#make math greater than

[azuremallone]

Uvacced? The fuck does that mean? Do you mean, "You vaccinated?" Not helping your case about being educated to understand how herd immunity works.

Yes, vaccines are good. However, a review of the historical context of the COVID pandemic indicates that nearly 1/5th of the planetary population was vaccinated. The remainder, an approximation of 6 billion people, weren't. If two billion were vaccinated, what of the remainder population?

Update:

My reaction was a bit harsh and I've apologized directly to @insltrcrsworld in comments. I will repeat my apology here:

I sincerely apologize for my reaction, @insltrcrsworld. I will take better care to avoid reacting like that.

I'll let you think about that for a moment.

[lexsssu]

Naive (Alhaitham)

TAGS: Alhaitham/F!Bunny!reader, friends to lovers, pining, yandere, possessive behavior, obsession, mating cycles/heats, oneshot Ao3 ver. | Ko-fi | Commissions (OPEN)

“Why do we have to learn more math even if our major has nothing to do with it? At this rate, I’m going to flunk and take it again next semester…”

Alhaitham’s fingers twitched unconsciously as your pair of long ears drooped down, hanging by the sides of your face almost as if they were pigtails instead of actual appendages.

“What the heck am I going to need calculus for when I’m trying to develop improved cultivation tools and methods? It’s not like I need to find out the value of X while I’m plowing the fields or something…”

His heartbeat is delayed for a single second at the mention of ‘plowing fields,’ and he has no one else to thank other than the hormonal male Akademiya students who’d made one or two passing unsolicited remarks about Amurta’s only female beastkin student.

He made sure to memorize their faces and names for him to deal with at a later date.

“Alhaitham, help meeee…!” 

Despite being a proud descendant of the Taguel, the way you so easily beg and plead so submissively at him with large watery eyes and a pout formed by a pair of luscious lips has him wondering if you were unconsciously using some sort of secret seduction techniques passed on through your clan. Perhaps you were even secreting some sort of pheromones that made him calmer, more relaxed, and susceptible to your whims…

“Knowledge always comes at a price. I’m willing to tutor you, but you’ll owe me a single favor that you can’t refuse and which I can redeem at any time of my choosing,” bright turquoise orbs darkened as he leaned his head against his curled right fist. “Are you still willing to pursue this knowledge despite the costs?”

“Of course! I trust you, Alhaitham. So why would I be scared about the favor I’ll be owing you for this? Knowing you, you’ll probably make me do some paperwork or help with your research,” you giggle, the fluffy cotton ball of a tail you had wagging at how silly your friend was. 

Why would you ever be afraid of him when he’d been nothing but honest with you? Alhaitham wasn’t some random cur that tricked hapless maidens into his slimy grasp.

If only you knew just how depraved he truly was when it came to you. 

Then again, it is his luck that his adorable little bunny was such an innocent creature that only saw the best in him.

It’s up to him to make sure no one ever takes advantage of your kindness and naivety.

Even if it means he has to carefully plan and wait for the right time to finally express his true desires, he is willing to be patient. Especially when he knows that you are what awaited him at the end.  

You remain blissfully unaware of his thoughts and intentions, not even questioning him or thinking how odd it was for him to have you sit on his lap as he taught you your most dreaded subject.

Alhaitham is a good man and an even greater friend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You both graduate within the same year with, as expected, flying colors, much to the joy of your respective families. It’s a solemn yet joyous affair, one that you invited him to because how could you not when it was with his help that you managed to even graduate with honors?

There is sure to be some teasing courtesy of your family once you get home, but that is the last thing on your mind as you leap into Alhaitham’s strong arms.

Even through the layers of your graduation attire, you feel the wall of solid muscle that is his body, something that always amazed you when he was one of the most brilliant scholars in Sumeru.

“Thank you, Alhaitham. I wouldn’t have been able to get this far without you always having my back,” you don’t notice the way his sandstone-colored irises seem to dilate as you curl around him, your entire body supported by a single arm around your soft waist while another hand settles upon the plushness of your bum.

Being so close to you like this allows him a whiff of your scent, a mix of soft floral and woody notes with a hint of fruity and citrus underneath. He feels his body heating up from the inside as his senses are assaulted by your voice, your body, and even your smell.

He won’t be able to last long if you keep this up.

Don’t you know how much you drive him crazy?

Rational thoughts come second to instincts when it comes to you, something your kind is very much familiar with.

If there aren’t so many people right now, he’ll throw you onto the grassy ground and mount you right here. He’ll put a whole litter of kittens in your belly and take care of you and your new family for the rest of his days—

Somehow, he manages to keep himself from making a scene by fucking you right in front of your family and the entire Amurta faculty, namely your master, Sage Naphis, whose short temper was legendary throughout the Akademiya. 

However, each day that passes and each small action you make only wears his thinning patience and self-control. It’s not a question of ‘if,’ but rather a question of ‘when,’ and only the Archons know when that will be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So…Acting Grand Sage, huh? I always knew you’d go on to do great things, but Sumeru’s de-facto leader? Makes me wonder why you’re even hanging out with a country bumpkin like me~” Sticking your tongue out playfully and winking at him, you miss the way he swallows seemingly nothing but air.

“Don’t be absurd. Who I associate with of my own volition is no one’s business but my own.” 

Although he may look and sound cold at first glance, you have known Alhaitham long enough to know for sure that he simply has his own ways of showing he cares. He wouldn’t let Kaveh stay at his place if he didn’t care about his friend after all. And even if the scribe wanted to be stubborn about it initially, you simply offered to house Kaveh instead, which ended up with the architect staying at Alhaitham’s in the end.

It’s honestly downright adorable how contradictory he could be at times, seemingly wanting to maintain an unbothered and uncaring attitude when you knew full well how good of a friend he was.

If only you knew that the real reason why he allowed Kaveh room and board was that he’d sooner gut the other man than let him stay in the same house as you. 

He’d gouge the architect’s eyes out if they even settled too long on you.

It’s one of the reasons you’ve come to harbor feelings for him.

He is handsome, he is brilliant, but most of all, he is kind even when you have nothing to give him in return aside from your time and friendship.

You repeatedly stamp down the warm bubbly feelings within you that try to rise to the surface, repeatedly telling yourself that there is no chance that such a fine specimen as Alhaitham would return your affections.

Archons know just how many times you’d fingered yourself to thoughts of him during your heats. How you imagined scenarios of him coming to you in the dead of night, whispering sweet nothings and promises of breeding you full, just as nature had intended.

But there’s no way that could ever happen…right?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"'m sorry…didn't know…it'd come early this…year…!" 

You are a pitiful mess as you lie on the grassy ground, your body overheating from the inside as the symptoms of your heat swiftly overtake all rational thought. According to your calendar, it wasn’t supposed to happen for another few days!

He memorized the exact dates of your cycle, so he knows full well just when you’ll be perfectly ripe and ready for the taking.

Had you not forced his hand in the first place, he’d have gladly waited for your regular heat.

“Don’t l-look at me…Haitham…!” 

How can he not look upon the stunning sight of you looking so hot and disheveled because of your need to be mated and bred? It is a sight he will commit to memory for the rest of his life.

You desperately force down the beastly instincts that urge you to submit to the nearest virile male and present your soaked cunt that begged to be bred. It is humiliating, especially because Alhaitham is forced to watch your lewd and debauched display. 

It brings him such glee at the knowledge that no one will ever get to see you like this. 

Whether it was your upperclassman Tighnari, your friend Cyno, or even Kaveh, none of them will ever have this privilege.

You don’t even want to think about how you’ll face him after this.

Because why would he ever want a mere beast like you?

It is his misfortune that he wasn’t born a beastman like you were. However, he’ll make sure to make up for what he lacked tenfold.

You sniffle, feeling small tears pricking the corners of your eyes as your body and mind fight one another. Your hands move to cover your face, unwilling to let him see any more of the pitiful sight you made.

There’s no need for you to look for a mate from the other beastkin clans.

He’d rather burn Gandharva Ville to the ground than hand you over to the likes of Tighnari. 

Just because the other male was your senior and studied under the same sage didn’t mean that he’ll let that damnable fox sink his claws into you. 

“No. I believe I have a better solution for your plight,” with one hand, he pins both your wrists above you as he settles himself in between your legs.

“Mate with me.”

His words send a shock through your body, floppy bunny ears standing ramrod straight as you gaze up at him with large eyes, heart beating like a drum as the weight of his statement registers in your mind.

“Don’t you see? It’s simply because our bodies are compatible with one another that your heat opted to arrive earlier than expected. Your body already knows what your mind has yet to even comprehend,” Alhaitham’s turquoise orbs seemed like they were almost glowing in the dark as they gazed down at you like a predator eyeing its prey.

You were always the only one meant for him, even if you didn’t realize it at first.

And yet, you don’t feel a single ounce of fear.

Rather, you want to be devoured by him.

You want him to stuff you full with his cum again and again until his seed takes root in your awaiting womb and bears fruit.

You want him and will gladly take everything he’ll give you.

“Alhaitham…mate with me, please?”

[utterdisaster1]

The Teenage Foolishness

Pairing: Sirius Black x male!reader angst at certain point, kinda smut at another. If you haven't read the previous post/chapter whatever, Y/N is muggle-born

Hope you like it! TW: use of Y/N, internalised homophobia, pining, erotic thoughts, erotic things in general, AMAB! reader, swearing, mentions of war, mentions of toxic family

After the first year, the following two were not particularly remarkable. That is not to say that the days were mundane, or that nothing interesting ever happened; rather, you were immersed in a routine devoid of anything exceptional to distinguish it.

You and the rest of the Marauders—a nickname coined by Lily of all people - "Unbelievable! You cost us 50 points, and for what?! Marauding around the castle like vagabonds… I cannot comprehend what is so special or enjoyable about being as much of a nuisance as Peeves!" - continued to pursue your intention of making the most of your years at the school, pranking those who deserved it (mainly the Slytherins) and not taking life too seriously

At times, you felt that James and Sirius, in particular, went a little overboard in targeting a specific individual, but simultaneously, he gave as good as he got, so you did not see much issue with the clear rivalry between your group and Severus Snape.

You continued to learn, to excel, and to immerse yourself in magical education, relentless in your persuit of knowing everything.

In your third year, you began tutoring some first-years in Transfiguration and Charms. You also encountered your first struggle - Arithmancy.

You chose it alongside Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures as your electives, thinking it wouldn’t be too challenging.

You did enjoy the Creatures class the most and found Ancient Runes, which included lessons on enchanting objects, warding, and curse-breaking, truly fascinating. You were always eager for those classes.

But Arithmancy… You thought it would simply be wizarding maths, but it was far from that. You barely scraped by in it and fully intended to drop it before fifth year. Spell-crafting be damned; if you had to read one more paragraph on the properties of numbers and shapes, you felt like you might spontaneously combust. And preparing for an OWL in it… that would be unbearable.

