, dark curls effortlessly slicked back from his face, and the top of his emerald green tunic so casually loose that a faint smattering of pale chest was on show - was enough to have something molten stir in your stomach and between your thighs.

Your fingers flexed around the pile of books in your hands as every filthy though you’d ever had about him flooded your mind. You pictured him bending you easily over the cool table, his firm hand heavy on the small of your back while he took you from behind and the lewd sound of his skin hitting yours filled the room, or perhaps he would press you roughly against the shelves of books, hoist your skirts around your waist and claim you amongst his mother’s favourite literature. 

Maybe, he would have you on your knees for him.

Each lewd possibility, each depraved, shameless thought, had searing heat lick tempestuously at your core and your need for him burned fiercer than the Eternal Flame, burning so fiercely that you felt it would soon consume you if you didn’t have every part of him. Your stubbornness had held out for almost a century - as long as his -  but it was dangling by a thin and frayed thread, growing weaker with almost each passing day. 

Loki had glanced up at the sound of the door whooshing open and closed, quirking one perfect eyebrow and looking back down at the book lying open before him, so clearly feigning indifference. “As you can no doubt see, this room is occupied,” he drawled lazily.

You had only rolled your eyes, having been around him for so long that his weak attempts at insult rolled easily off you. “I would like to believe that it’s big enough for both of us unless your ego has inflated to such a size that you need an entire library in order to feel comfortable,” you had said. “Besides, I only wish to return these before heading into the city.” You had lifted the books a fraction before leaving them to the side to be collected.

He had raised that single perfect eyebrow again. “Another attempt to find a suitor? Darling, when will you cease? It’s beginning to look a little pitiful,” he had said, a teasing note clear in his voice. While Loki teased you, oftentimes to utter irritation, he was never outright cruel to you. 

“As you well know, I have many suitors,” you had replied a little haughtily, but were then struck with an idea. A brilliant idea. “One is intending to show me that pleasure den you speak of so often tonight. I’m sure you can imagine how excited I am for that.”

Like you had expected, Loki’s head had shot up from his book, his eyes darkening with an emotion you couldn’t quite place. Lust? Jealousy? Desire? 

“Surely you aren’t being serious?” he had said, his voice low and deep. 

You had arranged your face into one of confusion, knitting your brow and tilting your head as you gazed at him. “Does something about that displease you? Are you concerned that I may be corrupted?”

Loki had scoffed and looked at you with a faint stirring of mirth in his eyes. “Darling, if anything, I’d be concerned that you were the one doing the corrupting.”

You had answered with a brief quirk of your lips, then began to stalk towards the vast table, your heels clicking softly against the stone floor. “Then what are you so concerned about, my prince, hmm?” You stopped and leaned your weight on both hands in front of him, allowing him a generous view of your cleavage. He kept his eyes trained on yours. “Perhaps you’re jealous of the people I might allow to touch me tonight? Kiss me? Bed me?”

Loki’s face remained impassive as usual, with no trace of emotion on his pale features, but you caught the subtle flare of his nostrils as he continued gazing at you. “Don’t be absurd,” he had replied, a sudden hoarseness to his voice. 

A breath of laughter escaped you as you straightened up. “I see the way you look at me, my prince,” you murmured, rounding the table and resting your hands on the high points of the chair. “I know I’m not being absurd.” You leaned down to whisper in his ear. 

He didn’t move, didn’t so much as twitch at your sudden closeness, only returned his attention to the heavy text in front of him. 

His silence was all the confirmation you needed. 

“How much longer are you going to pretend you don’t burn for me?” you had whispered into his hair, all while resting your hands on his leather clad shoulders, feeling them rise and fall with each breath. “How often do you wonder what makes me scream, hmm? Or how I might feel beneath you, begging you for release?” You gently nipped at his earlobe with the last sentence, making him shiver lightly at your touch. At his momentary distraction, you slipped one hand beneath the low collar of his tunic to trace it over the top of his chest. “Don’t you ever wonder what it would feel like to really touch me?”

He was taut as a bow beneath you, a single touch or brief kiss away from snapping apart. “Don’t you wonder how I taste?” you had whispered finally in his ear, licking a light stripe along the soft skin behind. 

The brief hitch in his breathing was so quiet that you almost missed it and, abruptly, he stood from his seat, slamming the heavy volume closed and striding towards the shelves with purpose. You noticed his hands flexing by his sides. “As I told you, I am occupied,” he had said shortly, his voice having lost all firmness and teasing, sounding somewhat strangled and tinged with need. 

A smirk quickly pulled at your lips with his reaction. “As you wish,” you had answered smugly, picking a non-existent piece of fluff from your gown and moving towards the door. “I have a suitor to prepare for, anyway. Have a good evening, Your Highness. I know I will,” you had added teasingly, knowing that this afternoon you had succeeded in hitting your target.

When the double doors had eased closed in the frame, you had all but taken off in a run to the main library only two floors up, knowing that what remained of his resolve was in splinters and likely continuing to fall apart fragment by fragment, drop by drop. 

Raw giddiness flowed freely through you as you darted through the palace hallways, mingling with the heady anticipation of what you had awakened in Frigga’s private library. You could almost hear the final threads of his restraint snapping one by one.

It wouldn’t take long. 

Now, as you slipped like a waif between the shelves and listened to his footsteps become more muffled, you were sure the frantic thundering of your heart would betray your hiding space. Pure adrenaline rushed through your veins as you continued to move away from him, making your entire body thrum with pleasant excitement. You wanted him to find you - you desperately wanted him to find you - but the thrill of the physical chase was almost addictive, making you feel that, for once, you had the upper hand. 

In the distance, the thud of his boots against stone continued to grow fainter, and when it become nothing but a dull echo in the most northern point of the library, you released a quiet breath. For a little longer, you would allow him to pursue you. For a little longer, you would enjoy having the upper hand.

Or so you thought. 

You heard the soft flex of leather before a smooth, almost predatory voice purred behind you, “I do believe you’ve been caught, darling.” 

The sound was so close that you bit back a scream as you whirled around, seeing Loki leaning casually against one of the golden shelves as if he had been waiting patiently for you to stumble across him.

Likely, you realised, he had. 

Over the frantic racing of your heart, you noticed the sudden absence of the footsteps you had believed to be his, and saw the faint shimmer of green dance on his fingertips. 

His seidr. Of course he had tricked you with his damn magic. 

Your eyes shot to his, glimmering with just as much mischief as was reflected in his own, and for a second you considered taking off through the shelves in a burst of pure adrenaline, but Loki was quicker. 

He moved so swiftly that you barely had time to draw breath.

Your back was against the smooth stone wall before any form of protest could take its first breath, your head cushioned from any impact by Loki’s large hand weaving through your hair to cradle your skull. His body was quickly pressed flush against yours, all slender muscles and rough leather that had fiery embers sparking in your blood. A quiet sigh tumbled effortlessly from your lips in a mixture of raw desire and utter contentment; desire for every part of this man and contentment at finally, finally, having him wrapped in your arms.

Your heart’s deepest and most desperate desire for over almost a century.

“The only person you’re bedding tonight, darling, is me,” Loki murmured in your ear, his words so soft, so dangerously seductive, that your hips rolled almost subconsciously into him. “And that will be after I’ve defiled you in this library.” 

The sinful images flooding your mind sent a curse flying from your lips and your chest arching into him in a wordless plea for more. “Is that a promise?” you asked hoarsely, already close to breathless with the anticipation of how he would ruin you. 

Sharp teeth pulling gently on your earlobe and the hard press of his stiff cock against your thigh was all the confirmation you needed.

His lips descended almost frantically along your jaw and down the column of your neck, as though he feared you would soon disappear through his fingers like smoke in the wind. The feel of his kiss - wet and heavy and lingering - had fresh sparks dance joyously in your core. How deeply you had hungered for his touch. Steadily, his lips trailed lower, kissing and sucking their way along your décolletage and collarbone until there was no doubt you’d be wearing his marks tomorrow. 

Marks that would proudly declare who you belonged to. Who you had always belonged to

Your entire body felt as though it had been submerged in a pool of molten flames and every touch only intensified the heat. His hands soon climbed from where they had been resting on your waist to slide easily beneath the silk bodice of your gown, fighting their way to your breasts and sending delicate pearl buttons pinging on the stone floor of the library. 

“You’ll…you’ll be replacing that bodice…, my prince,” you panted in a weak effort at teasing him, not caring in the slightest for the lilac fabric he had ripped so unceremoniously. 

Quiet laughter rumbled in his chest while he pushed the remnants of the fabric aside with cool fingers, exposing your breasts to the almost frigid air of the library. “If I believed for one second, darling, that you were vexed then I would make it my life’s humble mission,” he murmured,  his lips still moving down your flushed chest. “As it is, I don’t believe you truly are.” He took a hardened nipple between one thumb and forefinger as evidence, twisting it lightly to pull a piercing cry from you. 

“Bastard,” you replied through a contented smile, not fighting the urge to arch your chest into his touch.

There was no reply, only his warm, eager mouth encircling one peaked nipple, licking and biting and robbing you of any further words with which to tease him. His tongue continued to tease you with lazy, deft strokes, each one telling you precisely what he was capable of elsewhere. With every languid, wet flick and sharp bite, every firm roll of his hips to ensure you felt the evidence of his desire for you, you gave up on your attempts to disrobe him - having only managed to push his heavy outer leather from his shoulders - and allowed yourself to submerge beneath the wave of pleasure he was drowning you with.

