#this time i want to have a proper system think bigger

[pookiesatoru]

HAND HOLDING WITH THE GENSHIN MEN

contains : fem!reader, smut (yeah this is smutty not soft sry not sry <3 lmaooo), mentions of cervix fucking, size kink, tummy bulges, breeding / impregnation kink, creampies woohoo, oooh the praise in this has me going a lil insane tbh, some degradation too, lots of oral, fingering, soft doms *sniffles* my weakness. includes scenarios for zhongli, kaeya, dain, tighnari, xiao and childe. this is not proof read at all, please ignore any mistakes i will not be fixing them cause i'm lazy :D

i thought about this scenario with xiao and then i spiralled from there. sorry not sorry i needed to get this out of my system actually... i am so unwell bye. likes / reblogs are appreciated and feedback is always welcomed <3 minors dni !!

zhongli : oh he is so big. listen, everythingggggggg about him is big okay, he's literally a dragon like? his hands? big. height? bIG. cock(s)? BIIIIG and he thrives off being big. sinks his cock into you while being in a half dragon form just because his dick is bigger than his human form. golden horns on top of his head, the colour of his skin changing from his normal pale one to somewhat mixed. hues of black, orange, yellow and golden the further you travel down his body. his hands and fingers are slightly longer in this form. nails coloured black, almost resembling claws. he enjoys this form because it lets him keep his human-ness but it also embraces his past. his favourite form when you two get intimate because he wants to see your cunt struggle to take him. "there you go darling, takin' me in so well." he'd whisper as his tip pushes past your entrance, thumb rubbing against your clit. "loosen up for me, that's it." as your cunt begins to flutter around himjdhfhf aaaaa don't even get me started on the bulge he'd make in your tummy :( it's inevitable. he's just so damn big.

favourite position is you on your back, couple of pillows under your body and him holding your waist to raise your lower half off the bed, claws digging into the flesh of your waist as your cunt clenches around his cock. it's only when he's bottomed out and you're bucking your hips to signal him to move that he'd lace his fingers with yours. pins them above your head. have i mentioned zhongli's big? he's so big that he only really requires one hand to have both your wrists in his hold. daddy zhongli is so strong too, doesn't matter how much you move or thrash around when he fucks you, trying to get your wrists out of his hold so you can just touch him, he doesn't budge. waits for you to really beg, tears in your eyes as you sob out "please, please, please" will he soften up. intertwines his fingers with yours as he rocks his hips slower, but sooo deep. leans over to place a kiss to the top of your head while you thank him for letting go, and he does that every time when you two hold hands :( he's so <3 mm yeah best daddy me thinks.

kaeya : this man,, lord kayea is a wild card in my very humble opinion. he's a tease, we all know this. but i think sex to him is so intimate, especially when it's with someone he would give his heart to on a silver platter. he's like the perfect mix of tease and praise and degradation and somehow giving you what you need all at the same time? idk, just listen okay. the word tease might as well just be kaeya's middle name, he's just that good at it. he likes to hear you beg, plays dumb too. "hmm? my sweet little thing, you're so quiet. what did you say, i'm afraid i missed it." all the while he is knuckle deep into your cunt, fingers curling up juuuust right so they nudge your spot. but only just. he knows your body so well it's almost annoying. the curl of his fingers isn't enough to give you proper satisfaction but it is enough to have you crave for more. enough to make you gasp and buck your hips to try and get the satisfaction you need. "ah ah ah, don't be like that. i can't reward you if you're being a needy slut for me darling. use your words." starts withdrawing his fingers and ultimately you need to grab a hold of his wrist and b e g for him not to do that, beg for his touch. it makes his head go a little dizzy if i'm being honest. "there you go. that wasn't so hard now, was it?" and he gives you what you've been needing :( slender, pretty fingers pushing deeper into you till he physically can't anymore. letting them curl against your spongy spot and making you cum with a cry of his name liiike he thrives off teasing you and giving you what you want.

puts his dirty fingers in your mouth while he kisses your stomach, slowly kissing his way up your body (he is a romantic man after all) and makes sure to give your tits a squeeze too. grabs a hold of your chin to make you look at him as you let go of his fingers with a little pop and presses his lips to yours. it's a little messy, slippery and sloppy but you can feel how in love he is with you. spreads your thighs apart so he can press his hard on against your cunt while you kiss, tangles his fingers with yours while he ruts against your centre like he has all the time in the world :(( he takes it sooo slow, grinding against your cunt, the fabric of his boxers rubbing your clit so nicely, his lips against yours, giving your hands a little squeeze as you fiddle around with the elastic on his boxers. he just holds his body weight up with one hand, the other still tangled up with your fingers as you pull down the material just enough to have his cock out and while he fills you up nicely, he just tightens his hold on your hand cause you feel so tight around him every damn time <33

dainsleif : starting this off by saying he is SO touch starved. honorary member of the touched starved crew. he still gets so shy when he sees you naked in front of him no matter how long it's been. dain might look rough and tough on the outside, but he is so soft for you. he adores kisses your body. your lips? he kiss. your cheek? he kiss. top of your head or your nose? he kiss. inside of your wrist where he can get a slight wiff of your perfume? he kiss. but his favourite you may ask? his favourite type (aside from your lips) of kiss is when you're laid out on the bed. where he's between your legs and he's lifting your shirt off, placing kisses along your tummy, the valley of your breasts, then a gentle kiss underneath your earlobe before he's tossing your shirt to the side and making his way down your body again. this time, he places kisses to both your ankles once your pants are off, kissing up both your legs and your thighs. the last kiss he places is to your clit before his thumb presses against your nub, gentle circular motions that already have you seeing stars. dain rests his head against your thigh as he teases and rubs your clit over and over, watching how your hole clenches around nothing.

"always so pretty for me, aren't you?" another soft kiss to your upper thighs that have you wanting to shut your legs at how sensitive you feel. "keep 'em open, that's it. there you go." he'd say, your trembling thighs spreading once again. he's not the best with words of affection but he'll be damned if he doesn't praise you, let you know how pretty you are. how good you are for him. and when your hands clutch his hair and the bedsheets the closer you get to your orgasm, he'd bring the one that was holding the bedsheets closer to his mouth – dain places a kiss to your wrist, to the tips of your fingers before he slides his fingers against it and lets you grip it. he enjoys holding your hand so much while he does this, i cannot stress that enough. he likes it when you feel real. and it's only then, will he place his mouth on your cunt, letting his tongue tease your folds and dipping into your hole to really get a taste of you. feeling a sense of pride when you gasp and whimper out his name, tightening your hold on his hand as the other one still in his hair, buries his face deeper into your pussy.

tighnari : furry king he's so cute, sighs. like kaeya, sex for him is very very intimate with someone he loves. it's not about getting off, it's more so about the gentle touches, the praises that come from both your lips and his, it's about the way you two latch onto each other when you make love and he will die on that hill. yes every now and then, his animalistic urges take over and it is about a quick fuck but more often than not, he likes to explore your body. he loves it when you're straddling him. his favourite thing to do is feel you up while the both of you kiss. even though tighnari takes it slow, his movements almost feel rushed, desperate to have your clothes off. but it's the gentle kind of desperate, you know? where he wants you to be naked so he can appreciate every dip and every curve on your body without any flimsy layers of clothing in the way. hearts in his eyes even though it's the nth time he's seen you naked. you're wearing nothing, seated on his lap while his eyes dart all over your body, never really able to linger on one part for too long. admires how out of breath you are just from a make-out, lips slightly swollen and pinker than usual. continues to place kisses against your jawline to your neck as his hands grope your hips and thighs, eventually one hand inching closer and closer to your heat, a soft sigh escaping your lips as you feel the pad of his thumb finally brush against your clit. "feels good?" he'd mumble against your skin, ears twitching with excitement every time you let out more content noises followed by a soft "yes."

tighnari's good with his fingers, great in fact. he pays attention to your body, listening to every noise and taking mental note of how your body squirms in his hold as he touches you – he's so good that your hands don't really know where they should go. sometimes digging into the skin of his shoulders or his biceps. sometimes when he hasn't riled you up to where the only replies he wets are broken whimpers, they're in tighnari's hair, patting just behind his ears which has him rutting his hips against you, or sometimes they're just tangled in his locks tightly as you need to feel something to ground you. but tighari's favourite is when you plead him for his hand. the little taps against his bicep or wrist make his heart melt, followed by the "hold me, please." it almost makes the animal in him want to manhandle you, toss you on the bed and pin you there while his cock is hitting your cervix and you can't do anything but lay there and just take it. but the rational part of him tells him no. the rational part of him brings your hand to his lips, places a kiss to each and every one of your knuckles before lacing his fingers with yours, all while his other hand is buried knuckle deep in your cunt and being soaked with your juices.

xiao : he is very very very desperate with how he holds your hands. it's more so to remind himself that you're there with him, that you're real. he's a very passionate lover, how could he not be after eons and eons of thinking he's alone? of eons and eons of being alone. he's also a honorary member of the touched starved crew god he is so DJKFDHJGKD i'm so in love w him <333 he just wants to please you okay? like. all the time. every day. whenever you ask him or hint at it, he's ready to give you anything you want. he would do aaaaaanything for you to be honest. he's not very good with words, he knows he's terrible with words. but what he lacks vocally, he makes up for it with his actions instead. slow, but deliberate. almost like he's forgotten all those little stripes and freckles on your skin even though he's been memorising every dip and every mark whenever you two get intimate. gentle, barely there touches while he takes your clothes off, ghosts his fingertips over your pussy and breasts at first. likes it when you inhale sharply but he does give in. he's not much of a tease like kaeya is, gives in so quick. "'m gettin' there. just wait." he'd grumble, but there's no bite behind it all all. places a kiss to your hip bone before he spreads your legs and laps your cunt like a starved man. he's so good with his tongue, i can't stress that enough. another man who makes sure you've came on his tongue or fingers before he thinks about fucking you. the thing about xiao is, he gets pussy drunk so quick, and so very easily. the second he hears you let out a sigh of satisfaction after his mouth is on you, he's gone.

he's soo gone. xiao is an adepti, he's much stronger than humans. it's super easy for him to hold your body down with his hands, whether they be on you waists or even hooked around your thighs, he's not moving his mouth off you until he feels your hole clenching and gushing. or unless you're trying to pry his head off cause you "wan' be filled, please xiao!" flips you onto your back and makes sure your face is pressed into the mattress and your ass is up ohh my goddjghf yeah,, fucks you like that actually, he's pussy drunk. let him bury his cock in your cunt any way he wants plssss. he may not be long, but fuck is he thick. makes you clench the bedsheets while your noises are muffled out by the bed but :( xiao needs to hear you – tugs your back flush against his chest, makes his cock go even deeper in you that you're going dizzy and you're even more dizzier when you feel his fingers on your clit aaaa. firm believer xiao uses one hand too rub your clit while the other turns your head towards him so he can kiss you :(( he loves kissing you so much when you're fucking, tries to kiss you every time before you cum on his cock. it's so romantic for him. feels you cum around his cock and he's trying to hold back a groan but but but that's when he moves his hand that was on your clit to hold yours :( still kissing you too till he orgasms and spills his cum deeep in you and makes out with you for a couple of minutes. doesn't really care how sloppy it is, he just likes kissing you while you hold hands like that :((

childe : listen... childe is actually so romantic (we'll get there soon) i dunno about you. hand holding is his middle name, it's true i've seen the birth certificate. a romantic, mean perv is the best way to describe him. such a tease too. he won't give you what you need till he sees tears in your eyes or you actually start crying. he's kinda mean about it too. gets you sooo close to an orgasm only to just rip it away. "nawww, you cryin sweets?" and proceeds to lick your tears away. "don't cry, you pretty thing. gonna give you what you need, 'kay? just lay back f'me. there you go." smiles darkly when you listen to him again and lay your body flat against the bed again while shaking. and he just keeps doing that until you're full blow sobbing. "aj– ha– 'jax! please.. can' take it a'more... need to c-cum please." and watches you grip his wrists while you cry. it sets him off. he loves that you can get so pathetic for him :( some days when he's made you cry by not letting you cum, his favourite this is having you on top. just to add a little bit more humiliation into the mix. lays down first and gets all comfy without telling you what he's doing and just pats his lap. "not gonna get over here? thought you wanted to cum." has you scrambling over and once you're straddling him he'd put his hands on your thighs and just stroke them since they're shaking so much. but gives them a little slap, just enough for there to be a sound but not enough to hurt when he feels you try to lift your hips to take his cock in "relax baby. didn't i say i'm gonna give you what you need?" hhhh and when your thighs have calmed down and he's made your lips all swollen from kissing you so much will he lift your hips for you, letting you guide his cock into your hole and gives you time to get used to the stretch when he's bottomed out.

while you're taking your time and breathing whilst trying to hold back the orgasm that's approaching once being filled up, he'd let his fingertips trail up your arm, hand cupping the side of your face and rubbing his thumb along your lash line to gather the tears that haven't fallen yet and makes you suck the saltiness away from his thumb... and that makes his cock twitch in you. doesn't let you move though, wants to see how ruined you look before he's even fucked you right. and once he's admired you enough he'd go "c'mere sweets." and proceeds to hold out his hand for you. coos at how your hand is sooo tiny in his though. and he lets his other arm wrap your lower back, essentially he has you resting your head against his tits while you two hold hands. it's gentle, a contrast to how he was being mean to you earlier. as you grind on his cock and the little tufts of hair on his lower tummy make you cum around his cock, he brings your intertwined hands to his mouth and places a kiss to the back of your hand and bucks his hips up into your pussy to get to his high. but the thing is, once ajax feels soft like this, he'd just keep you above him, kiss you and keep holding your hands till he's hard again and fuck you till your lower halves are all messy and sticky.

[w2sarcher]

hiii i know you havent posted in a while but if you are still taking requests would you do blurb or smau of harry and reader buying a new house maybe in guernsey or london and its just cute domestic vibes ? love your work :)

ahhh love this idea!!! i'm still taking requests just been a bit slow getting round to them all because i'm back at uni and have a load of work i need to do :( but hope you enjoy this little blurb!!! xx

home | harry lewis

summary: y/n and harry move in to their forever home

word count: 1.8k

warnings: mostly just a cutesy/fluff blurb but references to sex at the end

The day had finally come for Y/N and Harry. The day they were about to move into their new house. Sure, they had shared a quaint but homely London flat for the past five years, but now they were onto bigger things. Their first proper forever home. 

