This is something I've seen appearing a bit more in my askbox so I'd like to address it! No one is in trouble and I'm not mad at anyone, I just feel like it's worth addressing and clearing up some confusion.
I do not take art requests, even if it is for my own characters/works! The only art requests I DO take are more like commission work. Any 'character requests' you do see me posting come from the people monetarily supporting me on patreon!(Which you can sign up for if you'd rather go that route!) And those requests are limited to a specific format!
So when I receive requests in my askbox like "Can you give us more art of [character]?" or "Could you draw more of [character] and [character] together?" please understand it is going to be ignored!
Just about all art I have is what I post, and you may look through my character tags or art tags to view them!
I understand where you are coming from when you ask these things, you just want to see some of your favs again!! But please understand from my side--making games, even small games, is still a lot of work! And I have other responsibilities outside of it! So when I do have the time to draw freely, I draw what I feel like drawing and that's usually my favorites! And while you may find it repetitive or want variation, I have to be fair to myself and draw what makes me happy first!
Thank you for understanding!! ♡
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Hi Kiko,
I love your work, you are my favorite sim creator, you have the best hair styles for sims 4 people of color.
I wanted to know if you can make more long natural hair styles - (locs with clips/gold and silver) in different styles for the women in sims 4 :)?
like some long locs with long side bangs
some with clips
different ombre and color options
more edges
hidden scalp, or brown variation of scalps, (brown or black scalp)
I used the gif below to show a example hairstyle that looks different and cool.
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Hair, clothes, and shoes is most important to me in sims 4.
Thank you for having this option to contact you,
Sincerely,
Nikki
I appreciate your admiration towards my artwork but this is a very disrespectful thing to ask of me. I'm not sure if this is an innocent ask, I don't see how it is because I know you've heard black people ask other cultures to not appropriate our hairstyles but I could be wrong, if this is innocent below are my boundaries, and explanations on why I (Kiko Vanity; I'm not speaking for the whole black community) I'd like to not be asked things like this in the future.
my boundaries and why
I do not make hair for people of color. People of color is a broad way to say people who are not of White/European/Anglo-Saxon phenotypes. That means people of Asian, Hispanic/Latino, African, Mixed-Race, and Aboriginal descent; and I create CC for simmers who appreciate my artwork but mainly and ideally create CC HAIRS for simmers of African descent, (including mixed race if they also have African descent) because of the lack of black hairstyles in the initial release of the game in 2014, with that, these black simmers create sims that also reflect their environments and black upbringings. I make black content if you feel comfortable downloading my content you should be comfortable saying black. I want to stress black and not African-American (despite me being African American) because there are different ethnicities for each race, including black people.
2. I am not currently taking hair requests because I'd get too many at one time and that's not great for my mental health. To piggyback off the last sentence and statement 1, please do not request my cultural hairstyles using someone who doesn't respect our wishes. You may be asking yourself, "why is this an issue? hair is hair?" (look below)
During chattel slavery, every fiber of the enslaved Africans' lives was controlled by the narcissistic people who kidnapped them. including hair, being made to cover their hair, and calling them names & degrading them for their natural hair. As the years went by and slavery ended black people but more specifically black fem presenting people held the shame for their hair. Fast forward to today, even with all the turmoil the world is facing due to greed, classism, and the patriarchy) this is the first time in history that their descendants (me being one of them) can set boundaries and say what we are comfortable with and what we are not comfortable with. And to put this as bluntly as I can:
Do not send me videos/photos/gifs of people culturally appropriating in black people's hairstyles, it's anxiety-inducing.
I'd like to also say I'm not angry because I know there is an angry black person stereotype, this is simply uncomfortable and disheartening. I hope you can respect my wishes if not please feel free to block me.
Lastly,
You don't have to respect or do anything I am saying. You may do as you wish after reading this. Just if you are going to engage with me these are my boundaries.