Another struggle that began in third year was dealing with feelings. Suddenly, you started experiencing peculiar emotions. Of course, there had been boys who caught your eye before, but it had never been significant. However, the affections you might have had, or not, seemed to grow in intensity.

Suddenly, instead of a mere sense of admiration, a deep longing emerged. You would catch yourself imagining how delightful it would be to walk hand in hand with them, to embrace them, to kiss them, to…

Even with the knowledge that your proclivities were not frowned upon in the wizarding world, the years you spent before joining it had conditioned you to feel guilt and denial. It felt as though you were being pushed by shame from one side and encouragement from the other, leaving no space for action.

So you suppressed those feelings, turning to those shameful late-night moments in which you inflicted some self-pleasure upon yourself.

You felt guilty thinking about schoolmates that way. The only comfort was that it usually wasn’t someone you were particularly close with, so objectifying them wasn’t thrown in your face the next morning.

Then the fifth year arrived, and with it, a very changed, taller, better-built Sirius.

He said he had spent most of his summer at his uncle Alphard's house, which had a Quidditch pitch nearby, allowing him to fly and work out every day. Training for his Beater position on the Quidditch team involved a lot of work from his arm and chest muscles.

And what a sight those muscles were, when he took his outer robe off, leaving only a thin dress shirt on. They were enthralling to watch, and it took you greater effort than fighting any duel, facing any Slytherin, or preparing for any exam to avert your gaze elsewhere.

It didn't help that he paid particular attention to you. There was something in his gaze that made you want to squirm.

It's worth mentioning you changed over the summer too. You barely had to lift your head now to look your dad straight in the eyes (which came with your mum droning on about needing to buy an entirely new wardrobe for you since all your clothes were too short). Your face became thinner, and your jawline more pronounced. You would often run, not from schoolmates, but for the simple release of pent-up energy from being deprived of magic (you would curse whoever it was that created the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, if they were still alive) and worrying about a possible raid from Death Eaters all summer.

You did try to act casual. But you were also 16. And suddenly, when the night came, the only thoughts you had, were of him.

His nature didn't help either. He was always affectionate with touch - an arm around your shoulder when walking together, his head always resting on someone's lap while relaxing on the couches in the Gryffindor common room. He did that with all of his friends.

So it meant he did it with you as well. In those moments, you begged to be back in the Arithmancy classroom, listening to lectures about numerological transcendence or whatever else you couldn't grasp, because it would still be easier than withstanding the force of Sirius Black's friendly affection. Friendly.

You always made sure to keep the outer robes on, so you could cover your crotch and the erection that occured whenever he tugged you closer to him or rested his head on your arm.

After one very close call, when he laid his head on your lap, you realised it had become essential never to sit next to him again. Not as long as you felt the way you did. It didn't help that the thoughts of his mouth so close to that particular area contributed to your unseemly activities later that evening and were followed by a sense of shame when you saw him the next morning while preparing to go down for breakfast.

And even if you told yourself that you were dealing with this insufferable infatuation, you couldn't help but feel jealous of the people who sparked Sirius' interest. You weren't the only person who had noticed how he had changed over the summer, after all.

It seemed every other week there would be a new girl clutching onto him like a lifeline. And considering the affection he showed his friends, you shouldn't have been surprised by how flagrant he was with them.

The shameless make-out sessions, blatant touching, and disgusting displays like feeding each other were hard to ignore. But over time, you got used to it. You didn't accept it, but it was just something that happened, yet another flaw in the world. It still was better than the fact that there was an actual war happening outside the school halls, a war against people like you, or rather, about ridding the world of people like you.

But then, one day, Sirius showed up for lunch with a boy. A Ravenclaw, one year above you. All of you were confused. And confusion turned into many different emotions when the ministrations that Sirius' girlfriends received were extended to him.

If you felt uneasy before, now you were actually physically sick. You wanted to vomit, to break something, or rather someone.

Ironically, one of the few comforts you had in the entire situation was knowing that if you never stood a chance with him, it wasn't because of your appearance or any other personal attribute, but simply because he was exclusively into girls. This made it easier to avoid letting yourself fantasise about being with him. At that point, however, the reality stung more sharply—knowing that he chooses not to have an interest in you, despite being open to it. It just made it all more painful.

So you quickly excused yourself and exited the Hall. You didn't run and cry, thinking about jumping off the astronomy tower like some heartsick, stupid people would do. You weren't sad. You were angry. Furious. Livid. Violent.

You hadn't noticed Remus going after you, all the way to the Forbidden Forest. You hadn't noticed him as you were throwing all known curses and hexes at a large pile of rocks, annihilating it in the process.

But after you were done, and decided to go back, there he stood. With this look of pity. Maybe you weren't as subtle as you thought, or maybe it was him being his usual, too perceptive self.

"I would say that it gets better, but I'm not going to start lying to you," he said.

"Are you- Do you- You too? With Sirius, I mean," you replied.

"Merlin no!" and after a short pause, "Well, maybe a little last year. But it went out the window after he insulted Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, massive turn-off," he said, the last part with a scoff, "And I'm more partial to the fair sex, being honest with you."

"How long have you known?" you asked.

"You know how my senses are heightened? Due to- you know. Well, some stronger emotions have the slightest scents that I can detect. They don't really compare to any normal ones… well, the technicalities don't really matter. Arousal is one of those scents, and I smelled it off of you while you were looking at him in the distance once or twice."

"Well, thank you for not calling me out on it," you said with the slightest of smiles. At that point, you also had to ask, because you knew it would nag you forever, "So if you can actually smell emotions, that means that things like…" You didn't exactly know how to ask whether he could smell you wank in the night, so you just made a gesture. He didn't seem unsettled by your question, to his credit.

"Oh, yeah, at first it was quite uncomfortable, but you weren't the first one to do it... Sirius was always hyper and he is the oldest, I suppose," he said, then continued, "I learned a spell to shield my bed from all smells in Second Year, but I forget to cast it sometimes," he said while rubbing the nape of his neck.

"Well, I've never felt more sorry for you, especially with Peter's dirty socks..." you said.

“Yes, well, it comes with living with four other teenage boys. But I’m the one who’s supposed to comfort you right now, not the other way around,” he said with a small laugh.

“You did say it wouldn’t just get better, as if from experience… Who were you that angry about? You, the calmest, most reasonable and even-tempered Gryffindor in history.”

“There was one particular girl that Sirius had dated about a month ago, and now even if I did try to ask her out, I’d be asking Sirius’ ex out. It did irk me, knowing he would drop her after a week or so anyway.”

“A shame you hadn’t told me; then we could wallow in self-pity together,” you chuckled a little. Maybe Freud was onto something with his “just talk about it and it will get better.” Although, you were also quite tired, so maybe there was simply no energy for anger at the moment.

“Do you want to smash some things too? I could conjure more rocks if you’d like,” you asked.

He smiled. “No, but I will tell you if I do. Let’s head back; I think we’re already late for Potions.”

You groaned. “Fuck Potions, we’re both rubbish at it anyway. Besides, I don’t know if I have it in me not to throw some beetle eyes or something equally disgusting at him right now.” You said this as you started walking back towards the castle.

“I am a prefect, you know,” Remus replied.

“Oh? So I suppose it wasn’t you who turned Mulciber’s hair into snakes yesterday?” you responded with a small chuckle.

He just huffed but didn’t rebut.

______________________________________________________________

What you and Remus failed to talk about and consider were appearances. There was nothing out of the ordinary with Remus’, but you, however, looked as if you’d just emerged from a fighting ring - messy hair, ruffled clothes, and scratches from the rock shards that you hadn’t even registered.

After worried questions stemming from a calm, “What happened?” from Peter, to James’ intense, “Did someone do this to you?! Tell. Me. Who!” you just said you’d fallen down the stairs, and Remus had taken you to the infirmary, which explained your absence during Potions class. And since it was just a theory lesson, you doubted Slughorn noticed or cared much.

The rest of the day, after fixing yourself up in the bathroom, you tried to act as usual. And it mostly worked. But, as seemed to be the pattern of the day, Sirius disrupted your attempts at casualness. It wasn’t his fault per se, since you always sat together in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Normally, you would chat and joke, having already mastered the subject. But today, you didn’t even want to see him, let alone talk to him.

Sirius wasn’t stupid, nor as self-conceited as some believed. He noticed the lack of banter and witty responses from you and asked, “Are you okay? You seem a little off today.”

Clearly he didn’t connect the dots that your being "a little off" might be related to your supposed fall down the stairs. His mind was probably preoccupied with that Ravenclaw arsewipe he had shown up with, making it clear he was bi.

So you simply responded, “I’m fine,” and started taking notes. This really set Sirius off, because you never did that in Defence class. By Fourth Year, you had enough knowledge and skill to score an Outstanding in NEWT for the subject. You had even ventured into Knockturn Alley to buy books on martial magic, most containing curses only found in the restricted section of the school library. He knew why you were so determined to master this area of magic. With raids, disappearances, and murders reported every other day, who wouldn’t be?

Sirius thought that maybe something else had happened other than the fall, but what could it be? No one dared to challenge you to a duel or sneak up on you after you sent the youngest Yaxley brother to the infirmary with so many afflictions and injuries he didn’t get out until a week later (you only got three nights of detention since it was technically self-defence after he tried to use the body-bind curse on you from behind first. The Gryffindor privilege probably played a part in that as well). You didn’t seem to be under a side-effect of pain medicine either.

He only realized the lesson was over because of your abrupt departure the moment the bell rang.

But there was someone with you when whatever happened had occurred - Remus. He had the answers, and Sirius was adamant about finding out the truth. But when he turned towards the desk Remus sat at, it was empty as well.

Suspicious.

Both of you disappearing halfway through the day and then coming back disheveled with a very convenient story... Could you...? Together?

Now, with his mind racing, Sirius reached the only plausible conclusion: it became clear he was into guys too, and one of you must have gotten jealous, so you sorted it out. The idea that Remus could have been the one to be with you like that, while Sirius was left out, sparked something he never wanted to feel about any of his friends - jealousy.

He loved Moony, don't get him wrong. But it was you and him that always had a little stack of letters after the holidays for each other, since neither could send them during the summer. "Merlin! I didn't know we had some summer essays set to write. What will we do, Pete?" James would always laugh. It was you and him that hated going away from Hogwarts because the castle was where you truly felt at home. It was you and him that sat together by the Black Lake in you spot, sharing those quiet moments that seemed to stretch into forever.

Why wouldn't you consider him for something more, then? He wasn't a saint, he knew that. But he also had access to mirrors, and he was a friend as long as Moony was.

