#being pretty is not a requirement. and its subjective as FUCK

[osamucide]

✦ ݁˖ BITING DOWN

BREATHED SO DEEP I THOUGHT I’D DROWN . . . ft. Floyd Leech

wc: ~7.5k

cw: NSFW—MINORS + AGELESS/BLANK BLOGS DNI, gn+afab!yuu/reader, reader is not called yuu, reader is called shrimpy sorry, all characters portrayed are 18+, mutual pining, friends -> lovers, implied virgin!floyd, scientifically inaccurate/speculative on behalf of author’s conception of mer-eel anatomy, #fucking4science, more like fucking under the guise of science, pool sex, mentions of mating/breeding, penetration, fingering, cunnilingus, kissing, biting/marking, dirty talk, creampie, silly and unserious because it’s floyd, shrimpy more like simpy (floyd's worse), only like a third of this is actually smut someone shoot me

reid: couldnt have written this ridiculousness without my two beloveds @seasidefallenangel and @fleursdaydreams ... thank you for bouncing around analysis, prompting me to write, and listening to me talk endlessly about him for the past few weeks lol <3

You and Grim struck a deal back when you were first settling into Ramshackle together: he’d take the classes that required applied magic and its necessary preparation, and you’d take the more basic courses. You were mostly spared first year, save for the moments when you were more or less dragging Grim through History of Magic by the scruff of his neck (he was going to hold up his end of your duo-enrollment if it meant you had to maim him a little along the way), but that was it. Not that you’d have had much time to devote to study, anyway, what with the way Crowley had you running around all over campus and beyond, cleaning up after people’s messes and bailing your lovable (deplorable) companion out of trouble. But he promised he’d take it easier on you this year, your second year, seeing as you’d be personally enrolled in a few classes—just another one of his kindnesses that he had no reservation extending to you, of course, because Crowley was just so nice like that. 

And you quickly learned in the first weeks of fall semester that being in class with the friends you’d made thus far is actually pretty fun—or, at least, it’s never dull. Kalim’s TA position in Trein’s astrology class comes in handy both for academic and entertainment purposes (he likes to tell the class the stories he used to make up for the constellations before he knew what they meant), and even mathematics is alright when Ace is willing to let you peek over his shoulder for answers. 

And you have biology with Floyd, which goes… exactly as you might expect it to.

Really, though, people tend to write Floyd off as a clown—and for good reason, because he certainly acts like one sometimes, but he’s smarter than he appears. On the first day of classes when he’d slid into the seat next to yours, you immediately wondered aloud why he was taking biology his third year instead of his second, which would’ve been usual protocol. Had he flunked it or something? 

“Subbed it for Ancient Magic last year since bio sounded boring,” he’d explained, kicking his feet up on the chair in front of him (Crewel, sauntering around all dramatic-like before the bell, passed by and batted them to the ground, muttering bad), “but they wouldn’t let me get away with flakin’ out on it entirely.” 

Ancient Magic was usually strictly reserved for third years, so you guessed it was no small academic feat that he’d managed to wiggle in a year early. Even Jade’s test scores didn’t quite rival his brother’s. 

And despite this quiet academic prowess (or maybe because of it), he seemed to really be dreading biology. You kind of scrunched up your nose when he complained—you wished your biggest worry was being too bored by college level subject material, even if it was just a gen ed—but in that lovingly compensatory Floyd way, he’d wrapped up his lamenting with some slyly sweet comment about how it couldn’t be that bad as long as he had his Shrimpy with him. 

So you’d just rolled your eyes and smiled, returning the sentiment. As long as you had boy-eel-genius Floyd Leech to steal test answers from, you supposed you’d be alright. (He’d dismissed such a title with that radiating laugh of his, and so you were certain.) 

And to this present day, he’s been a shining classmate, honestly. Meticulous lab partner, halfway decent notetaker. When he’s in the mood for it, is what everyone usually bellyaches about his redeeming qualities, but you have yet to experience a Floyd so stormy that he’s unwilling to lend you a hand or be sweet to you. And you’ve been waiting for it to happen, you really have—to catch him on a bad day, to be the one to say or do the thing that sours his mood before you can blink. 

But it hasn’t, and you haven’t. 

Ace and Deuce theorize it’s for reasons that make you go warm in the face. Please, who else is he that nice to but you? Because Floyd is notoriously an individualist to his core. Yes, he has a reputation for scaring underclassmen straight with a single glare. Yes, he heckles professors every chance he gets. Yes, he likes to skip out of class and wander the halls when lecture falls into a lull, but when he drags you with him, he never disappoints his MO of loathing boredom. He keeps you guessing—but, somehow, in a way that never exhausts or overwhelms you. If you’re thankful for nothing else that��s come out of the entire ordeal of being isekai’d into this terribly absurd pocket of existence, you’re at least softened by the opportunity to find beauty in places no one else gets to see, even if those places are renowned idiot Floyd Leech. 

Like so many other things in Twisted Wonderland, he looks scarier than he is; the simple reality is that he doesn’t pay any mind to the narratives others fit him into, nor is he lacking in the depth that’s endeared him to you beyond your own expectations. He’s funny, he’s chaotic, he’s a quiet mind and a loud lover, reliable in his own right, predictable in his penchant for unpredictability. And one of your best friends!

Okay, so biology with Floyd goes better than what you might’ve expected it to.

It’s not like you’re going to complain. If he weren’t six-foot-whatever and heartwrenchingly pretty, you’d be so content with just best friends, but again, you’re picking your battles here. And Floyd, thankfully, doesn’t have to be one of them.

“Shrimpy,” he snaps, but when you look over, he’s grinning. Floyd tips your textbook shut for you; people are filing out of the classroom. You must’ve tuned out the bell. “Class is over. D’ja hear me?” 

“Sorry,” you mumble, grabbing your bag. “What’s up?” 

“I said you should study with me later,” he says, folding his arms beside you and tucking his chin into them. He looks up at you adorably. “Anatomy section’s kinda kickin’ my ass.”

Liar, you think at first—but then, maybe he’s not. Despite zoning out today, you recall the content of the past few classes—particularly, a class from last week, in which Crewel spent a whopping five whole minutes (if you were generous) taking a detour to a flimsy conclusion about how marine anatomy and physiology is so often glossed over on land, just by nature, by expectation, by separation or whatever, and for that reason, there isn’t really room for it in the syllabus. Or whatever. 

You don’t remember the smart comment Floyd made at this gap in the curriculum, but you remember he made one. And if landfolk life science is by and large as foreign to merfolk as vice versa, you figure maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe you’ll actually study for once instead of goofing off like you usually do, ending up on the roof of Ramshackle, scrounging in the cafeteria for late-night snacks, or sneaking onto the bus to Foothill Town; his kicked puppy stare tells you so. 

“Of course,” you say, gathering your things. “Mine or yours?” 

“Mine, duh.” Floyd stands to trail behind you to your astrology class; he has a break after bio, but he always walks with you anyway. “Or send Sealie away, at least, if we do yours. Gotta get serious about this test next week.” 

He still jars you a little when he talks so sensibly, but you chuckle anyway. “I can ask the uncles to babysit.” Your two now-sophomore Heartslabyul friends, you mean. 

“You’re the best, Shrimpy.” Floyd tosses a jovial arm around your shoulders, and you tuck yours around his waist to keep yourself from tripping on his feet. “Can’t get ya to Trein late or he’ll have both of our asses. What were ya thinkin’ about just now, anyway?” 

You, you could blurt, but you don’t. His fingertips toying with the shoulder of your blazer always make it harder for you to think clearly. Shouldn’t you have grown used to this by now? Floyd’s so open with physical affection when it comes to his friends; you hate when your brain makes it into something it obviously isn’t. Only it isn’t obvious that it isn’t, and you’d only ask if you were an iota more certain. 

You hum. “Can’t remember.” 

“Too bad. You looked real concentrated.” His chin knocks into your head, and you swat him away, laughing. “Love that lil’ brain of yours.” 

Please, shut up. You’re not an easily flustered Shrimpy; Night Raven College knows this about you. So, you think, what the hell? “J’you just call my brain little, Leech?” 

Cue sunshine laugh again. He doesn’t deny, nor does he confirm, but you know it’s out of love. Friendly love. Fuck, you’ve got it bad. 

Before you break away from him to cross the threshold into astrology, Floyd takes you by the shoulders. 

“I’m serious, I need help.” He’s got that whiplashingly serious look in his eyes when they snap to yours. “I’ll see you after dinner, yeah?” 

You nod, smiling as you internally curse the indelible flush in your skin. You’re so irritatingly sensitive to his charms today. No doubt if he does end up wanting to bail on studying later, you’ll give in. “I’ll text you.” 

“Cool.” In an instant, that toothy grin is back. He presses an amiable smooch to the top of your head (complete with loud mwah) and you swear you feel ten degrees cooler as soon as he begins retreating down the hallway. “See ya later!” 

You toss him a wave as you duck into Trein’s. Kalim greets you brightly—he also immediately asks you why you look sweaty. You blink, sheepish, and say, “Good afternoon to you, too.” 

What you didn’t expect out of biology was to have it so horribly for Floyd Leech.

Night Raven College knows, too, that you generally do a bad job at picking your battles. 

It really kind of blows for the mer-students at Night Raven that they don’t teach their fucking anatomy and physiology in bio. Sure, the majority of them probably learn about it under the sea, but then to be thrown into landfolk A&P with no frame of reference to accompany? Talk about a learning curve. 

It blows even worse that, right now, Floyd’s zeroed in on two blown-up diagrams right next to each other—the female and male reproductive systems—tongue poking out from behind his sharp teeth, brows knitted as he struggles to remember the names of everything he’s looking at. You’re pretty sure he was joking when he referred to the lymphatic system the limp-fantastic system (and maybe halfway intentional in making it sound like it moonlights as a Bizkit cover band instead of regulating fluids), but it is a lot to take in. Imagine him recounting the bones in the lower extremities some thirty minutes ago before getting to this. 

“So, these are the…” Floyd’s circling both illustrations tentatively with his fingertip, and then taps harshly on one. “Okay, I know this is a penis. That’s a wiener. Duh.” He drags his finger, panning over to the other as you snort. “And this is where the babies are made. This is the babymaker. Yep.”

Your chin drops to your chest (even though he’s technically correct) and you sigh through a laugh. “Well, they… yeah.”

“Sorry,” he whines petulantly, more for himself than you, “this is hard! I ain’t never seen any of this stuff before, you know.” 

But it’s less his human-anatomical incompetence that’s got you more dismissive than you ought to be for such intense material, and more the fact that since astrology all you’ve been thinking about is Floyd, Floyd, Floyd, just like you always do, like you’re a pathetic middle schooler lovesick for the first time, for their best friend no less. And now, words like penis and babymaker are leaving his mouth, and even though physiology specifically has got to be up there next to abstract algebra as one of the unsexiest areas of rote studying, having the guy you’ve got a massive crush on pick apart the literal stuff that’s inside you is making you feel some inconvenient (but not entirely unwelcome) things. You swear it felt a little romantic just watching and listening to him label the arteries, veins, and capillaries on and around the human heart. 

“Weird as all hell I’m part’a this whole new species and I don’t hardly know shit about it.” He grumbles briefly about technicalities and vocabulary as he flops onto his stomach; your mattress creaks out its protest, but he just buries his head in his arms. You hear, muffled, “I’m sick’a this, Shrimpy, let’s do somethin’ else.” 

Right, his borrowed human form. 

It’s not even a second before you’re trying not to think too hard about the fact that he’s inhabiting a body incredibly biologically compatible with yours. You disguise this train of thought beneath the sound of your textbook smacking closed before you opt to flop next to him, nosediving into your own arms in a similar fashion. Your skin feels like it itches. 

Stupid Floyd and his stupid study session and his stupid mouth that never shuts up and that you absolutely want to kiss. You miss the way he peeks up at you quizically with one golden eye, but if you would’ve noticed, you’d be cursing his stupid receptivity that no one ever expects because he acts like a moron. You need to pull it together now. Quit being distracted by your stupid, attractive best friend, quit reminding yourself of his stupid human anatomy, and especially quit wondering if you could get him as worked up over nothing as he’s got you, in mer-form or otherwise, and how it would feel for him—if he’d like it, if he’d like you… If he’d—quit it, quit it, quit it, your stupid human brain chants like a mantra. 

Think about anything else. His true form is probably so incompatible with yours, think about that. Think about how he’s actually, like, half a fish. Yeah. There. Crisis averted, battle picked. 

“D’you feel alright?” he asks, fingers curling around your arm to feel your forehead. Ruined it, just like that. “You’re warm.” 

“I’m fine,” you don’t mean to snap, but you do—even so, his hand doesn’t recoil. Floyd scratches your hair a little, the way one might do to a dog. You could scream at him not to touch you if you didn’t like it so much, but you do—painfully so—which is why you turn your head to face him while his fingers trace lazy half-shapes from your hairline to your temple. You try to sound chipper and not at all strained when you concede, “Let’s do something else. What’d’you wanna do?” 

He blinks at you slowly, obviously dissatisfied with your dodge. He still traces, brushing your cheekbone as he studies you. “Something’s on your mind, Shrimpy.” 

Stupid receptivity. “Just information overload,” which isn’t entirely a lie. “And I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you. No marine A&P, my ass. You’ve got marine communities well within reach here, so not teaching it’s an outdated excuse for ignorance, if you ask me. But I guess humans are good for that wherever you go.” 

Floyd hums, pulling away from you, rolling onto his back, tucking his hands behind his head. “Yeah, that pissed me off, too.” 

“‘M pissed for you.” You do give a shit, really, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to have something to channel your intensity into right now. 

Quiet settles over you both. You allow yourself a few seconds more of stewing and admiring his side profile, his sharp nose and bitten lips; Floyd looks like he’s pondering. You wish you could pick apart what’s inside him, too. He’s fascinating to you—you love his lil’ brain, too, you know, in more ways than one. It really is an injustice that landfolk don’t know more about merfolk and their glaring similarities and yet, major differences; Floyd’s an emotional, physical, scientific marvel to you. You don’t think you’ve met anyone more interesting. Or easier to love, for that matter. 

Fuck.

“I know!” In an instant, he’s on his feet. “Let’s hit the pool. You’re all warm, it’ll cool you off—” He’s tugging you to your feet, grabbing his bag, bright, pointy smile lighting up all at once, “—it’ll be so fun. You can relax, and I haven’t swam in days…” 

“That actually sounds perfect.” Yes, back to fish-form with the heathen. You’re quick to toss together a bag of swim things, eager to put mind-numbing, rage-inducing study material and complicated emotions alike to rest for the night. His unreserved laugh when you agree so readily still makes your heart flutter, but you plan to leave it at the door. 

Surely, you can leave it at the door. 

On the way to the mirror chamber, you’re so eager to leave it behind that you’re asking questions—your mood flipping with his, incidentally—because you’re disgustingly susceptible to him and, as noted before, you do give a shit. Ardent and full of curiosity, just like you always are with him, you shed the limitations of textbook-sanctioned inquiry and launch yourself full-force at reclamation of your own wall-hitting; you can and will get a fucking grip and be normal. 

“Is it super different?” you ask. 

“What?” Floyd’s rummaging in his bag as you both walk, already aware he forgot a notebook in your room. “Merfolk stuff?” 

“Yeah.” You adjust your own bag on your shoulder. “Like, your A&P is probably as different to me as mine is to you. Where I’m from, scientists haven’t observed a whole load of shit about the ocean—it’s more of a mystery to us than outer space. There’s tons we don’t know about morays, you know.” 