To say Harry was bricking it was an understatement. Of course, the pair had done their fair share of moving around, life tucked away in cardboard boxes, but this was the real deal—probably the last time they’d ever have to do this, and God, there was so much to do, and Harry felt completely hopeless. He’d spent the last half an hour trying to get the garage door to open, slapping the remote aimlessly with his hand to try and get it to work, and pulling his hair in defeat when it didn’t. It turns out he had been using the wrong remote the whole time, and instead of opening the garage door, he had been toying about with your house's light system, the lights inside the house flickering on and off as he sighed in frustration outside unknowingly. He was stressed, and Y/N was inside, thinking they had faulty electrics.. It was a great start. 

Another five minutes passed, and Harry had given up, deciding his car looked much better parked on the driveway anyway, and took it upon himself to unload some more boxes from the boot of his car. He walked up to the house, rummaging in his pockets for the house keys, cursing under his breath when he saw sight of that stupid remote that had caused him torture for the last few minutes—he'd have chucked it in the bin at this rate, but knew Y/N would give him a telling-off for being so silly. Shoving the key in the door, he opened the blue door that had drawn the pair in the first time they came to view the house—his favourite colour being blue and Y/N loving the pop of colour it gave—a warm welcome to future guests that the two would definitely have. He placed the two boxes he had managed to carry from the car and kicked off his Air Forces, abiding by Y/N’s  ‘No Shoes’ rule that she had gone on and on about, not wanting to dirty the brand new floors. 

He could hear the faint sound of some pop song he didn’t know the name of as he made his way down the hallway, a fresh smell of paint wafting into his nose. He leaned on the doorframe, not before tapping his finger to check if the paint had dried and luckily it had as he couldn’t think of anything worse than getting paint all over his new hoodie. He could see the woman he loved trailing around the kitchen, cupboards open, and boxes all over the marble kitchen counter. She had a determined look on her face as she placed different glassware and plates into cupboards—shiny new ones but also some that Harry had recognised from their old flat. She couldn’t see him as he watched her intently, struggling to lift a heavy box that was filled to the brim with more kitchenware. He knew he’d ought to help her because she was struggling, but the sight was something to enjoy, and a smug look was present on his face as he watched his love scuffle around the kitchen in her pink crocs and his old jumper that was a few sizes too big for her. 

‘’You need a hand, lovely?’’ he teased as she whipped her head around at the sound of his voice, plates nearly falling out of her hands.

‘’Fucking hell, Harry’’ She gasped, steadying the plates in her hands, leaving them down on the counter as she looked properly at him. He had a cheeky grin on his face that made her want to slap him and kiss him at the same time. ‘’Don’t sneak up on me like that.’’

‘’I would have warned you, but I can’t bloody hear myself think over this shite music.’’ he laughed as he made his way over to the counter and pressed the volume down on the speaker that was bellowing endless pop tunes. 

‘’Don’t hate on Sabrina Carpenter; she’s an icon.’’ 

‘’I haven’t a clue who that is.’’ Harry narrowed his eyes at her as she made her way towards him, wrapping her hands around his waist. 

Looking up at him, Y/N laughed, ‘’Course you don’t, you old man.’’ With a kiss to his lips, she smiled, and she took her arms from his waist, wanting to get a better look at him. ‘’How was your day?’’

‘’Was alright.’’ Harry sighed, ‘’Saw the lads for a bit and picked up the last of the boxes from storage, but that’s all. How was yours?’’

‘’OK. Better now you’re home.’’ she smiled. 

The word home almost made Harry’s heart explode out of his chest. It just sounded so good and so right. This place was home, especially with the two here together. 

‘’Think there’s a problem with the electrics though; the lights kept flickering earlier. I hope this place isn’t haunted - they never advertised that.’’ She laughed. 

''Oh, for fuck sakes.’’ Harry cursed, pulling her hand so that her body was nearer to him and away from the counter. ‘’Well, at least I’m here now to protect you from anything scary.’’

Y/N snorted, ‘’Some job you’d do at protecting me—you're scared of everything, silly.’’

''Oh, shut up and gimme me a kiss.’’ he said before separating the space between them once again. 

✩ ✩ ✩

A couple of hours had passed, and Y/N and Harry had managed to unpack all the boxes from the kitchen, living room, and bedroom, leaving all the others piled up in a spare room, ready for them to tackle the following day. To say they were exhausted would have been an understatement.

‘’I’m here all day tomorrow.’’ Harry hummed, ‘’What’s the unpacking plan?’’  

‘’Hmm, I’m thinking we start with the spare rooms.’’ Y/N yawned, her body relaxing into Harry’s body as the pair lay on the sofa, his hands delicately playing with her hair. ‘’Then maybe we could do your filming room; you’ll need that soon enough, won’t you?’’ 

‘’What about your office?’’ Harry asked, knowing Y/N loved her little office she had in their old flat. The two loved one another’s company, don’t get them wrong, but sometimes it was nice that they had their own separate little rooms where they could get on with whatever they needed to that day with no distractions—Harry mostly shouting at his computer filming a More Sidemen video and Y/N working on her fashion blog, headphones on so she didn’t hear her lover screaming every ten minutes. 

‘’That can wait. You need your room done more than me; you have all that filming to do.’’ She poked at his side. 

‘’You’re an angel, d’you know that, ’’ Harry smiled. ‘’We’ll try to do both.’’

Y/N hummed into him, knowing that they probably would only end up doing one room before Harry ended up getting distracted while he unpacked, finding some random useless item he had kept from 2014. ‘’We’ll try.’’

‘’You feeling tired?’’ Harry asked as he kept playing with her hair. She always got tired whenever he did it, usually lulling to sleep half the time, but Harry didn’t mind; he enjoyed watching her pretty eyes flutter to sleep, knowing she felt safe in his embrace. 

‘’Not really.’’ She lied. ‘’Why, what are you thinking?’’

Pulling his hand from her head, she looked up at him dreamily, and it was like she could see the thoughts spinning around his head as he watched her intently. 

‘’Just thinking we haven’t christened the house yet is all.’’ He smiled, a smirk toying at the corners of his mouth. 

‘’Christened the house?’’ Y/N laughed, moving to prop herself up to get a better look at her smirking boyfriend. 

‘’Yeah, you know, like they do in the movies.’’

‘’What sort of movies have you been watching?’’ Y/N snorted. 

''Oh, shut up, don’t you start,’’ Harry tutted playfully, ‘’Y’know what I mean.’’

‘’Go on then; tell me more.’’ Y/N teased.

Harry laughed. So she wanted to indulge him. Thought she was tired? Bullshit.

‘’Just feel like we’ve got a lot of rooms to christen, big house and all,’’ He pressed a kiss on her cheek. ‘’I’m thinking we start upstairs and work our way around the house.’’

‘’All in one night? You’ll be knackered.’’ She teased again.

‘’We’ve got forever, lovely, not just the night,’’ Harry smiled. ''Plus, I think you’ll be the knackered one once I’ve had my way with you.’’ Pressing another kiss on her other cheek. 

‘’Is that so?’’ Y/N’s voice spoke. Yeah, she wasn’t tired anymore at all.  

‘’Yes, doll,’’ Harry grinned, ‘’Don’t pretend you don’t know it.’’

‘’Hmm,’’ she sighed before getting up from the sofa, untangling herself from his grasp and the mounds of blankets that surrounded them. ‘’Race you upstairs then.’’ She said this before legging it out the living room door. She could hear Harry groan from the sofa as she waited momentarily outside the doorway, not wanting to run too far ahead of him. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever moved so fast in his life, chucking the blankets and his phone to the side as he raced out the door to see her not that far ahead of him, nearing the staircase. 

‘’Thought you were faster than that, lovely.’’ He laughed as he chased after her, hands flying out in front of him to try and take hold of her hand but failing as she was always just a few inches ahead of him. 

‘’Come on, slow coach.’’ She echoed from the top of the stairs, and he could see that his hoodie that she’d been wearing for the past few hours had been discarded over the bannister. What a menace, he thought. 

With her just out of sight, he took heavy steps up the stairs before pausing at the top, letting out a sigh of happiness. His favourite girl in the world, running around their house as she shouted for him from their bedroom—he could so get used to this, he knew that for sure. 

Their home together, forever.

✩ ✩ ✩

a/n: hope you enjoyed this little blurb!!! i'll try and get back to doing my requests and series updates more frequently - just need to find the time x

[nohoney]

thinking abt being out at a bar or party and texting us!touya that someone is hitting on you and he pulls up 😵‍💫

omg omgヽ(>∀<☆)ノ

warnings: drug use (cocaine), reader is slightly drunk, rough sex that’s a little dubcon, lil bit of choking, kinda exhibitionism

It’s loud inside the bathroom with so many girls crowding and waiting in line to use the next available stall. There’s three tasks at hand you need to do while you occupy a stall; pee first, do a bump of coke, and text Touya.

A third of those tasks are completed, flushing the toilet and pulling your panties back up before smoothing your little dress back in its place. Hand sanitizer is spritzed onto your hands but you know it’s not a substitute for actually washing up. You just need your hands to be as clean as they can be as you unzip the little pocket inside your purse for the little baggy. You dig your keys out as well, using the tip of Touya’s house key to dip into the bag. For just a second, you hesitate over the amount you’ve pulled up from the bag.

There’s already plenty in your system that you’ve been taking over the last few hours.

Maybe that’s too much…

You lean down anyway and inhale the bump quickly into your nostril, repeating the process on the other side.

There’s only one last thing to do.

“You done in there?! I heard you flush!” the person on the other side bangs on the stall door.

“Gimme a minute! I’m changing a tampon!” you yell back even though it’s a lie. It’s not like they’d be able to hear you actually pull one out to verify; it’s way too loud. You do intend to be quick though as you pull out your phone to quickly text Touya.

Aw fuck, your hands are a little sweaty. Maybe you are little bit more anxious than you had led yourself to believe.

[23:07] pls come get me, i dont feel like being here anymore

You shove your phone into your purse and undo the latch for the stall. You step out and two girls step in together, slamming the door shut. Either they both really need to pee or they’re also sniffing a little something together in there. It doesn’t quite matter anymore since you had your turn.

Only cold water dispenses from the faucet as you lather soap into your hands. Glancing up at the mirror, you peek up at your reflection and sigh quietly when you see the pupils of your eyes slightly bigger than they’re supposed to be. It doesn’t look discreet as you inspect your own nose and make sure that there’s no evidence of what you just sniffed. The bathrooms seems to get louder as more girls enter but thankfully your business is done and you make your exit.

You manage to find your friends in the same spot, thankful that you don’t have to go searching all around for them. Touching the shoulder of one of them, you manage to get their attention but you lean in close to tell them that you’re gonna be leaving. “You leaving? You’re sure? When?”

Pulling your phone out of your purse, Touya had already texted back that he’d be in the area in about fifteen minutes. You wish it would be sooner but it’s not a terribly long time to wait. It is a long enough time for you to be convinced to have two more shots—for the road, you know?

You blink a few times, alcohol resting in your stomach and warming your bloodstream and needing to take an audible breath before you speak, “‘Kay, I’m leaving now. He’ll be here in like… soon.” you’re disorganized as you speak, aware that you didn’t say a proper sentence, “You have fun, okay?”

One friend is willing to part to walk you out to the lot. Your arms are looped together with them and it feels like a whole different world as you step out of the loud bar into the quiet parking lot. “You can go back inside, it’ll only be a minute until he comes.”

It’s a small back and forth, but your friend bids you goodbye to walk back into the bar after you promise that you’ll text them when you’re back home. Really you just wanted the space to dig and do another bump of coke on your own and didn’t feel like offering to share.

“Mm… good.” you mutter to yourself as you carefully zip up the small baggy and shove everything back into your purse.

“Yeah, it’s good? You feel any better?”

You jump as you look behind you to see a single guy having approached you. Admittedly, he’s quite cute and he’s dressed stylishly but you keep a guard up around him. You make some noncommittal noise and nod your head, crossing your arms over your chest and dig the heel of your shoe into the gravel.

The guy circled around and makes you wary, sitting on the hood of a car and making himself comfortable. You can’t help but make a face, thinking it’s obnoxious of him to sit on someone’s car as if he owns it. He seems to read your mind, fishing out keys from his pocket and pressed the button from his keys. The car briefly lights up and clicks audibly.

“It’s a little cold out here to wait for an Uber. You wanna get in? I can turn on the heater.”

No, of course not.

For some reason you have a hard time finding your voice, only making a disagreeing hum and shaking your head. Your arms cross a little tighter over your chest and you take a small step back.

“No? I’m being a gentleman, I swear. I think it’s kinda fucked that your friend left you out here to go back inside. But then again, if they hadn’t left you then I wouldn’t have been able to come up to you.”

You only sent them away so that you could have some privacy to snort some coke. Now you wish you hadn’t done that, or maybe you wish that you hadn’t been convinced to have those two exiting shots before leaving the bar so that you would be more aware.

“You look like you could use a little more of your stuff. Tell you what, I’ll do one with you. Facilitate a little connection, yeah?”

Is that why that guy is here? Just to bum a line off of you?

“The prettiest girls I know always have the best coke.”

Asshole.

“Doll!”

You jump in your spot, looking left and right quickly before turning around to see Touya walking briskly in your direction. Relief has you relaxing your body as he walks forward to you, although his expression also tells you that he’s kind of pissed. “I thought you were waiting at the front, I was holding up traffic looking for you at the entrance.”

“Sorry, sorry…” you finally manage to speak and face towards him, “I just didn’t want to be with all those people anymore.”

Touya glances up to the guy sitting on his car, making a face at him. He’s already bristling over the presence of another man nearby you. “And you are?”

“Just keeping her company, that’s all.”

“Well your company isn’t needed anymore, fuck off.”

Your head snaps up at your boyfriend for speaking rudely, but there is a part of you that’s relieved that Touya is sending them off with no kindness either. All you want is to curl up now under a blanket and just wait for sleep to come to you.

“Sure, no problem. Good to see that my friend is gonna get home safe.” The guy stands up on his feet, sure to lock his car first before walking off. The asshole has the nerve to wink at you as he walks away. And of course Touya noticed because the way he grips his hand around your arm is none too nice.