“The rest of me…is becoming quite jealous,” you said through an almost serene sigh when his attention switched to your other breast. 

Loki sank his teeth sharply into your nipple in reply, the sudden switch from his warm tongue having your chest jerk towards his mouth. “Well, we simply can’t have that, can we?” he purred. His hands fell away from where he had rested them on your hips and, with mischief glittering in his eyes like winter sun on snow, he folded to his knees before you. 

A Prince of Asgard. On his knees. For you. 

The sight was so sinful and his eyes were burning with such unbridled lust that your head fell back to hit the stone wall, your deep groan echoing in the stillness of the space. Another colourful curse chased it when Loki reached for the hem of your gown, bunching it easily around your waist and leaving you all but bare between the shelves of the library. With a firm hand, he pinned your skirts to your stomach, while the other made short work of the flimsy lace of your underwear, pulling them down your bare legs in one smooth movement. 

You almost lost leave of your senses when he tucked the black lace into the pocket of his trousers. 

“Spread your legs for me, darling,” he spoke softly, a note of hoarseness already creeping into his voice. You obeyed easily and were rewarded with his appreciative little hum. “Stunning.”

His soft voice and even softer breath had your hips jerk erratically towards him, your hand tangling in his silky curls to push him towards where you ached. “Please,” you gasped, unable to live without his touch for a second longer. 

Keeping his eyes locked on yours he leaned in and you felt the glorious wet heat of his tongue lick a firm stripe along the length of your cunt. It was Valhalla and Folkvangr combined. His tongue was like a cooling balm on a scorching summer's day, proving the relief you hadn’t known you had been aching for. 

A groan gurgled deep in the back of your throat and you rocked your hips shamelessly against his mouth, already addicted to the sweet bliss he was bestowing on you. Loki guided one of your hands to take hold of your skirts, allowing him to then firmly slide his hands around to the globes of your ass and pull you tight against his mouth. You were trapped in the most magnificent way, having no escape from the firm, incessant licking of his tongue and sucking of his lips. He moaned against your cunt and you answered with a high whimper of your own. You never wanted the torture to end. 

He firmly pinched the skin of your ass as he gripped you to him, sending a stream of unbroken whines and whimpers tumbling through the air. The feel of his hands and the lewd sound of his tongue licking your cunt, switching between long, firm strokes and tiny, teasing circles, had the edge build within your core like a wildfire, the flames whipping around you incessantly and threatening to overcome you in a blissful explosion. 

“Loki…I’m gonna come,” you said in a single unbroken breath, rocking your hips more erratically within his grip. 

His only answer was clamping you more firmly to his mouth, his tongue settling in a firm unbroken rhythm, tasting every inch of you, and sending you hurtling towards a euphoric free fall. Your hand was clamped in his hair while the other kept a loose hold of your gown, your knees feeling wobbly beneath you as the beginning of your orgasm washed over you. The moans of pleasure that left you were shameless, wanton, whorish, but you were past caring. Loki looked so sinful beneath your legs and felt so divine that you couldn’t have cared less if the Allfather himself rounded the corner. All that mattered in that moment was chasing the toe curling pleasure he was giving you. 

“Fuck!” The single curse left you as you toppled completely over, your hips now bucking frantically against his mouth, eyes slipping closed and missing the primal lust that alighted in his at seeing you unravel. “Fuck…Loki…,” you tried to speak, but your words melted into nothing but a continuous whine as the pleasure wracked you. 

Loki didn’t ease in his attentions as you climaxed around him, ensuring that every last drop of pleasure was pulled from your shaking body before sucking your clit one final time and leaning back on his heels, his lips and chin glistening with your essence. 

Your chest heaved, hands going slack in his hair as you came down from your high, your head so blissfully empty that little hums of contentment were all you could conjure. Lazily, you watched Loki return to his feet, towering above you and looking as drunk on pleasure as you were. 

“I rather think you enjoyed that, darling,” he purred, looking smugger than you’d ever seen him. 

Still half drunk in the wake of your release, you could only roll your head towards him. “Shut up,” you said, though a smile flickered on your lips. 

He returned it and leaned in to kiss you, the taste of yourself still tangy on his tongue. You wrapped yourself around him, relishing the heavy, secure feel of him between your arms. When he didn’t break the kiss, didn’t make any indication of wishing to release you, your hand drifted to his cock still straining against his leather. You wanted to give him the pleasure he’d given you. 

“Loki, please,” you said softly, breaking away from his lips. “I need you.”

He grinned wickedly at your plea, but only pulled you in for another, surprisingly gentle, kiss. “Not here, darling. Let me take you to my chambers. I wish to do this properly.” 

You felt heat blossom beneath your cheeks at what his reply suggested. “Only if you promise to take me right now,” you said, giving him a coy grin of your own. 

Loki gave a low growl in reply, bent to lock his arms behind your knees, and tossed you easily over his shoulder. “Oh, my darling. I thought you’d never ask.”

Tags:

@sailorholly @joyful-enchantress @muddyorbs @ozymdias @fandxmslxt69 @trickster-maiden @lokixryss @silverfire475 @wolfsmom1 @lokisgoodgirl @cake-writes @vickie5446 @lokidbadguy @unabashed-lover-of-fictional-men @all-envy-suyu @erynion-rogueofthegreenwoods @gortycs @katehawke @123forgottherest @fictive-sl0th @lovingchoices14 @peanutbutter-y-jams @wintermischief @gigglingtigger @kinky-faerie

[owfwandotherstuff]

My take on the ow voice headcanon (Japanese dub edition)

Most of them are taken from sample clips, and it's more like "they could play the role" than "they do play the role", actually none of them make sense

Iggy

Definitely an “every protagonist these days” type voice, but not “a hero in apprentice” kind of one

Which means you can dig down the large mine of actors, and you must dig down the large mine of actors

So I think it’s fine

Genzou

Forget the “crackly” part. The market doesn’t have the section and everyone sounds like a photoshopped skin

It was hard to find someone who can play a chubby man and sounds deep but doesn’t sound like seven-foot tall, not young but doesn’t sound like sixty years old (or actually sixty years old)

The VA is quite versatile, and this clip is the only sample of him acting in a thick-deep range

Orlam

I was looking up a sample of a lowered, naturally high-pitched voice with a squeaky tone, and I found the latter clip. I thought it’s neat and checked the other samples of the VA

He’s telling a dirty joke in the former clip, and in one of the other clips that isn't included in the video, he says, “It’s hard to date only one woman" "I have a European-styled philosophy. There's only two important things in life: wine and women” I burst out laughing

Gidget

An upper-middle-range voice in non-anime is a lower-middle-range voice in anime

The VA plays a lot of boy roles, and in the latter clip she’s acting as a boy or acting very boyish, so the voice could lean toward androgynous

Bucks

The VA did Katie from Mitchells vs. Machines, which is a rare example of a female protagonist who keeps the same tone as the original, and her sample clip has what I needed

Hunar

I think Hunar’s voice sounds a bit deep (for an anime standard) and has some maturity

Cecil

Sounds clear and handsome, an every protagonist type but “acting in deeper range” kind of voice, like, you know

Jerry

I chose a legend because I think it’s okay to make rabbits sound old

The clip is taken from Jujutsu Kaisen because his sample clip doesn’t have his iconic squeaky falsetto

[sirensea14]

Sona redesignnnn‼️

This is quite out of the blue buuut i wanted my sona to be more fish accurate so here she is

And...

Oh my shit, i have references i only noticed just now (my mind just subconsciously put them)

I'll yap about it and no one can stop me

The dots under and above the eyes are a reference to what i did on my Masskara (mask for a festival: Masskara festival) the day we performed it (so many sections were there and and we were the last to perform i think, so i had time to decorate a bit lol)

That diamond on her forehead is a reference to tsunade/sakura's diamon mark (forgot whats it called but it was one of my favorite powers as a kid)

Her always-floating-up hair is kinda an indirect reference to my previous version when angry (or possibly my oc who can control her hair like tentacles, i wont tell anything abt her tho)

The 4 urchins are a reference to my country's flag: 3 stars (3 visible urchins ) and the sun (1 hidden urchin) Filipino pride🗿🇵🇭

My sona in IM still remains the same, only difference is the hair, but im too lazy to edit it so meh proceeds to forget my sona in batdr as a cutout, anti-heroine, NMT and EF au, etc etc shit that ive done when i still had time to do art. Nahh i will never redo those shit, unless my future self decides to lol

Blank version ig

Also, i adjusted her scale color because she lurks on the dark deep waters more compared to my prev sona design. And by dark deep depths, i mean by the angler fish type of depths, or maybe deeper. Other than that, dont interact with that creature, she'll either steal your soul (literally) or slice your throat (if lazy)

[naranjapetrificada]

I was having a WIP chat with one of my betas (@epersonae) earlier and one thing she said is there's probably a universe where people who understood what the show was trying to do with Izzy are able to joyfully dig into his character because there's no canyon and I'm currently feeling very jealous. I've already been having to think about him lately and ironically my other beta (@sabra-n) said something yesterday in a completely different context that's got me turning him over in my mind no matter how much I'd rather think about anything else.