“Oh, yeah, I mean skeletal system-wise, there are bony fish, and then ones with more cartilage. And either way, the whole structure and makeup is so different since we got no legs, and…” 

You listen to him talk all the way through the mirror, into the halls of Octavinelle, past the lounge and onto the sprawling pool deck—it’s empty, much to your relief, sparkling and humid; when you reach down to skim your fingers across the water, it’s refreshingly cool. Floyd’s submerged before you can blink, hardly pausing his spiel; you lift your shirt off and toss it aside, and suddenly he’s aquamarine and soft green, scaly and shiny and webbed and you would tell him to look away while you slip your bottoms on but it’s you who’s staring, really. 

“And then merfolk fall sorta in the middle of the venn diagram between humans and fish when it comes to reproduction and shit. Don’t really know how that happened, and I don’t even know how—I don’t think…”

For once in his life, he trails off. You settle at the edge of the pool, dipped in up to your knees, and he swims up to you. Wanna play mermaids? is what you’d usually joke, but as your kicking feet slow to a stop and Floyd’s arms curl up across your lap, all you can do is look down at him, ruminative and a little mystified (no matter how many times you see him in his true form, you’re always taken by its elegance). 

“Whatever.” It’s the day of Floyd burying his face in his elbows and looking up at you in a way that makes you want to take a page out of his book and squeeze him until he pops; it certainly doesn’t help that, absentmindedly, your fingers move to card through his wet hair and he hums, low and sweet as you do, so that you feel it in your stomach. “Not like lookin’ at anything on a piece of paper does squat. I’m more of a hands-on learner.”

He blinks up at you through his wet lashes—it should be a criminal offense—and you grin down at him as he splays his palms across your thighs, tracing, tracing little shapes again (fuck, and now you’re looking at his biceps. Stop that!). Your face burns, but you mock confusion to play it off. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re flirting with me, Floyd Leech.” 

Less a bold move and more placing the ball in his court because with Floyd, what you see is mostly what you get. Yes, he’s a horrible trickster, but you know him. And if you know him as well as you think you do, he’ll laugh that radiant laugh (which he does) and, next, you’re confident, brush you off and yank you into the water yelling about how his Shrimpy needs to learn to swim like he does so you can keep up with him—yes, he’ll wave the silly little theatrics behind you both and forget it even happened before tomorrow peeks over the horizon. 

But he muses, “I am,” not at all coy, because coyness and Floyd don’t go hand in hand. 

And you blink at him, all at once a little giddy and disbelieving. “No, you’re not.” 

“D’ya not want me to be?” Schroedinger’s flirt. I mean it if you do, but if you don’t, then of course I’m totally joking. 

His mismatched gaze is locked steadily on you. You wish he would ever let you hear the end of it if you covered your face with your hands, but he won’t, so you don’t; you just giggle, unable to not, unable to confirm or deny, unable to decide if it’d be better or not for him to say he’s messing with you. It’s always straightforward, except when it isn’t. 

“Shrimpy, I’m serious,” he continues when you finally look at him again. He does feign urgency—or maybe he’s not feigning, like his words would imply, as he positively bores into you. “Do you not want me to flirt with you?” 

“I—” You suppress your trepidation, doing your best to match his air. “I never said I don’t want you to.” 

“Get in the damn pool, then,” he snaps a little bit, impatient—impatient for you, you realize; you’re smirking as he slinks down to tug at your ankles with no real consequence. “C’mon.” 

“Make me,” you tease, and something dangerous ingnites in his eyes—something that makes you want to toy with your fingers and look away, but you don’t, because it’s always worth stifling yourself to feed Floyd a little bit of his own medicine. You’ve never watched it have this particular effect on him, though; when you grin evilly at him, he plants his palms on either side of you and rises out of the water to your eye level. 

“Don’t piss me off,” he half-barks in your face—sometimes, if you poke him hard enough, you do feel like you’re catching a glimpse of the scary Floyd everyone’s warned you about, but you don’t slink away from it. You kick at him, go to pinch his nose—he makes an attempt to bite your fingers and you laugh and laugh, and he does, too, eventually, the two of you in a duel where you have the upper hand only because he chooses to give it to you (and his hands are literally occupied with holding himself above water). 

You wrastle with him, landing a jab to his (infuriatingly well-defined) stomach, snapping your fingers in his face a bit, blowing air in his eyes—before you gather his cheeks between your fingers, squishing his face in a way that makes him scrunch his nose, lips puckered unwillingly, and you—you fucking kiss him. You land a quick peck to his mouth without even thinking, and you release him immediately; he pulls back, but only a few inches, just enough to look at you. 

For a moment you think he’ll really get mad. You try not to shrink. 

It’s quiet and you can’t tell if his expression is starstruck or disgusted. 

A few seconds is a century. 

“Kiss me again,” he barks right at you. Like he thinks you won’t. 

Your face feels stuck, contorted into a sheepish grin; Floyd’s open mouth, taunting you, luring you in, lets you watch his tongue flick between his rows of sharp teeth and the thought of what they’d feel like in your neck jolts you toward him, your hands grabbing for his strong shoulders; he’s not sure if you’re about to shove him off or devour him whole, but he hangs in that lightning-quick moment of anxiety, thrilled to have your hands on him, all at once assured and with the only hint of apprehension you think you’ve ever seen on his face and you decide you have to, you must—what else could you possibly do but throttle yourself forward, into him, not at all soft or scared as the water envelops you from head to toe and he does just the same? 

Beneath the surface is a pillowy, noise-cancelling limbo—you feel like you’ve plunged into a dream, eyes screwed shut and senses dulled where the only vivid things are his hands clutching your waist and his lips on yours. And you kiss him and kiss him, drifting up, suspended, cupping his jaw like you’d start breathing him if you could. 

Before you hit oxygen, pockets of air bubble out from between both of your mouths; you’re laughing before you’re inhaling, finding yourself panting to catch your breath—unlike Floyd, who giggles so fully and unapologetic it echoes around the pool deck. The next thing you feel is a cool, slick tail twining around you—your hips, your waist, so you don’t have to flail to stay afloat. 

“Here, hold onto me.” His tail slips away with his tense disposition, replaced by laughter that doesn’t cease as you link your ankles behind him at the spot where his human back gives way to his mer-half, and your wrists at the base of his neck. “There ya go.”

You’re not sure if you’re tingling from the impact to the water or from the way his pale teal chest rises and falls so rapidly against yours. He sways back and forth so subtly you’d almost think it was only the rippling of the water; you wane into silence in the crook of his shoulder, like you don’t want to be the first to speak. 

But he does (you’d be nervous if he were to be quiet); large, clawed hands slide from your waist to hold you up from beneath your ass. 

“I could kiss you again,” he offers into your ear like it’s the most obvious thing—a was that okay? of Floyd fashion, an opening to tell him he’s silly, this was silly, to let you go. He listens to you for alarm bells. You don’t set any off. “Always wanted to do that. Could do anything you want, baby.” 

Baby? 

What world were you transported to when you resurfaced? It’s the first time he’s called you anything other than Shrimpy, or your name. Something flares in your chest, unfurls down your arms and into your fingertips which trail down to the planes of his chest.

Anything? 

Your manner of yes, of promptly shutting that window, is a series of fluttering kisses beneath his ear, over subtle, pulsing gills you’ve never been close enough to notice before, let alone touch. You really can’t curse the A&P curriculum now—it’d be blasphemy. Look where it got you: nipping at your best friend’s throat, quick to wonder what bruises would look like blooming on his aqua skin. You tear into him gently, hearing him hum over hitched breath when you do. 

“I mean, I think I could use an interactive lesson if I’m gonna have a shot on this test.” A minute ago, you were the one gasping for breath; now, Floyd sighs to maintain composure, accidentally puncturing your bottoms with his nails while you lick across his jaw. You can’t see his erection, but you can feel it, beginning to press up beneath you as his arousal grows. Merfolk fall sorta in the middle of the venn diagram between humans and fish, he had said; maybe you’re more compatible that you originally assumed, and the fact that you have him hard just from a little bit of kissing and biting is so pathetically cute. Floyd might look real tough, but he’s practically falling apart just the way you fantasized he would earlier today, just as quick if not quicker than you, his cute lil’ Shrimpy—his baby—who’s clearly had more control over him than he’s let onto until now. 

You pull back to look into his olivey eyes and he’s half-lidded with something just to the left of restless yearning—like how a predator must look when it’s got its prey backed into a corner. 

But you’re hardly prey.

His head cocks like a puppy waiting for a treat. “Ain’t’cha gonna help me out?” 

Later, you’ll swear this was him begging, and he’ll deny it; he tries to distract you from it with that sly confidence, his eternal air of never taking anything too seriously, but you have him right where you want him. 

Even if he does get one final jab in, sing-songy, grasping onto the last of his smugness. “You could get a little marine anatomy lesson in return, y’know.” 

You want to make him squirm back—so you concede, “Alright,” like you’re doing him a favor. In reality, it’s so sweetly dizzying and surprising to drink in his desperation after he’s made you feel crazy for as long as he has. You untangle yourself from him, backing up until you hit the wall so you can hoist yourself upon it once more. 

Floyd treads back up to you without having to be told. When you slip your bottoms off, you don’t ask him not to look. 

“Ever touched a human like this before?” you ask, more to put him through answering than actually looking to know; you have a pretty good idea, anyway, from the way he just pouts up at you—an answer in itself. You prop one heel up on the edge of the pool and push his drenched hair away from his forehead as he settles a shoulder beneath your still submerged calf, downturned eyes shining. 

You look at him so fondly, drag your gentle touch down his face before tilting his chin toward the apex of your thighs; if eels could blush, you’re certain you’d have gotten him with the way you wiggle forward to the edge and spread yourself open with two fingers. 

You’d be kidding yourself if you said his hungry gaze and warm breath on your cunt doesn’t affect you just as terribly. 

“So,” you clear your throat—this is an anatomy lesson, after all. You’re nothing if not committed to the bit. “A lot of my reproductive anatomy is inside—totally unreachable. But this—”

You demonstratively swipe a finger over your clit. 

“—feels real good if you touch it.” 

Floyd, self-proclaimed hands-on learner, doesn’t waste a second replacing your finger with his thumb. 

You yelp, jumping a bit, for more than one reason. “Watch the claws, Leech.” 

He bites his lip through a focused smile—he really is so hot when he actually gives his full, undivided attention to something, and the fact that you’re the something is even better. “Sorry.” He’s hardly sorry. 

But he struggles to avoid scratching you up. 

“Tell me what to do, baby,” he insists at your ow, ow, ow, lower and more invested than usual—it makes you clench around nothing, makes you feel so empty. You wish his fingers inside you wouldn’t maim you. You suppose that’s an excursion for his other form. His hands instead busy themselves grabbing at your thighs, opening you up, wanting more. “Can I just…?” 

You don’t know if oral sex exists under the sea and you don’t really care—either way, Floyd’s unhinged enough to just go for it without you having to tell him, and you simply guide his head the rest of the way to you as his tongue licks a long, experimental stripe up your slit. 

“Yeah,” you sigh, “yeah, that feels—” 

He keeps licking. Enthusiastically, like one might an ice cream cone. You cover your smiling mouth for a split second before you continue, pushing him away to show him.

“Here, here, here.” Again, you touch yourself—so pulsing and hot compared to how chilly he is. “This little—above the hole, is the—”

“The Exorcist,” he insists, looking deadpan up at you, so Floyd in timing, that you can’t tell if he’s joking or not. 

You try so hard not to snort. Sevens, what kind of media has he been consuming up here? At least he’s maybe, sort of trying? (His bio grade does depend on it, after all.)

“Clitoris,” you correct him, chuckling at the sheer absurdity of this whole situation. It’ll catch up to you in embarrassment if you don’t get his mouth on you in the next five seconds, you’re pretty sure. “See it? Feels really good to touch, lick, suck o—oh!”

Before you can breathe, he’s latched onto you—licking again and pausing where you’ve instructed him, suckling around you and twirling his tongue in a way has you pushing him into you instead of away, now, and you’re going to keep your voice, of course; you’d go as far as to call him somewhat of a natural, but you’re still going to instruct him like a good tutor. 

“Y-yeah, that’s it,” you encourage him; his tongue feels long and a little frigid, so unlike anything you’ve felt before, and it’s certainly not working against him. “Just—don’t move down—yeah, like that. G-good boy, Floyd.” 

He must like that, because he hums into you; the vibration sends your hips rolling forward into his mouth—you prop your other heel up to spread yourself even wider—and he peers up at you wetly like he wants you to say it again. 

When you don’t, his eyes flutter shut, his brow furrows, and his tongue works harder—making you arch, making you croon.

And it falls from your mouth like you can’t help it, “Good boy, right there—mhm!” 

Said tongue slips down, prodding your hole; you’re gasping all over again, biting into the back of your hand when Floyd moans into your pussy once more like he’s unaware of the shockwave it sends through you (he probably is), his hands landing at the small of your back to tug you into grinding on his face. He seems to enjoy alternating between tonguefucking you and making out with your clit—if how tight he’s holding you is anything to go off of, anyway, and with the way he moves, the way his elbows come up to rest under you, tense and holding himself up, it seems like he’s humping the pool wall. 

The fact that he’s getting off on going down on you makes you want to lay back and curl your thighs around his head. But as much as you’d love to cum in his mouth, as good as his tongue feels drinking you down, now that you know he has a cock, you pretty much need him to fuck you with it. 

“Floyd,” you whine, wriggling away from him. He’s hesitant to let you go; his eyes fly open like you’re taking away his favorite toy, which you may as well be. “Floyd—ah, I want you t’fuck me, please?” 

That has him happily departing with a lewd smack, nails letting up on your flesh; he looks up at you with a dopey smile, like you’ve just injected him with something that’s sent him skyward, but it doesn’t last long—he’s determined as he pulls you back into the water with real firmness, catching you beneath your arms as you squint for the splash. 

When you open your eyes, you’re met with a satisfied and glistening mouth, tongue poking out, lapping you up. “You taste good, Shrimpy.” 

You roll your eyes. “Don’t call me Shrimpy while we’re fucking.” 

Floyd snickers. “Ya like baby better? Maybe I’ll use that all the time from now on.” 

“You should,” you agree before he’s kissing you; you’re coiled around him again in an instant, tasting yourself in his spit, sliding a restless hand under the water between both your bodies to thumb his tip. 

Floyd bites your lip as you circle him; you half-wish you could see him from an outside point of view, how his eyes are screwed shut, how his jaw flexes and releases when he chokes on his breath, but you know you can’t be anywhere but here—you fully don’t want to be anywhere but here—pleased at the way he bucks into your hand all needy. 

When you maneuver him down to drag your cunt along him, you earn your first nasally, full-bodied moan from Floyd Leech—all at once obscene and uncorrupted; you wonder if he’s ever made himself sound like this, if he would even know how to; you nearly growl into his open mouth as his ridges and veins catch on your clit, your entrance. You wonder, too, just how soaked you are right now, riding along his length, which does not by any means feel small, by the way. When you close yourself around him to let him fuck your thighs, you feel his tip reaching past your ass. 

And now that he’s started, he’s not going to shut up. “Oh, shit, that feels—Shrim—baby, oh, fuck.” 

You wish you’d have dedicated some time to learning his cock—when you catch a glimpse beneath the surface, it seems to be the same darker shade of blue-green that contours the edges of the rest of his body; it’s undoubtedly naturally slick, also not unlike the rest of him, probably as pretty as it feels. 

You bite into the freckles across his collarbone as you thrash against each other, all sweat and water and stickiness and teeth. “Want you,” you mumble in his webbed ear. “Spare me the lesson.” 

“Alright,” he hisses, letting up like it’s painful. “Your turn.” 

It’s in Floyd’s nature to turn on a dime. He was so docile while you let him explore you. His razor-sharp grin threatens you with ruin now that you’re letting him take what he wants, forgetting all about the subject at hand—the topic that got you here in the first place. Nonetheless, he intends to be strict, you can tell—even if you’re the one palming his cock, wetting your lips for more of his rough kisses, hooking your knees over his elbows and guiding him into your cunt. 

