#edit: actually fuck it putting this in the tag

[venusbyline]

Sleep ࿐ྂ Kinktober. 26, oct.

(late post)

— pairing: Jacaerys Velaryon x twin sister!reader

— type: smut, dark, Kinktober (House of the Dragon Edition)

— kink: creampie

— summary: Jacaerys was determined to make you his wife, forcing his mother to marry him to you, even against her will. Or against your will too.

— word count: 1.3k

— tags/warnings: kinktober 26th day, female!reader, dark!Jacaerys, DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT, creampie, Targcest (twin brother/twin sister), dubcon somnophilia, rape/non-con, vaginal sex, breast worship, butt worship, breeding kink, degradation, praise kink, corruption kink, loss of virginity, blood licking, squirting, cum eating, cum swallowing, dacryphilia, crying, watersports, doggy style position, minor Jacaerys Velaryon/Baela Targaryen, Referenced Targaryen/Velaryon Incest (cousins), implied/referenced cheating, underage sex, ambiguous/open ending, non-consensual drug use (herbal tea), drugged sex, forced orgasm, forced pregnancy, marriage of convenience mentioned, butt slapping, biting, hair-pulling, manipulation, sexism, possessive behavior, implied breastfeeding kink, implied lactation kink, implied pregnancy kink, innocent!reader, virgin!reader, dark content, sadism, dom!Jacaerys, sub!reader, canon divergence, porn with plot. no use of y/n. english is not my first language.

— tagging list: @baybaybear1 @blessedbymoon @p45510n4f4shi0n @lina-lovebug @moonnicole @badger-reads @dearjardim

— crossposting: AO3

— high valyrian words used: Idaña (twin), Hāedar (younger sister), Lēkia (older brother), Muña (mother).

Jacaerys was fed up with his mother's stubborn and boring behavior. Rhaenyra's refusal to break off his betrothal with Baela and refusing to let him marry you, his twin sister, was only making the fucking war even more stressful. As if the death of his little brother Lucerys was not enough, Jace still had to deal with Baela's constant interference against his angry thoughts and the fact that she did not understand why he hated these stupid Dragonseeds so much. It was easy for someone who was children of a Targaryen King Consort and a Velaryon princess to say he was being too arrogant or spoiled.

Either way, Jacaerys did not want a damn betrothed who was barely fit to support him during the outbursts. Even though she was extremely delightful and an excellent warrior, Jacaerys needed more. He needed a caring wife. And he knew you could play the role very well.

His anger towards Rhaenyra and Daemon was growing, to the point where he sometimes wished that his mother would actually recover her rightfully Iron Throne, but only because then he could rule the Seven Kingdoms soon.

He asked and even begged his mother to change the betrothal, explaining that the bond between the two of you had grown since Luke's murder and he needed you. Unfortunately, Rhaenyra remained a woman of her word, refusing to change the agreement.

Perhaps it was really a spoiled and cruel attitude on Jace's part, but he was determined to make you his wife, forcing his mother to marry him to you, even against her will. Or against your will too.

"Idaña, please..." Your whimper sounded too loud for both of your own good and Jacaerys whispered for you to moan lower, his large hand went straight to your mouth, sticking his index, middle and ring finger there to muffle the sounds that followed as he continued to slowly move his hips back and forth.

Each time he took himself out and put it back in, Jacaerys enjoyed the sight of his cock wet with your juices and also the blood of your innocence, as well as the sight of your voluptuous ass shaking when he fucked you a little rougher than before. He was trying his best to be careful with you, taking advantage of your drowsy dubious consent. Of course he did not want to hurt or scare his little twin sister in any way. He just wanted to left you filled with his seed, making your future heir growing in that soft womb.

"Shhh, Hāedar... You do not want to wake up our mommy, do you?" Jace murmured, pressing his bare sweaty chest against your white satin nightgown-covered back. He really wanted to rip that stupid fabric off and fuck his sister until you barely remember your own name. Until you beg for his cock. Until you were practically brainless. "Mother does not want me to marry you. But you want to marry me, do not you want to, my dear?"

Jace's question made you moan incoherent words around his hand, impossible for him to understand anything, so he took his three fingers out of your lips, wet with your spit and stuck them in your head, pulling your dark wavy hair just like his, despite the difference from length. You were like a reflection of him. The hair, the eyes, the nose... You were like a pure and innocent version of Jacaerys, the version he could never be. You were a true pure soul. You were everything he should have been and he was everything you could become.

He fucked you deeper, slapping your buttocks hard and making you scream softly, while he took the opportunity to pull your hair back, leaving your neck exposed to nibble and kiss. "Answer me, little sister. Do you want to marry me? Do you want to carry the future King or Queen of the Iron Throne inside your belly? Do you want me to turn you into a Muña?"

Perhaps it was your still slightly asleep state, perhaps it was how his cock was fucking you too fast and brutally for your virgin cunt to handle, or perhaps it was the special herbs that Jacaerys had put in your drink during dinner... But you just could not say no to him. You did not even want to say no. All that was going through yourself mind was that Jacaerys needed to keep doing what he was doing, even if it hurt so bad.

"Do you want me to breed you, sister? Beautiful little dark-haired babies sucking milk from your breasts while I sit on the Throne?" His question did not get a verbal response, however, Jace understand it as agreement due to the way your walls tightened around his member. "That is, that is my fucking good little girl... So innocent and obedient." Jace growled between moans, taking his hand out of your head and moving it to the softness of your clothed breast, squeezing roughly over the fabric. "You are taking me so well, Idaña. You are going to look so beautiful pregnant with our children. I am going to fuck my seed into you every year, I will never get tired of that warm and tight little cunt..."

You cried out and felt a sequence of slaps on your ass again, noises so loud that the entire castle was probably already hearing you two. "Lēkia... S-stop... I need to pee!" You suddenly screamed groggily when you felt your lower belly start to ache. You hoped Jacaerys would stop what he was doing and release you, but all he did was chuckle mockingly and grip your hips tighter. "PLEASE, JACE! Brother, please... I really need to pee right now!"

Even though you could not see Jacaerys' face because he was fucking you from behind, but you felt his breath in your ear, his teeth nibbling on your earlobe before he purred. "Then do it." He teased hornily. "I am your twin and some minutes older than you. Also, I am the one who will be the future King, so I am ordering you to do it."

Your eyes widened, coming out a little of your sudden trance and drowsy state when Jace continued holding your hip with one arm, but brought the other to your belly, pressing hard on the place where your bladder was. Tears began to fall desperately from your face and you struggled under your twin brother body, the hot liquid wetting the sheets and both of your legs and the Jace's too. "Well... I thought princesses and big girls did not piss on themselves. Now I guess I was wrong, you are a cute bedwetter, my dear. That was so horny."

The mockery turn everything more shameful and you sobbed, just crying when your cunt began to spasm intensely until you came, a clearer liquid splashing out before you fell face down on the pillow completely, your consciousness fading for a while after the orgasm and something else.

You did not know how long you were unconscious. Probably just for five or ten minutes. When your eyes opened with difficulty, you were still breathing heavily, your face pressed into your soft pillow, hearing Jacaerys growl and feeling him pull his cock out of you after his release, spreading your buttocks to enjoy the view of your bruised ass and reddish and sore cunt, full of cum and drops of your blood and wet with your own pee and your sudden squirt.

"Both of us will hope my seed catches as soon as possible. Right, Hāedar?"

You sniffled and nodded, not protesting when Jace pushed his finger into your sensitive hole and brought it to your lips, forcing you to lick up the disgusting mixture as he smirked, stroking your dark hair too. "My dear little sister. My true future betrothed and wife. You will be such a good mother." He placed a kiss on your shoulder, caressing your sore ass and laying down next to you, ignoring your confused and sleepy cries. "Seven Hells, do not be pathetically dramatic. Just go back to sleep, dear sister. Go back to sleep and then we can rule Westeros together very soon, I promise this to you. Nothing will separate us, not even Mother, Daemon or Baela. Not even you."

HOTD Edition - Masterlist

Criminal Minds Edition - Masterlist

Venusbyline's Kinktober 2024 - Masterlist

[icarusredwings]

Thoughts I have that people can steal:

PRE DATING edition.

-Wade burning himself while cooking, Laura watches as logan rushes over to check his hand and scold him for being reckless, only to hug wade, telling him to be careful. It ends with Laura saying "...You really DO love him.. dont you?" And logan trying to make any excuse before being like "Nooo people who love each other dont_ _ and _" but accidently ends up listing stuff that couples DO do. And when he realizes that he DOES love wade he goes "..aww.... shit.."

-Logan asking Wade why the fuck hes using scissors to cut up the spaghetti and he, dead serious, mumbles under his breath "I don't want Al to choke" Logan says "What?" And suddenly, Wades eyes open wider and puts on that silly persona "I mean! It's so puppins can eat it! Duh! Little noodles for a little puppy!" Only for him to rush off, coming to Al in his slippers, setting it in her lap and putting the fork in her hand. "Careful, mum, it's hot." He says quietly, "Thank you, baby," she says, hearing him walking off to do a different task. It's now Logan realizes just how much Wade cares for her despite always calling her names and groaning as if she's inconvenient.

-Wade notices that Logan struggles to put away the dishes and thinks hes being lazy only to watch him one day and realize that logan is too short to reach the top shelf (AHHH!! short wolvie) so starts taking over the job of putting the dishes away

-Wade finds out that Logan is actually a LOT more hygenically friendly then the Xmen made fun of him for, realizing that they only judged him because of his natural mutation scent when infact Logan spends hours a week grooming himself, shaving, brushing his hair, trimming his chops, showering a lot, etc. Aka. Scotts, just an asshole that doesn't appreciate good man stink. (Also, he's a Mustelidae, same family as minks. He's so fucking soft)

Tag me if you end up writing/ drawing these!

[infiniteglitterfall]

Okay, EVERYONE, listen.

This feels like roughly the one hundredth time that I've seen someone on this earth complain about the antisemitism on Wikipedia. And I need us all to understand just one thing:

WE ARE WIKIPEDIA!!!!!!!!

Every single one of us has just as much power to edit that freaking page and put in the information from the Holocaust Encyclopedia as whoever fucked it up did.

You don't even need to make a Wikipedia account.

(But it's easier to keep track of what you change, and discuss changes with people, if you do.)

You can add anything you can back up with a citation.

(You can, in fact, also add things you CAN'T back up with a citation. As I'm sure we've all noticed. And I might as well point out here that you can ALSO add things you can't back up, and put in citations that DO NOT BACK UP WHAT YOU SAID.

You shouldn't. And hopefully, people like me will notice and change it. But you CAN.

My point here is actually that when you're doing research about something important and complicated, you should always click through to see what the source cited really says.

Because frequently, someone will be wrong about either what they're writing, or whether their source backs it up. This happens in academic papers too. Critical thinking is hard.)

You write whatever you want. You type the period. Then you type in your citation.

Under the cut, I'll show you how. It's really easy. Or you can use Wikipedia's guide!

It even lets you preview your changes before you finish, so you know if you're making a mess.

And there's a place where you can briefly explain why you're editing it. Like "adding details about Nazi connections," or "correcting punctuation."

And yes. Not all of us can edit every article on Wikipedia; "controversial" topics are frequently locked so that only "extended-confirmed" editors can change them. (Which just means "people who are logged in and have made at least 500 edits.")

But you can join in the discussions on those articles.

And on Wikipedia, "they're too Zionist!" is not an acceptable argument.

Sometimes people "watch" an article to get notified when it changes. (You can do this too!)

Sometimes they do that so they can revert the exact kind of change you're there to make.

But they have to put in a reason for reverting it. Which means you can also change it back, argue them out of it, or make changes to make it work. (example under the cut!)

The way you add a citation/reference looks like html gibberish salad. But it basically goes:

put in a tag that says "ref," so it automatically gets added to the list of references cited at the bottom of the Wikipedia page;

put in "cite" and what you're citing, like a book, a video, a website, a journal. Getting the type right doesn't really seem to be a big deal. In this case, you want to put "web."

And then there are a fuckton of different things you can add, which get separated by pipes. Pipes are that long vertical line that's probably above your enter key: |

You need the URL. That's... kind of all you need.

pro tip: going back in to add more details to the citation later counts as more edits!

Even though you only NEEEEED the URL, it's really good to add other details like the title of the page (if there is one), the publisher (Holocaust Encyclopedia), the day you looked at it (because websites can change over time), and it's especially nice to go dig up an archived version of the site and the date of the archive. Because links break.

oh yeah and my favorite thing to add: a quote from your source, so that people don't have to click through to verify what it says! this can be a great way to add more information that seems too long for the Wikipedia article.

So, broken up with lots of space for easier reading, it looks like this. We'll pretend we're doing one on Heinrich Himmler, because I have no idea who anon was looking at:

<ref> {{cite web | url = https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/heinrich-himmler | access-date = November 19, 2024}} </ref>

That's a very short "I just found this url, today" version. Here's a more thorough citation:

<ref>{{cite web | url = https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/heinrich-himmler | access-date = November 19, 2024 | publisher = Holocaust Encyclopedia | title = Heinrich Himmler | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20241008214021/https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/heinrich-himmler | archive-date = October 8, 2024 | quote = As Reichsführer SS, Himmler received authority directly from Hitler to carry out ideological policies that the laws of the state might not permit. This ideologically rooted “Führer authority” enabled authorization of indefinite incarceration and mass murder.}}</ref>

I bet someone out there even knows of a website where you can paste in the url you're citing, and get all that code automatically generated for you.

