#i feel like switching over helped me try something new and experiment with stuff

[villiun]

Wanted to draw the sad fella again

Extras :D

I switched from procreate initially and did the rest on clip studio (which I haven't touched in ages but it felt so great to mess around with it again).

Oh, and this is Mason, an oc made for @blackkatdraws / @blackkatdraws2 insert event!

[unkat]

chilaios medical au idea i have been bouncing in my head (will not be written until after my current one is done)

i am thinking of a like firefighter/paramedic story for these guys. where laios is a new shift commander/chief at a small middle of nowhere station and chilchuck is a medic from a big city who keeps getting reassigned because he is trying to recruit for a union and the company is trying to make his job unworkable/find a reason to let him go.

laios was promoted because of his work ethic and ability to teach other people about the ins and outs of emergency medicine, not because he wanted to be in charge. he is too new and disinterested in the company politics to throw him under the bus for other people, and by the time someone explicitly says he needs to fire him, he has gotten attached.

"he's reliable, does good work, and catches things nobody else here would have. i know he cussed out the family trying to get into the rig, but he had already told them no and they should be grateful he saved their daughter instead of filing a complaint! even if i were to discipline, he deserves a verbal warning and not dismissal. You were not there, and i am his direct superior."

(wins the argument and walks away trying not to hyperventilate)

also falin is a surgeon and marcille is a research fellow who abandoned her big-city super-focused projects to come out into the country and work with subpar equipment and an incompetent assistant. im not thinking like full rural hospital here, but closeish to it. could be an academic satellite hospital and she switched from like gene therapy trials to studying exposures/population/histology stuff.

shifting the touden hyperfixation from monsters->medical fascination i think would still get across the same vibes. falin is very nice and pleasant but she treats everyone nicely and pleasantly without actually empathizing with them. shes one of those surgeons who went to shadow a heart transplant in college and cried because it was so beautiful and then got a bunch of scholarships plus student loans for med school.

laios hunts and has a big appreciation for the lives of things he kills and butchering/using everything he can. then it translates to him being fascinated by the human body as an object more than as a being that is different and special from other animals that he is a part of. he is a fantastic emergency responder because of this- people are a pile of flesh that is broken somewhere, and he wants to figure out why. (this is something that I'm like. not sure if it is okay for me to include because it can be squicky/triggering. but i feel like when I'm unsure if I'm going too far that is when i am reaching the line i want to?)

the touden siblings still go hiking and mudding and spend their time off in the woods (marcille wears white shorts and sandels on a hike leaving laios to be very explicit and offering clothes to chilchuck when he offers him to join. chilchuck borrows his shirt and it is way too big, but he keeps it for a while.)

chilchuck is extra divorced. he facetimes with the girls a couple of times a week and gets them on rotating holidays. sometimes ex-mrs. tims invites him over for dinner because she feels sorry for him and her new boyfriend is also there. it's awkward but they both know he's harmless, just annoying and closed off. he smokes but has tried to quit 7-8 times. started when he was an emt and couldn't shake it because it helped him destress. he only knows how to drive well enough to pass his vehicle license renewals and still doesn't know what the buttons in his car do. the ac has been "broken" for a week before a station mechanic pushes the button to turn it back on (they should put a subway around here, stupid cars).

laios respects his experience and history of being at a constantly busy station that saw a variety of crazy shit. chilchuck initially resents him for being so out of touch, but grows to respect his leadership abilities. laios also always follows up on cases at the hospital to figure out the outcome and reflect on best practices.

he is the first person to get chilchuck to actually debrief after a shitty call and chil cries and never wants to talk about it again. but its like a seal in a dam has been breached, and opens up when they are cuddling on the couch. they spend more time off shift with each other. chilchuck crashes on laios' couch and initially feels like he needs excuses to do it until laios says he really likes talking with him and having him there. he tells him about the company's EAP coverage and that he encourages everyone to take advantage of it.

in the end, they hit that threshold of basically living together, and one of them would need to change their station (superior/employee romance) after they go from making out off shift in secret to seriously considering having laios meet his daughters in person. (they already think they're married because laios is always there when they call now)

[blueskittlesart]

Question abt drawing: been trying to attempt learning how to draw forever but I always have trouble getting over the obstacle of having to learn/study things like anatomy and shading, which then causes me to stop drawing and have a harder time picking it back up. I know it's important for improving your art and yourself as an artist but I can't help but see it as tedious and overwhelming, especially the anatomy since it's more on the science side of things and science is not my thing lol. Do you have any advice on how to get over it or work thru it?

i think there's a couple facets to this question. firstly i'd recommend you consider what exactly your end goal is in learning how to draw: do you specifically want to be able to produce anatomically accurate figures and true-to-life shading, or do you just want to be able to make something for fun that looks good to you? one of the most helpful things I ever learned at art school was that accuracy doesn't matter if it looks good. 99% of my art isn't strictly anatomically accurate, and part of that is stylization, but even when i'm doing realistic figure drawings i like to lengthen limbs and exaggerate curves in order to make my drawings look better. So if your only real goal with art is to make something that looks good and enjoy the process, my first piece of advice would be to stop worrying so much about stuff like perfect accuracy! if you use references and keep pushing yourself, the skill and understanding you're looking for will come naturally with time. before I was ever classically trained, I got pretty far just by drawing my favorite characters in different poses and situations over and over again, and that experience laid the groundwork for when classical training did become available to me. Just because you're not necessarily doing serious figure studies doesn't mean you're not getting valuable practice--what it means is that you're having FUN while you're practicing, and having fun with your art is the most important thing!!!

Secondly, you mentioned anatomy being on the science side of things, which suggests to me that you may be looking in the wrong places when trying to do more serious anatomical study. if you look up 'anatomy' or anything similar on a web search engine, you're likely going to get a lot of very complex scientific illustrations. and while those aren't necessarily devoid of artistic value (I took a class all about scientific anatomy for artists last semester and it was GREAT) for a beginner who's just trying to learn how to make a body look like a body, they're not what you're looking for. what is going to be much more helpful for you are sites like line of action or quickposes. these sites are basically repositories of figure drawing images, and you can set them to automatically switch to a new image after a certain interval of time. if you really, desperately want to improve your anatomy specifically, what I recommend is going to one of these sites, setting it to the shortest interval possible, and trying to copy the pose as closely as you can before time is up. this might sound crazy, since the shortest interval is usually somewhere between 30-60 seconds, which obviously isn't enough to get much down. but what this will do is force you to look at how these models' bodies are constructed and translate it onto the page quickly and without overthinking it. be warned, your first maybe hundred of these are going to look like shit. but if you do this enough, you're eventually going to gain an intrinsic sense for 1. how a body works and 2. the easiest way for you personally to construct a body when drawing it. even without knowing the scientific names and anatomical rules, you're going to get a FEEL for how things work, which is much more important and useful to you as a character artist.

Finally, i think the most important thing to remember is that no art is bad art, even if you're not satisfied with the end product. when you're first starting out as an artist, you're going to make things that don't look right and you're going to be frustrated with yourself because of it. i vividly remember crying over a sketchbook at maybe age 11 or 12 because I was so upset i couldn't put exactly what was in my head on the page. Skill comes with time and practice and that is a frustrating fact of life, but no time spent doing something you enjoy and are passionate about is wasted. It might look bad now but you are laying the groundwork for your future success, and someday you're probably going to look back on your past work and say "I can't believe I thought this looked bad back then. for my age and my skill level i was doing AMAZING." And as previously mentioned, it's a lot less discouraging when something looks bad if you had fun making it, so try to have FUN with your art. draw things you enjoy and are passionate about and don't worry if it looks bad. focus on the experience, the skill will come in time. you've got this!!

[princesssmars]

wildfire

some starmora x reader nsfw headcanons

wc : 1.162

cw : nsfw content! triad poly relationship (fmf). dom!gamora, switch!peter, sub!reader. some sex position links bc i think they're fun. strap-on sex. anal. pda with butt slapping. masturbation.

an : watched gotg 3 and definitely not broken. new gamora is cool but im always gonna miss og gamora so expect more starmora stuff to come bc im bisexual and sad <3

so lets say you joined the guardians early, peter and gamora already have that spark between them and now you've arrived and thrown them for a loop.

while you and gamora are still mostly trying to deal with your romantic feelings, peter is being driven crazy by his sexual ones. he's not stupid enough to jeopardize the budding relationship he has with the both of you by sleeping around.

(not to say he didn't get tempted, there was this one chick with blue skin, big doe eyes and four arms and-)

still. he's not that stupid. but, he does have needs, so he jerks off. a lot. every time he does it he thinks about the both of you. the feel of gamora's skin when his hand brushed against it that morning, the smell of the new shampoo you pick up on the last planet. even just the memory of you two laughing at one of his shitty jokes is enough to make him finish.

not to say gamora doesn't get herself off as well. i don't think she would have that much sexual experience or at least not as much as peter does. just a brief hook-up occasionally to take the edge off. but when you complimented a new armored top she bought that complimented her arms and peter agreed with that stupidly charming yet sleazy smile of his, she couldn't help but lay in her bed that night and rub her puffy clit until she had to bite down on her hand as she came.

it wasn't long after that you all became official.

in the bedroom, gamora is a dom and peter is a switch. to her, there's something about quill commanding the team during missions and casual settings and being reduced to a man on his knees begging for you to touch him anywhere.

but don't for a second think you're off the hook. if you ever get too cocky when she's dominating peter, she won't hesitate to put you in your place. her favorite way to do it was sitting you on a cushion with a direct view of the bed, your hands bound behind your back with a vibrator stuffed inside you as you were left to whimper and beg as she rode peter into oblivion. she keeps eye contact with you while she has her hand around his threat, teasing you about how flustered you look.

gods help you when they're both in a dominating mood. it's mostly after they got roughed up after a mission or the person who hired you was more of an asshole than usual. on those days they don't hesitate to toss you around like a ragdoll and do with you as they please.

one time you were left behind to take care of the ship while they negotiated with the person who hired you, which must have gone wrong with the looks on their faces when they got back. before you know it you're pressed into an arch on your bed, gamora's hands pushing your mouth and tongue deeper inside of her pussy, as peter grabs your hips and helps you throw it back on his dick.

peter would love positions where he can make eye contact, loves the intimacy of it and loves to see the facial expressions you make. doing the counterblow or fireworks in the pilot's seat, a deck chair, or python in bed when your both craving contact. right before you both cum he'll pull away from sucking on your tits or neck to look you in your eyes, whispering "i love you"'s and "cum for me, cum all over me baby"'s as you both reach your highs.

gamora will take you in any position she can. not to say she doesn't love the intimacy occasionally as well. there have been more than a few times where she gently drags you to her room, places you on the bed, and eats you out agonizingly slow for over an hour before crawling on top of you and slotting herself over you, riding your cunt until neither of you can move from overstimulation. her faves would be 69, eagle, plain, and a full nelson if she's feeling pent up.

oh and gods help you when she gets her hands on a strap-on. she found it in a sex shop on a little excursion to a shady planet for rocket to find some rare materials for an invention. quill had seen it first, practically begging the two of you to go inside with him. while he and you were pointing at different beads and gadgets and giggling at the obscenity and absurdity, gamora is busy stalking along a back wall, looking at the different dildos and harnesses with piqued interest.

when she tells you that she booked a hotel room for the three of you for the night, you can't help but get a little giddy at the idea of another night of pleasure with the two of them without having to quiet yourself by biting or gagging. you don't expect gamora to come from the bathroom, a black harness around her hips with a long and thick dark red dildo attached to it. after she gets your consent and gets you prepped, your body is held up and squished between the two as peter thrusts into you from the front while gamora takes the back. you didn't leave the hotel room for two days.

they are very different in how much pda they like to show in public. gamora is more subtle, still wary to let others know how much you really mean to her, plus she likes to keep the romantic and sexual side of her life more private. she'll settle for soft smiles across the room, brushing her hand across yours when she walks by. if she's feeling devious she'll come up behind you while you're doing something under the guise of "helping you", when in reality she's pushing her entire body against yours and maybe throwing a small little thrust in there too. nine times out of ten it will leave you flushed beyond belief and she'll walk away satisfied.

peter is. a whore (affectionate). he is not afraid to be affectionate with you in public. hand holding, hugging, kissing, etc. you already know he's fond of slapping your ass, and will do it every opportunity he gets. if you do it back to him he will literally go like :0. definitely doesn't get a boner.

their aftercare is unparalleled. while you're coming down from your high, peter will rush to get a rag for you all to wash off the liquids and sweat, while gamora will whisper sweet gentle praises while making sure the both of you are hydrated. no matter how rough or quick the sex was. they will always end it with you cuddling in their arms as they whisper to you how much they care about you. <3

[justalittlesolarpunk]

hi! i have been experiencing The Horrors lately (just general hopelessness about the state of the world and especially in regards to climate change) and i am just wondering - do you have any advice for incorporating climate action into one’s everyday life? i need to do something about this but the problem feels so big that i feel like i can’t, like i am drowning in it and i need to learn to swim

Hi my love, sorry it took me a while to respond, I’ve been quite tired!

So first off, the Horrors are reasonable, it’s a very sensible human response to the state of things around you and shows you have empathy and that you care. I say this because it’s all too easy to shame yourself for despair, but it’s natural that we fall into it sometimes.

In terms of doing climate action a little every day, there’s so much you can get your teeth into. For starters, there are personal choices, like giving up flying or meat and dairy if you can. Sure, these don’t add up to much, but they can really change how you feel and working with a smaller burden of guilt can be life-changing. Similarly making choices like switching your electricity and heating and getting an electric car (or even better, taking the train, bus, tram, your feet or a bus) can help you get into a more positive mindset as you feel like you are ‘doing your part’. Check if you have any savings or pensions invested in fossil fuels and switch them over. Even buying from zero waste shops can help shift your mood, even if it’s too small to shift the whole economy.

Once you’ve got all these little changes out of the way, it’s time to think systemic. Most places will have a local activist group you can join, which usually only involves a commitment to weekly meetings - can you attend XR, A22, Greenpeace or Friends of The Earth gatherings in your neighbourhood? These will usually allow you to start attending protests and keying into wider campaign networks.

Something else you can do is bring the subject up with people in your life, to contribute to a wider cultural shift where climate conversations are normalised, and you can agitate for changes at your job or university/school that will bring the institution’s emissions down.

Try to consume a more balanced media diet, seeking out what is going right in the world as well as what is going wrong. Sites like Positive News and the Good News Network are helpful for this. Supernova is a purely positive social media app if you’re looking for a more uplifting scrolling experience.

But much more important is to get outside and to make real-life community. If there’s a conservation or gardening volunteer group in your area I’d highly recommend getting involved with it - nothing has helped me as much as getting my hands in the dirt, doing meaningful work to grow food to feed my neighbours. A lot of our climate anxiety stems from fear that we won’t be able to feed ourselves or that natural beauty will vanish, so connecting with crops or landscapes is a great way to soothe some of that. Building relationships with neighbours or affinity groups (such as LGBT, POC or disabled organisations) can help you feel part of a more resilient network of people who can help each other out in a crisis. Plus if you get to plant trees regularly I guarantee that will help you feel like you’re contributing.

Solarpunk content is great for improving your outlook too - whether it’s optimistic sci-fi, utopian cityscapes or anarchist politics, it all uplifts you and reminds you of what’s possible. Check out people’s stories of what they’re doing to make the world a little better to remind yourself you’re not in it alone.

If you can afford to, a regular donation to groups working to reforest, re-wet peatland, re-seed mangroves or combat soil erosion is a pretty tangible way to fight the climate crisis. Be sure to do all the obvious stuff like voting and engaging with other political pathways too.

A fun weekend’s activity could be seedbombing with friends or building a bee house - there’s lots you can do that’s crafty or creative that also helps your local environment, even if it’s just growing food or pollinator friendly plants on your windowsill or letting your lawn rewild itself. Taking an attitude of grateful, affectionate kinship with all the plants and animals around you will aid in building a sense of connection with the ecosystem and reminding you that you’re part of a grand, resilient web of life.

Put together the emergency kit I detail in an earlier post, so you feel prepared for facing extreme weather and taking part in mutual aid. Teach yourself to forage or at the very least recognise the common plants in your area. This counteracts species blindness and makes you more considerate of the non-human.

You could even consider altering your career path, if you’re an adult, and re-training to work in the climate movement, though this will not be accessible for everyone. If you’re a younger person you could look into pursuing an educational path that will allow you to join the green sector.