When the two of you are sure that he’s gone, Touya drags you off in the direction of where he had parked. You trip over your feet twice but manage to keep up with him, more than relieved when you see his car and actually managing to pick up your feet to get to the passenger seat.

“Backseat, now.”

Your eyes widen a little as you glance up at him but nod your head. You bend down a little and pull the lever to push the passenger seat forward, giving you ample room to climb into the backseat. Managing to shut the car door, you sit back against the cushion as Touya enters from his side of the car but startled with how much force he used to shut his door.

Touya joins you in the back seat, grabbing your hips and dragging you to lay horizontally on the backseat cushions. It’s a little bothersome to be handled so roughly, especially since you’re still drunk and your head is swimming a little from the motions. The moan you let out isn’t one of pleasure, your hands coming up to press your palms against your forehead to try to soothe you. But Touya’s hand goes under your dress, his fingers roughly tugging your panties down and grunting over how your legs just fall limp instead of keeping them open.

“I’m trying to take these off,” Touya growls before reaching to cup your jaw along his hand, “fucking help me over here.”

“Can’t it wait until we get home?” You whine but you know that there isn’t really a choice in the matter here. Your eye lids droop down, your eyes feeling tired and wanting to just shut even though your brain isn’t ready for rest any time soon. So you gather what little energy you have, your hands helping in bunching up the skirt of your dress and pull it up.

Touya slides your panties off and shoves your purse to the floor of the car, the contents rattling inside and the baggy sliding out. Just from seeing it alone, you’re perked up and you point to it. “Do one with me.”

“Fuck, yeah hand it to me.”

Managing to grab the bag off the floor, you’re careful to open it and hold it out to Touya as you sit up. “Got your key? ‘M too lazy to grab mine out of my bag.”

He lifts his shirt and grabs the pocketknife that’s clipped inside his pocket. Wordlessly he flicks the blade out and dips the tip of it into the baggy. You honestly hate it when he just whips out the knife without telling you first, it scares you every single time. There’s no complaint from you as he offers the first bump by holding out the knife towards you before doing himself. The knife is put away but he dips the tip of his finger along the inside of the bag.

He rubs the pad of his thumb along your lip slowly, intimately. The little exhale that leaves his chest has you sitting up a little straighter. When your tongue peaks out a little to lick at his finger, the bitterness of the coke also has you sighing. It’s not pleasant, but the numbing is a welcome sensation on your lips.

His hand grasps at your neck and his fingers pressing into the sides. “I don’t like seeing you around other guys, you fucking know that.”

“Careful,” you gasp out, “the bag.”

It’s still held in your hands but Touya just tosses it back to where your purse lays. You hope that it was closed properly and that none of it spilled onto the car floor.

“Something happen between you two? Hm? Being all buddy while you were out?”

You manage to shake your head with what little movement you could manage, cocaine once again flooding your bloodstream and awakening you. Your eyes are a touch wider and your heart races a little faster, you bite your bottom lip and savor the numbness from the coke your boyfriend had rubbed into your plush lips.

Touya hand slides to the back of your neck, his fingers massaging for just a few seconds before grabbing a handful of hair and pulling your head back. You gasp out in surprise, your eyes fluttering when he leans in bites at your neck hard. It doesn’t sting in a good way but you know it’s because he’s mad over how he found you. He’s insanely jealous and only tolerates one other man to be near you.

He lays you back down onto the cushions of the backseat, this time using the grip has on the back of your head to turn you to kiss him. The air between you two is getting warm and if things progress further, it’ll fog up the car. You pant anxiously, slightly frightened for people to pass by or worse— a cop.

There’s no care from the other party, not from Touya as he suffocates you in a kiss and desperately tries to undo his belt and zipper with one hand. Your own hands slide up along his back and you try to comfortably widen your legs as much as you can in the small space. It’s a little awkward but the need for one another right now trumps the choice of just waiting until you get back home.

“Fucking spit, spit onto my hand.”

It’s not exactly elegant the way he cups his palm just underneath your lips, and it’s certainly not sexy the way you spit and some of it slicks against your chin. It’s a frantic and needy moment that needs to be dealt with on the spot. He tells you to spit again, needs just a bit more to smear on his cock so that he doesn’t hurt you too bad. Your tongue lolls out and licks off your bottom lip of the spit that didn’t quite catch onto his palm.

You can still taste the coke on your bottom lip.

The head of his cock bumps against your cunt, slightly slick but not quite as wet as the two of you would like. It has to do for now, and you grit your teeth a little as Touya pushes the tip in. It stings but it’s nothing that you haven’t done before. Before Keigo, he’d hissed over how tight you always were when he’d first get in and then fuck you open. After Keigo, he’s gotten a little spoiled by not having to do as much work anymore because he enjoyed sliding in you after your other boyfriend had already made you slick and ready for him.

The small little hiss you let out is gone after a few seconds, your eyes rolling back a little as your legs are pushed to your chest. Your cunt is fluttering around him, the delicate skin stretched to allow him inside and you’re choking out his name.

“T-Touya, Touya!” You’re whimpering for him, your eyes briefly glancing to the window above you and seeing the moisture trapped inside the car. It’s going to reek of sex in his car.

“Oh fuck, you’re turned on huh? Your little cunt squeezed around me.” Touya laughs a little and tries to adjust himself, hating the small space of his car but just needing to make it work. He had to make do because he needs you now.

He fucks quick, the jingling of his belt moving along with his momentum. The air is warm and starts to feel sticky, your sounds are stifled and he’s gritting his teeth as he tries to fuck fast and be out of the area. Between breathless moans, he hears you bed, “Choke me, choke me please!”

Touya can’t fuck you properly, not like this in this annoyingly small space, but he just needs this quick fuck to help him feel better. He needs to hear your struggling gasps as he chokes you, a little rough as a small punishment for not waiting at the front of the bar with other people. He needs you to cum first so that he can fill you up.

Your mind buzzes, completely awake now not just from the drugs but from desperate and frantic fucking you’re being given. A small part of your mind thinks is the coke bag spilled or not, wondering if you could ask Touya to smear more of it along your inner lip this time. You want to be high on three things; the coke, the fucking, and from Touya.

You’ll have to settle for two at the moment, which is also fine with you.

“Your cock…” you brokenly whisper, grasping at his hand and slightly tugging it off, “your cock Touya, love your cock!”

He laughs a little and flashes you a lovesick smile. A drop of sweat drips along his brow, sliding along his skin to his cheek. It’s disgustingly sweaty and hot inside the car, but now the two of you are so intoxicated from one another that it’s not a bother anymore. Who cares, who cares!

“I know you fucking do, cockslut.” Touya chuckles, “Always fucking drooling to get dick inside of you. Bet ya when we’re done here, you’ll be bouncing on Keigo as soon as we’re home!”

The thought of Keigo pressing your head to the mattress while he fucks you from behind has you giggling, exhilarated at the thought of your other boyfriend also shaming you for being so hungry to get fucked all the time. It makes you cum on the cock that’s fucking you but you’re not exhausted from your own orgasm. You’re eagerly nodding your head and reach your hand forward to grab at Touya’s shirt and pull him towards you. It’s damp with sweat which would normally disgust you, but you hardly notice as you beg, “Fuck me, fuck me! Want you to cum in me and then watch Kei fuck me afterwards!”

Touya fucks franticly now, sloppy and urgent now that he’s excited at what’s waiting at home for him.

“Fill me, fill me with your cum please!”

How could he deny his sweet princess?

Without a warning, he slaps your cheek and chokes you to reach that finish line. His muscles are straining and his neck is uncomfortable being conscious to not get too rowdy so that he doesn’t bump his head along the car’s ceiling. The tensions snaps in him, cum flooding into your pussy and he notices that he’s shaking a little.

Yeah… that was a good fuck.

The two of you lazily kiss in the backseat for a little to calm each other down, but it’s getting late and Keigo is expecting them at home soon. No doubt he’s probably texted where you’re at.

You’re sitting in the passenger seat and shifting a little as cum leaks into your panties. It’s not pleasant but you don’t want to mess up the car seat. It’s a relief to have the windows rolled down, airing out the car that reeked of sex not too long ago. Touya navigates his way through the parking lot to find the exit but stops in front of the car of that guy who seemed to want to bum coke off of you.

“Touya?” you call to him when he exits the car and approaches the side of it. He briefly surveys the lot and deems it clear, flicking out the knife again but this time using the knife to slash the tire of the vehicle.

“Touya! What the fuck?!”

He slashes open two tires before getting back into the car and driving off.

“Was that really necessary? What if that guy finds out that it was you? There could be cameras to identify you!”

Touya waves his hand dismissively at you before setting his hand on your knee. “If I thought that there’s anyway I could be caught, I wouldn’t have fucked you in that lot and fucked that asshole’s tires up. He can suspect it’s me all he wants but it’s not like he’ll be able to find me so easily.”

“And what if he does? What if he presses charges?”

It’s another one of those times when he looks at you and you just shut up. He’s clearly gotten away scot free before and you don’t know how, but he decides how he wants to handle it and it’s not your business.

“There she is! Did you have fun, baby bird?” Keigo greets you immediately when you walk through the door. His embrace has you relaxing, his hand petting your back and also dropping a kiss has you smiling. “You guys fucked, huh? And you forgot to pick up takeout for me.”

“Ah shit,” Touya tuts as he drops his wallet onto the kitchen countertop and hangs his keys on the wall hooks, “fucking forgot. I’ll make it up to you after she gets cleaned up.”

Keigo playfully smacks your ass and starts to push you towards the bathroom, “You better. We’ll be taking a bath while you make my food.”

“But… but I thought…” you pout over at Touya, “I wanna… y’know.”

“She wants me to watch while you fuck her.”

He says it so easily and even though it’s a regular occurrence between the three of you, you squeal his name in embarrassment. But he promises you that he’ll be there shortly, turning away to rest his hand along his hard on and hiding the giddy smile on his face.

[interstellarsystem]

Little Plural Things

Systems can present in a lot of different ways. Sometimes, being a system can be loud and obvious if you're naturally more overt and/or out about yourselves as plural. Sometimes, it can be quiet and barely noticeable, but still there--just harder to see. Our system is fairly obvious if we're unmasked, but there are still things that escape even our own knowledge when we're masking as hard as we can. Little things that to us, remind us that our system is undeniably real. This is a post about those experiences we've had with barely-noticeable signs of a system.

Not every system will relate to these experiences, some might feel similarly about a few points, some may have others of their own entirely, some might not know or not have anything like the experiences we mention, and that's all part of being plural. No two systems are mirror images of each other. This is a post about our experiences.

1. Handwriting

Recently, we've had it brought to our attention that we have different handwriting. We don't write with a pen/pencil often, but we were asked to fill out a worksheet for our psychologist recently. She told us that whoever in our system wants to contribute to it can, and suggested that we signify who wrote what in some way--to which we chose different pencil colours for different headmates. We took the worksheet home and put things on it depending on who was in the front and if they wanted to.

It turned out, that some of our writing widely differs from each other. Out of the 6 people who wrote on the sheet, most of them were wildly different. Rift and Martin wrote the most tidily, with Rift's writing looking more "proper" and "adult". I (Vince) apparently am not the best at neat writing but I managed to be better than what our "normal" writing is like from what we remember. Merlin wrote messily like he was writing very fast. Mystery wrote with very large letters with sharp angles that overall made it look like it was written by a child new to writing. Which makes absolute sense. It's not a child, but its hands in-headspace are bigger than ours and that was the actual first time it had written anything on paper since it got here.

Somehow, it took until our psychologist pointed it out for us to notice how different it was.

2. Vocabulary Choices

Something we are able to notice sometimes is how our vocabulary and sometimes sentence structure changes based on who is speaking. Some obvious examples are our British headmates substituting "bloody" for other words as an exclamation and the difference between what some of our headmates would call a "chip" or a "fry".

Other times though, it's more subtle. Sometimes there's certain phrases that will just have a word or two swapped out and it does tend to point toward who is fronting even if people do use multiple of these. Some examples are:

"I suppose" vs "I think" vs "I believe"

"Kinda" vs "Kind of" vs "Sort of" vs "Sorta"

"Recently" vs "A bit ago"

"Sleepy" vs "Tired"

"Lol" vs "Haha" vs "Lmao" vs a keysmash (Even though these are text-based they are quite telling.)

"Quite" vs "Very" (Speaking of the above.)

Getting more subtle with them, some other examples are:

"You know" vs "Y'know"

"Uh" vs "Um"

"Uh-Huh" vs "Mhm"

Sometimes typing is influenced too. The amount of em-dahses within the text, the consistency of proper punctuation, how mechanical the text feels, how many run-on sentences there are and even how much tends to be written in one message/post can all point toward different people being in control.

3. Accidental Accents and Inflections

While accents are usually very obvious, we're generally good at masking them. Generally.

Due to us living in Australia, our headmates with accents straight from London don't stick out too bad when they're struggling to mask, but they are still noticeable to those around us who know we're plural. Passerby on the street or people who don't see us often don't think much of it, but certain people we are close to know that a few people in our system find it harder to mask and can tell when they're fronting very easily because of it.

Even if we are masking our accents properly, some parts of the way we speak still come out. Some of us end sentences on a higher-pitch more often due to what our accent generally has us do and some end more on lower-pitch notes when speaking. Some of us put emphasis on certain syllables differently. There's lots of little things that go into language that make it hard to completely mask.

4. Food Choices

More of a noticeable one, but something we tend to brush off as "just a bad batch" when it happens. Some of us like and dislike different foods and drinks, some of us to an extreme degree.

Mystery hates the brand of juice we normally buy and thought that it might've just been past expiry (it was not) or just a bad batch of the juice, but they're consistently the only one who doesn't like it.

Rave likes spicy food much more than the rest of us because they have a harder time tasting it. I on the other hand can't handle spicy food at all and am worse with it than the others in my system.

Some of us favour different brands of food and some of us might like/dislike textures of food differently too.

5. Default Facial Expressions

Different resting facial expressions are something we hardly notice because we don't look in a mirror often due to dysphoria. What we do know though, is that some of us just rest our faces differently.

I look more stern and tired than others. I have a bit of an angrier resting expression.

Martin looks a little bit more anxious due to being an anxiety-holder, but he also looks softer and kinder.

Crowley also looks tired but has less of a stern look and more of an almost blank one.

