#you don't have to like what they're doing but you don't really have grounds to make them feel shitty over it

[gangstalkerbarbie]

I think this is easily explained: they surround themselves with other internet artists for support, and as a community artists on the internet idolise like, the furries among them, because the furries have money, a communitarian ethos and knowledge of what they like, and generally as artists themselves they tend to appeal the most to the furry hand of the market.

Also they're often disabled, they usually understand what that's like from a labour rights pov, and many of these furries who used to be starving subsistence artists go on to have remote tech jobs with which they can effectively afford to support their old communities and maintain artists like Renaissance nobility. So there's a kind of cross pollination between producers and consumers of art that isn't there on other art scenes, actually a quite considerate one - considerate, but artistically quite conservative. You can watch tastes change, but they change rather slowly.

I think this is what leads to this clean and pressed but sterile art style as a norm — people who buy art or who make the most frequently bought art have the luxury of telling everyone else how to do it, and when they get really good at it of course people want to know their secrets. And of course they want to help, they want other people to be good at the hobby they like (just as a self respecting patissier would never shit on someone else's cake, because holy fuck, two cakes).

But here we run into how again, "good" in art online has a tendency to mean "marketable to the furry autistic trans women with the money and desire to buy art", who themselves are often artists who moulded their style to be cool and marketable based on input from other artists who... and so on.

Also a good number of people are too shy to post their beginning art online in front of general audiences, but they will one way or another find themselves drawing furry porn to learn the fundamentals on the ground, for a few reasons but most importantly because furries will spam like anything (again, as an expression of that communitarian ethos - the most supportive people on my own artistic journey have been furries, I consider myself sort of furry lite, etc).

Furry porn as a genre doesn't so much care about fluidity of expression or joie de vivre as it cares about ... whatever the audience cares about. You know? Feet, ass and titties rendered in fantastic, crisp, comicbooklike, maybe not necessarily detailed but extremely readable glory. Shark penis. Snake penis. Tigertaur being milked with industrial machinery. Dragon in loving congress with automobile.

You can oftentimes tell, among people with this super cleanly rendered kind of marketable art style, who draws porn and what porn it is and who was just In These Circles at formative times. Bara artists sometimes draw muscles and proportions in a very exaggerated way in their personal art without necessarily wanting to, for example, because that's often still the only way they know how, and the only way they're confident with. Foot guys give their stacked fox girls very detailed paw pads but often haven't learned to do eyes more than passably. And so on, and so forth.

It doesn't have to be good or even artistically satisfying to the artist — if it's marketable even remotely, someone will pay a very reasonable amount of delicious, green, fungible lucre for it, which is great for people who don't want to starve, but can be a precarious place to begin to grow in a new direction from. Once you're "in", you have to have both the luxury and the bandwidth to actively try to change how you do things, and under these conditions new artists see a lot of people earning money for drawing a certain way.

This is also why the most painterly high fantasy type styles tend to belong either to people who went to school for art or to people who had, um, /other/ formative influences, like fantasy illustrators, their own hippie mothers, etcetera.

nothing sadder to me than when an online artist posts a side by side of the same picture from 5 years ago / redrawn this year, and the first one is fluid and energetic and full of character, and the second one is flat and static and clean to the point of sterility

[kiefbowl]

What about amateur porn or drawn erotica?

"amateur porn" is mostly a marketing term. it's meant to convey an idea that the porn is "homemade." but what stops people from just producing and marketing content that looks like that? especially since the idea has been pushed successfully that this is "more ethical porn." That is capitalism 101 - find a market you aren't capturing, make them a product they'll buy.