If you can get some, therapy with an eco-informed professional can be hugely beneficial for channeling your very reasonable feelings of terror into meaningful action that benefits you and the planet, though admittedly there’s only so much individualised therapy can do for such a huge problem - perhaps there’s a support group you can go to?

And finally, make sure you take some time every day, preferably an hour if you can spare it, but certainly at least fifteen minutes, to do something you really love, that brings you genuine joy, and has nothing to do with the climate crisis. You can’t pour from an empty cup and you can’t put out fires if you’re burnt out. Rest, regeneration and self-care are prerequisites for sustainable movement building and you deserve to have moments of unalloyed happiness. You are categorically NOT in this alone, you are part of a huge, ever-growing moment full of people who are working towards the same goal even though most of you will never meet. And so while we need you now more than ever, there’s also enough of us that you can take a few minutes to feel better and it won’t cost us the fight. As an older activist said to me recently, even when we sleep our comrades across the world are waking up ready to face the day’s struggle.

Ultimately, a lot of these are just things that have worked for me, and they won’t all be accessible or appropriate to you. Some of them are more about changing your viewpoint than radically altering the status quo around the climate. But I know I fight better when I feel optimistic and well in myself, so these are my suggestions. I hope some of them help, and I want to commend your strength and bravery in reaching out for advice and connection, because that’s how we keep fighting, and that’s how we win.

The Horrors are real, but so are the Wonders. And one of those Wonders is you.

[shadale-s-safe-space]

I don't know much about you as a person, but from what I can gather you've had a long journey with art, but still have the motivation to continue even when its rough. I'm sure you didn't start out making masterpieces, so if its not too much trouble, do you have any advice for a 16 year old artist losing motivation? i feel like im stagnating right now and its awful

Idk man, all I can say is, draw watchu want without the care who's gonna see it or what they gonna say , commit to new ideas and care less about pleasing everyone, because I know that way too well, I started learning by drawing animals, flowers and nature, "you should draw something else", switches to furries " No you must do human portraits", draws humans *no one fuckin cares*, and I felt miserable drawing what I didn't want all the damn time just trying to please everyone and be liked, hell, I still do that sometimes cuz I'm a dumbass. When in reality, when you do your own thing is when you're the happiest, this internet bullshit? Yeah don't trust the likes and favs, people like what they find relatable, no one really knows how much time you've spent on your drawing or how much you love it, when a 5 min doodle you did could do more than a painting that took 2 whole days to complete just to be scrapped in a new speedy record, paint what you love for yourself and you only.

Don't be shy to learn new things, I have tons of stuff I don't post here cuz I know people wouldn't care about it, but here for this post, have this that I practiced when I felt too depressed to think of anything good and wanted to step back from the MD artstyle

You'll see, you'll thrive when you draw what you want, and get yourself a drawing buddy! That way you'll stop focusing on the internet and more on each other, and each other's improvement. Tbh I struggled with that one. Since everyone I had were not into art irl, I somehow managed to find someone after 10 years of drawing alone. I honestly wanted more people to join in and make an improvement circle, but unfortunately that never happened.

I found myself twice as productive now than ever, even though I'm not active here as much I am still drawing and making things, ofc giving you more comics! And other fun things in the future I hope.

If you're struggling to draw something just do it, man commit, i was uncomfortable drawing men and male characters for years, I've wasted so many years being "too uncomfortable" and draw a naked person like yeesh who fucking cares, it's for studying.

And ofc if you feel like you're not improving at all please, please experiment with your artstyle and try something new, please refresh your mind, I was stuck for years doing the same thing over and over, same colors, same 2px brush, drawing like a machine same shit over and over, I felt so stuck and lost, but also afraid to do something new, idk why, I guess I never felt good enough or deserving of it. I also didn't go to art school, I am NOT a professional, nor will i ever be in my opinion. Hell, me feeling like I'll never be good enough left me afraid to try and apply for art school, they were asking for sculptures, different mediums all that scary stuff and I was like, I don't.. know.. how to do those things... I can't build a portfolio in less than 3 months?!?! I don't even know how to use half of what they're asking for!!

In reality at the end of the day, art is what you make of it and no one can stop you, search for inspirations and don't be afraid to try, yes you'll fail fist 2 or 10 or hell even 100 times, but you'll come back with more knowledge than ever.

For ending I give you the most confusing drawing to ever exist [dw he's just sleeping on top of her and she's just ghasping for air but awe romance or sum lol] is it weird? Yeah but I had a fun time making it hahaha

Idk I'm bad at putting my thoughts together, but hopefully some of this helps.

[sarahowritesostucky]

📖"The Carter Academy for Omega Excellence" Pt 9

Rated: Explicit

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Tags: age gap, boarding school au, a/b/o, dub-con/non-con, spanking, feminization, dumbification, sexism, misogyny, prostate milking, discipline, D/s elements, hurt/comfort, mentions of past self-harm, predatory behavior, teacher/student, bathroom use control, humiliation, omorashi

Summary: Bucky Barnes is young, confused, and conflicted—a real "rebel without a cause" type. His parents ship him off to Steve's reform school to help him get straightened out into a "proper young omega."

Wait! I haven't read an earlier part of this fic! Story Masterlist

Part 9 Practical Applications

It’s usually difficult for Steve to eat a meal in peace in the school’s dining hall. Too many of his staff see him and flock over to ask questions, or favors, or to float ideas, just trying to get their two cents in while they have him in sight. Or students will inevitably come over, wanting a word or to gush about something, complain about something else. It’s not usually a very enjoyable dining experience. Steve prefers to eat in his office.

But that evening at dinner he’s got Bucky with him, and all the staff and students seem to recognize that he’s acting as Handler to Bucky for the time being. The staff, understanding that it’s actual work, stay out of the way, and the students either avoid them with jealous glances over the special attention they think Bucky’s getting, or sympathetic glances over the punishment they think he’s receiving.

The answer is more complicated than that. Mostly, Steve just needs to spend enough time interacting with the boy to decide if Sharon really isn’t the best fit for him. A student’s relationship with their Handler is crucial to their success during their time at Carter Academy, so Steve doesn’t take the task lightly. It’s unusual but not unheard of to have to switch up a student’s assigned alpha, especially for newer students who haven’t been broken in yet. So Steve brings Bucky to the dining hall and takes over the role of Handler as he tries to get a feel for the boy. Bucky doesn’t act up as they go around and get their food and then sit down to eat, so there’s no real need for punishment of any sort. Steve pulls out his phone at the table and reviews the assessment Sharon filled out on Bucky. 

Bucky, who sits catty corner to him and eats his dinner with a far-off look in his eyes, is clearly still distracted by his body’s arousal. But somewhere halfway through the veritable mountain of macaroni he’d had Steve heap on his plate, he starts to become interested in what Steve’s doing. “What are you doing?”

Steve looks up, not having realized how focused he’d been on his work. “Sorry,” he says, tucking the phone away and going back to his own plate. “Just headmaster stuff. Lot’s to do.”

“Like what?” Bucky grumbles. “Forcing everybody to bend over and let a doctor shove—”

“That’s enough, young man,” Steve chides, though his tone is closer to fond than stern. He shakes his head with a wry smile. “More like reviewing Handler assessments. I get a progress report for every student, every week. It’s a lot to keep up on.”

“Oh.” Bucky twists his lips and goes back to poking at his plate. He seems to have come to the end of the macaroni and is being standoffish with the vegetables. “So … did Sharon do one for me?” he asks, trying (and failing) for an air of nonchalance. 

Steve nods. “Yes. She did. Quite a thorough one, in fact, since this is your first week here. New students tend to have the most behavioral issues, so they get the most attention. She made some recommendations about what she thinks will work best for you.” He stares straight at Bucky as he says it, cataloging every expression that flits across the boy’s face. Bucky doesn’t seem thrilled to hear that he’s been assessed at all, which is to be expected. Steve goes back to eating his food and waits for the inevitable next question:

“What’d she say about me?” 

He shrugs. “The usual. She noted the areas where you struggle and where you excel, what your interests are so far. She made suggestions for best discipline measures and what your daily protocols should be.”

It’s clearly the word “discipline” that brings the scowl back to Bucky’s face. He shoots Steve a peeved look and abandons his fork to the vegetables, reaching instead for one of the butter cubes on the table and unwrapping it. “So? What’d she suggest?” 

Steve sits back a little in his chair, considering him. He decides to be frank. “Spanking, for one. Though you’ll need to be assessed before we can make any determinations on how useful or not that is for you, in terms of discipline and/or protocol. Some students have a daily spanking as part of their wellness plan, others behave better with just punishment spankings when needed. It depends on the individual.” 

“What?! No !” Bucky glowers at him. “Spanking is the one fucking thing I didn’t want! … Or being naked,” he adds, after a second of thought. 

“Yes, well. We’ll see about that. It may turn out that you respond well-enough to other measures without needing to resort to corporal means. Not everyone needs it.” Bucky looks like he’s about to blow up, so Steve cuts him off by continuing, “For daily protocols, she’s suggesting lap time or kneeling time, and hand feeding for meals.”

Bucky’s shoulders stiffen. “What the fuck is ‘lap time’?” he sneers, then adds, “I’m more of a reverse cowgirl type of guy.”

Steve refrains from rolling his eyes, and of course he doesn’t take the bait. “Lap time just means close bodily contact with your Handler, like snuggling. An omega’s wellbeing is greatly improved by close bodily contact with their alpha, so sometimes we schedule time for that. A lot of students get it in just before bedtime, or after their classes are over to help them calm down from the day. Has Sharon not engaged with you at all these past few days?”

“No.”

“Hm.”

Bucky makes a face. “Whatever. I’m not really into chicks like Sharon, anyways.”

Steve arches a brow. “Well that is, of course, your preference. Everybody has them. Sharon herself suggested that you might fare better with a male Handler.” Bucky’s eyes pop back up to him in surprise at that, and Steve nods. “But I’d advise you not to refer to Ms. Carter as a ‘chick’ ever again. You won’t like what happens if she hears you disrespecting her like that.”

“She said I should have a dude?”

“It’s something we’re considering,” Steve admits. “Though I’m less focused on that and more concerned that you might simply need a firmer hand. Sharon is easy to get along with, which can be helpful for some new students who are being combative and just need some space to help them adapt to the sudden change in lifestyle. But from what she’s reported, you haven’t fallen in line very well with the ‘friend’ approach.” He gives him a pointed look. “I have stricter Handlers I can pair you with, if you have a tendency to brat until you’ve received the dominance you’re itching for.”

Bucky’s face goes pink at that pronouncement. Steve sees the instinctual pleasure that peeks through for a second, before the boy is covering it up with another scowl and more defensive posture. It’s in that moment that Steve knows he’ll definitely be assigning Bucky to a more dominant, no-nonsense Handler. Bucky is exactly the type to brat until he gets put in his place, and it’d be negligent-bordering-on-cruel for Steve to ignore his needs. He’ll have to sit down in his office and choose someone later that evening. “It’s nothing to feel bad about,” he tells Bucky. “The urge to act up doesn’t mean you’re bad. It’s just a sign that you have a higher need for domination than some other omegas. And there are plenty of ways we can tailor your routine to help give you that.” 

Bucky scoffs and rolls his eyes—proving Steve’s entire point, though the kid certainly doesn’t realize it. “Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night,” he sasses, and reaches for his dinner roll. Steve snatches it off the table before he can get to it. “Hey!”

“The other protocol she recommended was hand feeding,” Steve repeats calmly. “Let's just see about that, shall we?”

“No.”

Steve gives him a real warning look this time. “Bucky, I’ve been patient with you. But you need to check your attitude real fast, or I’ll be frog marching you to the nearest spanking bench.”

Bucky’s eyes widen and he immediately glances over to the spanking bench that Steve knows lives in the corner of the dining hall. “No,” he says quietly, just the threat of Steve exercising that sort of dominance over him making him turn mild and pink in the cheeks. “No.”

“Then get over here, right now.” Steve points to the floor. “Use the cushion off your dining chair to kneel at my side.”

Bucky looks mortified, but he does obey. He grabs the cushion off his chair and drops it beside Steve, and goes down heavily to his knees. Then he looks up at Steve. His pissy little expression wavers somewhat, just at being in the submissive posture. Steve gives him a knowing look, but doesn’t say anything about it. “Just a few bites,” he tells him kindly. “I just want you to get a feel for it. See what I’m talking about.” 

“Whatever.”

Steve splits the dinner roll and butters each half of it, then rips off a small piece and brings it down for Bucky to take in his mouth. “ Aht ,” he corrects, when Bucky starts to reach with his hand. “No. Open .” He waits expectantly until Bucky parts his lips. Then holds eye contact as feeds him the piece of bread. “Good boy,” he says quietly, letting him hear the praise just as the flavors are hitting his tongue. He feeds him another piece, and then another, watching as Bucky’s posture relaxes and his eyes go heavy. Steve feels his heart squeeze in sympathy at how dominance-starved the boy clearly is. “Has anyone explained hand feeding protocol to you?” he asks quietly, ripping another bit of the roll off. Bucky takes that piece readily, and he’s busy chewing as Steve tells him, “Like I said before, most protocols are meant to reinforce reliance on your natural instincts. You have mental health needs that can only be met with domination and close contact, so things like allowing your alpha to feed you are always encouraged. It creates a physical feedback loop in your brain. It’s why you feel good right now, posturing down by my side like this.”

Bucky makes a whiny sound of complaint in his throat, but by the last bit of bread, he’s gone soft and sloe-eyed, and doesn’t seem to be thinking anything much besides how pleased he is to have his alpha feeding him. “You want dessert, Honey?” Steve asks, smiling down fondly at him. Bucky had pleaded for a slice of cake at the buffet earlier, and while Steve isn’t one to encourage sugar addictions, he’d grabbed the cake with this very idea in mind. He starts to feed small bites of it to the kid, warmth growing in his gut the more Bucky falls into accepting it. The biggest brats tend to fall the hardest, once they get what they need.

By the time the last bite has passed his lips, Bucky has all but turned to a puddle on the floor, with his chin resting against Steve’s leg and his lashes fanned out on his cheeks as he waits obediently for his alpha to feed him another bite. Swallowing heavily, Steve drags his finger through the last bit of icing on the plate and sets it gently to Bucky’s lips, cock pulsing in his underwear as he watches the boy part eagerly for it and suck his finger into his mouth. Steve grits his teeth and tries to get a hold of himself. Christ . 

Bucky whines and opens his eyes when Steve’s finger is removed. Steve pets his hair and shushes him. “That’s all there is, Honey. You did good.”

Bucky makes a grumpy sound and rubs his cheek more aggressively against Steve’s leg, and Steve raises an eyebrow. He ignores the feeling of tightness in his briefs, making a mental note to institute kneeling and hand feeding as mandatory daily protocols for this kid, since he obviously responds well to both. “Okay, Buck,” he tells him gently. “I think that’s it. Let’s get you settled for the evening.”

After dinner, the students all have a block of unstructured evening time. Some spend it working on their studies if they’ve fallen behind in a certain subject, or on protocols with their Handlers if they’re feeling extra needy, but most of the boys choose to socialize for at least an hour or two before bed. After the success at dinner, Steve allows Bucky to choose what he wants to do. Predictably, the boy decides to seek out Parker and latch onto whatever the other omega is doing. 

Thus, an hour later they find themselves in the darkened auditorium as the latest—and dumbest—Fast & Furious movie plays on the projector screen. Steve stands in the back of the room with Natasha. “I want you to encourage this friendship,” he tells her. “Parker’s done well here. His behavior modified quickly and he’s excelled academically. Plus, he’s got a good situation lined up for after graduation.”

In the dark, Natasha turns her head the barest degree. “Nothing’s been made public.”

Steve hums. “Yet.” With Parents’ weekend coming up, there will soon be multiple announcements about mates being taken. It happens every year. Students find their alphas at the matchmaking ball. Some cement their choices, some meet a number of potential suiters without locking down on any one person. But there are always some prestigious families who've make arrangements outside the school's purview. Parker falls into the first of those categories, having cultivated his relationship with the man who serves as his sponsor. Steve knows Stark hasn’t made his intentions public yet, but the time is drawing near. "His alphas will make an announcement next weekend, I'm sure."

“Stark and Potts?” Natasha murmurs. “They’re sharing, then?"

"That's the impression I got."

"Hm. A triad.” 