Oh - here's my example of getting into a silly debate about something that should be cut and dried, and changing shit to make it work!

I came across the page for GUPS, the General Union of Palestinian Students. It made the ludicrous statement that the group OFFICIALLY started in the 1950s, but had been around since the 1920s.

I was like: ok, there's no place that says this other than their cited source, a now-gone website for the San Francisco State University chapter of GUPS. There were no universities in Palestine in the 1920s. This is clearly not true.

I took that part out. Someone REVERTED IT, and told me that all I'd proven was that it wasn't logical, not that the citation was wrong!

We argued back and forth a bit. I ended up finding a fuckton of Arabic-language sources with more information, and showing that none of them talked about it starting in the 1920s. This person said, "no, that source says it started in the 1950s, and evolved from this other group that started in the same Egyptian university, which had started in the 1920s! It never said that it had started in PALESTINE in the '20s!"

I haven't even dealt with that one yet lmao. Normally, I would probably just demand a source that showed the original group had started in the 1920s, and then maybe change it to like "it evolved from this other non-palestinian student group that started in 192X."

But the thing is... while I was doing all this digging, I found soooo much information about how GUPS was connected to the PLO. How it had become a part of the PLO when the PLO was an active terrorist organization. All kinds of crap.

And you can fucking bet that all of it is going into the article.

This thing is going to end up being a detailed piece about every terrible thing GUPS and the PLO have ever done.

It's going to be beautiful. And nobody will ever be able to argue that any of it is incorrect. It will go from "this is a normal club that goes sooo far back, it's considered the first Palestinian group ever" to "this is a normal terrorist club that was rooted in the movement to terrorize Jews, like in the 30s when X happened, like in the late 30s when Y happened, like this series of PLO massacres in this decade, like--"

went to wikipedia to fact check somethings about a guy from ww2 era history and it had been edited beyond belief to erase this person's connections with nazi germany. the second google result is the holocaust encyclopedia page all about his horrible crimes in the nazi regime. but on wikipeida, his description is vague and mild and barely mentions it. it's so worrying. I hate it. what happens when gen z only reads wikipedia pages and denounces any sources that are "too zionist" like a holocaust museum's encyclopedia? thank g-d for jewish historians, what would we do without them, but i'm so so scared that our history is going to be rewritten because no one will listen to us on our own history.

.

[seventeendeer]

this isn't at all meant to be condescending or finger-waggy because 100% we all have blind spots like this, but I'm really, really hoping that the people who never found Gaiman's approach to his own fandom concerning in any way will take this all as a learning moment.

he was an older, hyper-famous author engaging directly and frequently with an online audience of largely vulnerable young marginalized people. he presented himself as cultured and worldly, and made himself approachable as someone to go to for advice, encouragement and "wisdom." his manner of speech was extremely pathos-heavy and clearly intended to be comforting and encouraging in exactly the way his target demographic needed it to be to swallow every word. the way he spoke about stories and creativity was designed to make young creative hopefuls feel special and important, while sweeping real analytical techniques under the rug - in hindsight, likely so no one would think too critically about the disturbing amount of patriarchal abuse played for cheap shock value and voyerism in his own body of works.

Gaiman saw a target demographic that was desperate for an older creative role model to tell them they were worth something, and he exploited that pain to twist a narrative around himself where he was king and any critique leveled at him or his works were the enemy.

to be clear, he could have been innocent. he could totally have been just an out-of-touch old man saying nice things to people because he wanted to be kind and he thought he was a lot smarter than he really was. red flags are warning signs, not a surefire way to tell if someone is actually "secretly shitty."

but if you used to look up to him, PLEASE take this moment to revisit the ideas you absorbed from him. did you take his words to heart because they seemed to have objective merit? or did you take them to heart because it felt good to believe what he said? do you still hold these values? does knowing he was intentionally manipulating his online audience make you less certain? do you need more information from a different source before deciding one way or another?

again, I'm just really, really hoping people on here will take a moment to reevaluate the ideas and opinions he's injected into tumblr fandom culture, because his reach is immense and he has absolutely been manipulating popular perception of relevant topics to gain further influence and control the narrative around both his own and Pratchett's legacy. please, please take this moment to notice what he's been doing - and next time someone tries to pull the same shit, hopefully we'll be able to apply what we've learned from experience.

[heartorbit]

the star you've longed for

[lucabyte]

i'm so curious about your character gender reads now tho 👀👀

(You enter the kitchen and see me, eating shredded cheese out of the fridge by the handful)

(I turn around to face you.)

Hi. Do you want me to sell you on amab NB Siffrin? I'm going to try and sell you on amab NB Siffrin. And maybe even a little bit of tranfem siffrin and/or loop. as a treat. just for you.

So, (I put the cheese back in the fridge.)

This read of mine comes from a number of things, a lot of them to do with the game's themes, and to do with Siffrin being a narrative foil to the other characters. And Vaugarde as a whole.

(READMORE WARNING: THIS IS LIKE 6K WORDS LONG. YOU ALL SHOULD KNOW BY NOW I DON'T MAKE POSTS WITHOUT UNCONSCIOUNABLE AMOUNTS OF EVIDENCE AND EXPLANATION. IF ANYTHING I'M BEING RESTRAINED HERE. THUMBS UP.)

(Pre-readmore note: this is in response to me having given an analysis of how I personally percieve Sifloop in relation to asexuality and shipping. Which you can look at here. (x))

It is however, not what my like, no-holds-barred no-rules just-for-me headcanon for Siffrin would be. (which is intersex 'head empty no thoughts' siffrin, for the record). This is instead my close-reading-of-the-text-and-themes interpretation of Siffrin. This is why I'm gonna be saying Read and not Headcanon, to distinguish the two. (Anything I consider a little bit too much of a stretch vis a vis interpretive hard reads I will call a headcanon. But those are for the last bit of this post.)

Unlike *gestures at mass media* All That… ISAT is already packed to the gills with queer rep, to the point where I feel no need to grasp at straws and make overextended reaches into obviously unintended subtext. Like with, y'know, most media. Since here, the subtext isn't unintended. Like this isn't a Transfem Metal Sonic or Aroace Ash Ketchum situation where I know none of the evidence is on purpose and I'm just having fun making a conspiracy theory pinboard out of it. This is like… There's intentionality there. And I want to engage with it on its level, see what the text itself suggests. It's my personal preferred method of expressing deep respect to a text. (Not that it has to be anyone else's, obviously. This is just my way of showing I love a work.)

So yeah, I am, in general, very interested in hearing hard-fought arguments when it comes to interpreting texts. I'm glad ISAT has a lot to pick at here, and so, I will. (and since not a lot of texts ever have anywhere near this kind of depth in this arena, i don't wanna squander it… i'll try and keep my own biases as in check as i can, and already have done by hashing quite a bit of this interpretation out with two people of very different gender identities to mine. To put it mildly, binary-aligned or transfem I am very squarely Not.)

(Now that the cheese bag has been removed from the equation, I drop this framing device, sit you down at the table and begin to dredge up evidence from below it.)

Okay, so. What are my like… Core reasonings here? I think I can split it into three categories. Broadly, with an amount of overlap, so bear with me…

SIFFRIN AS A FOIL AND CONTRAST TO MIRABELLE, ISABEAU AND THE CHANGE RELIGION AS A WHOLE.

SIFFRIN'S HABITS OF CLINGING TO 'KNOWN QUANTITIES', SCAPEGOATS, AND THEMES OF RACIAL IDENTITY INTERSECTING WITH GENDER IDENTITY.

SIFFRIN, LOOP, DE-PERSONING, DEHUMANISING, APATHY AND SURVIVAL.

Okay so up top I'm going to split my argument for Siffrin's gender identity Present and Future here. This means, for now, I'm arguing for AMAB NB Siffrin alone. The transfem stuff is for later (and more for loop, in my mind, too).

I have a few direct observations of the text here that set things up. Here are the things in-game that make me assume that Siffrin, as of the start of the game, has not yet undergone any radical change to their identity in their life. Not on purpose, at least. These are ordered in a messy but logical flow, so uh, try and keep up. I'll synthesise at the end. I Prommy.

SIFFRIN AS A FOIL AND CONTRAST TO MIRABELLE, ISABEAU AND THE CHANGE RELIGION AS A WHOLE.

CHANGE & THE UNIVERSE: PERCEIVED OPPOSITES

When interacting with most objects in the Changing Room in the house, they express a genuine curiosity toward body craft. It seems they are legitimately unfamiliar with it on a deeper level than having simply heard of it.

Despite this curiosity (explicitly stating they've previously wondered about it), they dismiss it as too much work early on in the game. These points combined seem to suggest to me that they have never previously sought out any kind of real change to their appearance or identity. Either for gender reasons, or other body dysmorphia reasons. (Which, despite the dismissal, they do refer to their body as a 'meat prison', which is not particularly positive) However...

This changes in Act 3. In acts 3 and 4 they flatly state: "You're thinking about crafting your body. You seem to have all the time in the world now." While still never spoken aloud, their declining mental state corrosponds with a worn-down, almost nihilistic reckoning with the feelings they masked with the 'meat prison' joke in act 2.

[Image: Interactions with the change craft textbook in acts 2 and 3/4.]

In talking to Mirabelle, they are very self assured that one can stay the same/be comfortable with their born identity. They also seem a little unsettled by the change religion's flippancy in general, which makes sense, as they have been clinging to the famliar (even when painful) to cope with other traumas. (More on this later, section 2)

The Universe Faith appears to heavily disincentivise Wanting for oneself and other expressions of Free Will due to safeguarding against Wish craft. This seems to have impacted Siffrin's mental state majorly, even if they do not recognise it. The followers of the faith are (if Siffrin is to be believed) incentivised to 'go with the flow' and take paths of least resistance, and those that DO make big decisions will tend to justify things as being The Universe's Will. (See: The King's entire Modus Operandi, and the way Loop (and Siffrin) do the same rote actions, constructing worldviews (the play analogy, the Universe's Will) and justify that as what the Universe Would Want (despite a total lack of evidence to prove as such)) As such, it seems as if a follower of this faith as neurotic as Siffrin would be unlikely to act upon any Wants to Change Themselves without a lot of turmoil and backwards-justification. (Of note, Loop's forcible change coinciding with a dropping of pronoun. But that is again for later, section 3) As of the start of the game, they do not appear to have broached this kind of turmoil directly.

[Image: Act 5 interaction with the star journal, emphasis on it being a cautionary tale against reckless usage of wish craft, instilled so deeply to be a children's bedtime story]

Siffrin, in act 5, grows frustrated with both The Universe and The Change God, feeling abandoned by the former. They struggle with simultaneously anthropomorphising the Universe as a cruel onlooker, while also seemingly acknowledging them as a cold, almost scientific fact of nature. This would heavily imply that the 'blame' put upon the Universe by Siffrin in these moments is known to them, at least a little, to be potentially meaningless. It seems that somewhere in Siffrin's belief system is something, be it the core or merely a creeping worry, that the Universe is not a thinking, feeling, thing. And thus that their invocations of "The Universe's Will" are merely rationalisations of random chance and consequence. This is in DIRECT contrast to the Change God, proven to be an emotive sapient entity, who merely refuses to offer a helping hand. (Similar sentiments are, too, spoken by the Change God itself.)

[Images: Interacting with the window in the observatory in act 5, text from the change god meeting]

So. These are the bulk of my observations when it comes to how Siffrin is positioned in contrast to the Change Belief. It would seem to be that Siffrin, inkeeping with their role as an outsider, is a complete fish out of water in Vaugarde's change-centric world. This makes sense! It makes them a compelling foil to the Vaugardians in our cast, and allows the Vaugardians to challenge Siffrin's worldviews merely by existing. It also, more importantly, makes Siffrin an interesting lens through which to inspect our two most Change-driven characters. Mirabelle and Isabeau.

MIRABELLE.

Mirabelle and Siffrin's differing faiths are put on display the most frequently. Interactions like the circle key and the party's disbelief of Siffrin's facts about the stars make this clear. These interactions other Siffrin from the group further, and are another avenue through which Siffrin can ignore their own needs, not communicating with the party and allowing them to dismiss things he deems important.

Obviously, the friendquest is primarily about Mirabelle's struggle with her aromanticism and asexuality. But there's an implicit undercurrent of gender there too. Mirabelle has never made a big change, not like Isabeau. She has never 'changed completely', by her words. And Siffrin distinctly finds this an odd thing to be worried by. Whatever culture he carries has no pressure to explore these avenues, it seems. Siffrin is able to help her by sharing their honest opinions, that he's never felt the need to change these things, and he's happy (allegedly). Why should she?

[Image: Mirabelle's friendquest text] Siffrin is not thinking particularly hard when he first does the friendquests, they are just being themselves. By positioning Siffrin as this unchanged yet confident object, they are in the perfect position to help Mirabelle by being in her almost exact position, both sexuality and transgender status (albeit, with the caveats of potential alloromanticism, and a they pronoun), that they become her ideal foil. (And in fact, the subtle differences between their positions in canon add to this, showing a display of Perceived Genuine Truth, rather than simple in-group camaraderie)

Whereas…

ISABEAU.

When Mal du pays speaks as Isabeau, it says the following;

"I don't want to know someone who won't even try to change, who luxuriates in things staying the exact same like you do."

I don't want to know someone - Shame of being known, that's Isabeau's insecurity. Reflected back at Siffrin, who has become the worst thing imaginable to each of their friends, in Siffrin's own mind. He absorbs their insecurities like a sponge and incorporates them into himself. Empathy turned ill.