Even in the event it's not actually a production by a studio, you cannot verify that the porn you're watching is not a woman in an abusive relationship with a pimp. Boyfriends become pimps all the time. I think people have this idea that pimps are caricatures that pop out of the ground organically and fully formed, like some sort of mythological "bad guy." They don't stop to think that any opportunistic man (or woman) can become a pimp easily by just having access to a vulnerable woman. If someone enjoys porn, I think it's easy and worthwhile for them to have a disconnect between what "real abusers" do and what happens in a mythical porn setting that's more convenient to imagine. Yet do you need to look far to find examples of couples either A) joking how much money they could make if the wife would get on OF B) fighting because the husband wants the wife to get on OF to increase their revenue and she doesn't or C) just flat out admitting the wife is on OF and how much money it brings to the table? Besides the fact that in any one of these situations, this could be a covert marketing tactic by OF working with a couple, but even if it's not...why believe in scenario C that the husband is just some good guy and this is just some normal situation they fell into? The difference between scenario C and a pimp is what? They're being public about it by framing it a certain way? Well if that makes the public normalize it, why wouldn't "real" pimps just take that lead and do the same? My point is that there is no distinction: a man (whether it's a stranger, a friend, a dad, a husband, a boyfriend) exerting control over a woman by making her perform sexual acts for his own profit is a pimp, and I don't see why we should trust the way he frames it publicly, even if he says "I'm just a progressive husband who isn't jealous and loves that my wife shakes ass online for our family" or whatever gets people to go "cool! I will not questions this."

I'm sure you're asking in good faith anon, so this isn't directed specifically at you, but often when porn watchers are engaging in debate about porn, they'll start bringing up things like 'drawn erotica' as if it's some sort of gotcha. To me, it's so revealing how little they care about the arguments presented about the harms of the porn industry because yes, obviously drawn erotica is different than filming real humans having sex. It also reveals some sort of assumed bias that the person presenting objections to porn without appealing to religious morality or puritanical ideas about sex are somehow being deceitful. As if once "victimless porn" is brought up, they'll be unable to lie and their true nature will be revealed because they'll have some thinly veiled excuses about how drawn porn is obviously just as bad, because it's so sexy!

Drawings of people having sex or being naked and sexual are not above criticism in how they replicate harmful ideas about sex, sexuality, and gender - but they also aren't literal forms of violence against real people. So, it's irrelevant to the discussion of vulnerable people being pushed into porn to perform sexual acts against their will to a point of ruination. If someone feels comfortable continuing to watch and masturbate to porn after this has been explained to them, I don't see why any thoughts I have on erotica written or drawn or otherwise really matters. They can't be convinced through that avenue, clearly. They're probably willing to take whatever thread they can pull on to justify their consumption and to assuage their conscience over watching porn. That to me signifies a porn addiction, because even a casual viewer of porn who's never come across any anti-porn arguments knows they can live without porn, knows they don't need to defend it tooth and nail, and will not play stupid about comparisons to real people having sex on film/enacting violence on each other to erotic drawings.

At the end of the day, re: erotica, I would need to take each thing of media in it's own right and judge it for itself (like all film, books, and art). If it replicates pornographic images (i.e. the film language of porn that I take issue with vis-a-vis misogyny and violence against women), then yeah I'm going to have a problem with it. Not because it's sexual, but because it's content is disagreeable to me in that it's misogynistic. The scale for that is going to be sliding - the difference between a causal representation of unexamined gender dynamics and extremely violent CSAM is huge. I don't take issues with people finding, say, mild 18th century drawings titillating as much as I take issues with people acting entitled to violent images as if their masturbation depends on it and they're entitled to masturbate to whatever they want. Why? I masturbate to my imagination all the time. It's literally the easiest and most natural thing to do. If someone can't, it's probably because they're addicted to porn. If desperate poor women being pushed into drugs to continue making porn that becomes increasingly violent doesn't stop someone from watching porn, then maybe I should ask them to get angry at porn for altering their brain so badly. That's how desperate people sound when they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel in the face of facts about violence, poverty, suicide, and abuse.

[otrtbs]

can i know your bartylus thoughts….

well, yes of course you can know my bartylus thoughts! they make me insane.