And he had to admit, when he saw you on the train in September, desire surged through him. But you never seemed to look at him too long, let alone show any sign of actual interest. So he tried what he had seen work on those desperate girls and used all the tricks he had. But those attempts only seemed to turn you off, making you retreat from him. He recalled that evening when he laid his head on your lap, asking you to braid or play with his hair, and instead of blushing and giggling like those girls did, you immediately needed to get back to the dorm, claiming there was "a book you forgot to return to the library, and you better run before Madam Pince closes it" or some other excuse. After that, you avoided sitting next to him, except for during class.

When he saw you could defend yourself from the baby death eaters - commonly known as Slytherins - he stopped pretending not to associate with you. He was openly best friends with a "blood traitor," which, in his parents' eyes, was as bad as being a "filthy little Mudblood." So, he would get punished anyway.

He cherished the surprise on your face when he sat next to you at the Sorting Ceremony, the delight in your eyes when you realised he wasn’t playing the charade he had in First Year.

He was always honest with you. He never felt it important to discuss his sexuality, especially since you never mentioned yours. He assumed you shared his sentiment. But now it was clear that you had discussed it with someone - just not him. Maybe you and Remus had a special spot as well? Or maybe, the spot by the lake was only special to Sirius, and you came there only when dear Remus was too busy, or worse, out of pity, because Sirius would sit there sometimes, hoping you would appear.

He hated that feeling. You were his friends. He shouldn't be mad at you two being close, being together. But he was. He was angry with you, and he was even more furious with himself.

Maybe if he just mellowed down his advances, you would start to show similiar affection towards him as well? Or maybe you did feel it, but was just awkward about it and he hadn't noticed?

And then there were the flings.

So on one hand, you might be plainly uninterested, wanting nothing more than friendship. On the other, you might have been interested, but he had ruined it.

He had ruined it all, just as he always seemed to. His mother had often said so. His father, his br- Regulus, never disagreed.

He didn't ever realise he was now alone, with tears glistening in his eyes, heading towards nowhere in particular

______________________________________________________________

The rest of the week was tense for the Marauders. Sirius retreated as he had after his first Howler back in First Year. Fortunately, this time he already had James. Pete stuck by him too, offering snacks in the evenings and welcome distractions. Both of them knew Peter didn’t need help with Herbology, yet he asked Sirius for it, for example.

Not that you and Remus were there to witness most of these moments. You were cooped up in the library, sometimes together with Lily, Marlene, and Mary.

You didn’t know if it was just instinct or if you were that easy to read, but the three girls took to comforting you as well. Your study sessions continued with the addition of Lily’s dormmates, which made things much more fun, but also much riskier, since Madam Pince didn’t take kindly to any disturbances of silence, and snickering was very much a disturbance.

One evening, Marlene said that when she was sad she did her first piercing by herself. She mentioned it off-handedly, while being scolded by Lily and Mary for getting her nose infected - that attempt was not as successful as the first one “or numerous following ones!” Marlene didn’t fail to add.

So, when you were returning to the common room, you asked her which piercing wasn’t too painful and if she would be willing to do it for you. She eagerly agreed, recommending helix piercings since earlobes were “too obvious.”

And as much as it wasn’t the most pleasant experience, it wasn’t too bad either. You settled for piercings in each ear. Marlene said it was fate, since the Hogsmeade trip would be happening in two days. You would be able to buy your own jewellery, wearing hers for now.

You were barely the first person to have some alterations to their appearance done, so it didn’t gain much attention from most, only your friends, who you didn’t have many of, especially since three of your dormmates seemed engrossed with something they were sharing with neither you nor Remus. Even Mary said you looked "dashing", and with her being one of the icons (Marlene had called her a guru) of style by that point, you knew it really meant something.

You saw the dark circles under Sirius’ eyes, as well as how puffy they were. You wanted to comfort him, truly you did. He was your friend, first and foremost. But now, it seemed he was avoiding you. You thought of cornering him somehow but thought better of it. One can’t make Sirius Black do or say anything he doesn’t want to do. And he did not take kindly to attempts at trying.

So, you left him be and didn’t address any of the occasional looks you got from him with anything else but, what you hoped was, a comforting smile.

The trip to Hogsmeade was as eventful as any other, but with you not only buying earrings but some rings as well. You made sure none were made of silver, mindful of Moony.

The Sunday, however, proved to be something entirely else. You were planning on writing the Potions essay and reading the latest issue of Transfiguration Today. You hoped there would be at least something more than a mere mention of the Animagus process, having found only some sparse remarks on it in the books you’d read in the library so far.

There was always the Restricted Section, but you needed the Cloak for that, and James was always with Sirius.

And as much of a pain as it was to write about the Draught of Peace, it was one of the possible potions to brew for your OWL exam, and you needed one in Potions, no matter how much you loathed the idea of studying the subject at NEWT level. But you needed the NEWT to be allowed into the Auror Training, and complaining would get you nowhere.

But when you were finally done and reached for the magazine on your nightstand, the dorm room burst open, and in came James, Peter, and Sirius. And they came with purpose.

“Right, we’re going to settle this. You,” James pointed at you and Sirius, “will stay in this room until you’re okay again. I will let you starve to death if I have to.” And with that, he came out, locking the door.

You looked at Sirius and didn’t know what else to say but, “Always with dramatics, that one.”

Sirius didn’t respond at first, just looked at you for some time. You avoided his stare, which clearly was the wrong thing to do, seeing what he asked you next.

“Why can’t you even look at me?” he said in a tone much more broken than Sirius should sound like. You had only witnessed a few times over the five years you’d known each other. So you did look at him, straight in the eyes, and responded.

“Of course I can look at you.” You really didn’t know how to handle this. You didn’t even know what exactly it was about.

“Since we returned in September, you don’t want to, though,” after a short pause, he asked, “We’re friends, right? Friends tell each other things.”

“Of course we’re friends. Why would you question that?” you said immediately.

He looked at you, intensely, expectantly. But you really didn’t know what he could want you to say. There was no way he knew about your crush, right?

Seeing that he wasn’t going to receive what he had hoped for, he said with a clipped tone, “Then why didn’t you tell me about you and Remus? Or James and Pete, for that matter?”

Now you were really bewildered. You wanted to ask what he meant, but he clearly wasn’t finished.

“I bet you told Marls and the other two, though, always hanging around with each other now. I mean, I could understand if you’d just started and were figuring things out, but once you’re having sex, I think it’s serious enough to mention it to people you claim are your family!” he finished, shouting.

“What do you- Are- Sex!? With who!?”

“Well, Moony of course, unless you were doing it with Marlene in the third-floor bathroom on Thursday too!”

"For fuck's sake, have you taken something!? Or is this some very elaborate prank!?" You didn’t allow him to respond just yet. "I’m not having sex with anyone, I’m not in a relationship with anyone, Marlene only pierced my ears," you said, pointing at your ears. "And I really don’t think that Remus fetching me from the Forbidden Forest is that significant to mention!"

Sirius seemed surprised. You rarely screamed or shouted, preferring to just hex someone if they were going too far. Of all the questions now flooding his mind, he asked,

"What were you doing in the Forbidden Forest?"

"I was smashing up some rocks, if it’s that important to you. And I left the centaurs one of the phoenix feathers I found last year in the Astronomy Tower, along with a very sincere apology letter the next day, so I doubt they’ll want to hunt me down. It was only a pile of rocks anyway; I made sure not to harm any trees or animals."

"Why?"

"You know centaurs are the ones that planted and protect the forest. They demand respect. I doubt me coming in all unreasonable and entitled to destroy parts of it, even as irrelevant as a pile of-" At that, he interrupted you.

"I don’t care about the centaurs! Why were you wrecking rocks, and if that’s what happened on Monday, why are you cross with me?"

"I— I’m not cross with you, and it doesn’t matter why. It’s stupid, and I’m dealing with it."

"Maybe I could help, you know. Or at least you could have told me."

You were getting sick of his apparent entitlement to all your issues and that, mixed with still not fully gone anger at him over the Ravenclaw, prompted you to say with a clipped tone, "Well, you seem pretty preoccupied these days. I wouldn’t want to get groped by accident."

His eyes widened, cheeks reddened, and his mouth opened and closed in a repeated cycle. He was visibly thinking about what to say next.

"Is that why you’ve been avoiding me? Seeing me with those girls?"

You barely even registered saying, "You forgot the Ravenclaw already?"

At that you saw a hint of a smirk on his face, but what was more noticeable was the step he took towards you. "Did it bother you? Seeing me like that?"

Oh, you definitely didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. So you quickly tried to escape the looming vision of actually confessing your feelings to him.

"Who wouldn’t be bothered? People do go to that Hall to eat their food. You and whoever else was your conquest of the week were trying to eat each other."

He only inched closer. "No one else was demolishing the forest because of that, though, were they?"

You faltered. You were losing this argument, and you’d have to go past Sirius to reach your wand, which you had inconveniently left on the bed.

"You know, a lot of things just started to make sense to me..." He was almost within touching distance.

"Well, enlighten me then," you said, hoping your tone was more confident than you felt.

"The way you distanced yourself, wouldn’t look at me too long... I thought I might have done something bad or wrong, but now I’m realising," and after a pause, in a much huskier tone, "I actually might have done the opposite."

He did touch you now, caressing your arm. "I’m going to ask you something, Y/N, and I need you to be honest." The hand went from your arm to your chin, directing your head to look him in the face. You hadn’t realised you had been looking just past his shoulder for most of that monologue.

The only thing you did realise, was that Sirius was tall.

"If I kissed you right now, would you return it?"

You were overwhelmed. And, more importantly, starting to get hard. No.

But apparently, your subconscious decided to answer for you, and you nodded.

Sirius didn’t wait a second. He leaned in, practically attacking your mouth.

The kiss was rough, with teeth clashing at first. You supposed it was probably clumsy, but you didn’t have anything to compare it with.

You tried to mimic what Sirius was doing, and in a moment of daring (you were still a Gryffindor, after all), you bit his lower lip, eliciting a low groan from Sirius.

You usually learned best through practice, and kissing apparently wasn’t an exception. You became more confident with each second his lips moved with yours, and when you felt his tongue brush against your lower lip, you instinctively opened your mouth.

The tongue slipped in immediately, accompanied by a satisfied hum from Sirius. It was strange, the sensation of it in your mouth at first, against your own. But you quickly found yourself enjoying it, and the fact that his hands were now firmly on your waist, running up and down, certainly didn’t discourage you.

For someone who detested the very thought of being overpowered, you surprisingly enjoyed Sirius’ dominant position right now.

You rested your arms on his shoulders and started running your right hand through the hair on the back of his head, eliciting another groan, of satisfaction, you hoped.

You began to move your tongue along with his, and sooner than you realised, it became a battle. You were growing more and more eager to explore his mouth as well.