Who luxuriates in things staying the exact same - Now THAT'S interesting. This is not Isabeau's insecurity, it's Siffrin's own. But also, it appears as if, Siffrin, whom to Mirabelle was unflappable in that not changing was alright, has internalised some of her worry. That it is MDP's Isabeau saying this, though, shows this is about Personal Change, perhaps even Specifically Gender and Self Image, rather than Mirabelle's spiritual side.

Isabeau and his distinct change in personality and gender, to become someone who he actually likes… Diametric to Siffrin, who has been stagnant for a long time, presumably as far as they can remember. It would seem to imply they have no recourse against this argument. Siffin becomes, in his mind, the opposite to Isabeau, a man he deeply admires the bravery of when told the story of his Change. These are Siffrin's words against themselves, that they consider themselves to have never even 'tried' whatever it is they think Change to be.

So. These are my main points vis a vis: Siffrin as a foil. This reading would posit that Siffrin's He/They status is, well, almost accidental? Which I would imagine befitting of them. They are, at the start of the game, still the mysterious rogue who never elaborates upon anything. They aren't going to be correcting a they/them from a teammate who is likely far more cautious about assumptions.

Notably, Mirabelle excludes Siffrin from the label "man" in the bathroom monologues… But as does Siffrin when in the prologue poem room. Though one needs remember, Siffrin only expresses these thoughts internally.

[Image: Bathroom conversation featuring Isabeau identified as the party's singular man]

[Image: Prologue!Siffrin expressing that they are not a man in very certain terms.]

While I do wonder what Mirabelle's knowledge (or lack thereof, potentially! Did Siffrin actually divulge this to her, once? Or is she making assumptions again?) is here, this is pretty clear evidence that Siffrin doesn't see themselves As A Man. (that, and Adrienne's word of god "fella" comments). I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this… but.

The thesis here is, that Siffrin may want to explore their gender further; doesn't feel connected to Masculinity, and yet, keeps that He pronoun around? Well, the Universe does not, in Siffrin's mind, really allow for personal wants and desires. If their friends start they/themming them, then cool. They like it, but never requested it, so it's the Universe's will. But, asking? Making decisions and requests and rocking the boat? That seems to scare Siffrin a lot. It seems to scare them so much it causes a lot of, if not all of, the conflict in the game. I feel like it's a fair deduction that this aversion to humour their own desires pervades a lot of their existence.

Plus, I think there's meat there. By only allowing Siffrin to reckon with any potential desires to change only after growing closer with the family, you get to explore things like "How does Mirabelle feel that even the person who said she didn't have to change is changing." and the slightly less potentially harrowing (OR MORE, IF YOU WANT IT TO BE? IDK. I'M NOT YOUR BOSS.) "Isa's continued changing allows Siffrin a space to explore it, maybe even just by proxy, or maybe by joining them."

But mostly, this section is about how Siffrin not having Changed Yet makes them delightfully strong narratively; allowing them to relate to Mirabelle, and get cold feet when comparing themselves to Isabeau. I love this as a narrative strengthener. It's very rare in media that we get to explore a nonbinary character's thoughts and insecurities on whether or not they're "doing enough" to be nonbinary. Even less so Aligned nonbinary people. And reading that alignment and insecurity through the lens of a nonbinary person not fully disconnected from their assigned gender at birth? It's a very compelling exploration of a very common and raw and yet underdiscussed feeling, much like the rest of ISAT. I think this is an extremely potent element should it be read this way, and is only strengthened when taking Siffrin's other themes into account.

Speaking of which.

2. SIFFRIN'S HABITS OF CLINGING TO 'KNOWN QUANTITIES', SCAPEGOATS, AND THEMES OF RACIAL IDENTITY INTERSECTING WITH GENDER IDENTITY.

HOLDING ON TO WHAT YOU KNOW. (OR KNOW THAT YOU DO NOT.)

I explained above many of my thoughts on the Universe Faith, and trying to keep these two sections separate was difficult, but needed to be done for the sake of clarity. But this section and the above are deeply intertwined.

Siffrin… Holds on to the things they know. They do not know much. But man do they fucking hold. And yet, paradoxically, they are also avoidant about it.

It is made clear in the text, to the point where I really don't feel the need to rehash it here, that Siffrin's disconnection from their homeland is incredibly painful, but that they consider that culture utterly and irreplaceably important to them. They cannot face it, it is too painful. They cannot let it go, it is too important.

Knowing what we know of the Island's irl inspirations (though, word of god, the exact location is not supposed to matter, one can infer it from the text (and I did! within reasonable proximity!)), Siffrin is of an indigenous peoples of some description, more than likely. And at the very least, Siffrin carries with them inherent biases and ignorances that show that Vaugarde's conceptions of things don't quite mesh with their own. Bowing to the Vaugardian way of things could very easily be seen as assimilation, in this way.*

And identity? Gender? Presentation? Role? All of that has a cultural element. There's no telling what specifics Siffrin has lost in that arena, and that's the problem. Neither do they. How paralysing, the feeling, to know that should you change yourself you risk unknowingly erasing another piece of home? I wouldn't blame them for locking it off. Keeping their old clothes, keeping what little they can remember of themselves… It doesn't seem to me a conducive or safe mental space to get experimental.

And the Universe makes for a perfect scapegoat. As referenced in the section above, a lot can be justified should you call it "The Universe's Will", because who's there to call you on it? Hardly anyone. Your divine right to Freeze A Place In Time; Your Deserved Punishment for Wanting to be Loved: All of it the Universe-- If you want it to be. And thusly, if the Universe wanted you to be a certain way, wouldn't you already be? Wouldn't it make you so? (Wouldn't it take away your body, that which makes you human? If that is what it thought of you?) So best to put it out of your mind. Wouldn't want to accidentally wish anything.

But as the game itself puts it, personified by The King, you cannot stay mired like this forever. As Loop themselves puts it, they can "get so fixated, sometimes." At some point they need to allow themselves to grow in whatever direction they need, because in the end, they need to live their life. They don't need to abandon their country, their culture, but they can't let it restrain them either.

(* MASSIVE CAVEAT: im white as fuck boyyy. i cant say shit. im like technically Of The Land im like 90% pictish or something ridiculous like that so my particular line has never moved anywhere but. this is notttt something i have input or insight on. this is all gleaned from reading and listening to indiginous perspectives from wherever they may be. i am simply trying to infer from what the game gives us without inserting my own feelings on the matter.)

3. SIFFRIN, LOOP, DE-PERSONING, DEHUMANISING, APATHY AND SURVIVAL.

Alright, here's some less heady and purely-thematic points to round things out. And where we'll also address the fucked up star being in the room; Loop.

My last couple of reading points are the most potentially-transfem to me. Or at least the ones that really hammer home, to me, a seeming lack of want to be masculine-aligned.

ANOTHER NOTE ON THE 'NOT A GUY' THING.

Obviously, there is the aforementioned "Not a man/not that you're a boy" thing. This is rather straightforward, but also still pretty ambiguous. You can be masc-aligned and still Not A Guy. But it does seem to be of note that being a guy very much does not seem to be a goal of Siffrin's. I would posit this in direct contrast to… Isabeau.

But not Isabeau's masculinity. I would instead hold it up against Isa's femininity.

ISAT, as a text, has its characters have genuinely different levels of security in their gender identity, and Isabeau, despite still having insecurities, seems super chill on the gender angle specifically! Their internal strife comes not from their 'not feeling like a man enough' or 'hating being a woman', but instead from their self perception as a friendless nerd! Something that seems to be only tangentially related to Isa's gender, really?

The big dumb bruiser thing is certainly aided by being a dude, but Isa still seems completely comfortable referring to themselves with feminine language, calling himself a "mother hen" (prologue) and having "the heart of a fair maiden" (cookie snack time). (However, they also take being excluded from Mira's girly book club as a surprised compliment, implying they weren't expected to be excluded, and find it affirming.) And even further so, Isa states they want to continue changing further and exploring their identity more, being rather blatant that they might lean back into femininity (and more importantly, let themselves be outwardly smart again), since they're starting to feel hurt by everyone assuming they ARE genuinely stupid.

[Image: Prologue Isa calling himself a mother hen]

And man, this is such a breath of fresh air vis a vis representation. I don't think I really need to explain that. A character who's gender identity is driven by chasing euphoria, even if it started out by trying to drive out misery. Isabeau's character is so damn good. But this essay isn't about him, so get back in the crate, boy.

... So here we have Isa, who is genuinely comfortable reclaiming things about their birth gender, and Mirabelle who loves her traditionally feminine traits to the point where she feels a little guilty that she isn't rejecting them to foster change. And then we have Siffrin… who seems to reject masculine language…? Hrm… (… And then we have The King. A Masculine Title. Someone who Siffrin increasingly sees themselves in and deeply, deeply dislikes this.)

APATHY AND SURVIVAL

It should be clear by now that I see Siffrin's core character as being driven by avoidance and survival. This seems to lead to a lot of apathy, brushing off emotions that are too intense or events and occurences that are too painful. (See: just absolutely everything with Bonnie)

It's all Siffrin really seems to be able to do to Survive. They've travelled, seemingly alone, for what would be around a decade by what the game says about the island's disappearance. They've lived alone on the road as a traveller in a country that so openly welcomes strangers that THE KING and his whole motives can happen. Siffrin is avoidant and refuses to acknowledge problems or strive for help and comfort.

So. That line about the dress. Let's unpack the line(s) about the dress.

THE DRESS LINE, AND THE WAY IT CHANGES BETWEEN PROLOGUE, ACT 2, AND ACT 3.

Good god where to start with this. Full disclosure, the first draft here was way more vague in how I approached this line because I remembered it (and another line, I'll get to it.) way more tame, but going and getting the screenshots..... Siffrin. Buddy. We gotta unpack this.

In act 2, we have "You haven't worn a dress in forever!". This is a neutral, if seemingly a little joyous statement. All we really glean from this is the information that Siffrin at some point, wore 'a' dress. No real inferences there. (Maybe you could say that the singular as opposed to plural makes it more likely that they borrowed/only owned One Dress rather than owned several? But that's a massive stretch...)

Then, act 3/4 shuffles this off into a more general "You wonder if you'll ever wear different clothes again." Which is a more despairing and distant statement. Considering Siffrin seems to travel with only the items they can carry, and owns sleep clothes... It's unclear how many changes of clothing they have. The party seems to consider the cloak a pretty permanent fixture, anyhow. But this line doesn't really say much aside from 'oh god i'm losing myself to the time loop malaise'

NOW THE PROLOGUE. Prologue Sif, buddy, pal, Loop, if I'm allowed to call you that....

Thousands of loops in. We are wistful for specifically dresses. You've forgotten almost everything. You dream about someday seeing the sun again. To be anywhere but here. You want to wear a dress again.

I. Kind of do not know what to do here but point at it. Like I said, my first draft had me half-remembering the progression of this line and as such I was far more vague on what I thought it could imply. Instead this is just straight up yearning.

To, try and segue back to what I had initially written, we'll pick up here...

Siffrin expresses a want to wear other clothes, explore changing their body... But instead, they wear a ratty old form-covering cloak that keeps them warm and safe and is a last reminder of home. They are shapeless, formless, hiding their face under the brim of a wide hat. They do not voice their desire to wear a dress aloud. They once again, keep a desire to themselves, because they do not allow themselves to want publicly. Apathy is safer. Apathy and quiet means you do not risk retribution or hurt.

While I do not think the above is exclusively a transfeminine feeling, it really, really reads like one when taken part and parcel with assuming Siffrin has denied themselves prior exploration.

... And here I have to break my first draft again. I was being, once again, restrained in my reading when writing this. Because I had convinced myself I had maybe straight up imagined one of the lines I was basing my reads on, because I couldn't find it. Because it was a line that read so strikingly desolate to me that my brain had slotted it in during Act Five, meaning when I went looking for it neither me nor my friends could find it.

It's in acts 3 and 4. It's a line I already brought up.

"You're thinking about crafting your body. You seem to have all the time in the world now."

good fucking christ. sorry to break the academic tone but Jimminy Fucking Willikers, Siffrin. What's with that bit. The resignation and despair and guilty comfort we know the timeloop brings them, bleeding into the gender.

This. *taps my finger harshly on my desk* THIS, this feels transfem. this feels so wildly transfem to me. The knowledge that they've never changed before this line lends. The admission that they've been holding back because it's 'too much work'. I spent a lot of time during the game relating Siffrin not to myself but to my friends.

If I'm honest, really, truly, I'm not all too often in Siffrin's shoes. I'm the stable one, of my group. I'm the rock people ground themselves on. And I see so much hesitance, all the time. Denial of joy because what if it's taken away, again? Or futilely out of reach? It hurts more to try, and to fail, than to never try at all.

I wanted to shake Siffrin by the shoulders this whole game. Grit teeth beg them to accept help because for fuck's sake people are clearly offering it get it through your skull--

*coughs* Ah. Ahem. Right. The uh, academic tone.

Right. What I mean to say is, this read as transfem to me because of the way it relates to real-world experiences of denial. And this combo of the Dress line, and the progression of the Meat Prison line, the constant evidence of never having strived for what they want, and that insistance that you're not a man, seem to dislike being percieved as a man, but not being able to shed the outward signifiers?

Individually, yes, these points can be read in different ways. The total opposite ways, even, I'm sure! But as a gestalt it feels really, really transfem. Even if yeah, sure Vaugarde is a magical setting where being transgender is accepted, and this hesitance, specifically, around gender, might not 'make sense' in 'the lore'...