6. Body Language

This is one we don't know too much about because we can only get knowledge on this from other people, but most of our headmates have a different "vibe" by the way they carry themselves.

I end up seeming to-the-point and business-like.

Martin reads as being very anxious even if he's not always.

Crowley reads as smug.

Mal reads as if he's planning something mischevious and silly.

We've been told that Filigree just reads as "gay".

We're not sure what actions make us seem this way, but some of us can be clocked by others around us as fronting without even talking first. I don't know how people do it, but it's something in our body language.

7. Clothing Choices

A few of us have different clothing choices--Crowley still wears sunglasses everywhere due to light sensitivity and wears dark colours, I prefer to wear button-up shirts as opposed to more casual things, Martin prefers hoodies that are lighter in colour and Merlin prefers to dress in pink and black and more fluffy textures.

We don't have too many clothes overall so to others it does just look like we're cycling through our wardrobe, and sometimes we are, but there's certain styles some of us tend to lean toward more than others.

---

Some of these might seem quite noticeable, and maybe they are if you know we're a system, but people change a lot so once again some of this is much more subtle than it sounds. People who don't know that you're a system hardly ever notice, and if they do they put it to "having an off day" and leave it at that.

We wanted to take some time to appreciate those little things we find it hard to notice, though. And maybe it'll end up helping some other system realise how unique they are as individuals and help fight off the imposter syndrome like these realisations did for us.

[chynandri]

My Thoughts on Ratchet After 14 Years

This is nearly 5000 words of my analysis and impressions of Ratchet as a character (...there are pictures, at least 😃). I can't say I've been interested in any other character for this amount of time so - he truly is special to me. I wanted to externalize all I love and see in him in one post, more for myself than anything as I've held so many thoughts in my head for so long.

This is largely based on my own inferences. I won't bother to make proper citation or anything, it's more of a huge ramble based on me rewatching basically all cutscenes, the movie, and rereading the comics. Almost every year I do a big Ratchet and Clank marathon like this, but I might get some things wrong or skip over some things as I'm focusing on articulating my thoughts rather than being completely comprehensive.

Ratchet's Beginnings

Ratchet’s background is pretty fundamental to all this so let’s establish that first.

I will be basing this post on Ratchet as he is in the original games, but I do want to say that I like movie Ratchet too! I don't think it completely cancels out all my thoughts because imo they captured all the main traits of Ratchet. In one scene he says he wishes to 'matter'... to others, as a person, to the universe? Maybe all three. And that is truly the most concise way to describe what drives Ratchet the most.

But for now all we can do is infer on his life prior to Ratchet and Clank 1. I think it’s not too hard to make some assumptions based on the circumstances or a few lines:

1. Ratchet seems to have fended for himself/lived alone.

2. He is likely self taught on rocket mechanics and general machinery. He has an intuitive understanding of how machines generally work and wings it.

3. He has been on Veldin the whole time and never had the chance to go anywhere else. He also could not afford many things.

4. TV (or Holovision) is the most accessible form of media and likely what Ratchet grew up with, as he is aware of and looked up to heroes like Qwark and Ace Hardlight.

Given these inferences let’s look at how Ratchet behaves in 1. He awkwardly addresses authority figures, is rude to Clank and others - he’s just very blunt and critical of people’s intelligence. And why is that? Thinking of how he had to probably rely on himself first and foremost, having street smarts and situational awareness must be important to him. And that he’s likely not had friends before Clank - he’s not gonna know how to act lol. Besides that, he’s honestly just a Guy and a teenage Guy at that. This is his Very First Time outside of the backwater planet he’s been ‘stuck on’ (his words) and it’s extremely exciting for him. And what is the thing that consistently gets him excited and motivated to do things? Fame.

He loves the idea of being famous, like the celebrities he’s seen on TV and the ones he meets while on this adventure. And while this is a pretty common desire for kids, let’s think about why this is for Ratchet specifically.

We inferred that he probably has been alone up to this point. This means: no friends, no family (the movie also makes Ratchet explicitly say how he had absolutely nothing to his name.) Family as we know becomes a huge part of Ratchet’s character arc later on. No friends or family means no support system: no attention, love, or validation. You see what I’m getting at. Ratchet always responds with pride and excitement when others praise and recognize his actions - puffs up his chest and grins, it’s very goofy and all. But you have to consider how he likely just did not receive this validation much prior to 1. Now he’s doing all this stuff and getting recognition. This is how he ends up acting very selfish and self absorbed, the most prominent character flaw of his. In his eyes, Clank’s insistence on him seeing the bigger picture is just not as important as all this sudden attention and new experiences that finally validate his pretty lonely and insignificant existence.

And let’s consider that Ratchet and Clank are not even really friends until the end of the game. For the most part, they are useful to each other in their goals. When Clank claims that it ‘isn’t like Ratchet’ to not care about what’s at stake, Ratchet responds with ‘and what do you know about me?!’ - and it’s true, what DOES Clank know about Ratchet, or Ratchet know about Clank? Clank, too, hasn’t had a long time to exist yet and this is his very first friend. But he does have a natural charisma and strong sense of morality - which leads me into some more core aspects of Ratchet’s character and inner conflict.

Ratchet's Struggles

In the first game and onwards, Ratchet and Clank are kind of like rivals in certain things often for a gag. To put it simply - Ratchet has no rizz or game. Clank often catches the affections of both robot and squishy people. He DOES always know what to say without even trying. Clank always does the right thing. And that’s the thing… in these same situations of talking to girls, or making a speech or commercial - Ratchet tries too hard.

Consistently, when put on the spot, Ratchet freezes up and all his bravado is gone. He stutters and stumbles and is just a mess and Clank has to speak for them. Ratchet visibly shows how frustrating it is that Clank has more rizz than him. He’s clearly jealous of how Clank always knows what to say and do and people just seem to like him more. And his pal is the star of a TV show while he’s the bumbling side character who gets fired anyway. Not only is Clank ‘better’ than him, Clank is getting more validation and attention than Ratchet is - the one thing Ratchet has lacked in his life.

But let’s consider the first time a girl DOES actively like and pursue Ratchet - Sasha. The first time they speak is cringe but cute. Sasha is describing the state of the art gaming console on the Phoenix and Ratchet is so impressed he says in a daze ‘will you marry me? 😍’ AND IMMEDIATELY SLAPS HIS FACE cuz he really was just NOT THINKING. But Sasha doesn’t seem to mind, she goes along with it! I think she can tell he didn’t mean to. And although it’s not been long since they met, her father tells Ratchet ‘she’s said a lot about him’. And… when Ratchet is recounting his fight with the Teranoids, she’s giggling along and very engaged with how he’s acting out his story like the silly guy he is.

And although the first 3 games occasionally emphasize how heterosexually interested in girls Ratchet and Clank are based on Ratchet’s comments about girls - when Sasha kissed him he’s just… quiet and bashful and has no smartass ‘cool guy who likes girls’ comments. He obviously has no experience or idea of what really goes on with girls or relationships lol. If you think about it - has he even really tried to like… flirt? He’s all talk about it, but doesn’t seem to put it much into action. He also associates popularity with girls as a part of fame.

But - he pulled a girl without even leaning into status or fame. What I’m getting at here is: Ratchet didn’t try hard in front of Sasha and she was so endeared to him. She LIKES how goofy and cringe and, in a way, how pure he is. She was probably like ‘can you believe he wanted to marry me just because we got a PS5? Hehehe’ at her dad. He was just his cringe, rizzless self and talked to her like she’s anyone else. We can infer that Sasha, as the daughter of the President, is not used to that and likes it.

But let’s think about why Ratchet feels he’s suddenly got to be a different person when on the spot? He tries to sound cooler and more well spoken (like Clank, Qwark… people on TV!) but he’s no good without a script. In Deadlocked, he even felt like he had to rehearse a bit before calling Sasha (this is why Ratchet’s characterization there is a bit weird to me, when they’re supposed to be more comfortable around each other).

This is all indicative of how Ratchet is not confident in his sense of self - and where do we get a confident sense of identity from? Our friends, family, culture, community. Things Ratchet did not have a lot of before meeting Clank. Ratchet may have asked what Clank knows about him in the first game. But what does Ratchet even know about himself? What consistently gets Ratchet angry and protective is when Veldin ends up in danger. Veldin was really all Ratchet knew for a long time, and we can assume he sees it as part of himself. But beyond that…

This is why Clank is so… so… SO… important to Ratchet and why he could literally be nothing without Clank. Despite Ratchet being mad at Clank’s uselessness and stupidity in the first game, Ratchet is genuinely upset at the idea of losing Clank when lightning strikes him. He awkwardly suggests that he and Clank stick together at the end of the game without directly saying so. It’s his first time having a friend and wanting someone to stick around. In the end… he’s not as independent or self assured as he thought he was.

Size Matters may be a weird spin off game but it did have a pretty important line: after fighting the Ratchet clones, Ratchet tells Clank that these clones weren’t that powerful because ‘I’m not half as good without you.’ It’s a really significant thing to say, and this sentiment echoes all across the games. After all, without Clank’s robot ignition system - who knew how long it would take for Ratchet to get out of Veldin, if at all? Would Ratchet have gotten as far as he has now as a person without Clank?

It’s an admittance of how much Ratchet truly depends on Clank for self worth even if he feels inferior to him - Clank consistently supports, loves, and believes in him despite his flaws. He basically never had this presence in his life. Clank is like his whole support system while at the same time, a source of his feelings of inferiority and jealousy. Although as time goes on Ratchet does thankfully make more friends along the way. Even though Qwark is nothing but trouble to them, I suppose Ratchet still bothers with the guy cuz he’s just that loyal to the few people consistently in his life in some way.

Ratchet's Home

And this leads me to another point. Ratchet’s lack of belonging, identity, and validation ends up having him go from occupation to occupation, world ending situation to world ending situation. In the second game he is markedly different now that he’s got military training and surprisingly (to me) doesn’t question Fizzwidget that much (though the goofy rough parts of his personality still shine through while out in the field). Then he’s the captain of the Phoenix for a while. But overall he’s just kinda unemployed until he’s gotta shoot people and save the world. When given a sense of purpose and belonging he seems serious about it, though how long he has a purpose and group to belong to is relatively inconsistent.

Aside from the meta circumstance that the Ratchet and Clank games needed a new plot, it’s in the Future trilogy where Ratchet started thinking deeper about his origins. As we often have new revelations or thoughts about ourselves and past as we get older, I think Ratchet finally started to realize… there’s quite a big thing missing from his life - which to him was his ‘normal’. Why IS he one of the few lombaxes in the universe? Why did they leave HIM behind? You can imagine the amount of sad thoughts from just asking that question, when coupled with his already shaky sense of self worth.

The way Ratchet acts in Tools of Destruction is interesting. Although he could hardly be qualified as an expert on his own species cuz he’s never even been a part of lombax society - this is something Talwyn does not hesitate to tease him about, which he seems to not take so well. Yeah he gets it, he’s a disappointing representation of his people. And for some reason he acts like the spokesperson for lombaxes when they come under fire by Tachyon. He takes it all SO personally, as if he invented the dimensionator himself. Which then really becomes all about how he’s invented a series of not too successful inventions and sees Clank as someone who doesn’t support him enough. He uses the lombaxes as a way to validate himself: ‘oh, so a lombax can’t invent anything useful?’ he says derisively at Clank and you know it’s not JUST about the lombaxes as a group. Here he is finally finding the reason for why he is the way he is and that his inherited inventive spirit just isn’t appreciated enough. With the way this games story makes Ratchet feel stupid and inadequate at every turn for his lack of connection to the lombaxes, I can see why his worst personality traits jumped out with all his insecurities.

I think Ratchet wanted to lift himself up by association with the lombaxes, to say he IS lombax enough and he knows what it means to be one! Which then made him lose sight of what really mattered - destroying the dimensionator before it breaks the universe and no one is safe. And ironically, when Ratchet realizes this and refuses Tachyon’s offer to see his family, Ratchet embodied the heroism of lombaxes more than when he was trying too hard to prove he was one.

Now put into perspective how Clank fully finds HIS own purpose and origins in this trilogy. I read an interesting YouTube comment on a Size Matters cutscene video that said something like ‘Ratchet is so against the idea of technomites and the Zoni being real, because he always had a feeling Clank was meant for something more and admitting they were real is like losing his friend.’ I thought this was so profound because Clank truly is all he has and could leave him when he’s found his own purpose and family.

Especially since for a while, Ratchet was prepared to do so himself after learning that there is a chance to save his family with the Great Clock. Even if it meant not ever meeting or remembering Clank, the biggest person in his life. But Ratchet's character truly reaches its most mature in ACiT. Instead of reacting negatively to Clank finding his own home and family while having a possible means of fulfilling Ratchet and Alister's desires - Ratchet is supportive and willing to let go of Clank. Because after all, they have to be their own people and Clank has supported him long enough. Just because Clank has found where he belongs, doesn't give Ratchet any right to selfishly keep Clank to himself. I feel so proud of Ratchet in ACiT, as it was clearly hard for him to let go of such an important person in his life. But the combination of what he learned in ToD and from Alister's own life led him to be at his best in this game.

(But come on they're so inseparable there’s no way Clank would be happy without Ratchet either. Because that’s HIS very first friend in the whole universe that gave HIM a place to call home even if it’s just the two of them in a small garage. It’s RATCHET who decided that he wanted to actually be friends with Clank, beyond fulfilling their goals, at the end of the first game. They’re… each other’s home 😭)

Alister represented a major turning point in Ratchet's own definition of himself. And in the end he chose not to be like Alister, to not let his identity as a lombax control his life. Unlike Alister, Ratchet isn't bound to a childhood of belonging to lombax culture and society. And though Ratchet shared Alister's goal for some time, the way Ratchet goes back to rescue Alister when he was captured just goes to show that Ratchet won't think like him. It's just not in Ratchet's character as we know it to forsake the present when up to now he has always, always been about loving and enjoying the present moment and all he could do in it. From Ratchet chastising Clank for not being able to have fun, to being a guardian of all that he loves in the present... it is a beautiful progression of Ratchet's character.

Ratchet so far has been given two chances to finally reach what he thinks should validate his own existence. But he chose to protect the present, the universe he lives in, the people who already give him a sense of self - most importantly, he chose self-determination.

