#that's half the battle I guess

[pinkcrocss]

Limoreau #3: A Sense of Belonging

A/n: Hahaha! Another one-shot... Okay, I solemnly swear, I am not allowed to post anything else until I've posted at least one chapter of one of my two multi-chapter fics.

What can I say? When inspiration hits, it hits.

Heavily inspired by this amazing fan art by @beelze0-0

Jordan is sick of other people pushing their expectations on them...

1,900 words

“I’m super inclusive! So welcome to God U. We’d love to have you.”

“CUT!”

Jordan looked up at the director, from where they were perched on a picnic table out at the student quad. They couldn’t believe they had let themself be roped into this shit. But Brink had said taking part in this video would help keep eyes on them, further bumping up their q-ratings which would in turn help them in the rankings.

 “Hey Jordan! Look, I’m glad you agreed to do this and we’re so happy to have you representing our esteemed establishment, but we were actually kind of hoping you would film this in your female body.”

The stout director must have seen the frown on Jordan’s face because he hastily added, “It’s just that when it comes to inclusivity, a female spokesperson tracks better! It’s no big deal.”

“Easy for you to say.” Jordan thought as they reluctantly switched forms, feeling their clothes get a little looser and their hair suddenly touching their shoulders.

The director looked relieved as he headed back behind the camera.

“And go!”

Jordan started in on their rehearsed line, “I’m super inclusive! So we-“

“Cut!”

Jordan tried not to let any frustration bleed into their expression. 

”What seems to be the issue?” They tried to look cooly at the director.

“Do you think you could smile a bit more when you say the line? We’re trying to go for a more pleasant, feminine energy here.” 

Jordan could feel the plastered on smile on their face pulling tight at their skin.

“Actually, Erica! You think we could have makeup come over, maybe some blush and a touch of lip gloss would help.” The director went on.

Jordan went along with the rest of the shoot. A mantra running through their head for every minute that went by, “It will be worth it when I’m in the seven… it’ll be worth it when I’m in the seven…”

Hours later, Jordan sat at their desk outside of Brink’s office typing diligently on their laptop, as they graded Brink’s last batch of crimefighting essays. Glancing at their phone to check the time, they swore as they realised they only had ten minutes before they were supposed to be meeting with their parents at a restaurant across campus. Already they could see a barrage of unanswered texts from their dad.

Exhaling a long breath, they finished up their latest essay before packing up their things and rushing out of the crimefighting building. By the time they made it to just outside the restaurant, they were already 5 minutes late.

Catching their reflection in the window, they briefly panicked, realising that they were still in their female form. Not at all in the mood for an evening of barbed comments and sour looks from their dearest parents, they hastily transformed into their male form, feeling their body grow heavier as their hair shortened to right above their ears.

Walking in, they could feel the weight of their dad’s disappointed gaze. 

“Jordan?” He said. “You’re late! What do I always tell you? A man must always honour his commitments, right?”

Jordan could only take a deep breath, readying themselves for an evening of similar comments. 

“Yeah, dad. It was my bad. I was busy grading for professor Brink and-“

“Ah! Professor Brink! How is he doing?” Their mother cut them off. 

“I hope he’s been taking care of my little man.” At this point, she had gotten up and rounded the table to pull them into a tight hug.

“Well, not so little anymore. Look how how tall you are!” She grabbed his bicep. “And so strong! I hope you’re not overdoing yourself.”

“I’m fine mom.” they responded, slipping out of her grasp.

Sitting down, they opened up the menu and began scanning the options as their dad flagged the waiter. Having settled on a simple pasta dish, Jordan leaned back and settled themselves more comfortably as they waited for the waiter to approach.

Having gotten a passing waiters attention, their dad turned to them before suddenly donning a frustrated look on his face.

“Jordan.”

Jordan sat up, curious as to their dad’s sudden change of mood.

“Please… just sit like a man. You look ridiculous.”

Jordan followed their dad’s eye-line down to their legs, which they had subconsciously crossed as they had been getting comfortable. Flushing with embarrassment, they slowly uncrossed their legs and sat up, avoiding eye contact with their dad.

Seemingly satisfied, their dad decided to change the topic.

“Speaking of Brink… what’s the plan to get you ranked #1, huh? I noticed your social trending has been flagging a little.”

Jordan tried not to roll their eyes. Sometimes, it was hard not to feel like they were just a trophy to their parents. Something to take off the shelf and dust off in front of company, then put it right back away when there was no more use for it.

“Yeah, um.. I’m actually gonna be in the new campus welcome video for the incoming year. So that should help a bit with social recognition.” Jordan tried not to think about the disappointment on their faces, when they saw which form they appeared in in the video.

“Also, my combat stats are the highest on campus so far.” 

For a moment, their parents actually seemed to perk up at the news, both wearing expressions akin to haughty pride. 