Diegesis isn't everything. Sometimes something that reflects a real-world feeling is important, even if it doesn't 'mesh' with 'the lore' of the world.

TANGENT: DIEGESIS AND READING INTO NON-REAL-WORLD-SETTINGS.

This is a Watsonian vs Doylist spectre that's been haunting this whole argument. In-universe (Watsonian), Vaugarde has seemingly no discrimination between genders, sexualities, and a lackadaisical approach to most things in the arena. Reading our own patriarchal/heterosexual/amanonormative/perisexist society unto it does not make sense, not in this context.

In the real world, however (Doylist), ISAT is a text made in our prejudiced society. A text that is distinctly flavoured by those bigotries which it is kicking back against. Because of this, it is not the whole story to simply read the text while discarding our real-world-informed inferences. Isabeau is a big example of this. While perfectly accepted in Vaugarde, he is very obviously a revolutionary character in our real-world space! He has so much to say, specifically BECAUSE things about him that are not readily accepted here, are accepted there! Same with Mira's struggles, and yes, Siffrin's too.

ISAT was written with the knowledge of how it would play against our real world in mind, we know this, clearly, from many an interview. This is most present in how it engages with asexuality and aromanticism (and immigrant identity), but make no mistake, it influences the Whole Text.

Ergo, just because I view certain writing choices here in the context of Our Real World Perspectives On Gender and not Vaugarde's In-Universe Perspectives, it does not make them an invalid read. They are simply a Doylist read.

There's been an admittedly loosey-goosey lack of delineation here between things I'm reading with either lens, because for the most part all of these points have been a vague synthesis of both that I can't quite decouple. Unprofessional, I know, but I'll admit to not having written my thoughts down like this in a good long while. Usually I just hash this out verbally over discord voice to a small number of weirdo literature and classics student friends who are willing to humour me. I'm an arts student too, but animation hardly required I actually write an essay to a literature degree's standard. Lol.

DE-PERSONING. AND LOOP. OH JESUS . LOOP .

Siffrin de-persons themselves a lot. I say de-person rather than dehumanise because, well, there's a subtle difference there. Siffrin doesn't see themselves as vermin or an animal or an object, but they do seem to see themselves as lesser, not requiring the respect they grant others. They aren't, you know, a 'real person'.

People get to have things like thoughts and wants and identities. Siffrin is, at best, Just Siffrin. They have what they have and they don't ask for more and they don't (CAN'T) feel too strongly on what they do have!

When Loop at first offers their pronouns they offer the Royal 'We'. This is at least a little bit, a joke. A nudge toward their true identity, a potential dig at themselves for becoming so understanding of The King. Mostly though, a joke on the first thing…. and a sign that they do not see themselves as a separate entity to the Siffrin stood before them.

When Siffrin rejects this, they settle for they/them. Loop drops the he/him, presumably partially to cover their tracks, but… They just showed their hand with the 'Royal We', and if you wanted to go even further with this, there's no way for us to know whether Loop is treating this pronoun as singular or not. They presumably are, but it is still a potentially plural pronoun.

Loop… Clearly does not see themselves as a person. It's, I would say, a completely reasonable assumption that the form they have taken reflects implicit feelings toward themselves as less than a person, an actor, a monster, a tool, a means to an end. They are rendered inhuman by The Universe, frivolous distractions removed. No mouth, inventory and clothes confiscated, nothing between the legs. Formed roughly in the shape of a person to allow them to do their only job: Help.

Loop's body does not make logical sense, given their continued ability to sleep, dream and their continued habit of deep breaths to self-soothe. It would seem to me, it was made in the image it was, with only the tools it needed to Help Siffrin. Why obfuscate their identity? Because giving the game away too early would likely make them lose hope. Why so deeply, thoroughly star themed? An instant signal, that even if a stranger, they are an ally. They are home.

[Image: Loop saying that they take naps and dream, and evidence of Loop habitually attempting to breathe in the twohats lose-to-loop ending]

And they… Degender themselves. No longer with any bodily signifiers of masculinity, and cruelly disallowed the ability to hide themselves beneath fabric, they are null. The spoiler Q&A (paratext, as it were) states that:

Q. Is Loop: 1. Actually comfortable with both he and they, but only gave the one pronoun to emphasize the distance? 2. Only using they/them because a large life event led to a shift in identity/ how they’d like to be perceived? or 3. time lops stole he from they they :( A. Mostly that first one. But all three of those reasons have a bit of truth to them.

While the 'mostly the first one' comment does imply that Loop would not baulk at being he/him'd (similar to how Siffrin does not), the other reasons, especially the second, having 'a bit of truth' does lend credence to this reading. That Loop's self-perception has shifted, and what I posit, is that this shift is in tandem with a disconnection with humanity. Due, presumably, to the dehumanising experience of the timeloop.

Loop has no biology to speak of, and yet they remain blind in one eye. I take this as an implication that they considered this so core to themselves, to who they could remember being, that it stayed. Even if they had forgotten their own face, trapped in a part of the house with no mirrors, they knew they couldn't see. They kept this, and yet seemingly they, or The Universe, or both of them in tandem, discarded all else.

This isn't like…. Healthy behaviour. That is for certain. But it is interesting that Siffrin and Loop seem to hold on to their masculinity by a thread, and that Loop, when actually given the excuse to make a choice, chooses the Neutral Option. Siffrin might de-person themselves, but Loop, Loop is absolutely dehumanising themselves. From Loop's own mouth (or lack thereof) do they call themselves a Corpse. That's… pretty damn bad.

TANGENT 2: POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE JAPANESE TRANSLATION.

Did somebody say 'distance'? Yeah turns out that has some more potential evidence. In the form of First Person Pronouns. See, English, with its third person only pronouns relies on others to gender you. Japanese, you get to gender yourself. And Siffrin specifically has an interesting discrepancy in the way he refers to himself.

(DISCLAIMER: I . DO NOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT JAPANESE. THIS IS SECOND-HAND KNOWLEDGE. SOURCED FROM THIS TUMBLR POST AND OTHER QUICK SKIMS OF WIKIPEDIA)

Loop and Siffrin use the same, very neutral "mostly male but could go either way" pronoun of 僕 boku. Safe, soft friendly pronoun. Used by people on the younger side of adulthood, not so impolite that you can't use it in a formal setting. Such a neutral all-rounder that female singers in japan tend to use boku in their songs to relate to the audience with quiet confidence.

And in their internal monologue? Siffrin uses a completely different pronoun. In his head, for himself, he uses 自分 jibun. Now, this may be an artefact of the monologue's english second-person "You", since jibun can also be used to mean a very neutral "self". A "myself/herself/himself" type 'self'. But when used as a first person pronoun, it has a connotation of being… distant, introspective. Which is… a fascinating implication, if that was the intent.

But I don't know anything about japanese so ! If I'm off the mark, discard this!

LOOP, PART 2: MAYBE NOT A GREAT STATE TO BE IN.

While Siffrin I can comfortably argue that they can like, keep their current gender presentation, whatever you may perceive it to be, once the game is over, Loop, I cannot.

Siffrin's potential issues with their identity are ones that honestly feel like they would best be explored with gentle refinement and searching. They don't need to violently seperate themselves from what they are now, far from it, in fact. They need to learn to grow comfortable in their own skin, and with the people they love. To become open and trusting, with an open mind to where it may lead.

Loop has already lost this battle. They don't get to refine anymore, just pick up the pieces. While I don't necessarily think radical change is Good for Loop, I think they may Need It. For them, resting will probably become stagnation (see: napping all day under the tree, resigned, really, to the idea they're stuck there forever.), they need a shake-up in order to re-find their feet. Even if they end up right back where they started, they still need to do the actual painful process of soul-searching first.

Problem is, they're still rather avoidant. So it basically becomes a question of getting them into a situation where this exploration is forced upon them. At which point, that's a whole new plotline. This becomes fanfiction. Hence, why while I think Transfem-Egg Loop is a Valid Read when extrapolated from Siffrin… I must concede any actual adventures into them acting upon that as headcanon territory. I just do not know how you would get them there without making a whole new Thing, at which point it stops being Just A Read of the text haha. It doesn't help that Loop and Siffrin (grudgekeepers supreme) both have reason to spite the Change God after who was phone.

As for whether this egg-read reflects directly back on to Siffrin? Maybe! They are the same person. But I think that, especially with Vaugarde's lax views, and their actual differences (Loop's general worse mania // Siffrin's incentive to stay a reminder to themselves and Loop of their country) means they could easily go two different routes, along the road to becoming their own distinct individuals. (And in all honesty, growing into their differences is probably the more healthy option in the long run if you're keeping Loop around? But again, we are going so far into the future here this is no longer a read. And I am not here to dispense baseless headcanons without massive disclaimer, so…)

Tl;Dr:

Siffrin's Survival-Apathy and hesitance to change feels really thematic to their being 'what's left' of their homeland

They seem unsettled by the flippancy of the Change Religion at times, clinging to the familiar to cope with the trauma of displacement.

Mal du pays speaks of them that they have not 'tried' to change, showing an insecurity there, even outside of the literal stagnance of the loops.

They are self assured to Mira that one does not have to change, in a very genuinely personal impulsive statement.

They and others exclude themselves from being "A Man", but Siffrin keeps desires to explore their expression to themselves.

The Universe belief, seemingly in Siffrin's view of it, disincentivises Free Will and Wants very heavily. It is not hard to assume they extend this to all elements of their life.

They have self-admittedly never pursued tangible change, likely due to this aversion to choice. Despite this, they express interest in changing, seeming nonplussed with their body, and house at least some desire for more traditionally feminine expression.

Oh Good God. Loop Sure Does Not Treat Themselves Like A Person. Why Does That Come With A Pronoun Change? What Does That Mean?

But most of all:

It makes them such a fascinating foil and lens to Change and characters who believe in it! It makes them eerily similar to The King! It opens up such fascinating debate between characters like themselves and Mirabelle, Isabeau and Loop, on whether or not they want to change in future, or if it truly is okay to never radically change yourself! What genuinely fertile ground for dialogues. And man if I'm not heavily drawn towards dialogues.

(End of essay! Congratulations for making it the whole way! 🎉 I hope this nightmarish deep dive helps with understanding some of the ways I've been writing Siffrin and Loop too. Since while I've not ever focused on the gender side of it (and probably won't in comic form) this does pervade my view of the two, since it would be impossible for it to Not. As you can see, I do think it is pretty relevant to both their themes.)

(Now for some bonus material)

ADDENDUMS:

PERSONAL BIAS NOTE:

Not included in this analysis since this is more a Pet Theme of my own (usually kept quarantined to the realms of my OCs), but something else I see in Siffrin is a reflection of the Dude Issue(tm) of patriarchal irl society disincentivisng Dudes(tm) from ever fucking introspecting ever.

I'm curious about nonbinary/trans characters who have no idea they’re nonbinary/trans because they’ve been disincentivised from thinking/doubting their identity due to societal power structures or simply tradition. I dig around the themes of “a lot of guys are trapped in a societal prison without ever knowing and it makes them miserable but they can’t escape because they don’t even see the cage” like, a lot, in my personal work. It intrigues me. So bleh, cards on the table there. That mode of interacting with nb/trans characters is one I'm inclined to.

This kinda goes hand in hand with the watsonian vs doylist situation i took an aside to mention. But it is so far along the doylist side that I didn't want to include it, since it is a little too assumptive of the text for my comfort. I don't think the game necessarily has much commentary on this specific Societal Bind. But if it does, then hey, there's my thoughts on it.

STRAY SIDE NOTES AND HEADCANONS ABOUT OTHER CHARACTERS (AS A TREAT FOR GETTING THIS FAR):

MID-GAME OBSERVATION ABOUT BONNIE AND ODILE THAT I NEVER WENT BACK TO VERIFY:

I got the impression that Bonnie heavily favours they/them pronouns for Siffrin, and Odile he/him, as a bit of presumed character voice. I don't know that I am right, literally at all, in that observation, because it very well could've been confirmation bias.

BUT! It did give me the impression that one of the things Bonnie was idolising about Siffrin was a degree of "wow!! older person with my gender!! wow!!", which is just like, cute. I like it even if I don't have any solid evidence.

ODILE, WHAT'S HER DEAL?:

Oh she stays just as mysterious as she intends to be, huh? Even with her comments in the Changing Room alluding to knowing things about underground changing operations, you can't draw much of a conclusion about her. I appreciate verily that she's word-of-god unlabelled and also poly. That shit's great. Woman who has stopped drawing lines or caring what she's up against. Nice characterisation flavour I think.

Anyway, I do think that transfem Odile is a really, really nice take. I have no evidence in either direction for her in either direction, and her being a woman of any description makes her relationship with her absent mother something interesting to chew on, but the idea that she pursued womanhood intentionally lends an interesting texture. I've not much to say, but it's a thread to pull on. Makes you wonder what other female role models she had in her life instead. Anyway she's mysterious as fuck I can't extrapolate Jack nor Squat. Shrug! I'm also made curious by the idea of her potentially moving away from womanhood as she feels the weight of her history lifted. This goes either way, really. Diagnosis: mysterious.

HEADCANON NOTE: INTERSEX SIFFRIN

I don't have any in-text support for this so this entire thing is an unbased headcanon to me. but i DO like it because 1. fun and 2. potential for more thematic exploration

haha gotcha its fuckin themes again. its always themes with me.