However, he didn't know he would lose Alister with this choice. But it was out of his control, as Alister was too far gone and would act regardless of what Ratchet said. The shock of not only losing someone like family to him, but the sole link to his past and family sends Ratchet into depression and grief. His choice to own his life is not made with triumph as it should've been, but with deep regret and fear. From this point on he truly has a different vibe to him. His energy is dimmed, he gets down on himself more easily. He had his fill of the validation of being a hero, and with Clank choosing to remain with him he's content to retire from it all and try to go back to the things that defined him from the very beginning.

And exactly so as in the comics he went back to Veldin and being a mechanic. Though Ratchet seems his usual, careless self the comics reveal the huge amount of underlying emotions Ratchet has been struggling with in the aftermath of ACiT. The comics have Ratchet going through an utterly terrible time, as someone whose mental health is already fragile: Veldin is in danger once again, Clank recklessly kills himself for an hour, and he nearly lost Talwyn for good. Ratchet almost loses the three crucial things that defined him. Talwyn, Clank, and Sasha help Ratchet work through his guilt over what happened and taking time for himself, while also making a point of how self-isolation isn't healthy for him.

And eventually, Ratchet does get back on his feet and involved with his friends again - but not unscathed, as one major issue would still affect him. The pain of loss leaves Ratchet with a deep fear of experiencing, or being the cause of it, again. And this wound would be reopened too soon with Into the Nexus where we see him struggle to cope with losing Cronk and Zephyr on his watch - if the events of the comics weren't enough...

Watching the scene with him hiding in the crate and refusing to come out, the distance between the goofy and prideful kid we used to know and Ratchet as he is now has not felt more evident. Into the Nexus really highlights how Ratchet at this point just wants a secure and permanent place to belong to. Tal is so important because she may really be one of the few people who could understand and relate to Ratchet. Her family is missing too, she’s been lonely her whole life too. She is a link to lombax culture. She was there for him when he lost Clank. They see themselves in each other, and I think the opening scene of this game speaks a lot to how comfortable and perhaps emotionally reliant they are on each other.

It‘s understandable that Ratchet would let go of the pursuit of finding the lombaxes for someone who not only needs him, loves and supports him just as he is - but also someone he almost lost for good. She is also home and his family, even when or if Clank chooses to go back to his Clock duties. Ratchet just doesn’t want to lose anyone else, can’t handle the possibility of losing one more person - so he finally decides to end his eternal search for purpose, belonging, and validation and cling onto his sources of such things that were in front of him the whole time.

But as fate would have it, Insomniac really will drag out this whole finding the lombaxes thing even longer lol. This is the logical conclusion to the Ratchet and Clank story as of now, so Ratchet isn’t allowed to give up just yet.

Ratchet's Heart

WHY I started thinking so deeply about Ratchet’s character is because of how he is in Rift Apart. I LOVE Ratchet and Kit’s friendship so much because it highlights and reveals so much about each other!!! There’s probably a reason why Kit and Ratchet share a colour palette, and it’s because they’re kinda parallels:

1. They’ve let bad experiences in the past control their present and future - but it limits their world as a result. (Interestingly, Alister also let the past rule his life. But he was so obsessed with righting the past that he would endanger the present. Ratchet learned what not to do from Alister, but he kinda ended up being a different version of him.)

2. They’re both afraid of getting hurt and causing hurt - so they avoid it. They both have a tendency to hide away when feeling bad about themselves. They’re both seen as cowardly for this (Vendra and Rivet judging Ratchet for being too scared to find the lombaxes).

3. Ratchet’s advice to Kit when it comes to socializing is ‘don’t overthink it.’ I’d love to make a connection here to how Ratchet would overthink what to say on the spot or overcompensate for himself in the past.

Kit is potentially dangerous and doesn’t know how to be a friend. She’s caused real hurt before. But Ratchet accepts and believes in her, and is adamant about expanding her world, seeing all the good in her, and encouraging her to grow. Ratchet knows what it’s like to not be perfect, to be stuck somewhere, to make mistakes, and be rough around the edges. I believe this is why he is so kind to Kit, providing the validation and belonging and opportunity he would’ve wanted for himself.

And it’s to Kit that he opens up about his anxieties. Ratchet’s true feelings about finding the lombaxes… he’s so… defeated, unsure and doesn’t think much of himself anymore. This was also evident in how anxious he was about the parade celebrating them at the beginning of the game. Yet another indicator of how different Ratchet is now - younger him would’ve loved all the attention even if ‘unearned’ (cuz they haven’t been a hero for a few years). It’s crazy because he’s done SO MUCH and yet - from the way he talks to Kit he still doesn’t feel like he measures up to how great the lombaxes are. Or his parents, judging by his apologetic tone when he explains that his dad tried so hard to keep the dimensionator safe.

And let’s think on this idea of not measuring up - his self worth issues, he’s not exactly a successful inventor, overall flawed and clumsy personality, seems to only be useful for shooting some bad guys, plus not being able to prevent the deaths of some people very important to him - it becomes clear why he thinks so little of himself in comparison to the lombaxes legacy of being brilliant heroes and creators. Beyond the misfortunes that seem to happen around the dimensionator, Ratchet’s problems stem far deeper into his sense of self. So he tells Kit that even if the lombaxes are the perfect family - would they be disappointed in him, or he disappointed in them? He also doesn’t want to lose the life he has now, not when it has finally given him some stability.

But it is Ratchet’s very own kindness and faith in her that allows Kit to turn this issue on its head and address the crux of the problem and reveal the precious thing that ultimately defines Ratchet and his identity - perhaps more than wanting to matter and belong, what he had almost lost over the course of his life up to now.

I would like to say that in a word, Rift Apart is about possibilities. The alternate counterparts of Ratchet’s world and all the implications of it exemplify this.* The Clank sections directly use this word I believe, as he helps Gary fix the dimensions.

*(I don't know where else to fit this observation, but the ways Rivet and Ratchet contrast are somewhat relevant. Rivet, unlike Ratchet, has friends and a group to belong to earlier on in her story - so she doesn't end up falling into the same character pitfalls of being selfish or self absorbed. She and Clank share that big picture awareness. But she's lonely in a different way: having to be strong for herself and everyone else, she's a Ratchet that doesn't know how to be open and vulnerable. I just wanted to point out how cool it is that they considered all this as a 'counterpart' to Ratchet.)

‘Possibility’ is also probably… at the very heart of Ratchet’s character.

One of Ratchet’s defining character traits is his recklessness. He risks too much, takes too many shortcuts, doesn’t think enough when he should. But this is precisely why Ratchet is amazing at the same time. Of course it’s good he grew more careful as he got older. But the big thing to take away from his anxiety about finding the lombaxes and him wanting to stay safe and content with what he has is that - he’s almost lost that crazy and beautiful ability to risk it all and take a chance. Namely, on himself. And it’s ironic because he convinced Kit to risk it all and be friends with him, to go out into the world she’s so afraid of! And this is exactly what Kit points out to him, and expresses her belief that finding the lombaxes will turn out alright for him - even if he still struggles to believe so.

In the way he loves living in the moment, pushing himself to the limits, making weird inventions, pulling off unsafe stunts, throwing together scraps to fix and modify things against better judgement, trying to beat the odds, befriends strange little robots that are just as odd as him - Ratchet thoroughly, intrinsically embodies possibility. If you have nothing to define you, then you have so much freedom to define yourself. And that has been Ratchet’s whole life. Being able to not only think of all that’s possible, but being brave and silly enough to try to achieve them - that in itself, is an extremely valuable gift.

Ratchet is just not the same anymore because he is scared to be and act on what is the most natural and fundamental to him as a person - lest it lead to immense pain and loss. And as I have established multiple times in this post: Ratchet is at his best when he allows himself to just be… himself without pretense. Perhaps Clank knows or doesn’t know this, but he took it upon himself to try to help Ratchet find what makes him whole and himself again. Because the people around Ratchet can see that him completely giving up on what is in his heart would be truly sad and a loss to the universe he loves so much.

Ratchet and Clank were always meant to keep expanding their universe and themselves! That is the very spirit that propels this franchise. And by the end of Rift Apart, and even if Ratchet is still scared - he’s going to find the lombaxes, scared. He’s not going to give up on himself anymore: just as he didn’t want Kit to give up on herself, didn’t want Rivet to give up on Kit, and how Clank never ever gave up on him, believing in the possibility of him being a good and worthwhile person from the very start.

I feel really optimistic for Ratchet and wonder how they will (possibly?) end his character arc in the next game. I’m deeply grateful that Insomniac still cares about this franchise, and cares about Ratchet as a character so much. It truly is a unique privilege, I think, to see one character’s story develop and grow and change over a decade. I love Ratchet and all he is and represents so, so much.

[carionto]

with the way humanity seems to be at the very start of the war with the coalition, are they preparing for a potential invasion of the solar system? Potential preparations might include: calling the members of the small outposts back to earth, like the ones that can’t defend themselves very long against a squadron (basically trying to get the more venerable humans out of coalition territory so the coalition can’t taunt them with losses), I could also see humanity putting all their shipyards at their max production rate, and potentially setting up a military blockade around the solar system. I know the first one seems a little weird, but they probably thought death kebab would be able to fend for itself, and guess what happened. Having all the engineers, physicists, and scientists back on earth would also be really helpful.

This is a classic situation of - you've thought about this more than I did, so now I am thinking about it some more as well :D

Let's start with the SuperweaponTM. The Coalition had been building their own Battle Moon prior to Humanity reemerging, and Humans one-upped it with Battle Moon x3 Plus Railgun. It's a move that everyone knows you must react to, cuz if you don't, that's still a world ending 600km long cannon. So you either build an even bigger one or destroy your opponent's (of course diplomacy is also an option in a more realistic setting, but eh).

The death of the Death Kebab was one of the expected outcomes, and it would never be a crucial part of any overarching strategy, more of a "It'd be cool to have for this occasion". It happened a bit more suddenly than anticipated, but such is conflict - you never have perfect information on your enemy.

So war it is. With Humanity on one side of the Galaxy and the Coalition somewhere about half-way across on the other. Plus there's the Federation that Humanity is part of (though I think the names are the other way around, but minor detail) so it's closer to a cold war with skirmishes along the border and neutral systems and stealth operations further within enemy territory.

As mentioned in the very first post - Humanity emerges with ships and weapons far superior to anything else in the Galaxy at the time, and in an arms race, where Humanity also competes with itself all the time, the Quality gap will take a very long time to fill. Quantity, however, is what basically everyone else has over Humans, and that's also not something that can change that quickly.

Earth has BS levels of protection with no chance of anyone actually surviving an invasion of the Solar system, and most of the official ventures further out are also kind of: "You're crazy smart people with crazy ideas about dinosaurs and teleportation swords and psionic ants - here's infinite money, go do science or whatever, tell us if you find anything useful, otherwise we don't want to know, but also we won't be surprised if you die due to #humans_are_dumb".

Overall as this is getting long: it's very haphazard and surrounded by layers of Intergalactic powers and politics - Humanity could destroy them if push came to shove (after all, how do you counter someone changing your system's gas giant's orbit to collide with your core industrial planet within a decade?), but do you really want to destabilize a large chunk of the Galaxy just like that with no proper plan for how to deal with the now liberated hundreds of planets and their people? And what do you do with the hostile remnants now scattered around without a central governing force? How do you deal with your fairly small self now becoming the actual practically proven boogeyman of the entire Galaxy?

Sometimes, even in a dumb universe like mine, being sensible at scale feels like the only natural path to take.

[honeybadger-has-a-grimoire]

Lemon Ginger Infused Honey | Clover’s Cookbook

Hey everyone, it’s Clover here and this is the Lemon Ginger Honey Infusion!

Originally, this recipe was passed down to me through my mom who learned it from my paternal grandmother. We found around the time I was in third or fourth grade that over the counter medicine was starting to lose effect on me, so my grandma told my mom this recipe to see if it helps. And, to everyone’s relief, it did!

(Although, Mini Clover was not a fan of the taste originally—it’s grown on me immensely.)

My mom needed to tell me that it was “Magic Tea” to get me to drink it. And, after trying Theraflu a year or two later, I agreed that: “yes, it was magic because it was medicine that tasted better than anything else”. Now this infusion is my go-to cold cure.

(I also drank almost half of my batch that I made almost a year and a half ago when I was laid up in bed with the flu in March. That thing is very shelf-stable.)

Without any more preamble, here’s the recipe!

What you will need:

An airtight container

Fresh Lemons, I usually use three or four but it depends on the size of the container.

Fresh Ginger, I usually use a handful of ginger root but it depends on the size of the container.

Honey

How to make it:

1. Rinse and slice the lemons and ginger

You can shred the ginger if you like, but I usually slice it up whenever I use it. Shredding ginger takes a lot of time that I personally do not have—and our grater is a pain to wash.

2. Layer the sliced ginger and lemon on top of each other in the airtight container, getting as close to the top as possible.

I use an empty instant coffee container, if you want ideas for it. It is a bit larger than I need, since I’m the only one in the house that drinks this infusion when I’m sick, but the trade off is that I know it’s airtight and there will be enough for at least a year. You can use mason jars or any other airtight containers you have on hand. The old instant coffee jar is just my suggestion.

3. After layering the lemon and ginger in the airtight container, add the honey. You want to fill the honey all the way to the top of the container if possible. If you can’t, at least so it covers the top layer of the lemon-ginger tower.

You will probably be using all the honey in the bottle, just so you know. When I first did this myself, I was unaware how much honey I needed and had to go out and buy another bottle because the container was bigger than expected. So just a heads up.

4. Seal the airtight container and let sit out overnight then place it in the fridge a month before use.

So I was unaware until recently that, for max potency and a proper infusion of the ingredients, you want your honey infusions to sit for a month before use. I just ended up getting super lucky the past few times I made it because I replenish my infusion when the house runs out, not when I need it right away. So my suggestion is make it in late July or Early August, that way it sits the month and you have it for cold and flu season.

5. Add to your preferred tea when sick and drink it throughout the day. For me, doing this kicks whatever is brewing in my system—and usually works in about a day for the few people I’ve given the infusion to. But take it as long as you think you need it, you’re the only one who knows your body.

Why this works:

Lemon:

Lemon is high in vitamin C which helps boost the immune system and shorten the duration of colds.

Vitamin C is also helpful to lower your risk of heart disease and stroke (healthline.com), which aren’t important to this cold cure, but good to know anyway.