I've mentioned before that it always feels like the Ed POV sections take the longest to feel right, and yesterday sabra was like "what if it's because your Ed's so different from canon?" So when I sat down to get some work done with that in mind, I started thinking about how it's probably going to continue to be tough to write this Ed when he a) didn't have the abusive father of canon, b) has two older sisters who love him and c) has a social position where Izzy's influence can't look the way it did in canon.

Deep in my braindump document for this fic there are plans for and half-written scenes about violence, legacy, performing masculinity, daddy issues, trauma, and other themes from the show, but in order to get into stuff like that that will help put Ed as a character in more familiar territory, I'll have to come at it sideways. And Izzy could be a really great vector for that here, even if it doesn't look the way the show did, and that means I'm stuck thinking deeper about that greasy little rat (affectionate? nah, not quite) more than I've ever wanted to.

I figured out a way to make him useful in this way, but it's going to require giving him a level of interiority I don't want to. In that other universe, where you don't feel like you have to be on your guard to defend yourself from canyon takes, giving Izzy interiority could be a really fun writing challenge! But with the miasma of just...everything that's happened in our version of the fandom that's harder, because in our reality we've had to think about him even when we didn't feel like it, just because we were trying to wrap our minds around all ass-backwards canyon takes.

I hope there's a version of me in that universe writing this fic. If there is, she's probably already posted chapter 3 because she had a lower barrier for entry with accepting the amount of thinking about Izzy that's been required. She's also probably less worried about accidentally making him sympathetic, so she doesn't have to confront her lack of experience writing unreliable narrators. That bitch is so lucky.

(another thing I said to Elaine earlier about writing Izzy is that at least we're both miserable, which should probably be its own tag. At least I have the consolation of knowing that he's definitely having a worse time living the story than I am writing it.)

[rueitae]

I've just come back into the fandom after a few years and I stumbled onto your player teacher au and I am Obsessed and in fact I love everything you've written but teacher player lives in my head rent free. And I just wanted you to know that.. have a good day 💜

Thank you so much. I meant to answer this a long time ago but the family got hit with colds.

From the bottom of my heart thank you. Teacher AU has a place in my heart forever. As a thanks, here’s a teaser for the direction I want to go with it:

“What?”

Twin shrieks in a distinct Boston accent echo through Player’s surround sound, so much so that the hacker winces and presses the hotkey on his keyboard to turn down the volume just a notch or five. Zack sounds utterly confused and Ivy carries the intense rage of a cat denied its morning meal.

Maybe Player should not have started out so bluntly.

“They have no idea who I am,” Player emphasizes to the team on the other end of the video call. Ashamedly, he briefly looks away. “At least, I don’t think they do. Otherwise they never would have let me leave, right?” he finishes with nervous laughter.

Immediately upon arriving home, he’d texted Carmen to organize a team meeting. Urgent. Then spent the next hour combing every square inch of his apartment, looking for bugged mics or cameras. Part of him worries his rudimentary skills in that department might have caused him to miss something. He wishes Carmen were here. In person.

There is a long, long sigh from Shadowsan’s section of the screen. The man closes his eyes tightly as if attempting to will away a headache. “My former colleagues have never been the kind to quit.” He opens his eyes and he looks already ten years older. Tired. “VILE has remained successfully hidden for eight centuries, until now. The Faculty will not be content to be known as the ones who saw its downfall.”

“Which is why this situation is perfect,” Player adds animatedly. He holds his hands in front of him, where they itch to do…something. Anything for those kids. For his team. To take down VILE for good before they can do any more harm. “VILE doesn’t know my face. They don’t even know I exist. I’m literally the perfect spy.”

A light cough takes Player’s attention to the other ACME agents on this call.

“Spies undergo years of intense training for dangerous situations such as this one,” Julia says carefully. She wears her business casual today rather than her ACME uniform. Not on official business, yet, Player supposes. She looks as if she’s at her desk at home.“I did not teach you any of it in your graduate classes.”

“We have enough simply knowing Tigress is there,” Devineaux adds. He attempts to casually lean over Julia’s shoulder. “Should we not just…go get them?” the agent shrugs his arms to the left as if ready to go get the keys and go to the car.

“I’m with Devineaux,” Ivy pipes up. The rage contained within her eyes looks as if a volcano is about to erupt. “VILE’s done enough. Let’s nab ‘em quick. Like you said, Player. They wouldn’t even know we’re coming.”

Player sighs, settling deeper into his chair, feeling defeated already that the team is not on his side. “Because it’s not just the academy students this time around. VILE’s starting them earlier. I’ll be teaching fourteen year olds. If I stay undercover, we can find out for sure who all from VILE is there, lure them into a trap for ACME, all without risking the students getting hurt.”

The call goes silent, then. Player wonders if the others can feel it too, the proverbial elephant in the room. The one person who hasn’t spoken yet is the one person who Player values the opinion of over all else. If Carmen shoots down this idea, then that’s it.

She sits in her mother’s office, Player can tell. The full set of her Russian nesting dolls is on the bookshelf behind her, along with several mother-daughter pictures, and one father-daughter picture. Carmen leans back in the chair, as if deep in thought. There are wrinkles under her eyes as well, looking far too tired. Player’s heart hurts for her. She doesn’t deserve this.

Finally, she looks him in the eye. “I don’t like this, Player.” It isn’t a firm answer, but it's an honest one. Her voice feels more like a plea, one for him not to convince her that this is their best option.

Player can’t oblige. “I don’t like it either, but it really is our best shot, Red. We’ve been given an in. We really can’t ignore it.”

“Jules is right,” Carmen comes back with. “You’re a hacker, Player. This is a whole different kind of spy work.”

“All I have to do is teach geography,” Player states clearly.

“For VILE,” Carmen states just as clearly. But her eyes quickly become overcast, building into a storm. “You’d be teaching for VILE.”

[space-blue]

Speedpaint + quick tut on how I do Na'vi skin/stripes with video and screenshots

Here's the video to go along, but I'll go step by step with screenshots

We start with a base layer for the skin. I make a clip layer on top and be sure to also fill it the same base blue, because otherwise the blending properties of the brushes won't apply.

This is meant to be low detail so I won't give it too much colour, but I make the throat and centre of the face lighter, the eyes and ears pink/redder.

Then it's time to decide on light direction/angle and how it affects geometry. Doing a little of that really helps, but you don't have to paint the way I did there... Got lost in the sauce.

Add another clip layer on top, set it to multiply, and get started.

There are many ways to do stripes. I do mine entirely by hand, in a style of painting and erasing with the same brush but inverted. It's a lot like sculpting. Doing everything by hand guarantees a lack of uniformity. See the video for this step.

Now that I'm happy with the look I have, I UNCLIP the layer of stripes, revealing the places I went beyond the skin. That's fine.

Add a layer on top of Stripes. Clip it to stripe.

Right click on Stripe layer. Click "selection from layer > create selection"

Now you have a bar under the selection with shortcuts we're going to use.

Reduce the selection. The amount of pixels depends on the size of your drawing. Play around!

Now inverst the selection. So you're not drawing inside of it but outside of it only.

Select the multiply layer on top of the Stripes.

Paint in! In the reference above I used a deep purple to highlight what it should look like, but obviously you want a light blue.

Tweak colour and transparency of that layer as needed!

Then I use a blur brush (I prefer Maablur Brush, it's free iirc), and the soft eraser, in various areas so it's not entirely uniform.

See what the stripes look like on these people :

Q is quite dark with less light inside some sections. Meanwhile Neteyam has a very thin dark lining around his face stripes :

They're generally pretty desaturated. Body stripes also seem to be much more blurry in general :

Anyway, MERGE that multiple layer to the Stripe layer. CLIP the Stripe layer back to the skin.

Now it's time to erase or blur as you wish. I tend to erase around the nose, cheeks and throat.

Even Metkayina have that erased quality :

I add sanhi on a layer set to "add glow" and pick a teal colour. I either do it manually in pencil or with a dot brush.

Final tweaks of saturation and transparency, maybe playing around with "add" or "multiply" layers for quick highlights on top of everything or deeper shadows.

That's it! That's how I always do stripes, no matter how rendered the skin underneath. Elias needs more work before he's done, but it's a good preview, I hope.

[system-of-a-feather]

Related to the last post, but as someone whose gone relatively far with DID recovery - DID recovery is a long journey and process with a long expected time needed to be in therapy to "recover" that sometimes is a life long thing - some people with DID will always be in therapy for their life

And at least from personal experience, that often is interpreted as "I will never be happy and I have to work extraordinarily hard to be ok in life, i have to get help all the time to get what others get without any help"

But with where I am at currently, I realize it is a lot less of "I am so broken I need years of treatment to look even remotely ok" and a lot more of "There is A LOT of things in my life that my past has made a mess of that I have grown used to and accustomed to living with, and because of that, there are SO many ways my life could improve and get better - of course it would take years to not only make my life okay but to make it Flourish."

Cause in the midst of the early stages of healing, all you want is for peace and for things to stop hurting and it can be very easy to perceive the healing journey as one of just trying to get back and "be okay" because that IS where you start

But what you are actually doing is often (save for the very earliest stages usually) not "making yourself okay" but identifying and finding things in your life that could improve your life and make it better for you.