The fact that you were currently making out with your long-term crush was not lost on you, nor did it fail to make you even more aroused with each passing second. You had imagined a moment like this many times. In fact, you had imagined many other moments, and seeing how physical Sirius was, there was a big chance of them turning into memories or maybe, if you dared to think, regular occurrences.

In fact, you wouldn’t settle for anything less. You were not interested in becoming one of many in the long line of Sirius Black’s dalliances, as Remus liked to say sometimes.

And so, with great effort - both in actually willing yourself to do it, as well as managing against Sirius’ strength - you pulled away.

His eyes were half-lidded, pupils dilated, but a brow started to rise in question.

"I’m not ruining our friendship for a week of fun with you, Sirius," you said, still breathless, but it was clear you were being frank right now.

"I’m not either," he responded. "I want it to be more," he said.

"What are you saying?" you asked with a smirk, knowing very well what, but still wanting to hear it.

He rolled his eyes playfully. "And you complained about James’ flair for dramatics," he said, and immediately dropped to one knee and took your hand. "Y/N L/N, will you, the breathtaking vision of enchanting beauty, the enthralling light of brilliance, do me the honour of allowing me to become your partner in love and life?" he asked in an over-dramatic tone.

You laughed and said in the same manner, "Sirius Black, your words have melted my heart completely. I’d be thrilled to become your boyfriend."

He pretended to cry, followed by a quite amusing spectacle of pretending to die out of sheer joy, and then stood up, held you to him, and kissed you again, this time more tenderly. This kiss didn’t seem desperate but wasn’t chaste in any way either. You pulled him closer by his shirt, having your chests press together. He seemed very satisfied with it.

He was starting to pull your sweater off when the doors burst open with James in the front yet again, this time shrieking. Remus, who apparently joined him and Peter in the common room during your time alone with Sirius, said, "Turns out you were right, they were suffocating each other... Not in the way you predicted though," he added with a low chuckle.

Peter’s face was as red as a beet, and James just stared. After a while, he said, "I call you both my brothers, so it’s incest, you know. I’ll tell my mum."

"You’re just worried I’ll cut into your cuddle time with him," you said to James, receiving a laugh from Remus and a smirk from Sirius that contradicted his severe tone.

"He could never cut into that, Jamie, you don’t have to worry."

James decided to just shove him with a laugh as a response.

[lamardeuse]

write your name on every blank page

by lamardeuse

911 || Buck/Eddie, Eddie & Christopher, Eddie & Buck & Christopher || Rated M || c. 11000 words

aka my contribution to the Eddie in El Paso post 8x11 fic wave, posted less than 24 hours before we get canon Eddie in El Paso :D

Eddie sets out for El Paso with his truck and a rented trailer full of essential items and valuables, the patio furniture the movers had forgotten to take and seven years' worth of mementos to remind him of that time he briefly escaped his parents' sphere of influence.

“I'm sorry you're going to have to buy a new bed,” he says as he and Buck stand in the doorway of his – well, soon to be Buck's bedroom.

“Yeah, there's no way I was going to fit a California King in here,” Buck says. “But it's fine. The mattress was getting kind of – uh, worn out.”

“I bet,” Eddie mutters. “Anyway, I'm sorry you've ended up with such a downgrade.”

Buck shrugs. “I don't see it that way. Your place is a lot more spacious overall. It has a yard. And it's just – nicer.”

“Is it?” Eddie makes a face. “Come on, the loft was cool.”

“Yeah, well, that isn't the selling point it was when I was twenty-six,” Buck murmurs. “The loft hasn't felt like home for a long time. Your house – it's got that warm feeling, you know?”

Eddie's breath catches in his throat at the thought of Buck rattling around this place alone, trying to find a warmth that left the day Christopher did. Trying to summon the ghosts of what they once were to one another, of what they might have been if –

“Buck, I –”

“Yeah?” Buck says softly, and Eddie can't look at him, he can't.

Instead, he turns and nods toward Chris' door. “At least you've got an extra room now. What're you going to do with it, turn it into a gym?”

“Nah. I thought I'd – uh. Make it into a guest bedroom so I can babysit Jee-Yun here, and have it for when you and Christopher come back for a visit. I can get one of those beds with the extra mattress that slides out and – anyway, I have a couple of ideas.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, because it's either that or bust out crying. “Well, you know, it might be a few months before I can even think of getting away from the – the work I have to do to the house, and the new job.”

“Good,” Buck says airily, “'cause putting together Ikea furniture is a real pain in the ass, it'll probably take me at least that long to figure out the directions.”

That startles a laugh out of Eddie, which he imagines was the point. “So, what time you want me at your place in the morning to help you pack?”

Buck scratches at the back of his neck. “I've been thinking about that. You need to be on the road early if you want to get to El Paso before Christopher goes to bed. The movers aren't coming til Thursday, so I can take my time.”

Eddie frowns. “You're saying you don't want my help?”

“I'm saying I want you to – not have one more thing to worry about,” Buck says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I'll see you at six-thirty to load up, okay?”

“Sure, yeah,” Eddie says, suddenly struck by the thought that in a little over ten hours he'll be saying goodbye to Buck. There's so much to say and no time left to say it, not that he has any idea where to start. But even if he did, what would be the point? He might never be coming back to L.A., not to live.

It's not nothing, he'd said, and even that had felt ripped from him, a confession he needed to make for himself as much as for Buck. He can't afford to be more selfish than that, because no matter how anyone standing in this near-empty house feels, Christopher needs a father more than Buck needs Eddie – and maybe even more than Eddie needs Buck. It's simple math, the alligator eating the greater number like they taught you in grade school. But if that's true, why does he feel like the one being consumed, devoured, erased from existence?

Buck hesitates for a moment, his gaze assessing. They should hug, just like Eddie had hugged Hen and Chim and Bobby. But maybe they both know it could get messy, and the last thing either of them needs right now is more mess.

In the end, Buck awkwardly says his goodbyes and leaves. Of course, Buck being Buck, he turns up right on time the next morning in the pouring rain with his big smile and his big arms and his enormous heart and a dozen freshly-baked protein cookies. The hug they'd avoided the night before seems a little less dangerous in the light of day, at least until Buck's arms wrap around him, warm and strong.

Eddie's smile as Buck's warm breath tickle the rain-chilled skin of his neck feel like it's trying to smother him. Time's up, and all he can do in the end is keep that smile stuck to his face while he gasps for air beneath it.

As Eddie's passing San Bernadino on the I-10, he reaches into the bag for one of the cookies and savors it slowly, letting the chocolate melt on his tongue.

When the silent tears start falling, he's not even surprised.

read the rest at the AO3

[eclipixels]

Believe

Yoichi Isagi x Reader

Content: You’ve known since childhood that Isagi had something unique about him and you see it evolve into something greater as you both grow up

[1,658 words]

      You first meet Yoichi Isagi on a warm spring afternoon, the sun dipping into the horizon as the neighborhood kids scatter across the small park. You’re barely more than five, a child with scraped knees and tiny hands grasping at the world, and so was he. A boy with messy black hair and bright blue eyes that sparkle with something fierce, something unshakable.

      He’s different from the others, you realize quickly. Not because he’s taller or stronger, but because there’s something about the way he looks at things. Sharp, calculating, even at such a young age. While other kids chase soccer balls mindlessly, kicking them without care, Yoichi watches. He waits. He moves like he’s already thought five steps ahead.

      And when he finally kicks the ball, it’s with precision that no five-year-old should have.

      “That was amazing!” you say, running up to him, eyes wide with awe.

      He grins at you, a little bashful but proud. “You think so?”

      “Yeah! How did you do that?”

      He tilts his head, thinking for a moment before shrugging. “I just… saw where the ball should go.”

      From that day on, you’re inseparable.

      Growing up with Isagi means seeing that fire in him up close, the way his eyes light up whenever he plays, how his face scrunches in concentration when he’s dribbling, the sheer exhilaration when he scores a goal.

      But it’s not just soccer. You notice it in everything he does.

      “Y/N, you should move your queen there,” he says one day while you play a simple game of chess against the computer.

      “Huh? Why?”

      “If you move here,” he taps a spot on the board, “you’ll be able to set up a checkmate in three moves.”

      You stare at him, confused. “How do you even see that?”

      He shrugs again, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “I just do.”

      You don’t realize it then, but you’re witnessing the earliest traces of his brilliance, the way he sees the world and processes things at a level most kids don’t.

      You leaned back in your chair, the frustration building up as you stared at the assignment in front of you. No matter how hard you tried, the numbers and equations just didn’t make sense. The page felt like it was mocking you, the lines blurring together as your mind scrambled to find some semblance of logic.

      “I don’t get it,” you huffed, pushing the paper aside and letting your forehead drop to the desk in defeat.

      Yoichi, who had been sitting across the room with his own work, glanced up at the sound of your frustration. He hesitated for a moment, but then stood up and walked over to your desk, his usual calm expression on his face.

      “What’s got you stuck?” he asked, his voice steady, with that familiar, reassuring tone that somehow always managed to settle the storm inside of you.

      You gestured at the paper, still feeling a little embarrassed. “This whole thing. I don’t even know where to start.”

      Isagi leaned over your desk, his eyes scanning the page for only a second before he tilted his head slightly, like he was figuring out the best way to explain it. There was something about the way he processed things, it wasn’t just that he understood; it was that he could break them down so easily, so naturally.

      “Okay,” he began, sitting down beside you, “let’s look at it like this.” He grabbed a pencil, and with quick, practiced movements, he began drawing simple diagrams on the side of your paper. His hand moved fluidly, as though he wasn’t just doing math, he was painting a picture, shaping the solution into something that was easy for you to see.

      Your hands accidently brushed up against each other as he explained, but he didn’t move it. He kept his pinky finger crossed over yours. Your cheeks were now dusted with red.

      You watched him, your frustration ebbing away as you listened to him explain in the simplest terms, breaking down the concepts like you were piecing together a puzzle. He didn’t rush you, didn’t make you feel dumb for not getting it right away. Instead, his focus was entirely on you, guiding you through it.

      “I think I get it now,” you said, blinking in surprise. You sat up straighter, finally able to follow along, feeling a little bit of pride in yourself. “That wasn’t so bad once you explained it.”

      Yoichi smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling with warmth. You couldn’t help but smile back, your heart skipping a beat at how effortlessly he helped you, how easily he made everything seem clearer. You found yourself wondering, as you always did, how it was that he could see things so clearly, not just in math or soccer, but in everything.

      And as you looked up at him, eyes still bright with the spark of understanding, you also wondered how he saw you.

      Was it the same way he saw the game? With that sharp, calculating mind that noticed things no one else did? Or was it something different, something warmer?

      And while you admire him, he never makes you feel small. If anything, he shares his world with you, pulling you into his orbit, encouraging you, supporting you, making you feel like you belong right there beside him. You couldn’t help but start to fall for him because of it.