But yeah. Not much to say here besides drawing a parallel (that I believe I've seen drawn elsewhere in the fandom already?) between ISAT's comments on how a society that values change would view Aroace identities, and how Mira feels about not wanting to change with the real world experiences of Intersex people having alteration and conformity forced upon them, saying the Change Belief would likely be just as bad for them as it is for aroace people.

So, adding it to Siffrin's situation further drags them into the opposition-to-change foil role. Which like I said, think has a lot to explore.

HEADCANON NOTE: A POTENTIAL METHOD FOR GETTING LOOP OUT OF THEIR GOD DAMNED COMFORT ZONE

I think utilising Loop's contrarianism is an effective and funny way to get them to explore their gender. I personally think running with them trying to hide their identity from the party is a hilarious way to do it. Having them try to position themselves in direct opposition to Siffrin to "throw the party off their trail" (not that i think they really need to?), going full feminine-revealing-clothing because it's NOT what a Siffrin would do and accidentally growing accustomed to it. Funny to me. Especially when the party eventually do find out who they are and go . "????? what was the girl stuff about ??? is that something you wanna do now ???".

[Isabeau] "Ohhhh it was a bit! Haha you really are Sif, still a jokester!" [Loop] "HAHA YEAH . JOKES. LOVE THOSE. LOVE TO MAKE JOKES!" [Isabeau] "Yep! Anyway. Tell me if you need anything!"

Bonus bonus:

[Siffrin] "Okay, so, if you're a girl. Does this reflect on like… me?" [Loop] "No doubles. Get your own gender, parasite~!"

[mattodore]

birthday boy 🎂

[unfinishedslurs]

The boy stops in his tracks. “I know you,” he says, tilting his head curiously. He’s not tall, but he’s regal nonetheless, dressed all in white. Something about him makes Leia’s hair stand on end, and although she hides it she feels a stirring in her own chest. I know you like I know my own soul, she thinks wildly, and wonders where it came from. Has she gone insane?

“That’s nice,” she says, and shoots him anyway.

He deflects it in a flash of light, a glowing blue laser sword appearing in his hand like magic. She’s only seen one of those before, and it’s Vader’s. If this boy is anything like Vader, she realizes, she’s in deep shit.

She’s smart enough to know when she’s outmatched. Leia makes the tactical decision to run for her life.

Later, as she’s getting the hell out of there, she wonders why he didn’t try to stop her.

She remembers being young and tugging on her mothers skirts, demanding to know why their guest was so sad. “Does he not like it here?” She’d asked, and then, trembling, because Kenobi always seemed saddest around her. “Is it…because of me?”

“Oh, Leia,” her mother sighed, lifting her into her arms. “It’s not that, I promise.”

“Then what is it?”

“Master Kenobi lost a child under his care, years ago.” Breha’s eyes grew deeper, darker. “It was not his fault, but he blames himself. You remind him of that child, that’s all.”

Leia had quieted at that, contemplative.

The next time she’d seen Master Kenobi, she had given him a hug. He didn’t seem to know what to do with that, so she resolved to give him more of them. “He’s lonely,” she’d told her mother. “No one should be lonely.”

Looking at Obi-Wan Kenobi now, the memory seemed so far away. He’d aged thirty years in the ten it had been.

He looks, Leia thinks with a small twinge of regret, very lonely.

“Leia,” he greets. “It’s been a long time.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Leia sees a glint of white.

Kenobi freezes in his tracks. “Luke?” He whispers, and through the distance Leia can hear it as if he’d been speaking directly into her ear.

Master Kenobi lost a child under his care, her mother whispers in her head. He blames himself.

In an instant, Leia understands everything.

Kenobi is still staring at the boy he’d lost so long ago when Vader cuts him down.

Later, as she’s pacing around on the Falcon to Han muttering darkly about Princesses and supernatural abilities, she rememberers the way the boy collapsed, as if all his strings had been cut. Vader was too occupied with him to even look at her as she shot at him desperately.

Luke. She hates him more than she hates herself.

“They know where you are,” he hisses frantically. “They’re coming for you. You have to run.”

“Wait!” Leia quickly pulls up their sonar. Nothing yet, but it would explain the distant queasiness she’d felt since they’d landed. She tended to trust her gut. “How do you know? How much time do we have?”

“Not important, and not enough,” he says. “I have to go, and so do you. You need to leave yesterday.”

“How do I know I can trust you? I don’t even know who you are.”

He pauses. “Call me Skywalker.”

“That’s not an answer, Skywalker.”

“Yes it is.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but there are faint voices on the other end, drawing nearer.

“Shit,” Skywalker mutters. “I have to go. I’ll be in contact, okay? Don’t ever tell me where you are, or where you’re heading. Vader and Palpatine aren’t shy about reading minds. Just leave as soon as you can, and figure out the rest.”

“But—“

It’s too late. The comm has disconnected.

She stares down at it, disbelieving. How would the Empire know they’re here? Why should she trust a stranger who somehow got her personal comm code?

Gut feeling or not, on paper this was a perfect location. Supplied, armored, and most importantly, extremely well hidden. There was no real reason to think it would possibly be found out.

It’s probably a trap. Almost definitely a trap.

Han sticks his head in the door, a sour look on his face. “Hey Princess, can you tell these idiots—“

She makes a decision then and there.

“We’re leaving.”

“What?”

“We’re evacuating, effective immediately.” She pushes past him, and he follows so close he’s nearly stepping on her heel.

“Why? I think it’s pretty cozy here. Actual sunlight doesn’t hurt, either.”

“Apparently too cozy.” She grabs the first person she sees, a pilot who stares at her with wide eyes. “Emergency evacuation. Spread the word to pack everything you can and leave, I’ll let you know where we’re headed when we’re in orbit.”

He salutes and scurries off.

“Woah, hey now.” Han snatches at her elbow until she turns around to face him. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a new informant. He told me the Empire knows we’re here. They’re coming for us.”

“And you trust this person because…”

“I don’t have a choice,” she snaps. Someone runs past them, holding three packs filled to the brim with rations. “It’s either he’s lying and we’re not in danger, or he’s telling the truth and we’re going to die if we don’t listen. It’s not exactly hard math.”

It could be a trap of course, but he hadn’t suggested any sort of direction or destination to follow, and Leia wasn’t inclined to share. Especially not after his tidbit about Vader and Palpatine reading minds.

He squints at her. “That’s not it.”

“What?”

“I don’t believe you,” he insists. He’s so infuriating. Leia doesn’t know why she hasn’t kicked him out yet.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do, and you’re either gonna tell me why, or find a different transport when we head out of here.”

“Who said I was riding on your hunk of junk?” She demands. She actually was planning on going with them, since the Falcon has more than enough room for all the supplies that can’t fit in the other ships and none of the trustworthiness of the other pilots, but Han doesn’t need to know that.

“Well?”

Damn him. Damn him for knowing how to read her. She doesn’t know when she let that happen.

“I feel it,” she admits, defeated. “Something tells me he’s trustworthy. We’ll wait and see if it’s right.”

He studies her. She holds her head high, but inside she’s jittery at the scrutiny. They don’t have time for this.

“Yeah, all right,” Han finally says.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” He rolls his eyes, like she’s not acting absolutely insane by putting all her trust in a random man she’s never even met. “Now come on, Princess, weren’t you the one who said we had to hurry?”

What is it about this man that makes it impossible to tell whether she wants to punch him or drag him into the nearest supply closet? They don’t have time to find out.

“So there’s good news and bad news.”

“Bad news first,” she demands.

“They know there’s a mole.”

“Shit.” Of course they know, how could they not? She should have been more careful, less obvious about the correlation of their movements with the Empire’s plans. “The good news?”

“They’ve tasked me with hunting down this ‘pathetic rebel spy,’” Skywalker says, humor in his voice. “That should buy me some time.”

Leia can’t quite stop the snort she lets out. “Seriously?”

“Yep. You’re speaking to a professional mole-hunter, here.”

“Well congratulations on the promotion, Skywalker.”

“Thank you,” he says grandly. Then, quieter, “It won’t last, Princess. They’ll find out eventually.”

“I know. Just hang in there, it will be over soon.”

“Will it?” He asks, suddenly sounding very young. She realizes that she has no idea how old he is. She doesn’t know anything about the man who has saved them more times than she cared to admit, and the idea rattles her until they sign off.

Later, she looks up the name Skywalker in their archives. There are a few results, but only one sticks out.

Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight and hero of the Clone Wars. Killed at the hands of Darth Vader. There are gossip articles too, speculations on his relationship with the pregnant Senator Padmé Amidala, who died around the same time Skywalker did. The baby, it seems, died with her.

Unless he didn’t.

It’s ridiculous. It’s impossible. The idea is so ludicrous that Leia almost rejects it entirely.

But it makes sense. By the Maker, it makes sense.

The child of Anakin Skywalker, it seems, would be a powerful Force user indeed. Powerful enough for Kenobi to take the baby and run. Powerful enough for the Emperor to want him for his own gain. Powerful enough to send Vader after Kenobi and take the boy himself.

Maybe even powerful enough to shield his mind from Vader and Palpatine’s intrusions.

Powerful enough to hide the fact that he’s a spy.

Leia sinks into her chair, covering her face as she laughs.

Maybe Luke isn’t so bad after all.

“No, no, no,” she mutters, digging through the smoking wreckage of the TIE fighter. “Don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.”

“Princess…” Han lays a hand on her shoulder that she immediately shrugs off.

“No, he’s not dead. He’s not. Luke!”

A faint cough answers her, and she’s so relieved to hear it she could cry. Behind her, Han starts bellowing for a medic and, “Some damn help here, do you expect us to move all this ourselves?”

“Luke, it’s me,” she sobs. “It’s Leia. You’re at the Rebel Base. You’re safe.”

More coughing, and there’s a worrying rasp to his voice when he says, “You know…my name?”

“I figured it out.”

“Smart.” This time, the coughing is so bad Leia and Han both wince.

“Shit, kid,” Han says, moving another piece of rubble. “Don’t talk. We’re gonna get you out of here, all right?”

“Stand back,” Luke chokes out.

“What?”

“Stand back. Please.”

Han protests, but something in Leia knows they should listen to him. She drags him back, and motions everyone else to fall back with them. They do, albeit reluctantly.

“Clear,” she calls, hoping Luke can hear her.

The TIE explodes.

“Fuck!” Han goes back in, Leia on his heels with the terrifying feeling that she’d just allowed Luke to die, before they both stop in their tracks. Around them, the broken pieces of the TIE are floating.

And curled up in the middle is a man dressed all in white.

“Luke!” She pushes past Han to start dragging him out, and after another moment of staring around them, he helps her.

As soon as they get clear, the pieces fall to the ground with a clatter. Luke falls limp with them.

Han is still looking at the TIE. “Can you do that?” He asks quietly.

Leia pauses her examination of the unconscious man in front of her to glare at him. “Is that what you’re most concerned with right now? Really?”

“Excuse me for asking, Princess!”

“It’s white,” Luke grumbles, pulling at his hospital gown bitterly. “I hate wearing white.”

“Should I be offended?”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t even. You look great and you know it. I just feel like I never left.”

“Well,” she says gingerly. “I guess it’s a good thing you got sick of it. If we went around in matching outfits all the time, people might think we’re twins.”

He snorts. “Yeah, right.”

[hrokkall]

HOW TO PIN YOUR INSECTS:

Position limbs into desired arrangement and pin in place

Maintain eye contact

Pin should pass through the center of the thorax

Move slowly; lest the divine light leak out along with the ichor

Wait for the embers to die.

Wait for the embers to reignite.

[cloudysarts]

this show would be good if literally everything about it was different

[callistoscope]

a healthy venture

Summary: As most know, sexual experimentation is all apart of a healthy relationship! It just so happens to coincide with a very awkward relationship for a couple like Harvey and Clarice, however.

Pairing: Cringefail(Clarice) x Harvey. (if you know you know.)

Word Count: 7.4k. I know, it’s ridiculous.

Warnings: Smut, smut, smut. AWKWARD smut. Takes a hot minute to get there, but when it’s there, it is THERE. The sexual experimentation in question is PEGGING with not much else, so….

a/n: this is silly and very crackfic-adjacent but also So Serious to me. also, yeah I guess they’re in a relationship, but early stages? probably had sex before this? Idk, whatever makes the most sense. sorry if the writing style comes off kinda cringe sometimes!!! I really tried to connect the writing style to what I imagine cringefail’s thought process would be like. and it might generally come off more amateurish since it’s been a hot minute since I’ve written. have mercy pls I swear I was so much better at writing like a year ago I’m getting back into the swing of things </3. If you have no idea who cringefail is or why’s she being paired with Harvey, she’s from @clarisinne ‘s comic!!! check it out!!!!!!(peer pressuring you). also @cowboyweevil since u asked me to tag u!

——

Clarice will be the first to admit that her life is consistently in tatters, and more often than not, it's her own hand that tears up that life the most. She had never been the type to have a sturdy head atop her unsteady shoulders— more the type to awkwardly headbutt into every problem and success that dared to beseech her. Both intentionally and unintentionally, sometimes simultaneously.

One thing she does know, a tidbit of information carved so deep into the recesses of her mind that even dementia wouldn't rob her of this simple fact— her sister was a fucking menace.

Clarice could have given her sister some semblance of underserved grace, could have said she wasn't so bad, if only that's where her bad qualities stopped. But Mars's abhorrent behavior was made all the more pesky by how relentless she was.

Her sister was as relentless as the damn splinter still wedged into Clarice's foot, a recent injury she had been careful to make sure Harvey wasn't privy to.