Steve nods primly, staring straight ahead at the movie screen where a car is being launched out of an airplane. “They’re good people. He’s an asshole, but he’ll take good care of Parker. I’ve heard good things about the wife, too.” 

Soon they’ll be two very happy alphas, married spouses with a sweet and subservient omega mate to cherish and raise their pups. It’s an old fashioned notion, certainly: two alphas, married as intellectual equals and taking on the care of an omega together. The picture perfect, white picket fence, happily ever after, pre-war ideal that people used to aspire to; born of a time when society still acknowledged the realities of the world and the needs of those living in it. Steve doesn’t think he’s ever met a two alpha triad that weren’t some version of blissfully content.

He tries not to be bitterly jealous about it.

“I want Barnes to see how easy it can be, if he just gives in. Parker will set a great example,” he declares, and Natasha nods along silently. It’s the kind of silence where Steve can tell she’s thinking something but not saying it out loud, so he refuses to look at her as he stiffly nods and changes the subject. “Good. Do you have any plans with him tonight?”

“He’s been pretty wired today. I don’t think lazing around during gym did him any favors.”

“Sorry. I told Odinson to get them moving next time they have gym.”

“We’re going to wind down with protocols after this. He’ll probably ask for an orgasm before bed.”

“And he’ll get it?”

“Oh yeah, he’ll get it,” she says, and there’s a low note to the way she says it; something covetous and very privately alpha that betrays the fact that she’s going to enjoy giving it to him. “I’ll reward him for being so friendly with the new kid, let him have a few until he gets tuckered out.” She glances over at Steve. “It could make for quite the demonstration, if your boy needs a push.”

“A demonstration." He considers it, locating Bucky’s head and shoulders up amongst the boys watching the movie. Steve's been eager to touch Bucky sexually, certainly he can’t lie to himself about that. And there's no rule that says he can't. As long as Steve isn't using the boy for his own gratification, then there's no impropriety in it. After the doctor's visit that afternoon, he knows Bucky has been struggling with keeping his composure. It’ll be delicious to watch the stubborn little thing fall apart once he gets a taste of what could be. Steve’s fingers twitch as he imagines stuffing them in Bucky's sopping wet cunt and working an orgasm or three out of him while the kid begs prettily. Fuck , he can't wait to hear the sounds he'll make ...

Steve sees that Nat’s watching him closely, realizes that he's probably scenting aroused, and he straightens and clears his throat. “Right. Well. Hm. Good idea. Let him get a look at what he’s missing. He’ll come around once I’m putting him to bed.” 

“I think you’ve been lulled into a false sense of security,” Nat says.

“Why?” 

“I read Sharon’s assessment. He’s bound to act up.”

Steve frowns. “Maybe, maybe not. Things don’t always get worse before they get better.”

“No, not always.” 

He sighs and fights the urge to rub his forehead. “Parker’s on the same hall, yeah?”

“Just a few rooms down.”

“Great. I’ll make sure we pass by at nine o’clock. Try and be in the thick of it then.”

“Sure thing.” For a moment it’s quiet, save for the ridiculously awful movie’s action sounds. Then in a different tone of voice, Natasha asks, “And ... how are things? With you?”

Steve pretends not to know what she’s really asking. “Good. Busy. Got a lot going on with parents’ weekend and all that.”

“Mmhm. And Peggy?”

“We’re liaising for parents’ weekend,” he says curtly, not wanting to get into it any further than that. Already, he knows he’s got more than one email from her waiting in his inbox. He’s been ignoring them all day, not wanting to deal with whatever problems she’s come up with now. 

“You know,” Nat says. “Just because she changed her mind doesn’t mean that you couldn’t still find yourself a nice omega to settle down with.” She pauses pointedly. “You prefer males, don’t you?”

“That’s enough, Nat,” Steve snaps, his voice cutting the tension like a knife. 

It isn’t like he hasn’t been entertaining the fantasy ever since Bucky wet submissively in his office on that first day. But he’s since talked himself out of the idea. Parents don’t pay forty grand a semester to see their children mated off to the damned headmaster. Steve doesn’t live in the same social echelon as these folks, and a stodgy middle class academic is a far cry from the types of mates that Carter Academy’s parents want for their children. Steve can only do his best for Bucky, perhaps manage to get him to behave at the parents’ weekend long enough to chat up a potential suitor or two. ( Dare to dream, at least.) 

“I’ll bring him by at nine,” Steve reiterates. “Make sure your boy’s visible from the doorway. With the way Barnes’ day has been going, he won’t be able to hold out much longer.” 

Steve is no fool. He knows that an omega can only go so long without sexual relief. And after the frustration of that afternoon’s medical exam, he’s well aware of the building levels of arousal that Bucky is experiencing.

The boy’s gorgeous floral scent has only grown richer as the evening has worn on, so much so that Steve isn't at all surprised when the kid’s little prick is sticking straight out when he strips down to take his evening shower. And he’s certainly not surprised when Bucky balks at not being left alone to wash himself. Clearly, the boy had plans for his shower time. Plans that Steve is now ruining. 

He leans against the bathroom wall and pretends to be absorbed in his phone while he waits Bucky out in their little shower stall stalemate. Bucky puts up a fuss when he realizes that Steve isn’t planning on stepping away, the horror of having lost his opportunity dawning on his face in an expression half near to nausea.

Steve smirks down at his phone and scrolls some more. “Chop chop, Kemosabe. I haven’t got all night.” He watches Bucky’s cute little backside as the kid finally deems the water hot enough and steps into the shower. His skin pinks up quickly and his hair soaks flat to his head. The slick on his thighs becomes indistinguishable from the water sluicing over his body. 

Steve watches him move about slowly, as if he's pained. His shoulders are tense, and he seems to tremble full-body for a moment as he looks down at himself—perhaps staring at his rigid little dick that he can no longer touch now that Steve is there. He all but vibrates with the arousal he’s feeling, standing still under the spray for long minutes.

“Wash yourself, Bucky,” Steve commands, not unkindly. “Or do you need me over there to assist you?” Bucky isn’t facing in his direction, but even still, Steve would bet money that he’s giving the shower wall quite a death glare right about now. Poor thing.

Bucky could cry when he realizes that Steve isn’t going to leave him alone to shower. “I can wash myself without you staring at me,” he says. “Sharon doesn’t watch me.”

“Sharon gives you too much credit,” Steve says from where he’s been leaning against the wall and dicking around on his phone, looking bored. “Now finish up.”

Bucky grits his teeth and turns back into the spray. He looks down at his cock and fights the urge to whimper. He’s so fucking hard . His underwear had had an embarrassing amount of slick on them when he took them off. And much to his mortification, Steve’s attention had gone right down to the wet spot. Bucky knows he probably imagined the heated look in the Headmaster’s eyes, but even still, having an alpha who looks like Steve watching him undress certainly hasn’t helped to calm his situation down any.

Bucky’s body feels achy and tight and too sensitive, the water hitting his prick keeping his attention down between his legs. He can feel the slick between his cheeks, but he avoids washing himself there because that’ll mean touching himself there, and he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop touching if he starts. The thought of Steve wrestling him out of the shower to spank him silly for stuffing his whole goddamn fist up his ass isn’t something Bucky wants to experience.

“You almost done in there?” Steve drawls from across the room, after Bucky has washed himself, after he’s shampooed and conditioned and rinsed his hair. “Gonna run out of hot water, soon.”

Bucky growls lowly and pumps more body wash out of the dispenser. “Don’t rush me.”

He looks down at himself, his whole belly clenching hard at the sight of the gel in his cupped palm and his throbbing prick right there, how easy it would be to reach down and wrap it around his cock and —

“I’m sending in a rescue mission soon,” Steve jokes, and Bucky’s eyes water with the urge to scream.

Jerking off once a day is not enough, but it’s all he has. He’d been counting on these few minutes tonight to be able to get some fucking relief! So far, his nightly showers are the only times he’s been left alone without any sort of camera or alpha surveilling him. Sharon hasn’t acted like she suspects that he’s using the opportunity to jerk off, but now Bucky’s beginning to think that she’s known all along and has tipped Steve off. 

Just a little longer, he tells himself, practicing some deep-breathing after a glancing touch to his nipples nearly pulls a whimper from him. Just a little longer and then he’ll be alone in his room, lights out, and he’ll be able to get some relief. Sure, there are cameras, but if he angles himself just right under the blankets and doesn’t move too much, he thinks can get away with it. Someone would have to be watching his bedroom camera like a hawk to see. 

“Bucky,” Steve warns. “You’re not even washing yourself. Come on.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Hang on !” He gets more shower gel from the dispenser and starts soaping himself up all over again—fastidiously avoiding his chest and anywhere between his belly button and his knees.

It's awful. Bucky doesn’t think he’s gone more than eight hours without masturbating since the day he turned thirteen, and now it’s closing in on a full twenty-four hours since he’s had any relief. His entire pelvis feels full and heavy at this point. It’s an ache second only to what heat feels like, and he has to continually remind himself not to let his vocal cords tighten up into the instinctual keen that wants to come. 

What makes it even worse is that there’s an alpha right there. And unfortunately and mortifyingly, that alpha is Steve. The man is leaning against the bathroom wall, perfectly willing and capable of getting Bucky off if Bucky asks him to. The one reprieve of the shower is that it gets some distance between the two of them. Bucky can’t smell Steve's scent from under the spray of the water, but he knows he’ll have to face it again as soon as he gets out.

Which is why he’s delaying getting out. Insisting that he didn’t want Steve to finger fuck him over that medical bench had been the most painfully counter-intuitive thing Bucky thinks he’s ever done in his life. But he hadn’t wanted to give the alpha the satisfaction of knowing how bad he needs it, hadn’t wanted to prove him right in his misogynistic beliefs. So what if Bucky’s horny a lot of the time and needs to jerk off three or four (... sometimes five) times a day? It’s normal for an omega, doesn’t mean he’s as desperate and helpless and useless as Steve and everybody else at this school thinks he is, doesn’t mean he needs anybody or anything other than his right hand. Alphas jerk off too, he thinks mulishly. Don’t see anybody telling Steve he’s not allowed to pull the pud whenever he wants.

Bucky all but jumps out of his skin when Steve’s hand appears in front of his face, shirt sleeve rolled up and the hairs on his forearm getting wet as he shuts off the water.  Bucky spends a very brief second admiring the way the veins line the alpha’s strong forearm before he remembers to be upset. “Hey!” He whirls around to glare at him. “I wasn’t done .”

“You’re done,” Steve says, looking amused. Bucky’s belly flips when he notices the alpha’s gaze dragging down his naked, wet body, lingering on his still-hard prick. “Clean as a whistle,” he murmurs, something dark and interested flashing in his eyes before he turns to grab a towel. “Come on. Time to get settled.” 

Bucky dries off and wraps the towel around his waist for the walk back down the hall to his room. He’s eager to be left alone so that he can finally get his hand on his —

“Oghn!”

He freezes in place as they’re passing Peter’s room, barely noticing that Steve almost runs into him from how suddenly he’s stopped. “Buck?” Steve says, but Bucky only half processes it because his ears are ringing as all the blood rushes out of his head and down to more important places. 

Like all the other bedrooms in the dormitory, Peter’s room has no door. So Bucky has a perfectly clear view of what’s going on inside. He’s come to a dead stop just outside the door frame, and he whimpers without meaning to as he’s confronted with the sight of Peter, bent over the side of his bed, facedown in the comforters while Natasha stands behind him and …

“Nnngh, Nat, yesss. Fffuuhh—”

Bucky’s knees go weak, and the only thing that keeps him from dissolving into a puddle of slick on the floor is Steve’s hands on his waist. “Whoa there, Bud.”

Bucky makes a noise of distress in his throat at the feeling of Steve supporting him against his hard body. He thinks the alpha will pull him along, tell him not to look, but instead Steve holds him up and lets him watch. “Night time expression,” he says quietly, as if what they’re seeing is completely normal.

“What,” Bucky rasps, having to try again when his speech initially fails him. “But that … that … ahm, that’s allowed?”

Steve chuckles, the low rumble of it felt against Bucky’s back. “What? The hook? It’s just an aid, Honey. Helps to get the glands wrung out real good and proper.” Bucky makes a small choking noise as Steve says it, the alpha’s fingers gripping him a little firmer at the words ‘wrung out’. Steve notices and chuckles. “The glands inside of you are your biggest sexual organs, did you know that? The prostate alone is three times the size of a beta male’s. That’s why you can’t go for long without relief, it’s just biology.”

Without thinking of what he’s doing, Bucky’s one hand slides over the towel to in-between his legs, cupping himself from over the terrycloth for the briefest of moments before Steve tuts and takes hold of his wrist. He gently but firmly moves his hand away from his aching prick, and Bucky keens miserably. “Shh,” Steve soothes. “None of that, now. That’s not allowed and you know it, Bucky.”

“But I need to,” he whines.

“So you ask for help ,” Steve corrects. He gives him a comforting squeeze. “I told you that you can always ask your Handler for help with your sexual urges. That’s part of what they’re here for. Just like you have nonsexual submissive needs, it’s completely natural to need to orgasm a few times a day. You just have to accept that it’s someone else’s job to give it to you. You need to submit .”

“Yeah, but …” Bucky licks his lips and tries to avert his eyes several times, but he’s unable to look away for long. He’s starting to wonder if maybe Steve knows about his jerking it on the sly in the bathroom these past few days. “I don’t … I, um.” It’s not his fault that his brain is leaking out of his ears. Not when faced with this .

Peter is fully naked where he’s bent over the edge of the bed, eyes squeezed shut and hands gripping the blankets. His whole body is flushed, but the skin of his backside is noticeably darker than the rest of him, stained deep pink from an—ostensibly very recent—spanking. Bucky gets a brief glimpse of what could be dried tear tracks on the boy’s cheeks, but if he was crying, it seems to have little bearing on his enjoyment of what’s happening now, as he gasps and moans and presses back into the curve of the metal hook that Natasha has buried up inside him. Bucky can’t see much of it, just the way that Natasha is tug, tug, tugging on it in tiny little motions, rocking it inside Peter's body. But just imagining what it must feel like is enough to have Bucky’s own hole clenching down needily on nothing. God, it would be so firm, wouldn't it? It'd get right at it ...

Natasha picks something else up from the bed: a little egg shaped thing. Bucky just about has a cataplexy when she pushes a button on it and the thing starts thrumming in a heavy, pulsing vibration. “Ohmygod,” he whispers, watching with wide eyes as she holds it against the part of the hook just outside Peter's body, letting the vibrations travel through it. Bucky feels his body release a fresh wave of slick at the faint sound of it and how he can instantly imagine how it must feel . 

He thinks about the toy he’s smuggled in, in his suitcase. Nobody’s found it yet. He hasn’t been able to use it since arriving there, but watching Peter get his prostate pounded so thoroughly makes him suddenly desperate to have something up there, filling him up and drilling away the ache that these miserable one-wank-a-day days have left him with. It’s been almost a week since he’s had anything inside him, and he feels saliva pool in his mouth as he envisions how he might be able to slip his dildo out from its hiding spot that night and use it under his blankets, after lights out. He thinks about the soft, firm, rubber head, and how it’ll feel to rub it against his rim and tease himself for a while before finally shoving it inside and relishing in that first, delicious stretch. … Though ... it'd be pretty nice to have an alpha to rock a hard metal ball directly against his prostate, too.

“This is part of his routine,” Steve’s murmuring, his quiet voice pulling Bucky back from his thoughts. “Parker is high energy, low self control. He’s … spastic. Anxious. Like you. This helps to settle him.”

“I’m not—”

“See his backside?” Steve continues, ignoring Bucky’s weak interruption. “That’s one of his protocols. A nice, steady spanking—therapeutic, mind you, not punishment. You’d be amazed how much relief you can get from a session. Tomorrow I’ll assess you to see if it’s something we should implement.” Bucky makes a squeak of protest and Steve shushes him with a gentle squeeze to his waist. “Don’t worry, Honey. It’s not like you’re imagining. Punishment spanking isn’t at all like therapeutic spanking. They're two completely different creatures.”

“H-how?” Bucky’s eyes fall back to Peter’s butt, darker pink than the rest of him. It looks angry, like it must hurt a lot. He stares at Natasha’s slender hand and her hand on the toy, tug, tug, tugging …

“It starts off slower, for one. Very light and gentle at first.” Steve’s fingers curl in more securely when Bucky squirms in distress, holding him still. “Shh sh sh. It’s alright. Look at him: does he look upset?” 