      By middle school, Yoichi Isagi wasn't just a boy who liked soccer. He was a boy who breathed it.

      You see it in the way he spends hours on the field, practicing until sweat soaks through his uniform, in the way he mutters strategies under his breath, imagining plays no one else would think of.

      “I want to be the best,” he confesses to you one evening, sitting on the swings after practice.

      The streetlights hum softly above, casting long shadows on the pavement.

      You swing your feet idly, looking at him. “You already are amazing, Yoichi.”

      He shakes his head, frustrated. “Not enough. Not yet.”

      There’s something intense in his eyes, an almost desperate hunger. It should scare you, but it doesn’t. It fascinated you. What was going on inside of his head? And so, you stay by his side, watching as he chases his dream, as he pushes himself harder, as he starts to shine, hoping you could understand. You tried to push away the desires of your heart, as analytical as he was, you hoped he wouldn’t figure it out.

      By the time high school rolls around, Isagi isn’t just good. He’s phenomenal.

      You watch as he weaves through defenders effortlessly, as he scores goals that leave the crowd breathless. You hear the murmurs in the stands, the whispers about his vision, his strategy, his sheer genius. You see the way his teammates look at him, not just as a player, but as a leader. As someone destined for something greater.

      So when he lost nationals, it almost broke him. Almost.

      You find him sitting alone on the bleachers, staring up at the stars. His usual fire is still there, but there’s exhaustion too, something quieter, something more vulnerable. It was obvious he was devastated about the loss.

      You sit beside him without a word.

      After a while, he speaks. “Do you ever think about the future, Y/N?”

      You glance at him. “Sometimes.”

      He exhales, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sometimes I wonder if… if I’ll make it.”

      You frown. “Yoichi.”

      “No,” he murmurs. “I push myself so hard, but what if it’s not enough?”

      You grab his hand without thinking. “It will be enough. You will make it.”

      “How do you know that?” His mind raced, unable to grasp how anyone be so certain. How could anyone know for sure? What guarantee did he really have that everything he was working for, everything he had poured himself into, would be enough? That he wasn’t just fooling himself into chasing an impossible dream?

      “Because I know you, Yoichi. And I’ve seen you.” You say sternly, recalling every moment since you met him where he proved to be unique and exceptional.

      His breath caught in his throat, and for the first time, you saw that glimmer of vulnerability flicker in his eyes, the one that made him seem so human in spite of everything he’d achieved. For a moment, he didn’t speak, didn’t even blink—just looked at you. Really looked at you, as though he was seeing you for the first time. Why did you always know the right words to say?

      His body moved on its own, an impulse too strong to control. One heartbeat, two heartbeat, until he closed the distance between you, and before you could even process the moment, his lips were pressed against yours. It was soft at first, like he was testing the waters, unsure of whether this was real, whether it was right. But then, as if that one touch unlocked something deep within him, the kiss deepened, full of yearning and warmth, like he was pouring everything he felt into it. The years of self-doubt, the pressures of the world, the overwhelming expectations, they all seemed to melt away in that single, breathless moment.

      He pulled back slightly, his forehead resting against yours, and his breath came in soft, uneven pants. “You always believe in me,” he whispered, his voice so raw and vulnerable that it sent a shiver down your spine.

      You were left stunned, your heart hammering in your chest as you struggled to comprehend what had just happened. The world around you seemed to blur as you tried to catch your breath, the only sound the gentle rustle of the wind and the rhythmic rise and fall of your own lungs. The stillness of the night enveloped you, the crickets chirping in the distance.

      It seemed as if the stars in the sky themselves were watching you two.

[elodieunderglass]

Told myself I was going to finish the first chapter of my first big multi chapter fic this month and I did it! And I was motivated to do so so that Killie would be forced to suffer the indignity of an Egg.

If he has too many, an early childhood of Too Many Chickens has taught me the only solution is to cry. He will never be able to eat, give away, turn into shitty tempura paint, or through any other method get rid of All The Eggs. Lest people think I exaggerate (EGGSaggerate), a collected SIX sporty teenage boys, FIVE neighbors gifted 18 every week, and THREE avid bakers could not keep up with egg production before leaving everyone with a Deep Seated Hatred for the things.

For even greater context, I think we capped out at 36? Chickens. We got "gifted" two dozen bc someone bit off more than they could chew with THEIR attempt to raise chickens and knew we had a coop. Which was fun because we definitely had room in the coop, it totally wasn't full of all the chickens we had intended to fill it with. Anyway, I wish Killie luck with his egg disposal and GLEEFULLY make the problem worse.

I love that you know exactly what you're doing and you did it anyway. thank you for getting this poor little guy absolutely BODIED by eggs.

I've done the math, and Killie, who is 4'10" and athletic and trying very hard to be in peak condition for riding in the Grand National, has -

with this egg -

assuming medium-large chicken eggs -

been pelted with 10% of his body weight in eggs.

I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY (this is extremely funny)

[countryboy8661]

1: Kitchen Counter, Couch, or on top of the dryer? 2: Your last sexual encounter: Good or Bad and why: 3: A fictional person that you think would be good in bed: 4: Something that never fails to make you horny: 5: Where is one place you would never have sex: 6: Weirdest thing that ever made you horny: 7: How are you after a really good f$%k? 8: Have you ever got so wet in the night that you wake up wanting some sexual activity? 9: Tell me your wettest dream? 10: Top or bottom? 11: What body attracts you the most, men or women? 12: Ever kissed someone of the same sex? 13: Home alone and you’re bored. What do you do? 14: Something that you have hidden in your room that you don’t want anyone to find: 15: Weirdest nickname a significant other has ever called you: 16: Are you a touchy feel person? 17: If you were/are a lesbian, would you go for the women/girls who act like men, or the ones who act like girls? 18: Does a massage get you wet? 19: Is it ever okay to not use a condom: 20: If there’s one place a girl/guy should touch you to make you instantly horny, where is that? 21: Has a guy/girl even touched you or discreetly groped you while clubbing or in a crowded place? 22: Ever left the house without wearing any underwear? 23: What do you wear when you go to bed? 24: Biggest turn on: 25: Worst possible time to get horny: 26: Do you like it when your sexual partner moans: 27: Worst sexual idea you ever had: 28: How much fapping is too much fapping: 29: Best sexual complement you ever got: 30: What do you think you and/or the opposite sex looks the sexiest in? 31: Have you ever been called a tease? 32: Fill in the blanks: “If they __, we are ****in” 33: What your favorite part of your body: 34: Love (>,<, or =) Sex For those of us who don’t remember our math thats “greater than, less than, or equal to] 35: What do you wear to bed? 36: When was the last time you masturbated: 37: Do you have any nude/masturbating pictures/video of yourself? 38: Have/would you ever have sex outside? 39: Have/would you ever masturbate at work? 40: Have/would you ever have sex on a plane? 41: What is one song you’d like to have sex to? 42: Has anyone ever posted nude pictures of you online? 43: How do you feel about tattoos on someone you are interested in? 44: Does size really matter to you? 45: Is there anything you do on the internet that you would not like your significant other to see? 46: Do you own any sex toys? (what is it? (how long have you had it?) 47: Would you give your significant other access to your internet history? 48: Would you be offended if your significant other suggested you get plastic surgery? 49: Would you rather be a pornstar or a prostitute? 50: Who gave you your last kiss? Did it mean anything? 51: Do you like to have phone sex? 52: Do you feel comfortable going “commando”? 53: Would you have a problem with going down on someone if they hadn’t shaved their pubic hair? 54: Booty or Boobs? 55: If you had a penis, what would you name it? 56: Have you ever been on an official date? 57: Have you ever cheated on someone? (Why?) 58: Have you had sex with someone of the same sex? 59: Have you had sex with more than one person simultaneously? 60: Have you ever been to a strip club? 61: Name one naughty act you have done in a public place? 62: Sex in the morning, afternoon or night? 63: Shower or bath while having sex? 64: Do you want someone aggressive or passive in bed? 65: Love or Money? 66: Have you been caught having sex? 67: Does anyone have naughty pics of you? 68: Do you like wild sex or romantic sex? 69: Do you consider hair pulling sexy? 70: What should a guy first do when about to have sex with you? 71: Something that will never fail to get you horny? 72: Favourite sexual things a guy/girl does to you thats not sex? 73: What do you wear to seduce the opposite sex? 74: Have you ever paid for sex? 75: Do you like kissing in public?

[kerink]

i cant sleep so i wanna talk about the different ways i conceptualize cecil's age. to me there are 3 domains i consider: chronological, physical, and functional

for his chronological age, we know cecil was a teenager in 1745 making him more than 279 years old. this one's pretty straight forward.

for his physical age we have to do some math. i've broken it down in greater detail before, but the tldr of that post is that (in my estimation) cecil physically ages 4-8 years for every 49 years he's alive. given how much wtnv likes a 1:10 ratio, i'd actually be willing to bet my math in the original post is close but wrong and cecil ages at a 1:10 rate. if cecil was at least 15 in 1745, and if he was stuck at 19 for at most 100 years, that would make him around 33 physically.

cecil's functional age i've never seen talked about and i haven't had a lot of chances to talk about before, so this was the main motivator for this post. cecil isn't just a man, he is The Voice. and since huntokar found night vale after it was founded and didn't break time until 1983, we can assume there was something supernatural about cecil before her involvement.

leonard burton was host of nvcr for "an uncountable number of years" and cecil has said he didn't recall anyone being host before him.

cecil interned under him from at least 1745 until ww2, likely after pearl harbor (1941) since cecil stated america was involved in the war at that time. so cecil interned for ~179 years and has been hosting for ~83 years

it's unclear when leonard died, i've detailed the murky timeline on his wiki page, but cecil had been hosting for between 38-60 years when he did. when leonard died he was crossing the street outside of nvcr, which i interpret this to mean leonard was still involved even after he retired, likely continuing his mentor role informally or else helping cecil as a consultant.

no matter how long cecil had been hosting, 38-60 years is a drop in the bucket compared to "an uncountable number of years." cecil as The Voice was still very new, functionally very young, when leonard died.

this continues the theme of cecil's life: that he's abandoned too young and before he's ready. i read cecil's lack of on-air professionalism to be a reflection of that; just like how he struggled and lashed out and acted up after his mother left he's doing the same thing on the radio. he didn't have anyone to show him any better. we aren't seeing cecil the 279 year old immortal or cecil the 33 year old man, we're seeing The Voice who is still only a child

[enquire]

3 years...

Okay I know I should be finishing up art but I just had to get some rambles outside of my brain alright.

I recently finished replaying Tsurugi's FTEs, and that brought me right back into thinking about the absurd state of this man's childhood.

Spoilers for Tsurugi Kinjo FTEs (and long-winded ramblings) below the cut:

First; Tsurugi Kinjo is an actual police officer from the first time we meet him. He describes himself as one, he mentions past experiences, and it shows in his abilities during the killing game. I feel like this is all common knowledge for those who have been inflicted with DRA.