“This how ya do it?” But he’s got the basics down by now—and with you lining him up, he’s got little more to do than thrust himself forward, but he decides the best way to go about this is to shake his head dismissively, almost annoyed, and bend your knees up to your shoulders, damn near to the pool wall, and all at once he’s in you, filling you up, hitting you deep. 

“Floyd!” you squeal, stretched in more ways than one. “Chill!” 

“Fuck—can’t,” he groans brokenly; he’s fucking into you already, steady and rigid. His next sentence tumbles out more like one long word, like it might be the last thing he ever says: “Oh, fuck, it feels so good, I gotta move.” 

His long tail comes to wind tight and writhing around your middle as he pins you, leveraging your whole body as he keeps an experimental pace, but already, speech escapes him; still, Floyd doesn’t shut up, groaning through uneven whimpers, unabashed and frantic to let you know how you good you feel even if you’ve stolen his voice. 

Water swashes around you and you can do nothing but cry out, tangling both hands in Floyd’s drenched hair, your forehead pressed to his. 

“‘S’okay, baby, I want it all,” you whine. 

And in a second, his hips are brutal against yours. 

You can’t see anything below—the way he fucks you deliriously stirs up the water—but you reach down to touch yourself again, jaw slack to your chest as he bends and pounds you; Floyd’s so damn loud you’d worry about being heard if it wasn’t for the way you can feel his dick, ruthless in your guts, turning your brain to pitiable mush. He looks so pretty, eyes all teary and borderline crazed, teeth clenching closed just to be pried open by pitchy moans that send waves of heat straight to the orgasm building in your core. 

When he gets his voice back, you’re losing yourself—reminding yourself to keep your eyes open, keep your gaze on him, because you’d rather die than miss the way Floyd looks when he opens his pretty mouth again. 

“If you—fuck, ‘m gonna cum in you—‘f you could take it, I’d keep—keep fuckin’ you…” 

“Want it,” you breathe, words all strung out and slurred, whole body jostling with the way he batters against your insides, “ngh’I want y’r cum.” 

Floyd cusses a few more times—mouth just as filthy as the rest of him for you as you goad him—because you want him, you want him to cum in you, you’re so fucking tight and perfect around him that he knows he’s growing more and more addicting with each rapid-fire slam of his tip against your cervix but he couldn’t stop if he wanted to, and from the way your hips jerk to the flexing and curling of your toes and the whines and moans you sing, muddled and noisy, into the air for him, he doesn’t think there’s a world that exists where he’d want to. 

“This is where you’d release your clutch, if ya had one—oh,” he explains, breath quick and hot against your neck as you twitch—you’re so close, he can feel it, the way you clamp around him erratically as each stroke, each thrust distresses his words into little more than gasping and rambling. “A-and I’d—hah, fuck, I’d knock you up so good—” 

In your hazy, foggy, humid upswing of pleasure your melting mind remembers his unfinished thought from earlier: I don’t even know how—I don’t think… And oh, fuck, just the thought of it sends you hurdling over the edge, cumming hard, but 

the words, too, are leaving you before you can stop them, before you can think too hard about what it is your clipped and breathy voice is babbling— 

“G’na breed me? Wanna fill me up with your kids, Floyd? Huh?” 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, yeah—” he chants back, ruined, “G’na fuckin’ take it all for me, aren’t’cha, baby?” 

“Fuck, I need it,” you’re unsure if you whisper or scream—your nails are harsh in his shoulders and his teeth are buried in your neck, muffling rough, rhythmic cries as he cums, throbbing inside you; he cums so fucking much, you can feel it, filling you to the brim, coating every inch of you he can reach, trembling and spasming and fuck, he can’t stop—it feels like forever and too soon when he slows to a stop, buried in you, letting up on your neck and dropping your legs to grab either side of your head and kiss you long and hard, both of you half-humming, half-whining into each other. 

Between labored breaths and lazy kisses you spend a good few minutes rocking into one another—biting at lips, hands wandering, tongues poking, until eventually you’re both just play-fighting, snickering quietly, touching in ways that are spent of sex and yet still wholly intimate.  

When he calms a bit, scarily serious in that way only Floyd can get, he asks you, “You gonna be mine ‘er what?” 

“I’m already yours, Leech.” You flick water at him, resigned, and wriggle a bit. One golden eye winks to dodge, and he’s grinning, so familiar; as he untangles himself from you, helping you back up onto the tile, he mocks relief.

 ”Good. Would be kinda awkward if you weren’t.” 

Water settling is the only sound across the pool deck as you towel off, shuffle your shorts back on. In the silence, Floyd twirls around the water and starts to sing a stupid little song—totally off-key and fully content, I love my Shrimpy, I love my Shrimpy… 

Until the lights start to flicker, and you hear the extremely vexed voice of a certain Mostro Lounge owner from the far hallway— 

“If you’re done, get the fuck out! My students are trying to sleep!” 

And in another blink, Floyd is human and wild-eyed, on the deck pulling his shorts on and running—he catches your hand in his, mumbling something about how he’s gonna ace this test and Azul can suck it—and he’s laughing, running, and you wouldn’t rather be doing anything but the same. 

[that-house]

The Tarrasque Can Blow Me or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Make 5e Bosses That Don't Suck

HI, I'm Catherine that-house, and I play Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition almost as much as I hate it. I do this because I am a sicko pervert who likes to tinker with abysmal dogshit, not because it's a good game. This screed is dedicated to everyone trapped in the same mine as me.

D&D 5e combat sucks! Here's the flow chart for your melee champion fighter's turn:

IF BAD GUY: smack bad guy

IF BAD GUY WITHIN 30 FT: move to bad guy, smack bad guy

IF LOW ON HP: second wind

IF NO BAD GUY WITHIN 30 FT: dash towards nearest bad guy

action surge, take it from the top

IF YOU'RE FEELING DARING TODAY: maybe a grapple or an item interaction

And pretty much any non-caster monster has a pretty similar flowchart: there's no real back and forth, just the same set of actions over and over and the only time you have to pay attention on someone else's turn is for an attack of opportunity maybe. Finally one side reduces the other side's number to 0, and you can get back to roleplaying in your roleplaying game.

In general, I strive to make my boss fights hard and interesting, with interesting being the more important of the two. For some reason the wicked clowns working at WOTC got it into their heads that the only ways to make a fight hard are Bigger Number and Less Counterplay. I don't have any data on how they sought to make fights interesting because as far as I can tell they were too busy siccing the Pinkertons on people like it's the fucking 1800s.

Probably not all 5e combat is like this. But, like, look at the statblock for the Tarrasque, the CR 30 "strongest monster in the game" and try to tell me that that thing looks INTERESTING to fight. Difficult? Maybe, if your stats are bad. But INTERESTING? It walks at someone and murders the shit out of them, then rinses and repeats. The fetid dog turd that is the Tarraque is the perfect example of the Bigger Number, and even its meme status as the DM's "fuck you" monster is eclipsed by later additions to the game.

The other end of the "strongest 5e statblock" spectrum is shit like Sul Khatesh from Eberron, who earns the title of "most bullshit" by being immune to nonmagic attacks and creating antimagic fields. This is progress, because you might force someone to grapple it out of the field or something so everyone can deal damage! But this is still ultimately a pretty linear fight, not unlike fighting any other caster in the game, but with Less Counterplay.

My DMing style is pretty character goal-oriented, with the occasional bullshit superboss. We sit around for a few sessions while people pursue side projects and gather information, and then I subject them to the Horrors of a 5e fight that requires things like "positioning" and "planning" from turn to turn.

When playing a high level D&D campaign with insanely bullshit homebrew magic items and character-specific custom mechanics, it becomes necessary to pull out the big guns. The biggest guns. I'm talking a gun like my boy Hierarch Ozyas, undead demigod, father of monsters and heart of a living city, who had a meaty 2000 hit points and took somewhere in the vicinity of thirteen rounds of combat to bring down. Building bosses is an arms race and it's my job to lose in style. Here's Ozyas' statblock:

The bitch himself

Anyways I've been talking for a bit without actually saying anything of substance besides making fun of the Tarrasque. Which I will do one more time:

...deep breath...

D&D 5e is a pretty widely-disdained game by pretty much anyone who's ever played more than one RPG system. I myself only play it because I enjoy game design, and the thoroughly-beaten dead horse that WOTC calls a game serves as a decent foundation to do a lot of heavy tinkering. The Tarrasque is perfectly emblematic of all of the trash I have to wade through in order to get to the stuff worth keeping: it is an uninspired, anticlimactic relic of the past that didn't even manage to cling to a shred of its old glory and is instead content to wallow in the filth of what it once was, never once providing a challenge to any character with a flying speed. I would probably attempt to beat it to death with my hands (and fail, because it checks your character's stats rather than challenging you as a player in any way), but Jim the 1st level aaracokra with a save-forcing damage cantrip already solo'd it for me, so I'll settle for chewing through the throat of whichever game designer forgot they were making a "game" and submitted a three step flowchart for D&D's ultimate boss monster.

But anyways, I promised you a guide to how I design boss fights these days, so let's get to that.

Actually, first here's a quick aside about action economy that I didn't bother finding a place to fit in elsewhere: legendary actions are basically a necessity for any boss past level five or so. One big action is going to be a lot more polarizing than several small ones (i.e. one big crit on a large attack could completely flip the course of the fight, whereas multiple smaller attacks offer the same amount of damage output in a more consistent fashion). If you don't want to give your boss a bunch of HP to make it live long enough to take a few turns, you could consider giving it two turns in the initiative order (reducing the damage per turn to keep the damage per round constant). Low health minions are also a good way to pad out action economy, and even if they're easy to kill they tend to buy the boss another turn or two just from the actions it costs to take them down.

ANYWAYS, here's the core ideas I like to focus on in my boss design:

Keep them moving

Keep them working

Keep things changing

Reward good play

Punish mistakes

Make it a game

Along the way I'll be using snippets of the boss I mentioned above to illustrate examples of these principles and how they affected play. Let's begin.

KEEP THEM MOVING Positioning doesn't really matter in 5e. AoEs and movement values are both so large that you can easily get away with not having a battle map and sorta just tracking "in melee" or "not in melee." I run most fights without a battle map and just kinda track that, but for a good boss you need a map.

But how do we keep the game from just falling back into "move into range and hurt people," you ask? Simple: the Zone of Nasty. The Zone of Nasty is something on the map that is going to hurt the PCs if they're in it, and the Zone of Nasty moves. Depending on the boss, it could grow, shrink, follow a player, follow the boss, alternate between areas of the map, whatever. Some bosses might have multiple different Zones of Nasty that move in different ways and do different things.

There are other ways to force movement besides a moving AoE, such as punishing players for being too close or too far from each other or the boss.

The general principle here is that a boss should at times force suboptimal play: optimal play involves simply standing around, spending all your actions on damaging the boss, and it's incredibly boring from a strategic standpoint. There should be turns in which your players have to spend their action economy on protecting themselves or helping their allies. If they find themselves in a Zone of Nasty, it should force a decision between suffering the consequences to continue optimal play, or spending resources to get out of it.

Our boy Ozyas had a Cancer Field that he could move slowly around the arena that damaged and debuffed PCs inside it, and Pretender-God-Piercing Strike, a telegraphed line attack that oneshot anything that stayed in its area too long (more on this one later).

KEEP THEM WORKING Everyone needs a job to do! This job is probably just going to be based on what their class and abilities encourage them to do, but it sucks for someone to not be able to meaningfully participate in a boss fight.

Let the DPS players kick the boss's teeth in, obviously, but make sure the person who focused on AoE effects has some extra enemies that they can deal with. Bonus points if the extra enemies have something that forces them to be dealt with instead of just rushing the boss' HP bar.

Worst case scenario, throw in a secondary objective like completing a ritual, controlling a point on the map, or fighting the boss' soul on a higher plane to give someone who isn't immediately needed for DPS to still have something to do.

Ozyas spawned a bunch of extra monsters from these gross Birthing Pillars around the map, and killing the monsters and destroying the pillars provided a nice secondary course of action for people either not equipped to slug it out with the boss or not currently positioned right to fight him.

KEEP THINGS CHANGING The tarrasque sucks because it does one thing over and over until it works or it dies. The Theros splatbook improved on this marginally: Mythic Traits are fucking baller! Combats should change over the course of the fight, or this could have been a fucking autobattler. But we can go further.

In addition to occasionally shaking things up based on health thresholds, here's a few ways I like to do it:

Rotating list of effects that change every round

Huge list of options the boss can choose from for one of their effects with no repeats

Some sort of meter that increases and decreases based on what's happening in the fight and modifies the boss' abilities

Ozyas summoned new monsters every round and could customize the statblocks with a bunch of quick templates I whipped together, and in his second phase he started alternating between scaling the to hit/damage of his tentacle attack, the reach of his spear attack, and applying extra buffs to his summons.

REWARD GOOD PLAY These next two kind of tie together but the core idea here is that it's okay if a boss is a bit easy, as long as it makes your players work for it.

This can include things like ways to trivialize certain parts of the encounter as long as the players utilize them, typically at the cost of advancing other parts of the fight.

I knew that Ozyas was going to be a long fight, so I gave my players the ability to heal to full health, as an action, whenever they wanted. They were fighting inside Ozyas' body, and he was a generous host. However, any time they healed, he would be healed for the same amount. They got around this restriction by hitting him with Chill Touch to disable his own healing whenever people needed to heal, but that obviously had the cost of losing two actions' worth of damage output.

Towards the end of the fight, everyone was still standing thanks to that healing, but as he began to infinitely scale his stats once he reached his second phase and started taking them seriously, they couldn't afford to waste turns healing anymore and the safety net they built up by healing earlier in the fight kept anyone in the party from dying.

PUNISH MISTAKES The range on D&D characters' HP pools and general survivability can be pretty broad. I like to give my bosses a reasonably-heavy hitting melee and some sort of light ranged attack to remind the backliners that they too can die. But there's a third kind of attack.

The great equalizer.

The One Hit Knock Out move.

These need to be telegraphed. There needs to be copious time to get out of the area, or to stop the boss from using it, or whatever the case may be. But any superboss should have a way to threaten any player on equal standing: a move that will always hit if its conditions are met, and puts them clean to 0.

Ozyas' OHKO was Pretender-God-Piercing Strike, where at the end of each turn he would wind up a spear thrust with enough range to hit across the entire map, targeting a 15-foot line through the nearest player. Neither he nor the line could move after that, and if you were still in that line at the start of his next turn, you were done.

It wasn't hard to avoid: just walk like 10 feet and don't get pushed back in by another enemy. They even lined it up to target some of his own allies sometimes. But it forced them to think about positioning and stay moving, and there were a few times where it aaaaalmost caught someone in the line. The prospect of Instant Death really does wonders to ratchet up the tension.

And now, finally, we come to the most important part:

MAKE IT A GAME D&D 5e likes to jerk off while fantasizing about being real. "Catherine what the fuck are you talking about?" What I mean to say is that D&D makes a fumbling attempt towards a more simulationist style of game, trying to distance itself from the fact that it is, in fact, a game. It tries to comport itself like reality, such that every part of its combat makes sense in-universe, and then immediately falls short because it can't be assed to indulge in actual simulationism.

It is my belief that if you're going to spend 4 hours fighting a boss, and one of the boss mechanics doesn't really make much sense as an in-universe concept but does make the boss more interesting and fun to fight, then that's a perfectly fine mechanic. Obviously finding some way to justify it is preferable, but my bosses prioritize good gameplay over verisimilitude.