Early on, finding those areas tend to be in places others never had to worry about and are heavily motivated by a need to not feel pain, but later on, it just becomes a deep skill and insight into "what things don't serve me and what things from my childhood and past have lead me into directions that don't make me happy or don't make me as happy as I want" which really is something the average person deals with as well around their young adult ages to their early (general) adulthood.

I was having trouble wording this part of the explanation, so I'll just embrace it being a bit not-flowing, but with DID and C-PTSD you start at a much much shittier starting point than the average person, and that sucks that FUCKING sucks, but it also leaves you to have MUCH MUCH MUCH more room for growth and improvement than the "average person". You start lower, but you can really experience so much more growth that will in turn form a basis for deep insight and overall happiness in life compared to those that didn't start on Hard Mode.

Either way, I'm loosing my flow of thought, so Ill just share a related section from A Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki that I really liked that relates to this:

In our scripture it is said that there are four kinds of horses -- an excellent one, and not so good ones, and bad horse. The best horse will run before it sees the shadow of the whip. That is the best one. The second one will run just before the whip reaches his skin. The third one will run when it feels pain on his body. The fourth one will run after the pain penetrates into the marrow of his bone. That is the worst one. When we hear this story, perhaps everyone wants to be a good horse -- the best horse. Even if it is impossible to be the best one we want to be the second best. That is quite usual understanding of horse. But actually when we sit you will understand whether we are the best horse or the not-so-good ones. Here we have some problem in understanding of Zen. Zen is not the practice to be the best horse. If you think so -- if you understand Zen as a kind of practice to be a best horse you will have a problem -- big problem. That is not the right understanding of Zen. Actually, if you practice right Zen, whether you are the best horse or worst one doesn't matter. That is not the point. If you think of the mercy of Buddha, what do you think the Buddha will feel? He will be more sympathetic with the worst one rather than with the best one. So if you have the right understanding of Zen, or deeper understanding, worst horse should be most valuable horse. And because of the imperfect character of ourselves we have to express our inmost feeling through our imperfect body and characters. Usually those who can sit physically perfect take more time to obtain the marrow of Zen -- the true taste of Zen -- actual feeling of Zen. Those who find a great difficulty in practice of Zen will find more meaning of Zen. So sometimes I think the best horse is the worst horse and the worst horse is the best one. Sometimes. If you study calligraphy, usually those who are not so clever will become best calligraphers, and those who are very clever at his hand will find great difficulty to attain excellent calligraphy. That is quite usual in our art and religion. So we cannot say, "He is good," or "he is bad." The posture we take is not the same. For someone it is impossible to take this posture. Even though he cannot take right posture he can practice Zen in its true sense. In our everyday life we are always ashamed of our self -- reflecting what we are doing. Some student wrote me saying, "You sent me a calendar, and I am trying to follow the good message of the calendar, and I find the calendar undaunted by failure." The calendar is a calendar of failure.

[awakenedsalamander]

Hey so as a new DM getting into WoD (coming from D&D and Cyberpunk) where would you recommend starting for reading up on Mage?

I’ve got both VtM and HtR and there good sourcebooks but I’ve been told Mage has all the ‘deeper’ lore. I just don’t know where to start.

[Note: I answered this question in typical long-winded fashion, so you can skip to the numbered list at the end for a somewhat shorter summary of how I’d get into Mage, if you prefer. Also, this is my own opinion— I can’t promise it’ll work, but I know it worked for me, at least when I started actually doing it intentionally.]

This is a relatable problem!

So, I got into Mage by picking up pieces of the lore from a distance over the course of a couple years, and then diving into the M20 corebook while they were offering it for free during the pandemic. I read the intro, then skimmed the book, with a focus on parts I was interested in, and over the course of the past three years I’ve read almost all of it by now. It’s almost 700 pages of weird, dense material and while if I wanted to I could have gotten all of it read much quicker, it still would have been quite the task, which is not ideal for a game.

Alright, how should you do it then?

Okay, first, put aside the notion of “deeper” lore at least for the moment. Don’t let the fans of Mage who wax lyrical about how important and wild and vast the implications of the Ascension books are. While Mage does get pretty out there, it does not and should not overshadow the other games. Gehenna’s still coming, for instance, don’t let the incident with what was *maybe* the Ravnos Antediluvian take away from that.

Seriously though, it’s easy to get intimidated by certain Mage fans. They can be kind of a snobby crowd, frankly, and not just in the fun pretentious way. Enjoy it at you own pace, those guys think they know the game— nah. A lot of them just know the metaplot, and that does not a game make.

Approach Mage more like an all you can eat buffet, and you’re getting from it what you want. As much or as little, as big or as small, as focused or as broad as makes sense for your interests. You take the parts you want as you like, and go from there. There’ll be time for the rest when you’ve found your footing.

So, if I were to do it all over…

1st— Get ready to take the plunge—but carefully, and with some intent. Steel yourself with some deep breaths, and grab a book to get started with. I do actually recommend the 20th Anniversary Edition to get started, but it is a lot, so if you’re worried about getting distracted or overwhelmed, Revised should work too. (I personally think Revised is just a bit too limited in its take on the setting, but that’s really subjective.) Don’t start reading quite yet, though, just pick the book you want to start with.

2nd— Be ready to ask questions. I’m putting this up early not because you’ll necessarily have questions immediately, but it’s always intimidating to be confused and have questions, so just know that there are folks in the community who will be polite in answering questions.

I’ve had luck with r/WhiteWolfRPG in the past, but I haven’t dipped in there for a while so they may have gotten worse. The Onyx Path forums are generally fairly nice, though. And here on Tumblr I have to think there are people, though I’m new here. Still, I can speak for myself and say— I love questions!

3rd— Alright, here’s what I’d do now. Read the first chapter or so, enough that you know what this setting even is, and then it’s time to find the parts that you are interested in specifically. For example, I’m really into alchemy, hermeticism, that kind of ceremonial magic, and mashing that into a modern setting— playing someone trying to do this old school classical wizardry in the 21st century, basically. So I’d jump into the relevant sections of M20– I’d read about the Traditions, the faction most into old school magic, then read specifically about the Order of Hermes, the Verbena, maybe a few other factions like the Children of Knowledge and the Hollow Ones, and go to any linked relevant sections I’m interested in, such as the write-ups for Alchemy and High Ritual Magick in M20. I would recommend doing something similar. If you don’t know where to start at all, I’d recommend looking at paradigms, the Orphans, and maybe Avatars. That’ll give you the kind of basic introduction a newly-Awakened mage would get. Also, probably stay away from the Umbra for now. It’s got a ratio of weirdness-to-size that makes it a tricky thing to grasp, at least at first.

At this point you might still be confused, just cause it’s a lot to reckon with, but you should be grounded in the details that you plan on working with. You’re building the foundation, hopefully in a way that’s not too confusing.

4th— Something I find helpful for getting to know a game is making my own character, so when you’re comfortable with that notion, I’d suggedt getting a character sheet and finding the section for character creation, then going through it and filling out that sheet as needed. You may never play this character, but in doing so you’re getting a feel for how the mechanics and setting interact, and you’ll probably start to get some knowledge of the basic Mage-specific rules. If you’re like me, you’ll naturally be curious enough to check out those sections, but even if not you’ll still learn more.

5th— Now I’d say to just widen out from where you are. This may take the form of just reading the whole damned thing now, straight through, but for me with M20 that was still kinda scary. There’s just so much. So I read about the things I felt that I knew about, but only vaguely. The Technocratic Union, the nature of Paradox, how paradigm works mechanically, Avatars, that sort of thing. At this point you’ll likely be familiar with your corner of the setting and get a view of how it fits into the wider whole. If you’re feeling ambitious, you might jump into some crossover stuff— what happens if a mage drinks vampire blood, or how werewolves and the Awakened fight over Caerns/Nodes… I was a little overcautious about weaving in the larger World of Darkness when I was getting started, but I know that’s how some new players get a foothold.

(Optional 6th— On that note, I find Mage is a lot easier to run if you’ve gotten some experience with other WoD games. Maybe run a one-shot of one of them, or even a quick mini-chronicle, just so you know the basic rules and find your grove for Storytelling in the setting. You might feel you’re ready to just dive into Mage, and you might be! But I learned that I needed more practice, so just a word of advice.)

I wish you the best of luck! You’re stepping into some weird and wonderful stuff— magic, mystery, and madness, all that— and it takes some time. I hope you enjoy your journey, and remember, it’s never wrong to have questions.

Other than that…

You’re ready.

It’s time to Awaken. Begin walking your Path.

[stevenbasic]

GITJ Post 338: A Saturday at Melissa’s, p13 (10:20PM: Dr. J)

I shudder to think back on it now, but I had my face buried in Melissa’s hair as we left the assembled crowd of my employees. They buzzed all around us in the great room of her house and I could hear them talking about me. But if this was embarrassing, being brought away from the evening party like a little kid, then the silken sea of her shampoo’d mane was a soft, scented sanctuary. She smelled of lilacs. I didn’t, at this point in the day, have the strength of will to look at anyone, but after only a few impossibly long strides of Melissa’s we were away from the crowd. I was carried the whole way, held against her side like an overgrown toddler. She took me from the great room up the stairs towards her bedroom. Each doorway we approached caused her to duck, unintentionally bouncing me as she squeezed my bottom even tighter. She was so tall in these platform heels that our heads rose more than seven feet above the ground. When she did duck under a door she would look me in the eyes, warmly, watching me appreciate her great height.  Finally, though, we were in her room. 