Hot Lemon Water is also good for sore throats and congestion in a 2008 study, as per medicalnewstoday.

Ginger:

Ginger is good for the gut as it helps settle stomachs, and the bitterness of the root kicks your digestive system into overdrive to clear out what the body considers to be possibly poison due to the taste (any Holistic Herbalism podcast episode where Ginger is involved).

Ginger’s anti inflammatory properties also help reduce pain and inflammation with a sore throat you usually get with a cold, as per this medicalnewstoday article (link here).

Ginger is also antiviral and antibacterial just like lemons are. So it helps get rid of any unwanted viruses or bacteria building up because of the cold, flu, etc.

Important note about ginger—if you or a loved one is on blood thinners don’t take ginger. Ginger’s chemical compounds will have a reaction with your blood thinners and make the blood super thin. This will cause excessive bleeding that is potentially life threatening.

Honey:

Honey is a natural cough suppressant and throat-soother. It is also antimicrobial. A Harvard Health article (link here) indicated that honey works well for upper respiratory viruses (such as a cold) and some studies observed that taking honey shortened the duration of the cold in some participants.

Conclusion:

Well that’s it! That’s my Lemon Ginger Honey Infusion that I have with my tea when I’m sick. My preference as a tea pairing with this concoction is usually Moroccan Mint, Peace of Mind Tea, or just normal green tea.

It depends on what we have in the house.

I usually pour it into the tea with the intent of helping me feel better soon as well. Just to add a boost of magick to an already great cold cure.

Have any of you tried this before? Do you have alternatives for this cold cure? If so, tell me!

Thank you all for reading and have a wonderful day!

[strawbubbysugar]

Hiii hope it's not too weird but I was thinking about animatronics equivalents to human courtship, pda and other stuff?

Not too weird at all!

Here are the equivalents, though it isn’t 1:1

Courtship: mostly the same, except animatronics need to wait a year before they’re able to legally be involved in any sort of marriage or legal binding. This allows robots who haven’t gotten the hang of existing yet some time to adjust, even if they think they’re completely fine. It also prevents older animatronics from taking advantage of newer ones who haven’t had enough time to understand the way the world works yet. (Only a year is really needed, animatronics progress much faster than humans)

Kissing: most animatronics (99% of them) aren’t built with kissing in mind, so the equivalent is booping whatever constitutes a “mouth” against your partner’s “mouth”. If the mouths are inaccessable, booping noses is the next best thing. It’s something most animatronics enjoy, much like humans do!

Hand holding: same :3 though some animatronics prefer to just hold pinkies since it’s easier than trying to fit bigger hands to smaller ones, or two clunky hands together

Hugging: a bit harder with some of the older models with how clunky they are, so when two models are incompatible for a hug, touching your foreheads together is an equivalent. That’s more for close friends though, for acquaintances, bowing is the proper route to go. Not too far though, just a little tilt. Some older models aren’t very well balanced and could topple over trying to match the newer ones

Intimacy:

- sharing a charging cable to the same port & fully shutting off is something intimate, though not quite sex. More accurate equivalent is like .. showering together? Not inherently sexual, but deeply vulnerable to charge with the same port. It’s leaving yourself open to being tampered with while turned off, so you’ve REALLY got to trust the person/people you’re doing it with

- connecting to one another via cable, sharing memories and feelings and thoughts is the closest they really have to sex. It’s like saying “here is all of me, from the way I feel to the way I act and see the world. I want to share every piece of me with you.” It’s incredibly vulnerable because to do this, both parties need access to each other’s systems. This leaves them open for viruses, or deletion of files and memories.

- a more taboo version of the above is the equivalent to like. One night stands, called networking, and it’s sharing things wirelessly with another party. Usually involves putting your heads together close enough to work, and sharing the most intense feeling you can remember. (Most often a pleasurable feeling, though the way animatronics achieve a feeling of pleasure is different between all of them. Most involve short electric shocks by unplugging yourself before disconnecting (smaller feeling) or setting up your charging unit to provide far more electricity than needed to charge (bigger feeling). These are considered more taboo because sending things wirelessly leaves you incredibly open to others intercepting it and receiving the information you were sending. (Imagine walking past a room and suddenly receiving the feeling that you just finished running a marathon, then it suddenly goes away, and you hear giggles from the room. Bit awkward, definitely a bit violating.)

Bonus info!

Overclocking is what it’s called when you force your systems to work double speed for a few seconds before slowing them back down further than normal abruptly, it gives you a dizzying feeling and lightheadedness. Extremely comparable to getting high, though an animatronic is able to pull themself out of the sensation much faster than a human can sober up. Only exception to this is robots who do it far too often, their systems end up getting stuck in a loop of either being too fast or two slow.

[kaasiand]

I played through Color Splash for the first time this past week, the last paper mario I hadn't played yet (I had watched a full playthrough back when it came out but hadn't played it for myself so I thought now might be a good time right before TTYD remake comes out) and felt constantly frustrated and left thinking to myself "wtf Sticker Star did this better" over and over. Like there were some good moments in there but a lot of the time it felt like the game wasn't taking itself seriously and trying TOO hard to be funny, to the point where it felt like it was making its own world less believable. Most of all though.. it only really made me want to revisit Sticker Star again. So... I'm doing that right now and man I'm actually having such a great time?

Sticker Star is MADE to be replayed and fucked around with. It rewards exploration AND experimentation, and it actually somehow manages to make the most of its lack of a proper exp system thanks to its nonlinearity. In the final level of World 1, I grabbed the stuff I needed to access the rest of worlds 2 and 3 without actually fighting the boss (I just backtracked my way out of the level lol) and just continued in W2 and W3. I have now finished like, only half of those two worlds but have defeated the big cheep cheep anyway and moved on to world 5. It's really cool how the game LETS you do this without having you be underlevelled, since you're always as strong as the stickers you hold. And you DO permanently become stronger, but it's through exploration rather than battling/grinding, using those max HP hearts found in the overworld!! I found one of them in W5 today in a secluded spot I had never even found before, which kinda made my jaw drop lmfao. And I suppose the album pages make you stronger through letting you hold more powerful and bigger stickers too

^ really funny stuff from the battles that I missed in Color Splash. Also in Color Splash's battles, the card list & steps to colour them in made everything so goddamn tedious; it was impossible to see a lot of your cards at once. Even the perfect action commands I'd often avoid because of the dramatic slow-mo effect (which got REALLY annoying real fast) which Sticker Star thankfully didn't have

Also in Sticker Star you get to upgrade your stickers which is fun!!!!!! Color Splash feels like a Sticker Star sequel that keeps all the wrong things and changes exactly the things that acted as like, Sticker Star's problems cancelling each other out. And don't get me started on Color Splash's one billion loading screens and extremely tedious gameovers compared to what's always basically instant in Sticker Star

I think the three things that would best improve Sticker Star are

Allow Fling-a-Thing from anywhere in the world, possibly as an upgrade of sorts (Things shouldn't turn into stickers immediately when you grab them like in Color Splash though! Otherwise it turns a currently infinite stash into a finite one)

The enemy summons from Color Splash!! This was the one thing I think was a straight improvement to Sticker Star's systems. But put Sticker Star's spin on it where they work together with the sticker upgrading system, with shiny enemy stickers and such. And add action commands on them, like how Sticker Star had those on the shell/shuriken/boomerang/etc attacks

Change Scuttlebugs to be based on their original Super Mario 64 design. I don't mind the other changed enemy designs in this game as much, I only really hate the modern Scuttlebug design

[escapingrealtiylovinginsanity]

Rewind, Remix, Replay Jay & Kim 6x7

For such a short chapter this took me forever to write and it still didn’t come out exactly how I wanted it to. I’ve had a lot going on in my personal life and I’m trying to work on my mental health. I will try to get back to posting once a week but if not know this story is still going! Thanks to everyone for their support and comments.

You can read the rest of the series here

Kim could see the signs. If a bomb going off barely a yard away from Jay’s feet wasn’t enough adding in a military veteran he couldn’t save and an Islamic woman he almost shot for holding what he thought was a gun but was actually a baby was the perfect set of triggers to send Jay back into a full-fledged PTSD episode.

Jay had been fidgety, irritable, hyper-aware, and having difficulty focusing. He had been restless as they were getting ready for bed. After she had brushed her teeth, she had padded into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Jay was scrubbing down the already clean kitchen.

He was the cleanest man she had ever dated. It was the first time she thought her disorganization and clutter was the worst in the relationship. Jay had never complained but he did clean up behind her. Sorting her normal pile system and putting everything back in its proper place. He only looked mildly sheepish when Kim caught him, giving her a guilty smile. Her apartment had never been cleaner and she was sure his had never been messier.

Kim just watched him for a few minutes. He was in a world of his own. Her brown eyes searched his frame. Everything about him and his posture screamed exhaustion but there was a clear fighting of sleep. Jay must have felt the weight of her stare because he glanced up at her. She was in one of his T-shirts and nothing else. Normally it would light a fire in his eyes but tonight they stayed dull and distant.

Kim had led him to bed. She knew he needed to sleep. The exhaustion was making everything worse and bigger for him. For all his reluctance to sleep, he is out as soon as his head hits the pillow.

It doesn’t take long to figure out why he had fought it.

Kim isn’t sure what woke her as her eyes flutter open. Her cheek is pressed against the soft cool sheets instead of the warm planes of Jay’s firm chest. She felt slightly chilled even wrapped in the blankets, Jay's body heat notably absent. Then she heard the deep groans and felt the thrashing movement.

Kim had never woken up and been aware as fast as in that moment. Jay was on his side with his back facing her. His body was trembling, jerking as he made pained noises. Her hand was on his shoulder before she could think better of it. Jay’s body lurches up, his right arm swinging to his defense.

Jay woke to a crash ringing in his ears his clenched knuckles red and throbbing. His gaze found Kim’s surprised and fearful face. His chest was rising and falling rapidly and he felt like there was no air left in his lungs. Jay’s first reaction was to pull away. Panic clenched in his chest and crawled up his throat.

Kim’s warm hand wrapped around his bicep. He jerked but didn’t yank away. His other hand shot up to grab her arm in a gentle but firm grip. Jay’s head was clear enough to scan her for any injuries. She appeared fine but- “Did I hurt you?” Her head was shaking before he could even finish. Her other hand came to rest on the left side of his chest feeling his pounding heart. Jay caught it with his own squeezing it tightly searching her brown eyes as the throbbing of his knuckles became more prominent.

Kim seemed to know where his mind was going. She nodded her head over to his nightstand brown swinging around her face. “You just knocked the lamp over.” Jay’s eyes flashed over to his now bare nightstand before shooting back to hers. “It’s my fault. I should have known better-” Jay squeezes as he shushes her, feeling like he is gaining a semblance of control of himself.

They lay together for a few minutes in silence. Kim didn’t speak until Jay’s heartbeat slowed and his breathing evened. There was still tension in his body. She could feel it in his shoulders and coiled up his spine. His grip on her was still tight just shy of chaffing. She ghosted her lips against his jaw. “Do you want to talk about it?” She felt the sharp exhale of his breath. “Do you not want to talk about it and watch trashy TV?”

His stubble scratched her cheek as he moved. “Blinded Love?” His tone had a tinge of teasing laced in the exhaustion as he waited for her correction as she always did.

They were still curled up on the couch at four in the morning. Jay felt guilty about keeping her up but not enough to urge her to go to bed. True to her word she hadn’t said anything since they moved to the living room just gave him the unwavering comfort of her touch. Her eyes were half-lidded fighting to keep open as she trailed her fingertips along his arm.

Jay leaned down and kissed her forehead. Kim hummed happily nuzzling closer to his side. “I love you,” The words were whispered into her hair. “Move in with me.”

[foxdev1l]

you need to share more of your thoughts because i know they are good tell me tell me tell me teeeell meeeee

thank you so much for this sweet message. since it's kept vague, i wasn't sure what kind of thoughts you wanted to hear, but i've recently spent a lot of time thinking about and writing down notes about a/b/o headcanons for the rg characters which you might be interested in. i've got notes for basically all of them, but Six's headcanon kind of grew a mind of its own. if anyone's interested in more, feel free to let me know

◇Sierra Six – Shed Skin◇

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54652036

Wordcount: 2.507

Summary: Six does not feel comfortable in his own skin

A/N: much love to @hollandstrophyhusband for helping me brainstorm and beta reading this for me. i hope you guys enjoy my little spin on Six and the omegaverse. might write a second part one day, who knows. there was some talk about six/colt...

Content warnings: nsfw, canon typical violence, self-destructive behavior, rough sex, dub con, identity issues

He presents unusually late, at the age of fifteen, and without any prior warning. It's almost like he's grown a second skin, one that is simultaneously too large and too tight on his scrawny body.

Courtland expects to feel relief. He's an Alpha, after all, the only child to follow in his father's footsteps.

His mother is born an Omega, awfully timid and quiet, and too afraid to raise her voice. His brother has presented as a Beta young, too gentle and too defiant at the same time. His father has always resented them both for different reasons.

So Court should be relieved, to have dodged a bullet, to escape his father's cutting disappointment.

But then his father takes one look at him, his ragged features contorted into a strange expression, something almost akin to pride. He sweeps his gaze over Court's haggard form, breathes in the heavy stench of a newly presented Alpha, and smiles. The smile is twisted, foreign, wrong; like the newly grown skin pulled taut over his frail bones.

Court feels nothing but repulsion.

“I don't think it fits,” he tells his father.

“It doesn't need to fit,” his father says, the contentment on his face turning sharper, more dangerous. “Just wear it like you own it.”

And so he does.

He tells himself things can be different. That it is still about choice. That his second skin does not come sodden in blood. He can learn to be comfortable wearing it, can accept his status, and still reject society's expectations. He can grow up to be a better Alpha than his old man ever was.

It's only when he's standing above the dying body of his father – the powder burns from his gun tainting his fingers black – that he's struck with the sudden realization that he's always been destined to inherit the violence of his father; that this blood-lusting rage is so deeply carved into his DNA, he cannot have one without the other.

He hardly gets any time to think the first few years locked behind bars. He's too busy avoiding becoming a target. He makes himself bigger than he's ever been, plays his part as the aggressive and strong Alpha, and it feels wrong, sickening, but it doesn't matter because this is not about his comfort but the mere act of survival.

