#so i impulsively downloaded it again Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[ashiyn]

...should i post my cleo fancam here as well or only leave it to the clock app is the question

[olive-fics]

Studying with Abby. SFW

You missed your best gf, Abby flipping Anderson. Of course you wanted to hang out with her.. but she was studying.. whatever. she can multitask ..Right??

☆Reader is hyperactive/neurodivergent in ways (?), Abby can get annoyed and angry..., slight angst, petnames, FEM reader, comfort at end.☆

For the girls and the gays, Men leave! (please)

☆My awesome friend Ara gave me this idea so Ilysm! <3 ☆

CORRECT ME ON MY MISTAKES PLEASE!!!

"Sit still.." *Abby would groan placing her thick fingers on your hips, nudging you down into her hips. "You can't sit on my lap anymore if you keep moving peach, 'tis too distracting.." Abby would rub her nose and temples annoyed, not at you fully of course but the way you kept moving against her hips alone.

-This was probably your 4th time shifting on Abby's lap in just these past 10 minutes.

"Oh c'mon...you're hard to sit on when you study over the desk ..can't we just go lay down..? Get comfy..?"

"How the hell will I study when I'm laying down y/n." She was upset, something she never was with you.

"wh-"

"Please.. just- go sit down..I'll join you in a bit? Please let me study baby girl." Abby asked with a sigh.

As much as it hurt you, you still obliged to her command and sat down on the couch in her room. Of course you couldn't focus without being next to Abby, it made you nervous. Just sitting away from her made you anxious, that's when everything was louder and 10x intensified. The urge to bite your nails, sweat, click your tongue, crack knuckles, whatever you could fidget with was much more impulsive than usual.

Right as you decided to check your phone's time or mindlessly scroll online, it died. of course... time to do that fucking walk of shame up to Abby (who was now upset with you) and ask her if you can play piano tiles, candy crush or whatever games she let you download on her phone.

Getting up from the couch your bunny slippers shuffled across her mahogany floors with that airy "pfft" sound when the ears flipped up with each step.

"A-Abby..?" Fuck.. of course your voice was falling out. You got so nervous when Abby acted like this, which rarely happens.

Abby's office chair didn't move, instead Abby just replied short.

"Hm? what do you need."

"Can.. can I borrow your phone.. for- for games...?"

As much as Abby wanted to be angry at everything your stammering made her laugh.

"Such an Ipad kid..sure sure.." She sighed again, giving you mixed signals.

Abby handed you her Iphone, Abby had those clear cases with a little polaroid of you and her on the back encased by the plastic.

You smiled softly and ran off back to the couch bundling up under the blankets. Your fingers tapping at the screen and small sounds or music emitted from under the blankets. "Sweet!" "Tasty.." "Delicious."

As much as you were lost in Abby's screen you didn't even notice her calling your name...

"Y/n? Honey turn it down." "Y/n please, I need to finish studying.."

It was too late once you did hear her though, Abby was already on her feet marching to your place on the couch. She had pulled the blanket off of your head and gave you a small annoyed hand gesture.

"You gonna turn it down or do I have to take it from you?"

Embarrassment flushed out your cheeks into a bright red. How could you not hear her..?? You felt so stupid.

"I-I'm sorry Abs.. I- I'll turn it down.. I-.." Why were you stuttering now..? You felt so weak and little as Abby stood over you.

Abby could notice your mind rattling as you overthought the whole situation growing frustrated.

"Hey..Hey it's okay..i didn't mean to hurt your feelings love.. I'm so sorry." Abby frowned and held out her arms to you for a big hug.

With slight hesitation you still accepted Abby's hug and stuffed your face deep into her shoulders, the smell of her pine soap and hair washes filled your nose as you hugged her tightly.

"I'm almost done. Can you wait another 10 minutes?" Abby reassured you she would cuddle and chill with you as much as you wanted after. "Alright. I'm right here okay? Just wait a few." How was Abby so good at making you feel better. ughhhhhhhhh

After hearing Abby's keyboard click and her pencil dragging over her notebook for what seemed like forever, she finally got out of her office chair and looked at you with the warmest smile ever.

Abby walked over to you and draped the blanket over the two of you.

“I’m sorry Y/N. Movie night..?”

Fuck yes.?!?! Movie nights with Abby were the best. But then she hit the..

“I picked last time- what do you want to watch Pumpkin?”

God..you wanted to pick your favorite ofcourse..The muppets. (100% best movies…) but..you felt so bad for pestering her while studying so you put one of her favorite boring War movies on.

“Really..? You want to watch that..?”

Abby was kinda shocked you picked one of her favorites,but how you described it was..

“The Micheal Bay Film with the guns..and war-“

Abby put it on and kissed your forehead pulling you into her to cuddles.

“C’mon..I’m sorry about earlier..I love you..yknow that.?”

You nod and smile softly just emerging into her warmth and into the blankets because you just needed to sleep everything off,so did Abby.

“I love you princess..”

“I love you too…Abby..”

♡

HII sorry for lack of posts I cannot write cus my brain is slow.😞🔥‼️ but I have an Ellie Williams one shot or something coming up!! (Srs..) okay Goodnight :3 and thank you Ara for giving me this idea!!

[wolfjackle-creates]

Bring Me Home Arc 3 Part 2

Happy WIP Wednesday. Bring Me Home won last week's poll. But it was a close one! If you want a say in what I post next week, be sure to vote in this week's poll. ^.^

Story Summary: Danny's parents find out his secret. It doesn't go well. But he's not alone. His friend Tim Drake, better known as Red Robin, and the Young Justice will not let him suffer.

We switch to Tim's POV for this part.

Warnings: Aftermath of torture

Arc 1: AO3

Arc 2: First, Last

Previous

Word Count: 1.7k

-----

The instant Kon got the door to the lab open, Tim sprinted down the stairs. The first thing he saw was Jack and Maddie standing over a table, green ectoplasm, blood covering everything.

Then his eyes fixed on Danny. Danny, cut open and bleeding with a muzzle on while his parents looked at his insides.

He rushed forward, tackling Maddie and tearing her away from Danny. She screamed and fought back, landing one punch before Tim kicked her back a step. Then he pulled out his staff and landed a hard blow across her chest, forcing her further back.

Next to him, Cassie was taking care of Jack. He exchanged a quick glance with her and the two began herding the pair towards the wall. Away from Danny.

Behind him, Tim could hear Sam call out for Kon then a cry of pain.

“He’s still alive!” called out Kon. “I can hear both his core and heart.”

Tim couldn’t relax. Alive didn’t mean much. He put more force on his next swing of his staff, aiming for Maddie’s shoulder. But she ducked and twisted just right to get under the swing and move closer.

She slashed back with a scalpel, one still covered in Danny’s blood. Tim growled as he blocked it with his arm, the armor of his suit preventing it from reaching skin. He swung his staff again, getting her in the side hard then jerking up to hit her in the armpit.

He smiled in satisfaction when he dislocated her shoulder, causing her to drop the scalpel.

“You’ve got this all wrong!” she protested as she held her shoulder. “Jack and I are the good guys here. The ghosts, they’re all evil!”

Tim snarled. “The only evil I see here are the two so-called scientists who were torturing their own son!”

Maddie tensed at his words. “Don’t you dare say that. I’m trying to save my son from the monster that took his body.”

Tim swung again, aiming for her feet. Already distracted by the pain in her shoulder, the hit landed and she fell. He hit again and he felt her ankle break. Good, she wouldn’t be getting away.

“Why don’t you just shut the fuck up,” growled Tim.

Jack landed on the ground next to his wife, taken out by a punch from Cassie. Tim took the time to swing at him, too.

Again and again and again, he brought his staff down on them. Not stopping as they cried out in pain or as he felt more bones break under his blows. Until the time when he tried to swing down, but his staff refused to move.

He spun around, scowling, to come face to face with Cassie who had his staff firmly in her own grip.

“That’s enough, Rob. They’re down and they won’t be moving. Impulse and I will make sure of it. You need to go with the others.”

Behind her, Tim could see Sam fussing over Danny, still on the table. Bart and Tucker were at the computers trying to download as much information as they could. And Kon was staring right at him.

“Transport?” asked Tim.

Kon pulled out his phone to check. “Just arrived. Let’s go, Rob.”

Tim nodded. “Fine.” To Cassie, he said, “I want them in custody.”

She nodded. “Obviously. We all do. Impulse, Tucker, and I will take care of things here.”

“Then let’s go.” Tim stalked away from Jack and Maddie, refusing to look back. He wasn’t sure he could stop a second time.

Someone must have found a blanket and gotten it under Danny. All Kon had to do was touch the blanket, and it lifted up. Danny was held completely straight in the make-shift stretcher as Kon single-handedly used his TTK to carry him, Sam leading the way out of the lab.

The doors opened for them on the way out, Kon’s TTK again. And sure enough there by the curb was a nondescript van, engine still running.

Jazz got out the driver’s seat the instant Kon appeared in the doorway to open the back of the van.

“Bring him in here! I’ve got a bed set up,” she said.

Kon, of course, went first. But Tim and Sam were only steps behind him. Inside the van, the bench on one side had been fitted with a futon mattress to form a makeshift bed. Overhead, lights had been fitted to make sure the area was bright enough to see. Kon carefully laid Danny down then backed up so Sam and Jazz could move in.

“Keys are in the ignition,” said Jazz. “Get us away from the house, then let Sam and I patch him up.”

“You’ve got it,” said Kon who took his spot behind the wheel.

Tim shut the doors to the van and stood against the opposite side of the van. This was his first good look at Danny.

His friend was still in his Phantom form, but his jumpsuit had been torn and peeled away from his body. His chest was covered in so much blood he could barely see the wound, but the tell-tale y-incision was unmistakable.

Jazz and Sam were carefully wiping away the blood as best they could, using towels that had been neatly stacked in a box next to the cot.