“Would you like me to put you down?” she whispered in my ear, her warm breath causing my skin and bones to shiver, her voice deep and rich and shaking me deeper still. 

“Y-you don’t have to,” I answered, surprising myself. Yes, I was feeling beyond humiliated but it was nice to feel the strength and size of her, her big left breast smushed warmly into my side through her thick knit sweater. She smelled great, and I felt safe and protected. I didn’t want to be away from her body.

She was happy, it seemed, to just hold me, hold me and carry me about her room, taking me on a little tour. She jostled me, at times, playfully, as she stepped about, showing me this thing and that, swaying me back and forth like a child. Her mother had moved just within the past couple of years into this home, and Melissa had never really lived here herself. But there were trinkets, photos, some nostalgic pieces from her childhood that had been collected. Photos from several different schools, a cheerleading trophy that read “Regional Runner-Ups”, a time-worn teddy bear sitting on a dresser, all things that called to mind a past that Melissa, really, had never told me much about. I knew she moved a lot as a kid, with her mom. Past that I was vague on the details. 

Alongside all the memories, though, I couldn’t help but notice one area, a section of shelving on the wall outside her closet that had a messy little pile of stuff. I spotted  a picture of me in a frame, a casual shot she’d snapped at the office a while back. Also in the pile were some movie ticket stubs, a receipt, maybe from one of our dates, and also a piece of my clothing. An old tee-shirt I’d been missing, now covered in what looked like lipstick surrounded by a toothbrush, also mine, a pair of white briefs and  several old, used tissues. 

“What’s all that?” I asked, as she carried me by it. 

“Oh, haha,” she laughed, “that’s my Jay shelf. Or, shelves. Stuff that makes me think of you.” She sounded a bit embarrassed but figuring…well, I don’t know what she was figuring. She carried me in for a closer look. “Isn’t that picture of you so adorable? I’ve got another couple I want to put up. And, can I keep your socks from yesterday?”

Huh, I thought, noticing the twin taper candles she’d stood in holders on the middle shelf, this is odd. But part of me warmed, seeing what this beautiful woman had done. “I’m…flattered,” I told her. She must really like me! “And, uh, sure on the socks.”

She giggled, thanking me. “Maybe someday I’ll just put you up there,” she beamed, “so I can take you down and play with you anytime I want!”

Melissa was funny. I sometimes didn’t quite know when she was joking, like this was just some “crazy girlfriend” shtick and I’d play along because she was just so fucking sexy. Honestly, if anything these games were either pretty sweet or smokin’ hot but sometimes she sounded just plain crazy. In the end, though, even that was all easy to ignore in a girlfriend when she’s as gorgeous as Melissa. With my girlfriend carrying me around her bedroom with her massive left boob squashed into my middle, who was I to complain? “Haha th-that’d be-” 

“Or maybe I’ll put you up on my dresser next to Ted,” she interrupted, as we were stepping away already. “He’s my first boyfriend. I keep him right…over…here.”

“Ted is…?” I began, having been turned to face a stuffed bear which sat, slouched softly, against the wall atop Melissa’s high dresser, “This guy?”

“Haha yes!” she giggled, reaching out with her free right hand to the teddy bear, a classic brown plushie. It looked old, worn, like it had seen a life full of cuddles. A childhood friend, perhaps. “Ted and I started dating before my mom let me have real boys,” she spoke in all earnesty, now holding the bear right up to her face, looking straight into his black, beaded eyes, “Isn’t that right, Ted?”

This, for example, was one of those times where Melissa sounded crazy. But, I thought, taking the moment to glance down at her big boobs, crazy girls are sexy, right?

At that she giggled, and bit her lower lip. “Yeah, we didn’t have much money. My mom didn’t get me a lot of toys,” she mused, her voice a bit faraway, “but I always had Ted to play with. And he was my first boyfriend.”

The fact that we were there, the two of us - this teddy bear and me - each held in our own way in opposite arms by this big beautiful girl, was not lost on me. She, in fact, turned him…it…to face me, to look in its beady, slightly off-center eyes. 

“You two should be introduced,” she continued, jostling me up at her side, resettling me, “Ted, this is Jay. My new boyfriend. Don’t be jealous, but he and I are in love.” She paused, as if listening to the thing’s response. “And, Jay…this is Ted. The first boy I kissed. The first boy who…haha got to sit on my bed and watch me change. The first boy who ever got to do…this.”

At that, Melissa took the teddy bear, still in hand, and lowered him a bit. Though she was cradling me in her left arm she was able to use her left hand to pull out the lower hem of her sweater and I watched as she maneuvered ‘Ted’ up under it, sliding him up under her heavy knit top. She released the hem, and pulled out her right hand, leaving him in there. 

“There you go,” she playfully spoke down to the thing, through her sweater, which she smoothed out over her big bosom with her hand, “right in there with my boobies.“

I swallowed, dryly, imagining the thing’s situation right now, shoved up in there, beneath, between and under Melissa’s breasts. I could barely see the extra lump under there, that’s how large her chest was. “H-he was the first boy who ever got to do that?” I found myself asking, my interest entirely too prurient, "Ha..ha…maybe I should be jealous…"

That made Melissa coo and squeal. “No, you don’t have to be jealous haha…he was the first and only,” she laughed, now turning to fix me with those big, glittering eyes of gold and green and brown, “unless you want to try?”

My heart- my heart was beating so quickly now, and I’m sure she felt me shudder up against her. Good god! I was struck speechless. 

Melissa continued, blithely. “But, I know being buried up in my cleavage like that, under my sweater, can get tooo hot. Isn’t that right, Ted? Are you hot in there?” she said, looking back down again at her chest, considering. “So, maybe someday I have a little chain made, and this clasp we can snap around you,” she continued, talking to me, musing on the possibility like it could be an actual thing, “I’ll wear it around my neck, and it’ll keep you from sinking too deep.”

Nnnghh. “i-i-into your cleavage?” I stammered, dumbly.

“Yeah,” she answered.

You don’t want to have me as a toy, a companion, like that bear, I thought, already hardened into steel against her left hip, you want to wear me like a necklace. 

“And,” Melissa continued, “I promised Ted that when we grew up and I married him, that he wouldn’t have to get a real job. That I’d take care of him.” Melissa bit her lower lip, watched my face. “He liked the idea,” she said, “but, how would you feel about that?”

“h-how would I feel if…?”

“I asked you this before, in the hot tub. Would you like that? If I kept you here as a stay-at-home husband?” 

Was she joking? Or was she serious? 

“I’m serious, I’d do that for you,” she said plainly, causing me to flinch at the timing “I’ve been so happy with you, with how relaxed you are away from work, with us, with the girls. I like how good you’re being, and I’m so proud of you.”

Oh my god, what..? Why did that make me feel so good??

“I love how you’re letting me take care of you, and I want to reward you,” she said, as the crazy fantasy of being a house-husband, waiting for my big, beautiful, head-of-the-household and successful, breadwinner wife to get home coalesced in my brain. Haha there’s no w- “in fact, that reminds me! I have presents!”

“P-presents?” I asked, ripped from my reverie by another change of topic. I was starting to realize that Melissa, here, was really getting worked up, more manic. 

“Yes! I’m so excited. Shanette and I, we were shopping earlier, and I bought you more cute things. I want to show you!”

Okay, the pajamas were new, she’d had me wearing those. They were a nice gesture, if a little humiliating, but she’d bought me more? Yes, I guess so, and she was obviously set on showing them off to me. She put me down onto my feet, first making sure I didn’t fall on my wobbly legs. Then she casually took the bear out from under her sweater and carelessly tossed him aside back onto the dresser. Next she retrieved several shopping bags full of clothes from the bed as she sat in a soft corner chair of white fabric, facing me. Melissa seemed super giddy, energized, maybe because everything was going so well. Was it because I was being a ‘good boy’?  

Eagerly, she waved me closer to her. But before I stepped forward, I took in a deep breath. Her enormous aura was filling the room, and I felt it swallowing my weak self. Seated there, smiling broadly with her statuesque and uncompromising posture, her firm bustline jutted straight out in her striped sweater, emphasizing enormous, unapologetic curves that no male eye could ignore…certainly not mine. Her figure made me docile, I realized it even then but didn’t mind; I counted myself lucky just to be able to be in the same room as that massively buxom body. Sitting up straight like this also had the unintentional effect of exposing her midriff, complete with its tiny waistline and gentle six-pack abs. Her shoulders, strongly squared, radiated quiet power, as did the twin pillars of her legs. She was not only mind-blowingly gorgeous and miraculously built, but as I stood humbly in front of her she just seemed so…superior. 

Again she waved me towards her, now a bit impatient. She began to show off the clothes she’d bought for me - pants, shirts, socks, a belt. Understanding that she wanted me to try them on, I began unbuttoning my pajama top. 

“No,” she directed, one large hand coming up to my chest to stop me. “Step towards me. I want to undress you.”

Without a word I complied, and let her start. As she unbuttoned me she noticed something on one side of my neck. She cocked her head with a wry little smile. “Who did this, hm?” she asked.

“Did what?” I asked, not knowing what she was talking about. 

Melissa reached for a handheld mirror on the bureau alongside where she was sitting, She showed me a hickey on the right side of my neck.

“Huh,” I muttered with a shrug. I don’t remember how that got there. “One of the girls?”