The guiding thesis for bartylus is: "who are you when you're not performing."

because regulus is always performing, for his parents, for his brother, for the sake of maintaining some sense of fragile control, he's always projecting some other image of himself, some other version that people demand or expect. (i even feel like with james, he's trying to project The Best Most Palatable version of himself esp at the beginning)

and barty is also just a constant performance to me. in my mind it's just a constant rejection and rebellion of/against his father and his father's expectations. like any chance that barty has to be away from his father's crushing thumb is the moment he goes haywire, because that's how he gets back at his dad. that's his way of saying 'fuck you'. but is that really him? or is he just constantly performing the opposite of what his father wants, not because that's who he is, but because he knows his father will hate it?

but when regulus and barty come together, they don't have to act any more. they don't have to pretend and project with one another, because they can both see right through it. barty's smart, he's cunning and quick and i would say he's smarter than regulus is and regulus loves that. they can spar together, they match each other intellectually. and they both know that there is nothing they can do or think or say that the other person wouldn't understand. there is no place they wouldn't follow each other.

also, i think barty is extremely possessive. for lack of a better metaphor i think that barty coils around regulus like a snake and that regulus loves it. in a world where everybody picks everybody else before regulus (his parents pick sirius and sirius picks james...and regulus is just kind of There.... you get the vibe) barty not only picks regulus first, but entwines himself fully with regulus. barty doesn't play about regulus because that's his person, that's the only one who knows who barty is without all the fanfare... the only one who took the time to dig through all those layers that barty's buried himself under.

okay okay and also they just FIT so WELL together in all these tiny and subtle ways. like, in my mind they're perfect potion's partners because they're both left-handed and they don't knock elbows or anything. and they both wear silver jewelry and they can literally pull the thoughts out of each other's head and speak them outloud before the other person. and it's not work for them. it's not work for them to tell what the other person is thinking or feeling, it just comes easily to them. and anyone else has to pull teeth from both of them to get them to show the slightest emotion.

i think that regulus grounds barty's chaotic, wild, self-destructive tendencies and pulls him back, and barty forces regulus to lighten up and draws him out of his isolationist, hermit, caustic self-destructive tendencies.

[shoresoftheshadowlands]

I'll grant you all of these except the first one- They're herbivores and also they are opportunistic omnivores like a lot of herbivore animals. I have SEEN horses go out of their way to catch and eat chicks from chickens. Also seen them go out of their way to get big goldfish out of ponds. Deer are a lot like this too, they'll eat from a dead animal if they find one and they will also kill ground nesting bird nest chicks if they find them- The deer on an island were found to be the mystery predator of some migratory birds who nested there. All the chicks, they'd simply bite their heads off and move on and it puzzled the researchers out there for so long until they saw what was actually happening.

Herbivores supplement their own diet with proteins whenever they can, because they don't get it very much or very often. It's just more easy in captivity where small easy to grab animals are right there for them.

It doesn't make them the same as our kind of omnivore brand, but it is, in part, similar to a degree. Pretending that they are not opportunistic meat eaters who do so and get nutrients out of it is skewing things. It isn't even a negative trait, its only natural. Even rabbits do this. Hell, herbivores will even cannibalize from their own species if they find their own dead that's already been opened by sharper teeth or a car. (Seen a deer eating deer roadkill)

Now, their systems evolved to eat primarily plant materials, but they can get good things out of it. The only reason they don't normally eat meat is because their bodies aren't equipped to take down prey- Which means when they find something easy to nibble on, they tend to go for it, be it an alive chick, eggs, part of a dead animal, easy to grab fish or w/e.

I obviously wouldn't suggest adding a ton of meat to an herbivores diet, since its more of something they do when they need extra vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, and most of the good feed we give pets has everything they need in it, but we can't pretend that 99.999% of all herbivores are also opportunistic omnivores- Predators often are too, to some degree, unless they are obligate carnivores like cats. Many predators also eat fruits and plants for various reasons. It's all very natural, really!

submitted by @hands-off-my-macaroni

[blushingbubbles]

Fantasy: You have an in-person freeuse toy day with all of your followers invited

(exempt from forbidden-words rule)

if i had an in-person free use toy day, id have to rent an entertainment venue 🫠 but let's pretend that hypothetically everyone can fit into a very very large airbnb.

it's ten minutes before the front door opens for the first time. The squeaking hinges hesitate for a moment. Whoever's on the stoop didn't actually think it would be unlocked.