Bucky sniffles and tries to look away. “Lemme go.”

“Your Handler will have you bend over the bed, like he’s doing,” Steve keeps explaining. “It builds up gradually. You’ll be comfortable. They’ll start soft and build up the force until you’re overwhelmed but not in pain. It won’t hurt.” 

“That makes no sense ,” Bucky complains, though the ache in his pelvis is heavier and tighter than ever at hearing Steve murmur the explanations against the shell of his ear. He imagines what it would be like to be spanked by Steve; held down firmly and soothed with cooing, sympathetic words like Natasha is giving Peter right now.

“Poor baby, you really needed this, huh? Could hardly put two sentences together since dinner, you’re so wound up. That’s how I know you’re gettin’ tired, need to let it all go and stop thinking n’ just feel.”

“Nat. Can’t … can’t, nnngh …”

“Shhh. There’s a good girl. It’s okay, just relax and let it happen. I know it feels good, Honey, I know. Alpha’s got you. It’s okay to cry. It’s a lot, I know.” 

Bucky looks down at where Steve is holding his waist. He admires the shape of those strong hands, his thick fingers and sturdy wrists, the veins against the skin … He swallows heavily and imagines Steve's palm coming down on his backside again and again, imagines what it would feel like, what it would look like. And— Oh god, fuck. Steve’s got such big hands. It'd be so solid .

A low keen breaks from the back of his throat before he can stop it, and he bites down on his lip, still not able to tear his eyes away from Natasha and what she’s doing to Peter. “I don't understand,” he says miserably. “No. You're lying."

"Lying about what, Baby?"

"About, about ... that," he grits. "How can it not hurt?”

Against his ear, Steve’s condescending chuckle makes his belly clench and his asshole release another obscene wave of slick. “You’ll see. It’s because of the pace, and the way your brain reacts to the physical dominance. Endorphins build up and are released before you can start to feel any real pain. The skin warms and you sink into it, kind of like a trance. By the time you’re getting real hits, you’re already high. Some students are able to orgasm from it.” Bucky shudders, and Steve hums. “It’ll be comfortable. You won’t be restrained. Your Handler won’t be angry with you. It isn’t discipline, that’s not the point. It’s to help you feel good and keep you healthy.”

Another whine is building in Bucky’s throat and he’s fighting to hold it back because he doesn’t want to give Steve the satisfaction of knowing how much this is affecting him. Though really, he figures Steve must know—from his scent alone, if nothing else. Bucky's freshly showered, but underneath the towel there’s new slick trickling down his inner thighs, wet and sticky, and there's no question that Steve can smell it. Bucky rubs his legs together uncomfortably, cringing at the messy feeling.

In the bedroom, Natasha turns up the vibrations, and Peter lets out a pornographic moan and arches his back even more. “Ohnn! Nat, Nat, Nat.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmnnn, feel’s’good …” He squirms and writhes, starting to cry helplessly when Natasha abandons the hook and pulls both hands back, no longer rocking the toy into him. She tuts and hushes him almost mockingly as he gets red in the face and wiggles around, trying to move the metal ball inside himself but unable to do it. “Nnnnh!” he cries desperately, prompting Natasha to pet his back and shush him,

“You’re okay. You’ve got it. Doesn’t it feel good?”

“Nnnoooo,” he cries miserably, hips working, shoving back in vain to try and work the hook in the same way she'd been doing.

“No? You want to stop?”

“Please, please. Don’sstop.”

Bucky's heart leaps at the sight of the hook going into Peter's hole, the helpless clenching of his wet and swollen rim as his body grasps it, trying to stimulate himself to no avail. Once again, Bucky's knees go weak and Steve is the only thing keeping him upright. Meanwhile Peter’s practically nonverbal, upset and desperate for the stimulation he needs. Natasha coos and rubs his back, encouraging him to ask for what he needs. “C’mon Pete. It’s okay. Tell me what you need. Remember to ask the right way. That’s all you have to do.”

Peter nods frantically, hips still working, eyes opening and closing sightlessly. He's crying sluggish tears now as he begs, “Help, please, help. Nat. Nnnn. Need you. Please Alpha.”

“Theere’s the magic word,” Natasha praises, her hand going back down to grasp the hook. She begins to rock it again and Peter sobs in gratitude. Natasha smiles and laughs fondly. “There you go, I’ve got you. I know you can’t do it yourself. Poor dumb baby. Just get too overwhelmed to know what to do, don't you? Need Alpha's help to make it go away.”

Against the pillow, Peter moans and drools and nods his head. “Yeah, y-yeah. Ongh …”

It’s too much. Bucky’s hips judder in Steve’s hands, his body literally unable to stay still when he’s this aroused. He knows that Steve can tell how bad it is, but the alpha doesn’t tease him. He just holds him and talks to him quietly as they both watch what’s going on. “You like that?” he asks, watching the scene alongside Bucky and humming knowingly when Bucky lies and shakes his head no. “It’s been a long day for you,” he says, a degree of kindness in his voice that, for all the heaviness in Bucky’s belly, still manages to make him feel thin and brittle and liable to break apart. “I want you to have some relief, Bucky. I can tell this is hurting you. So when we get to your room, if you need, you can bend over the edge of the bed just like that. Okay? Then all you have to do is ask nicely.”

Bucky moans, he can’t help it. He wants that so bad. Even just Steve’s big hands on his waist feel so good, making him yearn for more. “No,” he rasps, only to feel Steve’s chiding rumble against his back. 

“You don’t have to do that, Honey. It’s okay to give in.” 

“Nnn.”

“ Look at him.” Steve urges, nodding at the bedroom. “Don't you see how she is with him? How gentle? It’s not just about sexual release. It’s about that closeness, that care. Trusting your alpha enough to let them give that to you. That’s an important aspect of an omega’s wellbeing. It literally keeps your brain balanced the right way.” 

“I know,” Bucky grits. “We learned about it in science class." (Fucking right-wing, bullshit science class.)

“Good.”

In the bedroom, Peter is whining and mewling and moaning, and Natasha is so caring and attentive , telling Peter that he’s good and that he can let go and come whenever he wants to. “Whenever you’re ready, Pete. Just close your eyes and let it happen.”

Bucky’s eyes are filling with confused, anguished tears from watching it, a soul-deep yearning he doesn’t even understand swelling up inside him and making it hard to think. It just looks so safe and warm and good , what Peter has with Natasha, and he wants it. He wants to know what that feels like.

On his hip, Steve’s one hand edges inwards, fingers glancing over the tent that his prick is making underneath the towel. Bucky whines in frustration and Steve hushes him. “Stop. C’mon. How long do really think you can keep this up, hm? How long are you going to fight it?”

Bucky grinds his teeth even as he can feel his eyes stinging from the tears he’s trying not to cry, from how bad he wants it. “Forever,” he grits, though that’s a fucking lie and they both know it.

Maybe Steve has already figured out his plans to jerk off at lights out, who knows? He tuts at Bucky's defiance, and meanwhile in the room in front of them, Natasha is curling further over Peter’s back, sort of lying up alongside him. Peter’s eyes are glazed and he’s drooling on the pillow, dumb to anything but the climax he’s nearing. The closer he gets the calmer he seems to get, relaxing instead of straining, body going limp and letting Natasha do all the work.

“Good boy,” she purrs when he goes soft for it. She sets the vibrator against the hook again, speaking in an extended litany of gentle praise. Bucky can’t make out the words anymore, but whatever she’s saying, it makes Peter cry and shiver and nod, followed by more of her pleased hums and encouraging alpha sounds.

“ —‘pha,” Peter slurs, rubbing his face against the sheets as Nat’s hand works down below, keeping the toy seated deep and tug, tug, tugging against that spot inside. “Mmm. Please, please, yeah …” Peter looks and sounds like he’s completely sure that he’s going to get what he wants, that Natasha is going to give him what he needs , and seeing it makes Bucky burn with a wave of emotion that he only belatedly recognizes as jealousy.

He jerks in place, angry at himself and wanting to get away from the sight of it, but Steve’s strong hands hold him fast, not allowing him to avoid witnessing the display of what he’s missing out on. “No,” Steve says sternly, holding him still. “Watch it.” And Bucky can’t pull away. He’s forced to stay standing there in the alpha’s arms, face flaming, the sheer intimacy of what he’s witnessing with Steve making lust coil heavy in his guts, weighing heavy, heavy ; aching deep in the cradle of his pelvis.

Every gentle word and gesture that Natasha gives Peter makes him think of what it’d be like to have that with someone, what it’d feel like to have an alpha curl over him and purr at him and care for him so completely. A pit of yearning is opening up in his mind, cavernous and gaping and awful.  Briefly, he thinks of Brock and the few times that the older boy had been there when Bucky really needed it, how he’d fucked him hard and knotted fast and then pulled out before it was completely down because he had to get to practice, and wasn’t Bucky just grateful that he was there wasting time on his heat anyways?

He cries out when one of Steve’s hands readjusts on his hip and nudges his cock in the process. Steve gives an infuriatingly smug chuckle by his ear. “Pete’s a nice kid,” he says. “He was like you at first, you know. Angry, resistant, fought everything tooth and nail. Till he figured out that we were just trying to help him, to give him what he needs. Cause once you get a taste of what it's really like, you never want to go back. And now look at him: He’s happy, balanced, an A-student with a mate lined up for after graduation.”

Bucky shivers at the word 'mate', trying and failing to look away from the pair on the bed. He feels Steve’s breath hit his neck and is struck by the indelible urge to have the alpha cover his body the way that Natasha is covering Peter’s. And Steve is so much bigger than Natasha. Steve could really cover him ...

“Look at him,” Steve urges. “Getting everything he needs, because he asked. That could be you.” Bucky whines and jerks in his hold and Steve’s fingers dig in. “It’s that easy, Little one. All you have to do is admit it. Stop fighting everything so hard. You’ll be amazed how much easier it gets once you just let us help you .”

Bucky tries to think of something to say back to that, but he’s slogging through a brain gone mostly to soup, and before anything is forthcoming, Peter starts to come. He moans and shudders, and Natasha works him through it with those same deep rocking motions. It seems to go on forever, and when it’s over she eases the hook out of him and sets it aside, sits on the bed and has him lie there with his head in her lap. She strokes his hair and tells him nice things.

“Okay. Come on.” Steve guides Bucky away from the doorway, back down the hall and to his room. He steers him over to the bed and presses down on his shoulders, gently urging him to sit. 

Bucky hisses at the thrum of intensified arousal that comes just from Steve forcefully moving him and his butt meeting the bed. He fights the urge to squirm down against the mattress, but it’s hard. There’s slick between his cheeks that makes him want to writhe. He wants to rub his ass back against the blankets, hard, wants to purr and luxuriate in the feeling of soft things sliding against his skin. He wants to yank all the covers down and bunch them up between his thighs and squeeze , hump on them like an animal until he bursts.

But even more than that, he thinks he wants to hear Steve’s Voice praising him while he does it.

Steve surprises him by taking a knee right there beside the bed. He puts his hands on Bucky’s thighs and rubs up and down in a move that is probably meant to be soothing, but does nothing but make Bucky’s belly swoop with pleasure. He’s still got the towel wrapped around his hips, his prick an obscene little poke beneath the material. Steve is looking at it. “Last chance, Honey,” he says. “Do you want to bend over like Peter?” 

Bucky feels like he’s watching somebody else shake their head no, because everything in him is screaming for him to nod his head yes. Just a few minutes longer, he reminds himself. Just until lights-out. “No,” he breathes, and watches as surprise flashes in Steve’s eyes—though it quickly fades into something like disappointment. He almost looks pained for Bucky. He looks sorry for him.

“Okay,” he says, nodding grimly. “Okay Honey. That’s your choice. But you know the rules, right?” He gives him a pointed look. “The cameras are always on. You’re not going to get away with anything. Someone will come in here and restrain you if you try.” 

“Restrain?” Bucky asks worriedly, eyes flicking over to the cameras in the corner.

“Yes. So behave yourself. Your Handler will be in tomorrow morning. You can ask them for help then, if you need it.” 

“Sharon?” he asks dumbly, because that’s what comes to mind, but Steve shakes his head.

“No. Someone else. I’m assigning you a new Handler.” 

“What? But …”

“No buts.” Steve gives his leg an encouraging pat. “It’s not a bad thing. We’re just trying to find the right fit for you.”

“Sharon fits fine ,” Bucky snaps, thinking that at least he’s able to manipulate her a little bit. If he gets someone else, he may not be able to get away with his clandestine shower jerkoff sessions anymore. “Sharon fits,” he insists again. “She does.”

“You need a firmer hand, and you obviously respond better to males.”

“What? I do not .” Bucky deflates when Steve continues to stare at him knowingly. “Whatever,” he sulks. “It doesn’t matter who you assign me to. I’m still not gonna be how you want me to be.”

Steve stills, looking sad. “And how do I want you to be, hm?”

Bucky looks away, cowed by Steve’s intense eye contact. “Dunno,” he mumbles. “Just … like this .” He wiggles his hips uncomfortably. “Helpless. Needing an alpha. Pathetic.” For a few long seconds, Steve stays kneeling there, completely still, not saying anything. Bucky peeks at him and then quickly looks away again. He squirms self-consciously. “ What ?”

Steve inhales deeply and then reaches up. Bucky tenses, anticipating his displeasure, but Steve isn’t displeased. He’s just reaching for the collar on Bucky’s neck. “Let’s take this off for bed,” he says quietly. 

Heart in his throat, Bucky waits as the alpha maneuvers it around with deft fingers and undoes the buckle. There’s something so incredibly intimate about sitting there and allowing him to do it. It makes dread and desire war with each other deep in Bucky’s gut. He swallows compulsively once the collar is off, relearning the feel of himself without the leather band around his throat, fighting not to bring his hand up to touch the empty space where it was. He won’t admit that it feels like a loss, but it does. 

Steve sets the collar aside and turns back to cup the front of Bucky’s throat, this time with nothing between his hand and the bare skin. His thumb brushes back and forth over Bucky’s bonding glands. “It’s good to take a break, to maintain its effectiveness. Your body adjusts to the dopamine rush too much if you wear it twenty-four seven.”

Overly-sensitive, Bucky shivers at the sensation of Steve’s thumb swiping over his glands. A tiny, needy sound escapes his throat without his permission, and he peeks up at Steve to find the alpha staring at his neck. 

“You’re not pathetic, Honey. I'm sorry that other people have taught you to think that way about something that's natural for you. Something that's supposed to be beautiful.” He slowly applies pressure with his thumb, frowning when Bucky gasps and then whines pitifully. “You're swollen," he murmurs. He sounds displeased. "Has Sharon helped you at all since you got here?” 

“No,” Bucky whispers, which isn’t a lie. She hasn’t. But only because he's turned her down at every single offer. Bucky goes tight lipped, since admitting that to Steve feels like admitting that he’s broken the rules already. They both know it’d be near impossible for him to have gone four days without any sexual release whatsoever.

Steve doesn’t acknowledge it, though. He circles the pad of his thumb more firmly over Bucky's glands, massaging and looking thoughtful. He presses a little more, and a little more ...

Eventually it becomes too much to bear and elicits a tortured whimper from Bucky. “Nnh! Stop .” He slaps Steve’s wrist, and is surprised when the alpha lets go. Steve pulls his hand back to himself. Bucky swallows nervously, embarrassed. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to hit.”

“It’s okay. I know this is hard for you.” 

Steve won’t stop staring, and Bucky hates it. He flinches from the scrutiny and looks at Steve’s body instead, taking in the nicely tailored clothes he wears: the front of his dress shirt, his pants. The fabric pulls taught against the strong, thick lines of his thigh muscles, but Bucky is disappointed to find that the alpha isn’t visibly hard. He looks back up, and Steve’s eyes catch on his. Bucky gulps. “I … I’m tired,” he says. "I'd like to go to bed now."

Steve’s mouth quirks. “Is that so?”

“Yeah.” 

They both know he’s lying, but Steve doesn’t call him out on it. “Your Handler will be here in the morning,” he tells him again. “He’ll help you. Just behave yourself and ask nicely.”