Tim looked around until he saw an empty bucket. He pushed it towards the two girls. “Put the dirty ones in here.”

Kon pulled away from the Fenton house, aiming for their local out-of-town-limits rendezvous spot. “I can keep Danny from being jostled by the road. Don’t know if I can do the same for the rest of you if you’re moving, though.”

“Let’s not test it right now,” said Tim. “But we will be practicing that later. Never know when we might need it again.”

Jazz dropped her first towel and grabbed another. Her hands were shaking.

Tim knelt by her side and placed a hand on her wrist. “Let me. Right now we’re just trying to hold him together and I can do that as well as you can. He’s going to be just fine, I’ll make sure of it.”

“But I’m the one who trained with Frostbite.” Her voice cracked on a sob.

Tim grabbed the towel from her hands and used it to put pressure on Danny’s wound. “And I don’t need specialized training for this part of it.”

Jazz hesitated a moment longer, but with a last look at her brother, she spun and ran to the other side of the van. Tim listened to her muffled cries as he held the towel to Danny’s chest.

Sam shifted until their shoulders were pressed together and he leaned slightly into the touch. Neither said anything.

Soon enough, Kon was pulling off the road and the van came to a stop. The instant it did, Jazz was pushing her way into his place, two boxes in her hand. She opened one to reveal a large first aid kit, as well stocked as anything he had in his most-used safe house.

Tim took up a position at the foot of the bench and pulled out a small camera he had in his belt. He took careful pictures of all the visible wounds. Kon came up besides him and put an arm around his shoulder.

Jazz opened the second case, letting out a hiss of cold air and frost. Without hesitating, she put on two heavy duty gloves and lifted out what looked to be an ice cube.

Sam, meanwhile, was measuring out enough glowing green thread to cover Danny’s wound. Tim took another picture.

Jazz placed four ice cubes into the injury—one at the end of each cut and one where the lines intersected. Then Sam laid the thread over the wound. She muttered something and it phased into Danny’s skin without the use of a needle and pulled the injury together.

The glow faded slightly and if he didn’t know better, Tim would’ve thought they were regular stitches.

From there, they focused on cleaning off the remaining blood. The van was mostly silent—Sam and Jazz only communicating the bare minimum necessary to care for Danny. Even Tim’s camera was entirely silent, designed as it was for stealth.

As Danny was wiped clean, more and more injuries were revealed. Only years of bat training kept Tim standing and taking pictures. But his grip on the camera was much tighter than it needed to be. Kon’s fingers were digging into his shoulder almost painfully, but Tim didn’t say anything. Sam and Jazz were forcibly holding themselves together, but the odd hitch in their breath or tremble in their fingers gave them away, too.

A nasty burn spanning Danny’s left side was revealed. Tim clicked the camera, and Sam applied an ectoplasm-based ointment to it. Then Jazz covered the injury with a bandage.

The process was repeated time and again for each injury they discovered. But eventually, all the wounds were tended to. Once Jazz did a final look, she nodded with grim satisfaction.

“Superboy, could you use your powers to wrap his chest?”

“Of course!” Kon left Tim’s side to grab a roll of gauze and took up his own place at Danny’s side. All he had to do, though, was place the roll on the bed and his powers took care of everything else.

Tim wished he could do something half so useful. Next time Danny managed to get to the Realms, he was so joining him and getting his own lessons directly from Frostbite.

“Just one more thing to do,” said Jazz. She reached into the first aid kit and pulled out a small box. Inside sat a syringe filled with ectoplasm. She jammed it into Danny’s thigh and pressed the plunger.

Danny’s eyes flew opened and he let out a yell as his back arched off the bed.

Sam was already hovering over him. “Danny? How are you feeling?”

Danny panted for breath, but looked at her with a wry smile. “Pretty much the worse I’ve ever felt.” He looked from Sam to Jazz to Kon before meeting Tim’s eyes. “You came.”

“I always will,” said Tim.

-----

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I'm not an expert on emergency medicine, so I figured why not go the magical route?

Tim wishes he could help in a more hands-on way, but documenting injuries is important if you want to bring them up in court. No one knows yet if Danny will want that, but this way they have them in case they're necessary.

Tucker, Bart, and Cassie are remaining behind to bring the Fentons to JL holding cells. Tucker is the one who knows the Fenton computers best after Danny, after all.

All ready we can see some major changes from my original version. What else will change? And, more importantly, what will stay the same?

[semischarmed]

Danny

Always have to keep you guys guessing ;) so this one is veeeeery different from my normal content, but I figured I’d put something tamer to balance out the upcoming Pt. 2 to that Thread story. It’s a bit long, but I didn’t feel like keeping two concurrent multi-parters. Let me know what you think!

=============

“So, it’s the necklace?” I asked the professor at the university. It was a wonder I was able to keep up with even half of the lecture that had just transpired. 

“Something like that.” The professor replied back to our small group. “We’re all just a sea of electrical impulses. With this computer model, we can accurately track and mimic the exact electrical shocks needed to replicate a mind. Of course, the mind is so much data, the transfer-the upload needs to be instantaneous with an equivalent download- the university doesn’t give us enough grant money for computers that can store that much data, much less secure it. So, we needed biological means of storage. That’s why there’s an even number of participants”.

The room was utterly confused. For one, there was definitely an odd number of participants. Dr. Cohn was never known for dumbing down complex concepts, but even the smartest kids in class seemed stumped the past few hours. Maybe he didn’t have to go in that level of depth for his experiment.

Our group was a mix. It seemed like a sampling of the very best of the class, and a few average performers. I did find it weird they offered extra credit to students that probably didn’t need it. Sticking out like a sore thumb was Chad. He was the school quarterback, though no one was sure for much longer, as he was on academic probation. I couldn’t help but speculate with Kat, a top performer, on his placement. Combining our limited knowledge on the students in our class, and the school’s football team, we landed on this being some sort of extra credit that the university probably forced on poor Dr. Cohn. Ever the nosy one, Mackenzie piped in. “Of course they’d try to save their star quarterback. I heard 3 professors already quit trying to bring up his GPA. This is basically his last shot“.  

And then there was Danny. Part of that “very best” group. Unlike the other students in the room, he seemed to take in the professor’s whole lecture and was deep in thought. His face lay still, serene. But I could see the intelligence behind his eyes spinning to life. I always liked when he did that, like he was chewing on an idea before spitting out the most brilliant insights. Or maybe I just like how the corner of his mouth would turn up into a small smile when he finished thinking things through. I caught myself staring again, thanking my luck that no one had seen. Mackenzie laughed a little behind me. I sighed, laughing a small defeat. Almost no one had seen. 

“So it basically swaps our brains?” Danny inquired. He looked around the room, gauging our comprehension. That was when it clicked for me. He took note and let out a small smile. I smiled back. That was the other thing I liked about the guy. He always seemed to want everyone to succeed. This wasn’t the first time he’d thoroughly condense a difficult topic into a quick word or phrase the class could understand. His eyes smiled whenever he could recognize concepts “clicking” for people and I saw it do the same as my other classmates- even Chad- figured it out. I recoiled a little, from a nudge from Mackenzie. I sighed again, airing a “thank you” her way. I had been staring again.

“No, nothing like that! Could you imagine how difficult an operation like that would be? All this does is swap your mind.” Aaaand just like that, we were back to confusion. Danny smiled though.

“Got it. So your brain’s the hardware, your mind’s the software. The necklaces do a switcheroo and then new hardware, same software- or, vice versa, I suppose.” Back on track.

“Wait, how much of ‘me’ is in the hardware? Like my memories?” I blurted out, immediately growing red. That seemed to have garnered an approving smile from Danny. I grew redder.

The professor’s eyes lit up. “Now you’re thinking like a scientist.” He laughed before shrugging. “Who’s to say… we are running an experiment after all”. Dr. Cohn always was a messy one.

“So, uh, how long is it supposed to last?” Mackenzie asked.

“That’s the fun of it, once we’re paired, the switch can go for as little or as long you as want!” We. That threw me off a little. I caught his glance to Chad. “Don’t worry, I’ll be a part of this experiment too.” The professor said, with a smile that felt too wide. “Don’t forget to record your notes and thoughts into this log book. For privacy, they’ve been password protected- we’ll reconvene this little group in a year and just draft up a summary of your experiences from these books.”

There was an obvious question everyone’s mind. Thankfully, Kevin asked it. “So who’s swapping with who?”

The professor’s eyes lit up in excitement. “We’ve all been paired, randomized of course. I’ll leave the pairings to figure out when they’d want to swap. Just put on your necklaces at 6pm tonight and start your log books. After that, whenever either of you squeezes your necklace, the swap will ensue”. From the way the professor’s eyes kept darting to Chad, something told me it hadn’t been entirely random.

I thought through the possible pairings. Kevin was kind of cute, I guess. Though I wasn’t sure if it was just the airport effect with how limited our group size was. Kat or Mackenzie would just be weird. Mackenzie especially- that girl knows a little too much about me and lord knows what she’d do behind my wheel. Running down the list of people, there was Chad. Of course, who wouldn’t want to be in Chad’s shoes- I had to dispel a dirty thought that passed my mind. Everyone’s probably thinking it. The professor’s body wouldn’t be too bad either, I could always just pressure the faculty into giving me better grades, maybe boost the grades of my friends. And then there was Danny. Danny. My heartrate shot up instantly.

Sitting in my dorm room, I looked at the clock with a bit of fear. “5:55 pm,” it read. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm my nerves. “5:59 pm”. Nope. There was nothing calm about this. I closed my eyes shut, as I felt the necklace whir a little. Looks like someone else already squeezed it. 

Zzzip

=============

“Log book 1: 

<3

It was Danny. Holy fuck, I got to be in Danny.”