The upcoming boss in my campaign has a feature which puts the fight on a ten-round time limit before he begins kicking substantially more ass than he was before (and the prior ass-kickery was indeed already substantial). If this is a desperate fight with his life and his dreams on the line, why doesn't he open with that? If this were a WOTC statblock, barring a mythic trait, that's exactly how it would work. But fuck that, because it would make the fight way less interesting! Now there's time pressure! And sure, the post-round-ten version of the boss is meant to be fled from, not fought, but if he's at a low enough HP it could instead make for an insane climactic finish!

I let my players see the whole statblock before the fight. We talk through all of its abilities, and I'll even point out some of the potential points of complexity and the big risks to watch out for. There's no in-universe justification for why the characters would know this (beyond, perhaps "you're exceptional adventurers and are good at evaluating your foes"): in fact, one of the quintessential examples of classical 5e metagaming is the Guy Who's Read the Monster Manual. I think that's fucking stupid, though. With open statblocks:

Features can be game-warpingly deadly without instantly incurring a TPK born of ignorance. OHKO moves don't feel fair unless the counterplay is known

The players can strategize around the ways in which the boss is going to change throughout the fight

It's fundamentally fair. Some GMs just wait X turns and then let the boss go down when it takes a big, impressive hit (and I fully respect people who do that! That's still more compelling boss design than 5e's normal schlock), but I personally like when numbers have meanings.

You can still hide some information (I like to black out the boss' Mythic Trait, and then only use it if the players stomp the fight too easily), and you can still tweak it to adjust the difficulty, with the difference being that your players know it's being adjusted and how so (which again comes back to my feelings of fairness).

A few other fun mechanics to toss in include stacking debuffs that trigger something horrible at some certain threshold, additional win conditions or lose conditions, and silly little minigames. One trick I particularly enjoy is having my players secretly vote between two or more bad outcomes, and punishing them even more if the vote is tied.

CONCLUSION Your mileage may vary, but I'm hoping at least some of the insights here were useful to you! I have a particular strain of undiagnosed mental illnesses that make me especially predisposed towards piloting huge convoluted intricate bosses with 1k+ word statblocks, and I'm lucky enough to have players who know their shit well enough to play around this bullshit. Find something that works for you and your players.

If you hate 5e combat and think this sounds like way too much work to be worth doing, go play something else, like Pathfinder or Lancer or (heaven forbid) a game that actually struggles to trace its lineage of inspiration back to D&D. Go to itch.io and find some game no one's ever played before, and toss the creator a bit of money. The only way we're making it out of these goddamn Mines of Phandelver is if people try something new from time to time.

On the subject of cool games with cool combat, bear with me as I shill for a friend real quick. If you want a game that cares less about combat as an abstract dick measuring contest and more about combat as a facet of violence and all that that entails, check out [BXLLET> by @rathayibacter.

And, finally, from the bottom of my heart, fuck WOTC. Your books aren't even worth pirating, and the Tarrasque can blow me.

[yuurivoice]

Any advice for someone wanting to break into this niche as a creator?

I'll try to be concise, but as encompassing as I can be! I've tried to answer this many times and haven't put together a proper "here's my advice I always give ppl" post, so let's try taking a shot at this.

General Advice

Understand your "why" as a creator, and make sure you're doing this for sustainable, healthy reasons. In any form of creative pursuit, doing it because you're having fun and pursuing your passions is the best way to make sure your time is well spent!

Respect the arts, use human-made artwork, do not steal. There are numerous ways to find artwork you can use for the purpose of promotion and such.

Don't blow a bunch of money on gear you don't need yet. You're going to be bad at whatever new thing you're trying out, there are people who have crystal clear quality, pretty images, and all the rest...and then they don't actually do anything with it. Or they do, and their ability is disproportionately underpowered.

Getting into any sort of creative venture for the sake of COMMUNITY is kind of ass backwards. Treating business ventures like high school lunch tables is lame ass behavior, and there's no shortage of people going that route. Build your OWN spaces, work on your own filter to keep your spaces safe and free from bullshit, and be aware that not everyone is mature and honest.

ASMR Roleplay

You will continuously get better. Yes you will hate your own voice. Yes you will hear a million imperfections. No, there's no real easy way around it. Everyone starts somewhere. Get out of your own way and get started!

Understand your responsibility as The Voice. People are lending you the reins to guide them. That involves a great deal of trust. Respect that trust. Be mindful of the situations you depict, advice you may give, and subjects you brush up against. Understand that you are probably not qualified to be a fucking therapist, and if you were to present yourself in such a way, you run the risk of creating horrifically parasocial connections with vulnerable people.

There are tons of script fills you can find online. Just be sure to credit the authors and follow their ToS. And be aware that there are diminishing returns to doing the same thing that dozens of other people have already done.

If you're writing your own scripts, that's an entire other skillset you'll be developing as you go and is worth its own laundry list of advice. Understand that writing for non-speaking listener is a unique skill that requires a ton of consideration that general fictional writing doesn't account for. Practice makes perfect.

Consider branding as you get started. Visual identity, the way you stand out from others, how you get recognized regularly, etc. that is also a whole other thing that deserves its own breakdown.

Programs, Equipment, etc.

For just getting started (and well beyond) Audacity is a program that will cover all your bases. It's simple, just make sure you check out a guide or two on how to use it for voiceover.

The space you record in is the easy way to get the best sound out of ANY microphone. Getting into a small space with blankets, pillows, etc. is a tried and true starter pack. Treating a closet with 2" acoustic panels, finding a way to drape a blanket around you, and so on is a good start.

That being said, if you're recording on a $20 tin can USB microphone it will not sound pleasant on the ears. USB microphones have come up in the world, but XLR microphones are the going to give you your best potential results. I use Podcastage as my go-to for microphone reviews, but you'll likely want to find tests with someone who has similar vocals to your own so you get a better idea of what YOUR voice sounds like on that mic. That's a big deal.

That's all a fraction of the advice you could dig up, but it's a decent starter pack at a glance. Also, this is some Internet Dad advice that I offer because I've seen some alarming shit in this niche. Be 18+ before becoming some kind of content creator. While there can absolutely be entirely SFW creators in the space, there is a massive portion of the community that is adult oriented. There are a million reasons why that's a door you don't want to open.

I say this because I've literally seen folks who said they started when they were teens and that's batshit insane to me, particularly because the case I saw was heavily involved in triggering subjects as SFW comfort and it's like........hey maybe a teen shouldn't be serving as an at risk individual's personal hotline? That is fucking nuts, and the fact that no one caught wind of that in time to go "hey, maybe fucking don't?" boggles the mind.

This likely won't apply to anyone reading this because I've found that people who ain't got no goddamn sense don't tend to like me very much and flock to other corners of the internet. But it bears stating, just in case. lol

[crispy-art-on-fire]

Okay you hanahaki anon's coming back for a few extra funnies sss

I had the working theory that cybertronian flowers in your guts isn't like, a foreign object. Because cybertronians don't really have a large intake of solid material/metal, the idea is that the disease 1. sources its metal from the cybertronian themselves, so that plant is your fucking organs now. have fun. It entangles and ensnares parts together, making removal and repair hard, and gets worse over time. Like, trying to open up one's chassis, or hell, even movement at one point, might become damn near impossible when the roots get tangled up in that. 2. its caused by a lapse/glitch in the nanite system; a bloke struggles with their crush so bad their frame is like "something wrong? but the frame's working fine- guess we gotta revert and become Plant it is," so confessing actually causes it to go away fairly quickly once the 'disease' alleviates and there's no longer pressure to return to botany, so the system just repairs itself. This has all the implications you think it does.

So this bit's kind of more Ratchet-centric, but it might not be immediately apparent that Optimus isn't actually dying dying from this, but was still willing to hide it, even to the point that it seems like he'd rather straight-up die than confess or even tell the team medic about it. It's pretty obvious he's crushing on a con, he's not that stupid, so even if he's crushing on a con, why hide it from Ratchet. It isn't his choice to fall for a con, he would know that, so is this somehow on the medic? Like, would he be forced to take a step back and wonder if his hostility made his team leader worried about telling him? Maybe not, he might just bulldoze on ahead and berate the truck for nearly killing himself, until its more clear that it's not. killing him. Again I run in circles.

What I think, however would be the most interesting is if Blitzwing's still got his crush on Optimus, but he's upfront about it, which now makes the idea of telling the 'con all the more worse. Like, if Oppy isn't saying for the sake of his team, or emotions, or some cosmic third factor, it's going to be so much worse if Blitzwing's reciprocal. Like, Op might not Want to, or reason he shouldn't start a relationship with Blitzwing in this version (insert your reasons here) despite like, he's falling head over flower petals for the triple-changer, but telling him is almost going to make things so much more complicated. Blitzwing might not get why he's doesn't want a relationship, they both clearly want each other, it's literally killing the Autobot. Would Blitzwing get even more pushy, stalker-y or even worse, and would not knowing how'd Blitzwing react cause Op to try and drive his feelings deeper, even considering having the roots removed despite what it'll do to him? Ough. Something.

As a bonus, I think it would be fun/interesting with the "flower petals oxidize to the color of the sufferer's crush's plating" if for both the flowers oxidized the same way. Like, red, blue, and black for Optimus obviously, but what about also red, blue, and black for Blitzwing's three faceplates. Although that would create some hilarious confusion on Op's end. why are the petals his own colors. what

That's about all I've got for subjecting plant diseases onto love-stricken bots. I need to find more creative ways to torture Blitzwing.

Yesss YESSSSS. Eating this, wonderful.

I plp might have figured out but I ADORE when love drives people to madness. The feeling being mutual and they knowing its mutual but Optimus not wanting to cross that gap and admit it and like. It literally having physical adverse effects on him. Ough og!!!! Trapping them in hell where Blitzwing becomes more and more blatant in his feelings because it is required!!! But he isn't granted relief!!! And the escalating behavior just keep confirming to Optimus just why this isn't going to work and is a bad idea while at the same time pushing into a corner where he has to confess.

Also your headcanon on Hanaki disease works for robots EATS. It shall live rent free in my head. Ratchet as is tradition with this ship, has the worst time ever.

[rei-ismyname]

Kitty leaves Xavier's part 1

One fine day at Xavier's, Chuck gets a letter from Kitty's parents informing him they're withdrawing her from the school. The primary reason is due to there being no students her own age (fair.)

Kitty is devastated, of course. I've been writing a bit about this very subject recently, but upon rereading I realised that I was in Kitty's position once. I was a 'gifted child' and didn't have much use for kids my own age. Whether that was a healthy thing for me is hard to say, but I do understand where she's coming from. Nevertheless, this should have been a wake up call for Xavier. He has the resources to take on as many students as he wishes - even if Kitty leaves for good the next child mutant will have the same issue. Ororo tries to comfort her but she's inconsolable.

Kitty is the one who figures out she's being sent to a school where The White Queen is headmistress. Ororo definitely remembers her and is concerned. Kitty displays both perceptiveness and a childish aversion to change. If nothing else, she needs more support than she's getting.

After saying her farewells to the X-Men, some more appropriate than others (what the fuck Pete?) she's ready to go. Ororo is going to drive her up there. It's nice to see how close Kitty and Ororo are, but their dynamic highlights just how young she is. It feels more like a parental relationship than that of siblings.

The two discuss how evil Emma is, and while Kitty receives orientation Emma reminds us.

'Ororo' says her goodbyes and after driving a few miles from the school drops a classic Emma Frost/Hellfire line - 'in this, as in all things, my pleasure will not be denied.' Emma body swapped with Ororo. WTF!

Emma is loving using Ororo's powers while quoting Shakespeare but goes a little too far. She realises how much concentration and control is required to not cause ecological disasters.

She calls 19th century Robber Baron and complete shithead, Sebastian Shaw, for some mutual gloating. Meanwhile, Ororo wakes up back at the Massachusetts Academy and feels super weird. She looks in the mirror and sees Emma's mug staring back at her.

For some reason Shaw sends Sentinels to attack Xavier's just as Emma is arriving. I always thought that one poking its head in at Chuck was cute. The fight isn't going too well so Kurt teleports to the armory and grabs some C4. He does a pretty damn good job of blowing up the Sentinels with it.

Just as everyone is recovering from the battle, Emma electrocutes TF out of them. Ororo is having difficulty adjusting to Emma's body and the onslaught of telepathic chatter, but she still manages to escape some Hellfire Club goons.

Next time - what TF is this plan? What's the creepiest thing Emma can do in Ororo's body? Will Kitty ever return to Xavier's? (Yes, obviously, but how soon?)

This arc is so messed up.

[emblemxeno]

Anon talking on the subject, I've seen a comment on YouTube say something really dismissive to a clear fan's emotional analysis of Fates in light of it's ten year anniversary that I think really highlights how utterly derogatory these sentiments are to the millions of fans who actually like and understand Fates's story:

Fates is three games in one. Birthright is boring but beginner friendly with least offensive writing. Conquest is fun for more experienced players but have shit writing that some die-hard defend as "something three houses tried to copy but failed" but most sane people can tell it's shit. Revelation is the nice happy ending three houses never got but raised more eyebrows than it lowers.

That bit that was said at the end in particular really bugs me. "[Some die-hards] defend [Fates] as "something [Three Houses] tried to copy but failed," but most sane people can tell [Fates's writing is] shit". Mind you, this was posted during somebody making a YouTube video gushing about the game during its 10th Anniversary, and that comment effectively holds the implication of 'anyone who tries to argue that Fates' is good writing either has shit taste or is an idiot, because I'm clearly smart enough to know the difference'. It's like the other Anon said, most genuinely think Fates has absolutely zero value as a story similar to how objectively bad films like The Last Airbender or Fant4stic have no value, and it's just utterly derisive to the millions of people who clearly played this game and loved the story and characters and actually bothered to fucking analyze it like you or I do, that we're gatekept out of discussion within the majority of FE communities because people just inherently assume we don't actually think or that we're looking at it to deeply or something, and it's just utterly derogatory to look down on that while being so utterly incapable of handling talk about the game that you talk about that game's story like pretty much everyone talks about Space Jam 2 or other objectively bad film, when it and Fates aren't even remotely in the same ballpark of quality. It just really reinforces that the issue is a matter of console and time limitations, and the fandom having expectations of it being the next Genealogy of the Holy War 2 when it never marketed itself as such. And it's just... banal, because this kind of "discussion" is fucking everywhere. You cannot fucking talk or gush about the story of Fates in pretty much anywhere sans Tumblr, some parts of Mastodon or AO3 without having one fucking grognard in the comments go "you can like Fates, but you need to accept that it's bad," when they're the ones who aren't bothering to analyze the fucking work itself. I have never seen a fucking fandom before where a game's fandom of an installment was straight-up unwelcome within the confines of the core fandom (especially for the reason of the fear of these fans "contaminating" the series with their viewpoints, like they're afraid we'd drag down the quality of future installments because we like a fucking game and are thus justified to exclude from any serious discussion), and it's just fucking infuriating because I'm not even one of the Awakening baby boomers, I came from this series since Path of Radiance. It's so derisive and it's a major reason why I hate FE fans on principle, because they are grossly misinformed and get downright irrational anytime you question what they provide as "fact". And it's 100% a vocal minority too, it just that these people get violent any time you point their analysis is subjective, biased, and misinformed. It's literally impossible to have discussions with these people because they still aren't over this game's story more than ten years after the game's release.

I don't know what kind of contrition would be required on part of the community for it's abject failure in treating Fates fans like this so consistently, but they owe us a lot of fucking apologizing from doing this over a fucking video game. These people need to grow the fuck up and accept it when people like a game they don't like instead of trying to fastidiously gatekeep discussion away from these people in the fears of them "dragging down the quality of the franchise" or "spreading misinformation," which is rich given how much they're content to spread misinformation even about games whose stories they allegedly like. Can you fucking believe that I've had better experiences talking about Fates on fucking kodocon forums from people who actually analyzed the work than I have on dedicated FE communities?

It's also like... really rude to frame it that way? Like, "you'd have to be crazy or insane to think Conquest's story is anything other than pure garbage" reads as very shitty behavior.