I'd gotten sooo many messages in the days before -- promises of what was to come, yes. But also concern that this was some large-scale practical joke.

but the first one enters. he's wearing heavy boots. behind him, another crosses the threshold. 11 minutes since i posted the address. the idea was that rather have a specific start time, i'd post the address when i was ready. until 12 minutes ago, the only thing anyone had was the city and the date.

anyone who'd gotten an invite had been vetted. everything had been planned and purchased and positioned. water in every room. alcohol in the fridge. toys lined up across the kitchen island.

the two men greet one another, and my heart beats sooo loudly. my throat dries up and i peek my head around the corner.

when they see me they pause, they both kinda tilt their head at me -- like how every dominant does when they're surprised? subs know what i mean.

they ask me how im doing and another comes in the now-open door. no reason to close it now... at their suggestion, i give them a tour of the airbnb. the bedrooms and bathrooms and backyard and pool. as we walk, hands begin brushing me. my tits, my waist, my hair. they praise me on how ive become such a good internet slut in the last months. they tell me about how many times id gotten them off -- what pictures of me they like the most. what tasks i performed for them (some of which i remember, but most of which i don't -- it's not my place to remember it's my place to obey)

it's not long before my shirt ends up on the floor. im not even really sure why i wore one. they're not sure either. they laugh at me for it, and i laugh too because they're right. it was silly of me, dressing for tonight. im still nervous until one of them tells me to kneel.

i feel much better like this. on the ground looking up at them. more enter, but im not counting how many surround me now. the newcomers are pointed in the direction of the alcohol while the others begin unbuckling their pants. and the nerves still exist -- the excitement still flutters -- until i put the first cock in my mouth

the second it passes my lips and thick fingers thread through my hair, i feel myself release every anxiety and nerve about the night. a night that i knew would stretch into the weekend.

as im sucking, more hands grope my tits and ass. someone binds my hands. another person clamps my nipples. the gasp of pain i make causes the grip on my hair to tighten. i lose track of time, but he spills down my throat. before i have a chance to close my jaw, another takes his place.

over the day, im fucked in every position i can thinkof (and some positions i cant). videos are taken from every angle. as agreed beforehand, im given a break every hour to confirm im still of sound consenting mind. im given water and snacks and more gropes for at least five minutes. sometimes i need more time, but mostly i hardly make it to 3 before im desperate to serve again. whenever others need a break, they play in the pool or watch tv or watch me. but im used all. day. long.

eventually, it's time for the agreed-upon bedtime. im flooded with aftercare until im all blushy and soft. someone helps by washing the sweat and mess off me. im sent to bed with food, company, and enough gummies to take out a horse. i take them greedily, knowing that that night, others will touch and breed my holes while i sleep.

i wake up soooo full of cum that i want to plug myself to keep it all inside. instead, im cleaned again. used again. that next day, the ones who stayed will stream the videos they took to the tv. they'll edge me to my own porn and make me count how many times i helped others get off. if i get the count wrong or hesitate they'll start all over. they'll coo about how much of a good slut i was, letting them use me like this.

by monday, every video will be posted online. when i get home, i'll edge to every one of them, taking note of how everyone else's face is blurred, everyone else's privacy protected, except for my own 😇

in a writing mood today :) send me ur fantasies of making me a freeuse toy and ill expand on them :)))

[kedreeva]

Hi! Jumping off your previous post on keeping peafowl as pets I've been wondering - I work at a botanical garden but we have a few animals around as well, among them peafowl. They regularly sleep in high trees, like. idk. 15-30m (50-165ft?) height and you've been mentioning a height of like 8ft. So anyway I've been wondering: Do Peafowl enjoy but not need so much height? Is there a minimum height requirement at all?

The minimum height is a bit contested among keepers, but MOST people will rec at least 8 feet. This isn't for any disease/parasite/illness health reason like pen square footage (which is the square footage needed to keep grass/cover crop in a pen, so the peafowl don't kill it to the point of bare earth, which can give them a lot of health problems), but rather for feather quality. 8 feet minimum allows you to keep at least one 4-5ft tall perch in the pen, which is the height that allows the males to sit on them without his train touching the ground. This prevents the tips of his train (the frame feathers) from getting messed up, and allows them to preen from a perch instead of the ground (which is how the boys prefer, though they'll do both, you'll see them at it more often up higher).

