#they’re all women either adult or young adult

[simstoryu]

filler townies: leilah, bianca, fantasia, mariah, kelsey, and sidney

[violetsandshrikes]

I met a girl when I was fresh out of high school in undergrad who frankly, annoyed me quite a bit, but I also had an inkling to continue to be compassionate to her given a few things about her life/background/family

I ran into her two years ago. Last week, her daughter turned 1. This girl, let’s called her “P”, is a really good example of why I never feel comfortable mocking trad wives

Her perfect trad husband, who was a shining young figure in the local religious community, volunteered in all sorts of groups, well loved in his workplace and everything else, beat her up at 1 month post-partum. I reached out to her after seeing her desperately asking for a stroller on a page, confused and slightly concerned knowing both of them came from wealthy backgrounds.

The reality for lots of tradwives living “perfect lives” is this: P was immediately ostracised. All the wealth of her husband and her family meant absolutely nothing if she wasn’t in favour and doing what she was told. Her child and her well-being didn’t matter. P, at 25 years old, was basically deemed an oopsie, and left on her own to figure out how to pay for herself, a baby, find housing, and every other task you can think of.

Having known many of these women (and supported many of these women), another factor most people don’t consider is this: they are intentionally raised to be helpless. When I immediately offered my support to P, she really needed it. This young woman needed to be guided through how to apply for government assistance, how to weigh up rentals and apply for them, how to apply for jobs, how to sign up for childcare. How to sign up for your own power and internet, and how to connect them.

It wasn’t that she was “stupid”, or incapable, or spoiled. While it looks like they’re being sheltered, in reality, these women are practically being held hostage. Sure, they might be allowed to learn things that are expected of them (see: basic cooking, baking, cleaning, child rearing, women’s bible studies, hosting, and so forth) but they are heavily controlled from family life into marriage life, and they are never given the opportunity or the reality of what many of us would consider basic adult tasks.

She’s doing okay now. Her daughter turned 1, is happy and healthy. They live frugally, but they have a roof over their heads and the essentials. I often babysit for her so she can attend counselling, or go to a woman’s support group. She is painfully aware that she has so much to learn about how to live as an adult.

I don’t envy tradwives, but I don’t find any joy in mocking them either. Even when they live the most picturesque lives, they’re also practically living a real life Jenga game. If (and often, when) it comes tumbling down, they’re screwed too, and they often have 0 skills to help themselves or find community (that again, isn’t carefully curated).

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

I read this week that Instagram is pushing “overtly sexual adult videos” to young users. For a Wall Street Journal investigation, journalists created accounts that could belong to children, following young gymnasts, cheerleaders and influencers. The test accounts were soon served sexual and disturbing content on Instagram Reels, alongside ads for dating apps, livestream platforms with “adult nudity” and AI chatbots “built for cybersex”. Some were next to ads for kids’ brands like Disney.

This is something I’ve been trying to get across to parents about social media. The problem is not just porn sites. They are of course a massive concern. Kids as young as nine are addicted. The average age to discover porn is now 13, for boys and girls. And many in my generation are now realising just how much being raised on porn affected them, believing it “destroyed their brain” and distorted their view of sex.

But the problem is bigger than that. Porn is everywhere now. TikTok is serving up sex videos to minors and promoting sites like OnlyFans. The gaming platform Twitch is exposing kids to explicit live-streams. Ads for “AI sex workers” are all over Instagram, some featuring kids’ TV characters like SpongeBob and the Cookie Monster. And there’s also this sort of “soft-porn” now that pervades everything. Pretty much every category of content that kids could stumble across, from beauty trends to TikTok dances to fitness pages, is now pornified or sexualised in some way for clicks.

I think this does a lot of damage to Gen Z. I think it desensitises us to sex. I think it can ruin relationships. But beyond that, I also believe a major problem with everything being pornified is the pressure it puts on young girls to pornify themselves. To fit the sex doll beauty standard; to seek validation through self-sexualisation, and potentially monetise all this like the influencers they’re inundated with.

Which, of course, puts girls at risk of predators. Predators who are all over TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. Predators whose algorithms helpfully deliver them more content of minors and steer them towards kids’ profiles. Predators who are taking TikToks of underage girls and putting them on platforms like Pornhub.

And this is even more terrifying because adolescent girls are especially vulnerable today. They are vulnerable anyway at that age—but today they have far less life experience than previous generations of girls did. They are extremely insecure and anxious, and much less resilient. Combine this with the fact that they are now more easily exposed to predatory men than ever before in history, and served to strangers by algorithms. And another thing: girls are also able to look way older now. They have AI editing apps to sexualise themselves. TikTok filters to pornify their bodies. And access to every kind of make-up and hair and fashion tutorial you can think of to look sexier and more mature. I don’t think enough parents realise how dangerous this situation is.

Which is why I find it so frustrating to see some progressives downplay the dangers of all this. Those that dismiss anyone concerned about the pornification of everything as a stuffy conservative. And somehow can’t see how the continual loosening of sexual norms might actually empower predatory men, and put pressure on vulnerable girls? That seems delusional to me.

Let’s just say I have little patience for those on the left who loudly celebrate women sexualising themselves online, selling it as fun, feminist and risk-free, but are then horrified to hear about 12 year-olds doing the same thing. C’mon. No wonder they want to.

But I also find it frustrating to see some on the right approach this with what seems like a complete lack of compassion. I don’t think it helps to relentlessly ridicule and blame young women for sexualising themselves online. I don’t think it’s fair either. We can’t give girls Instagram at 12 and then be surprised when as young women they base their self-worth on the approval of strangers. We can’t inundate kids with sexual content all the time and be shocked when they don’t see sex as sacred, or think sex work is just work! We can’t give them platforms as pre-teens where they are rewarded for sexualising themselves and presenting themselves like products and then shame them for starting an OnlyFans. We can’t expose them to online worlds where everything is sexualised and then be confused why some of Gen Z see their sexuality as their entire identity.

And again, on top of these platforms, girls are growing up in a culture that celebrates all of this. They are being raised to believe that they must be liberated from every restraint around sex and relationships to be free and happy, and many have never heard any different. Celebrities encourage them to be a slut, get naked, make/watch porn and make money! Mainstream magazines teach them how to up their nude selfie game! Influencers tell millions of young followers to start an OnlyFans, and pretend it’s about empowering young girls to do whatever they want with their bodies! I can’t say this enough: their world is one where the commodification and sexualisation the self is so normalised. It’s heartbreaking. And cruel that anyone celebrates it.

So sure, young women make their own choices. But when we have children sexualising themselves online, when girls as young as 13 are using fake IDs to post explicit content on OnlyFans, when a third of those selling nudes on Twitter are under the age of 18, I think it’s safe to say we are failing them from an early age.

I guess what I’m trying to get across is this: it’s tough for girls right now. It’s tough to be twelve and anxious and feel unattractive and this is how everyone else is getting attention. It’s tough to constantly compare yourself to the hyper-sexualised influencers that the boys you’re interested in are liking and following and thinking you have to compete. It’s tough to feel like the choice is sexualise yourself or nobody will notice you. The sad reality is we live in a superficial, pornified culture that rewards this stuff, and in many ways punishes you if you’re modest and sensitive and reserved, and a lot of girls are just trying to keep up with it.

We need serious cultural change. We need to wake up to how insane this all is, how utterly mental it is that we allow young girls anywhere near social media, and how we’ve let the liberalising of sexual mores escalate to the point where pre-teens are posing like porn stars and are lied to that it’s liberation. And where we need to start is with an absolute refusal from parents to let their kids on these platforms.

So please. If the relentless social comparison and obliteration of their attention span and confusion about their identity wasn’t enough, this has to be. Don’t let your daughters on social media.

[heavencanbeaprisontoo]

Partner Age-Difference Preferences (Peaky Blinders HCs)

Gn!Reader x Various (Tommy, Arthur, John, Michael)

A/N: suggestive language, toxic masculinity, toxic relationships, discussion of age-gap relationships, the reader is 18+ in all scenarios.

Tommy:

Prefers same age, won’t refuse a younger partner. Tommy has tried being with older partners but found they wanted too much control. And by “control,” we mean an equal part in the relationship. Tommy wants to have two worlds to live in, his world in business and his world at home. Partners his own age/younger tend to tolerate that more. Either they understand what he needs, or they are too naive to see it.

There is a power dynamic that he’s attracted to as well. A same aged partner will debate with him, but not shove him the way an older partner might. Wordplay is a turn-on for him, it’s really foreplay. Even the exchange of barbed comments can get him going. You could be certain that you’re in an argument with him and slowly it melts into an intense bout of eye-fucking that ends up with you naked. A younger partner is perfect for him to put on a pedestal and protect. If you can stand up to him and keep up with his mind, that’s even better. But don’t expect him not to use your age against you if you actually try to have an argument with him.

With a younger partner, Tommy will accept at maximum a ten year age difference. Occasional lovers can be a bit younger, but not by much. By Series 5 or 6, however, Tommy could go to twenty years age difference.

Arthur:

Doesn’t want to admit it, but most women his age feel inaccessible to him. Really has no preference, but most of his partners are younger due to them not immediately identifying that he can’t be changed. And that’s the cruel thing about it all. An older partner has seen people like Arthur and know that they have to accept him as he is or leave. Other partners might not. Which leads Arthur to greater heartbreak.

Unlike Tommy, he will put his partner on a pedestal regardless of age. Whoever you are, he will deify you based only on your choice to love him. Nobody’s ever chosen him before. You must be special. Saintly. An angel. He’ll feel that way even after you leave him. This would likely be most distressing for a younger partner. Arthur is emotionally volatile and immature. He won’t fully understand that the way he clings to you is abusive. He won’t. Not unless you commit to educating him on that, or really, making an ultimatum with him. Threatening to leave him is the best way for him to change even slightly.

Arthur doesn’t have a true preference for age, but he would not be with someone more than fifteen years younger than him. There’s something about feeling like he could be their father that just immediately turns him off. Fifteen feels safer, somehow.

John:

He’ll say he likes them younger because that’s the thing all men say, right? Really, he wants either a partner his own age or older. A partner that knows what they want and know what To Do when they’re alone in bed with him. Also, an older partner might just make him feel… safe. Ideal age difference with an older partner can go as high as ten years.

John does fairly well picking up younger partners for a night of fun, but he’s self-aware enough to know he can’t make a life with them. He has children, he has a drinking problem, he’s a boy in a suit with a gun. John knows this about himself and he wants to grow up. He wants to be stable. John can’t see that happening with a bouncy young thing he met at a pub.

John never wants to look like he’s not the boss in his relationship. Even if everyone can see that you’re the leader, he won’t admit it. The truth is, John is rather immature. Even a partner that’s his exact age is likely to feel older based on that. Unless you are also immature, you’ll find yourself having to be The Adult a lot of the time. Which embarrasses him, but he won’t change quickly. He’ll just put on his angry face and stomp his feet until you make it up to him.

Michael:

Has tried to be with partners younger than himself and found it just wasn’t what he wanted. Hates to say it out loud, but he actually prefers an older partner. Call it Mommy/Daddy issues, but he wants a partner that he can impress. He wants to prove his worth to you constantly while also having you on his arm as a sort of trophy.

In the case where his partner is older, his ideal age difference would be between 3-8 years give or take. Nothing extreme on paper. That’s not to say Michael wouldn’t be attracted to someone older than that, the 3-8 mark is just his go-to answer.

Like John, part of his attraction to an older partner comes from a want for stability. Michael is less interested in the traditional sense of stability, however. He lived a life in the countryside with two well-adjusted parents and a little brother. Michael knows what that life is like. His want for stability comes from wanting a partner with similar wants and goals who won’t easily change their mind. A younger partner or same-aged partner might change their values over time. An older partner knows precisely what they want, and will support Michael. Support him, be in awe of him, have all their attention on him. That’s what Michael wants.

[sarahreesbrennan]

Another Interesting Spoilery Evil Question

To directly answer the question before I start rambling, the Cobra’s body’s physical age is 24.

(You can stop reading here if you like. This gets very long!)

When Marius meets the Cobra (chapter 18 epigraph from Time of Iron) he correctly identifies him as Marius’s own age at the time - 18.

At the time of the book all the physical bodies’ ages are as follows.

Marius - 24

The Cobra - 24

Rahela - 24

Octavian - 24

(Pio and Nemeth, Octavian’s advisers, are in their early 40s and late 50s respectively - they’re Octavian’s dad’s people and that is part of why they are so stressed. Their king died young, Octavian became king in his teens and it has been an uneasy court ever since.)

Emer - 23

Key - 20

Lia - 19

Rae and Eric in our world were both 4 years younger than their bodies in this world (so they would both be 20 if the story hadn’t happened to them). For the moment we’ll leave aside Key, who had another life too, in a different way. (He was a little kid, but old enough to walk after his father, in the epigraph from Time of Iron in chapter 15.)

I do age shenanigans for two reasons.

—One is that age in fiction and reality is weird, and I wanted to portray that. If I had a crush on Mr Darcy when I was 7, is that okay? If I had a crush on Mr Darcy when aged 41, is that okay? Mr Darcy’s always in his late twenties: Elizabeth Bennet will never be older than 21, but she seemed so glamorous and all-knowing to me when I was a kid.

And if you walk into a story, when in their character development do you find them? Would we like Darcy when he’s sneering at Elizabeth at a ball? Who is it that we love and when?

Plenty of adult women fancied Edward Cullen, perpetually a teen (or was he? Fantasy and horror also open up the possibility of immortality - but in a way, all fictional characters are immortal. Holden Caulfield isn’t growing up any more than Edward Cullen is. And like fictional characters and immortals, the dead aren’t getting any older either—I think often of Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicles, who wrote the doomed child vampire Claudia after losing her own daughter Michele as a child. Death, immortality, fiction and the overlap!) When I read or watched stories in which characters were in different/changed bodies they usually seemed younger - often their younger selves, or a younger/cuter body (Peggy Sue Got Married, Scarlet Heart). (Exceptions exist of course, e.g. Howl’s Moving Castle.) And I like magic losing something, costing you something, plus I’m a contrarian. So I wanted them older.

—The other is that LONG LIVE EVIL is a story about trauma, which often arrests your age in your mind. The period in which you were enduring the horrors is a blank in which you couldn’t develop normally, or in which you had plenty of experiences but few of them match with your peers’.