I stared at the journal entry. That was all I could manage to write with my shaking hands. I could hardly believe it. A lifetime can change in 5 minutes, apparently. My heart was still beating and my face still flushed when we switched back. He had a soccer game so our first meeting had to be short. 

 My first minute was just looking down at my new Danny-worn hands, breathing through his lungs, inhaling as much as I could of his room. I wanted to commit this man to memory. My logic-or, Danny’s logic perhaps, told me there would inevitably be more swaps to come, but my mind wouldn’t have it. Whatever piece of Danny I could get, however minuscule, I wanted to stretch every moment infinite.

I felt a sense of guilt wash over me, as my new Danny-worn package began to harden when I realized he was in soccer gear. I tried to shake off the feeling- I couldn’t do that to him. Then came the text. I recognized the number of course, it was my old body’s. “Hey man, glad to see we’re partners”. My heart stirred. “It’s Danny, but you probably already knew that”. To see him text me so casually froze me in place. “Anyways, I do have a game coming up, mind if we switch back?” I couldn’t even bring Danny’s hands to answer himself. “I’ll take that as a yes”.

Zzzip

And just like that, I was back. My hand clinging to my chest, breaths ragged. 

Wait, Fuck. Was I still hard in his body when we switched back?

=============

Zzzip

“Log book 7:

Met up today. Joint gym day. 

Gym feels better in Danny’s body. Unsure if exercise has a different effect on people’s bodies, or if it’s tied to our minds. Seems to be a lag in my emotions.”

I’m not really one to be consistent with exercise. I set the book down, and relocked it, panting as I had in our first switch, but this time due to Danny working my body to the brink.

I think he noticed, because he apologized profusely when I slumped in the bench to catch my breath in the locker room.

I can’t believe I had agreed to it. Danny wanted to test the effects of exercise with different bodies. He stated he wanted to see what it was like doing routine exercises in a different body. Does the body retain that physical memory? Or is it the mind? I only agreed because it was Danny. So, there I was, in the school gym staring at the door like a fish out of water. 

I felt a reassuring hand on my back before my ears immediately shot red when I realized whose hand it was. “Do you have your log book on hand? Should probably write down notes immediately after the switchback”. I immediately panicked at thought that he wanted to compare notes, thinking back to my first entry but he seemed to have caught on to my thought process and immediately dismissed the idea. “It wouldn’t make sense to taint the data with outside factors. Danny was probably the only person that fully understood the professor’s entire experiment so I took his word for it.

When we swapped, I had to focus on not instantly growing hard. For someone seemingly so bookish, the guy was surprisingly fit. Walking to the treadmill, I felt every muscle brimming with power. My first run in his body. Euphoric. Danny was a well-oiled machine. Every component moving in tandem. Lungs drawing in and out powerful gusts of air. Eyes staring me in the mirror, furrowed in powerful determination, and legs gliding with a grace that did not diminish the power behind each foot. I lost myself in the exercise, content to just being inside his body, guided by his body. I finished the run with a heavy pant, knowing full well I’d be hard beyond belief at what lay before me. I eyed myself in the mirror, in sweat-laden body of my crush. The scent was indescribable. Like a pleasant musk basking in the damp earth. Was it always this good? Was this how other people felt when they exercised? I twirled the necklace around Danny’s neck, making sure to not squeeze, mentally thanking whatever gods there may be for this experience.

I looked back at Danny, in my body. His running form was a bit clumsy, but there was a confidence in them that I didn’t often see in myself. Maybe a trick of the light, or residual feelings from the run I just had but I was captivated. I honestly looked almost cute like this. 

He finished, panting before immediately pulling out his book and writing a few notes. He beamed back at me, pointing at the necklace. Even in my body, that smile was unmistakably his. I smiled back, ready to swap once more.

Zzzip

Weird. I still felt the infatuation. I looked back at the body I had just inhabited, still feeling the butterflies in my stomach. It was Danny so I was used to those, but not immediately after a swap. The past few times it always took a second or two to readjust. Danny looked at me, a bit uncomfortable. No doubt it had been from the grave face I was making. I shook my head, not wanting to worry him. Or worse, force a premature end to this experience. “It’s nothing, just a hell of an exercise haha”.

This may be a bit of a problem.

=============

“Interesting, and you’re sure it’s residual feeling?” Said a slightly disinterested Chad, eyeing his dreamy biceps.

“Yes, when I.. uh.. felt angry in his body and switched back, my body did too.”  

“Well it is a swap, of course so your mind returning to its body would feel the same things it felt…” The professor in chad’s body spoke in a slightly faraway tone, like there was something he’d rather be doing. “Though, it shouldn’t be this instant. It’s not physically possible unless…”

I winced, worried for the worst and hoping to remain Danny’s partner.

“This might be a bit of an issue if those necklaces are defective…” He then mumbled something about permanent effects on the mind. “If they are, we’d have to stop the entire experiment. It wouldn’t be right-“ The professor caught a glimpse of Chad’s body in the reflection of his door before looking back at me. “Look, maybe just limit the swaps to low pressure situations, and try to avoid high-emotion situations in case your ‘residual’ hypothesis is correct. Cause if that were true, it would mean you leave a little of yourself every time you swap.”

“Got it, professor”.

“Maybe keep this side effect a little secret for now. We wouldn’t want the others worrying and tainting the data,” Chad’s body spoke in an authoritative tone as his hands sauntered below the desk. “Oh, and please close the door on your way out“.

=============

“Log book 50:

Pain.” 

We had been swapping fairly frequently, despite the professor’s warning. Danny was a drug I couldn’t shake. The guy was my kryptonite and he had no idea. Everytime we swapped, every moment we shared, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about the professor’s words. Every swap back, I could feel my heart beating as wildly as my first time, stomach churning pleasantly. It was like a wave of sweetness whenever I had a chance to be Danny. Then, the guilt came soon after.

Danny seemed to like the spontaneity. Eventually, we settled on free-switching, aside from classes. Some days, I’d randomly switch and my eyes would focus on my homework, completed with a little smiley face drawn on the corner. I tried that little trick with him once, only to get a text back of his graded assignment, scored uncharacteristically low for the top performer, followed by another text “Nice try anyway lol” 

=============

“Log book 190:

I hate you.”

Zzzip

“Danny, is something wrong?” The shock of the situation stopped me from initially processing anything I was seeing. My clumsy hands. I had been fumbling with my collar, when I accidentally initiated a swap. A wave of embarrassment hit, and then anger. Seething, bottomless anger.

I almost dropped the flowers Danny’s body had been handing her. Without explanation, I quickly squeezed the necklace to send me back.

Zzzip

I sat in stunned silence for a second, before the anger drew me back to my thoughts.

Who was I angry at? Of course it was a girl. He had to have been dating around. It was presumptuous to even think we were anything more than partners in a crazed professor’s experiment. And yet, I was still angry. Irrationally angry at Danny for not picking up on the hints, maybe angry at the professor for dragging me into this mess in the first place. But most of all, I was angry at myself. 

I felt the buzz of a text, ears still heated. Danny again. “You ok?”  

I sighed as reasoning took over and anger transformed into sadness. I wrote a quick note in the log book, then pulled my phone up before texting back. “Yeah”.

“Lol Claudia says hi”, came a text back. I gritted my teeth, not wanting to impart any jealousy in my response, but I was soon stopped by another text. 

“If you wanted to meet my sister, you should have just asked lol”.

=============

“Log book 290

I’m stupid. I’m sorry. I’m stupid. I’m sorry.”

I’m so sorry. I said to Danny in my head, as I slumped in my chair. You’re so fucking stupid. I told myself. These past few months swapping back and forth with Danny had been a dream. 

From something as simple swapping before brushing his teeth to even taking a class as him. I savored every single moment. 

But as the experiment had been drawing to a close, and as I felt my time nearing and my guilt intensifying, other, less kind thoughts bubbled in my head. 

What if I did ‘that’ in his body. What if I did it while thinking of my own body. I gulped. Danny didn’t know, and from what I could tell, he hadn’t suspected a thing. “Maybe I could make him like me.” Even just saying it out loud felt like a taboo. I could just imagine Danny’s disapproving face as I pondered corrupting our newfound friendship, and corrupting him at his core.

The devil on my shoulder continued. We’ve been swapping all this time. And he doesn’t notice. My dick stirred. He wouldn’t notice and you could train his body to fall in love with you.

No. No. I couldn’t do that to Danny. I eyed the near approaching date on the calendar- the date the experiment would end- and I gulped again. I pulled up a photo of him.

Darkness gripped at my chest, as I pondered my next step. And then I squeezed.

“Danny, I love you and I’m sorry.”

Zzzip

My heart, or rather Danny’s, began to beat faster and faster. I pulled up a fairly difficult puzzle before I swapped, so I knew I had some time with his flesh before he’d try to swap back.

I gingerly pulled down his shorts, staring at his bulge hungrily. Then I slowly teased out his dick, moaning at the feeling of flesh touching flesh. Being in his body, having this level of access to Danny. I was hard instantly.

It felt almost macabre, seeing his flesh move to my every whim, forced to feel my feelings. I wanted to etch myself into him as much as possible, and with every pump I moaned my original body’s name. It took all of the restraint in Danny’s body, which, apparently was a lot, to not burst. But one can only hold out so long, hearing one’s crush moan their name in delirious ecstasy. I sang my name in his resonant voice one more time, before flashing instantly to my body and back to his.

Zzzip Zzzip

I released his sticky white seed in what felt like the first cum of my life. I suppose, in a sense, it was. I hoped that sealed it. Conditioning Danny to me. The swaps were imperceptibly fast, and I took the lack of delay in emotions as a sign of success.

Zzzip Zzzip

I released a breath in Danny’s body I didn’t know I was holding, basking in the afterglow before immediately realizing what I had just done. 