“Obviously,” she chuckled, “come here.” With that, an arm from behind me drew me closer, so she could inspect my injury. “Is it sore?” she asked. 

“Uh…a little,” I answered. It actually was a little tender, now that I knew about it.  

“Aww, poor thing, you have a boo-boo,” she cooed, “Here, let mama kiss and make it better.” Holding me steady with her right hand on my hip, Melissa then raised her free left hand to her lips. She kissed her own palm gently, with a luxurious <<smack>>, and then placed it to my neck, covering the angry bruise. I felt an unusual coolness under the touch of her hand, and my eyes shuddered from a new kind of sensation.

“There we go,” she said matter-of-factly, once again picking up the mirror and showing me the reflection of my neck again, “all better.”  The hickey was gone.

I should have been confused. I should have been bewildered, taken aback, and frankly terrified as I rubbed the side of my neck with my hand as I looked for any sign of the injury in the mirror. What I’d just witnessed was medically and physiologically impossible. But nothing about this woman surprised me anymore. She’d just healed me, like a saint, like some laying-on-of-hands. 

With those same miraculous hands Melissa put down the mirror and took back to the task of unbuttoning my pajama top. Soon she had me peeled out of it and turned her attention to my bottoms. Adroitly, she undid the button on my pajama pants and, without a word, they fell into a puddle at my feet.

For a long moment I glanced down at them, looking at the ground. I saw how big her giant feet, in those aggressively enormous stilettos, looked next to my bare ones. I felt naked. Well, I was naked, and my erection stood between us, a near-constant presence whenever she was in the room, or in my thoughts. It humbled me, a bit, and I kept my eyes on the floor between us. I could sense that it mildly annoyed her. She’d prefer if I’d been looking at her chest or focused on her face. And so, I looked back up at her. 

She rewarded me with a smile. 

“Do you like the clothes I bought you?” she asked, her hand reaching out to casually caress my hip, possessively. I could sense her resisting the urge to grab me by the cock. 

“Yes I… thanks…” I responded. I felt so shy, like I didn't even know how to make a conversation, or where to even start. But I knew Melissa didn't mind taking care of that. She liked it when a man allowed a woman to be the one talking.

“Shanette and I liked picking them all out, shopping for you,” she continued, her gaze drifting from my face to my eager cock and back again as she gauged my response. “Will you need my help putting them on?”

I know what you want me to say. “I, uh…maybe, yes please…” I replied. 

That got her even more excited, I felt it. It was like I didn't know how to dress myself and I was so shy when I spoke…she loved it. I was showing signs of my insecurity, and she was drinking it all in with pleasure. 

“This is it, this is the man I’ve taken home,” she said softly, as if to herself. Her hand still drifted lazily up my side, bringing quivers and shivers to the skin and bone of my meager body. She was thinking, ruminating on the day and on this moment. “Honey, I don’t know if I can take it much longer,” she said, exhaling a deep breath, “tell me again how you like the clothes.”

“I..I love them,” I said, again knowing exactly what she wanted to hear from me. That this…whatever this was…had become some sort of foreplay for us? It was weird, but it was so fucking hot. “Thank you for buying them for me.”

“Could you have afforded them yourself?” she asked, her deep voice quietly fighting to bridle her energy. 

Images of my bills, my bank statements and debts flashed through my head as I felt a pang of embarrassment slither through me. “N-no probably not,” I replied, “b-but…I can…I can pay you back?”

“No,” she said, plainly, decisively refusing my offer, “I’m going to buy your clothes from now on. And your groceries, and whatever else you need. I understand your financial situation, with the divorce. It’s a tough time for you.”

‘Tough time’? I was actually broke. “B-but…”

“But nothing. I’ve saved up over the years. I have my modeling money, and I make a lot now,” she explained, making me feel dwarfed not only by the impressive size of her body seated in front of me, but also now by the size of her bank account. “I’m happy to provide for you, I want to do it. In fact…”

I watched, in my humiliation, as she reached into a pocket of her girlish skirt to pull out a plastic card. 

“It’s a debit card,” she said, holding it out for me. It was red, with the symbol of that new bank that had opened a branch down the road. I knew it only took women as customers. “It’s got two thousand dollars on it. I want you to have it.”

“M-Melissa…” I began, blood rushing to my face and, to my chagrin, to my erection. 

“Shush, take it,” she said, shaking the card at me, “I  know you’ve been low on cash, and I don’t want you to suffer. This will help.”

“I can’t take your money…” I continued, eyeing the card and feeling myself shrink in importance yet again in this increasingly strange, increasingly female-dominated world. The truth was clear. It would help, a couple thousand dollars. “I really can’t…”

“Yes, you can,” she urged, her voice filled with new confidence and growing power as she heard my capitulation starting to surface. She realized, though, how fragile I was, and meant to reassure me. “Jay. I promise…no strings attached. If you stop wanting to hang out with me I won’t ever bring this up, or even hint at it. I just don’t want your worrying about money to be a reason you can’t spend time with me.”

“I…” I began, not knowing what to say. Despite what she said, I knew what this - and her insistence to buy my clothes, my groceries - meant. She wanted all my time, if she could have it, and didn’t mind if some of it was bought. You want to have me as a kept man. Despite the indignity, naked and trembling, I took the card from her. 

Inside, I could hear her squeal. She was thrilled, and she didn’t let up. “And, when you finish with that one, just tell me,” she said, watching as I warily inspected the card, “there can be so much more where that came from.”

I blinked, and though I felt her gaze on me I didn’t have the strength of will to meet  it. “o-okay, thank you…” I mumbled. 

“Yes, you just ask mommy for more,” she said, unable to resist the temptation to tease a little and giggling when I - now - looked at her. She was tickled, it seemed, by my consternation. “Or, we can do a little every week, if you like that better?”

Like an allowance? Is that what you mean? “n-no you don’t have t-“ 

“I insist,” she said, giggling, seemingly satisfied as my financial caregiver now. “I love having you dependent on me,” she beamed, “In fact, I can’t wait for the day when I can give you a much bigger card, so you can totally stop working and just focus on me.”

That did it. I groaned, and nearly sobbed. The waves of humiliation and seas of inferiority had crested their banks, overwhelmed my shores. “M-Melissa,” I began, “I don’t want to feel…u-u-useless..!”

'Oh honey! You’re not useless!” she exclaimed, hand coming up behind my head, guiding me to look back at her face, “I didn't know this would bother you so much! But I understand…” She looked at me, watched me, read the emotions coming over my face. She understood the folly of male pride, she saw it writhing and wilting inside me. She knew she needed to tend to it. “What if we were able to, I dunno, find a way for you to pay me back, return the favor?” she offered, “Would that make you feel better? If you felt like you could repay me…just not with money?"

“wh-what do you mean?” I sniveled.

“Oh, we could find ways,” she said, giggling, her free hand now coming to brush the inside of my right thigh. “I’m so busy these days, and you always help me relax. It’s sometimes hard being the one in charge…you remember that, right?” Her hand came to cup my swollen, distended sac. I flinched. “It’s stressful. But when you’re like this, when you’re making me feel big, when you’re making me feel strong and capable, I feel like I can handle anything. I love you for that.” Her hand had slowly, gently but casually, begun to fondle my golfball-sized testicles, sending shockwaves of electricity up and down my skeleton. I did my best not to writhe and groan. “You could do that, you can help me feel big.”

What she was doing, of course, was turning my insecurity into an understanding of her needs. She was giving me a way to contribute. “It could help us both, if you could do that,” she continued, “It’s you that gives me all my strength, and if you’re willing to help me relax, help me get stronger and do a better job, it would mean the world.”

“holy shit yes Melissa…” I heard myself agreeing.

She looked deep into my eyes, seeing that, yes, I was right of mind, unclouded. “So you’ll do it?” she smiled, “You’ll be the best little boyfriend and help me get better and better? Help me do what I need to do and always be there for me? So I can be there for you?”

“yes…yes of course…”

“And that will make you feel better about taking money from me?” She was massaging my balls firmly now, her hand at times squeezing, causing my stomach to clench.

“y-yes…”

“That’s great, that before you were distracted thinking about business, and responsibilities, all those little things that just got in the way,” she said, squeezing my sac again for emphasis, “but now I’ll have all of your attention focused where it should be.” She squeezed again. “On me.”

“o-o-on what’s important,” I followed without hesitation, as soon as I could speak again.

“Oh Jay oh god yes,” she lauded with a little moan, as if surprised by my eager response.

“j-just please…” I began, swaying on my feet as her hand’s attention on my scrotum became more insistent, “please don’t…”

“Please don’t what, sweetie?” she asked, cocking her head, watching my face.

“don’t g-get upset if I…if I…” What was I trying to say? I felt so inadequate, that even here in my ignominy I felt like I couldn’t live up to anything that was being asked of me.

“If you what? If you can’t do everything right? If you don’t pay me enough attention?” she asked, again half-annoyed that I was looking at the ground and not her. There was a slight shift in her voice, as if she was becoming a bit impatient, almost slightly offended. She gave my balls one firm, final squeeze and then released them. “Do you think I’ll be upset if I find you…what? Kissing the other girls? That it’ll make me cry?”