Cancer did it to me, which wasn’t horrendous as I was in my early 30s and that’s still adult, just meant a bit of ‘oh no I’m not this child’s mother, I’m too young - actually I’m a bit old to be this child’s mother now I think about it, but anyway I don’t claim her’ and the like. But I’ve seen it do the same for people with cancer I befriended or whom I mentor, and it’s a very different proposition if the lost years are 17-21.

It’s not just cancer, I’ve seen bereavement work that way on people, and apparently celebrity works on the mind like trauma and arrests you at the age you became famous in a lot of ways. It’s being taken out of the run of ordinary life, walking through your portal into strangeness.

But in the end most of us wind up with years that feel lost, I think, and playing catch-up is the only way forward.

And allegory remains allegory: if I’m writing a werewolf I’m taking about rage and body horror, sure, but I’m also talking about werewolves.

I was actually confused by this ask at first as I’d written a whole section where Eric says he’s going to die of a heart attack at 20 and Marius is exasperated as Eric is a little young to start lying about his age! But it must have fallen victim to my many cuts - stories transform! - and I can see why, because I don’t think Eric exactly thinks of himself as 20 anymore.

I had some struggles with the age stuff, it’s another layer of complication in a complicated story and there were worries raised that it was unnecessary and might make some characters less appealing but in the end I decided it was necessary to me and let the characters be unappealing, then.

I also enjoy the twisting, fluid ages because they cause conflict, and conflict is story.

Rae uses her new age (and thus doesn’t need to think of her absolutely horrible self worth) to count herself out as a romantic option in Key’s eyes.

She also thinks of the Emperor as in his mid-20s, as he is - after a time skip that happens in the original Time of Iron, years in which Key and Emer were Lia’s servants. She knows about those years, but she doesn’t put it together.

At Eric and Marius’s first meeting 6 years before the events of LONG LIVE EVIL, Eric also hasn’t been in the book that long. He was in a horrifically traumatic survival situation for a large part of the time he was inside, when he approached Marius to blackmail him. That is objectively a deranged thing to do, but Eric is thinking like a terrified 14 year old and also like a Huge Fan of Marius. aka the quintessential white knight, the Last Hope who is reserved and dignified and crucially, 24-28.

That would be the Marius Eric at the time knows when he approaches Marius in the flesh, Marius at 18 and coming off family trauma, friend trauma and quasi-romantic trauma himself. Marius actually DOES go into dissociative states and kill people, Eric was taking a huge risk with his own life that not a single person in the country would have taken. Marius is a Valerius, and they are killers. (The whole court, Marius included, thought Lady Katalin ((Rahela’s mother)) was being very daring by like, touching Marius’s hand when he was 17.)

Eric is acting wild partly because a) he is wild, b) he’s desperate but also crucially c) he’s thinking of Marius as someone that Marius isn’t yet and d) he’s not thinking of things from Marius’s POV, and doesn’t until the events of LONG LIVE EVIL. Their quasi friendship/quasi hostage situation (that the hostage had firmly decided was happening) couldn’t have happened without a perfect storm of weirdness, risks and lack of understanding what the hell was going on.

Marius would not have seen a 14 year old Eric (not a child to him exactly, but squire age rather than knight age) as a criminal threat in the same way as he saw the Cobra, his own age (18, which was definitely very adult, Marius thought at the time). Eric wouldn’t have failed to consider consequences or failed to consider Marius as person rather than character, if he’d actually been 18. But by the time anyone knew better, a status quo was established, and habit is second nature and a stronger nature than the first.

Eric’s plight is horrific initially. But at the same time, Eric is extremely intelligent (both intellectually and emotionally) and able to both cover and play catch-up to this new life, and he can advise Rae with the benefit of his experience - but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t screw up massively when he first came into the book, or that he doesn’t still have many things to work through.

Similarly, Emer is used to Rahela who is quasi older sister and quasi mistress, while Rae is now acting younger. And all of them are dealing with a gross system in which men are seen as in their youthful prime when women the same age are getting long in the tooth and can be traded in for teenagers - so even two people who are the same age aren’t treated as if they’re the same age, if they’re different genders. Age stuff is crunchy!

Also, while Emer thinks of Lia as having all the power due to class, Lia looks on someone who was her glamorous older stepsister’s age mate and went off to the big city years ago rather differently. But then, are adulthood and childhood different worlds? Is being in different social classes being in different worlds?

Can we reach the different universes of other people is something I’m always asking, I think.

THIS IS SO LONG. I AM SO SORRY.

[oikyskau]

seeing kenji muto, the director of trigun stampede, reading an article about the portrayal of women in media made me want to take a little bit of a closer look at the women in trigun and as i was rambling about this earlier to my partner, they told me to write it down LMAO

as most of us know, in a lot of fiction, women are mostly characterised through common tropes, leading to a lack of complexity and a one-dimensional portrayal: as the doting wife, the femme fatale, the mistress, or the virgin. Their role only amounts to an Other, an extension of the male hero. they’re either the whore or the madonna.

for female characters in anime that usually means they’re either the sexy femme fatale, big badonkers and all to be gazed at, the mother, the helpless damsel in distress, or the child (yet, still sexualised despite the fact that it is a literal child); they’re portrayed through the way they are being perceived by men and mostly sexualised beyond belief. 

tristamp doesn’t do any of that.

in fact, the female characters in stampede achieve something that you don’t often see in anime: they are people. and stampede makes that clear in its very first episode by decidedly not going the route that you would usually take with the female characters they introduce:

of course, the biggest example here would be meryl, who i’d argue is the biggest driver of the plot, despite the fact that the plot of stampede is technically determined by vash - vash is an entirely passive character, he doesn’t make things happen, things happen to him and they mostly happen to him because of meryl. she’s the one who unties him, she drags them to the city, she makes them stay with him after ep3, she drives over wolfwood (rip my man), she stops for them to find rollo, she makes them follow the steamer.. you get it. she does all of this, despite being introduced as the newbie, the innocent person who would usually be the damsel in distress, who is helpless and shy and easily manipulated and who will probs be sexualised in her role as the “virgin” (sexually naive young girl who just doesn’t get all this adult sexuality yet hehe) 

but she’s not – she wears a non-sexualised outfit, she only gets called out for being a newbie, or for being small height-wise by wolfwood, but not for being a “girl”, she determines the action despite the fact that she does have a mentor figure and is therefore still in a position of a student – she still isnt an extension of roberto, vash, or anyone

in fact, the other characters – Rosa, Elendira, Luida, Rem – all take up roles that would in other media be portrayed in very specific ways: Rosa could just be a pregnant mother, who is also a divorcee, Elendira could be an innocent child beholden to her caretaker, Luida could be the loving motherlike figure and rem the Madonna figure, symbolising all the virtues a woman should aspire to have. – Rosa is a leader, her pregnancy is mentioned one single time and never made a bigger part of her character, Elendira is young but powerful, making choices by herself that are not inherently based on any kind of innocence, Luida doesn’t coddle Vash or prioritise him over her own work and mission (which also serves to inspire another woman, meryl!!), and rem is also just a non-perfect person, with secrets and questionable morality

none of these women are judged on the basis of their gender, none of them experience gender-based violence, none of them are made into a joke, none of them are sexualised (or desexualised – if you compare them to the male characters, who also do not ever make jokes about sexual promiscuity or similar stuff), they have different body types (rem has a very pronounced chest, and yet stampede doesn’t ever focus on it or give her cleavage) – note also that when presented with the perfect opportunity to call a female character a “bitch”, they chose to go with a “witch” instead, in both original japanese and english dub

their femininity is not used as a weapon against them, nor are stereotypical hypermasculine elements used to define characters’ positive traits (vash not being our traditionally hypermasculine hero for example) - the only time we see a semblance of gender-based violence is, you guessed it, at the very end, when knives forcefully takes control and bodily autonomy away from vash and inseminates the plants against their will (also interesting to note that knives, as the character that does exhibit that kind of violence, is the only character to be shown incredibly buff and all muscle) 

the women in tristamp are written for women, with the goal to be women that we can recognise, that represent the women that we are and know

anyways, i love all women in tristamp and have not once felt uncomfortable or said “oh look, a panty shot” and honestly i just find that pretty neat

[implalazz]

Asked for some yokai fusions on reddit, this is the first batch

L-R: Frostysol, Nonoko, Venyan, Lord Lie-in, Slimatina, Whisbuzz

Some thoughts on these designs under the cut

Yayyyyyy thoughts on these because I like talking, esp about my creative process

Frostysol: I WILL SAY RIGHT NOW I KNOW I FUCKED UP THE KOSODE MASSIVELY, IT DOESN’T HAVE SLEEVES & IT’S TOO BIG….. I literally only had two ideas for this desgin, one was inspired by the yuki onna segment's backgrounds from Kwaidan & the other was inspired by the spirits from Kuro Neko. The eyes in the backgrounds of yuki onna were so striking & I had just watched the movie recently so it was still fresh in my mind. I knew I wanted her to be closer to a real yuki onna rather than just a cute snow girl spirit. And in that regard Kuro Neko helped with that. I guess subconsciously I wanted her to give off vibes of an unsuspecting girl who kills you & turns out to be a yokai. I thought a kosode would make more sense historically than a random cape, but also idk if young girls wore kosode like that or if it was just adult women. Had no ideas how to incorporate pallysol so I just used him for little details. He's more prevalent in the design intentionally than physically

Nonoko: Pretty simple what do I say. Uh I thought I could do a clover for the tail rather than a heart like Bloominoko. Wanted to make him even fatter than he is cuz he's Noko x2, also made his spots clover shaped cuz what's more lucky than a four leafed clover? An eight leafed clover! Or two four leafed clovers..... Also gave him double teeth & some little wing shaped clovers on his head kinda like Dudunsparce. This one didn't have a lot of thought go into it, I just kinda did what felt natural

Venyan: The first thing I thought about was what colour to make the fur & what colour to make the hair. I decided on red hair cuz it would pop more with dark blue fur. Also made his face pattern a part of his hair cuz he doesn’t have enough room on his face for it with Venocts bangs. I wanted him to be kind of a shitty little bastard, a real cat kinda cat. A good mix of their personalities y’know. Didn’t have much going on with this design either other than I didn’t want the scarf to be all bulky with the dragons cuz Jibanyan is very squart, so I moved them to the tails. Also just because that looks cooler. Had a hell of a time drawing them, I have experience drawing dragons but I’ve always been bad at drawing them roaring or snarling, they look okay but not great.

Lord Lie-in: Also had a bit of trouble combining these two, makes sense cuz I put this one off for more than a few weeks. Didn’t wanna give him big spiky saiyan hair so he got some stray hairs in the front. Took his face framing bangs & tied them up cuz I always like that look (They’re two different pieces tied individually then tied together, so there’s two mini ponytails instead of one. Also had to deliberate on the hair colours cuz I knew I wanted him to have white fur. One of my favourites was red hair with light blue ends but I didn’t go with that one cuz his outfit is mostly red. I also DID NOT feel like giving him a whole kimono (mostly for silhouette reasons) so I just gave him Miku-like sleeves. I originally wanted to give him split leg hakama but when looking at reference I remembered “Oh yeah these things have a lot of pleats & the crotch is pretty low so that’s not great for the silhouette I have in mind.” I gave him harem-esque pants & if you look closely at the upper thigh you can see a little slit in the side of them. Underneath his waist plate & top, the pants tie together like hakama do so I guess I got the hakama in a little bit. I didn’t have any room for his arm warmers so I made them into gloves & gave him the kind of socks that I don’t know what they’re called (Catra has them & I think they’re cool). Also gave him tengu cuz they look cooler than whatever Lie-in Heart has going on. Also cuz it makes him more like “Woah what a bold guy/character!!” And don’t ask how the sword fits in that sheath, idk magic or something he’s the king of the yokai he can do whatever he wants

Slimatina (or Frostymander): Again not much going on here it’s pretty simple. Gave the lower body muscles cuz I noticed the lower body of Slimamander kind of looked like a chest & also just cuz that makes it more creepy. I gave the main body/head some hair clips resembling the patterns on the bulbs of the other heads. Also made the openings in the head look more like a woman’s mouth cuz again, makes it creepy, but also I just thought it would fit more with the Frostina part. Also gave the main heads head eyelashes that look like the openings on the other heads. Decided to give her a cape this time cuz I’m not fuckin around with another kosode. I don’t know if it comes off in the piece but I wanted her cape to be flying up like she just summoned a harsh wind. Last thing is I gave her an eye ornament on her obi & a specially tied obijime cuz I saw one tied like that on google & I thought it looked cute

Whisbuzz: YET AGAIN SAY IT WITH ME! NOT! MUCH! GOING! ON!!!!!! Uhh gave him a frown cuz he’s depressed or whatever, made the top of his hood look like Whispers…… ahoge???? Made his wings wispy on the ends. That’s about it. Fun fact before I drew that one I had another one but I scrapped it because it looked too much like a sperm cell :]

[atinylittlepain]

gif by @manny-jacinto

Baby Blue - A Joel Miller Story

Joel Miller x f!reader/f!oc

joel miller masterlist

Joel loses a bet to Ellie and is forced to chaperone a dance in Jackson. He might not mind it as much when he sees that their pretty neighbor is also chaperoning.

warnings | 18+ light on the angst, heavy on fluff, SMUT

a/n | this can be read as a standalone or as a continuation of Sweetness, it's just fun either way :)

..................

Joel lost a bet. He had taken Ellie out to practice her shooting, lining up old cans as targets. She was getting a little too cocky about her aim, so he had upped the ante, moving the still-standing cans a few more yards away, stacking them in a pyramid. 

“If you’re so good, kid, I’d like to see you hit just that top can there.” He pointed out to the can on top of the stack. Ellie scoffed.

“Easy. You don’t think I can do it, old man?” He just shot her a look out of the corner of his eye, crossing his arms over his chest. Ellie was grinning.

“Do you bet I can’t do it?” She had caught him that day in a half-decent mood, so for once, he was game to play along.

“What’s your wager, kid?” She thought for a moment, before her eyes lit up wildly and she fixed him with a grin. Joel was suddenly a lot less interested in playing along.