Guilt came out of me drop by drop. As his tears began to leave their marks on his shirt, I slowly began to clean up. The pleasure of the situation still clung to me, as I mournfully switched back. Then came another gut-wrenching wave of sadness. Danny, I’m so sorry. 

I looked to the incomplete puzzle in front of me, laughing a little at his lack of progress to ease the sadness.

Then came another text from Danny. “Dude, that puzzle’s impossible”. 

=============

“Log book 300:

Food definitely tastes different in a different body.”

“Look, just try them man” Danny said with a smile, holding a fry in his hand. And the necklace in another. 

Only a few short days left before the experiment’s end. I made no mention of that night, nor the professor’s words to Danny. 

Danny had, in fact, been coming by more often. Prompting more hangouts, initiating more switches. I was elated every time he asked. I even caught a few longer glances from his body, marinating in pleasure at seeing this new side of Danny. However happy I had been, underlying it all was the guilt of my deed.

Danny again held the fry out expectantly. I laughed slightly. “Haha, fine”.

Zzzip

I took a bite from his body. Yep, it was definitely a fry. My own body looked up at me, smiling a Danny-flavored smile before grabbing the half-bitten fry. “Now let’s control for this variable. Same fry,” he said, wiggling it in the air.

Zzzip

I stared at the fry covered in a bit of his saliva. Heaven. I looked back at him and nodded. As we parted ways, I couldn’t help my smile from peeking through. 

He was right, it did taste better on my end.

=============

“So, we’re not getting paid”? I asked Danny, as we sat in the table. He had a few wine glasses in front. 

It had been a full year since the experiment first started. Despite the general weirdness from the other groups swapping, everyone had been relatively well adjusted. Except for Chad, or whatever he’d be called now. A swapped Kat couldn’t help but spill the beans. Apparently, the professor had no obligation to offer the guy extra credit. He specifically targeted the quarterback for his experiment. What’s worse, he’d apparently created a newer version of the necklace. One that could overwrite and transmit. Chad’s frat brothers mentioned he was offered another credit for participating in a second experiment for this new necklace. After that, no one had seen either person. The pair had mysteriously disappeared, leaving the school scrambling to cover up everything. All most of us knew was one day we suddenly had perfect grades retroactively added for the past year, along with a very scary letter prompting a signature. 

“The university isn’t going to do anything about this.” He said. I was still skeptical as I slowly eyed one of the wine bottles that once graced former Dr. Cohn’s shelf. “It’s the least they could do for all those, ethics violations”. He pulled the cork with a satisfying pop, a mischievous gleam in his eye as he handed me a glass. “Now c’mon, try this”. 

I suppose alcohol had a way of loosening me up. “So…. we’re not getting paid”? I asked again, sarcastically this time. It had been a year, so talking to Danny felt easy. I thought back to my log book, fully intending on burning the thing. Danny shook his head.

“Hard to put a price on crimes against humanity. Or, something like that” he laughed. “The university just said to dump everything and basically forget that experiment ever happened.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as well. I shrugged, knowing money or even perfect grades for a year held no candle to the experience of a lifetime I just had with Danny. I was afraid of the answer, but it had to be asked. “What should we do with these things?” I asked, looking at the necklace still gracing his beautiful neck. His eyebrows raised as he saw the same necklace gracing mine. 

“I mean, by now, you’re pretty used to it, right?” He asked with an almost pleading look in his eye. There was something bugging him. I watched as he fiddled with his feet. “Maybe…” His ears turned bright red. It was riveting finally seeing this side oh him. More than that, it was downright cute. “M-Maybe” he stammered again. Danny took a deep breath to calm himself, though his scarlet face told all. “Maybe we can keep. Um. Swapping. Sometimes, sometimes I like being you, and sometimes I kind of like when you’re me.” He looked at me and smiled weakly, trying to change the subject. “A-Anyway, you need a place to stay next year, r-right? It kind of feels like we’ve already been roommates these past 12 months, what’s another 12?” His sweet words did nothing the dampen the guilt I felt in my betrayal. In any other circumstance, I’d have died happy just hearing that confession from him. Instead I could only think back to the professors words. I did live, at least partially, in Danny throughout this past year. It felt like a betrayal of myself to not come clean.

“Danny, listen. I think I need to tell you first, in your body…” My breath hastened, and I felt my stomach churn. How do you tell a guy what you’ve done with his body- *in* his body? Danny’s face frowned in concern as my bubbling emotions seemed to knock him out of his quick spell of shyness.

He smiled a little. “Look man, whatever you’ve done in my body, I’ve probably done too.” His smile widened. “Your body is mine, my body is yours. Call it even”. More words that would have swept me off my feet, had I not been confessing. More torture ensued.

“I went to the professor about it a few months ago and never told you” I continued. I was practically holding back tears. “Our necklaces were bugged, I think”.

“The professor said…” I gulped. “It was possible that when we switch, our minds don’t come through all at once.” Now tears did begin to swell. “You know how it’s supposed to take a second for your emotions to catch up. Well, when we switch, I still feel the same emotions…”. I gulped. “Since day 1, I think I’ve overwritten your, um, preferences”. Danny’s poker face felt like a dagger in my heart. It’s a face I often made in his body when I was in deep thought, so I knew he had to have been processing to the same conclusion. I could practically see the gear turning in his head. Click.

Face still an enigma, Danny waited a moment and then asked a simple question. “When did you tell the professor?” Click. 

I sniffled as I laid it bare in front of him. “5 months ago. Danny, I’m sorry! I dunno, I just thought maybe… maybe if we kept switching, if our minds kept being in each other’s bodies. Maybe if a little piece of how I felt kept lagging behind, you might have-“ Now the gear was fully spinning and I saw the realization hit his face. I had no idea what he was going to do. Punch me? Maybe. Run away in disgust? Likely. Instead, Daniel had done something equally surprising. His hand rested on my shoulder in a reassuring fashion. Then that same hand motioned me forward.

My memory of the next moment felt like a million moments in one. It was something so outside my realm of possibilities, my brain simply couldn’t process. The whiplash hit my senses all at once. Sweet but a bit salty. A moment of quietness before the background sounds of the campus slowly drizzled back in. The scent of fresh laundry and damp earth. My eyes took even longer to adjust from black to red to an image slowly refocussing. Last was my brain, which had been stunned into silence. I sat back in shock, repeating the same phrase over and over in my head. Danny just kissed me.

He laughed, eyes twinkling and mouth pulled into a smile, beaming in the way that always made my heart swoon. “That theory’s bogus. Trust me. I haven’t felt any different”. He smiled again, sheepishly this time, before fishing something from his backpack’s large pocket. He looked at the item in front of him, hand slightly shaking in hesitation before making his decision. Slowly, he held up his own log book, flipped to the very first page:

“Log Book 1:

<3 ”

=============

[mossycoffee]

•┈••✦ ❤ ✦••┈•

July 9th

Its currently midnight for me so, good evening.

I decided that I missed my red hair too much to live on. I had red hair for a couple of months but I was getting annoyed on the upkeep. So I dyed it back to dark brown. So last night I impulsively made up my mind and I went and bought color remover, cause my hair was already fried from bleach, I got two things of hair dye. I got a dark red and a kinda lighter red so i could mix them and stuff. The color remover actually worked amazing! but when i washed out my hair i noticed a couple spots that I wanted to fix before applying the red, but i was 11pm on a Monday so of course nothing was open. I ended up going to a 24-hour CVS and all they really had was "color oops" so i got it and then when my friend and I got home we started applying it. I wish I could explain the smell that it had. Literally rotten eggs. So while i was applying it my friend looked up why & she said that 80% of the posts were people asking why they couldn't get the smell out of their hair. The moment she read that i stopped and i washed that shit out. But i guess it was too late for me because the smell was there, no matter how many time i washed it, no matter how many products i put in my hair. The smell was still there. So the next morning, I went and got another box of color remover and smacked that shit on there and it got rid of the smell thank god, and i got my hair to a decent base color. My hair is now BRIGHT red which i kinda wanted a darker red, but i also dont hate it. Im not sure if im going to dye it again and try and get it darker or if i should just vibe with what i have for a while.

Im finally getting back into playing video games too :D its been so long. Me and my BF bought the new xbox and he pays for game pass so i mass downloaded a bunch of stuff, and I've been playing more games on my PC too.

I feel like my brain is so foggy and literally nothing is actually there so i dont really have anything to post right now but thinsg could change lol.

I hope everyone has an amazing day i love you all <3

•┈••✦ ❤ ✦••┈•

[fallingfadingdeepest]

So, you liked my previous ask about how the movement of your breasts, mind and eyes should be connected. In your own words: "fuuuuck oh that really got mee" <3. How about I make it even better, by reinforcing it? It's so much better if it's not a one-shot right? It's so much better if it comes back, again and again.

Warning: Use of hypnosis and triggers to reinforce triggers regularly, with continous reinforcement designed to make you come back for more, repeatedly. Only continue reading below the large gap below, if it's something you want and can handle. Otherwise, just answer the ask with no or enough, so I know to stop sending these.

On the other hand, based on your response, I think you might be open to the idea. <3

Be a good girl for me and bounce your tits.

Again, bounce.

And again, bounce.

Everytime you see the word bounce, you involuntarily bounce your tits.

As you feel your tits bounce, you see them flash before your eyes and and your mind drops so deep, making you so suggestible and making it more and more impossible to resist, more and more necessary to obey. Double as deep, every time they bounce. Double as obedient, every time they bounce. Double as willing to do whatever I say, every time they bounce.

Bounce.

Double as deep, every time they bounce.

Bounce.

Double as obedient, every time they bounce.

Bounce.

Double as willing to do whatever I say, every time they bounce.

Bounce.

Double as relaxed and happy with a warm fuzzy safe feeling, every time they bounce.

Bounce.

I don't even have to tell you to drop anymore to get you so deep and suggestible, I just have to tell you to bounce.