The reason they sleep high in trees is because it keeps them away from most predators. There isn't a LOT of stuff that can and will kill a peacock in their native land, and most of it is not going to be climbing 100 feet in the air to tussle with a 10-15lb bird in the dark when it doesn't have wings, too. Even the smaller cats like civets might hesitate to get up after them. In captivity, they don't have predators in their pen (I hope), so there's no reason they NEED to be up super high. As long as they're off the ground and their trains aren't touching the ground, they're fine. They'll still work to get as high as they can (mine in the barn figured out how to get up to this little itty bitty 2x4 I screwed to the rafters for the pigeons to roost on, back in the day), and they like to be up high, but it's not something that will make them unhealthy if they don't sleep 50+ feet up.

Most folks are pretty capable of building 8-12 feet or so high (three of my pens are 8ft, the biggest is 12ft) without too much extra in cost or effort. The lumber or other materials needed to do this are readily available at big box hardware stores here, so it doesn't involve any special ordering or engineering to create pens that meet that kind of requirement safely and without tangling with their town's laws about construction of buildings. I've seen a few people who had access to construction equipment build pens out of I-beam and poles and welded wire and stuff, 30-40 feet high and massive, which was really cool, but ultimately not a MINIMUM- and it's important to recognize that all of these measurements ARE minimums- if you have the ability to build bigger/better then by all means you should go for it, but meeting the minimum still meets the needs of the birds just fine.

But since there isn't an established minimum on height (or if there is, it's outdated at 6 feet) and it's CHEAPER to build to 6ft than to 8ft, and that's what some people do- and shouldn't, because that doesn't give the birds enough room to preen and keep their feathers clean and in shape. It may not make them sick outright, but it sure as hell will lead to a ratty looking bird you won't enjoy as much.

[mr-laveau]

*takes a chump out of your redacted designs and runs away* YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE

(but seriously I noticed that there's a lot of design ideas and little details and just a lot going on when you draw something and I want to know what makes that decision, how do you know what to put on there is it just like a feeling thing or like you see something you like and then you put it on characters or something you're drawing)

Wanted to get to this after finishing up the series of designs for the shaw pack and stuff but thanks!

For my redacted designs I went into it thinking about the influences for the designs (halloween costumes, professions, past designs, kinks, romantic dynamics and vibes) and played around with colour pallettes to create similarities and contrasts to make them more cohesive as a group but unique as individuals and pairs as they're put together whilst also not straying from the nature of the setting and honouring my art style.

An example would be Milo and Sahdil. I wanted to mix together a bunch of old designs into one for something that achieved everything I wanted for them while empasizing their contrasts with each other because that's how their dynamic is framed in my head. Sadhil is more of an organized and detailed PI who is of course magical so I went with a mix of his older designs, scooped out the best parts and made something fun.

In opposition of their design, I made Milo who was more wild and impulsive and something about his older renditions was that he always seemed like a guy you'd see on the drums and I wanted to continue that while making him heavily contrast against Sadhil. His palette is more vibrant, he wears silver while Sadhil wears gold, he dyes his hair brighter than Sadil does and etc. Really the focus for paired designs is to make them match and compliment each other, holding both a sense of contrast and similarity.

When it came down to group designs, the focus was on a singular visual theme and since the shaw pack was a cohesive unit, I decided earlier that I'd play around with them being werewolves visually through torn edges, claws at the tips of their shoes, triangular shapes to symbolize claws and fangs as well as colours that all blended with each other. As you can see it translates with Milo, Asher and Deacon who all have similar colour pallettes and thus there could be an implication of what their relationship as characters would be like. Meanwhile David stands there in contrast to the rest of them, having a colour pallette that takes the group's natural colours to the extremes with shades and tints that borrow colours from the rest of group but also alienate him as a design to help look like he's a part of the group but also separate as a pack leader.

You'll also note that David is cleaner as a design with less wear and tear in his clothes in contrast to the rest of the group due to his own image of being a leader (he has to be the face and must be perfect but everyone else is allowed to be "messy").

Now in the line up, similarities and contrasts play a key part in producing an effective group of characters who are both visually distinct but are recognizable as a singular group. For the whole pack, I chose to lean into the same mindset that Encanto had with its visual designs (creating a contrast between two sides of the same group as seen by the different sides of the Madrigal family).