“If I hit that can, you gotta sign up to chaperone the dance they’re throwing next week.” Joel actually groaned at that. When he had heard from Maria about their plan to host a makeshift prom for all the high-school-aged kids in the town, Joel had thought to himself that there might not be anything he missed less than the concept of a bunch of hormonal teenagers nervously fucking around in a humid gymnasium for a whole night. He had chaperoned one dance before, Sarah’s first and only homecoming, and his heart seized at the memory of how he almost blew a gasket watching Matthew Brown getting a little too handsy with his daughter. Needless to say, when they had asked at the next town meeting for adults to volunteer to chaperone, Joel had not offered his services up.

“Ellie, there’s gotta be something else. I’m not going anywhere near that dance.”

“Well if you’re so sure I’m gonna miss, what’s it matter anyways?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“And if you miss, what do I get?” 

“If I miss, I’ll stop bugging you about your very obvious crush on our neighbor.” Ellie hadn’t let up about the young woman next door, not since Joel’s fake birthday when she had helped Ellie bake that cake for him. What the girl didn’t know was that the pair had shared a kiss that night, but since then, Joel had been hopeless. He’d greet her whenever he saw her around, and they’d exchange a few nice words, but everytime he talked to her his brain went fuzzy with the memory of that night, and he’d yet to “make a move” as Ellie had been goading him to do ever since.

“Alright, kid. Let’s see what you got I guess.” They shook on it. Joel wasn’t really worried about it. Hell, he didn’t even think he could make that shot, and if it meant getting Ellie off his back about their pretty neighbor, he was game.

He had sorely underestimated the kid, which was why he found himself in the old Jackson rec center gymnasium on a Saturday night, watching a bunch of puberty-ridden children of the apocalypse dance with each other to old cassette tapes from the eighties. This certainly hadn’t been on his end-of-the-world bingo sheet. 

He leaned back against the cement wall, his eyes scanning the crowd for Ellie until he found her awkwardly dancing with Dina. At least he didn’t have to worry about Matthew Brown tonight. It was mostly other women chaperoning, and they had all given him weird looks when he came to volunteer. He had thought to himself that next time, he’d move the cans a lot further away.

But then he saw her on the other side of the gym, his lovely neighbor in an equally lovely light blue dress. The dress itself wasn’t anything special, a short-sleeved thing that fell at her shins, but on her, Joel reckoned it was still the prettiest thing he’d seen in at least the last twenty years. Her eyes met his from across the gym and she smiled brightly, already walking over towards him as Joel’s brain began to blare the oh shit alarm. She sidled up next to him, bumping her shoulder into his.

“Joel Miller, can’t say I was expecting to see you here. You lose a bet or something?” His eyes went wide as he looked at her. She just laughed.

“Sorry, I had to. Ellie told me.” He huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. 

“That kid is gonna be the death of me.” She shrugged, offering him a grin.

“She’s certainly a spitfire, that one. You know, she always asks me if I’ve talked to you lately, always telling me that you’d like to see me.” Joel felt absolutely mortified, his eyes sweeping anywhere but towards her to hide his embarrassment. He caught Ellie’s gaze out of the crowd, and the girl looked so smug he’d like to dissolve into nothing on the spot. That damn kid. He shook his head, turning his attention back to his neighbor and trying to pull himself together. He cleared his throat.

“You, um, you look real nice.” Her smile started to ease the panicky feeling in his chest. She lightly swayed the skirt of her dress.

“Traded some of the tomatoes I’ve been growing this summer for it. Certainly not the same as what I wore to my own prom, but I guess it works for a chaperone.” He offered her a slight smile, rubbing the back of his neck and watching her smooth her hands down the skirt of her dress.

“Do you remember much of your own prom?” She laughed.

“Oh yeah. I wore this awful shiny purple dress and had matching butterfly clips in my hair. My date’s cufflink actually got stuck in one when he tried to pull a move in the back of the limo we rented, nearly scalped me he yanked so hard.” Joel couldn’t help the laugh that came out at that.

“Sounds memorable. I take it your date didn’t get too far in, uh, making his move?” She just let out a low whistle, shaking her head and swaying into his side again.

“What about you? Do you remember your prom?” He sighed, altogether liking the feeling of her shoulder continuing to brush into his too much.

“Hmm, I think mine was a little before your time. To be honest I don’t think we even made it to the dance, just ended up, uh, parking.” He blushed furiously as he got the words out, instantly regretting it. She just hummed.

“Wow, didn’t take you to be that kinda guy, Miller. I’m scandalized.” He could see by the smile threatening to creep onto her face that she was kidding. 

“Did you at least wear a suit?” He scoffed.

“Of course. Gotta wear a suit to prom. I wasn’t that much of a heathen.” She quirked her brow at him.

“What color?”

“Blue.” “Navy?” 

“Uh, not quite.”

“Like a royal blue then?” Joel just sighed, his shoes suddenly very interesting to him.

“No. You’re not telling me you wore a baby blue suit to prom are you?” He huffed.

“It was the 80s, alright? Everyone was wearing them, thought it was cool.” Her laugh was big and bubbling, eyes crinkling up as she looked at him in disbelief. She finally caught herself, resting her hand on his bicep and giving it a squeeze.

“I’m sorry, Joel. I just– never in a million years would I have pictured you in a baby blue suit and now I’m probably gonna be imagining it until the day I die.” He shook his head, not able to fight the smile breaking out at her delight in teasing him. He willed her to keep her hand on his arm, and she did, curling her fingers lightly and letting out a sigh.

“Laugh all you want, but my date thought I looked good that night.” She hummed, tilting her head up at him.

“I’ll buy that. But you look pretty good tonight too.” He choked on an inhale. He knew her flirting was entirely gratuitous, all he had on was a button down and jeans, the same thing he wore everyday. She leaned into his side.

“Whaddaya say, Miller. Will you be my prom date?” He let out a breathy laugh, feeling the blush creeping up his neck again. Maybe it was the sound of “the Cure” fizzing in the background, or the dizzy feeling he was getting watching the swish of the hem of her dress around her bare legs, but Joel finally decided to go for it. He tilted his head down to catch her gaze, a wry smile cracking across his face.

“I’m flattered, darlin. Thought you’d never ask.” The grin she gave him was her brightest yet, and Joel felt like he was melting on the spot.

They spent a while like that, leaning into each other against the back wall and snickering about nothing, lobbing flirtations back and forth. One of the other chaperones stopped by and slipped her a flask that they started passing between them, warmth quickly settling into both their features. Joel hadn’t felt this at ease in a long time, with her arm slung around his shoulders like they were the only two people in the room. She sighed resting her cheek on his arm as he glanced down at her.

“You know, even after he yanked my hair, my date still tried to make another move.” Joel scoffed but she just nodded.

“Mmhmm, he dragged me into the men’s bathroom, tried to get me to give him a handjob, pfft. I smacked him in the face and left right then and there, had to call my mom to come get me.” She laughed, but Joel wasn’t finding anything funny about it. Even though it had been at least two decades ago, and whoever this punk was had probably long been turned into a walking mushroom, Joel still briefly felt a twinge in his chest that he’d like to knock the guy’s lights out. He felt ridiculous, instead drawing his attention back to her and tentatively letting his hand wrap around her waist.

“That’s a really shitty prom memory.” And then, his tongue loosened by whatever they had been swigging from that flask, he said something way too bold.

“You wanna make a better one?” Her fingers stilled where they had been lightly playing with his shirt collar. She was just as shocked as him at his words, but she quickly caught herself, melting back into a smile.

“Well, depends who I’m making it with.” Joel was already slipping his hand into hers and turning heel to tug her along behind him out of the gym and into the hallway. Her breathy laugh of his name made his heart kick inside his chest. He was startled however, once they got out into the empty hall as she pulled him back towards her, tripping over his feet until they crashed together in a kiss. His hands quickly found purchase on her waist as she tugged him down by the hair at the nape of his neck. He couldn’t help the low groan that thrummed through his throat when she licked into his mouth. She pulled back with a wet click of spit, taking a big gasp of air. Joel’s knees felt weak at the sight of her, lips swollen and parted, chest heaving in her pretty blue dress. 

They were interrupted however, by the sound of chatter spilling out of the gym and into the hall. Joel’s eyes landed on another door, pulling her behind him and into what must have once been a supply closet. Luckily, when he flipped the lightswitch it worked, and they were back on each other in an instant, a tangle of tongues that was admittedly taking him right back to his highschool years. He walked her back until she was pressed up against the door, their hips slotting together, seeking more however they could get it. Her hands were grazing up and down his chest, sliding along the waist of his jeans in a way that was making him feel dizzy. His palms started to wander as well, from her waist down to the swell of her thighs, making her gasp when he squeezed the softness there before dipping around to her ass and he thought to himself that she was perfect in his hands. 

He was snapped out of the swimming reverie that was kissing her when he felt her fingers starting to work at his belt buckle. He was quick to take both her wrists in his hands, pinning them back against the door. She huffed at him and he could only breathily laugh at her frustrated expression

“Nuh-uh, darlin. This one’s gonna be all you, alright?” She smiled, her head lolled to one shoulder.

“We gonna go parking after this, prom date?” Joel grinned, already kneeling down in front of her.

“Something like that.” While he may have felt like he was back in highschool, he still had his very-much-not-teenaged knees and back to deal with and he was feeling it as he got down on the floor in front of her. He figured the pain would be worth it.

His palms gently curled around her ankles, skimming up along her calves and the backs of her thighs as he rucked up her dress along with him. Her breath hitched when his hands squeezed at her hips, not taking her eyes away from his as he thumbed at the band of her underwear.

“Is this ok?” She nodded, but it wasn’t enough for him. He gave her hips a harsh squeeze that made her gasp.

“Need you to tell me, darlin, please.” She drew one of her hands to card through his hair, tugging lightly at the scalp to get him to tilt his head up towards her. Her eyes were blown wide, and she squirmed in his grip. Joel felt like his head was going to explode just looking at her.

“It’s good, Joel. I want it, want you, please.” It was all he needed to hear, laying an open-mouthed kiss to the top of one of her thighs before sliding her underwear down her legs and helping her step out of them on wobbly feet. He drew the hem of her dress back up and she seemed to get the hint, bunching it up in one fist to keep it out of the way for him. He let his mouth wander up the plush inside of her thigh, breath grazing over her cunt in a way that made her shiver in his grasp. When he dipped away, however, trailing down her other leg, she breathed out a long whine. At that, he let his teeth graze her skin, nipping just a bit unkindly at the softness.

“Patience, prom queen, I’m getting there.” She scoffed.

“Oh, I’m prom queen now?” She went to say something smart, but was cut off with a broken gasp when he finally dragged his tongue through her folds.

“I’d sure give you the crown, darlin.” With that, he dipped back into her heat, drawing his tongue up from her fluttering entrance to her clit and swiping over the bundle of nerves there. He could feel her thighs shaking where his rough palms were splayed, and he drew her one leg by the back of her knee over his shoulder to open her up even more to him. She keened into his mouth, sighing out soft curses mixed with his name as he worked her over. It wasn’t lost on Joel that it had been a long time since he had done anything like this, but judging from the way she was tugging on his hair and canting her hips into him he hadn’t lost his touch.

“Fuck, Joel– want m-more– please– need more.” He rested his cheek on the swell of her thigh, bringing a hand up and slipping two of his fingers into her tight heat. The moan she let out was more of a cry at that, and Joel’s head went swimmy again at the feeling of her clenching around his fingers.

“Want you to come for me, darlin. I know you can. You wanna come for me?” She nodded frantically at his goading words, and Joel dipped his face back between her legs to lick harsh stripes against her clit as his fingers continued to steadily pump her. He came up for air for a moment, watching her face scrunched in pleasure above him, the sight made his cock twitch in his jeans.

“Please, baby, come for me. Just let go, pretty.” It was all it took to send her over the edge, her hips jerking in his grip and her cunt pulsing around his fingers as he fucked her through it. She let out a few warbly gasps of his name, tugging his hair to get him to stop working her over through the sensitivity. He finally pulled away and she hissed as he helped her get her foot back on the ground, slumping back against the door and gazing down at him with a hazy smile, her dress fluttering back down around her legs. Joel stood with a groan, his knees screaming in protest but he was quickly distracted by her pulling him in by his collar for a stomach-churning kiss. She pulled away with a gasp, eyes searching his.

“Joel, wanna feel you please. Want you to fuck me.” He groaned at that, dipping his forehead to rest on her shoulder and shaking his head lightly. She stilled in his grasp, and when he looked up at her again, a worried look had settled over her face. He couldn’t help the disbelieving laugh that rumbled in his chest, that this woman standing before him actually wanted him that much. The furrow between her brow deepened, but he was quick to lay a kiss there, stroking the arc of her cheek with his thumb.

“I want you too– believe me. But I’ll be damned if the first time I have you is in a fucking supply closet.” She let out a wild laugh at that, her eyes crinkling up as she looked at him and a warmth melted through Joel’s chest at the sound. 

“You know, I thought you were kidding about the whole parking thing.” Joel grunted, stealing another kiss from her before guiding her out of the closet.

“Fuck parking, I’m gonna take you home, darlin, if that’s alright with you?” They were already walking out of the gym but she still squeezed his hand and shot him a wicked grin.

“Sounds good, prom date, lead the way.” 

When one of the chaperones checked the door that had been left ajar, they were only slightly horrified to find a pair of panties strewn on the supply closet floor.