Harvey.

This was all his fault, really. For such a highly respected doctor, for whom which his town had only the most upstanding of opinions of him, beholding him as kind and responsible, Clarice feels safe in saying that her health had went down a steep decline since the moment. . . this happened. Since the moment this strikingly warm, gooey feeling coagulated in her heart, not unlike that of a fatal blood clot. Her life is effectively cut in half from the amount of stress she's experience since moving to this town. Her life force is visibly draining away, day by day, she's sure.

And her darling sister has the nerve to kick her while she's already down. Escalating the gradual deterioration of Clarice's health like the terminal illness only Mars can be like.

Even now, her sister giggles behind her hand in midst the autumn wind, brimming with an audacity that makes Clarice seethe. She has to bite back the urge to chuck her full watering can at her.

Casually, her sister leans down to pluck a pumpkin from the ground, holding it proudly in her arms. A smile plays on her face, one Clarice does not like one bit. "You know... I've been thinking—"

"Stop doing that."

"I've been thinking—" she trots along, happy as a clam. Content as a mischievous cat might be more apt. "If Harvey doesn't step up more, you might really have to take the reins. In a way you don't expect."

Stubbornly, Clarice stays off to the side. She crosses her arms, clutching the watering can high up in protest. Her job this morning was to water whatever crops weren't already covered by their sprinklers, and she was feeling like her labor wasn't deserved the more this conversation carried on. Nothing of substance had been said yet, but Clarice's ears pick up on the lilt in her little sister's voice.

Said sister finally shoots her a cursory glance over her shoulder. "Really! I'm just trying to help you out!" The laughter in her voice says otherwise. "Because, honest to God, the more I think about it— the more plausible it becomes."

Clarice's eyes narrow, body tense in anticipation for the nearing punchline. "... What?" However hesitant, the word ebbs out all the same.

Clarice can see her sister's figure trembling already, frame wracked with inexplicable mirth, and she already wants to sink into the dirt. "Because—" she starts, unhelpfully, voice warbling, "I'm sorry, but that is the exact kind of man who'd wanna get pegged."

Mars's voice grows high-pitched, wavering, and the cackle she lets out would rival a witch. Clarice can hardly focus on that sound, her ears ringing so loud it blocks everything else. Pegging. What the fuck?

Her face grows hot, and it takes conscious effort to not pass out right onto the dirt ground. Whether it be from the thought alone or merely from the fact that her younger sister thought this made for acceptable conversation, Clarice can't be sure. Before Clarice can even hope to respond, the other is rattling off like she's finally been given an excuse to.

"And— and listen! I'm not judging! Good for Harvey! Good for you! As long as everything is safe, sane, and consensual, right?" She bites the words out a bit, trying not to laugh too hard, nearly dropping the pumpkin.

"Stop." Clarice chokes, half plea half threat, blood rushing through her ears. Her mind is fraying at the edges, her brain rotting in record time. She's just starting to stomp her way over to her bastard sister.

"All I'm saying is— I know an online shop that'll ship here, yeah? Sells strap-ons, and has good variety. Pretty quick, too! Poor Harvey won't have to wait very long."

Clarice's free hand just reaches up to claw at her scalp in mortified agony, freezing for one sickening moment. She's on the path to getting her bearings and cursing Mars out like she never has before. Her mind is just on the verge of rewiring itself into proper working order. Like most things in her life, however, Clarice's life never stops at one bad thing.

"Um."

Harvey's voice is small, but the effect it has on her body is not. Clarice's body goes stiff as a rod, and the awkwardly loud clearing of his throat finally coaxes her into snapping her head back to look at him. So hard that one of her braids whips against her throat. Harvey stays where he is, loitering around the entrance of the farm with an odd rigidity to his face.

Clarice's body proves untrustworthy, and the hand holding the watering can goes limp. It's the moment after the tepid metal slips from her fingers that the gravity of her mistake hits her.

It really does hit her— the hefty watering swishes loudly as it lands straight on her foot with the accuracy of an Olympic gymnast.

"Fuck!" Clarice all but howls, stumbling back and promptly tipping back onto the dirt with an equally pained shout. It's a hard fall that ends with her gaze blearily aimed up at the blue sky, her ears picking up the sounds of two pairs of shoes scuttling up their respective pathways.

Of course. Of course it was the foot she had the splinter in.

——

Of all the sexual escapades both her waking and unconscious mind liked to torture herself with by envisioning… Clarice will admit that pegging isn't one of them. Not to say that her thoughts are incapable of running along the more adventurous paths she catches herself pointedly trying to ignore, but it simply had never come up.

Until now, at the violation of her coveted free will, at her sister's hands. She wishes all the terrible things for Mars, sometimes.

And she really shouldn't be mulling over her sister's words seriously, but her mind is deliberately caught on the thought.

... How does Clarice even feel about the concept? Even vaguely, if she just distantly ponders over what exactly that would entail? Maybe she feels some sexual curiosity she'll get to sating one of these days, should Harvey give it the okay?

If Clarice lets her mind do more than skim over the topic, however... the honest reality of what such an activity would bring is enough for her to be content to shelf it out of sheer mortification, never to see the light of day. Harvey, as always, is a different case. Adds integers into the equation that forces Clarice to reconsider everything, to reach for a different conclusion she otherwise never would have. She's forced into growth with him, sickeningly enough.

More annoyingly, she's forced into tending to herself in areas where she usually would shrug and walk it off. As soon as the hard, metal, heavy watering can had crashed onto her foot, the strange tension dispersed throughout the farm had vaporized on Harvey's part. Harvey had been painfully normal to her for those few minutes. Fussing over her, taking her carefully by the arm and coaxing her into her own house, insisting he check her foot for any major damage.

Mars had the social grace to stay outside, and Clarice prays she has enough to feel ashamed. She's knocked out of that thought when Harvey cautiously presses down on the top of her foot, and she promptly hisses.

"Sorry, sorry," he says, mouth flitting to a little frown. Harvey looks up at her from where he's taken a knee in front of her to closely inspect her foot, those brown eyes of his more like puppy dog eyes. "Just want to make sure nothing's fractured." Despite his words, he presses down at a different area of her foot, and Clarice's leg twitches with the instinct to kick him.

Her mind continues to fluctuate between nauseating panic and increasing irritation at Harvey's continued poking and prodding. It all culminates when he leans back, seeming satisfied with his work, meeting her eyes another time.

Abruptly, his eyes widen and his gaze scatters back to the floor, and that's all the confirmation Clarice needs to know exactly what place Harvey's mind goes back to. She'd had hope he'd forgotten about it, but that hope is thoroughly dashed and thrown back to drown in the river.

"So. Um..." he trails back into silence just as rapidly as he starts to speak, a palpable tension fracturing any temporary peace that had settled. Harvey shuffles, a stiffness settling over his body that she notices. It's the soft blush that peeks over his ears that does Clarice in, an innocent seashell pink that makes her eyes dart to the opposite direction of the room in deflection. Her hands claw shakily at the leather of the couch.

"Listen... I know it's technically none of my business, and it wasn't exactly meant for my ears—" Harvey lets out a labored breath. From the corner of her eye, Clarice can see his head tilt up, before hesitantly bobbling back down. He seems torn on where he should be looking. "And, uh— I didn't exactly hear everything? So, uh..." he says, voice wavering at the end. Clarice chances a glance, only to see a bright red blooming over the slopes of his cheeks, hands clenching at the pant leg of the knee he's supporting his weight on.

"I'm really sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but... how exactly did that topic come up?" He squirms a little from where he's kneeling, as if even just saying such vague words wired a shot of adrenaline straight through his nervous system. Clarice can relate, even if she knows what he's feeling is infinitesimal compared to the amount of adrenaline coursing through her.

Steam might start coming out through her ears if her mind ponders on any of this any longer. "... My sister brought it up." she mumbles, voice strained. Clarice brings her hands up, rubbing her temples, her cheeks nearly scorching her palms. Apologies, insults directed at her sister, humiliated blubbering, all sit at the tip of her tongue, but she just can't manage it. It's more like there's a stone in her mouth, on the verge of suffocating her, and her lips feel dementedly stitched together. "She thought you'd— I don't know. You know." It feels like flames lick up her cheeks then, and she winces with grief at the bitter loss of normalcy regarding their relationship. Who is she kidding? That ship had long since passed.

"Ah," Harvey actually scratches at the back of his neck, and something about that makes her want to scream in pain. It's such a stereotypical display of anxiety, and it makes those gooey feelings spring up like unwanted weeds along the sidewalk of her heart. It's endearing, damn him. "So, you're not...?"

Harvey eyes trail back up, she can feel them on her body before she can see them. Her eyes meet his in quick succession, and she feels herself jolt as if she's touched a live wire. He himself seems a bit frozen in comparison, but there's a glint in his eyes. Eyebrows furrowed, looking uncertain yet decidedly... curious. Flustered and nervous, but not disgusted.

Clarice jolts again, eyes going wide, hands falling from her head. She probably tears a few red hairs out in the process, but doesn't have the presence of mind to care when her mind is racing a mile a minute. "Oh God, you are into it." she blurts, bewildered for a multitude of reasons.

Any bravado Harvey seems to have procured promptly breaks from under him, his head bowing down as he's left to pick up the pieces. "I didn't say that!" he insists shakily, sweeping a hand through his hair.

"It's just— if that was something you were into, I wanted to..." Harvey's voice dies, swiftly fishing his hand out of his hair. "I... didn't want you to feel ashamed about it, is all. Or like you couldn't talk to me about it." he finishes with an exhale, his face brimming with a vibrant red.

Clarice swallows, shifting on the couch with an antsy energy. "... How do you feel about it?" she forces out, more stiffly than she'd like. Her methods of communication were never as smooth or clear-cut as she envisioned. Moments like these only exacerbated that flaw. "You can... talk to me, too." She cringes. She sounds a little robotic.

Yet, Clarice had promised herself to try and be more... open, about any such topics with Harvey. To be considerate and hold his feelings with higher priority than following through on her track record and waving them away. Instead of regressing into the skittish fawn she is at heart and dashing away.

Harvey fidgets before slowly rising to his feet, face still red as a rose. "I haven't thought about it much, until now. But honestly, I don't feel negatively about it." Something shifts in his expression, fills his face with unyielding tension, and his eyes shyly flit to the other side of the room.

"Morbid curiosity is probably the most accurate emotion for what I'm feeling." It's said with a weight, as though he's confessing some grand sin to a noble higher priest. "It was clearly just meant to all be jokes, though, so the last thing I'd do is expect anything out of it! Not to say I even really want anything out of it."

She sucks in a deep, steadying breath.

"It's okay if you do." Clarice's face flames as soon as she dares to utter such words. She gestures awkwardly with her hands, body more akin to lifeless metal than flesh and blood. "Haha! Sex—" she chokes, abruptly restarting the sentence.

"Sexual— Sexual experimentation is just a part of a healthy relationship! And we're healthy!" Smiling tightly, the inflection of her voice comes out more manic, a little frantic. She bumps her elbow against him, harder than she means if the wince that stretches over Harvey's face has anything to say about it.

"And it's normal! We're normal, and we can do this! Right, doctor?" Clarice grits her teeth a little, elbowing him again, desperate.

"Y- Yeah! Hah, definitely!" Harvey laughs nervously, rubbing the side of his stomach. "But, we should probably discuss this more, if you're really being serious—"

"— Harvey," Her face is promptly buried in her hands, unable to even cast a glance in his direction. "I'm at my limit. Please."

Another anxious little laugh bubbles out of him, pulling at a loose thread hanging from his coat. "Of course. Yes, that's, whatever makes you comfortable. We can talk about this later."

——

The simple fact of the matter is that they do. It's a verbal scuttle that seesaws back into Clarice conversationally dragging her feet, as most conversation between them winds up being on her end. How Harvey puts up with it is beyond her— hell, Harvey himself is beyond her.

Kind, wonderful Harvey mystifies her as much as he begrudgingly enchants. He is some strange, glittering galaxy that perplexes her with his intent to be swept into her chaotic gravity. Terrifyingly considerate, practically falling over himself with every other word when he insists that they don't have to do this, he wants her to be comfortable, he only wants what she wants—

And... What does Clarice want? The question echoes in her mind, the answer echoing in kind.

To be sated.

This curiosity, it stifles her in its attempt to persuade her. It sits in her chest, leaves residue when it attempts to glue itself in her head. Clarice had waved it off, tried to ignore it, but the remains fester there. The rot of the idea is only fertilizer, and ultimately, it only grows. She's curious, and she's always been one to explore what springs that emotion in her. For the most part.

And when she finally wrings out that honesty out of herself, Harvey flusters, but moves with the natural pull that such a confession swings a conversation into: what now? What's the plan?

There's a list of questions that are steadily answered, ticked off the mental list she's sure Harvey had conjured up in his head. Where? Definitely your apartment, I'd kill you and myself if my sister heard. Okay. Uh, how would we get the... equipment? Ship it to your apartment. My sister would never let me live it down if she got even a hint of it.

Many similar questions and answers filtered out amongst them. Harvey makes some timid remark about doing his own personal research regarding how he should prepare himself, and the conversation is effectively capped off for a few weeks. It's the persistent elephant in the room, one that grows inexplicably bigger one day in later Autumn. Finally, after some surface level digging that more exposed how deeply it burdened Harvey's mind rather than exposed any real concern from Clarice, he admitted that that the equipment came. 'It,' he'd referred to it so aptly.