Here, again, was a change in her mood, and it made me nervous. She looked at me, and then slowly stood, suddenly looming over me in her tight knit sweater and short pleated skirt. Her enormous heels raised her to a height so great that I’d be staring at her midriff if my eyes could have left the ground. I’d backed up, reflexively, two stumbling steps, but she followed suit with one great one of her own. As she approached me she placed her hands on her hips and stood straight, to appear even taller. Then, towering above me, she asked: “Do I look like the kind of girl that cries easily? Hmm?”

She looked down at me. She knew what I really was. A scared little mouse. I  could just hear her thinking: you’ll do whatever the amazon says, won’t you little mousey-mouse haha?

“You like me in my heels, don’t you?” she asked, with a bit of a growl in her voice and taking a step towards me, watching me retreat.

I knew, immediately, what she was doing. She wanted it already; payback. She’d given me money, and now she wanted my attention. She wanted me to be a good boyfriend. She wanted me to make her feel huge.

“y-yes…” I stammered, “you’re so beautiful.”

I watched as she looked to her side, to the bureau onto which she’d thrown the teddy bear. Aside him lay two big white-and-blue pom-poms, nestled behind the cheerleading trophy. She picked them up, took one in each hand. 

“Does it turn you on?” she asked, stepping again towards me and shaking the pom-poms a bit, pushing me slowly into backsteps, “Me being this tall?”

“i-it does,” I agreed, watching her now shake the pom-poms at me again. I knew I needed to play into her desires, what she wanted here, or I’d face something I didn’t know if I could handle. My arousal, like so many times before, was seasoned with a palpable sense of fear. “y-you’re so tall, so strong. So big and beautiful.”

“Yesss…” she moaned, her voice deep. She continued to shake the pom-poms, aggressively now, looking for all intents and purposes like an overgrown, oversexed cheerleader, all boobs and curves in her sweater and skirt. She was shaking the pom-poms, and oh my god as she stepped towards me I felt it. Her feet were shaking the ground, rattling pictures in their frames. “And I make you hard, don’t I? Being this big?” 

“oh my god yes,” I replied, in all earnestness. I’d come up against something, a piece of furniture bumping against my legs. Maybe the bench at the end of her bed. Stopped in my retreat, I stepped to the side a bit, and took another step back.

“Oh, Jay, I love being this big,” she said, now stopping where she was, “I want to see how hard I can make you.” At that, she tossed the pom-poms aside and, in her next motion, grabbed the hem of her sweater and peeled it off, over her head. 

With the sudden appearance of her jaw-dropping torso I gasped, groaned. She was wearing a big, full-coverage white bra that lifted her enormous breasts into twin cannonballs bigger than human heads, sitting high and firm on her chest. With a shake of her head she fluffed out the raven mane of her hair and threw the sweater to the side. Good god this young woman was magnificent, standing nearly seven-and-a-half feet tall in her platform heels, white bra and short white skirt.

Instinctively, I took another step back.

“Stop…” she began, lazily taking one big step to plant herself right in front of me once more. The house shook again. “...running away.”

My heart froze at her command, and I stopped dead. My eyes were first planted at her glorious middle, ribcage barreled over an impressive thoracic cavity. Her waist, the narrowest part of her torso in circumference, was highlighted by abdominals like a gentle washboard. I looked up, and my vision was dominated by the white, mountainous swells of luminous satin that ballooned from her chest. My heart was racing, and I wasn’t thinking. I felt my left foot start to step backwards…

My feet kicked wildly, now more than a foot off the ground, and through her chest I heard her giggle, laugh. Around me her breast flesh jiggled, making me hyperaware of her mirth. In defense, and looking for support, I reached out and placed my hands on her, feeling them take purchase on broad hips. I felt her shiver at my touch, and for a moment she placed her hands behind my butt, holding me to her. My cock, hard and throbbing, pressed up into her skirt and lower washboard. Despite myself I ground into her, she pressing my hips into hers in response. She turned, I felt it, and took several steps, holding me to her.

“Oh, my god, Jay,” I heard her say, voice thundering through her chest in a basso profundo, “look at us.” I knew, I could tell, she was looking at us in a mirror. What I must look like from behind, bare of butt and shrunken and gaunt, strapped into the body of this Amazon. I felt her hands moving, one leaving me, and next thing I knew there was another strap, something coming around my waist.

“I’m…trying to get this around us,” she said, and I realized it was a belt. The new one she had bought me? She was trying to belt us together. My face, fully my entire head, was bound to her bosom by her bra. She now wanted to lash us together by the waists as well? I think she could tell I was getting frightened, and she didn’t want that. “Relax, honey, I’ve almost got it…”

A giggle, the sound of a buckle, and a little squeal of triumph. Yes, now we were belted together, bound. Or, rather, I was tied to her, attached to her. Made to feel even smaller than I already was. It was humiliating, but after a few moments and a few breaths I did start to relax, I did. Maybe it was by her command, or maybe it was her perfume, so strong off the skin of her breasts. But I felt my body loosen, hang, let the belt and the bra hold me. She had taken her hands away and began to walk around, chuckling and laughing, apparently beyond amused by what she could do. The thunder in my ears was her heart, her voice, her laughter…and the house rattling. And - was that the click of a phone camera?

��W-why is the floor shaking?” I spoke, into her cleavage. Would she even hear me?

“That’s you and me, sweetie,” she said, “And, the floor is nothing. You and me? Together? We’re gonna make the whole world shake!”

“oh please yes,” I moaned, imagining her as a titan stomping through cities, me nestled and lost hidden between her building-sized tits. “So big…” I said in a groan.

“AHG Haha!” she cried, maybe picturing the same thing herself. Whatever it was, she was suddenly overcome and between us I felt her hand tear away her skirt, and then her panties. My cock now throbbed, with all its monstrous size, up against her-

whoah!

A hand, and shift of hips, and suddenly I was slid up inside her.

“Oh my god,” I groaned, sparks flashing before my eyes.

“Shhh…shhhshhhshhh honey,” she said, “just hold on and focus…” She was going to ….nnnnghh….she was going to fuck me standing up. Fuck me with my meager male body just attached to her. “Focus on enjoying yourself as…mmmnnh…” she continued, half-overcome herself, “as I just take care of everything.” 

I felt her hands on my legs, guiding them, encouraging me to wrap my legs around her. I did the best I could, until I was clinging to her like a baby monkey. I started to buck into her, awkwardly sliding my steel-hard shaft up, into her belly. On any other woman I would have been hitting cervix, but with Melissa I was just the right size. I thrust, grunting, again.

Gently, she shushed me. “No, shh…you don’t even have to do that…just let me,” she spoke, “Let me do you like this…” With that, I felt her hands behind me, big hands on my thin hips, cupping my scrawny butt. She used them to begin to move me, slowly but firmly into her, at her own pace.

“There we go, there we go baby,” she purred in obvious delight, “just hold on, hold onto me.”

NNngh NNgh NNgh…I grunted, little sounds into her tits. Her flesh was warming, around me, and my perspiration was beginning to mingle with her own. The scent of her perfume, strong to begin with, was growing stronger. It was like a drug, she was like a drug. I couldn’t get enough, and lucky for me there was always more of her.

I felt, as we stood there and fucked, one of her hands leave my rear. She continued to pump me into her with her left hand, but her right came up to peel one of my thin arms away from her torso and take hold of my hand. She directed it up underneath the sides of her.

“There you go, under the wings of my bra,” she said, now moving my other hand under that of the other thick, elastic side strap. Up past the wrists, now, my hands were slid under her bra, under her armpits. And then, with a soft moan coming from deep in her lungs, I felt Melissa swell. Though my vision was useless, my face plastered between her enormous breasts, I could tell what was happening. She was flexing, pumping up her body, bringing strength and blood to her muscles. I had sensed a change in her perfumes, which had grown subtly sharper, and under my hands and forearms her lats swelled. She was, in her intumescence, trapping them. With the swelling of her back muscles, her bra became so taut around my hands that I couldn’t move them if I tried. My head, as well, was pulled even more firmly into her cleavage by her expansion.

“I have you trapped,” she breathed, voice deeper and even more sonorous from under her ribs. I could feel the strength in it, as well as in her newly blossomed, rippling musculature. If I’d felt dwarfed before, I felt absolutely feeble in comparison to her now, plastered to her like a remora. “You…you can’t get away, can you?

“n-no…” I squeaked, into her tits, “I’m just stuck to you.”

“OH GOD, yessss…” she groaned, shoving my hips into herself more aggressively now, her rhythm quickening. “You’re stuck to me…you’re stuck to meeerrrrrRRRRRRARRR…!”

I felt her quake, her whole body convulsing, and suddenly we were moving again. With me still strapped and clinging to her, she was climbing onto the bed, onto her hands and knees. The bed creaked in complaint below us. One arm supporting her, she set up pillows under us, under where my head and shoulders would be so when - in her next move - she unclasped her bra I would fall, my upper body at least, onto them. My head was still cradled in the hammock of her loosened bra, but as she lowered it down her shoulders I fell the final bit down. My lower body was still lashed to her by the belt, my cock still inside her, my legs still clasping at her gawkily.

My vision back, the light of the room once again with me, I found myself staring up at the bare, enormous breasts of Melissa, my beautiful new Office Manager as she had her hands planted on the bed straddled above my head. They hovered in the air above me, hanging nearly to my face and I goggled at them in awe. My hips were aloft, strapped fast, and as I stared at her swollen brown nipples I felt her rearranging my legs, so that now hers were spread around mine. Somehow she did this without me ever leaving her hot inner warmth, just barely losing the rhythm of our lovemaking. Though her breasts dominated my vision, the glimpses I got of her forearms confirmed what I knew: she was pumped up, swollen in size.