[crazylittlejester]

me and my sister were talking and she brought up how wars probably has a lot of assumptions that the opposite and then she was like “people probably assume he sleeps around a lot, probably was young when he started especially when he has mask and wind with him, when in reality he would never sleep with anyone most likely”

i would like your opinion on this since you are the number one hw link yapper

*cracks knuckles* I have so many thoughts on this actually

Disclaimer everything you’re about to read is my opinion and my interpretation on a character. I’m not saying this is the truth, I’m not sayin’ anyone has to agree, this is just my headcanon. Also, during the war of eras, I headcanon he was 17-20, but WAS an adult for most of the war. Also who even knows the legal drinking age in hyrule, i certainly don’t. anyways:

To start off, I completely agree, I don’t think he’d ever actually sleep around with anyone. I headcanon him to be on the ace spectrum and just fairly disinterested in doing that. Like he doesn’t care if other people do, it doesn’t involve him he doesn’t care, but he doesn’t see the appeal to it

Warriors to me is incredibly intelligent, he’s playing 4D chess in his mind constantly and he’s terrifyingly brilliant. If people are spreading rumors about him that he’s some idiot pretty boy flirt, despite the fact that couldn’t be further from the truth, he’s going to lean into it and use it to his advantage. Why? Because if the general public looks at him and sees him talking to women at bars they’re going to dismiss it immediately. They’re not going to be suspicious if they see him sneak off somewhere with a guy, giggling and acting a fool, because they’re seeing what the rumors are saying, and now it’s not a rumor it’s truth to them. Now they’re not going to think twice when they see Warriors slip off somewhere to give another soldier information to pass on to another camp. They’re going to see him with women saying “Maybe we should go somewhere alone” and roll their eyes, oblivious to the fact that he’s passing important information through trusted people from camp to camp in an attempt to avoid the turncoats getting actual battle plans, or even outside times of war, just regular top secret information. That no longer looks like him sneaking off somewhere, he just gets dismissed as a guy who gets around

If they look at him and see some pretty, brainless idiot, it gives Warriors an extreme advantage. He’d abuse the rumors, he’d make them work for him. All he’d really have to do is make a few flirty remarks to people from time to time and bat his eyelashes a bit, which is just acting for him and incredibly easy to do

Plus he’s FAMOUS, there’d definitely be people like “I slept with the hero of hyrule 🫶” who are COMPLETELY lying, but Wars wouldn’t call them out publicly. He’d just let it fuel the rumors and help him keep his cover

I do also think he would flirt with people to get information out of them. Like if someone hit on him or something and he was suspicious of them, he’d probably match their energy and let them buy him drinks and sit there and wait until he could get them to mess up and tell him what he needs to know. He’d just have to be careful not to blow his cover or let it show too much how completely and utterly disinterested in the present situation he is

But he’s not ‘a flirt’ at all, not genuinely anyways. He’s just damn good at getting what he wants. He has a charming smile and he knows it, and he’s gonna use the gifts he was given

He lets people assume he sleeps around and is just some stupid pretty boy, but his ideal nighttime plans are him curling up by a window during a light rain storm either reading or writing in his journal, by himself, enjoying the quiet

(and of course the people who actually know him and know him well would not be fooled by the rumors at all, they know he’s not like that)

[houserautha]

hcs about giedi prime as a planet in general?

I am SO GLAD you asked!!!!!! Hold on to your butts because a lot of this is probably just me rambling

• Harkonnens are obviously a very proud people. In my mind it’s a war planet that loves combat and conquering. It’s also canonically heavily, heavily industrialized

• SOOOO a lot of their culture and traditions revolve around the warrior/high productivity mentality

• House Atreides canonically has roots in Ancient Greece, so I think it’s fun to play with Harkonnens ancestry. I don’t know if there’s anything canon but I like to think that they at least have adopted some of the social/cultural aspects of Sparta (I know it’s basic but hear me out)

• Obviously because Sparta was known to be military-focused and just because their brutality and social structure seem fitting with what’s in my head for Giedi Prime

• Children, boys and girls, are ruthlessly trained at a young age and conditioned into little warriors. Propaganda of the great Harkonnens shoved down their throats

• I think that women would have some power, similar to Sparta. Obviously not as much sway as other planets might have but they’re educated and trained to fight because what’s the point of a weak individual?

• Combat is their greatest source of pride and entertainment so fighters are basically celebrities

• If you live to old age on GP then you’re either the baddest bitch around or a coward and your social acceptance will depend on how others perceive you

• the black sun basically sucks out all color so they never even bother with colorful clothes or buildings and that’s why they always wear black (also it’s badass) (also this might not really be a HC but)

• GP is devoid of basically any plant life so their food is pretty dull and flavorless unless you’re wealthy enough to import spices and the likes

• The black markings that Feyd sports on his chest in the movies are tattoos, each bar corresponding with an inordinate number of people killed in combat. Most Harkonnens will only have one or two if that

• they actually have hair (albeit shaved close to the head) until they graduate their training school and then they’re inducted into adult life by dunking their heads in this acidic formula that permanently kills the hair follicles. It’s also a show of strength and resilience and not everyone survives this.

• No hair = nothing to grab onto in a fight

• Not very many animals can survive on GP and if they do there’s a 1000% chance it will kill you

• they would crumple so fast without all of their technology, they depend very heavily upon it not only for jobs and exports but also daily life

And more HCs will be included in These Destined Ends, particularly ceremonies such as weddings, births, funerals, etc 🫣

[cloudlessly-light]

Hi I was wondering if you could do a fic where they’re away on a case and emily sneaks into aaron’s room cause no one knows about them yet. Then the next morning the team discusses how there was a really loud couple and then somehow they find out that it was Emily and Aaron. I really hope that made sense.

I love all you’re writing btw you’re amazing ❤️

A/N: Posting the last chapter early because I’m going away for a little bit and I wanted to finish this before leaving. Thank you to everyone who’s read and enjoyed this story, you guys all make me so happy! Especially thank you to everyone who's encouraged this story even when our idiots truly have been IDIOTS haha

Title: Love like mine (12/12) Chapter title: Baby, you’ll never find a love like mine Summary: He wasn’t a cheater. Until her. Word count: 2,5k Rating: Explicit   Warnings (for this chapter): Smut, oral, fluff, feelings

She’s running late for a day of shopping and lunch with Penelope and JJ. She’s running late because Aaron had kept her in his bed for longer than necessary, both of them enjoying their free Saturday before Haley would be dropping off Jack. And now she was rushing to get her things together. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t look through the peephole at the sudden knock, something she usually always did. But not this time, instead she swings the door open and comes face to face with Haley, the other woman looking just as surprised as she felt.

They had been good at avoiding each other, something Emily hadn’t wanted but understood why Haley didn’t want to see her. They had been divorced for six months, Aaron and Emily had been together for close to two now, and Haley had made her feelings clear about the situation. Not that either of them blamed her for feeling the way she did.

“Haley.” She says and she hears Aaron’s steps pick up.

“Hello.” She shifts Jack on her hip, hugging him closer even as he squirms. It’s tense, the two women caught in a stare.

“You’re early.” Aaron is suddenly there, breaking the silence and Jack immediately reaches for him.

“Daddy!” He squirms out of his mothers’ arms and runs to Aaron who picks him up in a hug.

“Hi buddy.” He kisses his son’s head and puts him down.

“Hi Emmy.” The three year old immediately pads over to her and she squats down to be at eye level.

“Hi Jack.” She smiles and Jack grins back before throwing his short arms around her in a hug.

Haley watches the whole exchange with a sinking feeling. She knew that Emily had been around her son, her name being thrown around in the midst of Jack’s talking. Logically she knew that the other woman was good with children, that Jack wasn’t in any sort of danger, but the pang of anger in her chest as her son happily reached for the other woman made her heart hurt.

When Emily stands back up she feels the hate directed towards her, something she wished wasn’t there but knew she couldn’t change. What they had done to Haley was wrong, to some something unforgivable. All she could do was to wish that somehow Haley would find some way to accept Emily in Jack’s life. And that would take time.

It was strange, thinking of herself as part of a family, something she just a year ago wouldn’t even have dreamed off. Something she had wanted but never dared to hope for and instead she had stuck with flings and one night stands. But now she was with Aaron, the words love constantly on the tip of her tongue but something she hadn’t said out loud yet.

“Well. I should go.” Haley’s mouth turns into a thin line as she looks between the two of them.

“You don’t have to go, I’m on my way out.” She says, knowing that Haley and Aaron usually spent some time together to talk about next weeks schedule and playdates when she dropped Jack off. “Please stay.”

Haley sighs heavily, about to decline but Jack’s voice stops her.

“Mommy stay.” The three adults look down at the child who’s happily playing with his toy truck on the floor, too young to understand the complicated relationship of his parents, too innocent to feel the awkwardness in his home.

“Okay I’ll stay.” She hangs up her jacket and leaves her purse on the side table. She ignores the way Aaron squeezes Emily’s hand as she tells them bye. Most of all she ignores the feeling of Aaron having found the woman he would spend the rest of his life with. She silently wonders if either of them had realized the same thing.

*

After that first meeting things had gotten slightly better. Haley didn’t avoid Emily the way she previously had and Emily relaxed a little when she was around Jack and Haley together. It wasn’t easy, but they seemed to find some sort of middle ground of acceptance.

“Jack loves you.” He says as they drive off, having just dropped him off at Haley’s after another weekend spent with them.

“Really?” She rolls her head to look at him with a smile and his hand squeezes her thigh.

“Really.” He smiles back and he sees the way her cheeks heat slightly. “How could he not?”

“You’re so cheesy.” She rolls her eyes at him but has to bite her bottom lip to keep from beaming. There was something about the way he was looking at her, like she was something fragile, something worth protecting, that made her unable to look away from the darkness of his eyes. She knew it was coming before he said it and she readied herself for what she would say, words that she still haven’t said out loud but knew she wanted to tell him.

“I love you Em.” He watches as she draws a breath, the sound almost shaky and her hand lands on top of his on her thigh.

“I love you too.”

To them, that was everything.

*

They’re in Oregon, another case closed but unable to fly home due to bad weather conditions. It forces them to stay another night, which in turn forced Emily to sleep alone in her room. Only, she couldn’t seem to relax, her body and mind craving the man just three doors down the hall. They had a rule, she knew that, and yet she didn’t care when she slipped on a sweater that was his, way too big on her and then knocked on his door.

“Emily, what’s going on?” He drags her inside quickly, eyes moving through the corridor but finds that she’s alone. He didn’t care much if anybody saw her, but it was her decision to wait to tell the team and he wanted to respect that.

“I-” She stops herself from continuing, suddenly feeling silly. She wasn’t needy, she never had been before, but then he looks at her with an arched eyebrow and a small smile and she chuckles. “I didn’t want to sleep alone.”

“I had been thinking the same thing.” He wraps her arms around her the moment she steps into his space. Her chin rests against his chest and he presses a kiss to her forehead.

“We’re disgusting, aren’t we?” She teases and he smiles with a low hum.

“Maybe.” He drags her shirt off her and bites back a groan at the sight of her tiny sleep shorts and pink tank top, one of the thin straps falling off her shoulder. ���So this is what I’m missing out on when we sleep apart huh?”

“I can’t very well sleep in one of your shirts in case I need to room with JJ.” She backs away from him, her hand in his as she tugs him along until her knees hit the back of the bed.

“I thought you wanted to sleep.” His voice drops lower as she sits down on the bed, her fingers hooking in his pajama pants and tugging them down his hips along with his boxers.

“Later.” She breathes as she slips from the bed and to her knees. “Right now I just want you.”

“Alright sweetheart.” He groans at the first swipe of her tongue, his hand quickly gathering her hair in a ponytail to be able to look at her face. Her mouth is so hot, so wet around him and he swallows hard.

She gets him hard quickly, sucking his cock until he’s leaking precum and snarling her name through clenched teeth. When he pulls her up to stand she barely gets the gasp out before he’s kissing her, his rough hands pulling at her clothes until she’s as naked as he is.

“On your back.” He breathes and watches with heated eyes as she lays down, legs spreading and showing her already wet center. His knees will hurt in the morning, but he doesn’t care as he kneels on the floor and drags her pliant body to the edge of the bed. When he licks through her slowly she moans and her hips rock against his tongue. Then he flicks her clit and she gasps his name as she leans back on her elbows, head falling back.

“Just like that.” She pants as he continues to lick over the sensitive nub. When he pushes two fingers inside of her and sucks her clit hard she comes with a loud grunt, the sound low and breathy as she trembles for him.

“You’re so pretty when you come for me.” He growls as he lifts her higher on the bed and pushes inside of her before she’s really even come down from her euphoric high.

They fuck hard, forgetting where they are as the bed rattles and moans and groans and grunts are muffled into each other’s skin. He makes her come again, then lets her ride him until she’s coming for a third time. When he pushes inside of her from behind she’s trembling and whimpering, overstimulated and exhausted as he groans his pleasure against her ear, voice thick with unrestrained want.

“Come inside me baby.” Her fingers twist in his hair as she holds his face against the back of her neck. “Make me feel it.”

The deep growl that rumbles in his chest when he comes only a few minutes later sends her over the edge again, the mix of him pulsing inside of her and the sound of his voice forcing another orgasm through her.

She gasps for breath as his hands turn gentle on her body, his lips tasting and kissing the bruise he’s sucked into her shoulder, tasting the sweat on her back as he licks along her spine. When they fall asleep it’s tangled together, sated and exhausted.

She is woken up by the sound of his alarm and she grunts when she looks at the time.

“It’s too early.” She complains and he grunts against her neck, his arm tightening around her middle momentarily.

“You need to get back to your room before everyone wakes up.” He reminds her, voice raspy and thick and she finds herself pushing her body against his in response. But he’s right, and she drags herself out of bed, dresses slowly as he watches her with heated eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that.” She tells him as she pulls the sweater over her body. “Or I’ll end up staying here.”

“I know.” He accepts the kiss she presses to his lips and lets his hand wrap around the back of her neck for a moment, keeping her close. “See you in a couple of hours.”

“Love you.” She kisses him again forces herself to stand back up and head to the door.

“Love you too.” He promises right before she disappears out the door. He doesn’t realize he’s still smiling when he lays back in bed.

*

“Did you guys hear it?”

“It was so loud.”

“Yeah I did not need to know that people were getting it on at 1am.”

Emily walks with Dave towards the team with her overnight bag thrown over her shoulder. Her body was still aching from him, the hickey on her neck covered with make up and a high collared shirt, and she still wanted more, couldn’t wait until they got home so she could have him again.

“Morning.” She seems to be interrupting the conversation, three sets of eyes all looking at her.

“Did you hear the couple on our floor too?” JJ asks but before she can respond Spencer starts talking.

“You must have!” When she looks at him he looks close to traumatized and she bites her cheek to keep from commenting.

“I must have been asleep.” She lies and it’s Derek that catches the way her tone shifts just slightly.

“There’s no way.” He tells her. “There’s no way you slept through that.”

Beside her she hears Dave chuckle, but otherwise stays quiet and for a second she wants to strangle the older man.

“Good morning.” The sound of Aaron’s voice causes her to turn around. “What’s going on?” He asks as all of them turn to look at him, different expressions on their faces.

“There was a super loud couple on our floor last night, they were going at it like rabbits.” JJ says and when Aaron’s eyebrows raise in surprise the blonde zeroes in on him. “You didn’t hear them?”