However, I've done some thinking and research about the chronology of the incidents brought up in his FTEs before, for writing purposes, and just because this guy lives in my mind rent free.

I've tried to do the math before, and the implications are... well... Not good.

But what I had forgotten until replaying recently was that there's actually an explicit time frame given for the hostages incident in his third free time event. (If you don't know or remember, this is the event in which Tsurugi tells Yuki about a bombing incident at Tokyo Tower he was involved in. One which ended when he sacrificed the lives of his team members to stop the terrorists from escaping.)

I went to double check the original, just to see if this was present and the same in the Korean dialogue, too, and well, sure enough:

[Tsurugi Kinjo] 그건… 3년 전 쯤이었을거야. 마에다도 알걸? 도쿄 타워 폭파테러 사건…

It's probably pretty obvious where I'm going with this, right?

First off, when Tsurugi says this, he is (as far as he and the others know) just starting at HPA. So, as far as I know, secondary school in Japan tends to be split into lower (grades 7-9) and upper (10-12) levels. So high school would be just 10-12, which starts at age 15.

This actually kind of opens a can of worms about HPA and everyone's ages in general whether it's canon or the fangan casts, but I'm fairly certain we have no confirmed ages for anyone in THH, except for Yasuhiro, whom is already older than the others given he was held back?

Though, I think it is the case that anyone attending HPA has to be 16 minimum, as they've all been attending high school elsewhere prior to being scouted?

Anyways, 16 is a bit better than it could have been because of this; but still.

I just want it to be known that (assuming that enrollment age is correct) Tsurugi Kinjo was part of a team assigned to respond to a bombing incidents / terrorism at 13.

At thirteen, (at the latest) he carried a gun, and was trained to use it.

At thirteen, he carried a firearm of unknown specifications, one that had come from the military for use in this case.

At thirteen, he sacrificed ten of his teammates lives in order to kill ten terrorists who were using them as human shields.

When he was thirteen, Tsurugi shot and presumably killed 20 people, for the 'greater good.'

That's horrific enough by itself. But I'd also like to point out that this absolutely was not Tsurugi's first time on active duty. I think it is reasonable to assume that he was involved in many cases before this and other duties, as well as training and other things that should have been left to adults.

Also, we have the (other) bomb incident in which his best friend Kouhei is killed. I feel like it makes more sense for this to have occurred beforehand, personally, given their relationship and the way Tsurugi's dogma would have progressed... But, hey, it's possible this happened the same year as the Tokyo Tower incident, or after.

It's also possible it occurred when the two of them were twelve. Or younger. As far as I am aware, there is no evidence one way or the other.

So... At least where I live, child endangerment is a crime; either a felony or misdemeanor, depending on the circumstances.

I'm pretty sure it's also common for child labor laws to prohibit children below 15 from working. And beyond that, dangerous jobs are usually illegal for those under 18. I feel like we can say the talent-obsessed world of Danganronpa definitely has led to more kids besides Tsurugi being harmed, too.

In conclusion:

Even excluding any other... things... which may or may not happen outside the events listed in Tsurugi's FTEs, my verdict is that Juu Kinjo is a criminal. /silly

[jade-gemstone]

Danganronpa Ultimate Categorization

Welcome back to another episode of: Jade is a nerd about something absolutely useless! Today's topic: Talent classification in Danganronpa/Fangans.

In the process of making my own fangan/s, I've created a classification system for the types of talents you can give characters. These classifications are...

Arts: Talents that are involved in the visual arts, performing arts, or fashion. Encompasses performers of all types, any type of visual artist, or anyone involved in fashion. (Ex. Actor, Abstract Artist, Model)

Practical: Talents that focus on a specialized skill or work with your hands. Also includes any talents that are religious or spiritual in nature. (Ex. Mechanical Engineer, Detective, Shrine Maiden)

Academic: Talents that are recognized by how much knowledge or experience a character has in an academic field. Covers most science, literature, math, and research based talents. (Ex. Chemist, Theologian, Archaeologist)

Sports: Talents relating to athletic skill. (Ex. Footballer, Kickboxer, Bowler)

Novelty: Talents given to a person who is special simply by existing. Can also be given to characters who win a contest for their talent. Includes Lucky/Unlucky Students, royalty, and non-human characters. (Ex. Lucky Student, Student, Princess)

This system of classification was based on my experience in the community over about three or four years, seeing many other people's original characters as well as creating my own. I found many fell into these categories. My "perfect" ratio, which my friends and I used as a guideline for making our fangan casts, is 4 arts : 4 practical : 4 academic : 2 sports: 2 novelty. I felt this ratio kept things even and grounded.

A few months ago, I began to wonder if my "perfect" ratio was more of my own creation than an actual pattern I saw. I thought, in the event it was, that I would come up with a mathematically accurate ratio that better represented the talent distribution of Danganronpa and its fan projects. This was my attempt at doing just that.

Data Collection

For this, I tried to collect as varied of a sample as possible. I included the three mainline Danganronpa games and sixteen fangans, ranging from very popular ones to very obscure ones. The fangans sampled for this analysis were...

Danganronpa Another

Super Danganronpa Another 2

Danganronpa Despair Time

Brave Danganronpa Coward's Paradise

Project Eden's Garden

Danganronpa He(art)less Deceit

Danganronpa Hushed Whispers

Danganronpa Muave

Danganronpa Despair's Revival

Danganronpa Re:Birth

Danganronpa Twisted Truths

Danganronpa Survivor's Guilt

Danganronpa Despair's Flame (my fangan! also the one where the talent ratio originated)

Danganronpa Cyberspace

Danganronpa Akeda Amusements

Danganronpa Lost Paradise (my other fangan that isn't released anywhere but I'm counting anyway)

I figured out the talent ratio for each individual game by looking through their casts and sorting them with my classification system. Ultimate ???'s were thrown out if possible (such as in the case of Akeda Amusements, where Hanari was thrown out due to the fangan having seventeen participants) and if not, they were counted as novelty.

Also, shout out to Yuki Maeda and Teruya Ōtori for managing to count for two different data sets despite my best efforts at finagling a way to keep them confined to one.

Observations

The first thing I noticed in looking at the ratios for canon Danganronpa was that Academic ultimates are underrepresented compared to what I initially remembered. It had been a while since I revisited the mainline games, and it was a shock to be reminded of that. I was also reminded, but not quite as shocked by the greater emphasis on practical ultimates.

In fangans, the focus on practical ultimates continues to be heavy, with none having less than two. There was also less focus on sports ultimates, with the majority having only one or two compared to the three that the mainline games had a majority of the time. They also tend to have more academic ultimates.

I think that this could be explained by looking at the types of people who make fangans. The majority of people I know who make fangans have very particular knowledge about certain fields due to experience or heavy research, and more often than not these fields do not include sports. They are more likely to make characters based on their experiences and knowledge that they can then insert into the story to make it seem more authentic.

I also, unsurprisingly, found that my "perfect" ratio was not reflected in many of the fangans I looked at. There was only one besides my own that followed that ratio.

Now, if my "perfect" ratio is not the mathematically perfect ratio, then what is?

According to the data collected for the canon games, this is.

This just so happens to also be the ratio for Trigger Happy Havoc.

According to the data collected from the fangans, this is the perfect ratio.

The only fangan that followed this ratio exactly was Akeda Amusements. V3 also had this distribution.

When considering both mainline and fan made games, the perfect ratio was this.

Ironically, not a single mainline game or fan game followed this ratio.

Out of curiosity, I also calculated the standard deviation for each data set.

Canon Danganronpa has little to no variation, conveying that talent ratios are quite consistent between games. The biggest variation would be in the novelty category, making sense as V3 scaled down the amount of novelty ultimates compared to the other two games.

The fangans are shown to have a much larger variation. Though I can't be surprised by this, as perhaps it is an unfair comparison. The mainline Danganronpa games were written by mostly the same team and had less to sample from, while the fangans have not only a larger sample size in which to deviate, but many different writers that think differently about talent distribution.

Final Thoughts

In putting this all together, I found that my classification system, while not perfect in any sense of the word, has some validity to it. If I wanted to, I could definitely make some improvements to it (especially in distinguishing between certain academic and practical fields from novelty), but as of now it works perfectly fine as an aide in cast creation for me.

My ratio is also not perfect, which was an expected outcome. Really none of the ratios I found are perfect, with none of them representing more than one or two of any mainline or fan made game. While ratios like the ones I found can be good for making sure you have a balanced distribution of talents, they aren't required to make a good cast. Personally, I'll continue using my personal "perfect" ratio as a baseline for any cast I make in the future.

I also had a lot of fun making this, and hope I can find a way to make more posts like this in the future. Thank you for reading this.

[maedhrus]

what are your favorite malving tropes?

OHHHHH we could be here all day!! i’m now going to hit you with a series of headcanons and tropes both because these two make me insane

obviously, i imagine that john and malcolm are each other’s first love. they met each other when they were around 16 and immediately clicked and fell into place. while malcolm had a lot of friends growing up, john was more lonely. they're both also friendly with kingston, but they know that what they feel for each other is very different than that relationship with kingston

they used to go off alone on the belvidera and could spend hours in discussion over christian theology and the organisation of the church of scotland. while they're both chrisitian evangelists, malcolm is of a Slightly more liberal persuasion, mainly as rebellion against his fundamentalist father, who he is not close to

i see john and malcolm both as gay men though of course they never put a name to this. john is more aware than malcolm that he lusts after other men, whereas malcolm is more aware than john that he's in love with him. i also see, of the two, john more likely to find love with another man whereas malcolm is more likely to wind up in a lavender marriage with a very good female friend

when john lived in australia, he spent so much of his time thinking about malcolm there with him, about them making a life with each other where no one could challenge them. in his most pathetic moments, he imagines being a wife to malcolm in every way that counts, and wonders what their children would look like

john brought malcolm’s letters with him on the expedition, brilliantly portrayed in if not, the next and only your dear individual self which i strongly recommend to anyone. john re-reads the letters frequently and they are his biggest source of comfort, greater even than his bible and it shames him to admit it, so much so that he refuses to think about it, but it's still true

i loovvveeeee the idea that john was the one to give malcolm the nickname "elphie" and he remains the only one who calls him this. malcolm loves it less so for the name itself, but because john created it and it's something just the two of them share

the necklace that john can be seen wearing in ep 8 was a gift from malcolm, who was the one to carve it. it's one of john's most treasured possessions, and he never takes it off

my fc for malcolm is ben lloyd-hughes, but the important things for malcolm's look for me is that he should have dark hair and dark eyes and this is because i enjoy unrequited nedving where john looks at edward little and sees the ghost of another dark-eyed man that he loved

historically, malcolm went on to marry, first all to a woman named mary douglas who died after giving birth to their daughter, and then another woman called charlotte melville, who died a few years before him. my hc is that he married mary because he was getting older and it was the socially expected thing to do (and at this stage the franklin expedition is basically confirmed dead) and then when she died he thought his daughter would need a mother. because i'm evil, i hc that he saw aspects in john in both of his wives, and that's why he married them; mary being pious and shy, charlotte having green eyes and being really good with maths

in a survival au john Has to come home, with malcolm waiting on the docks for him. john ends up retiring from the navy and moving to burnfoot with malcolm where they are the strange bachelor uncles to john's nieces and nephews. john dies first (being older and also having lingering health complications from the arctic) and malcolm lasts no more than a year after. he requests that they be buried in the same grave

[tagamantra]

On Posture In Gubat Banwa

So the sixth version of Gubat Banwa's First Edition "returns" to the ideal that HP as a pacing mechanic, an Action Economy limiter, and a resource pressure. As always, in Tactical Combat games, resource management is a major aspect of the gameplay. Management of action economy, management of distance, management of other currency (such as Class-specific Resources). Most of a Tactical Combat Grid game revolves around the manipulation of these mechanics: reducing, regaining, adding, changing, force multiplication/division of these resources, and more. In Tomian Design (that is, Tom of LANCER RPG and ICON RPG), costing.