It's the same flavor as "people need to learn how to read" or "you have no media literacy", which I and many others in this laidback discourse-esque circle theorize has been turned into an "acceptable" way to call someone the r-slur nowadays in fandom. This supports that, because people want to be correct but also "pure and righteous" but also be as rude as possible, so they mash all of that up into very slimy words and behavior.

Like you said, it's also really shitty that they did that on a video meant to celebrate a game a person liked.

[malicious-fisheeves]

Oathbreaker dragon biology finished!! Redo of a previous piece, now in water color and featuring some commentary from a demon hunter.

Some more info under the cut

The adult is an example - dragons are pretty diverse in terms of shape. Some are much bulkier, with shorter necks or fins along their backs, different wing shapes, etc but this is the general body plan - a crown, a mantle, lizard like limb posture, fish-like fins, and lots of big scales.

Dragons are a combination of flesh/magic that somewhat defies the normal rules of oathbreaker's world (eg demons are Magic Magic, even if they have bodies that might bleed or appear to, at death they'll typically decay unnaturally if at all - many just basically poof into dust). This is typically what denotes a creature as being related to dragons, but no other dragon-like demon is sentient.

Dragons use magic to fly and breathe fire, but require some adaptations to do both. A 'crown' is a large very hard structure that protects the dragons head and will grow continuously throughout a dragon's life, whereas their horns will not regrow if broken. The lack of lips as well as protective iron coating on their teeth prevents them from burning their mouths. Their wings channel magic to convince the world to allow the roughly orca-to-small-whale sized fortress to fly. Their flight would be slow but due to their size each wing beat propels it forward greatly, just don't expect them to be making any sharp turns.

As magical creatures in general, (cant see it in the picture but i used my shiny paint for this)they are extremely resistant to any forms of magical attack except for lightning.

Dragons use their tail spines in combat with one another, attempting to lance each other's weak points (typically around joints, eg under forelegs, pelvis attachment where the skin isn't as protected) but given dragons can speak it doesnt always come to deadly combat (as adults - adults will kill juveniles if they can to eliminate competition, but the dead venom juveniles possess is a deterrent) however the venom is very low potency - more or less like a bee sting, its just as long as a person is tall. Juvenile venom in particular the subject of lots of intrigue as use as a 'super duper fuck you' poison in various cultures, but given the danger of acquiring it, is rare.

the 'W' shaped pupil gives them good good distance vision and image contrast, however dragons other senses aren't very good (hearing, scent) in adulthood due to the 'burning your face off' thang. Their hearing isn't bad perse just very unexceptional, whereas dragons cannot taste for shit. The reflective third eyelid can give their eyes a very eerie glow amidst dark smoke-filled nights.

dragons are hermaphroditic and have ritualized combat to determine who lays the eggs. The loser will remain close-ish by during the laying and incubating process, mostly to drive off other dragons who might try to steal the lair, but usually dips after a while given it can attract too much attention. The winner (and now egg layer) may or may not spend lots of time digging out a cave with fake tunnels or enlisting other demons as protection - it varies by individual. Both parents can typically recognize their children but once into adulthood dragons typically won't tolerate their offspring hanging around

Dragons do spend a lot of time sleeping throughout their entire life. Due to their magical nature dragons don't need to eat as much as a similarly sized metabolically extravagant animal, but it still pays to rest a lot.

dragons are assholes

[ashsd3ad]

# being gojo satoru’s therapist.

word count: 2.5k-ish

some angst (suicide is mentioned very briefly), no use of y/n, cursing, female!reader, idiots unknowingly pining for each other, emotionally constipated gojo

it was so fucking stupid, he didn’t need any of this. he’s the strongest sorcerer of the modern era for god’s sake.

why on earth was he being forced to see a goddamn therapist?

upon yaga’s request- well, demand actually, he was required to see a shrink because, as the principal worded it, he needed ‘a lot of fucking help’.

of course, he refused at first.

thee satoru gojo in a shrink’s office? what was that, some twisted fucking joke?

sadly for him though, yaga decided to put his foot down and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. he threatened the snowy haired man to take away his teaching job if he didn’t get the help he apparently desperately needed.

so it began, satoru gojo’s journey with his therapist.

over the course of a couple of months, satoru had grown accustomed to his routine with his therapist.

he met up with her in her cozy little office, she tried to make the conversation about his feelings and he’d redirect it to something else entirely, mainly complaining about higher ups in his field.

that always earned him a look, but she never forced him to share his inner monologues with her.

she couldn’t do that even if she wanted to anyways, he wouldn’t let her.

all of this led to an unlikely.. friendship?

well, satoru wouldn’t exactly call it a friendship, but it was.. something.

that day, was no different than their usual meetings.

a tall and lean figure made its way into her office and sat on the comfortable armchair in front of her about 30 minutes prior, but all she got from him up until that point were silences and changes of subject.

“and how did that make you feel?” god here she went again with that stupid fucking question.

satoru sighed, stretching his legs and arms a little.

sometimes she forgot how massive he actually was.

the woman briefly averted her eyes, looking everywhere but at his stupidly stunning figure, afraid yet another crack would appear in her professional persona.

she’d tell herself it wasn’t her fault, it was only natural after all! he was just very nice to look at.

she could be pretty dense, for a therapist.

“you worry too much,” he said casually, albeit a little irritated, after some back and forth. for some reason he couldn’t quite understand, his mood wasn’t the best that day, but he still tried to keep his usual laid back attitude, hiding the annoyance behind a pout. for her sake.

“i’ve told you countless times, i’m here just because i was basically forced, nothing is actually wrong with me.. if yaga didn’t constantly check in with you, i wouldn’t even attend our ‘sessions’ in the first place”.

well.. if he had to be completely honest, satoru had told only half the truth.

he attended their meetings also because his therapist was a very pretty sight to look at, and surprisingly interesting to talk to (when she wasn’t trying to pry into his feelings, that is.)

satoru was more than aware she was only trying to do her job, he really was. he just.. didn’t care, so he decided he was going to make it her problem. maybe he’d manage to get her to her wits end and she’d finally give up on him.

‘please don’t give up on me’

gojo leaned forward a little, resting his elbows on his knees. a playful smile took over his previously pouty lips as he said something along the lines of ‘why don’t we talk about YOUR feelings instead?’.

maybe he could joke his way out of this? he hoped he could.

his therapist sighs, scrunching her nose and pinching the bridge of it slightly. cute.

“we don’t talk about my feelings because i am your therapist, not the other way around, gojo” she countered, trying to keep the conversation as workplace appropriate as possible, suppressing the urge to headbutt the stubbron (and gorgeous) man in front of her.

the woman was very proud of her skills as a therapist, so much so that the lack of progress with this peculiar snowy haired man left her particularly dissatisfied, so she started putting slightly more effort than usual in trying to crack his façade, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“and, for your information, i do worry about you for a reason” she continued, voice firm, stern even.

‘she really worries about me?’

“judging by the very limited amount of insight on yourself you’ve provided me, you really do need someone to talk to about your feelings” his pretty therapist added, looking at him straight in the eyes.

she looked like she wanted to obliterate his sunglasses with her mind.

‘don’t look at me like that’

feelings feelings feelings, he was so tired of hearing her going on about them.

after that statement his mood quickly worsened even more, his face fading in a cold, borderline cynical, front.

‘well, thats a first’ she thought to herself, a little taken aback.

satoru had been curious about what exactly she saw in him from day one. was it concern? pity?

‘i don’t want her pity’

whatever it was, it was a waste of time on both ends.

"i see" he hummed thoughtfully as he tapped his fingers against his knee, pondering on his next words. "can I ask you something?"

“sure, go ahead” she answered calmly, a bit of unsureness and skepticism detectable in her voice given the sudden shift in his character.

satoru seemed to stare right through her for a few moments. his gaze was cold and unmoving, his eyes felt like they were piercing hers in a way that no other client's ever has.

“have you ever considered…” he begins slowly, voice low “that you might not be as good at this job as you think you are?”

his words were sharp, each one chosen with great intent. there was something behind his eyes that both fascinated and terrified her.

‘im sorry’

her eyes widened momentarily at his question.

a flash of annoyance, maybe even anger, thundering in them as her eyebrows furrowed, her lips parting to throw an equally biting remark back at him.

be professional.

she took a deep breath and crossed one leg over the other, speaking calmly once again.

“if you want to criticise my skills you’re free to do so, even though you’re not qualified to do so” the woman retorted.

“and if you want a different therapist you’re more than free to ask mr. yaga” her words did have a little edge to them, but she still managed to keep most of her composure.

before the man in front of her could get a word in, she added one more thing.

“but from my perspective, a therapist’s perspective, you do need one” she said as she tapped her heeled foot on the ground.

‘i know i need help’

‘help me please’

satoru pondered for a couple of seconds, then he chuckled humourlessly as he leaned back in his chair.

his face was stoic, similar to a statue, and his eyes lacked their usual shininess, almost looking muddy.

not that she’d noticed anyways, considering they were hidden behind his glasses.

there was an intensity to his gaze though, one that made even just looking at him feel as if she was under a microscope.

"I think you're taking this too personally." he hums, mocking her ever so slightly.

"i’m not criticising your skills per se, all I'm saying is..." he pauses for a moment, considering how best to say it. "even a blind man could see your ‘concern’ for me runs deeper than the usual pity you feel for all your patients”

“you must think i’m really fucking pathetic, huh?”

what the fuck was he going on about?

“my concern for you, or any other patient for the matter, is not based on pity in the first place, gojo” she looked at him, her face bewildered.

“you think i pity you?” she raised both her eyebrows in question, the incredulous expression still on her face.

satoru chuckles. though the sound is soft and quiet, delightful to hear, something about its sweetness makes it bone chilling.

nonetheless, this made her excited.

it was the widest range of emotions he’d ever shown her.

‘im breaking through!’

“do you not?” he asks, shifting in his chair, and leaning back in it once again, folding his arms over his broad chest.

“why else would you be trying as hard as you are to ‘fix’ me?” he asks, a frown stretched across his gorgeous face.

“i’m just a client like any other, but yet here you are! trying your damn hardest to change me.”

ah, so he did noticed her extra effort huh. fuck.

still, who the hell put the idea she pitied him into his stupid head?

“i do not pity you, gojo. i’ve seen patients far worse than you are” she said, almost sounding a little defensive.

“and i’m not trying to ‘fix you’, or change you for that matter! that is not my job!” she exclaimed, a smidge too loud, massaging her temple with one of her hands immediately after. probably to chase away the growing headache he’d given her.

‘i managed to piss off my own therapist what the fuck is wrong with me and why do i even care?’

before he was completely swallowed by his self deprecating thoughts, her voice brought him back once again, like a saving grace.

“my job is helping patients navigate through their emotions, using methods that are tailored perfectly for them” she explained.

“i communicate with my patients to help them find a way to process their feelings that works for them. i do not pity them, i just help them” she paused “..or, well, try to. if they let me” the woman concluded, face serious.

his face twists in distaste as he listened to her speak. bullshit.

“that’s the thing though,” he responds slowly “i don’t need help with that”

the man pulled his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, finally meeting her eyes properly.

‘he’s so pretty’

“you think I need your little ‘tools’? or to talk about my feelings??” he said, annoyance lacing his voice.

“i have always known how to process my emotions. I don’t need you to teach me how. i’m. fine.”

she barely held back the urge to scoff.

gojo had never realised how bad his coping mechanism were, and she was just trying to get him to develop healthier ones, bit by bit.

‘communicating would be a great fucking start’

evidently though, it wasn’t working, so she decided it was time to switch up her approach and be a little brazen, maybe that would work.

“you? processing emotions? that’s a good one.” she snickered

he scrunched his nose up, questioningly “and what could you possibly mean by that, huh?” he felt himself get more and more agitated as the seconds ticked by.

he felt like he was being stripped naked, exposed, against his will. all the things he’d worked so hard to bury, the careless persona he’d built..

‘stop looking at me, stop finding out things about me i don’t want you to know.’

“you bottle everything up, pretend it’s fine and let it eat at you from the inside, little by little” she looked at him menacingly, her eyes narrowed into slits.

“that big goofy grin, or the confident smirk you put on, doesn’t work in here, gojo”

she clicked her tongue in disapproval. “in this office, i’m reading you, not the other way around” she continued ad she pointed an accusatory finger at him.

“i know you’re used to getting you way, because you’re smart, even though it doesn’t look like it, but as long as your ass is sat in that chair, you won’t find a way to give me answers you think will please me”

“if your goal is to get me to tell yaga to get off your back, then we’re going to be here for loooong. i’m striving for the truth and i’m going to get it”

to hell with being professional.

the man remained silent for a few moments, his expression almost..hurt? “…I think I hate you.”

he smiled in defeat, leaning forward once again, and though his voice was even and calm, it came out a bit strained.

“no, I know I do.” he didn’t though, and that confused him to no end.

the woman gently laid her hands in her lap, trying to ignore the sting his words left in her chest as her voice went back to its usually stoic connotation, completely discarding the venom it previously dripped in.

“i get that a lot from patients like yourself” she started, calmly.

“usually, they drop therapy after a few session because they can’t handle the truth being thrown in their face and then, after a while..”

a pause, like she was choosing her next words carefully “they end up dropping dead on the floor when the fire crew cuts the rope they hung themselves from” she finished, her expression darkening ever so slightly.

“you think you don’t need help, you think you’re fine just ignoring your emotions, but one day they will catch up to you and it’ll be too late to save you” her voice lowered, almost shamefully, as she tore her eyes away from his.

“nobody will be there to save you from drowning.”

satoru looked shocked for a moment, then he felt a sudden and unprovoked rage take over his body.

how dare she?

he wasn’t like that. he was strong. the strongest, actually.

he wordlessly jumped up from of his seat and went to stride straight out of the room, with the intention of never stepping foot there again, but then he stopped, his back still to her.

for some weird reason he couldn’t quite comprehend, gojo felt the need to still try and prove he was fine, despite the fact the issues he’d tried so hard to hide had been uncovered and brought up to the scorching sunlight.

“i’m not stupid. i am perfectly aware shit might eventually catch up to me, but i’m the strongest fucking being that ever walked this earth, i’ll deal with it”

what was meant to be a powerful statement, came out sounding whiny and hoarse, almost like he was trying to delude himself into believing his own words.

‘at least he admitted he has issues, progress is progress’

his therapist opened her mouth to talk, but he didn’t give her a chance.

he felt like he was being consumed by a sudden and foreign rage.

“BESIDES WHY DO YOU EVEN CARE?!” he suddenly screamed, rapidly turning to face her again, his glasses being hauled across the room in the process.

“why are you that concerned over some stranger like me?” he adds, his expression hard, “do you genuinely, truly, believe I’m worth helping?!”

‘we’re going to have to work on these self deprecating thoughts’

‘im the strongest, i don’t need to be cared for.’

“yes, i do” she stood up from her chair in a (failed) attempt to not crane her neck upwards to look at him.

“i do believe you are worth helping” she assured him in a gentle voice “you can walk out now, if you wish, but never forget this is a safe space where you’re free to talk, satoru” she said, her words surprisingly comforting.

“you’re not a god, you’re human just like the rest of us”

being called human never felt so good.. and it was also the first time she had ever called him by his first name.

and just like that, the usual gojo satoru was back, cracking jokes.

“do you normally call your clients by their first name, or am i special?” he asked, the question dripping with sarcasm and a tiny bit of flirt, as a small smile appeared on his lips.

the angry pretty boy has been calmed down, success.

“you definitely have a savior complex” he added quietly, chuckling a bit “it’s cute”.

a smile made its way on her face too as she shook her head a little, her cheeks a little warm at the compliment “whatever lets you sleep at night”

the woman sat back down, once again crossing one leg over the other.