“Uhm, no. I must have been asleep.” He looks between each member of the team, tries to keep his face as neutral as possible but he can feel the way each and every one of them catches on as their eyes start to shift between himself and Emily.

“You were asleep?” JJ smirks at her unit chief who clenches his jaw as he swallows. “You woke up from the sound of Morgan dropping a file once. You’re telling us you slept through that noise?”

“I guess I was tired.” He lies but he knows there’s no point.

It’s Derek that dares to voice it, his eyes boring into Emily’s and when her face flushes he knows and he grins at his friend.

“I knew you were getting some!” He laughs and JJ and Dave join him.

“Morgan.” Aaron warns but the other man doesn’t seem deterred.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Does Strauss know?

“What’s going to happen with the team?”

“Pen, you will not believe what’s happened.”

“I knew it!”

The questions seemed endless, mixed emotions from all of them but they had expected nothing less. At the end though, their team seemed happy for them. It was going to be an adjustment, but later as they watched Aaron and Emily on the plane, no longer hiding as she leaned against him, all of them realized that they hadn’t seen either of them so content before.

JJ smiles as she watches them from across the plane. She knew Aaron better than most people thought, and as she took in the way his thumb traced gentle circles on Emily’s upper arm, she noticed the way he looked happier than she’d seen him in years.

Spencer spent most of the flight back home trying to recount every interaction between them, figuring out that they had started seeing each other before Aaron’s divorce. He has mixed feelings about that, but he wouldn’t judge, not when he saw the way Emily smiles as she looked at Aaron.

Derek spent the flight texting with Penelope who was going insane not seeing the couple with her own eyes. But he sneaks a picture of them to send to Penelope and that picture is the first one that’s ever taken of them as a couple. It will be framed and stand on Aaron’s desk next to the one of Jack.

Emily is asleep against him when Dave comes to sit across from him, a glass of scotch in each hand. He hands him one of the glasses and raises his own in a toast. “It’s about damn time.”

[torukmaktoskxawng]

tsamsiyu ta’em - a new leaf part two

Masterlist - part five

Summary: Desertion must run in the family.

Pairing: Ronal/Tonowari/Original Female Character

Tag: #tsamsiyu ta'em fic

posted on ao3

Word Count: 9k+

Taglist (bold indicates “could not tag”): @mooniequeen @shit-i-say-shit-i-think @heart-an0n @amiets2 @slutforsmut4ever @yeosxxx​ @im-in-a-pansexual-panik

Warnings: canon-compliant, canon-typical violence, mature language, adult content, slow burn, polyamory, found family, cool aunt agenda, alien/human (technically avatar), jake sully sister agenda, time skips, I'm trying to hurry up and get to the good parts so bear with me, fluff, angst, adopted spider, tags to be added

A/N: Thank you so much for 300 followers! 🎉

Right from the start of the day, Jake knew something or someone was bothering his sister. She was quiet, she kept to herself, and she went stiff when anyone came near her. It was as though they were right back at the start when he first brought Kayla to High Camp. What was worse is that the kids had noticed and asked their father what was wrong with Auntie, and Jake couldn't afford to tell them that he didn't have all the answers and he had been wondering the same thing. A small part of him was scared that something had happened to her back at Bridgehead or maybe she was changing her mind about staying. Whatever was wrong, Toruk Makto needed to fix it, one way or another.

She had been particularly moody to him all day, but unfortunately, she had to be in close proximity to her brother when they were both given the task of tending to the ikran and their harnesses.  She decided to be silent, cold, and distant as they worked. Jake decided not to push his luck and worked in silence alongside her, just trying to be a comforting presence despite not knowing what was wrong. He did, however, notice other presences around them, and they were paying particularly close attention to his sister.

It was a small group of young Na'vi warriors, likely around Kayla's age if not a little younger. They stood off to the side, openly staring at Kayla and whispering to each other. Jake couldn't tell if they were curious or making fools of themselves by mocking her, but Kayla didn't appear to even notice them at first. Then, some avatar scientists joined the group, also publicly gawking at Kayla when their fellow Na'vi friends whispered to them, too. They laughed quietly among themselves and one unfortunate bastard was cursed with a snorty laugh that drew Kayla's attention to the group, sharp eyes locking onto them before she could even blink. The whole group quickly turned away, all either embarrassed or ashamed.

Jake took this opportunity to laugh and lighten the mood, "You've got a growing group of admirers, it would seem."

Kayla paused, still watching the group of men and women now clearly avoiding her gaze before actively ignoring them, bringing her eyes back down to her hands as she worked on weaving together a spare banshee harness. Jake huffed with amusement, "What? Not your type?"

"Not my priority," she muttered, "Besides, I'm pretty sure they're not staring at me because they wanna get some."

"Does that mean you have someone?"

Her eyes shoot up to him like a bullet, narrowed and glaring into his soul as she spits out, "Would I have come to Pandora alone if I did? I'm not the one who abandons people when they need me."

The silence is thick and palpable, able to cut through with a knife. Both Sullys stare at one another, unblinking. One stared in shock while the other glared in rage, but it's not hard to tell which is which.

Jake swallowed back the emotions when his throat suddenly dried, ears lowering in shame, "I'm sorry."

"After all, 'Sullys stick together', right?" She mocked, and one look at her and Jake could tell why she was suddenly pissed off at him. The shame quickly eats him up and threatens to spit him out as her voice wavered, "Usually, I'd find it sweet that you taught your kids some of our family's old traditions... but when that tradition ended up becoming a lie--"

"I was going through it," he tried making up excuses as a desperate attempt of calming her, "I wasn't thinking."

"You were going through it?" She huffs out a laugh of disbelief, the smile that briefly graced her lips was vile and hysterical, "I get that you were twins, Jake. But Tom was my brother, too."

Jake lowered his eyes, unable to look at her any longer. It seems as though Kayla can't just settle on one emotion, all her thoughts that have been stewing for some time beginning to boil over like a volcano. Her voice shook, either in rage or distress, Jake didn't want to look up and find out. "And for a while there, I thought I lost both of you."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sure you are. Doesn't excuse the fact that you left me all alone, found yourself a wife, and had a few kids all the while letting your sister believe you were dead!" She snapped, growing angrier by the minute when tears started to brew in her eyes. She didn't want to cry. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to punch him and scream but she was frustrated because she had clearly missed that opportunity when they first reunited, "I missed out on so much of your life, Jake. I missed out on their lives, and you didn't care."

"I did care. I still care--"

"You didn't. If I recall, the last thing you ever said to me was 'have a good life, kid' in that passive-aggressive tone of yours."

His eyes flick up to hers, "And your last words to me were even less than friendly."

"Sue me." Kayla snarled back, quick as lightning, "My brother abandoned me on a dying planet, all alone, and didn't bother to make sure I was taken care of."

The wording felt like heavy lead beginning to build in Jake's gut, tilting his head curiously at her, "What do you mean? What happened?"

"Nothing happened. I just did exactly what you told me to do. I grew up." His ears pin to his skull as his mind prompted him to a distant memory of the last time he ever spoke to Kayla. The shame and humiliation were evident in his eyes when she glared back, "To make ends meet I became a marine. You didn't give me much of a choice."

His hand reaches out before his brain could order it to do so, "Kayla--"

She hissed ferociously for her first attempt, the sound coming low from her chest and throat, baring her sharps fangs at her brother, "Don't fucking touch me."

Jake pulls his arms back, afraid she'd bite, and raised them in surrender so she had a clear view of both of them. Defeated, Jake keeps himself back and willingly exposes himself to her verbal lashings, "Alright, let's hear it. I wasn't sure how long it would take us to talk about it. But there's no easy way around it. So come on. Let's talk."

Her eyes were still pooling, threatening to spill, as she shook her head when words failed, "Maybe we shouldn't."

"No, we should. I knew this was coming. Go ahead."

She took a moment to try and find the right words, but there weren't any that she hadn't already said. Instead, Kayla confessed what she had been feeling all this time after having bottled it up for so long, "Initially I was glad that you're still alive. Now that the initial shock and relief have worn off-- fuck you, Jake."

She picked up her work and turned a full one-eighty, walking away and keeping her head low so no one would think she was making a scene. She wasn't able to get far before Jake comes after her, being sure not to touch her, and instead making her stop in her tracks when he rushed around to cut off her escape, "Look, Kayla, wait-- hate me all you want. I know I deserve it. But don't take it out on anyone else but me."

The words were enough to confuse Kayla as her rushing thoughts pause, peering up at Jake in puzzlement, "What makes you think I would do that?"

"I can't afford not to," his whole posture displayed the stern form of an olo'eyktan, shoulders stiff with the weight of hundreds of lives relying on him, "Kayla, you and I, right now, are on opposite sides of a war. Alright?"

The firm reminder breaks the spell and Kayla quickly looks away, deciding to focus on a Na'vi child in the distance, running away from their mother as they laughed instead. Jake sidesteps until he's in her field of view again and she is forced to make eye contact. His expression stays serious, like a father talking down to their child, "Whatever punishment you think I deserve for what I did, I'll take it gladly. But don't do anything to punish anyone else, like telling Ardmore where we are. Don't feed my family to the wolves for my mistakes."

It hurt to think that after everything Kayla has seen in these last few months, Jake would believe she could possibly do something so monstrous. Her eyes widen at him, shattered as she voiced this in such a soft tone, "Do you honestly think I could do something like that?"

He doesn't relent even though he wants to. He wants to believe his sister loved his kids and would never throw them under the bus for crimes he committed, but he's seen too much. He knows what people like Ardmore are capable of, and has seen firsthand what they can do to get what they want. "It's like you said. Twenty years is a long time but it's enough for someone to change. And the side that you're fighting for, the Sky People... They have done nothing but hurt the Na'vi. They've killed animals, entire ecosystems, and even the People themselves. I watched them destroy Neytiri's home and there were many casualties. Men, women, and children. All for what? For the ore that lay underneath. I thought we had driven them away but now they're back, and they're more ruthless than before. That field outside Bridgehead. The Kill Zone? That used to be a forest. A beautiful, powerful, living forest. And now it's gone. Burnt down to the dry desert it now is."

Kayla's eyes dart away, her expression crumbling into a whole range of emotions that she tried to contain, conflict and sadness being only a couple of them. Jake doesn't relent, "Come on, Kayla, you know I'm right. You know what the Sky People are doing is wrong."

It was a weak attempt at defending herself and her species, but Kayla's sisterly instinct to argue with her brother was a lot stronger than common sense, "... They're my people. They're your people."

"No." He shut her down firmly, harshly, "I chose my people. I chose people who love life. 'People who love the ground they walk on and respect the animals they hunt. They believe that everything must return to the dirt so life can start all over again. When have you ever seen a human give back?" When he's met with silence, he takes a different approach, "You're a soldier, Kayla. Soldiers don't have the freedom to make their own choices. They're not allowed to feel or have their own opinions. I would know because I was a soldier, too. I was just like you. But now I'm a warrior."

She frowns, staring up through her eyebrows with doubt evident through her yellow orbs, "There's a difference?"

"Yes. Warriors are loyal and brave. They have honor. They're not mindless animals who only do what they're told regardless of whether or not what they're doing is wrong. Only a soldier does that. I refuse to be a soldier ever again."

The arguing side of her finally gives in, exhausted from spewing all her emotions out all at once in the heat of the moment. She just wants to sleep now, and at this point, she'll do whatever it takes to get back to her nivi, "What do you want from me?"

The opportunity presents itself and Jake finally admits the motivation behind bringing her here in the first place, "I'm asking you to stop being a soldier and start being a warrior. Join us. Join us and learn to love life again as you did before. Stay here. Be a part of our family. Fight for the survival of our family." Kayla looked as though she had expected him to say this, but still appeared unsure, scared of the danger of staying. Jake took a brave step forward and gently placed his hands on either of her shoulders, "My kids love you and they need you. Do you love them?"

She thought of Neteyam, so kind and brave and nurturing. Kiri, so full of hope and life and is just trying to know herself. Lo'ak, desperate for approval and to make himself seen, yet so reckless and funny. Sweet Little Tuk, so full of love for everyone around her and all-inclusive when showing her creativity and happiness. Kayla even thought about Spider, who smiles and laughs with her and tries to make her feel welcome, despite being an odd teenager who has yet to figure out how adult life works. Going beyond the kids, Kayla thought about Neytiri and Norm, people who have included her in everything and accepted her despite their differences, and who have grown to be her friends and family. Kayla's eyes briefly flick back to Jake and nodded, "Yes."

He smiled, "And the forest? The colors? The people?"

"Yes."

"All of that will go away if the Sky People continue to stay here. They'll dig up and burn every tree all the way down to the roots. They'll be an infestation to this world that you've grown to love. Please, Kayla. Stay here."

Determination and desperation intertwine on his face, and Kayla hated how she had to be the one to break such confidence in him. She partially wondered when did their roles reverse, where she had given up but he had hope. Maybe it had been when he first came to Pandora and saw his life through other people's eyes did he decide to change, and even though Kayla was proud of her brother for becoming a better man, she still felt the hurt of abandonment. Despite wishing she could hurt him as he hurt her, she didn't want it to be like this, "I can't, Jake."

His face had started to fall before she could quickly add, "Not when my real consciousness is in Bridgehead. As long as my body's there, I'll always have to go back."

He breathed a small sigh of relief through his nose, calm now that he knew she wanted to stay but just couldn't find the courage to do so, "Then wake up and run away."

"... How?"