For the first 5 versions of Gubat Banwa's design, we worked with lower HP values (across the board) and with Dice Pools. The idea was that each dice in a dice pool was an attack launched, or a moment of concentration. Every die in the defense pool was a parry or evasion attempted. While the fantasy of that worked pretty great, the maths on the other hand did not. It worked almost counter-intuitively against the high-flying martial arts x deliberate tactical combat that I was trying to strike a balance for. My white elephant, my Shambhala, was to strike a good balance between that.

The Change

In 1.6, while the Dice Pool didn't entirely go away--much of the game is built around getting tactically advantageous positions so that you can get more dice and a higher chance of dealing greater damage on the target--it went for a more linearly scaling game with the result on the die reducing the target's Health.

It was a hit, mostly, among the inner circle (that is to say, my friends that I run the newer version for). There was an immediate sense of "we know how this game works" now.

On Tactical Video Games

It was more transparent--this information was crucial to making a tactical game work and sing. This is why in video games, almost every tactical game has the "Combat Forecast", like in Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics, that showcased the expected Hit Rate and the Damage Output.

This is absolutely integral: tactical games are decision point games. Without the proper information (doesn't need to be complete information), no decision can be done satisfyingly. This isn't to say that dice pools can't be used for a tactical game of course--I've done it. But it requires a different kind of design principle and design goal that Gubat Banwa wasn't going for. That sense of martial progression, of spiritual strength and eventual enlightenment.

From HP to POS

During the initial playtests, we were still working with HP. Hit Pearls. The idea was that every hit "shattered" a Hit Pearl. This worked with the Dice Pools, because the fiction was that every attack could be parried with Defense Dice.

What was the problem with this? Firstly, the math of this was inherently fraught, unfortunately: on higher levels, Defense Dice were either horribly impenetrable or did absolutely nothing to defend you. It became a binary thing. That was not the goal: for the martial fantasy to come to life, much of the decisions should not binary but rather, on a gradient spectrum.

To me, the destroyer of tactical grid games is when there's a single best strategy that shatters the tension of the game. My favorite parts of Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre were early game moments where the output randomness could make every fight go completely different, even if you redid the same stage more than once.

Secondly, when the outcome of an action is that, really, nothing happened, you used an attack (even worse, the attack was buffed by yourself, an ally, and tactical modifiers) and then the target was able to parry all your hits. The fiction is exciting for a second, but then when you return to the battle grid, nothing changed. The mechanics fed into the fiction, but the fiction didn't feed into the mechanics.

With the math change, the fiction of the Hit Pearls wasn't working because HP values were higher to compensate for the changed math. 12 Hit Pearls could feasibly be visualized as Link's Hearts, for example. But at 48 HP, that didn't work anymore.

Hearkening to the Ancients

So I actually went on a trip to older versions of Gubat Banwa, and found I'd solved that particular problem. Older versions of Gubat Banwa had HP as "Mettle", their ability to stay in the fight. Turning to the game's current version, I realized the Physical Defense stat was perfect: POSTURE. The stance, the guard, the ability to keep fighting, the ability to turn mortal wounds into grazing hits, the ability to ignore the effects of bleeding wounds, of burning pyres, of seeping poison.

Every attack was inflicting damage by chipping away at the target's guard, or forcing their stance into more compromised positions so that they would be open to an actual mortally wounding strike. They were still real hits that the defender was actively still guarding against. And with every attack defended, their guard wore down.

This hit me after watching Donnie Yen's SAKRA (2023) the other day. Reaching back into the high-flying wuxia roots, Donnie Yen's character doesn't even take real hits until after he's overwhelmed because he is such a martial superior against the rest of the Beggar Clan. Because his Posture was so high.

Ten Thousand Earth Shattering Blows

It worked great. Not to mention that it's a great reference to Sekiro, another huge inspiration to the games's intended fiction, which also had a Posture break. Now Staggered for half Posture or lower made sense: your guard is brittle! You court death! Now the Wide Open affliction felt more in genre: your guard is wide open, so you're suffering more!

The Physical Defense stat was renamed into PARRY, while the Magical Defense stat was kept as RESILIENCE (itself a reference to Final Fantasy Tactics A2!) The defenses were there to keep the mechanical bite of an Attack vs Defense interaction, to provide an avenue for another mechanical design space, as well as to shoe in the fact that when an attack targets your Parry you're physically blocking while an attack against your Resilience requires your fortitude and concentration to block against: when your Posture is reduced, when you guard is worn down by these attacks, you know how you were defending.

When enemies hit 0 POS, that attack is the one that gets through their Defenses and kills them outright. When a Kadungganan falls to 0 POS they're not dead, but they suffer a WOUND, which only heals on Downtime (as opposed to POS healing on Repose, ie., short rest).

On Defeat and Victory

While you're Defeated, you suffer the same effects of Stun, but you can still act and do things, even make attacks at full power: you're Kadungganan after all. But every attack against you, despite your PARRY or your RESILIENCE is not met with a stance ready to block. Thus, every instance of damage you suffer, no matter how much, inflicts another Wound. When you eat 5 Wounds, you can pull on your Conviction to stay alive. Otherwise, you are tossed back into the cycle of reincarnation, or into the river to Sulad, or to Lunar Heaven, or to whatever next life your Kadungganan has chosen to ascribe to.

Status Effects

Statuses such as Poisoned, Bleeding, or Aflame, don't break you yet because they must eat through your bodily resistance. But they are still real: an aflame Kadungganan fights on even as flames swathe their body.

They can die later, when they feel the effects of the burn when their POS falls to 0. They can die later, when the Poison finally seeps through and enervates them and destroys their defensive capability. They can die later, when the bleeding takes its toll and they can no longer keep their stance up.

Martial Glossolalia

With a simple terminology change, the fiction changed entirely. Now everyone knew it was their defenses wearing down. Swords didn't cut off their fingers, flames didn't burn through their skin. They know that defenses are a holistic thing: your stamina, your constitution, your composure, your reactive ability, your dexterity, your presence of mind, your focus.

"It's not realistic!" The game is not meant to be realistic, and realism is not an inherent ontological good nor is it a goal for most TTRPGs, you will notice. Experiences, feelings. The fiction Gubat Banwa draws upon--SEAsian Folk Epics, Asian Martial Arts Cinema--is filled to the brim with the CLANG CLANG CLANG of sword-on-sword action. Often these clangs happen so quickly that you cannot process them, they are abstracted to you when it resolves in your brain--so is it abstracted by Gubat Banwa. Posture going down is the CLANG CLANG CLANG that resonates across a fight scene. It's not realistic because it's not meant to be, and even then, we must argue what your conception of reality is!

I could be argued that much of Tabletop RPGs (and, I would argue, most of games in general) is an exercise of language. Exploiting its vagaries, its ability to connect. When you go into Gubat Banwa, learning the mechanics of the game is learning a new language. And what is language but the foundation of culture?

[curiousgworge]

꒰‧⁺ Casual *ೃ༄

*ೃ summary: where your relationship with Jake is a 'no attachments' one

pairings: jake x fem!reader

word count: 1.1k

warnings: angst, some suggestive mentions, reader is Jay's little sister

Jake Sim was known around school for a range of different stuff: his abilities in soccer, his disponibility to tutor people in Math, his great looks and even greater personality and, most importantly, his inability to have one night stands and casual flings. 

Despite being very popular among the ladies, Jake was never one to sleep around. First of all, ‘cause he considered himself a gentleman and he couldn’t really fathom the idea of one night stands. Secondly, he cherished the intimacy of knowing and loving someone more than the physical aspect of his possible relationships. 

But against all that and his better judgment, Jake Sim found himself having a casual friends-with-benefits relationship with you. 

And it's not like he didn’t know what he was getting into when you first caught his attention. You were Jay’s little sister, who he always warned his friends was off limits: not only was he acting like the protective older brother, but also ‘cause he was afraid of needing to pick sides if things didn’t work. 

It all began in one of the many sleepovers he had with your brother and their other friends, when it was so late it was almost morning and all of the guys were scattered in mattresses in the middle of the living room and Jake went to the kitchen to get a cup of water. And even though it was your house too, he wasn’t expecting to find you sitting on the counter with a bowl of cereal, dressed only in an oversized T-shirt and a pair of fluffy socks.

Jake didn’t really expect you to ask him if he wanted cereal too, or for him to say yes, but then he found himself sitting by your side, eating and talking in a low volume not to wake up the guys. He didn’t expect to end up kissing you in the middle of the kitchen, his hands holding your face as you stood in front of him, his legs dangling from the counter he was still sitting on. 

He also didn’t expect to be caught by Heesung leaving your room in the morning, but still, there he was. What he did expect though was the face and scoff he received from him when Jake said that it was only a one time thing. 

But it didn’t take long for Jake to see that it wasn’t in fact a one time thing. It barely took a whole week in reality, as he had to work on a few group assignments from a class he shared with Jay. 

As your brother left the house to buy food for both of them, you left your room to greet Jake. At least that’s what you said when you straddled him and kissed him, making him a breathless blushing mess under you. It’s not like you had a lot of time, but it was enough to convince him to accompany you upstairs so you could help him with the raging boner he got from having you on top of him; and enough for Jay not to suspect a thing when he came back with chicken wings and lamen for them. 

And as weeks went by, Jake gave up on keeping count of how many kisses he shared with you and how many times he ended up on your bed when he really shouldn’t. It also became harder to hide what was happening from Jay, as Jake couldn’t really hide the way his eyes would follow you every time you moved, or how smily he became whenever you gave him an ounce of attention, or even how much of a coincidence it was that both you seemed to have hickeys around the same time period. 