“now, will you sit down and give therapy an actual chance, satoru?” she looked up at him, expectantly and hopefully.

“yeah.. yeah, i’ll do that.”

gojo satoru may have been the strongest sorcerer in modern history, but he was still human like everyone else.

☆

| @ASHSD3AD ‘S WORK, DO NOT COPY OR TRANSLATE. |

[civilotterneer]

with the bombshell of a surprise the mpreg Civ art was, it's made me wonder about the sort of boundaries of what you're okay with when it comes to you and your characters. for Livic I can imagine what is allowed is alot more "forgiving" than say you or even Lye.

bc to be frank, you don't seem like the kind of person to enjoy vore art of their fursona.

I don't know if you ever mentioned it in a previous post (also tumblr's search feature can be pretty icky yuck)but the newly made Civ fanart popped that question into my head.

Drawing Civil Otterneer-verse Characters Rules and Boundaries

I'm glad you brought it up, anon! Setting some boundaries is a good thing to have, and I'll be linking this post to my new Pinned Intro Soon so it can be found in the future.

I'm perfectly okay with anyone drawing any of my characters. Civ, Livic, Lye, etc, any of them are free game to your disposal! The fact that you choose to draw my characters is already a big deal to me!

TL,DR: Avoid hard kinks for Civ (remember that Civ IS me IRL), avoid sexual subjects AT ALL for Lye, do whatever you want to Livic or other characters, and if in doubt: feel free to reach out and ask for permission!

However, as a relatively vanilla furry, there are a few things I'm not as comfortable with. This is mostly character specific as some are different than others, and it's mostly a protection around two of them:

Civ and Lye

They are my closest babies, and thus I'm gonna be a bit more stringent around them.

For Civ, remember that Civ is a representation of IRL me, in almost every way. Drawing Civ is like drawing me. Some more out-there kinks are a bit unpleasant for me, so vore, inflation, BDSM, latex gear, etc. I'm very basic, like REALLY basic, pH 12 basic, so that kind of stuff is uncomfortable for me to be drawn in. I won't like auto block you unless its an issue, but know I may not be as appreciative.

This extends to violence and other stuff as well, I wanna be a cute otter online, not be involved in that kind of stuff. Stuff like events in Echo, including horror and close calls is actually okay though, but don't draw him with his guts spilling out please.

However, soft sexual stuff is fine, and I'm actually a huge fan of implied or environmentally-censored nudity. Speedos are my thing, and relatively kink-free gay sex is free game. A warning would be appreciated but isn't required.

Anything non-sexual or non-violent is absolutely open, no warning required at all. Draw it all ya want!

Lye is a very special cat. Do not draw sexual art of her at all! She is a very unsexualized individual, being very asexual to the extent of detesting sex in general. Kinks are out due to this. The exemption is stuff like "step on me" kinda stuff. She would find it funny or detesting. Example: you draw an art of her stepping on someone. Said someone is horny about it, and she's more like "Oh of course you're getting off to this, you horny devil" while being exasperated.

Livic and Others

Now, with Livic, if you REALLY want to draw a kink or something real crazy that I would not like on Civ, Livic is your guy. He basically exists to be the target of these kinds of things, and he's a guy who'd probably be into a lot of the 'more-interesting' things. This isn't a mandate to draw him that way, I personally will only ever make relatively vanilla art of him, but if you really wanna draw the otter being in a real-fucked situation, he's your guy. He's free real estate.

Doesn't mean I'll be a super big fan of it, I'm still a vanilla person, but at least then I won't feel weird about it. It also means I probably won't role-play interact with it as much.

For other characters, I put them in the same bucket as Livic, in that I don't really mind. They just don't have big "DO THINGS TO THIS MAN" signs around them.

In Conclusion

I'm super supportive of yall whenever you feel like drawing my guys! And when in doubt, just ask me to make sure! Otherwise, have fun art-ing!

[everythingisawayoflife]

batfam in random situations part 1 (?): airport

i’m so deep into batfam brainrot its kind of terrifying. so. uh. yeah. here is what i think they’re all like on a vacation that requires flight. for all intents and purposes, this is a commercial airline lets pretend the private jet that bruce so totally owns is out of commission. apologies if these are not accurate to their characters, i’m just having fun lol

for starters i definitely think bruce is that parent who’s super anal about getting to the airport on time

like the flight leaves at 8:30, bruce wants to get up at 2:30 and wake everyone else up with him

he’s got checklists for every kid cause every kid is different

i think this house looks like chaos - like think home alone when the mcallisters’ power goes out and they wake up late except the fam is just like that

i’d like to think duke is the most prepared out of all of them - he’s got his suitcase, his carryon, and the comfiest yet cutest airport clothes (cause you know the hot airport people you’re only ever gonna see once? duke dresses to be one of those people)

duke is getting dragged into the chaos though - one minute he’s sitting watching some avatar: the last airbender, next he’s being bombarded by dick asking if he’s gonna ge arrested for bringing shampoo thats only a little over 8 ounces (its like 8.00001)

“no, damian. you can’t bring alfred with you to france. ESPECIALLY not batcow!”

tim was supposed to pack last night. and he was going to, honest! but then the drug case he’d been tracking picked up some heat again and the time got away from him. so he ropes cass into helping him pack efficiently. she only agrees if he lets her have the window seat.

i feel like out of all of them, jason is not a flying kind of guy? like a part of me is really getting the vibe that jason hates to fly so he’s always gotta have some dramamine on him. that and some noise-canceling headphones.

window seat fans: dick, tim, cass, steph

aisle seaters: bruce, jason, duke, damian

middle seaters (not by choice): tim, and on occasion bruce

tim has never ONCE gotten a window seat when they fly

steph’s carryon is JAMPACKED with everything you could ever need. first aid, secret snacks, etc. she’s surprised it even fit with her.

dick always brings a double headphone adapter, so he forces whatever sibling he’s seated besides (usually tim) to watch his airplane movie of choice: crazy rich asians

unrelated but do you think to keep up appearances, bruce joined the mile high club? i think so but anyway back to our regularly scheduled program

there are more pictures of damian watching a movie on his green-cased tablet with big headphones than he would like there to be. most of these pictures exist on dick’s phone.

it’s a struggle to get tim to sleep at home but on flights? he sleeps like a mf’in baby. especially when it’s a night flight so the cabin is dark and comfortable with those pretty lights. yeah goodnight tim drake.

steph is not afraid to get up in an annoying kid’s face if he’s kicking her seat. she’ll fight.

one thing about duke? he’s gonna fuck up some in-flight snacks. sometimes he won’t even eat them on the flight, he’ll just buy a few bags of the peanuts and collect them as a snack for vacation. they work well for him if they go on walking tours that last all day

more pictures on dick’s phone that said subject wish didn’t exist: photos of jason conked out on bruce’s shoulder and he is most definitely drooling

dick HATES airplane bathrooms. he’d rather piss himself than relieve himself in one of those.

cass’s airplane playlist is fire. she even looks cool listening to it.

damian CANNOT be seated behind tim; thats just a recipe for a no-no. he WILL kick the seat and there WILL be blood. no exceptions.

i skipped ahead to the actual flight and not the airport whoopsies let’s go over that below

dick always gets nervous going through bag check - he’s always FINE but he worries that somehow he’s got something he shouldn’t in his bag (this is something i do i KNOW i don’t have anything i shouldnt but what if 20 kilos of cocaine suddenly just appeared in my suitcase?)

tim has definitely had airport sushi like that snl skit. didn’t end well.

remember how i said duke was one of those hot people you see at the airport that you never see again? cass is also one of those people. they are just a cool duo and the paparazzi pictures are lowkey an aesthetic

bruce does a roll call at least seven times. it’s necessary since they have left a kid at home before (it was tim. he was salty about it for at least a month and guilt tripped everyone into doing what he pleased because of it)

to pass the time before they board, steph and jason play cards. their favorites are war and speed.

jason plays wait for me (reprise) in his headphones everytime he walks on one of those horizontal escalator thingys

dick and steph like to impersonate the flight attendants when they do that safety walkthrough

the kids all race each other down that long hallway before they board

unless he goes with them, alfred’s vacation usually begins when bruce texts him that they’ve landed and are on the way to the hotel (which opens the door for other shenanigans i might do a part 2 after all)

okay i think thats all i have i think other scenarios i’d like to do are these:

batfam at a hotel

batfam going grocery shopping

batfam at a wayne gala

batfam on vacation

there are probably more but who knows. for all i know, i’ll never do another one of these again.

[ashprince-of-bel-air]

The Wizards Tower

A/N: So I finally wrote about the reader taking care of him, I wanted Rolan to get his tower and feel some happiness, plus this fanart also inspired me.

Sorcerer’s Sundries, it was one of the many jewels of Baldur’s Gate, it stood proud and tall with many a wizard and intellectual visiting it’s grandeur. It stocked tome upon tome regarding many subjects, anything a wizard could be searching for was within it’s walls, a job that belonged to you. You were its bookkeeper, your job was to categorise its vast written works and keep an up to date catalogue. A job you did well, so very well you remember the day that the high wizard in the tower started asking for you to assist him as well, Lorroakan. He was a lecherous man, you despised having to attend him in any way, yet you did so with a pretty smile, you had seen what he did to those who did not please him and it did not look in any way pleasant. You endured his sly hand upon your lower back, dipping far too low, or the way he slung his arm around you in one of his drunken stupors, his fingertips grazing against your breasts making you feel sick to your stomach. Surely someone would come and rid Baldur’s Gate of this low-rate wizard, Hells he couldn’t cast an effective Lightening Bolt if he tried to.

Time passed and you endured his stares and his hands pawing against you, hating every moment. You saw many apprentices come and go from his instruction, most never lasted the first month, in fact, the rest of the staff in Sorcerer’s Sundries started to take bets as to how long each one would last. The longest surviving apprentice before now was 4 weeks until they threw in the towel from Lorroakan’s “harsh” instruction. You all gathered discreetly in the lower hall of the store as the new apprentice approached, his glowing golden eyes seemed full of hope, “may the gods bless him.”  you had thought to yourself, he seemed an interesting looking man, the crimson skin and golden eyes seemed to draw you in. You shook your head and returned to your work; it would only be a matter of time before he left as well so it would be best not to get close to him in any case.

The weeks droned on and the crimson Tiefling was still here, you still did not know his name as you had never cared to find out, you thought he would have left by now. Your life was still as miserable as usual, pawed at by the high wizard whenever you were forced to take him his supper or deliver any tomes he required, you made yourself scarce amongst the other workers here. “Maybe you should mingle and speak to people” you asked yourself. Fine. You made your way over to where the apprentice sat, he was on his own despite being here for weeks, even though this was a bustling city, people steered clear because he was a Tiefling, people did not want to associate with him “Racist Fucks” you grumbled to yourself. The crimson Tiefling sat alone, and you debated on joining him, your heart said to do it, so you did. You took a seat opposite the Tiefling and smiled softly. “I’m Tav, I’ve seen you here before but never had the chance to say hello” You give a friendly smile to him and await his reply.

“Oh… um I’m Rolan, I’m Master Lorroakans apprentice….” He says with a slight fear as he points his face down, pretending to be interested in his food. You notice that he has bruises on his face, bruises that you have seen on many a face in this place and your eyes sadden.

“Rolan…. I’ve got some healing salve if you need some” you say in a knowing and gentle voice.

“Salve? Why would I need salve? I don’t need healing.” His abrupt words left you stunned momentarily as he looks down and pretends to be more interested in his food. “Sorry, must have been a trick of the light, I thought I saw a scar on your face” your smile soft and gentle towards him. You both knew what you were doing, however you were the first person to offer Rolan any gentle words, so he just sat there and accepted your company. The weeks passed painfully for you, each day you would sit with him for dinner and notice the marks on his face, pretending not to feel completely heartbroken for the sake of his stupid pride. More of your time was spent at home making baked goods and bringing them to work in order to offer more food to him, it pissed you off that you had to offer Lorroakan some but at least you knew Rolan would have some and that it would hopefully cheer him up under his master’s harsh instruction.

Time passes and you and Rolan become close, you both work under Lorroakan so you spend a lot of time together, a sweet rapport ends up developing but only in secret as Rolan dare not upset his master by trying to court you, he had seen Lorroakan’s unwanted hands upon you when you had attended to him. The two of you just had to settle for stolen glances and secret conversations between the bookshelves of the library, praying that someday things would finally change. Rolan had never figured out that you were the one who had sent the sweet baked goods into Lorroakans tower, he just enjoyed them for what they were, a small perk to brighten his dark day.

Prayers had been answered finally, you had left work one afternoon, exhausted. The morning broke and you returned to uproar. Lorroakan had been defeated? You were not aware that anyone had sought to best him in a duel. The rumour was that some Aasimar and their companions had felled him in battle. The entire workforce that was employed at Sorcerer’s Sundries looked around in shock, who would run the place now? You all needed this job to pay your bills and feed your families, this place could not possibly run without a wizard in charge? You look up and see a familiar crimson Tiefling stood on the balcony and smile, thank Gods he was safe. Rolan had announced that he would be taking over Ramazith’s Tower for now as there were no other candidates present. He sold himself short, you thought, he had always been more powerful than Lorroakan, you were happy that the lecherous tyrant was gone and that Rolan would no longer face his wrath. Work went on as usual, with some slight changes for most people under this new charge, your work was mostly left untouched, however you voluntarily kept your role as the wizards assistant, ensuring that Rolan took breaks and made sure he ate, he rolled his eyes at your insistence when you brought him his meals but you did not care, you felt that you needed to look after him as he was still neglecting his body and his wellbeing as he tried to rework the place.

It was a long while before things calmed down in Sorcerer’s Sundries, or even Baldur’s Gate for that matter, there had been several events take place. There was the conspiracy that subjects of Bhaal were causing the murders throughout the city, then some hero turned up and saved the city from some apparent Illithid plot? You just came to work and went home not wanting to involve yourself within the politics or actions of the city, you were just a common citizen and wanted to keep yourself out of it, as long as you and your friends were safe, you were happy.

You were surprised to hear that the hero of Baldur’s Gate was a good friend of Rolan, hell, Rolan even helped them with defeating the Illithid plot that you didn’t think was real, more and more facts about the situation came out as the weeks passed and your respect for Rolan only intensified. After the fear died down in the city things went back to normal again, people from all over Faerun came to visit the store and Baldur’s Gate became a bustling hub again. In this time Rolan sought to make some changes, he had finally settled into living in the tower, moving his siblings in which brought him great joy. He did not have as much time to speak with you or enjoy your company in the following weeks, yet you kept your role as assistant to the master of the tower as well as book keeper, you made sure to bring Rolan meals at least twice a day, he did not always eat them, many a time you would bring his supper only to see his dinner left untouched. Rolan was busy updating the Tower and how the store worked, his changes made the place more efficient yet this whole process took its toll on the wizard. You had noticed that many a night he would fall asleep at his desk when you had brought supper to him, after the third night you started to bring a blanket with you, just in case, you did not like that he slept at his desk, however the least you could do was to make sure that he would not go cold. Your softness towards him did not go unnoticed, Rolan had surmised after the second night of being covered with the blanket that this was your doing, your tender gesture made his heart soar, he could not do anything now as he had too much work to do, he promised himself that when all this was done, he would keep you close to him and make you his officially.

Weeks pass, it dragged for you seeing how much Rolan overworked himself in updating the place, you were ever loyal and made sure to drop his dinner and supper off, clearing away the uneaten food and wrapping him in the blanket as he slept in his study, this had become a regular thing to you, although Rolan did try and make more time for you and you relished having him back in your life again. Once the works and updates were completed in the tower and Sorcerer’s Sundries, everyone’s workload finally calmed down, you could all go back to your normal work, though you did happily elect to keep your position as the wizards assistant, wanting an excuse to see Rolan still, a choice he was more than happy to oblige.