Feeling confident, Jordan continued. “Yeah, and especially when I switch forms I’ve gotten more agile so Brink came up with this manuever wh-“

“Switch forms?”

Jordan immediately realised their mistake as their dad’s face morphed into a sour expression.

“Jordan!” Their dad was aggressively whispering now, as if afraid that other people in the restaurant would find out about what he considered, the more undesirable aspect of Jordan’s abilities.

“We’ve talked about this. You don’t need that part. Your strength, you’re invulnerability, that’s what’s going to get you to the Seven. Now stop embarrassing us and act more like the young man we raised!”

Jordan wanted to argue, but was scared of what might come out of their mouth if they did. Instead, they remained silent, face pinched, once again feeling like their skin was stretched too tight over their muscles and bone.

Finally seeing their waiter approach, their mother looked grateful for the excuse to change the topic of conversation.

“It will all be worth it… It will all be worth it…” Jordan kept reminding themself. They had to.

It was getting dark by the time Jordan was making their way back to the dorms. Shooting that video earlier that morning, grading all of Brink’s essays, a disastrous lunch with their parents, followed by a two hour lecture at their least favourite subject, Hero ethics, and all Jordan wanted to do was crawl under their covers and never wake up again.

Jordan felt stretched thin. Like a rubber band about to snap. But still they reminded themselves to just hold it together until they made it back to their dorm room.

It was days like this that Jordan was grateful that they no longer lived in the freshman dorms, and that their top ten status gave them leverage for a single room. Not having to worry about annoying roommates or being considerate of another person in their space, was a blessing they would never stop being grateful for.

However, as they neared their door, they got the distinct impression that they wouldn’t be alone tonight. Some niggling sense in the back of their mind told them someone would be on the other side of that door, so they weren’t surprised at all when they walked into their room to find Marie lounging on their bed, watching some kind of show on her V-pad[1] that she must have brought with her. 

She looked comfortable, stretched out in a pale blue sports bra and soft, black leggings. Jordan had surprised her with an illegally made copy of their dorm key about a month prior and had offered her use of their room whenever she needed to get away (really it was just an excuse to see her more often without sounding desperate. But hey, Jordan had an image to maintain).

Marie had set aside her V-pad to look up at them, gracing them with a blinding smile. “Hey, baby! How was your day?”

Jordan wasn’t sure how she did it, or what magic potion Marie seemed to possess, but at the moment she might have as well have been an oasis in a scorching desert Jordan had been traversing for weeks now.

Without thinking, they threw their bag to the side, uncaring of where it landed and dove towards her on the bed (careful to keep much of their weight off her, as they were still in their male form).

Obviously, they weren’t completely successful as Marie gave a beleaguered “Hmph” as they landed on her; wrapping their arms around her torso and snuggling their face into her soft belly.

They could hear her giggling above them.

“Hey.” They felt her rest a hand on the back of their neck. “Is everything okay? What do you need?”

“Nothing.” Jordan mumbled, their voice muffled as they pressed further into her. “Just this.”

Jordan basked in the warmth of Marie’s embrace, drowning themself in the vanilla scent of her skin. They needed to figure out what body lotion she used, so they could steal it for themself.

After a while, they finally had the energy top look up, only to find that Marie was already looking at them. What they saw in her eyes was nothing but warmth and adoration reflected back at them. 

Jordan was still in disbelief that they could be the recipient of a look like that, from Marie Moreau of all people! That was something that they would never stop being grateful for.

For a good minute, the two were seemingly locked in an intense staring match, neither willing to break the spell that had been woven in their little embrace.

A sudden curious thought popped into Jordan’s head, and without thinking, they suddenly switched into their female form. Continuing to stare into Marie’s eyes, they were shocked to find that her gaze remained exactly the same. Just warmth, adoration and acceptance. There hadn’t even been a momentary shock at the sudden change.

Jordan was fully overcome with a feeling they couldn’t decipher, and before they could reconsider, they were surging up towards Marie, kissing her with every intense emotion that they could muster. Gratefulness, all-encompassing trust, and love.

Marie of course was delighted, gently laughing into the kiss as she held their face with both hands, while caressing their cheek.

Kissing Marie always felt like a warm, heated blanket on a snowy day. Like solace. Like home.

Only when the need for air became desperate, did Jordan pull away, snuggling back into her torso as they felt Marie start stroking her fingers through their hair.

Jordan was so warm and lulled by the comforting motion, that they almost missed Marie’s question.

“Feeling any better?”

The answer came unbidden. they didn’t even have to look up.

“Yes. much, much better.”

[1] Remember Marie got a bunch of free tech from Vought when she made it to the top ten rankings.