Bucky’s face burns. Like hell is he going to bend over and beg for an anal hook fucking from a stranger before breakfast. He’ll handle it tonight, himself , just as soon as Steve’s out of the room. “Kay,” he says, avoiding any further eye contact, because every time he meets Steve's gaze he feels like the alpha knows exactly what he's planning. “S’fine,” he says. "You can go." Steve doesn’t move to leave, and he smells kind of melancholy, too, which makes confusion and worry twist in Bucky’s gut. “Are you mad at me?” he asks. Steve doesn’t smell mad, but the way he’s just kneeling there, and staring …

“No, Buck. I’m not mad.”

Bucky huffs. “Well what then?”

Steve’s hand cups him underneath his jaw and angles his face towards him. “Look me in the eyes,” he commands quietly, and Bucky’s breath hitches. He wasn’t expecting Steve to Voice, and the sound of it has him visibly reacting, goosebumps erupting across his skin. If he isn’t mistaken, Steve’s eyes get a little more heated. The alpha rumbles in approval. “I asked you a question the other day,” he says. “In my office. Do you remember?”

Bucky shakes his head dumbly, but in his defense, there’s a lot that he can’t remember right now. “Uhm …”

“I asked you a question and told you to think on it for a while before you answered,” he reminds.

Against Steve’s hand, Bucky swallows. “Oh,” he whispers. “Yeah. Y-you asked …” He squirms uncomfortably as he recalls the loaded question Steve had asked him that day. “Mmn.” He shakes his head.

“Tell me, Baby. What did I ask you to think about?”

“Dunno,” he mumbles, which is another obvious lie.

Steve tuts softly and circles his thumb over his glands again. “I asked you to think about when the last time was that you were really, truly happy.” A—

Bucky frowns as he thinks about the answer to that question. It’s not an answer he wants to give. He’s not even sure he knows the answer. But he knows it’s not a good answer. Because Steve asked about when he’d been truly happy long term , not just happy in the moment over one thing or another. " Settled "—that’s the word he’d used. When was the last time Bucky felt truly happy and content; settled in his own skin?

His lip trembles as he admits to himself that it’s been a long, long time.

A.N.: Uh, yeah I know it's an awkward place to end, but it was getting stupid-long and I still have a lot left to go in this scene and the next, so the next part will be a separate chapter.

T.W.: The next chapter will contain explicit mentions and depictions of past cutting scars.

Story Masterlist

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[jades-typurriter]

Wife Swap

This was a bit of a chain of inspiration; me and Bowsiosaurus, who have crushes Vanilla and Toriel respectively, joked about switching girlfriends, and then vee drew this rather out of the blue to follow up on it. Vee THEN wanted to pay me to write a story to go with it, but I was feeling motivated anyway after seeing how this came out, so I asked ver to help me design Posie instead. Anyway, this is RIDICULOUSLY self-indulgent. Please enjoy the boundary between realities passing over the two of us at a party!

Jade and Bowsie stood in the living room of a mutual friend, holding plastic cups of fruit punch and catching up about their new relationships. It was a casual affair: a few friends who all happened to be in town at the same time, some movies, bags of popato chisps—chips? no, no, chisps, it was hard to tell for a second—lining the countertop along the side of the room.

“We met when she moved into the apartment next to mine,” the serpent explained as Jade stretched, letting out an appropriately catlike yawn. “A lot of the time we were getting to know each other was me making excuses to help her with things, if I’m being honest.”

“Well, hey! You don’t have to be a man to get to a girl’s heart by being gentlemanly.”

“She does like to call me that…”

“Tori’s little helper, huh?” she teased.

“G-grawawawa!!”

“Heehehehehee! Okay, okay. What sort of stuff does a lady like Toriel even need help with? She seems pretty capable.”

“Well, um! I really like helping her in the kitchen. I’ve learned a lot about baking from her! She also does a lot of community service type things. Did you know she used to be a teacher?”

“Oh? For what grades?”

“Little, little kids, uh, kindergarten and stuff.”

“Oh, wrow,” Jade mrowed, “that’s a fun coincidence! Vanilla has a daughter right about that age.”

“You and moms, huh.”

“Oh, shush,” she snickered.

“It’s true!”

“It is!! It is.”

“So, has dating someone with a kid been complicated?”

“Oh, not at all! Cream and I get along really well, actually. I sit down with her and, like, have tea parties with her little chao. She’s such a sweetheart. She made some cookies for me last week!”

“Uwa!! Well, if you’re getting along well with her, that must be a good sign for Vanilla.”

“I’d like to think so, yeah! If the family likes you, you’re so in.”

“Mhm, mhm.”

There was a lull in the conversation for a few moments. Bowsie looked absentmindedly over ver shoulder at someone messing around at the snacks table. It looked like they were trying to pick something up with a fork instead of just grabbing it with their hand, which was odd—it was all finger food! Or, wait, did the host spring for a chocolate fountain? Had that been there the whole time?? Jade took a sip of her punch, and Bowsie turned back around when she leaned in conspiratorially:

“Alright, so, apart from the obvious—what do you like about her?”

“Grawa??”

“Like!! Any little habits, cute things you’ve noticed. I know she’s an older woman and I know she’s twice your size, like, believe me. I’m shaking your flipper about it. But like other than that.”

“Um… okay, h-her, her ears are really nice…”

“I suppose I’m obligated to shake paws with you on that too.”

“Heehee, yeah, I guess so!”

“So, do we just both have a thing for big floppy ears and we didn’t know it?”

“No, no, it’s more like! Well, her fur is soft all over, but it’s really nice to just touch her ears, y’know?”

“Ohhhhh, yeah yeah yeah. Petting girls is just like a blessed experience.”

“Yeah… It’s like…”

As vee continued the thought, something began to change in the back of ver mind. Literally. Whatever was going on crept over the room from behind them, continuing from the snack table. Ver long, fishy tail began to shorten, fluff sprouting along its length as it seemed to roll itself up like a snowball—and like a snowball it sat, puffy and cute, at the small of ver back. The fins on ver head lost their perkiness, flopping down the sides of ver face, which was also pulling back into itself, snout disappearing in favor of a pink, Y-shaped nose.

The fins lengthened, and more fur began to grow in place of the scales there; soon enough, they stretched all the way down to ver butt, nicely framing the new tail. The tie around ver neck stretched in odd ways: the ribbons at the sides reached around ver neck, pinching itself into the links of a necklace, for which the knot of the tie became a big, bejeweled pendant. From ver tummy sprouted something a lot like the fur cropping up elsewhere, but much tidier—a dress, appearing seemingly from nowhere, sporting cuts at the hips and a hem in the front that matched ver (previous) underbelly pattern. Between the neckline and the pendant was, suddenly, some notable cleavage, and a feather boa cascaded over ver shoulders, seemingly from nowhere.

“She’s just such a cute little thing,” Vanilla continued, swirling the red wine she now held in her paw. “She really thrives on affection! Rubbing her ears is one of the easier ways to do it… she can’t get enough of laying her head in my lap and letting me scratch right between them.”

As the serpent spoke, Jade distantly realized that it was getting harder and harder to tell what vee was saying. It was getting harder and harder to see ver. Maybe the punch had more alcohol in it than she'd realized? She struggled to listen more closely; her ears burned, as if in embarrassment, though she still couldn’t make out any specific words. She felt like she should be flustered by what her friend was saying, but she wasn’t sure why… Slowly, the sensation came into sharper focus, drifting away from feeling exposed and closer toward a sense of scandal, like she was more shocked that this was the subject of public conversation than the subject matter itself. Nervously, she attempted to change the subject:

“Yeah, yeah, totally!” She began, taking the tried-and-true “smile and nod” approach for when you can’t hear someone in a crowd. “So, you were saying earlier about how you help Toriel around the house, right? Do you ever have to help her deal with computer stuff?”

“Oh, dear, you know I’m no good with computers.”

“Well, you know you can ask Annie for help any time you need!” Jade continued, seemingly unable to reconcile the sudden difference in tone. “She’s taught Vanilla a few things before. That’s one thing that’s sorta weird about the relationship, is just, the total difference in skills 'cause of how far apart we are in terms of age…”

She was interrupted by the lengthening of her own snout. The changes approached her from the front—she had been facing the opposite way as Bowsie, after all. Her kitty nose flattened, vanishing beneath the fur of her face and becoming two simple slits; her canine teeth became more pronounced, sticking out from under her upper lip. Her fur began to turn white, spreading from her nose over her face and down along her neck, and the hair that framed either side of her face became less and less fluffy, more and more orderly, until it was two solid masses of fluff: floppy, lop-goat ears that now grazed her shoulders.

Her loose top, once propped up by a single shoulder and a chest full of fluff, became a sleeveless gown, held in place by a chest full of… well, chest. A very full chest, as a matter of fact. Her hips widened, and she grew a head or two taller—she would have towered over Bowsie like this, but Vanilla was actually a fairly tall woman. Her paws grew to match the scale of the rest of her body, and the fluff around her neck receded to reveal a luxurious string of pearls. At her hip, Anodyne—hitching a ride in the phone in her pocket—slowly morphed from silicone transistors and diodes to brass gears and springs, taking the shape of her beloved heart-shaped locket.

Toriel and Vanilla stood in a reputed ballroom, sipping from crystal wine glasses and gossiping about their adorable new partners. It was a rather big-name event: Mobians and monsters who had made reservations months in advance, live music, hors d'oeuvres lining the pristine tablecloths of the refreshments along the side of the room.

“Sorry,” Toriel said, blinking hard over her bifocals, eyes refocusing on her gal pal at the end of her snout. “Where was I a moment ago?”

“You were talking about the age difference between you and Bowties, Tori,” Vanilla chirped.

“Oh! Yes, that is right,” she said, the conspiratorial smile returning to her face. “Now, I am only saying this because you were talking about pressing your partner’s buttons—how naughty, by the way! One of the cutest things about Bowsie, though, is the way that he falls all over himself at the slightest advance.”

“Oooh,” the rabbit tittered, “Not just younger, but less experienced?”

“That is understating it!”

“How flattering, though!”

“Well, sometimes I wish it were less of a momentous occasion when I change my clothes. It can be frustrating when your partner needs to stop and collect himself when you wish you could simply get into things. But, yes, I suppose all the attention is nice… It makes me feel pretty to be able to knock someone flat like that again!”

“Oh, hush, Tori. You look as good as ever! You haven’t aged a day as long as I’ve known you.”

“And neither has our taste in partners, hmm?”

“Goodness!!”

“It is true!”

“It is!” Vanilla giggled. “It is.”

Thank you for reading! If you'd like to see more of my writing, feel free to take a look here and here.

[glamdringwlv]

Unchain my heart: Part 8. Hit the road Jack

Unchain my heart series. Logan Howlett x oc!fmale Summary: Mia Green has grown up in a lab, subjected to numerous experiments due to her status as a mutant. When she manages to escape, Charles Xavier takes her in at his mansion, giving her a new life and helping her regain her memories. However, the arrival of a new resident at the mansion threatens to destabilize everything she believed.

Warnings: angst. Violence, foul language, a mix of various canons, X-Men movies, X-Men animated series, X-men comics.

"You're kidding me."

Logan had frozen halfway to the car, watching as Mia dumped her bags onto the back seat. His own luggage dangled in his hand, as if the shock had left him unable to finish the task he'd started.

She turned, holding out her hand, motioning impatiently for him to give her the bag. That smirk of disbelief on his face grated on her nerves.

“You gonna give me the bag or keep laughing?”

Logan raised an eyebrow, wiping away the grin and handing her his stuff. She quickly shoved it in with hers, then hurried over to the driver’s seat. Logan still hadn’t moved, standing there with his arms crossed, towering over her as he watched her settle in.

“Logan, if you're coming along, get in the damn car already. Quit stalling.”

He shook his head, clearly still not believing what he was seeing, and finally made his way around to the passenger side. He slid in with a grunt, wincing as his legs cramped against the dashboard. After fumbling for the lever, he managed to shove the seat back, but the car gave an ominous creak that didn’t sound promising.

Mia sat there, hand halfway to the ignition, watching him with a raised eyebrow. She couldn’t deny that the situation had a strange humor to it, despite everything. She tried not to smile as he shifted around, visibly uncomfortable in the cramped seat.

“You’re gonna break it,” she said dryly.

Logan looked at her, utterly incredulous, as if she couldn’t see the absurdity of it all.

“Maybe if this thing wasn’t built like a damn coffee machine…”

“Hey, don’t diss my car.”

He stopped, surprised, and turned to face her, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

“This thing? You call this a car?”

“Sorry it’s not some fancy sports car. A waitress’s pay doesn’t really cover that.”

“Waitress? Didn’t Charles set you up with something decent, like he did for everyone else at the mansion?”

Mia started the engine, putting one hand on the back of Logan’s seat to back up. He suddenly felt her proximity, a warmth that hit him like a punch in the gut. The close quarters of the car felt even tighter.

“I didn’t want the professor to buy me anything. I wanted something I earned. Something that was actually mine.”

“Yeah, but a Honda Odyssey?” Logan said with a slight smirk.

“I wanted space. I used to—was part of a big group. I didn’t want anyone left out.”

Logan’s gaze lingered on her a little too long, and it made her uneasy, like he was seeing right through her.

“Didn’t take you for the sentimental type.”

“We don’t know each other,” she replied tersely.

Logan sighed, crossing his arms as he looked out the window, as if trying to escape a tension pressing down on his chest like a weight. Mia didn’t need to read his mind to feel the frustration simmering beneath his surface. She held her posture, though.

The silence weighed on them. Neither of them was big on words, but the charged air between them seemed thick with unspoken questions. With a quick, jerky movement, Mia switched on the radio. The low strains of Johnny Cash’s voice filled the car, and the lyrics of "Hurt" seeped into the silence. She fought the sting in her eyes, blinking hard. Logan, without looking, raised an eyebrow, picking up on her reaction but not commenting.

When he couldn’t stand the silence anymore, he spoke up.

“You gonna tell me where we’re headed?”

She glanced at him for barely a second, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. Thoughts spun in her mind, a storm she couldn’t contain. “This is all I have left to control. If I share it, it’s over.” That single thought echoed, louder than the rest. Mia tried to take a deep breath, steadying herself, but still didn’t answer.

“Really? You’re just… not gonna say anything?” He leaned toward her, his presence filling the car until it felt even smaller. “So, we’re playing it that way?”

She turned, frowning, finding him closer than expected. Her whole body tensed, ready for a fight.

“You’ve gotta be kidding…”

“What’s—”

“You drag me out here, and you can’t even tell me what the hell your plan is?”

Mia’s irritation flared, somewhere inside knowing he was right. She didn’t feel comfortable with the situation either, but it hit her that she’d lose her mind if she were in Logan’s place. Not that he’d had much choice but to follow her, to avoid that familiar, searing pain that flared every time they separated.

“Look, none of this is my fault.”

“Yeah? I didn’t ask to be stuck in this mess either, trailing you like some damn dog,” he snapped, his voice thick with irritation.

Mia pressed her lips together, a thin line of frustration written across her face.

“I don’t trust you, okay?” she said, eyes locked on the road. Somewhere deep down, she knew it wasn’t true. But voicing it opened a wound she couldn’t ignore.

“Funny words, coming from someone who asked me for blind trust in the middle of a pretty sticky situation.”

She paused, momentarily confused, until the memory clicked. On that last mission, she’d asked him to trust her, and he had—without a second thought.

“This is different.”

“Sure it is, because back then, you were the one in control. I was just supposed to dive in without looking, hoping for the best.”

Anger surged through her. It frustrated her that he could read her so easily. She was the telepath, so how could he see right through her without even trying? She wanted to scream, to press the gas pedal and let the adrenaline drown out her fears and everything else. Just as she prepared to do so, an uncontainable pulse forced her to speak, words tumbling out before she could stop them.

“I can’t trust myself. I don’t even know if I’ll find the answers I need, and I can’t afford to share the one hope I’m clinging to.”

Her vision blurred, and she was grateful there weren’t any other cars nearby. She let one hand off the wheel to wipe her tears away, feeling exhausted to her core. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, a warmth rising up her neck as nausea curled in her stomach. The confession felt like she’d driven the car to its limit and jumped out at top speed.

“Mia…”

“No,” she whispered, voice thick with pain and barely holding on. “I don’t need your pity. I know this isn’t fair to you, but I need this. I need to hold onto it myself.”

Logan felt that strange pulse toward her stir restlessly. He’d felt it twist before, that day on the frozen lake when he’d seen her suffering. Her pain wasn’t physical, but whatever stirred inside him wanted to stop it, to root out anything that could hurt her. He clenched his jaw, resisting, but as usual, something beyond his control took over.