Design lineups often change based on the nature of the story so they don't all have to be cohesive based on what story is being told but for RA, I wanted the two sides to be clear on the visual storytelling of their roles as well as their characters. All the main wolves can be grouped together as a pack but their mates are wildly different with a few similarities but differing visual motifs given the nature of their roles in the story. Sam is associated with the Solaire vampires so his pallette remains almost monotonously red to show where he stands out but is grounded by the inclusion of reds between characters like Deacon and Barnaby. Additionally, while Sadhil also fits in visually with Barnaby and Alex by including a majority of whites in their design alongside the other two, they also differ given that they're the only magical mate between the two.

As such, a few things can be communicated based on the lineup visually, the mates do not wholely fit together, Sam stands out as the only vampire, David stands out as the pack leader, the mates and the wolves are different to each other based on their own dynamics and each of them have a colour pallette that supports me shpping them with my sona and one another (which is kinda the point of redoing their designs!

That's all my notes!

[mm-slashing-boy]

Gifted Lunch From a Secret Boyfriend

SPENCER REID x MALE!READER

Warnings: Suggestive (making out), otherwise fluffy, reader is called "sweet boy"

Requested: No

A/N: When I have the motivation, I can write pretty quickly. And feel free to request stuff, whether that be art or fanfic!

————————————————————————

It was early in the morning when Spencer arrived in the bullpen of the BAU, getting himself settled without much of a rush since there wasn't any news about a case yet. The large room was quiet since most of his coworkers hadn't arrived yet. He took advantage of this peace by pulling out a book that his wonderful boyfriend—you—gifted him. By God, he loved you more than anything. You knew just what he liked and what to get him. You were so thoughtful towards him.

As the morning dragged on, he was wrapped up in the book’s contents, mesmerized by the descriptive words on the pages. He could imagine you reading them to him, or vice versa, and the thought made him warm and gooey on the inside. He didn't even realize that he was smiling like an idiot until Derek pointed it out.

“Hey, kid, what's got you in such a good mood so early in the morning, huh?”

He broke free from his trance to look up at his coworker, blinking a few times before he responded with, “nothing. I just found a really good book”, which seemed like an acceptable answer to Derek. He sighed in relief, thankful that his micro-expressions weren't picked up on.

None of his teammates knew that he had a boyfriend, and he intended to keep it that way. It wasn't like he was embarrassed by you—no, not at all—he just didn't want to be teased and mocked. Besides, they didn't even know he was bisexual, which would add to the jokes. Only JJ knew, and he was lucky that she was able to keep secrets, unlike his other best friend.

He looked up when he heard Hotch calling for a meeting in the conference room, undoubtedly for a new case to crack. He thinned his lips in disappointment of not finishing his book, reluctantly packing it up into his satchel. As soon as he stood up from his chair, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Something familiar. And so he turned his head and found you walking up to him with a big smile.

He nearly froze, his face turning pale. His eyes darted around, trying to see if anyone was watching, before gently taking you by the arm and dragging you into the nearest empty room. “What are you doing here?” He asked in a whisper, clearly panicked. “Someone could have seen you.”

You lifted up a brown paper bag, wordlessly communicating that you brought him the lunch that you made for him. He huffed in slight amusement, grabbing the bag and setting it on the ground beside the door. He looked back up at you and cupped your face, giving you a serious expression.

“You need to tell me when you do that next time, okay, sweet boy? My coworkers give me a hard time as it is; they're gonna tease you, too, if they find out we’re dating, and I don't want that.”

You nodded in understanding, though you were a little bummed out about not being able to show how much you love your boyfriend in his workplace. He could tell exactly how you were feeling based on the slight shift in your face. “I know, sweet boy, but this is for the best. I’m just not comfortable yet. When I’m ready, I’ll tell you.”

Spencer then leaned in for a kiss, humming pleasantly at the way your lips slotted together so perfectly. He thought you were perfect for each other, subjectively. He could never get tired of kissing you or touching you or seeing you or hearing you or tasting you. Every sense of his was on high alert whenever you were around, and he was always determined to flush out each one until you were both satisfied. He was brought back down to reality when he heard you whimper.