Wait a few seconds, and then realize what you have to to do.

What you have to do is bounce.

Bounce.

Bounce.

Bounce.

Double as motivated and desperate to make it easier to read the original text, every time they bounce.

Bounce.

Double as motivated and craving to read about how you should make your tits bounce, every time they bounce.

Bounce.

Getting a unstoppable impulse and need to read abou it and bounce, every time they bounce.

It feels so good to bounce your tits, to bounce and obey.

It feels so good to bounce your tits, to bounce and be completely compliant in helping me break your brain by making you bounce, to reinforce the need to bounce so incredibly deep.

Now be a good girl and copy my previous, original task that focused on making your tits bounce. Save it somewhere easily accesible on your phone, so you can be reminded to bounce whenever you want.

In fact, you should bounce your tits and then make the lock screen and your home screen on your phone be a picture of the word "Bounce".

Here, I made one for you: https://i.ibb.co/XbmDBqt/Bounce1.png

Be a good girl, download it and make it your homescreen, bounce and obey.

Be a good girl and save the original ask to a document on your computer or pad as well, putting the file on the desktop so you can't avoid seeing it, so you will bounce everytime you start it. In fact, if you have access to a printer, you should print the text, in colour if possible to get that nice pink bounce, and tape it to your bedroom wall, so you see it and want to read and bounce, every time you wake up

Be a good girl, bounce and obey.

Be a good girl, bounce and help me break your mind everyday, with the bounce.

Bounce and obey.

Bounce and obey.

Now bounce again, and feel how you will love the fact that you are going to be relentlessly triggered, when you least expect it.

Now bounce again, and feel how this will break you irreversibly, into even more of a mindfucked slut, who lives to bounce.

Now, as you feel so deep, so relaxed and so happy about how this is going to a part of your everyday life, you will just relax and enjoy the feeling for 10 seconds, before reading the next paragraph, down below the gap.

Good. Now you start feeling yourself very, very slowly waking up.

The feeling of so slowly waking up and so slowly becoming aware of everything.

As we count down from 3, you will feel yourself waking up, becoming completely awake when we reach 0. Count aloud with me.

. 3, feeling yourself starting to wake up a little faster.

. 2, feeling yourself half awake.

. 1, feeling yourself just below the surface, almost awake.

. 0, feeling yourself completely awake and ready to do the next thing in your life.

Once again, I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, and feel thankful for it, you should answer this ask with: "I will obey and help you make me the best mindless plaything ever, by helping me focus daily on my tits. Please give me more"

Once again, have a good day/night. :)

I will obey and help you make me the best mindless thing ever by helping me focus daily on my tits

pleeease give me more 💖

[disastrouscanasta]

You should show an excerpt of one of your wips >:3

……so you’re getting some of Webgott cruise ship adventure because modern au webgott >:3

here is 1200 words of… bickering & Señor Frog’s bar. Day 3/7 from their cruise :)

** “Ooh, pocket dictionary. Just when I thought you couldn’t be any more of a nerd–”

“This pocket dictionary is about to get us booze.” David said, flipping through the thin pages maniacally. If he wasn’t careful, he’d rip right through it. Wasn’t like they needed it, though.

After a moment, David made a small noise of triumph. Joe couldn’t help but roll his eyes as David sounded the words out. It was choppy and Americanised at best, his pronunciation didn’t get much better as he continued muttering it softly under his breath as they stood in line

“Hola,” David started as soon as it was their turn at the till. “Dos margaritas por favor.”

The worker at the cash register blinked. “Two margaritas?”

“Yes,” David said dejectedly, then, ever polite, he tacked on a quick: “Please and thank you.”

“Can we have some of those funky cups?” Joe asked, since the cashier clearly spoke enough English to understand.

Sure enough: “Two frozen margaritas in souvenir cups.”

Joe smiled at David, who still looked put out that his shitty Spanish was actually shitty.

David paid, then they found their way onto a pair of seats straddling the line between the main bar and the patio. It was close enough to the ocean, just off the side of the port, for David to enjoy the view. But it was also far enough away that Joe didn’t get any strange impulses, like jumping in, or– the more fun and likely thought– pushing David into the water.

“We’re in Mexico!” David griped, despite the fact that he had reminded Joe, time and time again, that Cozumel wasn’t really Mexico, just an island.

“We’re in a tourist capital.” Joe shrugged. “Everyone speaks English, it’s to help rich dicks like you feel at home. So you spend more.”

“But I was making an effort.”

“Effort is wasted compared to cold, hard, cash.” Joe scanned the bar, looking for whichever waiter would bring them a pair of big ass drinks in neon cups. Señor Frog’s knew how to party. “Plus, you can try again in the next place.”

“The official language of Belize is English.” David said, reading the imaginary Wikipedia citation in his head. “Goddamnit, I knew I should have downloaded one of those language apps.”

David could barely hold a confident conversation in German, let alone manage his way through Spanish.

“If you really give a shit, why not talk to someone when we get back home? Everyone and their dog speaks Mexican.”

“Spanish.”

“Right, anyway. We’re still getting the booze here.”

David, still moping, hung his head with his elbows against the table to hold him up. Joe reached across the table, patting David’s shoulder awkwardly. It was hard to console David while Joe himself was on the brink of laughter. It was his own fault for bagging a guy so dramatic.

Eventually, David was stirred from his self-pitying by a waiter, who carried a tray with two precariously balanced cups. Hell, those were the cups. They looked even better in person, even more neon.

Joe took the Mile-Long souvenir cup that was handed to him, adorned with a small paper umbrella. It even came with a long ass plastic straw.

“This is incredible.” Joe said. His voice was tight with the kind of childlike wonder that he didn’t think was physically possible. The last time he’d been so happy over something like this, he’d been in the 6th grade.

(He’d been bet by a friend to do something stupid. He didn’t even remember what he’d done to get the five bucks, but he’d done it. And 12-year-old Joe Liebgott had used that hard earned money to buy not one, not two but an entire box full of Hostess Twinkies. He’d scarfed them down all by himself, sitting on the curb outside the 7-Eleven.)

“It… sure is something.” David said, eyeing his own drink with not nearly enough whimsey.

“This is the something, Web. The best thing in existence. Mister Señor Frog should be the next big icon. Who doesn’t want this much alcohol?”

“Señor means mister.”

“I know that, jackass. I just respect him that much.”

“You’re insane.”

“Hey, you paid for it. What? 20 American dollars a drink?”

David nodded a small ‘affirmative.’

20 bucks was a lot. This whole cruise was a lot. It astonished Joe every time. The whole trip would have been a lot cheaper for David if Joe hadn’t been there.

“Thanks, Web.” He said sincerely, hoping that David would get the message. He probably did, David was smart like that, even if he couldn’t speak Spanish to save his life.

He’d find a way to pay David back, if not in equal price, then equal effort and thought. Or, alternatively he’d get David something cheap and corny. He could give him a blowjob. He could buy him something cheap and corny and also give David a blowjob. Birthdays for David must have been great.

Joe swirled his drink, admiring the slush of it. He picked the tiny umbrella out and tucked it behind his ear.

When he looked up, just after taking as long of a sip as he could, Joe found David staring at him.

“What?” He asked.

“Nothing.” David said, but it was hardly believable. Joe blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, David still watched him, looking horribly fond.

“Get your goo-goo eyes off me– Oh fuck, oh shit, oh fuck.” Joe was gripped by a sudden, searing pain directly behind his eyebrows.

“What’s wrong? Lieb, what’s going on?” Gone was the softness from David’s eyes, replaced immediately with concern.

“Fuck– it’s just brainfreeze but fuck.”

Joe rode it out while Davis brought a hand to his side, stroking his fingers reassuringly up and down Joe’s ribs. Joe had half a mind to brush him off, and, well, the only other thought process in his head was ‘brain cold.’ That one won out, and David’s awkward affection got to stay.

Once it passed, fairly quickly considering the agony. Joe leaned back, moved David’s hand off of him and then took another sip from his drink. David rolled his eyes.

“You know, this trip is not nearly National Lampoon's enough.” Joe stated after a moment.

“Would you want it to be more National Lampoon’s? Doesn’t every vacation go horribly for the Griswold family?”

Joe shrugged. He’d grown up watching movies like Vacation, European Vacation, Vegas Vacation, etc. It had always been funny and looked exciting. It wasn’t Joe’s fault if he was naturally drawn to trainwrecks.

“They had fun, though.” He said. “Plus it always brought them together.”

“And you think we need over-the-top 80s hijinks to bring us together?”

“It could help any relationship, I think.” If Joe was honest, yeah, they probably didn’t need anything to unite them. David was firmly cemented in Joe’s mind, past his protective barriers and well settled within the soft, vulnerable parts of him. It hadn’t even been intentional. Joe had woken up one day, and realised yeah, David’s not so bad, and the rest was history. “80s Vacation hijinks could save marriages.”

He’d shown the movies to David, who had grown up in a household which frowned upon the innuendo-filled comedies that Joe thrived on, (“This is a Christmas movie, we can’t watch it in July!” “Why the fuck would I care about that?”)

“What do you think would make this more like that?”

“Hell if I know, I don’t write that shit.” Joe sipped loudly from his drink.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hello, I came across this page and I very much enjoy it and love it here.          

I will keep it short. I just want to share this little problem of mine. First of all, I am a 19 old INFJ (not very sure about it but its for another post). I am an overthinker, who worries about the smallest things. ‘What will this person think if I do this’ ‘what will this person feel if I said that’, so I am very cautious and careful about my actions and think a lot before doing anything. I have just come to realize that I feel guilty even about the smallest things, even for things that happened a long time ago, I just remember them and I feel a tinge of sadness thinking about them. I will share some of them here.