“Melissssy’s grown so nice and big and strong for you, hasn’t she?” she purred. With her hands now supporting her weight, she’d stopped thrusting me into her.

“so big…” I groaned, feebly pushing my hips as much as I could manage upwards. I wanted to come in her! I wanted to come in her!

“So tall, everything, so big,” she continued, transported, “so much bigger than you.”

“yesss…” I admitted. I felt like I could burst at any minute.

“Yes, good boy, good boy,” she crooned deeply, “I’ve been holding back my excitement allllll evening. It’s been getting bigger and bigger and bigger and I don’t think I can do it any more.” She bristled with size, strength, barely contained emotion. “Are you ready for me?”

“y-yes…”

Around me and above me I could sense her body flexing, swelling even larger. “We could do so many things together, Jay. You just need to tell me what you want.”

“I…” I began, “I just want you to love me.”

That made her chuckle. “Oh,” she laughed, “I’m going to do that very, very well….”

I groaned. 

“Now, I want you to lay down under me and just watch my body, my breasts moving…” At that, she squeezed them together between her arms, blooming cleavage even closer to my face. She let me goggle, stare at the tautnes of her bulging, tumescent flesh and skin, the veins below it. Then she rose up a bit, so I could see her arms, shoulders. “Watch my muscles flexing, growing. Just focus on being underneath me, feeling my strength and size and how it’s all here to protect you. Okay? Can you do that?”

“yuh-yuh-yess…” I managed.

“Look at my biceps, my arms, my shoulders,” she directed, her voice gentle but still deep and consumed with passion, “watch them swell up and think about how nothing in the world is as strong as I am, how I’d never let anything hurt you. Do you understand?”

“Yes…”

“Good,” she said. She knew I was learning. “How are you feeling?”

“Excited…thrilled. A little, uh…scared…”

Melissa giggled. “Shhh that’s okay, that’s natural,”  she said, “It’s natural, being as little a man as you are. It’s, like, an instinct.”

“yes..” I agreed. 

“But we need to weed it out. We need to get rid of any fear of me, any fear of being this close to a woman this much bigger and stronger than you.”

“U-understood…?” I somehow said. I was trying, at this point - and probably failing - to sound confident, maybe casual, part of the conversation rather than completely overwhelmed.

She giggled again.

“You sound terrified, sweetie,” she laughed from above, squashing my hopes, “But that’s okay. You’ve got a lot of instincts telling you this is a dangerous situation.” She considered me, as I trembled below her, still lashed to her by the waist, head and shoulders on soft pillows below her. “You know how I feel about you, right?”

“y-yes…”

“But you need to hear me say it, don’t you?” she asked tenderly, pausing for a moment before continuing. “I love you, Jay. I love you so much.” Behind me, she was pulling in more pillows, so I could rise up a bit more. “I’ll provide for you,” she said, as she sat up taller a bit herself, “and I’ll always protect you.”

“oh my god I know,” I groaned, taking sanctuary in her words. But jesus…now I was able to look up at her, her hands moving up to fluff out the luxury of her hair. She was…huge. Muscles danced in her arms, bulged from her sides. Her shoulders were flexed with might. I was balls-deep in her, strapped in, and though I was fixated and agog at her body I somehow still hadn’t come.

She saw me down there, and smiled. ”Is there too much of me?” she asked, now flexing her traps brawnily. They swelled like twin pyramids aside her neck.

I gasped, with a sigh, but then spoke. ”n-no, don’t worry,” I said, “I like having lots of you.”

She groaned. That made her happy.

“Mmmm, lots, huh?” she drawled, tilting up her chin and letting me gaze more upon her flared, muscular upper body. “Here,” she said, when she spoke again, “Give me your hands.”

I raised them up, offered her my arms, and she took my hands and placed them upon her breasts, over the engorged swells of her nipples. I felt them push into my palms, and still holding me by the wrists she pressed my hands in deeper.

“Now, look,” she said, “See how your tiny little hands just disappear into my enormous breasts?”

They’re sunk in, they look so little, like they’re being swallowed. 

“I know what you like,” she said with a smile, “Don’t I?”

“yes…”

“You like seeing how much larger I am than you,” she said.

“yes…”

“I’m so big, so so big,” she continued, “And that’s not all. I’m so much stronger than you. Look what happens when I tighten my pelvic muscles just a teensy bit…”

“Oh god!” I groaned aloud, feeling her inner walls squeeze in around me. Her coccygeus, her ileococcygeus - Jesus Christ!!

“You like that, don’t you baby?” she asked, laughing.

You’re so strong! You love doing this to me, don’t you?

She had me lashed to her, my waist to hers, my cock inside her as I all but hung from her body. And now she could crush me inside herself. She squeezed me again.

I groaned again, louder.

“You feel that? That’s my pelvic floor muscles.” She started, now, to squeeze me with them rhythmically. Oh, god, the pleasure! “They’re getting so strong, I feel like I could…” Suddenly she squeezed me with them hard. “...break you with them. But I won’t, I promise. Instead, let’s do this…”

Oh oh oh my god…what’s she going to do??

She began to undo the belt, the buckle behind her back. She was going to release me?.

“Ready, honey?”

”r-r-ready for what?” I stammered.

The buckle snapped open, I heard it. It loosened, I felt its leather slide out from behind my lower back. She showed it to me, and tossed it aside. 

I was still inside her, my hips still up in the air. I was being held up by my cock. 

“oh my god…” I marveled, eyes wide. My weight, some of it, was on my shoulders and upper back, on the pillows. But still - jesus! - she held me in the air with her vagina!

She giggled, amused both at my reaction and her own superhuman ability. How strong was this woman?!? “Does this hurt?” she asked. 

“n-no…” I answered. And, no, it didn’t. Maybe it was how my body was positioned, maybe it was because of my shrunken size and mass, or maybe it was something else at work but though I was being all but totally suspended in air by the root of my manhood I felt no pain. Pressure, yes, as gravity tugged on me. But her embrace was stronger than the earth’s pull. “No it doesn’t hurt.”

“Okay good,” she said, biting her lower lip as she sat up a bit straighter, rising up more on her knees and lifting me higher. My hips were nearly two feet off the bed, my upper back cradled in pillows. Suddenly, then, I felt it. Around my cock, where she’d had me grabbed tight by her vaginal muscles, she relaxed a bit. She let me slide out a bit, a couple inches, my hips slowly dropping towards the mattress. I hovered there, for a moment,  and then she pulled me back up.

“holy shit…” I gasped. What the fuck did she just do?!?

She giggled, and then she did it again. A few more inches this time, I slid nearly halfway out of her. She paused, and then with the unearthly control, unearthly strength of her pelvic muscles she slurped me back. Holy god!! She was lifting me up and down by my cock! My weight - meager as it was, but nearly all of it, legs, hips, torso - seemed like nothing to her! I began to stammer, blurting her name, maybe sounding panicked but as again she lowered me, sucked me back up, lowered me, sucked me back up, I started to realize: this is how you want to fuck me. She was laughing, amazed herself at what she could do, the strength and control she had. In and out, in and out I went, absolutely helpless. 

“How are you feeling now?” she asked. 

“l-l-like…like a rag doll…” I said. 

She giggled, and pulled me up into her tightly. My body hung from her. Though my hands were still on her breasts, my shoulders on the pillows, she bore and held nearly all my weight by the grip between her legs. 

“...being fucked by Superwoman,” I finished, and gave in as she screamed:

“YES!” she laughed.

 nnghh…You liked that a lot.

And then suddenly, I was down, and up, and down, and up. She was lowering me, and raising me, and lowering me, and raising me. With the strength of her pelvic muscles, up and down and up and down and up and down and omigod omigod omigod

“Come for me Jay, come for me,” she began to chant, as my hands fell away from her breasts with the turbulence of our fucking, and now we were connected only at the waist. Up even higher she sat so even less of my weight was on the pillows. But I slid up and in up and in to her without losing a beat and my climax - both of ours, by the sound of her - was imminent.

“YEs YeSS YESSS!” she screamed, shaking me below her now, my legs swinging loose wild behind her, my arms hanging limply, head lolling on my neck and I was a rag doll I was I was like her toy up and down and up and down

“oh my god oh my god Melissaaaa…” I groaned and - “ahhhhhhhhhhgggggggghhhhhhh.!!!!” I was pulled up into her, massaged by her walls, let slide, only to be pulled in again. She coaxed me in and out as I lay flailing there helplessly. Faster and faster as she watched my pathetic expressions as I tried not to come. My body was like nothing to her, I was her toy, a shell of a man, dangling but bringing her-

“RRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAA-AAAAAIIIIIIII LLLLLLOVVVVVVVE YOUUUUUUUUUUU JJJJJJJJAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!”

THE BED SHOOK. THE WALL RATTLED. 

Women were laughing downstairs.

GLASS BROKE. THE EARTH QUAKED.

I couldn't take it…it was too much. My eyes went wide and, mouth agape in awe, I looked up into her eyes as I exploded inside her.

I was fucking hers.

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big thanks to ResistanceIsFutile in bringing this one to life and cleaning up my messy edges

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