As soon as he heard that, he moved a hand down to the small of your back so he could pull you closer. He suddenly broke the kiss when he felt a speckle of dust tickle his nose, causing him to sneeze. He glanced around the room, noticing just how spotty the empty storage closet you were currently occupying was.

“This is pretty unsanitary. You know, inhaling too much dust can lead to rather unpleasant effects such as lower respiratory infections, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, strokes, and lung cancer. They should have cleaned this room even though nobody uses it and given it a different purpose; it serves as a hazard-” He paused in his ramble when you noted that he was the one who dragged you both in there.

Spencer chuckled awkwardly and scratched the back of his neck, averting his eyes to the ground. “Right. Sorry about that, sweet boy. I shouldn't have grabbed you like that, it was rather rude of me.” You reassured him with a peck to his cheek.

His smile became more genuine as he continued kissing you, holding you even closer than before. He sighed against your lips, which he slowly traced with the tip of his tongue until you opened them. His wet muscle slipped inside, dancing with yours in an encased, sensual display of love. You mumbled about how he was worried about dust just a few moments ago, but he couldn't bring himself to care anymore. All he cared about was you.

He shivered as he felt one of your hands wiggle under his many layers to caress his back, enjoying the way your cold fingertips met his heated skin. He slotted his thigh between your legs, pinning you to the metal shelf behind you. Things were getting hotter and hotter until both of you heard Hotch ask for Spencer, forcing you to pull away. He was just as disgruntled as you at the situation, but he didn't have a choice; he had a killer to catch.

He picked up his bag of lunch and planted a chaste kiss to your lips, opening the door for you. He waited about a minute before heading out, meeting the rest of his team in the conference room with a curt apology of being late.

Soon. Soon he would be confident enough to come out to his team and show just how much he loved you. Soon, but not yet. Not yet.

[somegrumpynerd]

-Okay but some of the fears that Color has are in fact the same fears that Nightmare has when it comes to Killer.

Like, Color is worried that Killer's so blindly loyal to Nightmare for whatever reason that he wouldn't even think of complaining if he hated it. And at the start that was something Nightmare probably expected. His henchmen should be loyal and obedient and not ask questions nor complain. But now, after years of learning and bonding and softening up significantly he wonders sometimes if that's still the case.

Nightmare knows Killer well, perhaps better than most, but he's not exactly an open book. Especially when it comes to his own wants or needs. More often than not when he makes a request it's intentionally silly or unreasonable for laughs, like asking if they can take Dust to the nearest pet store and try to trade him in. Very rarely does he want something strong enough to make it known, both to himself and others, like asking to keep the first cat he found.

So.

If he hated this. If he truly struggled and fought and agonised with himself about the position he's in and the work he's doing and the life he leads.

Would he say it? Would he realise that was how he felt? Would he even consider saying no was an option?

If Nightmare asked him to do something he really genuinely did not want to, would he just do it anyway because he doesn't believe he has a choice in the matter?

The only way of finding out (besides making a blatantly difficult request of him, which Nightmare is not willing to do) is to simply wait and trust that Killer will tell him if something is wrong. Which... is not exactly foolproof or easy.

But it's part of why Nightmare hates to be around Color too much, because deep down he's more than a little worried that Color could be right and he doesn't know how to fix it.

[sysig]

So much experimenting to be done, where to even start (Patreon)

[papermonkeyism]

Okay basically was thinking about how in birds the species that form lifelong monogamous bonds tend to have very little if any sexual dimorphism, yet the Singing People males have the very distinct hood marking, so I went and ran with the thought. Then had feelings about it.

I did briefly consider removing the hood marking, but I do kinda like the design, so instead I'm steering the Singing People into a less human direction.

Jotting down some thoughts!

Family and roles and stuff:

* They don't really have a concept of marriage. While pair bonding does happen, and some breeding couples do stick together, it's not expected to happen every time.

* The average time a breeding couple stays together is few years.

* While some Singing People do, in fact, mate for life, that isn't the norm. (Sunbird is just a weirdo in how into Stonemaker he is.) It is also not unheard of for the pairs to split before their chicks hatch.

* They don't see the latter case as single parenting, though. If you asked them how they're gonna raise the chick/chicks alone by themself, they would be really baffled.