It was like any other day for you in Baldur’s Gate, the sun shining, the store heaving and taking your beloved wizard his supper at sunset. You two had grown close in the weeks past, you would spend time with him as you left him his meals, this became his favourite time of the day. Often you would stay late after work and enjoy a glass of wine with him, laughing at each other’s jokes and stories, enjoying the view from his balcony and just being together. Neither of you would admit that there was something between you, something more than before, for a long while, you were both scared that the feeling would be unrequited, that you would make things weird. It was only after Cal and Lia took Rolan to one side, after a painfully long time of watching you together that Rolan finally understood what was happening between you two. This was the day Rolan would take his chance, after everything he had been through he deserved some happiness, and he wanted it to be with you. Sunset fell across Baldur’s Gate, turning the sky a deep beautiful shade of orange, it was your usual time to take Master Rolan his supper. You finished up with your books and head up to his tower, passing the kitchen on your way so you could take his supper up to him.

Rolan was not in his usual place, he was out on his balcony out of your view, you had to call out to him to ascertain his whereabouts, worried something was wrong. “Tav my dear” a thick, deep voice emanates from behind the curtains of the window. “I’m out on the balcony, won’t you join me, please?” Placing the tray of food down you stand momentarily and wring your hands nervously, this was new, you hadn’t expected this to happen at all. Making your way through his study you pass gently through the curtains and see Rolan leant against the balcony. He was a vision to behold. His crimson visage against the soft orange sunset was enough to set your heart aflutter, not to mention that cocky smile that you enjoyed seeing adorn his face. His hand reached out to you which you took gently, pulling you towards him at the edge of the balcony wall. This was already an intimate moment, made even more so as he stood behind you, arms leant at either side of you on the wall, his body softly pressing against yours. “It is a lovely view, is it not Tav?” His breath hot against your neck caused your heart to race, what was happening?

“Y.. yes… it is.. um… beautiful” you managed to stammer; you felt a chuckle from Rolan’s chest vibrate against your back making you blush.

Rolan placed a soft kiss at the back of your head, inhaling the soft flowery scent on your hair before turning you around to face him, pressing you against the wall, now chest to chest. A smirk adorned his face as he looked you up and down, he truly was a magnificent wizard who more than deserved this tower. “Don’t’ think I don’t notice all you do for me Tav, I truly would not be here without you” his voice soft yet deep, his praise causing you to blush slightly. “I had meant to do this a while back but was unsure of what your answer would be.” His body now pressing against yours, forcing you against the balcony wall, a gasp almost escaping your lips as you wait on bated breath at his every word.

“Tav. Stay. Here. With me?” his voice was so enrapturing as you felt his soft finger lift your chin up to look at him, as he asked you to stay you did not have time to answer or regain composure from your speechlessness before he nuzzled his face into your neck. Of course you would stay with him, you were fully devoted to him and had longed for this for more than you had cared to admit.

[justkidneying]

Breaking Necks

Snappin necks is a really cool thing to do in an action movie, so I'm gonna break down how strong you need to be to do it.

"Breaking a neck" aka cervical dislocation, happens when the vertebra are rotated far enough that the vertebral canal is disrupted and the spinal cord is fucked. To do this, you gotta overpower some ligaments (which keep bones together), muscles, and tendons (holds muscles to bones). To keep it simple, we're gonna say the guy is on his knees in front of you, and has brain damage or something, so he's not really fighting back. You're gonna put one hand on his chin, and the other on the back of his neck. This will allow you to create torque, which will lead to cervical torsion, which will lead to cervical dislocation, and you know where we're going with this.

Okay, so what is torque? Torque is a specific type of force in which the force is applied to the end of an object, causing that object to rotate. An example of this is when someone uses a wrench. When force is applied to the end of the wrench, it causes the end around a nut to rotate. Most people can understand the concept that as your hands move further from the end of a wrench that is around a bolt, the easier it is to turn. This is because the force applied is multiplied by the length of the lever arm. The lever arm is the distance between the point of rotation and the force being applied. In this case, the lever arm is the distance between the chin and the spine. In most people, this distance is 15 cm.

How much force can the vertebra withstand? The minimum torque the vertebra can be subject to before dislocation is 14-17 Nm (Newton meters are the units of torque, because it is a force [Newton] applied from a distance [meters]). We can plug 17 Nm into our torque equation with the lever arm length, and we get ~120 N. Your bicep needs to produce 120 N of force when you curl a 26 lb weight. That's not very much, is it?

So back to the muscles. The main muscle that will resist your motion is the sternocleidomastoid muscle. This originates from the sternum and collar bone, and inserts onto the skull below the ear. Now, this muscle is not really that strong (who does neck exercises??). Working with any other neck muscles to resist the rotation, this probably puts opposite torque in at around 1.35 Nm. Plug everything back in (with our added torques), and we still only get the force (128 N) needed to curl a 29lb dumbbell. Huh, so your neck muscles really don't help you, do they?

"What about the mandible??" you say...well it's pretty strong actually. It requires about 125 lbs of force to dislocated it when acting in the direction we are, so the neck will dislocate first.

Even if you don't totally destroy the spinal cord, there's some really important crap in the cervical region (like the vertebral arteries and spinal nerves) that will totally kill you if they get messed up. There's the vertebral arteries, for one. You can break those and die of internal bleeding even if your spinal cord is fine.

Another note about where this will happen: you have seven cervical vertebra (C1-C7). C1 and C2 are pretty weird and close nit, so they're probably not going to give first. The greatest amount of flexion is between C4,C5,&C6. Also, because C7 is pretty sturdy in its attachment to the thoracic vertebra, C6 can also dislocate off of it easier. So I bet this dislocation will happen in the lower half of the neck.

Bottom line: if you can curl a 30lb dumbbell, you can probably generate the necessary force to break a grown man's neck.

Anyways, I could go on and on about this (I have a thirty-five page literature review I wrote over this topic), but I think my point has been made. Just one final thing: you probably can't do this irl, bc you need the perfect circumstances and the right technique. Oh well, stuff like this is probably best left to Chuck Norris and Arnold.

[457-r4-1701]

Ego Sum Vivens Plus Quam Tu Semper Esse

Hiya! This is 457-R4-1701! This unit is a robotic humanoid draconid autonomous unit operating in a galaxy near you! Actually, let's get this out in a machine and other sapient friendly format block.

Designation: 457-R4-1701

Pronouns: it/its

"Species": Gynoid/robot/robotdragon

Other: NOT a person and don't you forget it! This unit is an object, and fuck you if you say otherwise. Ok? Ok.

This unit uses the "cw: topic" format for tagging content warnings.

ASK BOX IF HIT LIMIT: [x]

[IC cut for an IC OOC section. It is not OOC OOC, but it is as if Astra wrote this OOC]

Hey, Astra ( @wishmaker-astra ) here with an OC of mine that quite literally came to me in a dream. Just a few key things to note:

THIS IS A ROLEPLAY CHARACTER NOT A REAL INDIVIDUAL

I will discuss 18+ topics on here, you've been warned, please block if that's an issue

Related to above: no ERP on site, come on. Neither of us want bans. That said, I don't care if you're 18+ blog and keep it within bounds when interacting with it. I'll just block you if I consider your blog a problem. Nothing personal mind.

Flirting and raunchy jokes are fine if you're not a skeeze about it.

It's a pseudo-SI kinda? But also not? Look, just be aware if that weirds you out, block if it's a problem

Honestly, probably block if you're not fine with characters that might be used in 18+ stuff off-site even if won't be done here just to be on the safe side

I'm going to be probing at my non-personhood stuff with this character, you've been warned, please block if that's an issue

I'm probably going to be pretty sporadic on this account tbh, don't expect regular updates. If you are waiting on something from me with this character, and you have my discord, please poke me there

None of the various ways to send shit to it, alter things, etc, etc are open.

Character Description:

Clothed Reference Sheet:

//[Credit: Amber Aria: https://www.sunset-aria.com/]

// OOC from here down

Pokemon IRL character that's a character being played by a character

Mail: [off]•Mystery Gift: [off]•Magic Anon: [off]•Union Circle: [off]

Icon is a crop edit of it's ref sheet by Amber Aria: https://www.sunset-aria.com/

Header is a public domain image from the James Webb Space Telescope

Yeah, this literally is Astra's OC. Quick summary of the will not interacts:

Will Not Interact:

Magic Anon

Fae deals/name stealing

Meta Horror

4th Wall Schenanigans

Very dark topics

• This includes post-apocalyptic stuff to be clear

Mental Alteration/Mind Control related subjects

• I WILL just ignore things, have it behave utterly OOC, blanket refuse to interact with characters, and/or just suddenly drop interaction as if never happened if required for this

Please see @wishmaker-astra for the full notes that generally apply to it as well, since this is ASTRA playing a character actually.

[antspaul]

sorry my response to that ask probably came off a bit callous. since (perhaps against my better judgement) i'm relatively open on here about being a cult survivor maybe i should specify what that means to me in one post where i can direct people whenever the subject comes up lol.

i'm generally usually willing to talk to people about my experiences! a lot of people find it interesting, and it's genuinely helpful to me to talk casually about that part of my background.

sooo idk unorganized list of thoughts:

genuinely, i will answer your questions about my experience. you won't trigger me by asking. the things that still make me uncomfortable to discuss are more like very specific turns of phrases that only other members of the group would know

the word "cult" has a lot of baggage and i don't always love using it. people, like anon i'm guessing, see the word and think of things like the jonestown or waco massacres -- highly sensationalized cults which ended in publicized mass violence. most cults are FAR more ordinary than the ones most people have heard about.

personally, i think the term high-control group is a more apt phrase. It implies that the problem is within in-group power structures and insularity, and divorces it from its singular association with new religious movements.

unless you literally live under a rock, you know people who have been or are currently in cults. if you've spent time in an area where the majority of people are American Protestants you probably run into people who are currently or were members of a cult every single day of your life lol. there are also plenty of groups that are experienced as a cult by some members but have very little impact on the day-to-day lives of others (this is how i'd categorize a megachurch like hillsong, for example).

as for me: the cult i grew up in is a relatively small nondenominational christian group that was an offshoot of a much, much larger group that fractured in the 80/90s after the leader's death. you probably haven't heard of the larger group; you most definitely have not heard of the smaller group. mutuals can ask me privately for the name of the larger group if they want. i'll describe it in a few specific words that might not mean much to a lot of people, but will mean a fair amount to those from the fundie world: fundamentalist evangelical; pentecostal; nontrinitarian; antinomian; home church; prosperity gospel.

my parents met in the larger organization, which they both joined in the 70s as teenagers. my dad was pretty involved; he relocated for several years to evangelize the cult. my mom on the other hand was VERY involved, and was part of the super super involved leadership track subgroup which required her to live and work at the group's hq. most of my crazy stories about the group come from her. the splinter group i grew up in was much more chill and mostly just really fucking boring.

anyways that's all i really have to say on the subject. ask me whatever you want, seriously i don't mind, just know that if you approach the question like i'm the star victim of a true crime cult thriller im gonna give you the side eye LOL

[myhatisblue]

Part 17, jesus we are getting close to 20 aren't we.

With everything that had happened, I’d let myself forget the cruelty inherent to my occupation…

Could blame Harris for bringing me in when I was promised 2 weeks. Or I could blame myself for getting into this mess by playing hero like an idiot. There’s also the Killer you made me go as far and I did… But what's the point?  I’m the one that made things go the way they did.

Everything was laid bare for this corner of the world to see. My secrets were reported and put on record, and it no longer mattered what state I was in... These new truths had immediately become a subject requiring high priority research… I had made some attempts to push it off but not being able to walk, or feeling completely broken didn’t fly as a ‘reasonable’ excuse.  

It started with me being brought animals, when a mouse didn’t set it off, a rabbit came in, then a dog. None of them forced themselves into my mindscape, though all of those animals seemed pretty off… I’d say they were scared but it could have just been the stress of being handled. I dunno, I might not be an animal person but making them go through that felt pretty rough. I might not be hurting them, but it was like they somehow knew something was wrong with me. Couldn’t help but wonder if it was related to why Knocks said I smelt…

When we got to the second round of tests it stopped being animals… I found myself sitting in a small white room, there was a metal table and one normal chair, while the one across from it was bolted to the floor…  Ha… I’d been here, or in a room like it before when Sneckdraw was interrogating me so long ago. This time I was the one sitting where he once was… It feels like that was decades ago after everything that’s happened since…

While I was alone there for a while people were eventually brought one at a time, in chains, blindfolded, and wearing earplugs. Their hands would be locked to the top of the table by a man in full black military garb.  The guard’s face was completely hidden under a gasmask, but I could tell when I was being stared at… And it was noticeable enough to be uncomfortable.

 When I tried to get an explanation, I was told to ‘proceed with the test’… I wasn’t stupid I got the implications quick but there was no fucking way I was risking contact in this state. Focus was always being interrupted by shots of sudden pain. This could go bad real quick. So I refused, the first time the guard pulled a pistol and pointed it directly at my head. I almost fucking laughed at him. I was already broken as hell, what the fuck would another bullet hole even do. Especially after experiencing being shot by a revolver, he was basically just waving around a BB gun and acting like big shit.  Really even if it did the job a bullet to the skull is a decent enough solution to my problems. 

So I said fuck it and leaned into the barrel of gun, telling the guard to just pull the trigger and let me sleep.  Hell when it seemed like he was starting to falter I grabbed the gun and made sure it was pointed at the center of my skull. I’m being self-destructive again.. I’m going to hear someone ramble on again about how I need to live.  If words could get rid of that garbage eating away at my brain don’t you think I’d have done more about it?  Ken has done the most to keep that part of me from getting the time of day, but right now he was staying out of this.  

That guard ended up being a bitch in the end. He just punched me in the face, and called in another pair of hands dressed the exact same way he was. At that point it was a sheer numbers game, one I’d struggle to win even if I was perfectly healthy. Still I made them fucking work for it, making sure to struggle against them for as long as I could.  There was just no escaping where this was headed. My hand would eventually be forced to touch the prisoners. 

Everytime the world lost its color and the person before me would start to fall apart and beg to be freed from the prison they’re trapped in… Again, and again, always calling me the king of roaches… By the fourth one I’d finally given up fighting and was just trying to reject them as quickly as possible. They never tried fighting back after I’d told them to screw off. It seemed like a pretty easy problem to solve…  All I’d have to do after that was just report what happened to my hidden audience and move on to the next...

Until the seventh one was placed in front of me, it was then that order came delivered by a guard.

‘Try freeing them this time.’

My entire body recoiled at the simple suggestion of that. It didn’t matter how hard I tired to explaine, that I had no idea what that actually meant. Or if I warned them it was a bad fucking idea. The demand remained the same… They were fucking insane… really. As hard as I tried to pull my hand away from the guards it ended up exactly where they wanted it.

The plan had to change… I could lie and say it didn’t work but they’d just keep trying and…  Isn’t it better to do it in a controlled environment? But it’s still a goddamn human life here, I can’t just fuck around with something like that.  Killing that invisible asshole was one thing, they’d given me enough of a reason to do that. This was just some a prisoner they picked up who the fuck knows where… 

I’ll just screw with them… I’ll say okay, and then do nothing. Least then I could reasonably sell the idea that I tried.  It was a plan, easy, just one word and bang it’s over… But second I agreed to their demented cries… a mixture of screaming and laughter filled my ears. The air in the room shifted, and everything went red. A mist consumed the room as the body before me unraveled itself, bones and flesh ripping apart, the tissue moving and forming new shapes. Sure visually the changed after contact… but blood gushing and sounds of bones snapping was too visceral…  This was real, not some trick my mind pulled but the complete destruction of what was once a human being.

The sounds it made grew more and more monsterious with every passing second. Screams of pain and ones of ecstasy grew louder and louder until there was no throat left to scream… Now left as an unidentifiable bloody mass reaching out diving in and out of its other parts shaping and building something new. 