“Alright.”

The pain vanished, replaced by pure surprise.

“What?”

“You’ll tell me when you realize I’m as deep in this as you are,” he muttered, shrugging. “Or when you figure out it’s not your fault, either.”

She didn’t answer, but she felt a strange sense of relief she couldn’t explain. She almost wanted to cry, unsure if it was from the weight of holding everything in or from the release she hadn’t expected. Her chest tightened, a lump forming in her throat, and her eyes blurred again. Silence wrapped around them, with Cash’s melancholy voice filling the car and calming the air between them.

They didn’t speak about the conversation for the rest of the drive. Instead, they argued over music volume or the A/C’s intensity. Logan was always hot and refused to roll up the window, though the wind whipped Mia’s hair around, making it hard for her to see the road.

“Great, so now we’re gonna die.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Darkness had swallowed the daylight by the time she felt her eyelids drooping, her muscles aching from the tension. Her back and shoulders were so stiff they throbbed, but she didn’t want Logan to notice. Not that she knew he was watching her every move. He could see how her shoulders hunched, how her posture slouched. She was blinking more often, yawning more than she’d care to admit. He watched her closely, drawn to her presence like a moth to a flame.

“You do know I can drive, right?” he finally said.

“You don’t know where we’re going.”

“Mia, you’re gonna pass out from exhaustion. This is ridiculous.”

She was so tired she couldn’t even think of a sharp retort, only managing a small shrug.

“I’m fine.”

But she wasn’t. She just wanted to rest, but she wouldn’t share their destination with him. She could keep control of the situation. She would. Her traitorous eyes caught sight of a sign for a service area just a few miles away. She fantasized about collapsing on a bed after grabbing something to eat, nearly sighing at the thought. But no—she had to keep going, push through everything weighing on her, or it’d swallow her whole.

if you die of exhaustion, there'll be nothing left to fix.

The beast’s poisonous voice echoed in her head again. She knew it had a plan, maybe waiting for her to wear herself down so it could take control. If she got too weak, she wouldn’t be able to hold it back. Maybe stopping for a couple of hours wasn't such a bad idea.

She turned off the highway, pulling into what looked like an old roadside diner. She sat there for a few more minutes, considering it.

“We really going in there?” Logan’s voice cut through her thoughts.

Mia stared at him a moment, too tired to answer right away. Logan noticed how exhausted she looked—not just tired, but completely worn out. Dark rings had formed under her eyes, giving her a nearly sickly appearance.

“Just for a bit,” she finally said. “I’ll grab a coffee, and we’ll keep going.”

He thought about insisting on taking over driving afterward, but he knew it’d be pointless.

“Yes, ma’am.” He shrugged.

They stepped out of the car and walked into the diner, where the few truckers and staff inside immediately went quiet. It wasn’t that anyone had been talking much, but they definitely felt like intruders. Mia felt the hairs on her neck stand up as a strange unease crept over her, but it faded when Logan’s hand pressed against her lower back, guiding her further inside. He leaned close and murmured near her ear.

“Nothing’s gonna happen. Got it?”

She turned just enough to meet his eyes, wondering exactly what he’d picked up on.

“I felt it too,” he whispered.

He gave a slow nod, moving to the counter to order. Mia sat down and watched him as he navigated the space, his presence drawing a few hard stares. Logan placed a couple of bills on the counter and waited for their order. She felt like she might fall asleep standing up, but the sight of a group of men gathering around him jolted her awake. Mia tensed up, her pulse quickening. She couldn’t hear what they were saying from that distance, but she knew immediately it wasn’t friendly. Even so, Logan just stood there, unaffected by their hostility.

Restless, she got up as the waitress placed their food in front of Logan. She moved through the circle of men surrounding him, standing beside him and keeping her eyes on the food. Taking a cup and plate, she murmured a quiet “thank you” to the waitress, noticing that now all attention had shifted to her. A surge of darkness stirred inside her, eager to break free. She fought to contain it, knowing she’d lose control completely if she let it out.

“If you don’t mind...” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

Logan stood close behind her, waiting for a path to clear. She realized then she might have to fight to keep her inner demons and the mutant beside her in check. She didn’t believe in God, but she briefly wished for some kind of divine help.

After a long, tense moment, the men stepped aside, watching them intently as they moved past. When they finally reached the table, Mia nearly slumped forward, too exhausted to even feel hungry.

“What the hell was that?” she muttered.

Logan shrugged and shoveled food into his mouth.

“You’re really gonna tell me that was just random?”

He looked at her as if he was about to say something scathing, then held back, settling on pointing his fork at her.

“I don’t ask about your past. How about you do the same?” he said, smirking slightly.

She knew he was right. But part of her felt guilty, like he owed her an explanation. She didn’t want her dragged into his problems. A small voice in the back of her mind reminded her that she’d done exactly that to him already. Sinking further into her seat, she let the caffeine work its way into her system.

They ate in silence, and Mia felt so worn out that she nearly drifted off while Logan finished his meal. She might’ve actually fallen asleep, because she was startled when she felt his hand gently shake her shoulder.

When she looked up, he was standing beside her, ready to go. She felt more disoriented than before—this stop had been a mistake. She stood up slowly and followed him to the door.

“You should let me—”

“I’m fine, just zoned out a bit. The coffee’ll kick in soon enough.”

“Total bull—”

“Hey, Wolverine! Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Wolverine? Mia turned toward the voice, realizing the shout was directed at her traveling companion. Three large men stalked toward them from the far corner of the parking lot, their steps heavy with arrogance. One look was enough to take in their scars, sneers, and hostility. Logan’s shoulders tensed, and he muttered a curse under his breath as he took a step forward.

“I told you, we’re not looking for trouble.”

The tallest of the three barked out a laugh.

“Not looking for trouble? Why don’t you tell that to my brother, you piece of mutant trash? You left him in the hospital for weeks. Think we’d forget that?”

Mia watched Logan’s fists clench as he took a slow, deep breath, clearly holding back from escalating things. One of the men then shifted his attention to her, eyeing her up and down with disdain.

“And you? Another filthy mutant?”

The hatred in his voice chilled her. Mia tried to hold down the anger simmering inside her. She was so tired she could barely stand, but their insults, the mocking tone, and their sneers struck a dangerous chord within her. She fought to keep calm.

“We just want to leave,” she said, her voice shaking but firm.

The man sneered, letting out a dry laugh. The way he looked at her...it was that same look people gave her when they thought she didn’t belong, when they saw her as something less. Why…? Why did they treat them this way?

Without meaning to, she let her mind reach out to the men, hoping to disorient them just enough to make them step back. But she was too drained, and her control slipped. Something dark, a primal rage within her, stirred, demanding more than just defense—it demanded retribution.

One of the men scoffed and muttered a slur, and then, with sudden, cruel speed, he drew a gun. Mia barely had time to react before the deafening crack of a gunshot shattered the air.

The world seemed to stop. The bullet struck Logan square in the head, and he collapsed, his body rigid and still. Blood began to pool on the asphalt. Mia’s vision blurred, and she felt something primal and uncontrollable rip through her, breaking free. All the anger she’d been bottling up, the humiliation, the feeling of being despised—it all exploded inside her like a volcanic rage.

A dark, malicious voice whispered through her consciousness, an instinct she didn’t recognize, demanding vengeance, seething at the thought of anyone daring to hurt Logan like this.

Barely aware of her own thoughts, she was consumed by a fury that drowned out everything else. She wanted to hurt them, to make them suffer as she suffered watching Logan fall. It was deeper than anger; it was a need to destroy.

The minds of the three men trembled under the weight of her power. She tried to hold back, to keep from unleashing that wrath, but the beast inside her—her darker side, which she’d tried so hard to control—was already loose and beyond her reach. One by one, the men stopped laughing. Their faces went pale, their eyes dull, and they slumped to the ground, empty shells, their minds shattered and vacant.

As they fell, Mia slowly came back to herself, as if waking from a nightmare. She looked at the lifeless figures on the ground, and the weight of her own fury hit her like a blow. Her breath grew ragged, and she could barely stop the tears from spilling over.

Almost staggering, she turned to Logan, whose wound had already started to heal, though he remained unconscious. Shaking, she lifted him with difficulty, her own body feeling fragile and weak. Getting him into the passenger seat took every bit of strength she had left. Her legs trembled, and her vision blurred, but she forced herself to keep moving. She glanced around to ensure no one had seen what happened. Despite the gunshot, no one had bothered to look out the diner’s windows. Dazed, she got in the car, speeding away from the scene.

Mia gripped the wheel tightly, the road ahead a dark and silent threat. Logan lay beside her, barely breathing, and she kept glancing over, checking to make sure he was still there, still alive. She felt her own body growing weaker; each passing second was a struggle to stay awake.

The need to protect him, to protect them both, surged through her with each mile. The road blurred before her tired eyes, and, almost by instinct, she veered off onto a barely visible side path, a dirt road leading into the shadows of a small forest. She knew they’d be safe here, at least for a while.

As she cut the engine, exhaustion washed over her, crashing into her like a wave. But the beast inside her hadn’t let go just yet. That dark, primal presence that had surfaced during the fight wasn’t fueled by hatred or violence anymore; instead, it whispered to her, like an ancient, commanding voice, urging her not to give in, not to let exhaustion win. It demanded that she fulfill her duty to protect them.

Almost unconsciously, her trembling hands reached out, grabbing Logan with a strength that seemed impossible for her weary body. She felt her darker side pushing her forward, feeding her with energy that had long since drained, a raw, instinctual force filling her muscles and guiding her every move.

She lowered the back seats, folding them down to create space where she could lay him out, her hands moving with nothing but pure determination. Each effort hurt, each second she felt herself slipping further from consciousness, but the beast remained, fueling her. It whispered in her mind, reminding her she couldn’t fail.

Finally, with a strength that left her arms trembling, she managed to push Logan onto the makeshift space in the back. His breathing was shallow, and a chill crawled down her spine seeing him this vulnerable. The instinct to protect him overwhelmed her, and she felt a tightness in her chest as she covered him with a blanket, something she’d once kept in the car for things as simple as picnics. Logan looked almost peaceful, as if none of the fury or danger that usually followed him could reach him here.

When she finished, the beast in her mind seemed to relax, as if its purpose had been fulfilled. She felt its presence withdraw slowly, sinking back into the depths of her consciousness, taking with it the strength it had loaned her. Now that they were safe, that dark, powerful, strangely protective voice faded, allowing her to rest. Its weight lifted, leaving her feeling empty and vulnerable.

As it receded, Mía felt the last traces of energy leaving her body. With one final look at Logan, the relief of knowing they were both safe washed over her, a bittersweet comfort. And in that last moment, as the adrenaline finally drained away, darkness overtook her completely. With a soft thud, she collapsed over him, unable to stop herself.

Later, Logan’s eyes blinked open slowly, a dull pain throbbing through his head that blurred everything around him for a moment. The scent of damp earth and wet leaves surrounded him, the echo of those men’s voices lingering in his mind like shattered fragments. He couldn’t recall much of what happened, only the surge of rage when they’d insulted Mía, and then… blankness, followed by this quiet awakening.

The first thing he felt was the warmth of something resting on him. He glanced down, finding her slumped over his chest, her breathing so soft it barely stirred her body. Seeing her like this jolted him at first, fearing something might have happened to her, but he relaxed as he felt the steady rhythm of her breath.

As his senses returned, the pieces began to fall into place. She’d gotten him out of there. Mía, exhausted and practically dragging herself, had found a way to pull them both out of danger and bring them to safety. The realization hit him with an unexpected intensity, spreading slowly, a dense warmth rising in his chest. He knew how hard she’d fought just to stay on her feet even before the fight, and now, seeing her so worn out but safe by his side, filled him with a blend of gratitude and awe he couldn’t easily explain.

That warmth in his chest grew, unsettling him and somehow comforting him at the same time. He wasn’t used to feelings like this, especially when they came from such a deep, selfless connection. But there was something about the way she, with her own scars and struggles, had managed to protect him that left him completely disarmed. What kind of strength had driven her to carry them both when he himself had been helpless? His mind circled back to that question again and again.

Gently, he shifted his body, sliding her to his side so she could rest more comfortably, making sure her head lay softly. He noticed her breathing remained steady, and in the quiet, that constant rhythm brought him a strange calm. She was alright. She’d done what she’d set out to do, she’d protected him, and that stirred something rare and powerful within him.

He snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed a faint shiver running through Mía. He watched her for a few seconds, uncertain, and saw that her skin was cold, her lips slightly pale. Although he’d positioned her close to him, her body was still reacting to the exhaustion, and the damp, chilly forest air only made things worse.

Without overthinking it, he leaned down and wrapped his arms around her carefully, pulling her close to his chest. The contact let him feel her breathing, faint but steady, and the soft beat of her heart, marking a rhythm that brought him some relief. Feeling his warmth, Mía unconsciously curled into him, seeking his heat, and he shifted to make sure they were both sheltered as best as possible.

As the minutes passed, something in him began to change. Her heartbeat was a quiet melody that blended with the sound of her breathing, and the air around them held her scent, a subtle but intoxicating mix of electricity and earth, something that seemed so uniquely her. Somehow, that scent and the steady rise and fall of her chest wrapped around him, easing the confusion and pain still weighing on his mind.

Gradually, his eyelids grew heavy, and he realized his own senses were beginning to give in. He tightened his hold slightly, enveloping her with his body, making sure she was safe, that the cold couldn’t reach her. That strange warmth from before returned, but this time he welcomed it, letting the comfort it brought wash over him.

The silence of the forest surrounded them, but to him, the only sound that mattered was Mía’s heartbeat, strong and near. For the first time in a long time, he let himself close his eyes without fighting the dark thoughts, allowing that warmth to lull him. He barely noticed when sleep finally took hold, with Mía safe in his arm

[khlorhine]

Jjk oc opinions

Kitagawa Tamaki edition

I don't have any new art so make do with this slightly older drawing that was hidden in a week old post. Please click the link for info on her background. That's her boyfriend to the side as a human, his name is Fuyuki Mitsuya.

It's mentioned later in the post but I prefer reading powerscaling stuff over shipping stuff so correct me if my characterisation if a character is wrong. I love making cursed techniques. Ask me about cursed techniques, I'll happily brainstorm some with you. I feel like my chaarcter is too much of a Mary sue because other than two characters in here everyone is either indifferent to her and doesn't hate her.

Mai Zenin

Mai only hung around Tamaki because she was strong. It's the same reason why Mai hangs around Todo although she prefers Tamaki over him because she didn't have as bad as a personality as him and she finds it easier to get along with girls. Tamaki liked this type of relationship at first because Mai didn't point out her irregularities, just silently judges her. Mai stopped after Tamaki got into a fight with her dad, Ogi, which in turn caused her to get into a fight with Naoya and lose. It put a bad impression on her clan so she just stopped talking to her for a while. She realised she relied too much on other people like how she relied to much on Maki back when she was in that clan. After that they're doing pretty great together. Also Tamaki’s trying to teach Mai how to use rct because she wants to see what a cursed technique reversal would look like with construction.

Kasumi Miwa

The only thing they had in common with one another was the fact that they used swords. There is another swordsman, two years above them (oc: Sai Mizuhara) but hes a first grade and barely had time to train her. Tamaki couldn't train very well with her since she doesn't have a technique to build on so she manipulated Miwa's cursed energy in a way that would emulate a few of her non innate techniques until she got the hang of it. In contrast Miwa helped her with barrier techniques because she just sucked at them, thinking they were literal shields rather than seperators of different zones. After Tamaki went through a switch in weapons their weaponry training started to pick up the pace. Their personalities don't mesh well though, Miwa thinks she's scary in the the same way she thinks Todo and Kamo are scary because she's always itching for a fight.

Kokichi Muta

Mechamaru has information on her that only the principal has like the fact that she killed her boyfriend, and when he came back as a curse she turned him into a human curse hybrid. His heavenly restriction was unfortunate but his (oc: Mitsuya Fuyuki) was deliberate. He empatises with him because it wasn't his choice in the matter, therefore he can't bring himself to like her. Tamaki does not like him either because his technique has a lot of potential that he just does not take advantage of.