"I have a plan."

~~~~~~~~~

The nights were a little cold high up in the cave systems of the floating mountains, but Kayla was ignoring the cold in exchange for looking into a cracked mirror hung up off to the side of the Longhouse, meant to be used for when the avatars needed to do their nightly routines. Kayla purposely waited until she was the last one to use the mirror for the night, the other avatars already lying in their hammocks, waiting for lights out to be called.

Her reflection was something she had only just begun to get used to. Big, yellow eyes, and cerulean skin with natural, flowing blue stripes perfectly shaping the angles of her face. Kayla pressed a finger to one of the many star-glittered freckles on her cheek that she had recently learned the Na'vi call tanhì. She followed the design for a while, losing count after twenty and then meeting her cat-like eyes in her reflection.

It was a face she was going to have to get used to if she was really going to go through with this. She once saw the avatar as a separate person entirely, but now she understood that they are one in the same both mind and soul. No matter what form she took, either blue or peach, she was still Kayla, and she had to remind herself of that every day in the mirror, no matter what reflection was looking at her. Although she was beginning to wonder just how much time she’ll be spending in her human body after tonight.

A plan had been set and now all she had to do was go to sleep and wake up in Bridgehead. Easier said than done, her nerves acting as a stimulant to keep her awake. Already, she was hearing snores coming from the biolab trailer. She heard quiet chatter in the distance, but other than that, the whole camp was asleep, marking just how late her rushing thoughts kept her up. Taking one last look at her avatar, she finally pulls away from the mirror and gets comfortable in her hammock, internally asking Eywa to wish her luck before closing her eyes.

She's awoken by the same blinding white lights and lab coats, asking a hundred questions a minute while routinely going through the motions of giving her nutrition and simultaneously taking blood samples through various needles and tubes in the crooks of her arms. Kayla blankly stared at her pale arms, a little thinner than normal. She hadn't had time to take care of her body in between links and decided that this should be one of the many reasons she needs to leave. Her stomach growled at the idea of freshly cooked teylu waiting for her back at High Camp and was extremely disappointed when a scientist handed her a granola bar instead. Finally, after they had bandaged her fresh wounds and were satisfied with her answers, Kayla stood from the ledge of the link bay and steadied herself,

"I need to talk to General Ardmore."

The general was summoned and brought to the biolab by the time Kayla was offered water and a full meal. The corporal even had time to pull her hair up into a more respectable bun before she would stand in attention for the general. Frances Ardmore walked in and Kayla salutes stiffly, keeping her eyes lowered until she had been given permission to speak.

"Report."

Kayla looked up with a stern look in her eye and a monotone voice, lying through her teeth gracefully, "There's a crash site near the location of what used to be the Na'vi's Hometree. A gunship with some bodies inside. It's not my brother, I know, but with your permission, General, I'd like to go out there and extract them."

"With your avatar?"

"Just myself, ma'am. I had to leave my avatar behind at the crash site." The general's eyes narrow and so Kayla quickly adds before she could be interrupted, "She's safely hidden, I assure you, but I left a tracker on her so I can find my way back. With your permission, I'd like to take a gunship out there and I'll retrieve the remains myself and bring them back so they can be properly identified and sent home to their families. There won't be any need for extra manpower or wasted supplies."

Ardmore didn't speak for a while, and Kayla had to use every muscle in her face to keep herself from smiling at the idea of Ardmore trying to remind herself that she needs to act sympathetic to the families of possibly deceased soldiers. Kayla was sure that Ardmore could care less about some bodies that were over a decade old, but courtesy forces her to be civil as she curtly nods to Kayla, "Permission granted. You get there, you extract the remains and come right back. That's it."

"Yes, ma'am."

The next morning, with a large satchel of "rations" at her hip, a mask over her face, and an AR rifle strapped to her back, Kayla is led to a gunship and then left alone. Remembering her previous training, Kayla strapped herself in and begin the process of starting up the engines while waiting for Control to clear her for take-off. Finally, she gets her orders and she barely contains her eagerness when responding cordially and taking off, floating up into the air before flying away. Silently repeating the rendevous coordinates Jake had provided her the day before, Kayla beelined in the direction of what used to be the Omatikaya's home.

In Sector Twelve, about ninety-three kilometers from the abandoned Hell's Gate facility, now sat a slowly healing memorial site of Hometree. Kayla had heard stories about this place, mostly from Mo'at, Neytiri, and even Neteyam, despite the fact the young Na'vi boy had never seen its former beauty before the RDA had decimated it. Despite never seeing it stand tall and mighty, Neteyam told stories that he had heard from the Na'vi around him who had seen it. He even proudly stated how his own bow, much like his mother's and maternal grandfather's, was made from the wood of Hometree. It is from Neteyam's stories that now let Kayla's imagination run wild as her gunship slowly circles around the site of the former home of the Omatikaya.

Most of it was still barren, Eywa's hold not yet fully restored over this land. Plants and signs of life were visibly, but not yet solidified. The great corpse of such a large, magnificent tree was still visibly, lying across the landscape like a fallen giant. Vegetation was growing all around its trunk, uproots, and branches, cementing it to the forest floor where it will one day fully return to the dirt to give back what it had taken from the Great Mother. Neytiri once told Kayla that the tree will likely not fully decay under her children's grandchildren are born, but by then, she hopes that more songs will be sung for them to remember it by.

Reaching her destination, Kayla slowly lowers her gunship to the forest floor but wisely chooses to stay inside the vessel, knowing that the world's immune system will not take her presence lightly-- not in this mundane form. She anxiously waits, breath somewhat shaking when she exhales, and purposely cuts the engine. She won't be needing to bring this gunship home, after all.

She's thankful that she doesn't have to wait for very long, hearing the familiar, echoing call of an ikran approaching. Sighting familiar blue and purple wings, Kayla grabs her things and climbs out of the gunship, double-checking that her mask was tightly secured before stepping out into Pandoran air. Tightly holding the strap of her bag, she makes the trek over to the ikran and its rider, who has landed a bit of distance away from the gunship out of paranoia.

Jake sucked in a sharp breath of air, his expression solemn and grave as he took in the human form of his sister, in the flesh, for the first time in over two decades. She was shorter than he remembered, with her dirty-colored hair cut to her shoulders and those familiar, Sully blue eyes staring back up at him through her mask. It was like staring at a ghost, haunted by several memories and none of which Jake was entirely proud of, given the latest argument with his sister. Kayla stared back at him with an all-knowing gaze, equally somber and grim as she stood off to the side of his ikran, patiently waiting. Bob had bristled underneath his rider, clearly uneasy about the human beside him, but through the bond, the banshee kept mostly to himself, aware that he was not allowed to eat this human. Jake broke off tsaheylu and dismounted, trudging over to Kayla and motioning her to lift her arms.

"You're a lot smaller than I remember." He stated slyly while inspecting her person for any trackers or listening devices, gently taking the bag from her shoulder and flipping it open.

"Last I checked, I was taller than you in your wheelchair, so watch yourself."

He glanced up from the bag and hissed playfully at her, causing a small smirk to form behind the glass of her mask. Jake hands her back her belongings and then rejoined his ikran, taking a few sticks of dynamite and a detonator out from the pockets of his saddle.

Kayla frowned at the sight of the explosives, glancing between them and the gunship, "Are you sure you don't want another gunship on your side? Two is better than one."

The Na'vi shook his head, "We can't risk it. For all we know, the RDA is tracking all their gear now."

Sighing in defeat, Kayla nods and stands off to the side while Jake rigs the gunship with explosives and calibrates the blasting cap with a timer. He walks back to his ikran, forming tsaheylu before hopping on and reaching down to Kayla with an offered hand. She takes it willingly and allows him to lift her up on the banshee while Bob grunts disapprovingly at the added weight. Jake places Kayla in front of him on the saddle and they take to the sky, high enough to be out of range when Jake finally hits the button setting off the detonator.

The gunship explodes in a blooming flower of fire and debris, the smoke rising into the air in the form of a small mushroom cloud. The loud noise disturbs the wildlife momentarily, with small forest ikran and stingbats taking to the sky. Jake doesn't give the explosion much thought as he grabs a tighter hold on Eywa te' Bob tan'sey mak'ta with one hand, but squeezes Kayla's shoulder with the other, "Now with any luck, they'll label you killed in action."

"Or missing." She muttered.

"Ardmore isn't gonna want that kind of paperwork. She would much rather label you as a traitor than start a manhunt looking for you lost in the woods. You said it yourself, she doesn't like wasting resources on just one individual."

"... So that's it? Just like that, we disappear?"

"Not what you were hoping for?" He peered down at her briefly before looking ahead, continuing to fly.

Kayla hesitates, glaring ahead at the skies while internally fighting with herself before finally confessing her inner thoughts, "A part of me thought it would've been easier for the both of us if I never found out you were still alive. We could've just-- lived out the rest of our lives living in our respective worlds."

Jake allows the wind to fill in the silence, noting how defeated she sounded even with her back to him and the air whipping past them, obscuring her voice. He shakes his head despite the fact she couldn't see him, "The 'what if' scenarios aren't a thing around here. We don't believe in that kind of thing. Everything happens for a reason, and everything happens because it is the will of Eywa. I hope, in time, you'll learn to call this world your own as I did, kiddo."

She drops the debate, for the moment, and scoffs distastefully, "Okay, new rule. No more 'kiddo' talk. I'm not a child."

He smirks, "No? Then why are you small like one?"

He earns himself a sharp, small elbow in his ribcage when she reached back at him and a threatening promise, "Just wait, Sully. Soon I'll have your kids pinned against ya with all the stories I have of you up my sleeve. You'll regret the day you decided to pull me into this world."

~~~~~~~~~

Her nerves returned when they flew back to High Camp and a horn was blown to announce their arrival. Bob lands and Jake helps Kayla down before letting the ikran fly away. Na'vi were beginning to gather, and Kayla, yet again, felt more exposed than usual, even more so now as she was given some obvious glares regarding her obvious sky demon body and military clothes. Jake places a hand on the back of her neck, yet again, and led her away, immediately finding his family huddled together in the back of the crowd, waiting for him. He and Kayla part through the Omatikaya that have gathered and now stood in front of the Sullys.

Kayla wasn't surprised to see them all slightly hesitant by her human presence, and even though she couldn't blame them, it still made her stomach clench uncomfortably. She couldn't meet any of their eyes due to the height difference, and to her horror, even Tuk was taller than her in this form. When Kayla's eyes met the youngest Sully child's, Tuk shied away behind her mother's leg, clearly curious but unsure of getting closer. Off to the side, Kayla noticed that Norm, Max, and Spider were also there to greet her, and, much to her disappointment, even they stood taller than her as her fellow humans. The traitors. Kayla has never felt so small in her whole life.

Jake pats Kayla's back in sympathy while addressing the family, "Alright, Sullys. Your Aunt Kayla is going to be a more permanent presence in our lives now, and she's going to need help to feel welcomed as both a human and a Na'vi. I'm counting on you to have her back, okay?"

And of course, Neteyam is dutifully the first to step up, offering his hand out to Kayla with a gentle smile, "It's wonderful to meet you, Auntie-- again."

She sees a small hint of humor behind his eyes and relaxes, taking his hand in both of hers and smiling up at her oldest nephew, "You, too, 'Teyam."

He steps aside when he felt the shadow of his little brother behind him. The ice is broken and Lo'ak is milking the height difference with good-natured laughs and Spider was egging him on, glad that he was no longer the shortest out of the group. Kayla felt a grin twitch on her lips without her consent and pinches Lo'ak's side to make up for it, laughing when he yelped in surprise. Kiri had walked up, holding Tuk's hand so she didn't feel alone and the sight of the girls reminds Kayla that she had come bearing gifts to try to ease the kids back into accepting her.

"Kiri--" she calls out while frantically fishing around in the bag she kept strapped at her hip. Pushing aside a few necessities she had taken with her, she pulled out a book and sighed in relief, smiling up at the girl while holding the gift out to her, "As promised."

Kiri's eyes widen and reached out, gingerly taking the gift as if it was something precious. She read the title and then the author's name before glancing back down to Kayla, eyes and smile warm, "Thank you, Auntie."

Finally, Tuk's shell cracks and she begins by poking and prodding at the human woman that now stood shorter than her, lifting Kayla's arms and inspecting her form in awe before her fingers find her aunt's hair and instantly start playing with it. The girl giggles while stating, "It's so soft! We gotta braid all this, Kiri."

"Tomorrow, sweetheart, okay?" Kayla shines a smile at her youngest niece, who nods eagerly and puts her whole weight into hugging her aunt, who is barely able to catch her before they could fall.

Jake smiles while watching the heartwarming interactions before tapping Human Norm on the shoulder, "You got a space for her, right?"

"Absolutely. The second half of the old shack is still functional and is currently being used as storage. She can have my old bunk if she wants."

Jake's nose scrunched up, a little put off by the suggestion, "I doubt she'd want it if I told her all the things you and Trudy got up to in that bunk. She can have Grace's old space."

Norm snorts while shamefully scratching the back of his head, "Sure thing. Probably a better idea." He breaks away to greet Kayla himself, putting on the widest grin as he stands next to her, comparing their height difference with his hand much like before, "It's nice to see that this transfers, no matter what form you take."

Kayla rolls her eyes and shoves him in the chest, causing Norm to bark out a surprised laugh. Through reacquaintance with her family and friends, Kayla had noticed Neytiri standing off to the side in her peripheral. The human woman took a moment to pointedly stare at the Na'vi woman, their eyes meeting and forming a standstill. Neytiri was stiff, both in posture and expression, a statue that didn't waver against Kayla's gaze. It unsettled the Sully woman but she tried not to show that in her eyes, instead she brought her fingers to her forehead, and lowered them in Neytiri's direction. The Na'vi woman blinked, and with the gesture, her posture began to relax. Neytiri smiled. It wasn't big or emotional, but it was small and sincere. She nodded back in response.

After dinner, Norm brought Human Kayla to her new room she would be sleeping in when out of her avatar body. It was a separate trailer from the biolab, standing on its own and older than some of the buildings the humans have taken from Hell's Gate. Norm explains that the trailer was a part of Site 26, a small mobile link meant for avatar scientists who went off-grid for research in the mountains. He tells the story of how he was part of a small science group who retreated there to work so people like Parker Selfridge and Colonel Miles Quaritch wouldn't be breathing down their necks back in the day. After he and Kayla go through the airlock pressure doors and step inside, Kayla takes off her mask and looks around, immediately noticing a few familiar sights.

The first was a wheelchair, abandoned, covered in dust, tossed off to the side. Clearly, the place needed some cleaning, but Kayla wasn't worried about the dust at the moment. She beelined for the wheelchair, bending down and helping it stand back up on its wheels. Norm stands in the doorway and watches the scene in front of him with a solemn reaction, explaining as she continued to look around, "This is it. This is where Jake and I made our last stand as avatars before the fight. The other half of this shack is where the link bays were, but the trailer was completely demolished back in the war and so we left it abandoned out in the woods."

She moved over to the desk and lifted a picture from its home there, blowing away the layer of dust and revealing the contents of the picture. It was clearly Jake at the front of the group photo, human, sitting in that very same wheelchair, smiling at the camera lens. Kayla's finger briefly traces her brother's old face, willing her mind to remember it after staring at his avatar form for so long. Standing on either side of him was Norm and a woman Kayla didn't recognize. Clearly of a military background, the woman -at least younger back then compared to Kayla now- grinned behind her sunglasses, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and spilling over one side of her shoulders. Behind Jake, with both hands firmly placed on his shoulders, stood an older woman with short, curly red hair and sparkling eyes as she smiled, proudly, at the camera.