So to say that he was shocked that Jay already knew everything was an understatement. Jake had spent a whole lot of time overthinking that conversation with your brother, planning what to say and how to run away if Jay wanted to punch him in the face, only for him to keep an uninterested face and say he knew. 

-My sister told me when I found one of your sweatshirts in her room last week. 

-And you’re not like, mad?

-Not at you bro, but at her? Totally. I told her not to fuck around with my friends, especially for her ‘no strings attached’ bullshit. 

And as relieved as Jake was that Jay was not going to kill him, something in what he said rubbed him in the wrong way, but he couldn’t really understand why. Was it the way that Jay looked at him, pity in his eyes? Was it the fact that, despite all the nights you spent laying naked by his side and talking about everything and nothing with him, you still considered your relationship just ‘casual’?

Maybe it was the way that, on the next sleepover the guys had, you came home laughing and holding hands with another guy. You froze on your tracks upon seeing your brother and his friends in the living room, and you blushed when you looked in Jake’s eyes. Or the way you apologized to the guy you were with, saying how you didn’t know your brother would have friends over, just for him to smile and say that it was fine and his roommate wasn’t home, and you left with him again. 

And Jake felt like shit when all his friends' eyes turned to him, worry stamped on their faces. But he forced a smile, grabbed one of the controllers and told his friends he was fine, despite none of them believing. 

-We’re just casual guys.

But he felt sort of grateful the next morning, when you were already back home and Jay thought the guys were still asleep in the living room and he could hear your brother scolding you about what happened. He just pretended to sleep when Jay came back and laid back on his mattress, his soft snoring soon being heard. And that was the moment you left your bedroom, as Jake could hear your steps and feel your eyes on him. 

-I know you’re awake Jake. Can we talk?

That’s how Jake ended up in your bed pounding on you, his mouth on yours to keep you as quiet as possible under him. He didn’t really pay attention to your apologies about last night, too focused on showing you that this casual thing you had would always be better than whatever other guys could do to you. He had to bite his tongue not to ask if it was worth it, if that guy could make you feel better than Jake could, settling for marking your body and watching as your eyes rolled and your body squirmed under his touch. 

 It was hard to ignore the way his friends looked at him when he left your room, a mix of disappointment and concern, and as he could still feel the way your body fitted on his hand and your taste on his tongue, he hoped that if he lied to his friends enough, he could convince himself too. 

-Don’t worry guys, I’m fine. It’s all casual. 

[valrvn]

SURVEY BREAKDOWN

(long post warning)

**A FEW DISCLAIMERS**

I AM NOT A SCIENTIST, I AM A HUMANITIES BITCH. My math skills are limited, and I have no training on processing/presenting this sort of data. I am also one person with a shitty laptop, an unreliable internet connection, and a very busy personal life. Take all of this with an extremely large grain of salt.

Participants are self-reporting. They may not know for sure, they may be wrong, they may be lying. I took everyone here at their word. I tried not to extrapolate much from what they were saying, because I do not want to misrepresent what they said.

I will be covering why people thought they developed this fetish in a later post because this is already too long.

Gender of Participants

*According to a 2024 survey, 1.14% of American adults identify as transgender, while 1.52% do not identify as male, female, or trans (some of whom identified as Non-Binary.) That makes the presence of trans and non-binary participants VASTLY disproportional to the American average. I'm sure some of it can be explained by younger people being more likely to identify as not cis, and younger people using the internet far more than the older generations. I also read a paper once that suggested the internet was responsible for the development of more niche fetishes. It's also possible that trans people are more likely to be comfortable engaging with communities surrounding 'deviant' sexual interests because they've already been labeled 'abnormal' (BUT THESE ARE ALL JUST GUESSES). What I theorize is that, because pregnancy is inextricable from sex organs and gender rolls, trans people (ESPECIALLY AFAB trans/non-binary people) are more likely to have those early, strong emotional reactions to pregnancy that seem to develop into fetishes. I'll get into this more on my next post.

*cis women outnumbering cis men was not something I was expecting, but makes sense, since young girls often have to think about pregnancy much sooner than boys, and it threatens to have a much greater impact on their life.

*in retrospect, I wish I'd included a question on how the participants found the survey, since knowing might help explain the disparity between trans and cis people.

Sexuality of Participants

*most (but not all) of the people who chose "other" wrote in an ace-spec identity not included in the above choices (ace lesbian, demi-sexual, etc.,)

Content of Fetish Material Consumed

*the vast majority of participants selected multiple answers, the exception to this was straight cis men, who often only selected the 'Cis Female Pregnancy' option (a small percentage of this group also answered femboys). The minority of straight cis men who chose other options most often fantasized about becoming pregnant themselves.

When the Fetish was Developed

*One person wrote in that they didn't believe children could have fetishes. Their entry was shortly followed by one from someone who described frequently masturbating to fantasies surrounding pregnancy at the age of 5. This isn't important to the overall data, I just find it funny.

How Great a Role does the Participants' Fetish Play in their Achieving Arousal?

How Great a Role does Sex Play in the Participants' Fetish Related Fantasies?

Did the Participants' Pregnancy Fetish Play a Role in their First Time Experiencing Arousal?

*most of the "it's complicated" answers were people who couldn't remember their first time experiencing arousal.

...

That's the basics down, stay tuned for a breakdown of why people think they developed their fetish.

(will be linked when post is done).

[team-avia]

First off I love this game. I am extremely grateful to all of you for making it❤️. I have played all the routes in a row(with the guide cause I sure as 💩 wasn’t going to hurt any of our girlies feelings or mine) and loved the romance and mystery/Horror in all of them. Lost sleep but it was totally worth it😌.

Second: I reject the time loop cause I want more than 2 years you guys give to the canon. I will live in the delulu till further notice.

Thirdly my question: I have read all the lore sheets and read the routes as carefully as I possibly could, but a reason was never given as to why Donna and Bela were the only ones to have the ability to regain their memories of past time loops, so my question is how could they remember? 🧐

Btw send my appreciation to your artist for drawing Dani, Donna, and Bela like THAT 😳🫡🫣. Gives me butterflies, damn.

Actually, I answered (or well...hinted) this in an ask, but essentially, it all comes down to simple math. Whose is greater?

In the case of Donna, her will is stronger than Miranda's will because hers isn't shaken by failure and impending insanity but rather strengthened by the pain. The trauma is dealt with reinforcingly rather than debilitatingly. She is literally willing herself to not forget like my girl is straight up manifesting it for herself. She wills it so hard that it's practically impossible to manually make her forget

For Bela, her soul is stronger than Miranda's because her soul is technically new. It doesn't hold all the breaks that the 19th Miranda's does, because 19th has lived far longer than intended, and it has withered through her Illicit deals. As well as this, I also pointed out previously (a loooooong time ago) that I had gone through outlining the reincarnation lore with the intent that Bela was supposed to be 20th- or MCs soulmate. So, her soul is literally incapable of forgetting MC without severe outside interference, which only works because, on a fundamental level, Bela does not want to remember the cycles of violence and pain because it hurts her.

Cinder

[the-campaign-coach]

Using Rules From Other TTRPGS

As a game runner and player experienced in over 75 game systems, I can let you in on a big secret. 

No rule is as important as the experience your players are having at the table. 

This doesn't mean the rule of cool gets to take over all at times, in fact for many if not most players, consistency matters. It is nearly impossible for a game group to be able to find a single system containing all of the rules your players will like, and even more importantly doesn't contain any rules your players hate. Rules can be built very well for the theme but maybe a certain subsystem doesn't gel well with each player. 

Generally, I would not suggest changing the core concepts of a game, without completely changing which game you're using, but I will actually address that in a later post called, Porting a Game to a Different System. 

Instead, I want to talk about rules that exist within certain games that are able to be pulled across and either subtly added to the game, or used to change an inherent aspect of the game that doesn't work for your group. 

My first major addition that I would suggest using in almost any game is the concept of Advantage and Disadvantage. For those that don't know, the most common version of this is rolling an extra die and taking either the best of the pile or the worst of the pile. The math on a D20 for example is something like a +4 to the die roll. The importance to the game is beyond the simple math. Rather than this just being something that can allow the party to succeed or give them greater challenge, I've always found that succeeding at a disadvantaged role or failing at an advantage role creates the drama with just the dice, which is often hard to do. 

When someone has all the odds stacked against them and still managed to succeed, your party will celebrate the hardest. By the same metric when everything is set up for success, and failure still happens, the resulting consequences often define a game session, and can be memorable than a simple success would ever would be. I really suggest adding these as part of the game, but only after negotiation with your group to understand when and where they will apply, as they create a simple mechanical lever to pull on to increase the tension within a session. 

I played Brindlewood Bay for the first time recently and it has a wonderful way to resolve mysteries. Even if you're not specifically running a mystery game, the idea that the players build the story with you, is one that I strongly advise. In Brindlewood Bay, the players collect clues during play which make the final “solving the mystery roll” possible. The player who chooses to make the roll asserts what they think to be true, and if the roll succeeds then that becomes the solution to the mystery. Now ideally a player won't attempt this roll without discussing how they would like the story to end with the whole group.  A fun twist can happen when a great theory, and a decent chance at the roll, still ends up with a failed result. They will have to pivot to a twist ending that no one expected, but that still aligns the clues to point to the new suspect. 

I actually have an example of this from the year prior to playing Brindlewood Bay for the first time. I knew generally of the mechanics, so when a player interrogated a NPC and layed out a better, more well thought out explanation to the events that were unfolding, I just went with it. I had fed them clues that I thought were pointing them to a certain direction. The way he had interpreted them and explained it to our group via the interrogation was bette. He set up a scenario with better stakes than I had put in place. He then went on to create a magic spell from scratch because of this information, a mechanic both in that game of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 2e as well as the Dresden Files RPG, but I will go into greater detail about that in a future post called “Making Magic: Custom Spell Creation”.

The last rule I would love to include for you to consider is giving away some of the narrative control. Most games limit this to a Meta Currency such as the Fate Points in Fate, or the Bennies from Savage Worlds. These allow small changes like an open window to sneak into, or maybe the bouncer at the club is an old friend. 

Alternatively you can use the Flashback mechanic from Blades in the Dark, and its derivatives. In this a player doesn’t just speak something into existence, but takes a hit to their main character resource to activate it. Once they do they get to have a flash back to how this change to the narrative was really part of the story we just hadn’t seen yet. That might be a similar result to those above but the vibes can be quite different so I would suggest grabbing the version that speaks to you. 

There are so many more rules I would love to highlight, so this might end up just being the first in a series of posts with the same theme. If you read this and feel like there are rules you can’t help but use in all you games let me know and I can try them out as well!