Like, that's what the clan is for? Who on earth would leave childrearing on a single person?? What???

* Like with ostritches, it's usually the dad who does the incubation. So, while usually both parents are acknowledged, and both of them plus their extended family take part in raising the child, the Singing People see fathers as slightly more central role than mothers in the process.

* There are some female Singing People who see that their responsibility ends at laying the eggs.

For them what happens in the nesting grounds stays in the nesting grounds.

How frowned upon this lifestyle choice is varies, but it's usually more accepted than not.

* Single mothers raising their chicks without the father present are much more rare than the other way around.

* If you hatch it, it's yours.

* Collecting eggs from multiple ladies and hatching them in the same year is super weird, though. You do bond with your seasonal mate for the nesting season at least!

* Since multiple clans usually share the same nesting ground as they follow their cow herds that do so, people exchanging clans usually happen this way. You bond for a season and follow your bond mate once your herds split after the season. Some stay in their new clans even after the pair bond ends, and some return to their original home clans, depending on the person and the friendships they've formed.

* They usually don't see former pair bonds as exes, and while levels of jealousy vary, the average level is a lot lower than on humans.

Gender stuff

* For the Singing People "child" is a gender.

* Due to not having external genitals, and no sex linked markings upon hatching, all children are considered the same as a result.

* It is technically possible to try to probe a chick's sex while they're still kids, but it's not always accurate and is seen as a bit weird thing to do.

* While sex linked behaviors do pop up before adult plumage does, they don't always match the "eventual" sex of the individual (sometimes a lady can dance, for example, even if the mating dance is usually a thing initiated by males) and is seen as just kids being kids, basically like playing house.

* Overall the Singing People have very little gendered expectations for their people and the strongest of bonds you have don't have to align with who you raise your kids with, mating bonds tend to be fleeting after all.

* Molting into your adult plumage is considered to be when you become your gender, and is also an occasion for celebration.

(It can take several molts across few years for your adult markings to settle into their final form, but once your facial feather disc turns white -usually at the same time the hood marking first makes its appearance- is when you leave childhood and become an adult)

* They have a... not really a "deity", but a mythical character, who is said to paint your feathers once you grow old enough. Might just call them Feather Painter for now.

* Their myths also have a trickster character (Wind Cloak) who also occasionally paints feathers of young Singing People. Wind Cloak is often portrayed as bilateral gynandromorph, half male and half female, so being intersex or presenting non-typical markings is seen as being painted by them instead.

This is usually seen in positive light, as Wind Cloak is usually portrayed as a benevolent character, tricking greedy and mean people into falling for their own traps (kinda like a Bugs Bunny type of character)

* In some cases older females sometimes develop male like markings as they get old. It's just a thing that happens. Often times this is also blamed on Wind Cloak messing with things.

Ooh, ooh!

I'm having some worldbuildy thoughts about the Singing People at work right now. Really hoping I still remember once I get long enough break/get off work so I can type them down.

Mostly gender/gender roles/family stuff.

[virune]

genuinely never understood the preoccupation with bullying people for being harmlessly weird. like if seeing someone wearing eccentric clothing or having an unusual hobby elicits some kind of unfounded aggression in you then i don't know what to tell you. get a grip maybe

[skunkes]

if life is categorized by Before Loss and After Loss then I exist in the before but with a countdown to the after. and the countdown is always always present and debilitating. the loss will be debilitating too but i cant help myself. i will always suffer twice.

[vaguely-concerned]

obsessed with what we're meant to read out of rook's expression when taash starts to walk away in this scene. it feels like such an emotionally dense response from them, especially since they've only known taash or anyone else involved in these scenes for all of five minutes

sorry about the abysmal gif quality one day I'll learn how to make gifs properly yet that day is not today. but hello. rook. rook hello. what is this about. what's up with that. what are you thinking about. (also taash seeing that reaction and turning around to clarify that it IS what they wanted before they leave because they're upset, not unkind. aww.)

also flashback to this set of expressions rook makes later on, after the fangscorcher fight, if rook tells taash they're actually a lot like them beneath it all. taash apparently just consistently brings out some very tender rueful rook faces I guess haha

[kyouka-supremacy]

Well.

[scoringeffects]

.