It. It came. There wasn't much more to plan than the main event itself. Not much more to do other than biting the bullet and doing it. With the grand exception being thinking about it, a crime which Clarice finds herself exuberantly guilty of. The last few weeks had given her heartburn, her thoughts becoming expertly nomadic in the way they traveled from normal and innocent to salient and crude. Stray thoughts that clustered rapidly in one great moment of imagination before popping and deflating like a balloon. Leaving her flustered in midst her daily chores, normalcy strained for the rest of the day.

What would Harvey say? What would he sound like, how would it feel? How would Clarice feel, really, to be the one giving in such a way?

She didn't have to wonder much longer. Even still, her curiosities still ring so loud in her head as she stands at the door of the clinic, heart running at such a magnitude that a hummingbird's would pale in comparison. She clutches her to go bag in an iron grip, the reason why she had a to go bag making her body all the hotter.

Clarice's mind whirrs when the door opens, and it doesn't stop until they reach Harvey's humble apartment towards the top, and even then, it only dulls. She isn't even sure what sort of pleasantries they exchanged, too strung up in her thoughts to be in anything other than on autopilot.

"We don't have to do this," Harvey drills the notion yet again into her head as he is bending down at the side of his bed, hand grasping blindly at the space under the bed frame. "Really. We could just sit in for a normal night. I wouldn't mind any."

Clarice gathers herself, though her efforts are futile when it's like trying to keep water in her hands. "I would." she bites out, sucking in a breath through her teeth with a whistling sound as she gracelessly lets her bag drop to the floor. "I want to. We're doing this." she says, surprising herself with the shaky, albeit no less sincere, conviction in her voice.

"... As long as, you know, you're still down with it." she falters, twiddling with the sleeve of her jacket absently. Her gaze returns to Harvey when she hears a sliding sound, like something being dragged across the floor.

"I am!" Harvey breathes, voice wavering. He isn't looking at her, instead looking at the box he'd apparently stashed under his bed. "... I just like to be sure about these sorts of things." He stands back up with the box in tow, presenting it to her as he steps closer and closer. His face is already flushing, though it's a soft dainty pink that she finds all too fitting on him.

As her gaze roves over the box, it is not a dainty pink that seizes her face. On the white box is an understandably crude picture of a dildo, a strap-on she thinks belatedly, with words in varying fonts spewed around it. Reviews, the technical name of this model, the brand. Interestingly enough, it seems Harvey bought a set, her eyes pick up. A strap-on and a harness.

It hits her all at once, and she makes a sound that is part laugh and part cry. She's incredulous, unable to conceive everything that is happening, the things that click into place. "God, you hid it? Under your bed?" she mumbles, the humor of the situation washing over her as she lets out a raspy laugh. Harvey, the highly respected doctor of Pelican Town, hiding a strap-on under his bed.

Harvey makes an affronted noise, though his voice trembles a little with laughter when he weakly replies, "Yes. It— I didn't have room for it in my drawer." Bashfully, he gestures to said drawer, the one next to his colossal bookcase.

Clarice snorts, and the tension eases. Where this is all going, where the current is taking them, doesn't seem so scary for a moment. Harvey smiles, still a little timid, and starts to open up one of the flaps of the box. "Is it really that funny?"

"I don't know. Probably not." Clarice admits in a weak voice of her own, swallowing as he moves back the layers of the box. It's one of those types, weirdly shiny and like plastic more than the traditional brown box. That tension fills back in slightly when her eyes catch sight of it. Well, not yet, it's in a protective pouch— but nothing can really hide the distinct shape that the fabric really only enhances.

It only takes a moment for Harvey to grasp it, holding it in a limp grip as he pointedly looks at the other contents of the box, ears tipped in red. "And, ah, hm," Awkwardly, he moves the pouch into the curve of his elbow, the back of his arm holding it against his body. His free arm fishes out the harness more preparedly, touching it less like a dead fish. "Here's... the harness."

It takes a moment to realize that he's holding it out to her, waiting for her to take it. Clarice shuffles with nervous energy, taking it and holding it stiffly away from her body. As if any making any further contact with it will scorch her. She already burns, and it's in the most humiliating way. An uncomfortable heat bread-crumbing its way lower and lower, with plenty of pauses. "Should I... put it on?"

Harvey makes a sound, lips parting as if to say something. They only close again, and she can see his Adam's apple bob as he swallows. He only nods, abruptly turning around. Only then does he find his voice. "Probably, yes."

Respectively, both parties begin to disrobe, Clarice starting with her shoes and socks and whittling away at the rest. A part of her tries to be neat about it, wants to be, but quickly loses that train of thought as soon as she has it. Anxiety gnaws at her the whole way through, until there's a messy pile of clothes sitting next to her and a weight in her chest. And the harness tightly in her grasp. Clarice rubs the fabric between thumb and forefinger curiously, sighing as she starts to journey of putting it on.

And a journey it is, anxiety quickly becoming secondary to the frustration that shuffles to the forefront of her mind. Trying to figure out what could be adjusted, how to hold certain parts of the harness while she slides it further up her body, it was a bit of a nightmare. Clarice adjusts the position of the O-ring when she's decently certain it's secure enough, pulling the adjustable straps against her body tighter afterwards just for extra security.

Clarice exhales a slow breath as she turns, wiping sweat from her brow. Only to find Harvey watching, naked from the waist down, his dark eyes a little wide and glazed, clutching the hem of his shirt. He jolts, hand fidgeting with the hem, as if unable to decide if he should take it off or not. "I'm so sorry, I just—"

"Were you staring at me?" Clarice asks, mortification budding at every nerve in her body in hot sparks.

"I wanted to make sure you weren't struggling with the harness!" Harvey says defensively, slipping his shirt off in one bold movement. "Because, if you were, I did look into it. I... should have mentioned that." His voice grows calm again, face ripening to more of a raspberry pink. Predictably, he folds his shirt up with practiced ease, almost more of a nervous tic than him actively wanting to.

Her eyes absently wander over his body, only to trail down harshly even at something as simple as the look of his bare chest. Clarice catches blurry snapshots at every other part of his body, but her mind is too scrambled to attempt to study the details.

"Should I..." she hears Harvey swallow this time, him almost making a gurgling noise at the back of his throat. "Should I get onto my back?" he continues, voice edging on squeaky.

"No," she blurts, shaking her head frenetically. She can't. There's many things she can do right now, is willing to, wants to do, but having Harvey on his back under her during this, helpless and pliant... she just can't do that right now. It stirs something in her, sure, something she may want to get to know more intimately in due time. Maybe. But not now. "I'm getting on my back. You're going to have to just— figure it out."

She hugs her body, wobbling over to his bed with the intention to plop down in a show of dominance, only to pause. The pouch lays on his bed, the fabric still doing absolutely nothing to disfigure the phallic shape. That's all it takes to make her sweat again, that anxiety of hers rising from its grave as she picks it up much like he had carried it previously. Underlining it all is that tailspin of anticipation, lying snugly under any negative emotions that threaten to impede the event.

"I mean you can just, you know," she stammers, eyes bulging at her own thoughts. "You know." Her eyes avoid him, digging her fingers into the opening and tugging it open, looking away when she grasps at the flared base. Clarice has no hope of keeping her eyes open as she slides it out of the silk, immediately fluttering closed just upon seeing purple. Prying her eyes back open, she forces a study session of sorts, discerning any texture she can make out by sight. It seems... smooth, not sculpted to be very indicative of an actual dick besides the base shape. More like an artist's under drawing.

Harvey is staring at it just as intently, with bated breath, hands clenching into fists. "That's okay, I can do that. I just, before that, I'll need to... prep myself. I can't just—" His hand lurches up to adjust his glasses shakily, that scarlet Harvey has been valiantly fighting off spilling on his cheeks like paint. "I-I need to use my fingers first."

Clarice's eyes aren't beckoned away from the toy at that, but her brain fizzles. It flickers and flames, a part of her screaming to watch and another pleading to cover her face the whole time. You'll never survive if you watch, it pleads.

"... Okay." she chokes, because what other response is there? "I'm also going to... prepare." Her voice sounds so small, even to her own ears. With a trembling hand, Clarice twists the toy in her grip, carefully holding the flared base awkwardly to her pelvis, trying to figure out how to thread the base into the O-ring. Harvey tries to pipe up helpfully, blabbering nervously about what to do, but shuts up when Clarice begs out, "Please shut up."

Harvey is fumbling with something, and once Clarice ensures the strap-on is slotted in correctly, she turns to see him drawing out a little bottle of what she can only assume is lube. He opens it in a diligent twist, coating his fingers quickly and wincing. She notes how he seems to focus on covering two fingers above all else, and that flame stirs again. More like a spark, hesitant but hungry for a chance to ignite.

She stiffly sits and lays on the bed, in such a way that her legs splay out over the side of the bed, soles of her feet touching the wood. Harvey passes the lube to her, pressing it to her stomach. "You're... You should probably use this, too." he says, face flushing a red that Clarice's own rushes to imitate. Harvey sits, but does not lay, in the same way she does. Except he props a leg up on the bed, spreading himself open, pressing that knee to his stomach as he settles next to her. She decides to be grateful she can't see anything from this angle, only his back, everything else too far in her peripheral to make anything particularly lewd out.

That gratitude is a fleeting present, for she is suddenly made intimately aware of the moment he must edge a finger into himself by the way his breath hitches. Clarice can't not notice, it's such a sharp sound that resonates in her ears— the leg up on the bed twitches. The bed creaks, and the spark ignites like a firework.

She brings a hand up to her mouth as her eyes betray her, her own thighs twitching with want for relief as she scours his back. Sees his shoulder blades flex when he must push in deep, loosen when he pulls out shallow. Harvey's very breath is trembling, his hips attempting to buck, but only succeeding in a meek roll with the way he's scrunched up.

"I'm so sorry if this is weird," he says, voice muffled and breathy. He must be covering his mouth with his free hand, too. Clarice can't say anything, especially not when he sighs as a tremor wracks through his body. His hips give another pitiful roll, his head lolling back for a brief second.

"H-Have you done this before?" she asks, perhaps too banally. It's just too practiced, he falls into each motion with too much ease. Experience. Her ears are reacting that way to sound again, any noise muted, as if underwater.

Harvey whines quietly, though the sound reeks more of humiliation than bliss. Clarice's body reacts the same regardless, shifting on the bed fruitlessly. She can feel herself pulsing, and she thinks she's gonna pass out if she focuses on that facet of this situation any more than she needs to.

"... Not before any of this came up. Just over the past few weeks." he manages shakily, "Just... just to see what I thought. To see if I liked it."

The bed creaks particularly loud with one swipe of his pelvis, and the sound he makes does sound more pleased. "Didn't want to make you go through any of this if I didn't even like it."

"... And you like it?"

Clarice buries her face in her hand then, when the silence stretches out a bit too long. Every part of her burns. Every nerve is roaring fire, and it's suffocating. What could even relieve her, she doesn't know.

"... Yeah. It was— it's nice." Harvey gasps out, a flurry of panicked breaths escaping him. He's trying to catch his breath, body going tense as wood. He tries to exhale, some other noise laden in it. "I think— I think I'm ready."

Harvey's arm looks disfigured as he moves it from this angle, the movement sputtering to a quickness that slows just as soon. His head tilts as he wipes sweat from his forehead with his free hand, seeming to completely pause. it's confirmed when he rests the other hand on his leg.

Her mind is caught in a constant loop of What do I do? and I don't know for a few seconds. For once, Clarice's body is dependable and rational, a hand grabbing for the small plastic bottle on her stomach. It's like all sentience has seeped out of her ears, her mind going blank as she pumps the strap-on absently, making the toy nice and slick. Apparently, she’s already poured it out on her hand.

The blankness in her head abruptly swirls into color, thoughts, visions, when Harvey turns his body. He gets onto his knees, ushering himself closer to her body, but not bridging any actual distance. His warm skin and body sit plainly out of reach.

Harvey hums plaintively, and Clarice can't even begin to explore what that could mean.

"You're really sure you're okay with this?"

A deep sigh reverberates throughout the room. Clarice leans back on the bed, pressing her hand harder against her face. "Yes," she groans out, agonized. "I'll tell you if I'm not feeling it."

Harvey lets out another heavy breath, though it sounds less burdened. "Alright. In that case then, I'll, uh, I need to..."

"Okay." Clarice says, high pitched, pulling her hand quickly away from the strap-on. It's weird, wearing this thing. She can feel the phantom sensations of where it tilts, now that her hand isn't there to direct it straight.

"Okay," Harvey echoes her, similar down straight to the tone, the almost squeaky way he says it. "I'll... try not to put too much of my weight on you."

"Thanks." Clarice merely whines, wilting into the mattress.

Harvey shuffles over, bed creaking with every new placement of his knees jutting into the bed. There's a moment where the anticipation builds, becomes something tangible and unbearably thick. The tension squeezes against itself, then loosens, like a heartbeat. Like it's a real, pulsing thing.

Harvey places a hand on the bed, around her side, gripping his covers tight as he murmurs apologies. Throws a leg over her waist as his other hand braces near the other side of her, releasing a shaky breath. He keeps himself up on his knees, looking down at himself and grasping at the strap-on feverishly by the base, holding it more in a line. Clarice doesn't know what expression he's making, what expression she's making, all too busy covering her face. Risking glances through the spaces of her fingers. It's all happening simultaneously too fast and tortuously slow.

"Alright," Harvey exhales, adjusting his knees one more time, face wrought with anticipation. "... Alright."