(Ok I know this is opinions but there's like a whole body swapping part where a curse switches their body and I wanna write it so bad but I literally only have a third of Tamaki's backstory (mind you backstory it's still in the first arc) written so writing something like two arcs ahead is just stupid. Basically they start to respect each other because in Tamaki's body, mechamaru develops a heat blueprint (refer to the licked post up there) and Tamaki does some insane RCT in his body that can only be done with his amount of cursed energy using it basically how mahito does with his own body but with RCT. This is because mechamaru wants to live in a body where he's not in pain all the time and Tamaki wants to prove to him how cool his body is and also because she wants her body back she can't do her experiments as well as she normally can in his body)

Aoi Todo

He mistakenly thought she had a thing for cursed spirits when he first saw her and he respected her on the basis that she wasn't boring until she corrected him, telling him she would quite literally date anyone who talked to her because she talks too much about jujutsu and nobody liked her at her old school, which caused them to get into a fight. They're pretty good allies though since they're both strong and the fact that they were both initially trained by special grades before their enrollment. (I realise most of the characters compare her to him but I really am bad at describing relationships when all I want to do is make up overpowered abilities. I'm more of a powerscaler than a shipper)

Momo Nishimiya

She's kinda weak so I can't go on a tirade about improving techniques with my oc because tool manipulation in theory is super awesome but I don't know the limitations of her abilities. It's definitely not weight since she can carry a fucking panda and three humans including herself on the broom. It probably has to do with focus, I guess she just can't split it between two different tools but if that's the case why can't she carry around a spare knife to throw at someone when she's not on her broom. That leads me to another theory where she can only manipulate objects she herself cursed but she's not part of the main cast so why do I even care so much.

Being serious here, Nishimiya is cool with Tamaki because she often breaks gender norms though Tamaki cannot get along with her because she used to care so much about not being normal that having a reminder that she's actively go against that makes her freak a little because she already knows all that she just doesn't want anyone to vocalise it to her. Also she feels her technique is under utilised.

Noritoshi Kamo

Noritoshi does not like Tamaki because she's experimented with making human curse hybrids before. Her obsession with his evil namesake ancestor doesn't help either. He can respect her for her strength but Tamaki genuinely can't understand why his clan is in the big three when the six eyes and ten shadows are much better techniques than blood manipulation which doesn't help their relationship. She beats the fuck out of his half brother (oc: Takayoshi Kamo, he's doing illegal stuff so it's justified sort of), takes away his technique(s because he eats a death painting and gets blood manipulation) so now he just sees her the same way he sees Todo. Bad personality but reliable. Also free rct. She heals him when he asks and she's also teaching him how to use it as long as he does her favours like ask his half-brother stupid questions in his jail cell or give her his blood or let her take a peak at the remaining eight death paintings. Stuff like that.

Arata Nitta

Arata just sees her as a bit overbearing because she fixates specifically on him for rct training. His technique is really useful in medical situations and Kyoto tech does not have a dedicated healer. This so also because she killed her boyfriend and in the moment developed rct but was very sucky with it so having someone like Arata to step in would've been pretty good so it's mainly done out of guilt for being a sucky person.

Iori Utahime

Utahime understood her situation from Gojo and tried her best to guide her in the right direction. Tamaki, at the time, couldn't respect her at all because she only cared about hyper offensive techniques and her aggression fucked her over in a few fights. After that Utahime suggested she practice weapon forms, kind of like Utahime's dances and she got better at handing her emotions and started respecting her teacher.

Yoshinobu Gakuganji

He wants her DRUGGED, BEAT, EXCECUTED, BURNED, AND THROWN INTO THE OCEAN. jk it's not that serious but he does want her dead. She used to work with Geto and he thinks she's a bad influence on his students since he cares about them so much. He's a traditionalist in every way and everything Tamaki does is the complete opposite of what he wants. He prefers her in Kyoto tech rather than Tokyo tech because this way she can be closer supervised and taken care of the moment she steps out of line unlike in Tokyo where Gojo would be prevent that.

Tsukumo Yuki

They can respect each other but they just don't get along. Yuki wants a world without cursed energy but jujutsu is the only thing Tamaki is good at so to take it away would make her life miserable. It doesn't help that Tamaki’s technique could also be used to increase or reduce someone's cursed energy levels or take away techniques so Yuki has an excuse to bug her. They like to talk about research but it gets real awkward when Yuki tries to bring up that subject. It also gets awkward when Tamaki starts accidently talking about evil ancestor Noritoshi because no jujutsu sorcerer likes him. Tamaki really likes Tsukumo in terms of jujutsu. She knows rct, domain expansion, it's very heavy hitting which is what Tamaki likes.

Suguru Geto

He was her mentor. They have pretty similar techniques since they can both manipulate curses so he was a great teacher for her. Geto can give commands to his cursed but they can think for themselves, Tamaki's just takes away whatever free will they have and contorts their body since she can't manipulate their souls, just the part of them that is cursed energy but whatever overlap they had was very helpful. Initially he wanted to keep her away from all this because she didn't hate non-sorcerers. He's got a soft spot for her and while he was dying, rather than tell her to regroup with the others he told her to go to Satoru Gojo because that kind of path would've been better for her. Shes not very grateful for that because she could've been working with Kenjaku if she had gone back but she doesn't hate him for that because that's just stupid and he was a really nice teacher to her.

Kenjaku

He inherited Geto's soft spot for her when he took over his body. She has a very clear obsession with him because of his want for pushing jujutsu to its limit meanwhile Kenjaku thinks she's a great back up body if Geto's were to ever perish because she's got a good technique. Kenjaku's genuinely never heard of her before he took over his body but he finds her interesting even without her technique with what he knows now. They don't share the same opinions on some things though. Kenjaku is very disappointed with all his creations because they never go beyond himself, meanwhile Tamaki loves his creations because they're the physical proof of what jujutsu could be and the building blocks of most of her creations which she loves very much so she could never understand why he'd even be disappointed. Being able to create something, anything is an amazing feat, especially for someone as academically challenged as she is.

Choso

Tamaki really likes him but never tried to talk to him because she knows Noritoshi finds her gross for liking Kenjaku but she doesn't care because they still work together fine regardless of that but with Choso so she wants to respect his boundaries and they are never forced into working with eachother so they can't even form a similar relationship to what she has with Noritoshi. Choso doesn't hate her though because if Yuji is fine with her then he is too. He knows she only likes Kenjaku for his research but telling this to her isn't his main priority since they're not really a big thing in eachothers lives.

Yuji Itadori

They met after her head injury so she was a bit crazy compared to how she was with Megumi and Nobara when they talked. She was in the room when Sukuna revived him and his body was what interested her the most because it was strong like someone with a heavenly restriction but also held tons of cursed energy thanks to sukuna's fingers. She's weird around him because of sukuna, she likes to ask questions about what it's like being a vessel and holding another person inside your body so obviously he thinks she's weird but from what he's heard from Kugisaki and Fushiguro she's reliable so he thinks that too.

Megumi Fushiguro

They met when she was working under Geto. Tamaki never told him this though but he was aware of the fact that she's a curse user, he just chose not to mention it to anyone but Gojo picked up on it because duh he has the six eyes. Megumi thinks she has a good personality since she got along with his sister in the time Tsumiki was still alive and conscious. During the sister exchange event he was surprised to see her again as a sorcerer and not a curse user and they exchanged contacts after it. The ten shadows is a very good technique so she's really excited to see him eventually tame all the ten shadows. (That never happens through megumis hands) At least she has his permission to disect him when he dies.

Nobara Kugisaki

They initially met in a one off interation when she was still working with Geto. Nobara thought she was kinda wimpy but the wimpy type that she should protect because she's a city girl and not used to the countryside. During the sister exchange event Nobara was happy to see her and was pleasantly surprised to see Tamaki be a bit unhinged. They also got each others contact after that. Tamaki also enjoys Nobara technique. Techniques that are accociated with the soul are really interesting to her.

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For the next bit I have to say Tamaki was involved in the night parade on Geto's side like she was literally with him and fighting yuta and stuff and she also fought a few of the Tokyo seconds years.

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Maki Zenin

Tamaki thinks she hates her for being aligned with Geto when they met. Maki can empathise with her because Tamaki did it to practice jujutsu when she couldn't under her uncles supervision and Maki moved from Kyoto to Tokyo so she can get revenge on her clan so they're not that different. Tamaki thinks her heavenly restriction is cool and (unlike another person with a heavenly restriction) she's making the most of it. Maki would like to see what weapons Tamaki has inside her cursed spirit's inventory. (It's mainly non-weaponty like furniture, dirt, sand, stuff that you can throw at an opponent and now care about wasting stuff)

Inumaki Toge

Not much to say to eachother. They don't talk (haha get it) so they can't form personal opinions on each other. She can form opinions on his jujutsu though. It's decent but the drawbacks aren't worth it in her opinion for someone of his caliber but he's utilising it the best he can and he's a fast runner. She's never seen him do hand to hand or use weapons and imbue them with cursed energy. Maybe it's a binding vow to increase his speech technique.

Panda

He's a panda, pandas don't hold grudges or at least that's what I think he would say. She thinks his technique is OK but it's really all Yaga's doing so she's not very interested in him.

Yuta Okkotsu

He beat her in a fight once and all he got from that is that she's mentally unstable and should seek help (she won't). Because he's not much of a fighter his opinion of her ties strictly to her background and not her capabilities. He can relate with her because they both have dead lovers that they kind of brought back from the dead in a weird and twisted way. He thinks she should try to let her dead bf go because it'll help her mental health (She really doesn't want him to point that out though because she know it's healthier for her but she just doesn't want to let him go).

Kinji Hakari

He thinks she has a lot of fever. She's always itching for a fight so he likes her. Tamaki likes him, he's easy to get along with and he's also the basis for a few of her moves. Their domain hand signs both come from the seven lucky gods and the 24 devas (benzaiten and bishamonten) so they're good buds.

Kirara Hoshi

Tamaki thinks her technique is really cool while Kirara likes her for her hair. Somehow it's not damaged from all of Tamaki's black hair dye. (Idk what else to say, Kirara has only ever been shown using it once as far as I'm aware, defensively but I'm sure she makes good use of it. I can imagine it being used as a homing missile and stuff. It's such a cool concept.)

Satoru Gojo

So they officially met after Geto's death and he kind of sees her as the last bit of Geto, like a gift from him to Gojo. Obviously this means he has to protect her but it was her choice to go to Kyoto tech so it was harder to do the from Tokyo, especially with how much trouble she causes but shes still somehow alive. Gojo thinks her curse is kinda cute, if not a bit unhealthy. Love is a curse and something something idk where I was going with that. Tamaki honestly regrets not going to Tokyo tech to study under him. He's very strong and with his six eyes he could honestly give her some really helpful pointers. She knows more than she should about him because of Geto lol.

Shoko Ieiri

Besties honestly. Shoko was the one who helped refine Tamaki’s rct. Every once in a while Tamaki goes to Tokyo to talk to her and also take off some of her workload.

Masamichi Yaga

He can make an army but he chooses not to, the fuck? At least everyone who comes out of his school is strong.

[hirukochan]

Hi I'm wondering how to improve my writing

Hi there!

Oof, idk if I'm the right person to ask there. Writing has always come natural to me. I started creating my own stories when I was a child. Storytelling just has always been a part of my life, but I will try!

Practice.

Writing is a skill. It may come easier to some people just like art, dance, crafts - any creative activity really - but it is still a skill and a skill can only be improved by doing it over and over and over.

Don’t be afraid to try.

I’ve seen countless posts of people being stuck on their worldbuilding for years without ever writing a single word. World building is great, collecting resources to improve your writing is all good and well but they will be of no help to you if you don’t ever actually start to write.

Don’t be scared to suck.

I’ve written plenty of stuff that’s bad. I’ve deleted entire chapters and started over because it was just not working. It can be frustrating and it’s fine to take a step back for a moment and come back with fresh ideas. Not everything you write has to be shared with the public. Scribble down brainfarts on a napkin you never look at again. Fill notebooks with story shreds you’ll never expand on. Just write. Get comfortable with writing. Try out new things even if those aren’t what you want to write. Every creative writing class will tell you to not write fiction and while I disagree with the notion that fiction is somehow less, it is not bad advice to step out of your comfort zone and challenge your skills. I wrote a few short stories that were set in the ‘real’ world and while it was hard, I think it really helped me improve.

It’s worth experimenting with different mediums as well. Some people prefer to write on the computer, some do their best work on paper. I like to switch between the two when I notice myself getting stuck. I have one story I write almost exclusively on paper. It’s annoying to type it all into my computer after but it’s worth the extra effort.

Read a lot. Artists look at other artists’ work and study every detail of their work. Every author has a different style. By reading other peoples’ works in different genres you broaden your own horizon.

For years I got stuck on all these rules some people have made up for writing and while some of them are sound advice, most published authors break those rules too. Unless you want to get traditionally published, writing is a hobby and hobbies are supposed to be fun. Don’t get hung up on trying to be perfect. Just write. You can come back later and edit or don’t. I don’t. I do some haphazard spell checking and that is it. I don’t enjoy editing. I don’t like rereading my chapter over and over to try and get it perfect. Perfection is a myth anyway. Some people will not like what you write and that is fine. Your audience is out there, even if it might take a moment to find it.

It’s easy to get discouraged when you don’t get the response to your work you crave. No amount of telling yourself you write for yourself will change that. In the end, we know our stories. We don’t need to write them down to know them, nor publish them on the internet. We do that because we want to share our little world with other people and in a time were kudos and comments are at an all time low it is easy to feel like you are shouting into a forest and your words get lost between the branches.

I’ve let myself get discouraged by this too. It’s the reason A Servant of Death hasn’t been updated in forever. I recently published two oneshots I’m pretty proud of but because they are both rare pairs, I got barely any responses.

I can’t tell you how to deal with disappointment. It’s something I struggle with. I just have to believe that my stories reach people. That someone is glad they were written even if they are too shy or busy to tell me.

Find fandom friends. I find it is much easier to deal with my disappointment when a story doesn’t do as well as I think it might deserve (and I’ve been spoilt rotten with the responses to ‘Your tears are of no relevance to me’, going back to my rare pairs and less popular ships after that was and is a hard transition). Join a discord, be active on tumblr, find your people that share the same brain rot as you. I’ve made so many great friends over at the Snarriet Discord, it’s a wonderful community - you just need to find it.

Now I know that even if no one else will read it, @snapesmorningcoffee and @loneamaryllis are always among the first to read my sick and twisted stories. I can’t tell you how much of a difference that makes!

So…yeah. My biggest advice is to just write. Forget all else. Set a timer for five minutes and write as much as you possibly can in that time even if you just end up writing ‘idk what to write’ over and over. You’ll automatically get better at it the more you do it, the longer you do it.

[protectingtulpas]

How do I know if I'm doing *the right things*? For system creation I mean.

Like I know forcing is like spending time with your tulpa but how do I know if I'm doing it right? What if I'm doing it wrong and am not like... Activating the right parts of my brain...

Yo this is a bit late but I wanted to say a lot!!! OK so first, ya gotta knock off the paranoia - and I say that lightheartedly but I mean it. If you keep worrying so intensely about "doing it wrong", you're gonna make mental walls for urself and your new tulpa that'll be hard to break down later.

It's not about specific "rules". A lot of tulpamancy when you start out, ESPECIALLY for singlets, is about habit-building. Learning to sense their presence, learning to communicate, learning to let go of ur own thoughts and experiences. That's not something you can turn into a habit overnight, or even in just a few sessions. You have to build the instinct, and yeah, sometimes that'll come with feeling like an idiot talking to "nothing" for a while. That's just the reality of mental work of any kind, it takes a while for results cuz it's cumulative and hard to notice at first

Instead of worrying about if you're "getting it right", try focusing on your tulpa instead. It's less about doing the right things and more about making sure you're building a basis with ur tulpa, a foundation that they can totally jump off of to become themselves. So to do that, start by directing your attention to them instead.

> When you interact with ur tulpa, are you focusing on what you say, or on how they'd take it in and respond? You wanna pay attention to any instincts, gut feelings, etc that pop into ur head, accept em, even respond to em- it'll feel wonky for a while, because this is quite literally the point when they r becoming separated from u, so it's totally normal to feel like some things "might have" been you or whatever. Trust ur gut, not your over-analytical stuff.