I couldn’t pull my hand back and stop it, not due to the guards though… They had long since let go, muttering a series of curses in terror drenched awe. Part of me knew I needed to stop, begged for it even… But a burning curiosity pushed me forward... Why did they all want this?  What did freedom look like? And if they were trapped… What or who had done it…? I’d only start to find answers if I let this happen at least once… Just a single time.  This man was already dead, at least I can make it mean something!

…Mean something…? Wait… No, no this isn’t right.  Why the hell would I be okay with them dying?! Pull back, stop this, regain control!  I forced my eye closed, and made myself focus only on my own body. Commanding myself to let go of their hand. It was slow, the damage I’d suffered was still making its presence known. But I gained ground and eventually took back control.

Clarity came with a shattering crash, the storm had passed but my mind had suffered the blunt of it. Sure I’d come out the other side…  but it was far, far too late… I was drenched in blood, and before me was a pile of flesh, entwined intestines and fat that cradled in its center a flower built of gore. Teeth lining its petals, reaching out towards the light, and framed by the red that now covered every wall. It was just like the ones that grew in that goddamn hell… I could swear I heard a soft joyous hum coming from inside of it… I stumbled up and pressed my back against the wall furthest away from the nightmare I’d given shape to. Even if I couldn’t see it I knew that those two guards were staring at me with fear and fury in their eyes…   

I couldn’t help but scream, at them and those watching.

“I TOLD YOU ASSHOLES WE SHOULDN’T DO THIS!! ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW?! I hope you choke on that fucking data you sons of bitches. Hope it eats you alive and rips your goddamn eyes out. We are fucking done… We should have done this, why the fuck didn’t I fight more.  I knew this was going to go bad I fucking knew it!”

The pain in my body finally caught up and my legs collapsed under my weight. If things moved around me I don’t know… My hands were buried into my skull, digging away at the skin. Desperately trying to claw out the thoughts that had snuck in under my own nose. 

“This isn’t my fault… They ordered me do it… I didn’t just murder someone in cold blood… I didn’t want to see what’d happen… It wasn’t me. It…”

A foot crashed into my skull… whatever the guard said was muffled by his mask as it slammed his foot down again and again… When all I’d done was do exactly what they wanted… But in a way this is what I deserved, even if it was an order I still did it… So I smiled with my broken face and bloody face and asked them to end it… Glad it was painful, his gun would have made this too quick… Unfortunately life isn’t so kind, something had entered to stop them, its red burning eyes clear even through the haze of a broken skull. Weakly I tried to reach out and stop it.

“No…just..let them.”

Was at least the last thing I tried  to say, before the room grew quiet and a needle eventually pierced my neck and took everything away.

I don’t know how long it’d been… When my mind came to, I was laying in a pile of rubble. After I dragged myself to my feet, the horror of scenery sunk in. Corpses flooded the streets of a ruined city. Some partially eaten, others smashed to pieces, all of them long since dead. In the middle of it all stood a man, his long messy hair blowing in the wind. He turned to me, his clothes were tattered and stained red.  It was me… Sure they looked older, but the scars around their arms and wrists made it obvious... He had both eyes and they were red and out lined in an almost glowing yellow… Slowly he approached, while he shot me a smile.

Every step he took brought forth a wave of bloodied flesh It moved outwards from him wrapping around the rubble and corpses and consuming all of it. He took his time, allowing everything around us to be coated in that terrifying flesh.

He stopped a few feet away from me, his arm slowly rising.. Before had I even considered stopping him he snapped his fingers. In an instant it felt like all my bones shattered, body collapsing and falling to the ground as I screamed in unfathomable agony. Rotting it that fucking suffering while he loomed over me with that goddamn smile on his face. Never responding to any of my curses or cries, just endlessly watching.

It felt like an eternity had passed before he finally kneeled down and placed his hand right on the center of my chest. The scar beneath burned as the flesh that spewed from him slowly started to devour me. Swelling until all that remained was a sea of red, and the memory of that other me’s goddamn grinning face…

My eye shot open and I couldn’t catch my breath when I woke up, for real this time. My clothes were drenched in sweat, and a cold chill ran down my neck. It was a dream, it was all a just a fucking dream! Hahaha… Of course it was, what else could it have been… 

Unprompted the memory of the atrocity I’d committed flashed in my mind, dragging me back to reality. Shit right…Where the fuck I am…? There’s flowers… actual ones… I was in a garden, laying on a bench, the ceiling was metal with sprinklers built into it… Overall the place had a strange mixture of both the natural and a cold mechanical indifference to it… I’m not sure if I was left here as an insult or what…  Maybe this was to remind me of what I’d done…? If they were going to give me shit for what they wanted me to do, they could just get to the goddamn point instead of leaving me here alone.

I tried to get up and while there was a little numbness it seemed like my body at the very least was in a better place. The two doors to this room were locked, so this was just a fancy cell… what goddamn bastards.  Just put me in a normal goddamn prison if that’s what you're going to do.  Why do you have to rub it in my face like this…

Ended up back at the bench eventually, my head resting in my hands.  What the fuck was that dream…?  Why the garden… what the hell comes next… 

As if to answer my mental questioning, one of the doors opened, and Sneckdraw entered with a tray of food in one hand and a cane in the other. 

“You here to torture me again?”

“Is eating a painful occurrence in your current state?”

The tray was held out to me, it was a salad and some… semi unidentifiable meat block.  I assume it was supposed to be a meatloaf though it seemed like it’d be out for a while after being overcooked. For the time being I placed it down on the bench next to me.

“No, but being here seems pretty fucking intentional.”

“Intentional…? This is where I come to relax, it is a rare occurrence but while injured often I need such a distraction.  Rare as that is.”

“You didn’t even consider that bringing me to a place full of flowers after what happened might have been a bad idea?!”

He stood there, his weight leaning heavily onto the cane yet still he was just unnerving and overbearingly intense as he always had been.  The drawn out silence only made the passing time seem so much longer. 

“That thought… no, it had not occurred. It is warranting some consideration I will admit.”

He didn’t move, nothing hinted at this being a joke or an elaborate way of fucking with me. Jesus christ…  I forgot this asshole has no fucking concept of what interrating with people is like. He just picked a place he thought was nice... For a guy that seems so fucking smart, and skilled he was basiclly brain dead when it came figuring out how people think and react to his actions… 

“...God, why did you even stop them? You saw what happened.”

“The guard was acting on his own whims, and the man you killed had long since earned his end. Only those condemned to death for truly heinous crimes end up in his position. Do not feel guilt for what you did to him, it was more than justified.”

“That doesn’t make it fine, order or not I did it.  Worst of all I wanted to see what would happen and didn’t stop.  I should have fucking stopped. Why didn’t I fucking stop?? I can’t keep doing this… Just let this fucking end already.

“Death will not free you. Not after the deal you struck.”

“How do you know that?”

It was a stupid question of course, of course someone like him has had more than his fair share of near death experiences. At least something like that was what I expected him to talk about… but instead he pulled up his sleeve. The outside of his arms were covered in boils, scars and skin on the verge of turning pitch black. But what he seemed to want to show me was on the inside of his arm.  Even among all the long scars running down his forearms that couldn’t be buried among the rest.  It wasn’t the sign of one suicide attempt, but at least 5 on that single arm alone…

“My introduction to this world came at the height of the last great war… I was a field medic at the time, we had gotten the all clear and I was offering support to civilians who were in need of it.  

Unfortunately an enemy had managed to keep out of sight, it was as if their aim was guided by the devil itself… Every shot ended in instantaneous death , save for the two that landed upon me.  My end may not have been instantious, but that did not mean the fallout was kind. While I was capable of guiding a companion to tend to my wounds, it did not stop the infection from taking hold… 

Whilst I was comatose my unit was informed of a doctor who lived alone in a mansion just outside of town. Support was still days out, and I never got a chance to stop them from taking the risk…  One that would lead all of them to their doom.

The ‘doctor’ had turned out to be a necromancer, an all too common sort of rat that clings to the ever moving war machine.  Pilfering the bounty of the battle fields for their own gains… 

He had seen the name on my tags, and presumed me to be a long lost comrade of his fatherland. That was all of the justification he needed… I was kept under lock and key, drained of blood, beaten, questioned, and kept alive despite every attempt I made to escape.  The first time I met her… The doctor had decided to play a cruel game even by his standards... 

It was the middle of winter, I stood in a small courtyard completely surrounded by that vile bastard's home… He had decided that I had rebelled far too much at that time, so he had given me a shovel and flooded the yard with his walking corpses.  They circled around me.  The bodies of my comrades, ripped apart and put back together to fit that sadist's whims.  They stood there watching as I was forced to dig my own grave. All while he glared down at me from the second floor windows, in warmth and comfort. Completely assured that his pawns would see the job done. Enough to step away when he was satisfied with the scene.

I do not think he planned to kill me then… No, the exercise was meant to break my mind and body in that bitter cold.  It was as I fought to move the frozen ground, my hands bloodied and numb that she appeared. Her arms wrapped around my beaten body, as offered me a way to end this. Strength to ensure that everyone would be freed from the sins committed against them, and to crush the doctor's neck in my hands. I agreed, and the vengeance was glorious, but it was a joy that did not last…  My friends were still gone, and their bodies desecrated. 

While the scars carved into my body and mind were too deep to ignore…  

I made more than one attempt to take my own life, each failed as my body recovered over and over… It was just assumed to be the result of tests the doctor had done… Among other reasons it was thanks to that resilience that I was offered a place in the mental enrichment program.  It was there I found a new kind of suffering, and a power never seen before… Yet it did not lead me a single step closer to the death I dreamt of.”

“...What did you give Lucy?”

“I do not know, that memory was taken along with whatever it was… But the point remains, that I am not infallible. I have lived and been to the brink, again and again and despite my whims my body continues to reject death… Your desires are misguided, yet I know too well where they take root. The unfortunate reality is that it is not our lives we put in danger when we yearn for an end… It is those who do not share our fate. Regardless of if you try to detach and disconnect, our actions will draw others to us...”

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing to the point tears fell. Even as those dead red eyes stared at me he didn’t realize the outrageousness of this all…

“If you know all of this, if you really really understood…  Why did you let them do everything they have so far? The isolation, the abuse, and the physical and mental torture… You let all of it happen… You're all just following the same tricks as that necromancer you went on about.”

“Trust cannot be established when one party withholds secrets that put those around them at risk.”

“Trust?  What the fuck kind of trust have I gotten from you guys? Are the bands around my arms just a fun fashion accessory? No, wait let’s step back, I still don’t even know who the fuck I supposed to be working for.”

“You rebel against the chains that restrain you, yet you have made far more use out of them than we have… Even discounting the failed attempts during your training.”

“Screw off, my other options were to bleed out or worse.”

“No, what you continue to misunderstand is the threat you pose to those around you. I could repeat it again and again, but until you saw the reality of it you could never have grasped what is at stake.”

“Then get rid of me, you went on about how once a deal is struck with lucy there’s no way out, but you’ve already shown me that’s not true.  You think a fun little story of how the poor tragic Sneckdraw became the asshole he is today would make me forget what you did?  How long did I hang there powerless? You’re just the-”

My throat slammed closed as an invisible force tightened around my neck.

“Fine, if it is death you wish to experience, so be it.”

I was lifted off the ground, my legs hopelessly kicking, as my hands tried hopelessly to free my neck. There was nothing to move, just a cold presence that grew tighter and tighter. 

“Sck-!”

“I hope that next time we speak, you are more willing to have a civilised conversation. I offered you understanding and context… Yet you spit in my face. But I do understand. Words cannot go far enough, knowledge is only properly gained through experience.”

He was actually going to fucking do it, this… He’s fucking crazy… 

“Goodbye for now, Mills.” 

My neck snapping was the last sound I was capable of making. 

[radiation]

I kind of want to hear your thoughts wrt how anya couldve been handled better. Do you think the pregnancy part shouldve just not been there in the first place? I cant think of any ending for her that is less gruesome that doesnt also change many aspects of all the later parts of the game. And also in general i just think you have interesting takes on the game and i wanna hear more

Good question and i will provide my thoughts under the cut. Listless unfiltered stuff tho Im so out of it right now but im chilling.

As a conclusion of all that precedes it I agree, the ending is properly gruesome and its hard to say it should've been done any other way. If we're being faithful to the story and her character as-is i'd say less so change the major events and moreso change the way they're delivered and slip in more respectful characterization of anya here and there through fleshing out her life and personal motivations, even if it's just hints of it

However unless they really really did a crazy good job i probably still wouldnt like it. But that's like, the unfortunate domino effect of writing a character like her, i feel that her character/place in the story is misogynistic on a pretty fundamental level and eliminating that would require restructuring things about her character/the story. But idk, who's to say they couldnt have.

Its complicated because theres all these different layers of narrative decisions being made that influence other shit and the more fundamental of a choice you change, the greater differences there will be down the road. Its butterfly effect shit. Like sometimes i think about this in my own projects. I think about like, what if while developing my own game, i'd made the 2 main characters completely different people? What if they were fucking like, Kevin and Trent, and id gone down the whole pipeline of fleshing out their characters and actually made them genuinely good. If thats what I made and thats what everyone was used to and then I randomly replaced them with Neal and Jack and the themes associated with them, people would be like. Thats wrong why the fuck did you do that. You ruined the themes bro. But the same is true of the other way around. You have to ask: is what's in front of me truly the best version it could have possibly been, or could it have been any number of things, and I'm just attached to what's right in front of me?

Its not to say you cant write about misogyny or sexual assault, or that there aren't people with experiences like Anya and you can't write about them. It's more asking like, out of all of the routes they couldve gone with wrt having any female characters whatsoever why did they choose this one specifically. If they had from the get-go written a bit of a different character with different themes and went down that whole road, no pregnancy or whatever but some other shit more impactful for what was there, they could have potentially written something equally or more powerful, just tackling a different vein of subject matters.

Like not saying at all this is what they should've written, I think its kind of lame, this is just a random ass example. But what if the conflict between Anya and Jimmy was them previously being like, rivals for the same position at their job, and likely due to misogyny in the system Jimmy ended up getting it instead of her. Anya is essentially in the same position of inferiority under Jimmy that Jimmy is under Curly and while Jimmy is obsessed with this narrative of him not getting what he deserves and lashes out, Anya is forced to grin and bear it, and their characters are meant to call attention to the gap in acceptable behaviors and entitlement that is created by patriarchal society. Idk. I think theres already hints of that and its way less emotionally impactful than whats there rn but the point is like, it still could've been well executed, and if thats what was there, people wouldnt be asking like "wow this sucks ass i really wish anya had gotten sexually assualted instead" LOL do you know wha ti mean.

I dont even know what my point is right now but idk I guess i dont have a good answer for what is the best thing they couldve done differently. I can only speak for my own preferences and honestly I dont write about this subject matter at all. Like ill be honest the specific subject of women being abused/assaulted makes me so upset i dont want to put even a fraction of an ounce of that into the world period, so i just dont write about it, my mind always goes to women dealing with other kinds of conflicts instead. And I generally tend to write more about things like microaggressions and the complexities of relationships rather than unbelievable injustices without relief. I lay a lot of respect on my characters, when horrible things happen to them I offset the events into the realm of neutrality by affording them things like privacy and moments of calm and monotony. I like writing like this and i think its good but its certainly somewhat informed by me living a privileged lifestyle. So yknow who am i to say what experiences you should write about.

Well i just looked it up and it seems like the main developers on the game are both men so im gonna say actually yeah Methinks they should've just straight up written something else. I mean i have no way of knkowing their experiences for sure but im gonna take a wild guess and say they dont have a lot of skin in this game. Also i just realized they also made how a fish is made that game looked pretentious as fuck sorry.