[gummy-sharks666]

Im BEGGING monster… enjoyers… to consider the gundalians from bakugan bc

The horns,,, the fangs,,, the eyessss ohhhh my god give them to me NOW 👹

[aqqleshiqqing-archive]

um hello again hk community <3

I AM NOT BEATING THE KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR ALLEGATIONS .....

thank you to the number one superfan bestie @lovinglin for enabling me so bad she made hollow x ivie content faster than I did <3 please follow her <3

[s-lycopersicum]

Okay, so I did start writing my own NPF post renderer. I figured it was either that, or find a way to scan and fix the pre-rendered elements tumblr gives you, but that actually sounds harder.

And this way I get to play around with coding challenges like this:

Seriously, this thing could be straight out of one of those code competition websites. For this one, I took the coward's way (fully non-overlapping ranges), so my answer ended up different. But still up to spec!

[pokeworldrevisited]

random question but does anyone else miss the Pokestars studios from B2W2?

Though it doesn't do much gameplay wise it was still such a fun concept.

You could make movies with you're own Pokemon (though you had to first make it with a rental mon, then you could use you're own). Movies have two/three endings that depend on what you're character says and what moves you use. These endings are Good, Bad and Strange (with Strange actually being better than Good)

There's multiple costumes depending on the movie you're making. You could be a prince/princess, superhero, scientist and more. And you can see these outfits from the comic book styled panels that appear when you watch the movies.

You can get fans, and you can also get some items. But something REALLY cool was that if you make a movie with one of you're Pokemon and got the strange ending, you're Pokemon gains a special animation when you send it out. Kinda like Shiny Pokemon or the animation for N's Pokemon that you could catch if you used the memory link.

Ultimately it's nothing huge or game changing, but it was still so cool and a feature that I really miss.

[bunnyb34r]

Having to explain to my mom that 5min crafts is a content farm/what that is. That sure they have some genuine hacks, but a lot are genuinely dangerous and bad

It's like I'm not trying to be the parent, but I've been on the internet daily since I was 9 years old and you respectively have only been on it for maybe 8 years? Consistently? And only on Facebook. Like man the shit I have seen has aged me a lot more mentally than I care to admit.

It's so hard too bc I know I should like a know it all/conspiracy freak when I tell her not to get a reddit bc she's gonna get sucked into a WS cult and get radicalized, or when I tell her Facebook reels is the same as tiktok. Which she has continuously forbade me to have since it came out (bc evil chinese company. It's okay when it's an evil American company though). That she needs to be careful and not just believe whatever she sees, but it's like for once I DO know more and I DO need to be the adult.

Like I remember having so many fucking talks to get her out of that SAVE THE CHILDREN shit and debunking the wayfair shit, and the Hillary Clinton shit, and all this shit. I constantly am telling her "nope that's antisemitism in disguise, heres why" ab stupid theories and shit and why they're harmful and it's like I want to fucking scream

Idk where I was going with this but like god I'm tired

[rose-ramblings]

you'll never guess what I've been playing lately

[papercutsmp3]

bro is inquisitive

[sysig]

Brain invaders (Patreon)

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

Just thinking about Summer being a representation of Bran, the Fisher King. Summer taking several wounds over the course of the story, notably one to the leg just as Bran did. Summer who goes beyond the ice wall to lands of snow (closer to lands of winter) and becomes emaciated…summer getting thinner and being wounded as winter nears/gets stronger. It’s almost like the changing of the seasons. We see that summer journeys to the lands of snow, biding his time before he returns - just as Bran will surely return. The return of Bran meaning the return of the summer. Have to wonder if we’ll see Summer (the direwolf) start to get bigger as spring is ushered in. Winter = death, but Spring = rebirth/growth. And after spring comes summer, when the summer king reigns.

[louderfade]

from Is deep brain stimulation a treatment option for anorexia nervosa?

[sun-marie]

I think I'm going to to redo Zephyr's background a bit, so instead of being born in Baldur's Gate she grew up with her mother and grandfather in the Forest of Tethir, and then they all moved to Baldur's Gate to be closer to her dying grandmother when she was like 14 or so. Bc the original concept I had for her was that she was a multi-cultural individual immersed in one (wood elf) and alienated from another without the connecting link of her father (air genasi), and therefore fascinated with the latter, and that's why she always wants to learn more. But her being born in Baldur's Gate kinda cuts her off from wood-elves from the get-go I feel 🤔 When she should know their culture like the back of her hand

[lollitree]

my guess is that they didnt want a boss fight to seem easy with just 1 pokemon, but all they had to do was make her very hard, or give her 6 phases, i have to agree, such a missed oppertunity

(doesnt know anything about whats happenign there)

Yeah my guess would be potential issues with you technically using pokemon to fight a human?? It's a bit of a grey area

[wyllzel]

blacked out came to and i have beat both raphael and ansur over the past 6-7 hours lol. #gamer moment

[kenanaminto]

i'm all caught up in jjk btw...RIP yuki...she'd also get a million kisses from me 😚

[purplemys]

E slur sucked so bad All Might had to step in again lmao