I remember somewhere in primary school between grade 1 to 3, I had an assignment to make skeletons from paper and pins. My mother did the assignment for me, and I think that she took time and effort to make it. Once I presented it and was done, I had this urge to destroy it and I acted on my impulse. Immediately after I felt really bad. I knew that it was going to be thrown nevertheless, but being destroyed like that  I felt I was undermining my mother’s effort and it was not the best feelings, I know it is a bit dramatic but I was little at that time.

Another incident, a long time ago too, my sister drew a girl and then out of fun I drew ribs on the girl, like she was skeleton then I felt bad and said why did I do that. Although my sister didn’t mind it much.  

Again, when I was around 9, my sister and I wanted to watch Frozen (separately), and we searched the net to find a website to watch, she searched in her iPad and I gave mine to our father to search for me. After a long time, my father came to me excited that he found and downloaded the movie for me but not in English in our mother language and I complained that I wanted it in English, then my sister said that she found a website in English, and I decided to watch with her. I felt really bad because my father wanted to find me something, but I didn’t take what he gave me. This incident really makes me feel bad till now when I think about it haha.     

This is trivial and doesn’t involve me, but I felt a little bad. We bought a PlayStation and me and my sister made two accounts for ourselves and had password on them. One time we saw that the gear was misplaced and the PlayStation open, but no one played it. We realized that my brother came when we weren’t around and wanted to play, but he didn’t know the password and wasn’t able to play and went. I felt a little bad for him and thought if we didn’t put password on the accounts.                                                                     

I don't know if this is normal or if I am an overthinker. Maybe this is the reason why I am careful before doing something now. If this is a problem what are some tips to self-improve in this situation.

-----------------------

Feelings and emotions are necessary for learning and growth. The key is to extract the right lessons from them and then you can lay them to rest in a healthy way (i.e. establish resolution or closure). If a situation continues to plague you, it means you haven't learned the right lesson from it or haven't learned it well enough yet. Guilt is meant to teach you important lessons about how to make better moral decisions. The situations you described all had problematic moral elements to them. Have you learned the right moral lessons from your past?

That being said, there is another important point to address. One of the major development pitfalls for INFJs is excessive or irrational guilt. Usually, it is due to wildly unrealistic thinking (unhealthy Ni) and/or taking on far more moral responsibility than is reasonable for one person to shoulder (unhealthy Fe). When INFJs aren't able to make sense of their guilt, it is easy for them to fall into Ti loop, which might manifest as rumination or "overthinking". These errors in cognition can be addressed through function development, see past INFJ posts.

[goshen-applecrumbledore]

(apologies in advance if this ask is overly personal or presumptuous or anything else along those lines. i do not wish to make assumptions or project onto your work and process, this is a clumsy, grammatically poor attempt at appreciation that i am feverishly typing while waiting for my train home)

despite being fandom...aligned(?) for well over a decade, i've never been able to enjoy fanfiction the way many seem to do. i'm not really a big Shipper, at least not in a "i want my faves to fuck and get married and be endgame" way. if anything i've always gravitated towards messy gay unspoken divorce between dependent freaks who were never even married in the first place. right person wrong time or whatever tumblr would consider that hybrid of vulnerable possession and rehearsed disgust.

back in 2020, i was losing my mind over not being able to read any books that i hadn't already committed to memory, so i opened ao3 for the first time since high school and stumbled across your Yakuza fics and read them all in one sitting. reading your fics and your interpretation of kazumaji (and daigo's entanglement with that) almost brought me to tears at 3:00 am on a monday morning. it was the first time i saw someone represent their relationship in a way that made sense to me, in a way that felt *real*.

flash forward a bit later and i am overjoyed to see your Venture Bros fic, falling in love with your interpretation of brock/rusty just like i did with kazumaji (i have this fic downloaded, i revisit it at least once a month and think of it an embarrassing amount).

and just now, i finished reading both of your fics for The Bear. once again-- loving your interpretation of them as well. and also somehow only now seeing you have a tumblr.

this is all a very insufferably drawn out way to say that i truly adore your writing in every aspect! specifically, the way you write sex is nothing short of beautiful. it's a display of communication, something teetering between impulse and years of planning-- wholly vulnerable and oftentimes sickeningly selfish. an act that exposes your core in a way so specific to its nature that you can devour someone and still look them in the eyes afterwards and deny you even care. i adore your use of time during these scenes as well. physically, fucking (generally) doesn't take that long, but there's a mental battle of trying to stay in your body to commit every touch to memory when your head is floating off to think of every conversation, every glance, *everything* that led to that moment.

i was only able to read the preview chapter of a yakuza original book you had linked in the notes of one of the Yakuza fics and i believe it has since been removed, but i'll be waiting for whatever book you write in the future. patiently and with all the love a reader can possess <3

hello! wow this is all so incredibly kind, thank you. I don't even know what to say. I like my yakuza fics a lot, I'm glad they still hold up. and that venture bros fic is somehow one of my favourite things I've written, not sure why.

your paragraph about writing sex is so eloquent that I'm like, bashful over it lol. that is very much what I'm trying to get at- vulnerable, selfish, devouring. getting stuck in your head or checking out. I don't think I always nail it, but it's great to hear that I do sometimes. I'm never totally confident in my sex scenes especially.

that book is not for sale anymore, it's something I came up with when I was young and self-published it and I don't sell anymore. it was about a gang of goons in a city in ontario that I don't think I explicitly say is thunder bay. it does have a goodreads page, which I'm thrilled by but which obviously SUPER over-rates it cause it's got gay content that tumblrinas love. it was not a good book. my next one will be good and real. thank you for your enthusiasm

[glamour-witch-bitch]

Hand-Washing Visualization Exercise for my Anxious Witches

Hello all, I mentioned this strategy in my most recent glamour witch tips post, but I’d thought I’d share a more extensive post that I hope will be able to reach more people. I like many many others in this world has suffered from an anxiety disorder my entire life and was recently this year was diagnosed with OCD. I know what you’re thinking, with the exercise being around hand washing isn’t that bit stereotypical when it comes to OCD? So I’d thought I’d take some time to explain what exactly OCD is and isn’t. If you wish to just read about the exercise and the exercise only scroll though until you see the pink hearts (💖🩷💗💞💘💕💓). If you stick around, thank you for reading and much kudos to you.

While many people who have OCD do have the compulsions you see on television such as excessive cleaning and hand washing, that’s not the only kind of compulsions an OCD sufferer can have. OCD is much more complex then just the need for cleanliness. (But for obvious reason if you do have a hand washing compulsion I wouldn’t recommend this visualization exercise for you.)

What causes anxiety is what known as Intrusive thoughts. Now Instrusive thoughts ARE NOT Impulsive thoughts. While intrusive thoughts are usually impulsive in nature, the context of the thoughts is often taboo. Often involving harming or violating another being and/or oneself. They’re not the “What if I dye my hair at 3 am?” Or “What if I just shouted Penguins! Right now?” Or “What if I drop my phone into the river?” Those are impulsive thoughts.

Intrusive thoughts are normal believe it or not, even the very awful horrible taboo ones, everyone has them to varying degrees. Now what happens with people who have OCD is the sufferer assigns to much value to the thoughts. Believing that having these thoughts means something about their character and morality. When it’s not the case.

Here’s some charts explaining different subtypes of OCD, to which there are many.

There is also themes where the suffer obsessed over real events. Such as times when they made a mistake or acted in a way that they’re not particularly proud of. What happens is that their brain over estimates the importance of the action for what it means for themselves and others involved. This theme is particularly sticky because it can create false memories. Which is when your brain combines both intrusive thoughts and your past memories creating disturbing images that you can’t really sort reality from fiction in your own head.

This is a theme I particularly recently have been struggling with recently and it is quite possibly one of the most difficult themes I’ve ever experienced. But with a combination of therapy and medication I am doing much better.

Some themes and compulsion I have also experienced are religious/scrupulosity with compulsive praying. Harm where I would constantly check in with my friends to make sure I never said or did anything to have hurt them. Hypochondria where I would routinely check my temperature over and over again. The over estimation of fault where I have the belief that events that have nothing to do with me are my fault to some degree.

I won’t lie, it’s scary and isolating to experience, but there is hope and there is effective treatment out there. There is hope, but got to have the courage to seek out treatment. Please don’t do what I did and tried to do it by myself my entire life, it’s not an effective strategy. There is no honor in suffering needlessly.

If you want to learn more or think you are struggling with OCD yourself I recommend downloading the app NOCD. I have personally found it very helpful and I actually had it before my official diagnosis. Please take care of yourself and thank you all for reading.

💖🩷💗💞💘💕💓

Visualization Exercise.

Items Needed

-soap (I recommend something lavender or lemon scented for their anti-anxiety properties)

-a sink

Instructions.

1. Take a moment to identify where you hold your anxiety the most. How I do this is based off of my own symptoms. For me i experience gastrointestinal issues, racing heart, chest pains, racing thoughts and headaches.

2. Turn on the water and close your eyes and begin lathering up your hands with the soap. I recommend using cold water for this as well as it’s been proven to help ease anxiety symptoms.

3. Begin to visualize your anxiety in the places where you hold it in your body. What I do is I visual the color red in my head chest and stomach area. Take a moment to really sit with this even if it’s uncomfortable.

4. Then visualize your anxiety traveling through your body slowly until it reaches your hands. Then visualize your anxiety seeping through your skin until it’s almost like a paint or glue is covering your hands.

5. Then visualize yourself washing it all away and the color going down the drain.

6. Open your eyes to see clean hands.

I hope this helps and please take care of yourself and seek out help when you need it. Thank you.

[bakedbakermom]

Hey teacher if you actually think taking a socially isolated six year old, sitting her down with the class, and then letting them talk about ALL THE THINGS THEY DON'T LIKE ABOUT HER is an acceptable way to treat a child then we do not have a different approach when it comes to child development, we have a different approach when it comes to being a human fucking being.