He doesn't experience a proper rut until the CIA has him catching the chain. The abuse and trauma he physically and mentally had to endure over his lifetime have taken a toll on his system and fucked with his hormones enough to suppress any prior ruts.

Though he's never experienced one, he's heard of it. How it takes over one's body and mind, burning up the insides with a maddening fever of raw lust.

Court mainly feels pain.

The CIA pairs him up with an Omega. Court is far too gone to protest at that point, but he doubts it would've mattered anyway. The CIA doesn't seem to care much about his autonomy.

He doesn't know the Omega's name, can barely make out their face past his blurred vision. But he knows what's expected of him.

The Omega is nothing more than a piece of meat for the CIA to dangle in front of him, not much unlike a gnarled bone thrown in front of a starving dog. He's supposed to claim them, feast on them, gorge himself on their willingness to submit.

The Omega tells him it's alright, that they don't mind his roughness, the bruises he leaves behind no matter how much he tries to hold back. Court almost wishes they wouldn't have said anything at all.

His rut ends eventually, the fever subsiding without him ever finding relief. The Omega is taken away quickly afterward. Court never sees them again.

The CIA has provided him with a soulless room in a depressing, gray building, and he's allowed a break, an undisturbed couple of days to gather himself back up.

He takes a shower to try and wash away the last traces of his rut, turns the heat all the way up. It burns him worse than the rut but he doesn't step away from the water. Instead, he uses his hands and nails to scrub, scrub, scrub his skin raw, till it's red, red, red, but still there. Despite everything, it's still a part of him no matter how hard he tries to get rid of it.

He wants nothing more than to shed his own skin, peel it away until it detaches from his flesh, tear it apart, so all that remains is a bloody and shredded framework of bones.

What he once reluctantly accepted and exploited for the sake of safety and survival, he's now grown to outright despise, to reject.

He showers multiple times a day over the next week, rubbing and clawing at his skin until it's stung and irritated. It doesn't make him feel better, only leaves him aching and longing for a different life.

Once his break is up, the CIA gets his training underway. It's brutal and laborious and keeps him busy once more, but it also makes everything worse. The once scrawny, lanky boy has grown into a strong, deadly man who seems to fit every stereotype he's sworn to dismantle.

His hands seem to be constantly coated in blood nowadays. He has to stop looking into the mirror when his reflection keeps twisting into the wilted image of his father.

At least he gets put on heavy military-grade suppressants. It berefts him of his ruts and fucks with his pheromones enough to dampen the aggressive smell of his Alpha; but above else, it mainly makes him numb. Court doesn't complain. It's better than the alternative.

He tries to keep to himself, avoid other Alphas at all costs though that's not always possible. He hates it, feels so out of place, uncomfortable, and strangely alien when he's around others.

Rumors begin to spread like wildfire, and as much as he tries to stay unbothered, it makes his hackles rise. They assume he's an omega because why else would he be so tight-lipped, act so odd and deflective whenever the topic gets brought up.

He doesn't know what to think of that. The word Omega doesn't feel as scalding as its counterpart, but it still doesn't fully seem to fit.

It's a bitterly cold winter night when Six makes the decision to hook up with an Alpha for the first time. He finds him in a seedy bar, his cheeks flushed and lashes wet from the snow.

He's freshly off a mission. The gun has left indents in the palm of his hand and he believes he can still feel the sticky, crawling sensation of blood despite the hour-long shower he took.

The alpha is leaning against the beer-sodden bar when Six spots him, nursing a cheap whiskey with one big, calloused hand. He's tall, taller than the Sierra agent, a burly, broad frame with a handsome, aged face.

The stranger turns, then, meeting his gaze dead-on. Six's pulse ticks up, his insides twisting. He isn’t quite sure whether it's from arousal or repulsion.

His instincts are reeling deep below his sternum but he's feeling daring, still drunk on the adrenaline-fueled high of his most recent kill and desperately chasing for more, to break through the heavy, numbing haze of the suppressants.

He ends up with his face shoved against the rough wall behind the bar. The stranger doesn't grant him the comfort of a bed, merely tugs down both of their pants as far as necessary and kicks Six's feet apart. Six thinks he prefers it this way.

The man's merciful enough to work Six open, though it still hurts when he pushes inside. They have nothing but a condom, and Six has never done this before, is hardly prepared to take a single finger, much less the thick cock of another fucking Alpha.

The Alpha's obnoxious scent is filling up the entire alleyway. It's thicker than the smoke of cigars, impenetrable like the billowing fumes of the streets. It clogs up Six's nose, lays heavy on his tongue, sharp and bitter all at once.

Everything about the experience is uncomfortable; the fingers in his hair, tugging and pulling and pressing his cheek into the sharp bricks; the hand on his hip, digging into his bones, squeezing bruises into his flesh; the mouth on him, panting against the shell of his ear, licking and biting up the side of his throat.

Six flinches away when teeth scrape over the skin just below his scent gland but he doesn't get far. The Alpha crowds him further against the wall, keeping an unbreakable hold on him as he relentlessly thrusts into him from behind.

A grunt escapes Six's bloody lips, gut twisting in fear but when the stranger reaches out and grabs his cock, it's already painfully hard and it doesn't take long for him to spill all over the Alpha's sweaty hand.

The Alpha doesn't stop, taking more pleasure than he draws from him, and Six is left to moan against the cold brick wall. He's cold and his legs are trembling by the time the Alpha finishes and pulls away.

“You're not an Omega,” the stranger acknowledges and Six just shrugs because his lungs have yet to fill up with oxygen again.

“And neither are you a Beta.”

Six shakes his head.

The man regards him with a flat, unreadable expression, “I didn't peg you as an Alpha.”

Six simply spits a glob of blood onto the dirt-stained pavement, the inside of his cheek sore where he's bitten through it. Then he shrugs once more and stumbles away, out of the alleyway and back into the shadows.

It becomes a common occurrence after that. The CIA keeps him on a short leash but Six still finds time to slip away every few weeks. He goes looking for meaningless fucks with willing Alphas every chance he gets, in the dark corners of whatever shabby bar is closest to him. He keeps seeking them out no matter how uncomfortable they make him feel.

It's painful, shameful, to be reduced to nothing but a whimpering mess under the aggressive grasp of another Alpha, but he cannot help himself. There is a certain thrill at being forced to give up control. It's strangely alluring, addicting.

He doesn't get off on the pain. In fact, he deeply despises it. But there is a certain sense of detachment that comes with it. It's still not enough to chip away his second skin, but it makes it less restricting, more bearable, gives him something else to focus on.

And then Lloyd comes along and ruins everything.

Lloyd manages to do something no one else has ever done before – he takes one look at Six, gasping and writhering where he's pushed into the wall, chin forcefully tilted back with the muzzle of a gun, and sees right through him.

“Ohh,” he croons, “What a little, pathetic Alpha you are.” He leans in, nuzzles at the column of Six's throat, digs the gun deeper to expose more of the heated flesh.

Gritting his teeth, Six keeps himself deathly still. He swallows down a rising growl, not willing to give Lloyd the satisfaction of a reaction.

“Or,” Lloyd continues, “Is it Omega?” His smile is full of teeth, his leer predatory, and Six does the only thing he can think of.

He fishes for the grenade safely tucked in the pocket of his pants, and pulls the safety pin.

In hindsight, he should've killed Lloyd then and there.

What follows isn't Six's fault. He is aware of that even though it doesn't stop the guilt from eating away at him. His handler is dead, his protégé traumatized, and Six just yearns for a fucking nap.

He's never felt such deep-rooted anger like he does for Lloyd. The Alpha is loud and arrogant and violent, and Six would've torn his fucking face off if Suzanne hadn't stopped him in form of a bullet to his thigh.

The next few weeks are a blur of heavy sedatives and strong pain medication. He's used to feeling trapped but the cuffs binding him to the hospital bed make him sick to his stomach. He finds great satisfaction in ripping them apart.

Tracing Claire's whereabouts is easier than expected and it pisses him off because the CIA obviously doesn't care enough to provide a proper safe house.

He steps onto the property, the smell of blood of his guards at the hospital still sticking to his clothes. The violence of his actions, though necessary, has torn something open deep inside him, a festering wound he fears will never heal again.

Perhaps he is his father's son, after all. Perhaps he's never been anything else.

He feels like a stranger, not only in his skin but his very own bones as he gets closer to the safe house.

His body aches, most of his injuries still not fully healed but he sets his jaw and pushes forward. Breaking open a window at the back of the building, he heaves himself up onto the ledge.

As soon as both his feet are flat on the ground, he goes to work, not daring to waste time. The suppressants have dulled his scent enough to stay hidden as he puts down the vinyl cover and a sloppily written note.

Incapacitating the guards hardly takes any effort. It doesn't bring him any satisfaction, only further rips and gashes at the wound inside. But it's worth it in the end, when all is done, and the blood has begun to dry, and Six pushes open the door separating him from Claire.

Being reunited after being forcefully pried apart feels a bit surreal. Claire looks tired, worn, but her smile is sincere as she clings to him, her nails sharp as claws where they dig into Six's shoulders but he doesn't have the heart to step away.

Instead, he buries his face into her hair, catching the subdued but familiar scent of a young Alpha; intense but gentler somehow, softened by the sweet and mellow taste of wild flowers dried by the sun.

Claire.

The scent slips below his skin easily, effortlessly, soothing the ragged edges of the wound beneath.

Claire is still so awfully young. Too young to be burdened by bearing the weight of her status. And yet, she does not seem to let it drag her down. Despite being impressionable and at the mercy of her biology, through all the illness and grief and trauma, the brutality of the last few weeks – she's remained unchanged.

Her eyes are still kind, her touch still gentle, and her heart untinged.

Six presses her tighter against his chest, his grip white-knuckled where it's clutching the back of Claire's shirt. He takes a moment, then, allows himself to linger, to breathe in the soft, calming scent of his protégé. For once, it does not feel like he's suffocating in the confinement of his own skin.

[annakenziesworld]

Stitchy isn't as nice as he thought

Hey! I just wanted to say sorry for not posting for a hot minute, I had gotten pretty sick and as I have a weakish immune system I couldn't work on any of my bigger projects. I will be repicking up ask little eclipse! I been thinking due to how well I feel its going, I may make a blog specifically for it. For now take some FC angst! He is one of my favorite characters next to Lunar.

However on FC I feel he's been getting much to hate recently, it's like people are forgetting it isn't just an act, FC is an actual child. He needs more guidance and neither Stitchwraith or Foxy can provide that stability so he chooses the 'better' parent based on strength and strength alone. People don't pay attention to these facts of FC being emotionally neglected by Foxy, and physically neglected by Stitchwraith with the exceptions of updates and repairs. But even then the only one emotionally caring for FC is Jake, while the other one exhibits abusive behaviors regularly and snaps at FC consistently. When Foxy was parenting properly he still seemed to be a bit neglectful, he was constantly dropping FC on those around him so it is understandable when people started to tell him no.

In the end my total thoughts are: FC is in an abusive situation, he needs some sort of third party caretaker that can properly guide and care for him, he needs more proper (supervised) bonding time with Foxy, FC could benefit from therapy, he needs to be properly acknowledged as a child and even though Foxy will need help healing he needs to stop seeing FC as some sort of adult that's there to use him and abuse him. Considering the fact FC is a child that is something he cannot comprehend properly, considering the facts he still uses a bottle and pacifier and the fact Francine is smarter then him I believe he is between the ages 2-6, he cannot be held responsible fully to his actions if he cannot even understand his emotions.

---

This art was lightly referenced off of the scene back during 2022 October takeover when Lunar had been slapped inside el' chips. Here the other one had finally snapped hard enough due to the fact Foxy didn't want his son at all, slapping FC as hard as he could due to how badly he messed up. He didn't even care about hurting them and Jake didn't have the ability to step in yet, FC was trying to desperately explain why he did what he did but he was struggling to de-escalate the situation. Due to how sharp stitchys hands are they sliced poor FC's face open causing oil to drip and fall. FC was internally begging to be saved by the great foxy! He was scared and his face hurt so bad. He knew better that foxy would of never let this happen to him.. He wanted to snuggle next to his father and watch Bluey again. He knew he was bad but he was hoping and near praying Foxy would still come save him and take him home, he wanted to play gatorgolf, he wanted daycare, he didn't wanna be Stitchys helper anymore.

[ladytauria]

the sweetness of honey: chapter ii

Pairing: Tim Drake/Jason Todd Rating: Explicit (and please mind the tags!) Chapter Words: 7.9k Total Words: 12k

chapter two of my fic, the sweetness of honey!

preview and chapter content warnings below the cut <3

>>> chapter ii: a gift, pretty and bruised <<<

cws: threats, non-consensual touching, fantasy misogyny, first aid, author is not a doctor & also knows very little about first aid, anxiety, non-graphic panic attacks

With no windows to guide him, Jason tracks the days by the overhead light in his cell. It comes on in the morning, followed by breakfast and a humiliating ‘check’ to see if he’s started his heat yet before changing his clothes. Then lunch, and a few hours after that, supper. After supper, his teeth are brushed for him, and then finally, lights out.

Every day, Jason expects something different. For things to change.

He tracks six days before finally, something does.

The light comes on as he’s sleeping. His rest has been fitful, restless. It wakes him immediately. Jason uncurls from the tight ball he sleeps in, sitting up and blinking the sleep from his eyes. His sense of time is frayed, but not broken completely. He knows it’s not morning yet.

The door opens a moment later.

Baldie looms in the doorway.

Jason is on his feet immediately, baring his teeth.

“The boss has someone who wants to meet you,” Baldie says, stalking toward him.

Slimeboss’s words replay in Jason’s mind. “No… No, I have a different purpose in mind for this one.”

He swallows, a low growl filling his chest. “I’m not going anywhere with you, asshole,” he spits.

Baldie’s scent seems stronger than it was six days ago; the musk filling Jason’s nose. The part of him that wants to roll over, offer himself up, feels bigger. Jason ignores it. As soon as Baldie gets close enough, he lashes out—kicking, clawing, snapping his teeth.

He won’t go quietly.

Even with a few nights sleep and proper food in his system… Jason is no match for Baldie. The alpha is bigger, stronger, and meaner.

Jason at least gets one victory; digging his fingers into where he’d bitten the alpha before, tearing through the bandage and drawing blood.

Baldie snarls. Jason freezes, something instinctive and primal in him reacting to the deep alpha noise. Baldie doesn’t hesitate to take advantage, slamming Jason against the wall.