With a steady gaze downwards, Harvey slowly lowers his body down. He jolts as if struck with electricity when the tip presses against his rim, lips parting with a slow breath as he inches down further after a pause. There's a start of a whine in the back of his throat every time the strap-on slides in deeper, but he always staves it off. Always sucks in more air, and keeps going dutifully.

Harvey keeps to his promise and carefully holds himself up even as the strap-on fills him, an occasional shake winding from his face to his legs. Those dance aerobics classes seem to be paying off, in any case.

This seems to be one of the rare circumstances where Harvey is considerate of his boundaries and limits, hips undulating up and down with a careful air. It's a process he treats delicately, gives himself plenty of time to relax in between motions, and Clarice can appreciate that solely because he deserves to be treated gently. Even if she's horrible at doing it, he deserves that much. That sort of growth is something she owes him, one of these days.

That day will come, but today is a different one, a different milestone. Harvey doesn't contest these thoughts of hers, moaning softly once the gentle treatment becomes unnecessary. Unwanted, if the gradually increasing speed of his rhythm could have any thoughts on the matter.

Through the slits of trembling fingers, Clarice watches. Everything is magnified, all the emotions breaking some impossibly high dam despite the odds. There's shifts in Harvey's expression every time he effectively bounces, lips twitching with effort to keep himself quiet. Sweat glistens along his forehead and neck— he shines in the low lamplight that sits glowing only about a foot away.

The heat between her legs is unbearable. Clarice can't remember the last time she had gotten so wet and hadn't tended to herself. Hadn't been able to. It's humiliating, but that emotion is so weak and malleable in the current of pure arousal her body is getting lost in. Her head is foggy, yet her vision is vibrant with clarity, with Harvey.

Harvey, who's working himself down harder with every passing second. Instead of that lost, cloudy look catching in his eyes, he only looks all the more searching. Harvey sits back further on his heels, letting out a moan that sounds frustrated. Unthinkingly, Clarice's eyes glance downward at the dick between his legs. Straining and flushed against his abdomen, with him close enough that she can see the pearl of pre-cum beading at the very tip. It moves with every motion he makes. The bead drips over, trailing over every bump and ridge.

"... What's wrong?" Clarice dares to speak, voice containing a rasp that floors her.

"... I can't," Harvey whines, back arching as he sculpts his hips into a particular rocking motion. "I-I can't, I need—" he chokes, leaning far enough that he has to grind his hips forward and back more than up and down for the strap-on to stay inside.

Then he jolts at a particular thrust he implores, gasping sharply. His brown eyes go wide, glasses jumping with every movement that he makes, suddenly speeding up. "Oh! Oh, please, please—"

His thighs tremble with effort, and suddenly he's sliding right down. Harvey's weight presses right into her as he essentially sits on her lap, making her let out a grunt of surprise rather than one of any meaningful discomfort. He's straddling her completely, and the whimper he lets out is downright pitiful.

Harvey blinks with wet eyes, his eyes searching for hers, face twisted with embarrassment. Need laces it, need seems nestled into every frantic little movement Harvey attempts to make. Only for Harvey's body to slump back down, clearly too exhausted to keep doing all the work. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I can't— can you—?"

He suffers through the moment for air, face red as a strawberry, thighs still shaking even as he's seated. ".... Help me," he breathes, air whistling through his teeth a little. "Please."

The blood in her body is torn between two places. Clarice feels light-headed, her chest heaving for air she hadn't realized had dissipated. She's sweating before she's even doing anything, before she warily places her spare hand on his hip for support. Harvey groans with relief before she even properly helps him out. "Thank you, thank you." he chants.

He starts to move up again, more uninhibited thanks to the added momentum of Clarice's hand moving with him. Harvey lets out a hoarse cry when Clarice gathers enough courage to start rolling her hips up, meeting in a messy pace where neither is sure who should follow who.

Clarice shudders at the sudden increase in sounds, and more importantly, the volume. Face flaming, her mind wails to reprimand him in some way, to remind him of his neighbors who know him, but more importantly her. It's here where input and output scramble uselessly in the recesses of her brain. "Harvey! You— You need to quiet down." she hisses from her hand, on the cusp of a grand mistake. Her mind aims for swatting at his arm, but seeing as both hands are busy with equally important tasks, an easy pair of dots are connected.

Clarice raises her hand for a brief moment, smacking his ass lightly. Absently.

Harvey downright squeaks with shock, jerking on her lap. "I'm— I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

She could die right that moment, but thankfully, Harvey seems too out of it to make a comment on it. She cowers further into her hand all the same, body as hot as a furnace, eyes watering.

Clarice is just as quick to look through her fingers again, her other hand gripping his hip tightly, heart stopping in her chest when Harvey bites into his palm, muffling yet another cry. His eyes are lidded behind his glasses, breathing unsteady against his palm.

Harvey shakes his head, babbling around his hand as his body starts to tense up. "Clarice. Clarice. Feels good." His voice catches, bed creaking. An embarrassed pride stings her chest, hand clawing into his hip with her nails.

Despite the strain her voice, she forces what she knows he needs out. "You're doing so good, Harvey."

Harvey trembles, eyes squeezing shut, head tipping back. "... Clarice, 'm gonna..." he's nearly incoherent, too weak to keep riding the strap-on even with Clarice's guidance. Her moving hips seem to be enough to suffice, his teeth visibly digging deeper into his skin.

He blinks, once, then twice, then again, each one more rapid than the last. Harvey's body seizes, Clarice can feel it down to his thighs, his head bolting back forward. To her surprise, his other hand goes to cover the one holding his hip, his hips rolling in sporadic little bursts.

Harvey holds her hand to him tightly, dragging in one more ragged breath as the tension crests and drops with an abruptness entirely expected. He wheezes a little, sounding almost pained as his body quakes through the orgasm, cock twitching with little spurts.

All Clarice can do is watch with wide eyes, hiding them behind her hand again when it gets too much. All of this has been too much, really, but the feeling really implodes in the aftermath.

Soon enough, Harvey manages to haul his body to the spot next to her, sluggish and sated when he lets his body collapse. The bed squeaks in protest. Clarice's eyes burn more and more with unshed tears by the second, face hotter than the sun. She is half convinced that when she pulls her hand away, there will be burns staining her fingers and palm.

"Do you..." Harvey suddenly pipes up, lungs still audibly fighting for oxygen. "... want me to return the favor?" he asks, managing to sound as timid as he was breathless. "I mean, I know you didn't... finish." he coughs as quiet as a mouse.

Clarice makes a strangled sound, rolling on the side that turned her back to him. Tears spill out of her eyes, though she can't say any part of her regrets the experience. She's just... overwhelmed, mortified, and irritatingly horny. "No."

"Are you crying?" The bed dips as Harvey's voice pitches higher up in panic. "Oh, I'm so—"

"Harvey, it was hot," she sputters through tears, not giving him the chance to piss her off through his relentless apologies yet again. "Shut up. I'm just overwhelmed."

A hand tentatively reaches for her shoulder, Clarice's body tensing when she feels him stroke her shoulder assuringly. She hates him a little for it, hates it more when she actually relaxes.

It takes a moment of deliberate silence until the feeling soothes in her chest. Wiping away a few tears, she reluctantly rolls onto her other side, facing Harvey. “… Hi.” she says, voice a little muted.

“Hi.” The sentiment is mimicked easily, breathlessly, though he tacks a hesitant smile onto his flushed face. Clarice bursts into a giddy giggle for a reason she can’t quite pin down, giving him a watery smile. Harvey’s smile brightens, looking relieved. Some sexual exploration is healthy in the long run, she supposes, if it feels this freeing at the end.

[ashironie]

im really proud of this and i don’t wanna bother my friends so im posting it here

and the animation under the cut

part two, electric teeth apple (electricity not guaranteed): https://www.tumblr.com/ashironie/757204645146935296/aspirin

I made another one!!!: https://www.tumblr.com/ashironie/757214568442413056/okokokok-so-i-got-another-idea-for-one-animation

masterpost: https://www.tumblr.com/ashironie/757215405756547072/ok-so-here-is-where-im-going-to-put-all-of-my

[fighting-naturalist]

Daniel with Shyla pre- vs. post-sarcophagus addiction

[imavikingo]

I was thinking on when Steve lost Bucky for the 3rd time (1st when he was drafted, 2nd when he was told he was MIA, 3rd when he fell) he tried to get drunk to forget, right? If he did that then...

What did he do when he lost him for the 6th time? (4th when he escaped, 5th when Bucky was in cryo, 6th the snap)

I mean technically Bucky died twice, but Steve lost him six times already.

And of he tried to get blind drunk once of those times- did he self-harm in other ways too?

To dull the pain? He can't get drunk, he heals quickly, he can't die easily either, so what did he do?

He wouldn't want to die when he knows for a fact that Bucky is alive ofc, but I can't see him acting normally or without a little bit of reckless energy.

To dull the pain and disappoinment (he can't feel like that, that's Bucky's choice -Cryo-. But how it hurts him tho).

(unrelated to this line of thought but it is relevant to the idea regardless)

That's why I can't fathom the idea of Steve abandoning Bucky in endgame.

He lost him 6 six (6) times already and he just... Went away? To a woman he only kissed once? After all he did for him, the pain and loss?

Even if you don't ship them, you have to think that to be really ooc on Steve's part. Everything in his character arc in the MCU is related to Bucky (and loss). Yes he liked Peggy, but he didn't suffer nor mourn her the same way he mourned Bucky (She was alive, but had dementia and was also very old, and had her own life).

His feelings for Peggy were more a "what if" and lost possibilities than anything.

She was an idea, a fantasy (that's why Wanda used that when fighting with him, right?). Not something real.

He wanted to be with her, but he didn't really knew her or love her (at least I don't think so).

She was the first woman that saw him for him after all. Before everything. But that's it.

He liked her for that (and her strong personality too) but did he love her? He didn't try to get on dates after he was defrosted because he knew people would only see Captain America, not Steve Rogers. He needed to represent an ideal and knew no one would understand (the pain, loss) and have the patience to be with him. That’s why he also highlighted the shared life experience thing.

So she was comforting, reassuring in a toxic and unhealthy kind of way (memories and fantasy aren't healthy when used like that). But still a what if and lost opportunity. He had to let her go at one point. And he did(!) But they had to fuck it up…

I mean... it's the same thing when you're still hung up on an ex. You want to think of the possibilities, the what ifs, the "what could have been" But when you go back to them nothing is like you remembered, nothing is like you wanted and you are dissatisfied and disappointed.

(Because all of that was in your head, it wasn't real).

And besides, he knew she had a life of her own (a fulfilling one at that) so what, he was selfish enough to fuck that up too? Without helping HIM? Without saving HIM? Abandoning HIM? After just being brought to life? After grieving him for another five years? Bucky was his best friend, his companion, his best pal…

He wouldn't do that to him. He would die before hurting Bucky (as they already stablished for most of the fucking movies) He even was like “You don’t understand” when Peggy talked to him in the bars ruins.

I think in canon (not ooc/EG)Steve would entertain the idea, but would decide to just keep it as that: An idea, a fantasy. And move on like he already did before.

Also the idea that it was a Peggy from an alternative universe is flawed because he abandoned HIS Bucky, even if in the other universe he helped or whatever.

In HIS UNIVERSE he abandoned his best friend? Not believable. And the logic of “oh it didn’t change their timeline because it was another one” is also stupid.

They already fucked up with Steve fighting 2012!Steve and also telling him about Bucky (creating another universe more than likely). And they were supposed to be undetected. Not create new universes. Thats also why I’m so keen on the idea of Steve being in a prison or something. He already fucked up once, twice if you think he went to the past to stay.

How can he be free while fucking up the timelines? Yeah, nah.

Also… they implied Steve can’t age in a movie if I remember correctly…. How did he become old?

And the idea that he went to Peggy because “Tony told him to have a life outside of captain america” is fucked up. So what? He relates his Bucky’s existence with work? FUCK OFF. Endgame Steve is fucked up and the worst character assassination I’ve ever seen.

They were just too annoyed with the fans because we ship Stucky (even tho they used that to promote the movies in panels and stuff, hypocrites -​I remember clearly the producers? of the movie talk about gay characters and the actors talk about Stucky in those panels for then…be one of the russos in like 1 second and have that shit ass, fuck ass ending for Steve and Bucky. That shit was vile-).

im also annoyed with some people that now shit on Steve when umh… did you see the movies? The other movies? Not only Endgame? (Btw the only one that got a “good ending” was Tony because he died as a hero in front of everyone -even tho he didn’t want to help at first because he had a good life, the ONLY ONE OF THEM might I add-, everyone else got worse, is dead or they’re neglected and treated as haha funny character or haha funny moment)

Im all for ships and ideas and headcanons (even when I hate them with passion, you do you) but don’t try and use this character assassination as an excuse to shit on Steve. If you NEED to shit on a character for your ship to work, then you’re not doing a good job at it or your ship sucks. Idk what to tell you.

[princess-of-purple-prose]

[ID: A Scum Villain edit of successive phone notifs which read:

(PayPal) You received $10,00,000 USD from Yue Qingyuan

(Messages) Yue Qingyuan: He won't treat you like i do baby

(Whatsapp) Xizhi-Lang: Baby please don't text my cousin back

(Phone) Liu-shidi: missed call (500)

(Messages) Black Lotus: daddy long dick just landed in the human realm baby, End ID]

POV you are Helen of Troy (shen qingqiu)

[alvindraperzzz]

Can this fandom say anything about Cassie that isn’t whining about her appearance