Kayla hears Norm shuffling around behind her and gently places the picture down, turning back to him as the male scientist was moving around some old equipment and patting the mattress of a bottom bunk off to the side of the trailer, "This was Grace's bunk. It's yours now."

That night, as she sat alone in her new living quarters, Kayla got to work on making this place feel more like home. The first order of business was to clean away all the old pictures and put up the new ones-- well, not really new compared to the photo of Jake, Norm, and the two women. Kayla retrieved her envelope of pictures and placed one photo on the mini-fridge, inspecting it for a moment before she had to move on.

The picture was definitely older than the ones of Jake and the scientists. It was a picture that was taken roughly a month before Tommy was killed. The twins were sitting on the couch so Jake could feel a bit of normalcy, requesting that his wheelchair be kept out of the frame of the photo. The twins smiled at the camera, and Kayla stood behind the back of the couch, leaning over her brothers with a wide grin on her face. Present Kayla smiles to herself before moving on to the next big step of her life.

~~~~~~~~~

As promised, Kayla spends the next morning and afternoon with her nieces, in human form, so that she can watch and learn how to properly braid Na'vi hair. She learns this by letting the girls use her unconscious avatar as a demonstration. Kayla's avatar hovered in her sleeping hammock, unconscious to the world, while both Kiri and Tuk weave every little bit of her locks into various small, intricate braids, pulling them tight along her scalp and purposely braiding the hair behind her large ears so the locks were out of her face. Kayla watched from off to the side, trying to pay attention even as the braiding took hours to complete. Tuk eventually got bored and left her sister to finish the look before excitedly asking her aunt if she could braid her human hair instead, to which Kayla agreed but only if the braids were larger and didn't take as long.

As the girls worked on both human and Na'vi hair, they decided to share their parents' love story, much to Kayla's awe, amusement, and horror all in one. Of course, she was curious about how her brother and Neytiri met and why Jake decided to turn against his own kind for her, but Kayla wasn't hoping for any specific details. Unfortunately, the Na'vi do not shy away from such topics and even openly talk about it to their young, as Tuk liked to prove to her auntie as she refused to spare her any... scrutinous details.

"-- And then they mated before Eywa!"

Kiri's body and tail go rigid even as she frantically scrambles over hammocks to cover Kayla's ears while berating her loudmouth sister, "Tuk!"

Despite the uncomfortable conversation, Kayla found herself laughing to the point she was crying, holding her ribs as they ached and wheezing until she couldn't breathe. She didn't find the initial storytime hysterical, but Kiri's haste to spare Kayla's dignity, Tuk's innocent gaze, and Kiri's hands practically folded on either side of the human woman's face definitely acted as the cherry on top.

Days went by and Kayla was much more comfortable jumping in and out of her avatar form, even more so now that she wasn't waking up and being constantly poked and prodded. On one of her first days as a human in High Camp, Kayla wore a tank top and was bombarded with concerned questions when Max noticed all the needle scars on her arms. Although she tried not to think about how she was practically a guinea pig for the RDA, her family wasn't letting her forget it. Max must have told Jake because the olo'eyktan regarded his duties for the day to instead take some time to spend with his little sister. He grabbed a child's bow and brought her down to the forest floor to do some fishing, even keeping a spare mask strapped to his hip for her if she needed it. He never asked about the scars, but Kayla could feel his eyes on her arm when she pulled the string of her bow back and tightened her form per his instructions.

After firing and missing a few arrows, clearly distracted by his stares, she sighed heavily before turning to look up at him, "It'll never happen again, thanks to you."

~~~~~~~~~

In between lessons, Kayla was finally getting to know other humans who honorably live among the Omatikaya. One individual, Jocelyn, was one of Kayla's personal favorites, aside from Norm and Max. Jocelyn was a biolab tech and didn't own an avatar, so she goes about her day normally, as a human, with a breather mask always secured on her face. Her knowledge stemmed from fixing vital technology -to help the humans survive- all the way to medical training -to keep the avatars kicking-. Not only did she live among the Na'vi, she talks to them fluently, and they don't appear bothered by her tiny presence. Kayla often sees Jocelyn, short as she is, trailing after a couple of young Na'vi hunters. Two young men, to be precise, who always love showing their little sky demon friend things they've brought back from their travels outside High Camp. They always let Jocelyn take samples and further inspect whatever they bring home. Not only was she a technician and a healer, she was also a scientist and she was always hungry for more knowledge of the world she lived in.

But even though she's full of wonder and excitement, she is also pretty strict. The kids in particular exasperate Jocelyn and Kayla always gets a kick out of watching her trying to wrangle the Sully kids whenever Spider sneaks them around the biolab. Kayla has interacted with Jocelyn loads of times at this point and always found her intriguing, but this took the cake, especially when she noticed how Spider practically had the female biotech wrapped around his finger. To be fair, Spider has most of the human scientists and avatars wrapped around his finger. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and the humans left behind on Pandora were no exception when it came to raising Spider.

However, despite this, Kayla couldn't help but wonder why Spider doesn't hang out with anyone else outside of the humans and the Sullys. He's an overall good kid and he's passionate about the Na'vi culture. If it weren't for the physical looks, Kayla would've definitely thought he was one of the Omatikaya when they first met.

She decides to ask him about this one day when Spider decided to sit down and teach her more of the language. Kayla was in her avatar form that day, now sporting tightly braided hair with beads that clicked when she walked. Kayla had to admit that she liked her new look even more knowing that her nieces had woven her a new identity. Spider appeared relaxed while teaching her certain words that are generally used in combat while her mind was still buzzing with her own questions.

"So do you just hang out with Kiri and Lo'ak or do you have other friends?"

Spider shrugged, "Some of the other scientists had kids while being stuck here, but I was older than all of them so I didn't play with them much."

Kayla nods, indicating she was listening. She had been told of Ardmore's initial threats to the humans who harbored Jake Sully and the Omatikaya when the Sky People first returned to Pandora. Some humans, especially the ones with families, stood down and surrendered in exchange for full pardons and safety for their children. That included Spider's foster family, the McCoskers. From what Kayla has heard, Spider's foster family was not the greatest of guardians, especially the foster father. He had betrayed Jake and the Na'vi to Ardmore, being responsible for the deaths of fellow humans who sympathized with the Omatikaya. Jake didn't go into depth with what happened to the McCoskers and the other humans who surrendered, but she assumed that for Spider's own sake, no one wanted to mention them now that they're gone.

Spider didn't appear to notice Kayla's inner turmoil as he continued, "Tuk is kinda in the same boat. I hung out with Neteyam for a while there. We're the closest in age... but he hasn't really been wanting to hang out anymore."

"Why not?"

The boy stares off in the distance, unable to keep his eyes on Kayla for long before he has to look away again as he muttered, "Probably because he's training to be the next olo'eykan. Which is fine. Good for him."

It sounded only partially genuine, and Kayla doesn't back down, "But Kiri can still hang out with you even as... uh... what's the word for tsahik in training?"

"Tsakarem."

"Right." Silence lingers until Kayla braves awkward silence, "It... it doesn't have to do with whatever Neytiri has against you, does it?"

A scowl immediately forms behind the breathing mask, "She hates me. Hates the fact her kids love me even more."

"From my experience, it doesn't take much to be on her bad side," she tried lightening up the mood, "I wouldn't sweat it too much, kid."

"You don't get it."

"Don't I? I know she's not overly fond of humans."

"It's more than that with me. To her... I remind her of the man who nearly took everything from her family. My father was Quaritch."

The name sounds bitter on Spider's tongue, clearly a bad taste for him. Kayla's comically big and yellow eyes widen even further, "You mean the colonel who ran security at the mine before the humans were sent back to Earth?"

He only nods and she hisses in sympathy, "Shit. Okay, I can see why you'd have a hard time getting on Neytiri's good side."

"Yeah. No kidding."

~~~~~~~~~

Unlike Spider, it didn't take Kayla a whole lot to get on Neytiri's good side, but it's not as though she had to try. Neytiri was already warming up to Kayla, both in and out of her avatar form. The Na'vi woman sometimes enjoyed Kayla's presence in her human body, despite not wanting to be around the other Sky People that live amongst her clan. In many ways, Neytiri felt as though she was with Grace or Sylwanin again. They would've loved Makayla Sully. She was more level-headed than Jake -or at least compared to when he was younger- and she was observant, someone who calculates before doing anything. She thought ahead and she always had something Neytiri remembered Grace calling 'common sense'.

Neytiri grew to appreciate Kayla and would fondly watch her interact with Jake. Neytiri was aware that her mate had at least one sibling in the past, but up until now, she could only imagine what kind of a brother he was. With Kayla around, Neytiri got to see a side of her husband he hadn't let anyone see before. With Kayla around, a bit of mischief returns to his eyes, always ready to tease his sister without a second thought, regardless of who was watching. Mo'at wanted to berate the olo'eyktan for such childish behavior, but Neytiri was quick to silence her mother, "They need time to be reacquainted as siblings."

And siblings they were. Neytiri often smiled when around the adult Sully siblings. Watching Jake and Kayla interact often reminded her of other sibling duos, such as Neteyam and Kiri, or even herself and Sylwanin. But it's not to say Jake and Kayla were the most perfect siblings. Kayla still had trouble forgiving Jake for past mistakes and would often remind him of said mistakes just to add dirt to the fresh, reopened wound. Neytiri understands why Kayla must hurt Jake the way she had been hurt, but Jake was still Neytiri's husband and she was protective -if not a little possessive- of him. So, to try and find peace between the brother and sister, Neytiri decides to take Kayla hunting without Jake present.

Kayla didn't refuse, slipping into her avatar form and excitedly following Neytiri to her ikran. The pair fly down to the forest floor and immediately pick up a trail that had to be yerik. While tracking the animal down, Neytiri found it the best time to breach the topic, "Jake tries his best to help you feel at home here. You try your best to push him away."

Blunt as ever, she takes Kayla off guard, the female avatar turning back to face her with wide eyes. They stood in silence, the hunt momentarily forgotten until Kayla's mind catches up to her and she shakes off the initial shock. She turns back to the task at hand, following the tracks Neytiri had instructed her to follow with a scowl on her face, "Jake was the one who told me that relying on others won't help when you're trying to survive. I'm just living up to his advice."

"He's not like that. Not Ma Jake."

"Then congratulations, Neytiri," she exclaimed sarcastically, "You got to experience the best side of him. I didn't. I lost a brother before him. I can do it again."

"Can you?"

She is met with silence again, staring at the back of Kayla's head. Neytiri took the moment to admire the braids her daughters have woven into their aunt's hair before bringing herself back to the present and gently adding, "I understand."

"Do you?"

"I lost my sister," Neytiri forced out, her tongue tasting bitter from the words. She never said such things out loud, and the shock that sinks into Kayla's face was one of the reasons why. Neytiri despised any pity people send her way after everything she's lost. She didn't want the pity, especially now when she has more family than she ever thought she'd have. "The Sky People murdered her right in front of me. I was only a little older than Neteyam when it happened."

Kayla's mouth opened and closed as she tried to come up with something comforting to say but the only words that come out are her initial thoughts, "Oh, my God. I'm sorry."

Neytiri tightens her lips together and briefly smiles before letting it fall, having heard all those words before. She took point in the hunt, walking ahead while following the tracks so she wouldn't have to look at her sister-in-law, "Can I ask? What happened to Tomsully?"

"He was killed," Kayla explained automatedly, "Some... murderer with a gun shot him down in the streets and left him to die alone. It was cold and raining that day. They said he didn't suffer, but..." Kayla shook her head to refrain from thinking about it, "I wasn't there. Neither was Jake. I was job searching and Jake was out drinking his life away. He never mentioned?"

"He grieves as I do. I don't talk of my sister. My children don't know enough about her. Ma Jake says little about his old life."

Kayla swallowed thickly, eyes hard as she stared at the back of Neytiri's head, "Let me guess. He never mentioned me."

The Na'vi woman paused in her steps, hesitating before finally turning back to meet Kayla's eyes, "I did not know he had a sister until you came here."

That stung. It stung knowing that neither women were ever aware of each other until now but Kayla couldn't wrap her head around another mystery, "So-- how are you so calm about all of this? Why are you so accepting of me? I'm part of the same species that's responsible for your sister's death."

"So is Ma Jake."

"But you're not hostile toward me like you had been when you first met Jake, or so I'm told. Why?"

Neytiri smiles, opening her mouth and taking a breath before whispering, "... You are my husband's sister. He shares your blood... as do my children."

She steps closer to Kayla, reaching out and placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, much to Kayla's surprise as Neytiri proclaims, "You are Makayla te Suli tsmuke te Toruk Makto. You are my family now. Ma tsmuke."

Kayla's ears and tail twitch in attention to the sound of her name, using her newly gained knowledge of the language to finally understand what her sister-in-law said. Slowly, a smile formed on her lips, warm and quivering ever so slightly, nodding to Neytiri when she didn't have any other words to say.

She had always wanted a sister.

~~~~~~~~~

By the time the kids had gotten used to Kayla's human form, they were dying to show her their world through her eyes and not her avatars'. Without her night vision, everything glowed so beautifully at night and Spider suggested taking her to some fields to watch the fan lizards fly. Lo'ak was immediately all for the idea, dragging the rest of his siblings into it so they could all go. His parents were hesitant at first, but then Kayla reassured them that she'll keep a close eye on the children and so Jake and Neytiri relaxed before seeing them all off, wishing them to have fun.

The children didn't waste time once they were deep in the forest, hunting for kenten as eclipse rolled around. Before she could blink, Kayla was completely surrounded by floating lizards, glowing in many shapes and colors, flying above her head with helicopter-like wings. All the kids laughed at her reaction, the human gobsmacked by such wonder. Tuk tugged her along and the kids all began running around in the fields, disrupting more fan lizards and laughing as the animals took to the sky, igniting the world around them with their soft lights.

Kayla stood off to the side, watching the children and laughing with them. After a time, Spider had taken a break from the fun and collapsed on the ground at Kayla's feet, laughing in between catching his breath. Looking up, he noticed the adult's eyes on his and his smile immediately fell, quickly turning his eyes away to watch his friends play in the fields while trying his best to ignore Kayla's stares and shrink in on himself.