Jason hisses, bumping his head against the wall—then yelps when Baldie flips him. That yelp turns to a whimper when Baldie scruffs him harshly; submission making him go limp. The scent of alpha displeasure nearly has Jason sticking his hips out in offering.

“You better hope the boss gets rid of you tonight,” Baldie hisses in his ear. “If you come back here, I’ll beat your ass black and blue—damn the consequences.” He shakes him.

Jason whines pathetically, tears pricking his eyes. It’s just because he’s close to his heat, he tells himself. He wouldn’t be so affected otherwise. Wouldn’t be thinking about Baldie mounting him, using him. Wouldn’t half-want it.

Baldie turns him again, unlatching the chain from his collar before hauling him over his shoulder, driving the air from him. He carries Jason back to the bathing room, dropping him on the table.

Jason barely has time to catch his breath before Baldie forces a bit between his teeth. The edges of it bite at the corners of his mouth—Jason tries to force it out, but gets nowhere. Not before Baldie muzzles him, the leather straps digging into his skin.

Despite everything in him telling him to submit, Jason growls. His legs twitch as he fights the submission, but it’s as useless as it was six days ago, and Baldie ignores him. He strips Jason down instead, and then wipes him down with a rough cloth. Once Jason is clean again, Baldie dresses him in a similar outfit as before; a tiny pair of shorts that barely cover his ass and a slightly too-big t-shirt. He’s given no socks or shoes.

Finally, his hands are bound behind his back—first with the cuffs, and then rope over that. Baldie makes sure it’s tight, too, the coarse material digging into his skin.

Then he hefts Jason up again, carrying him to the garage. Jason gets a brief glimpse of the slick black car he’d seen before before he’s dropped in the trunk again. Baldie slams the lid shut.

A moment later, the engine rumbles to life beneath him.

Jason tries to keep track of the time, but without anything to anchor him, it’s hard. Still… he’s pretty sure less than thirty minutes pass before Baldie hauls him out again, setting him on his feet before clipping a leash to his collar.

The moon is high in the sky, enough light passing through ever present clouds and smog to illuminate their surroundings. He recognizes the old warehouse district, down by the docks—the smell assaulting his nose.

Jason sucks in a deep breath.

Pleasant? No. But this is the first breath of fresh air, or what passes for it in Gotham, in almost a week, so he takes in as much of it as he can.

Baldie wraps the leash around his hand and leads Jason inside one of the warehouses. The bottom of it is empty save for large, looming crates. Jason is sure there are guards, but… not being able to see them makes him nervous. Twitchy.

He thinks about fighting, but… He knows he won’t get far. Better to conserve his energy for now.

Baldie heads straight for a set of metal stairs, prodding Jason into going up first.

Jason hesitates. His stomach churns. He doesn’t want to go up there—doesn’t want to know what fate is in store for him at the top.

Baldie growls. “Move,” he snaps, a little Command in his tone.

It’s never been easy for Jason to resist a Command. He’s only ever managed it a few times in his life. Right now, in pain and terrified, with lingering submission in his veins? It’s impossible.

He still fights. Of course he does. He’s not going to just roll over and let this happen to him.

In the end, though, there’s nothing he can do except climb the stairs.

On the second floor, Baldie takes Jason over to a metal door. There’s a discolored spot where a sign used to sit. Jason imagines it was some kind of manager’s office. There are windows, but all of them have been blocked off with wooden slats.

Baldie opens the door.

The office has been converted into some kind of meeting room. There are two couches set up in the center of the room; a low table between them. There are four guards on one side of the room, behind the man Jason recognizes as Slimeboss.

The man across from him is a stranger.

He’s dressed in a suit too. It’s all clean, sharp lines; fitting him better than Slimeboss’s fits him. It makes him look even slimier in comparison.

There are no guards behind the stranger, and yet… he looks relaxed.

Confident.

The hairs on Jason’s neck raise.

Slimeboss grins at their entrance, exposing far too many teeth. The sleaze dripping off of him makes Jason feel gross. Like he needs a shower. A wicked hot one, to burn away the top layer of his skin.

Baldie shuts the door. Bile rises in Jason’s throat, growing thicker when Slimeboss beckons them over.

“To convince you of my sincerity, and as a token of my friendship, I wanted to offer you a gift.”

>>> continue on AO3 <<<

[quazardrawing]

Here we go with Ingo's Pokémon reunions, This time it's Galvantula and Crustle,

Little reminder that Emmett and Ingo co-raise/ share their Pokémon teams with each other so while Emmett carefully picked out and breed joltiks for his Ideal Galvantula, Ingo played a major part in training, raising and spoiling this Joltik/ galvantula from its egg into a powerful member of the Battle Subway

[ image description]

[ Ingo sits on Crustle, a crab Pokémon underneath a block of stratified/layered earth that looks a little like a tiramisu cake, Ingo is leaning back and laughing with his hand to prop him up as in his lap is Galvantula who is climbing up to snuggle Ingo. Crustle and Galvantula are verrrrry happy to see Ingo ]

More headcanons and details below the readmore

- Galvantula's name is Catanary, which is the overhead wires that power subway cars or trams! Her name was picked out long before she was hatched while Ingo and Emmett where figuring out their idea for the perfect Subway boss team they drew up during their Pokémon journey so they didn't exactly stick to it but it shows how dedicated the Boy were to their dream of combining their two favourite things, Battling and Trains!

- While Catanary was breed from a egg, it wasn't only Emmett with 5 million joltiks. Costum IV or egg move type Pokémon can be gotten from breeder who specializes in the Pokémon you are looking for, but are rare and need to put in a lot of work and need to be a little lucky with. How it worked out is that Emmett and Ingo's put their Pokémon journey on hold for a few years working at a joltik breeder, (who both studies the Pokémon, does conservation work and does adoption and training for trainer who want a joltik or want to take care of their Joltik properly) After hatching and breeding a lot of Joltik, Emmett eventually found a Joltik that had the right IV's and egg moves, and then he and his brother started on the matchmaking system. Since Pokémon are intelligent creatures with personalities and preferences, Emmett not only had to find a joltik with his proper stat set up but also one whom the Joltik found that He measured up in turn, Catanary was not the first Joltik Emmett hatched with the proper egg move and such but the one who wanted to grow up to be a fighter and wanted Emmett as his permanent trainer in return.

- Due to this, Emmett considers Galvantula lucky, and along with Archeopes, has spoiled her a bit (a lot) Thankfully since she is one of the older Pokémon in Emmett's team, due to her being caught during their childhood/ Pokémon journey days, she has matured to be more responsible in front of other Pokémon, such as the subway Joltik infestation, or Pokémon from her trainers coworkers

- she has not however grown out of using her puppy dog eyes to get extra treats or try to convince both her trainers that the other one has Not feed her thus getting feed twice, So she's very overweight for her species, which would be a bigger consern if she also wasn't a part of the top 10 professional fighter teams

- She is also overly friendly with people, often climbing into people's lap for pets, and walking up to children for attention and Skritches. While this behaviour means that she could never be a wild Pokémon, it has also means that she is one of Emmett and Ingo's go to Pokémon for calming down lost children, to the point that she does this by herself. First by watching subway traffic from the ceiling, them approaching them to calm them down and then leading them to their parents by having them hold the other end of her spider silk, while she leads them though the crowd. Of course she does this is in part to to get extra Treats from her trainers but she also likes helping people like Emmett and Ingo helped her when she was small and cried a lot

- Crustles name is Tiramisu! Which I think is the cutest thing I could think up, I also made sure that the rock she carries looks like her cake namesake. She was actually caught by another trainer, and traded with Ingo, since she loves fighting much more than her old trainer did. I imagine that her old trainer was a Station Master who predated Ingo and Emmett joining subway. She was in charge of the care of a single line, with Tira helping out with tunnel maintenance. Tira meet Ingo and Emmett when they started out as grunts for the Subway system, but didn't really get to know them until they had moved up the ranks and got started with Battle Subway project. Due to Tira's knowledge of her trainer's tunnel line, she guided the diggers and at that time learned what kind of person the twins are and what kind of life their Pokémon live, I think she actually told her trainer that she wants to live with them instead, not that she didn't love her old trainer but sometimes you need to make a change if you want to pursue your dreams, (which included fighting, not just running the subway) Her old trainer understood (but put Ingo and Emmett though some trials to prove to her that they would be worthy of the trainer's trust and be responsible enough for Tira's welfare)

- Tira still carries/ wears the collar her old trainer gave her, and gets to see her often when Ingo and Emmett does their inspection rounds on her trainers (passenger only) line, in addition to non-work visits. The collar is also has tags with both the Old subway logo and the new Battle Subway logo, symbolising both the passing of the torch, and her loyalty to all of her beloved trainers past and present.

- Speaking of 'carrying' due to crustle's whole gimmick being carrying the earth on their back, To carry something has a very important place in their Culture. 'to carry' means 'this is my shell, my home, whose worth is so much more than its weight that I shall bring it with me everywhere' this not always a meaningful thing but in the case of this picture Tiramisu picking up and carrying Ingo on her back symbolises that She considers him family, an ireplaceable part of her home, that she so very happy to have him back in her life

- sappy stuff aside, like most Pokémon there is a element of them having goblin animal behaviour, and carrying thing such, as the fridge (where all her snacks are), when she's mad at Emmett or Ingo for something (like washing her bed without permission, No she doesn't care how dirty it is and weather it's tracking mud on the carpet, she just got it to smell right) is the equivalent of her Pick up a rucksack and saying she only cares about Food Now She is Running Away!

- She and Ingo has on multiple occasions pranked Emmett, (who is a early riser but gets sleepy early) who accidently feel asleep in a nice recliner in the work room, by picking up his chair and walking away with it, With Ingo trying to see if he could get his silly little brother all the way back home without waking him up. It never works, (dispite Ingo's effort of figuring which way home will have the least noise and rough terrain) but pictures on Ingo trying to get his sleeping brother past the subway turn styles on moving recliner with a lease, have become a permanent meme on Poke-Internet for obvious reasons

[spacebinsh]

We also did it for a costume contest at the combo trans picnic yesterday, but it was 80 degrees so I had to forego the black bodysuit so I wouldn't actually just get heatstroke. Before then we had forgotten to do a proper 360 of the costume, so the only 360 we have is the weird shirtless version:

The antlers are a little less rigid than the previous post cause I kept smacking them on shit, so next year we're gonna use heftier wire, and also go bigger. Next year my other partner is gonna join us as Greg, and then my overseas lover who comes back next year in time for Halloween will be our woodsman!

Also next year we want to include some sort of temperature regulation system, and controllable LED eyes so we can switch to the colored version, also in some sort of forward directed shape so the eyes look less bulbous and more predatory, cause even if The Beast has "antlers," in the show it has forward facing eyes like a human, and otherwise mostly human features, so I think the eyes only being visible from the very front facing the same direction makes sense, please give further input if you've got ideas, we gotta start early if we wanna deliver on the level i'd like to. I'm extra as fuck and refuse to do anything but the maximum.

[daystarvoyage]

Hey! I know most people like to imagine Philip's reaction upon seeing Lilith centuries later and realizes that she's the one who punched him in the face but hear me out and imagine this:

Ghost Caleb who's following his brother around/ Papa Titan watching Philip through the cubes and both sees Lilith punching Philip in the Deadwardian era: .... He deserved that...

Both men centuries later, seeing a younger Lilith and recognizes her: OMG, it's her! *immediately starts the countdown when will Lilith go back in time*

hmmm, I do feel you're talking about the interactions with the claw-thrones & witter banes in the show,

SO I'm going to make this elaborate answer,

But I have a lot to add along this by ranting in my input.

Yes, I do feel that was a lost opportunity to flesh out these groups more, cause Eda is a main character, with Lilith being her sister, which should've been explored properly.

along with their family Gwen & dill, they were the coolest characters shown, Gwen to be exact ever since her debut showing off her magical prowess.

The father's Name I think?, I feel he never got proper exposure except for that strained family moment episode, and that’s it so that’s a missed opportunity.

(SIGH It's weird how they treat the MEN in the show very weird, cause they didn’t make a prominent impact like the females, ANOTHER TOPIC SOON.)

we never get any future closure within the series centered around the family, cause they could've made room to due alot, let alone even a conversation, or more advancements on how IDK the palismen can properly excel the magic system within the show CAUSE DILL HAS KNOWLEDGE OF THEM.

As for lilith time travel episode,

Ghost Caleb Shoudve made a debut in season 2 instead being muddled with discourse to have more characters who haven't had proper spotlight to Get to know them being overshadowed.

I mean its a fantasy show, you have to have proper worldbuilding and lore being talked about more, Which the whole show-and-tell thing didn't work out cause it was never explored again, plus the time travel aspect should've contributed a lot more but was played off just for bplot manner that should've been bigger, (unlike another episode with one bplot overtook a certain characters spotlight?!)

LIKE THE WITTERBANE LORE BEING RUSHED and the only achievement that Lilith got after your fans treated her badly,

(with Camilia who’s a good mother, SO WE DONT WELCOME TOXIC HATERS HERE.)

For Lilith to get in your good graces is just punching Phillip, OR BEING KNOW AS AROACE cause when your sexuality wins with no proper character development or Writing in the Owl House. (which is understandable cause lgbt media has been taboo throughout times.)

but not properly give nuance on why I know she wanted to have objectives, please we need Good writing characters plz.

(besides Lilith befriending Phillip in the time travel episode.)

Lilith development i feel should've been placed in an organized manner. I Swear the show treats its adults in a useless adults or demonizes them if they don't let their favorites get there way. shunned them retcon them or not celebrated more compared to the other popular characters. SMH

so heres term for it

(not to mention their characters being retconned at times.)

it felt they got off easy with her ever since I watched pitched bibles of her being antagonistic, (along her run of the show), as time goes by, We got to see which contributed that, that should've been explored

as for the yes along Papa Titan ordeal, I felt they should've made him more impactful cause he is a literal god yet he's just made as a joke for luz to revive herself. COME ON

all i know is the Witterbane & Clawthrones should've had more interactions with A POWERFUL GOD SMH, cause dill had knowledge of some powerful items that could've contributed to the story but he was sidelined, the way they shelved half the characters is just wow

So hope this answers all your questions and thanks for sipping tea with me more topics on my youtube Channel - Daystar Voyage