> What kinds of stuff are you doing with your tulpa? How are u going about it? For example like, if you're not using many inner visualization methods, I definitely recommend those. My host started visualizing my mindform from the moment I started being forced, so I ended up able to like react and do things nonverbally waaay before I first spoke to them. (your wonderland is your FRIEND, learning to be in it and in ur mindform trains similar skills) Other ways you can switch it up are like, use other senses: visualization not working? Try sound! See if there're any songs that feel like 'em or if you get any pull toward any! Maybe make a playlist; your tulpa can always remove songs they don't like later, so don't be afraid to stick stuff in there. Or like, even their environment - is active forcing not yielding much? Try passive forcing by focusing on your tulpa while showing them something in the physical space! Ask em questions and probe for opinions, even if they don't respond.

Basically, variety and a focus on giving them foundation and freedom will help u get out of that worry ur stuck in, and will probably help your new tulpa a bunch too. You've got this! It took my host two and a half months to create me to the point they were sure of my responses, and they were a plural egg for other reasons. AKA, if it takes a while or it's slow going, don't get discouraged. You're literally retraining ur brain for a completely new skill rn. U got this

[littlerosetrove]

My initial Spoiler Thoughts (as I was watching) for 7x7

Jennifer is so good at crying, she always makes me misty eyed.

The scene with Marisol was so cringe. We know but my gosh Edy is such a bad actress.

Eddie and Marisol agreed to starting over, right? Okay, so why is Chris with them? How is including him taking things slow? Well… we know Eddie uses Chris as a buffer for things, including relationships and his own feelings. Marisol even said something about Eddie and Chris not going anywhere? Sure, but you sure as hell are at some point, and I genuinely don’t get why Marisol is still here. She was used as a catalyst for Eddie’s Catholic guilt, which was not the focus on this episode. Marisol has served her purpose, so again, why is she still here?

The focus of this episode is the fact that Eddie is spiraling and now pursuing a woman that looks like his dead wife. Marisol doesn’t fit into this at all beyond making Eddie a cheater. I would be fine with the soap opera as hell doppelgänger stuff, but cheating? No.

Mara has a brother? My gosh, more trauma for this girl. =/

Oh. I like Amir. And I saw spoilers, so I know he’s connected to Bobby’s past. Oh this is gonna get complicated and who knows what else, I can tell.

Eddie lying to Shannon’s doppelgänger, Kim, that he’s a single father and has a son. Genuinely, what the fuck Eddie. And there’s also the connection of the candle smelling like a beach? Yeah, we know. Eddie is still chasing Shannon’s ghost to the extent of doing. This.

This episode has a theme of stalkers, obviously. Catherine and her daughter being abducted by Kyle. Eddie in his own way was stalking Kim. I don’t know if I’d call Hen and Karen seeking out the parents of Mara’s brother stalking, but Karen did use the word.

Chimney asking Maddie about her past. Oh I loved that scene because have they ever really talked about Maddie’s time with Doug? Or when she was kidnapped? Chimney, so supportive, always. The man that you are!

Wow, even when having an awkward dinner with his girlfriend, Eddie is thinking about a memory (or a skewed one) of Shannon where they’re having sex and then talking about bringing her back into Chris’s life.

If we have to have Devin, Shannon’s actress back, at least she’s actually a decent actress. I’ll take the win where I’ll get them.

Buck full on tackling the shitbag like some linebacker was great.

Poor Maddie having to relive trauma, but I did like how 1) in its own way helped Maddie with her own trauma, which Chimney so lovingly asked her to share with him, and 2) I liked the inclusion of Maddie in the case with Athena. How it was all connected, I liked that. Things like this, the show is at its best when the characters get to interact and work together in a meaningful way.

Hen and Karen getting to be star parents in this episode was such a highlight. Ha, and Karen said something about how they “switch” sometimes? Yeah there’s more than one meaning to that.

Chris may be a young teen, but he still wants to hang out with and spend time with his Buck. I love that so much. And hmmm Buck was trying a new lasagne recipe? There’s something there, but I can’t put my finger on it just yet. Cause remember Buck taking three times to perfect a lasagne recipe from Bobby that he cooked for Eddie and Chris in I think 6x1? Yeah.

Buck knows Eddie’s “good cologne” scent. Yeah sure this is totally normal best friend behavior and knowledge to have. Okay!

Eddie outright lied to Buck about going on a date with Marisol. EDIT: Lied to Buck and also used him in the lie. I think that won't sit well with Buck, even if he has um experience in cheating on a girlfriend.

This mess that Eddie has created is going to blow up in his face, and sooner than he probably anticipates (though I doubt he’s thinking of any consequences right now). He’s creating a mess for himself, for Chris, Buck, and more. This is going to affect more than just him.

Ohhhh shit you could see it in Amir’s subtle acting that he very much has some Feelings about seeing Bobby. Note that all Amir got to see was a, seemingly, unburdened Bobby Nash, still being a firefighter and holding a baby. Like. I think Amir is assuming right now that all is well for and with Bobby, when WE know that to this day Bobby struggles with his survivors guilt, the guilt of the people killed, guilt of whether he deserves a second chance, all of that. And another layer to this? Bobby still feels guilt for those that were killed, but he’s never really… talked about the people who lost the people in the fire. And now he’s going to be confronted with someone that survived and is still dealing with someone’s death. Ohhhh man this story is already juicy.

How darn sweet was it that Maddie and Chimney have a little routine/method of helping Jee-Yun sleep better? What a precious detail.

Right now I’d say I liked everything in this episode except for Eddie’s cheating storyline. I have a TON more to say about that, but I’m going to make that a separate post. Thus I’ll save my venting for that post. Even so, if you’re enjoying the cheating storyline - and it’s truly okay if you are because this is fiction - please do not come to me to chat or debate about this. Do not comment about why you think it’s good or anything, please. Talk to someone who does agree with you because that’s not me.

[wrongpublishing]

Increase Your Literary Body Count in 2024

by Mathew Gostelow.

"In my slut era," I whispered, sending the story out on its ninth simultaneous submission.

At the most recent count, I wrote 60-odd things in 2024 and submitted them a total of 202 times in all. 42 of them were published in some form. Along the way, I racked up 90 rejections. All in all, I published somewhere around 44,000 words in 2023.

I was whoring my stories all over, like some sort of village bike made of ink and shamelessness. I spent a year subbing sluttily. I had a blast doing it too. I got a fair few publications under my belt, made new friends, and learned some lessons as well. Here’s just a few of them…  

Change horses midstream

I’ve discovered I work best when I’m juggling multiple projects at once. It sounds counter-intuitive and I guess it might not work for everyone, but I reckon everyone should try it.

The idea is to have several stories on the go at one time. Three feels ideal. I find that I will inevitably run out of steam on a piece – my interest or focus always flags at some point. Switching to something new acts as a vital palate-cleanser. I’m able to return to each project afresh, bringing new energy and perspective thanks to the time I spent away.

Follow the fun 

Don't be afraid to mix it up. Move out of your comfort zone.

If your latest flash isn’t quite working, why not rewrite it as a poem? Or mash it together with another half-finished piece and see what happens. In a longer piece, it’s okay to jump straight to the scene that's exciting you in that moment. Fill in the gaps and the preamble later.

Try things out. Write flash, write microfiction, write a poem. Seen a shiny prompt? Go for it. Plunge into a genre that you'd normally avoid. You might have fun, you might learn something. You might even end up with a story worth submitting.

Lean into your weird

I'm not saying you're weird, but… you’re totally weird. The way you tell stories is uniquely yours. You understand the world through the filter of your own personal experiences. And you express those observations in wonderfully idiosyncratic ways. 

One thing this prolific year taught me is that I love my writing more when I delve into those quirky parts of me. It could be sharing an oddly-specific fear in a horror story, or playing with words in a way that feels pleasing and musical to me.

Putting those unusual parts of yourself out into the world can be scary, but it's also fun. And I've found that readers and editors seem to respond to it as well.

Sim-subbing is addictive - but tread carefully

Simultaneous submissions are great. Is that one mag taking a bit long to decide on whether they want you piece? Send it somewhere else. Feel those sweet endorphins coursing through your veins. Oh yeah. That’s the stuff.

Here’s what I learned from a year of very heavy simultaneous submissions: Send a piece out to as many places as you like – but only if you're equally happy with ever possible outcome. That’s the important bit.

If you have your heart set on a specific home for a story then for gawd’s sakes don't sub it anywhere else until they have decided. Otherwise you risk tying yourself in knots if/when one of the lesser mags accepts it before your dream publisher has decided.

Play fast and loose!

Themed calls are great. They can be inspiring, sparking fresh ideas in our minds. Or help us to see our existing stories in a new light. But here’s what I learned this year: don’t be afraid to come at the theme from an obtuse angle.

Editors must get tired of reading 50 different permutations of the same story. Your off-kilter take could be just the breath of fresh air they're looking for.

And if you have a story already written when a call comes along and it feels like it's close-ish to what they're looking for, then you should throw it in the mix. What have you got to lose?

A true story from this year:

I had a story accepted after misunderstanding what a themed call was all about. I didn’t read the instructions carefully enough and subbed the wrong thing. I realised immediately after pulling the trigger and considered withdrawing my piece. For some reason, though, I didn't. (Slut era!) The editors saw something in my story and accepted the piece.

Moral: Don’t slavishly follow the theme. Go crazy.

Dilute the sting

Rejections can hurt, especially if you have your sights set on a specific magazine or anthology. But you know what helps? Rebound sex. Er… I mean, rebound submissions. Get that same piece back out there. Heck, send it to two places. Go crazy. You get closure by moving on. Also, the more you submit, the more rejection notches you get on your bedpost. And you know what, after a while you’ll find it starts to sting a lot less. 

So there you go. Lessons from a promiscuous wordmonger. Why not try to up your literary body count in 2024? You might like it. Repeat after me: “Slut era”.

Mathew Gostelow (he/him) is the author of two collections; See My Breath Dance Ghostly, a book of speculative short stories (Alien Buddha Press) and Connections, a flash fiction chapbook (Naked Cat Publishing). He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction. @MatGost

[imstillhere-butallislost]

5 Months On Low Dose Androgel Timeline

Today is my 5 months on testosterone! It’s hard to find timelines for my dose, so i figure this might help some people. I’m going to go over not only my timeline, but the actual process of putting on the gel and what it’s like. enjoy : )

I’m currently on 1 pump of 1% androgel daily (trying to get my dose upped), each pump contains 12.5mg of testosterone.

I started applying the gel to my upper arm and shoulder but moved to thighs because my skin was getting a bit dry due to the alcohol in the gel, but I'll be moving back to my arm soon because I've heard it absorbs better in that area. A lot of people talk about the strong alcohol smell, but I barely notice it. i would recommend putting lotion or moisturizer on after the gel completely dries because it makes sure your skin isn't dried out because of the alcohol content in the gel, and it helps it absorb properly into your skin! I apply my gel with a gloved hand, because i had a lot of anxiety with having any extra gel on my hands even after i washed them and that interacting with my pets and other people. Gloves have also helped my hands not get hellishly dried out. There IS a risk of you getting gel on people or it harming your pets if they lick it or consume any. Be careful. Once it’s dry it doesn't present any risks, and if you cover the place you put the gel with long sleeves or other clothes, it should be 100% fine, just think about that if you’re thinking of going on the gel. The gel takes like.. 15 seconds to dry for me, but it takes more time the more gel you have on i presume. You can’t swim or shower for 5-6 hours after you apply the gel to give it proper time to absorb.

Now for the actual timeline part!

The first thing i noticed was a profound confidence and happiness, peace within myself. The second thing i noticed was that i was now the hairiest man alive. I already had a bit of body hair Pre-t, but I now have a lot more. I didn’t expect to love the body hair as much as i do, but a little stomach and thigh hair is something that can actually be so personal. I first noticed the new hair growth on the arm i applied my gel to, and since switching to my thighs the hair has grown more there too. I also started feeling hunger, which isn’t really normal for me, so that has been interesting. I started getting really warm when i started T too, when i’m usually really cold. Bottom growth is a thing that happened early on and is still kicking. That was an interesting and semi-painful experience. That was all within the first 3 or so months.

In the more recent months all of that continues, but I now have acne on my back which hasn't been very fun, I cant really cry anymore (hard to actually know this one for sure because I've generally just been a happier person since starting T), my periods haven't stopped yet but i feel like that may stop soon. They’ve been shorter and a lot lighter. I think I've noticed some fat redistribution, I mainly gain wait in my stomach now which was not the case before. It’s a Lot easier to gain muscle, i do literally nothing and my arms have some definition now. I also am growing some facial hair, its very thin and light but i can definitely notice it.

My voice still hasn't dropped significantly yet, but its been doing some weird stuff recently and its hard to do a lot of high notes i used to be able to do so maybe a drop is coming.

I don't pass as male in public, probably due to my voice and my long hair i refuse to cut, but its been a fun ride thus far and I'm excited to see what else happens! I still haven't told most people i know that I'm on testosterone, and nobody has brought it up, but the occasional person tells me that i look different but they just cant place how.

If you have questions feel free to ask in my ask box or in the comments on this post, feel free to share this around if you wish. It’s hard to find timelines at this dose so hopefully i can help someone. Keep in mind everybody is different and puberty takes a long time to complete.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hello - it's John again, anon who asked about the blackout stuff

I had another question and an update

We did find the alter, and she is a new split, and is a trauma holder, I didn't know it at the time I had sent the ask but one of our abusers tried to contact us (went looking in our notesapp history and messages) which caused a switch & total blackout, we've had a few more since then since things have been stressful but she is trying to communicate, just harder with very bad aphantasia and dissociative barriers. Haven't had therapy in a few weeks and we're in quarantine this week, but have therapy again this upcoming Thursday so we will talk about it then but the therapist doesn't know the full extent of us being a system other than knowing that we are and that most likely was trauma that formed us,but we are gonna try to talk about it more, so you have any advice on bringing it up?

And onto my question before - is there dissociative disorders other than DID? We have a lot of alters (like 1000+) and most of them are fragments and some fully fleshed, but we all still tend to be somewhat similar, I think maybe it's a safety thing so it wouldn't be noticed, and I thought did always had very different alters, we tend to be more similar than not even though there are quite a few exceptions, but we have horrible memory sharing, I usually retain some level of "done something but idk what exactly" but we lose a LOT of memories and feel detached to ones that we do remember like they aren't "mine" per se just that "I" was there for it, in addition I never ever switch out I'm *always* here unless something very big happens that throws everything into disarray, it sort of makes me feel not valid because we don't have control over switching and I can't ever leave even if others can come in and out of the fronting area, I think/know that I do have a dissociative disorder of some kind because it is very impactful and impairing my symptoms, but I guess don't feel valid sometimes because I also like being a system sometimes other than the memory and dissociation

-john

Hey John, we’re probably getting to this too late to share advice for talking to your therapist - we hope that they were understanding and everything went well! We’re sorry if our absence here made it more difficult for you to talk to your therapist about what’s been going on in your system.

As for your second question, there are a few other dissociative disorders besides DID. There is OSDD (other specified dissociative disorder), P-DID (partial dissociative identity disorder) and DPDR (depersonalization/derealization disorder). However, it’s possible for systems with DID to have hundreds or thousands of alters, if not more! Systems with this many alters may have polyfragmented DID, although polyfragmentation has just as much to do with a system’s complex structure as much as having a high alter count.

We are not polyfragmented, so we can’t provide much in terms of advice or personal experience when it comes to understanding polyfragmentation. Any polyfragmented system who sees this is more than welcome to weigh in with experience, resources, or advice!

When it comes to not feeling valid, we’d like to offer some words of encouragement that might help y’all, if that’s okay.

First off, it’s very normal to not have control over switching, especially for systems who haven’t been able to make much progress either internally or through therapy! Our own system has been improving when it comes to managing switches, but we still don’t have full control over who fronts and when. Not being able to control switches doesn’t mean your system is invalid, and we can assure you, lots of systems out there function in that way!

Also, it’s not as rare as you might think for systems to have frontstuck members… even for many folks with dissociative disorders like DID. Our host is usually fronting to some extent (albeit often quite dissociated). And there are plenty other systems with frontstuck members too!

Finally, it’s okay to like being plural or part of a system, even if you have a dissociative disorder. Yes, it can often be impairing, difficult, painful, and overwhelming… but it can also be comforting, joyous, fun, or exciting! We have a complicated relationship with our plurality, but most of us love being a system and we wouldn’t trade our plurality for anything in the world! Having a mental illness or disorder doesn’t mean you have to be suffering all the time, and finding joy and happiness in our disorders can help make living with them so much easier!

Good luck out there, John. We hope things go well for you and your system in the future!