Kayla didn't take it to heart, only bluntly stating what she thought, "You prefer me in my avatar form, don't you?"

Spider's shoulders rise and fall but he still couldn't look at her, "... Sorry."

"No sweat. Can I ask why?"

He shrugged, "I don't know."

"I think I do. Can I guess?" Spider shrugs again and Kayla plops down in the spot beside him, resting her arms over her knees when she brought her legs up close to her chest, "Originally I only wanted to hang out with you and the other humans in my own skin so you didn't feel intimidated, but I think you're actually more intimidated by humans compared to Na'vi. You prefer my avatar because it's all you've ever known living here."

They sit in silence apart from the Sully kids laughing when one of the kenten decided to land on Lo'ak's face to rest. Spider huffed a small laugh at the scene but otherwise didn't say anything. Kayla grabs his attention again by elbowing him, "It's not a bad thing."

"It's not?"

"Why would it?"

He spares a glance at her, the reflection from both of their masks making it difficult to find her eyes right away, "You don't think it's bad that I prefer hanging out with a species other than my own?"

She flashed an amused, exasperated expression, "Kid, my brother permanently transferred his soul from one body to another of a completely different species. Do you think I'm one to judge you when you're the one teaching me the Na'vi ways and hanging out with my brother's kids?"

She laughed and Spider's ears heat up in shame, a little embarrassed for assuming the worst out of her. He looked away and mumbled under his breath, "My foster family didn't want me to forget where I came from."

"That's not bad either unless they forced you..." Initially, Kayla brushed off the silence until it began to linger too long, then she spared a glance back at Spider. He was stiff, unable to stare back while stubbornly keeping his eyes on the Sully kids. Kayla's eyebrows furrow, "Did they force you?"

"... What is Earth like?"

"Sure. You strike me as the kind of guy who would like music concerts. I'll start there."

Beating around the topic and finding a new one. Classic. It almost would have been easier if Spider had just said 'yes', but Kayla doesn't scold him. Instead, she hums, staring up at the stars as she thought back to her homeworld, "Nothing you would miss, kiddo."

"Can you tell me things I might've missed?"

A/N: Jocelyn is technically one of the many unnamed scientists we see in the Way of Water. She's the one who Tuk annoys with her toy in her first scene and further gets after the teens when they cut through the Avatar Longhouse. She technically doesn't have a name but I used her actress' real name to fill in the blanks.

Sorry if this felt a little rushed, but the next chapter is gonna be the start of the events that transpire during the Way of Water! Buckle up! We're getting close and I'm so excited to share with ya'll! Thank you so much for the support!

[marymary-diva17]

hi!! i love your works and i’d like to request a ronal fic if you are comfortable <33 Ronal x female metkayina reader maybe where she’s her friend but they’re like so in love or something idk i love ronal she is so beautiful. thank you!!

Friendship was something special and the friendship that lasted into adulthood and the rest of lifetime are very special as well. That was the type of friendship you had with your best friend ronal. It had started when you both were young and grow stronger over the years, as you both master the ways of your clan and roles in life. Even due you two were the complete opposite of each other, the both of you still had a good friendship.

y/n " ronal" you are walking on the beach looking for ronal, as no one had seen her yet today and either have you. Everyone was had been asking you where ronal had gone off to or where was she at the moment, as you always knew where she had been.

y/n " where could she be and why haven't I ... found her" you soon saw ronal sitting on rock in the meddle of the ocean, you soon got into the water and made your way towards her.

ronal " y/n"

y/n " hello I have been looking for you I haven't seen my best friend all day, and I was feeling you are avoiding me"

ronal " I was not avoiding you I was avoiding him"

y/n " tonowari"

ronal " yes and his family and mine as well"

y/n " so what the matter with them you can tell me"

ronal " the stress of becoming a new tshaik for the clan and his mate, it feels like his mother keeps on testing me and trying to see if I will mess up and if I can be a good mate to her son"

y/n " oh"

ronal " then there is tonowari I don't think he likes me"

y/n " oh he does"

ronal " how can you tell"

y/n " well he was the one who asked where you were, he is very worried about you as he hadn't seen you yet .... even due he all serious know these day he does care in his own way"

ronal " if you say that"

y/n " oh come ronal I know you will be a good tshaik and leader"

ronal " ........"

y/n " you have been doing everything perfect and you don't have to be like all the other tshaik here, you can be your own tshaik you and I know you are perfect for the role ... everyone respect you and listen to what you say and when you tell them to do something they do it"

ronal " thank you"

y/n " your welcome I know you are having hard time as in a moons you will become tonowari mate, but I have faith you will do a good job and make us all proud"

ronal " you will be by my side if I need help"

y/n " if you wish it then I will make it happen"

ronal " thank you"

y/n " we are still going to be close even due you will have a mate and soon your own family as well"

ronal " yes we will still be close no matter how many year go by, you will still be my best friends and if my kids are going to have aunt I want it to be you"

y/n " I will be honored"

ronal " speaking of mates tonowari best friend Nomik is looking for a mate, and he seems to have his eyes on you"

y/n " are you playing match maker"

ronal " maybe I'm and or maybe I'm not it my job as future tshaik to insure our clan future and the next generation" you soon looked at ronal as she gained towards you, she soon started laughing as you had become turning bright red.

y/n " ronal"

ronal " oh come on I'm just trying to help I have seen you look at him, and you seem like you want him the clan good hunter and warrior tonowari most truest friend .... you two will be perfect together"

y/n " I sense you been think about this for awhile"

ronal " I can't let my best friend stay single forever and alone" you and ronal soon started laughing and started goofing around like children, even due you two were young adult women of the clan. It made you happy to see ronal was happy and now longer upset.

ronal " thank you for being a good friend"

y/n " you welcome as you have always been there for me and now I'm here for you" The two of you were not paying attention as you guys had hugged and soon fall into the water. The duo had swam to the surface and soon started laughing, as you two started splashing each other with water. they both of you are playing around but it soon had been interrupted when someone had coughed. You and ronal soon looked and saw tonowari and nomki on their sea creatures.

ronal " tonowari"

tonowari " ronal"

nomki " y/n"

y/n " nomki" The four adults said nothing as laughter had soon filled the air, the two males soon joined the females in the water. It seems like the group was able to have fun and no longer be serious, as some of them has always been on daily basis. Ronal and tonowari did become mates and were able to come to understand with each other, and to no one surprised you and nomkia had become mates as well. Ronal was right your friendship with her did last even after you all become mates, as your children and her children had become friends so friendship does last forever.

[maaarine]

The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex (Peggy Orenstein, The New York Times, April 12 2024)

"For the past four years, Dr. Herbenick has been tracking the rapid rise of “rough sex” among college students, particularly sexual strangulation, or what is colloquially referred to as choking.

Nearly two-thirds of women in her most recent campus-representative survey of 5,000 students at an anonymized “major Midwestern university” said a partner had choked them during sex (one-third in their most recent encounter).

The rate of those women who said they were between the ages 12 and 17 the first time that happened had shot up to 40 percent from one in four. (…)

Twenty years ago, sexual asphyxiation appears to have been unusual among any demographic, let alone young people who were new to sex and iffy at communication.

That’s changed radically in a short time, with health consequences that parents, educators, medical professionals, sexual consent advocates and teens themselves urgently need to understand.

Sexual trends can spread quickly on campus and, to an extent, in every direction.

But, at least among straight kids, I’ve sometimes noticed a pattern: Those that involve basic physical gratification — like receiving oral sex in hookups — tend to favor men.

Those that might entail pain or submission, like choking, are generally more for women.

So, while undergrads of all genders and sexualities in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys report both choking and being choked, straight and bisexual young women are far more likely to have been the subjects of the behavior; the gap widens with greater occurrences.

(In a separate study, Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues found the behavior repeated across the United States, particularly for adults under 40, and not just among college students.)

Alcohol may well be involved, and while the act is often engaged in with a steady partner, a quarter of young women said partners they’d had sex with on the day they’d met also choked them.

Either way, most say that their partners never or only sometimes asked before grabbing their necks.

For many, there had been moments when they couldn’t breathe or speak, compromising the ability to withdraw consent, if they’d given it.

No wonder that, in a separate study by Dr. Herbenick, choking was among the most frequently listed sex acts young women said had scared them, reporting that it sometimes made them worry whether they’d survive.

Among girls and women I’ve spoken with, many did not want or like to be sexually strangled, though in an otherwise desired encounter they didn’t name it as assault.

Still, a sizable number were enthusiastic; they requested it. It is exciting to feel so vulnerable, a college junior explained.

The power dynamic turns her on; oxygen deprivation to the brain can trigger euphoria.

That same young woman, incidentally, had never climaxed with a partner: While the prevalence of choking has skyrocketed, rates of orgasm among young women have not increased, nor has the “orgasm gap” disappeared among heterosexual couples.

“It indicates they’re not doing other things to enhance female arousal or pleasure,” Dr. Herbenick said.

When, for instance, she asked one male student who said he choked his partner whether he’d ever tried using a vibrator instead, he recoiled. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

Perhaps, she responded, because it would be more likely to produce orgasm without risking, you know, death.

In my interviews, college students have seen male orgasm as a given; women’s is nice if it happens, but certainly not expected or necessarily prioritized (by either partner).

It makes sense, then, that fulfillment would be less the motivator for choking than appearing adventurous or kinky. Such performances don’t always feel good. (…)

Now consider that every year Dr. Herbenick has done her survey, the number of females reporting extreme effects from strangulation (neck swelling, loss of consciousness, losing control of urinary function) has crept up.

Among those who’ve been choked, the rate of becoming what students call “cloudy” — close to passing out, but not crossing the line — is now one in five, a huge proportion.

All of this indicates partners are pressing on necks longer and harder.

The physical, cognitive and psychological impacts of sexual choking are disturbing.

So is the idea that at a time when women’s social, economic, educational and political power are in ascent (even if some of those rights may be in jeopardy), when #MeToo has made progress against harassment and assault, there has been the popularization of a sex act that can damage our brains, impair intellectual functioning, undermine mental health, even kill us.

Nonfatal strangulation, one of the most significant indicators that a man will murder his female partner (strangulation is also one of the most common methods used for doing so), has somehow been eroticized and made consensual, at least consensual enough.

Yet, the outcomes are largely the same: Women’s brains and bodies don’t distinguish whether they are being harmed out of hate or out of love."

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

The thing about the ‘no kink at pride, think of the children’ is that children either:

a) cannot tell the thing references sex. They’re children. They don’t understand sex yet. What people refer to as kink is not actually a sex act, but clothing/accessories/etc that reference a sex act or scene, so it’s not like children see... sex. They see things that reference sexuality, but they don’t know shit about that stuff yet because they’re children, or have a very vague understanding of sexuality and vaguely know that those things are connected to it, but again, they’re young and don’t get it. So, if the adults around them act normal about the thing and don’t make a fuss about it, the children just file the thing under “things that happen in the world *shrugs*”. If the adults around them act like the thing is weird and inappropriate, they internalize the message that the thing is weird and inappropriate (in a way they cannot understand, which I think is worse).

b) are old enough to understand, at least roughly, that the thing has sexual connotations... but guess what. They see equivalent things in the environment around them, but in the context of heterosexual culture, so nobody around them questions those things. So they internalize the message that heterosexual kink/sexuality=normal, queer kink/sexuality=weird and inappropriate. They see billboards and commercials with women in sexy lingerie everywhere, but heterosexual culture thinks that that’s normal, but a man in lingerie at pride is not. Except the women in lingerie is not “normal”, is normalized in a way the man in lingerie isn’t. But there’s no fucking difference. A man in leather straps is no more suggestive or revealing than a fuckton of images children see everywhere, but those are normalized, the man in leather straps isn’t. And that’s a problem of heterosexual culture, not of the man at pride.

c) they’re not even children, they’re teenagers, they get used as an excuse for pearl-clutching under the flag of minors!!, but they’re old enough to understand sexuality in an appropriate framework (which pride is, unlike a lot of shit they find online on their own), and in fact it’s healthy for teenagers to develop an understanding of sexuality.

But the real thing is

d) it’s actually not about children at all, but grownups that don’t want to see anything that references male/male sexuality, so just fuck off and choke on air.

[homunculus-argument]

In the Earliest Draft Fantasy Book I meant to write in the standard fantasy races with my own twist on them, though eventually I realised that the humans’ story was interesting enough on its own to not try to shoehorn whole different species and their own cultures into it. But one of the features it had was that only humans are actually sexually dimorphic. Elves are all androgynously slender, and though they’re beautiful, their beauty is uncanny and eerie - to human eyes, they almost resemble remarkably tall children. They’re not actually immortal, but simply retain many features that humans consider youthful and childlike into adulthood. Their lifespan is actually only slightly longer than that of modern humans, living into their 90s and sometimes past 100, but from the perspective of humans who make it to 70 if they’re lucky, an elvish lifespan is literally generations.

 I didn’t go much into dwarves, but their physical gender distinctions are very subtle, and there are vast cultural differences among dwarven people about how individuals express it. The details of gendered clothing are also too subtle for an untrained human eye to pick out - such as the shapes and designs of belt buckles, braiding of beards and angles of the cut of one’s boots - and in certain dwarven cultures, the idea does not exist at all. Their languages or dialects have no gendered pronouns, and asking an individual which role they play in reproduction is considered an extremely rude and invasive question.

Orcs do not have a concept of paternity, they have mating seasons during which young and childless orcs feel the urge to go wander into distant lands and the fact that they happen to meet other orcs of different clans and mate is considered an unimportant part of this rite of passage. Orc clans are matrilinear to whatever extent they care about bloodlines at all, and the fact that most clans tend to be matriarchal isn’t due to any idea that female orcs would somehow be better leaders - the females are simply slightly physically larger, and statistically more likely to gain the upper hand in the “who’s-calling-the-shots-around-here” brawls that establish who leads the clan.

The only detail in which this ever became relevant in the actual book draft was how they perceive the human habit of constantly being at war and seeking to expand their territory - the people of the other races can’t really tell human men and women apart very well, either, and come to the conclusion that every adult human woman that they see (having visible breasts) must be currently nursing. Of course they are constantly harking after new land to farm, if they're constantly reproducing.