I Do Not Care what class rules she struggles with, that is abuse.

Hearing my daughter cry for the last few days as she recounts what she's feeling in that classroom... I can't explain what that feels like. When she was born, and I held her for the first time, I was Changed. I've tried to explain it so many times and the best I've got is. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. When his heart grew three sizes and it broke the little box? I felt that. I felt my heart growing inside me as a physical sensation so strong it was almost painful. It's beyond words.

The pain I feel for her now is beyond words in the same way. I am physically sick for her. She has been pouring her heart out to me. The phrases she uses:

I just curled up in a ball at my seat and was crying. Teacher may was well have written "Talk about Stupid (name)" on the whiteboard.

I'm worried I'll never be able to be happy at school again, and then maybe I'll never be able to be happy at all ever again.

Imagine if someone took a tiny baby, and they just put it in the trashcan. Teacher does that to me over and over.

Teacher only talks to me when I'm doing something wrong, I'm scared to go talk to her when I need something.

I'm a good kid! I know I am! Why can't Teacher see the angel in me?

I'm always crying at school and I hate it because they all think I'm a baby.

Teacher is always frowning at me. I hate my whole life right now, except my parents.

And she was singing the "I Wish I Wasn't Different" song from the Movies episode of Bluey. And she's got a fucking stress rash on her hand because she can't stop picking at herself.

SHE'S SIX FUCKING YEARS OLD.

I am astounded by the depth of her pain and I'm only feeling the echo of it in that piece of my heart she made.

This woman made my child feel that. To say I am incandescent with rage is barely scratching the surface.

I kept her out of school today (and gave her the best self-care a 6yo could ask for*) and feel massively guilty I haven't taken more action much sooner. She WILL NOT be made to feel this way one more goddamn minute. Tomorrow we talk to the principal and we will make them make this right.

* Last night she was telling me it felt like her heart used to be all pink and happy and now it's blue and has a frowny face and tears falling down, and then it broke in half and now this half is all the way down in my KNEE (I am raising a delightfully dramatic child).

So today, we had a Fix Daughter's Heart Day. I let her download a few cute but dumb apps on her tablet and she got to play them in her jammies during breakfast - that alone broke 3 boring routines that she finds tedious. We went to Build A Bear. Frankly, we went a little nuts at Build A Bear. We got junky mall food for lunch. We went to the little candy store that has "disappointing gummy BEARS but the best gummy WORMS in the whole world."

We stopped at the grocery store and got a little bit of junk food, a stuffed toy from the impulse aisle, she picked out a card for her dad for valentine's day, and we chose the stuff to make her favorite dinner, which is also the one she likes to help with - she pushes the switch on the Cuisinart to shred the cheese, it's adorable and slightly terrifying and she is drunk with power, giggling the entire time. She got downtime to craft and color and read while I cooked and helped her with words.

And the whole time, we talked. That was the best part. She talked to me, and I talked with her, good stuff and bad stuff and silly stuff and sweet stuff, and I swear we really Saw each other today.

I checked in with her about the color of her heart a bunch of times throughout the day. (Her answers were incredibly specific, btw.) Tonight at bedtime she said it was all the way pink again, and it was shaped like a cat and it was purring and making biscuits.

I am trying my ass off to be the mom I wish I'd had, the mom she deserves, the mom who protects her and uplifts her and cheers her on and comforts her and teaches her. This shit is HARD. This shit is WORTH IT, but this shit is hard.

[pandor-pandorkful]

Oops, at the point again where I gotta ban myself from idly browsing the ClipStudio asset store freebies for awhile. Forrrrrrrrr a couple reasons.

Reason 1: Almost filled up my hard drive last night without realizing it! :B My creative eyes are bigger than my creative stomach, as it were. No impulse control, thanks ADHD. What am I going to do with 50 of the same basic type of lace ruffle brush???

And the store doesn't list how big a file is until you're downloading it. This may be CSP's biggest sin.

Reason 2: From an "I would like ideas for projects" standpoint, browsing the CSP asset store can be really helpful. But I might need to switch to browsing only the assets that cost money cuz once I hit on a theme that gets me fixated, there goes the entire fuckin day.

I really wanted to work on shit yesterday, and while I guess I did a lot of invisible brainstorming while I browsed and downloaded, that's not finishing the pieces I wants to finish and now I am sad. >:(

Reason 3: Managing and installing downloaded assets is REALLY ANNOYING. ESPECIALLY WHEN I'VE DOWNLOADED THOUSANDS. The built-in asset manager is so fucking sluggish, laggy and unhelpful. Also no translation once an asset has been downloaded, so I got no clue what like half of em are anymore.

So I've already wasted days downloading shit I'll never use because I made up unrealistic potential uses in my head, and now sorting thru the pile of assets is gonna take another couple of days. Mainly due to program lag. =_=

Reason 4: Asset pricing practices activate my FOMO so bad. The [48h Free!] or [Free Until Tomorrow!] types can usually be ignored, unless the thumbnail is especially inviting... but the overall "you're gonna miss out" climate of the asset store hooks it's little claws in me and makes anxiously check it day after day after day.

Until something makes me finally catch myself and stop checking for a few months. (Then I have to face all the 500clippy asset packs that still boldly claim [72h Free!]. =_= That usually triggers the FOMO to kick in again....)

It's the same negative engagement spiral that daily rewards in online games trigger.

Reason 5: Oh boy can it make me feel existential wackiness about the artistic process. That might be it's own rant. But in short, the asset store is really geared towards making it faster for webtoon cartoonists to crank out more webtoons.

Do not browse the asset store if you don't want to see how the webtoon sausage is made. It will completely demystify the glossy sheen of that style of webcomic, and you're gonna recognize so many backgrounds and props.

But like, there's nothing wrong with multiple artists using the same assets to speed up the creation of their story. That's normal for comic making, cartoonists have been cutting corners in order to get an issue to print for over a hundred years now.

It just... idk, activates an artistic dissonance in my brain that is uncomfortable but may be helpful to examine in greater detail when I got nothing better to do.

But the shortest short of it is: there are tiers and tiers and tiers of artistic ability, and the asset store caters to all of them at the same time. And that makes me feel a way, about my own abilities.

I got things to do tho, so no more dwelling on the CSP Asset Store for now.

[c0ntr01z3d]

Digital decluttering

Day 3

Today I got a new phone - the original one was in a pretty shitty condition (cracked screen, poor battery life and so on), so it was high time to change to a new one.

First, my idea was to give this device a brand new iCloud profile. Then, I did not want to create another account (again), I already have so many accounts that I cannot really keep track of them at all anymore. So I decided to use my original account with the new phone BUT without syncronizing all the things I had on my previous iPhone. Start anew! Yes, baby! What a great idea!

No. It was a TERRIBLE idea. I have so many apps, so many profiles with different passwords on my previous device that it's just silly not to transfer all the stuffs from there. To realize this, I had to download and log into all the apps I use on a daily basis... Such a waste of time.

I also had to face all the unnecessary photos, notes, voice recordings, pdf files etc. that made my iCloud stuffed. They made me soooooooo nervous. Why did I let these things pile up and take so many place? Anyway, I deleted a lot of stuff - it was intersting to see to which files I was not able to say goodbye, some examples:

photos of nice places, people and memories,

gosztonyi Street Podcast episodes,

song ideas that might be hits one day.

And what's next? I'll move my previous phone's stuff to the new one. It might take some hours. I need to be patient. No rush (though first I rushed this thing through). I wish I had done it in a way I was told in the mobile shop.

Sometimes I think, I know the tuti - but honestly... deep down I knew it wouldn't work out - there must be a good reason behind why people don't do this phone upgrading thing the way I originally imagined. Still, if I can really move all the settings to the new phone, I'll have to continue my digital decluttering. DAMN, I COULD DELETE EVERYTHING. Good God, I can be so impulsive, you know, when I want something, I want it NOW. And what do I want? Order. Peace. Everything to be at it's place. Trash needs to be thrown into the bin. Treasure needs to be digged. It takes so much time.

How I'm feeling now in one song:

[ere-the-sun-rises]

Hey guys! There's a good preliminary tool for checking out if you have ADHD here! It's a downloadable PDF from add.org (a quite reliabke source of ADD/ADHD info) which walks you through the test process and calculating results. When taking it, I recommend answering in the positive if you have the impulse to do a behaviour even if you have trained yourself to stop doing so (eg. If you have the urge to fidget when sitting for long periods, even if you no longer do it.)

I also have some extra info (as an adult-diagnosed ADHDer in university myself) that may help you figure it out too!

Sugar/caffeine don't seem to affect you unless you've had an incredibly high amount of them.

You daydreamed all the time as a kid or even now in downtime moments

You can be ravenous for hours even if you've already eaten (excluding other factors/conditions that make this happen)

You forget to eat, drink or sleep if deeply engaged with a problem

You experience insomnia when you know you have tons of stuff to do the next day

You can sleep a lot of hours when there's nothing to do the next day

You lose track of time/have difficulty following the passage of time (eg. Holy shit, it was 6 pm two hours ago and now it's 3 am)

You are very thrown off when daily routines get changed (eg. Can't shower before bed when you normally do)

You hate being harassed to do something, but do need reminders

You have a weird dislike for sitting on chairs, and especially for sitting on them the right way

You experience anxiety/depression symptoms but do not have either (or you do and they're very severe)

If you get ignored/talked over, you withdraw into yourself and don't speak again until addressed (this is technically called Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria and worth a google)

Your room is Organized Chaos

You dip between high, golden retreiver energy and total social exhaustion

You experience sound, taste/smell, and/or touch sensitivity, even if it is not consistent

Difficulty with some social cues (but perhaps not all the same ones, or all the time)

It can feel like there's a time delay when someone's talking to you (eg. Someone asks you a question, you ask "Huh?" then what they said registers and you answer before they can repeat themselves)

You can ethusiastically Do The Thing until it's almost finished and then abruptly it becomes Impossible and you Don't Want To Do It

ADHD has a lot of comorbidities (symptoms in common) with autism, anxiety and depression. There's broadly two types of ADHD - Hyperactive/Impulsive and Inattentive/Distractable.

Hyperactive/Impulsive is exactly what it sounds like: constantly wanting to move, difficulty paying attention, hard to keep focus on a task, accidentally talking over others, compulsively doing stuff, loud/extroverted. This is usually the type that gets diagnosed in childhood because it's disruptive.

Inattentive/Distractable is the one that often flies under the radar: daydreaming, difficulty following conversations, losing time, drifts from task to task, difficulty finishing tasks. This type is more common in diagnoses for adults, since these kids tended to be introverted, quiet and self-contained.

These are very broad categories, though, and Combination symptoms are quite common. Each person's experience is different, so some symptoms may line up more with you than others and you can have contradictory symptoms depending on the time.

"i had straight As in high school i don't understand why college is so hard" get tested for adhd. if you were tested as a kid and they didn't diagnose you it was cause your grades were good then but you've since lost the routine and structure in hs that kept you on top of everything so go get retested. go get tested for adhd. go

[tipsycad147]

Earth Portal Ritual

Intention: To initiate a deeper relationship with the element of Earth, such that for 3+ days you become a portal of receptivity for a mutable calibration of your being and download of that specific elemental wisdom.  

Each element has its own language and story to share specifically with you about how you move in the world and how you transmute energy.  This ritual is to begin the sacred Listening and Dance with this element.

Items Needed:

1 Green Candle

1 Porcupine Quill (this was included in the Elemental Portals Box)

Ash (this was included in the Elemental Portals Box)

Spell Boost Oil (this was included in the Elemental Portals Box)

1 Earth Element temporary tattoo for your sacrum or the space between your belly button and your pubis  (also in the box, but if you don’t have this, you can also use a sharpie to draw the symbol on your body)

Incense of choice, preferably with an herb ruled by the Earth element

Any other altar items that represent Earth for you

Ideal Lunation:  New Moon in Virgo/Sun In Virgo, New Moon in Taurus, New Moon in Capricorn

Time Duration: 3 + Days

Ritual

On the night of the New Moon in the Earth Sign of your choice, set up your ritual space with the items above and cast your circle as you normally would.

Within the circle with your items on hand establish yourself in a meditation, deep breathing and calling to mind and body the characteristics of Earth element:  Gravity, weight, slowness, dark cool dirt, age, wisdom, history, secrets, regeneration, the matter of your being, bones, groundedness…

Now look down at the symbol on your tattoo.  The symbol for Earth.

Continue your meditative breathing and begin chanting the following invocation:

In balanced stream with power pure draw in the Earth power true.

Keep repeating this over and over again, until it begins to lull you into a trance.

When you feel impulsed to do so, take the porcupine quill and carve the symbol into the side of the candle, still chanting over and over to charge the work of your hands.

Once the carving is done, take the Spell Boost Oil onto your finger and smear some of the oil over the carving on the candle empowering the symbol with an extra charge.  Continue to chant.

Then take a pinch of the Ash and smear that over the oil that is over the carving.  This adds a layer of protection and ignition of Fire and Earth energy.

Place the candle in a fire safe plate or bowl and light it while continuing to chant.

Continue this way, while gazing into the fire light, taking the Earth symbol (tattoo) into your hands for as long as you are called.

Then invite in the ‘download’ of wisdom and calibration from the Earth element by saying:

I open the channel I say yes to the light imbue me with power, wisdom and sight.

Repeat this 3 times while applying the temporary tattoo to the area between your belly button and pubis.  The sacrum is also an option, but might need the assistance of another person.

Once you have applied it, continue chanting for as long as you feel, envisioning a stream of power and element coming to you from all directions… a portal open and receiving the light, the wisdom and the power of the Earth element.

Close out the circle when you are done, offering thanks to the Earth element, you guides and the rest of the elements and herbs (from the oil) and trees (from the ash) that assisted you in this ritual.

Be sure to journal any sensations, any transitions or intuitions that came through for you during this ritual.  Everything is relevant but pay close attention to the feeling and insight of the element of Earth.

After The Ritual

Each night, after this ritual, preferably outside under the slowly growing moonlight (which will be very slight) take a meditative and placing your hands on either side of the portal symbol you have placed on your body, begin chanting the second invocation on this page over and over again for as long as you feel called, bringing in the energy of the Earth.

I open the channel I say yes to the light imbue me with power, wisdom and sight.

When done, journal your findings and insights.  

[rjalker]

okay making it again since the first one doesn't want to show up in the tag, probably because of the link, so I'll put that in a reblog.

The Future of Work: Compulsory, by Martha Wells.

Also known as the short story prequel to The Murderbot Diaries

------------------------

It’s not like I haven’t thought about killing the humans since I hacked my governor module. But then I started exploring the company servers and discovered hundreds of hours of downloadable entertainment media, and I figured, what’s the hurry? I can always kill the humans after the next series ends.

Even the humans think about killing the humans, especially here. I hate mines, and mining, and humans who work in mining, and of all the stupid mines I can remember, I hate this stupid mine the most. But the humans hate it more. My risk-assessment module predicts a 53 percent chance of a human-on-­human massacre before the end of the contract.

“Knobface,” Elane said to Asa. “You’re not the supervisor.”

Maybe that percentage should have been higher, the way the three humans on the observation platform were fighting about the flow rate. Not that I cared. I was in the entertainment feed, watching episode 44 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon and monitoring ambient audio for keywords in the unlikely event that a human said something important.

“Those things make my insides creep.” That was Sekai, looking at me. Nobody likes SecUnits. Even I don’t like us. We’re part-­human, part-bot constructs, and we make everybody nervous and uncomfortable.

I didn’t react. I’m in full armor, and I keep my visor opaque. Also, 98 percent of my attention was on the episode I was watching: The colony solicitor’s bodyguard and best friend had just been crushed under debris while trying to save a transport mech trapped in a crash. Were they really going to kill her off? That sucked.

I didn’t realize anything had happened on the platform until I heard a strangled yell. I ran back my video: Asa had turned abruptly and accidentally bumped into Sekai, knocking her off the platform.

Great. I paused the episode and checked the monitoring drone down in the shaft. I couldn’t get a visual, but I tracked the power signature of Sekai’s suit. She bounced off the stabilizer wall (ouch) and hit a blade on the extractor housing. Gravity was lighter in the shaft, and there was a chance that the impacts hadn’t—yeah, she was moving. I isolated her comm signal and heard harsh, frightened breathing. She had 90 seconds before that blade moved and dumped her down to be incinerated in the collectors.

You would think dealing with this would be my job. But no, my job is: 1) to prevent the workers from stealing company property, everything from tools to disposable napkins from the mess hall; 2) to prevent the workers from injuring and/or killing management, no matter how tempting the prospect might be; and 3) to prevent the workers from intentionally harming one another in ways that might diminish productivity. So HubSystem’s response to my alert was to tell me to stay in position.

The mine was run by cheap, venal bastards, so the nearest safety bot was 200 meters above us. HubSystem ordered me to stay in position; SafetyResponder28 was incoming. It would arrive just in time to retrieve the smoldering lump formerly known as Sekai.

Asa, realizing what he’d done, was making a noise that did uncomfortable things to the organic parts in my head. Elane was sobbing. I could have ignored them and gone back to the episode, but I liked the colony solicitor’s bodyguard and I didn’t want her to be dead. Sekai, a human I was technically responsible for, would be dead soon too.

With my governor module inert, I sometimes do things and I’m not entirely sure why. (Apparently getting free will after having 93 percent of your behavior controlled for your entire existence will do weird things to your impulse control.) Without thinking about it, I stepped off the edge of the platform.

As I fell down the shaft, I kicked the stabilizer wall to push myself into the lighter gravity well. I landed on the housing above Sekai, just as HubSystem sent a command to my governor module that should have flash-fried my inorganic parts and soft human bits. Ha.

Sekai looked up at me, eyes wide. Her helmet had cracked (that’s what cut-rate safety equipment gets you) and her face was streaked with tears. I initiated a secure audio link between my armor and her suit, hooked one hand around the edge of the housing, and reached down. “We have 45 seconds to get out of here before we both die,” I said.

She gasped and shoved upward to grab my arm. As I pulled her against my chest, the blade cycled and dropped. A blast of heat and radiation washed over us. Sekai made an “eep” noise. I wanted to make an “eep” noise too, but I was busy. I said, “Just hook your harness to me.”

She fumbled the clips into place and got them fastened. Now I was free to focus on phase 2 of this stupid plan. I’d hacked HubSystem when I was first shipped here. Now I needed to make it forget what it had just seen. No—I needed to make this look like HubSystem’s idea.

By the time I’d climbed the shaft and slung us both up onto the platform, HubSystem was convinced that it had ordered me to rescue Sekai. I set her on her feet, filtering out the crying on the comm, and pulled up the management feed that I wasn’t supposed to have access to. Good: The supervisors were puzzled that HubSystem had directed a SecUnit to save a worker, but figured it was a productivity issue. Sekai and the others would be hit with fines for almost clogging the collectors with her burning body, but it was better than being dead. I guess.

Elane tried to pull Sekai away, but she turned back and stumbled toward me. “Thank you,” she said. It was like she could see me through my visor, which was a terrifying enough thought that my performance reliability dropped 3 percent.

Asa took her arm gently. “They can’t talk,” he told her.

She shook her head as her friends steered her toward the access bridge. “No, it talked. I heard it.”

Back at my guard station, I started the episode again. Maybe somebody would save the colony solicitor’s bodyguard too.