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my mom isn’t letting my dad go back to his office bc him being out of the house stresses her out and makes her have a flare up and it’s like kind of insane. like i understand why the idea of him doing that would make her panicky and angry as someone who also struggles w separation anxiety and abandonment shit / has physical symptoms from that kind of stress (though not to the same degree ofc) but also he is a grown man. he should be allowed to go to his office and not have to shape his entire life around her needs. and she keeps guilt tripping him out of it and it’s impacting his quality of life a lot and the whole thing is kind of… hm
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Dream job rn is doing literally ANYTHING where I don't have to listen to, cater to, be responsible for, comfort, validate and help process anyone else's emotions ever again. I want to fucking put random papers in different piles of other random papers for like 6 hours straight and be paid a decent amount. ALL I ASK
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Alternatives to Squishmallow
So as many of you have probably already heard, Jazwares, the company that produces Squishmallows, is donating to charities that support Israeli soldiers and the IDF. They’re also supporting Canary Mission, which has been doxxing people who speak out against Israel. BDS hasn’t called for a boycott against them, but I can’t in good faith spend my money on their products, and I would strongly encourage everyone who enjoys plushies to really think long and hard about if you want to give your money to a company that’s helping support genocide!
But the holidays are coming up, and lots of us enjoy plushies and were fans of Squishmallow, and were planning to give Squishmallows to friends and family this year.
Fortunately, there are a number of great plushie companies out there, and I want to promote some of my favorites in the hopes that folks will get their plushie fix from a source that doesn’t side with Israel. So without further ado:
Fluffnest
Fluffnest got their start on Kickstarter a few years ago, and I adore the round shapes of their PuffPal plushies! My favorite is Pete the Possum, which is probably the best possum plush I’ve ever seen. I’ve also got a beautiful moth from their Kickstarter and I’ve been wanting their bats for ages. They also recently had a Kickstarter for an Animal Crossing-esque video game featuring their plushie characters and it looks fantastic.
Squishables
I can’t get over the plague doctor plushies. They’re so perfect and cute, and they’ve released other variations of them called Alter Egos, like a ghostly version, an alien, or a really sweet cottagecore one! They’ve got a ton of variety, but what I like the most are the fantasy plushies. There’s a lich! There are dragons and demons! Cryptids! Biblically accurate angels! A lot of really fun stuff!
Also they do a lot of great charity work! Right now they’re doing an auction for the Food Bank of New York City.
AfternoonFika
AfternoonFika is a very small business of only three people, but their plushies are extremely cute. They tend to sell out fast, so I recommend following them on social media to stay on top of any restocks! They recently released a line of dinosaurs that are precious, and of course I love their iconic cactus cat and cinnamon bun bunny.
Jellycat
Jellycat has been around since 1999, so they’re the oldest of these companies. They’ve got great designs, a ton of variety, and a lot of their plushies are made to be cuddled on and not just displayed. All three of my tiny nephews sleep with a different stuffed dog from Jellycat. My mom has a sun and several succulents that she uses as decorations. There’s a little something for everyone who enjoys plushies!
If you have any other favorite companies I haven’t mentioned, feel free to add on! I’ve enjoyed Squishmallows for a while now and I’m sad to see their leadership coming out on the side that’s committing war crimes on a daily basis, but this is a good time to discover new favorite plushie companies! And remember, money speaks loudly. Even if BDS hasn’t called for a boycott of Jazwares, it sends a message when sales start dropping for companies that support genocide. It’s a small thing, but the little things we do can add up!
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day idek(???) of researching for my ocs: today I had actual tears of joy in my eyes bc some legend posted a drawn map of all the shops uxbridge had in 1963 in an uxbridge local history facebook group
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bunny's 60-day glow up challenge ❤︎
hi my loves! my birthday is right around the corner and i want to end the year strong, so i thought it would be a cute and encouraging idea to host a challenge for all of us glow-up girlies! the steps for the challenge are very simple and customizable, and they give plenty of space for low-energy days. this challenge is all about trying your best to remain consistent in your goals, not to strive for an impossible "perfection" but instead to build trust in yourself that you can show up for your beautiful self and achieve the glow up that you deserve!
steps for the challenge:
pick three habits or things you want to dedicate time to every day
write a sentence or two on why you want to focus on these habits so that you have motivation and inspiration to complete them on hard days; this could include a basic "why" or you could write out specific goals you'd like to achieve through these habits
write out three different energy level variations of the habits so you can achieve your habits even on low-energy days
optional step: write an intro post sharing your habits and goals with everyone! you can use the tag #bunny60days to connect with others doing the challenge and hype each other up with accountability and love - you can also tag me and i can cheer you on hehe! 🥰 otherwise you can simply keep track on your own using a journal or planner or whatever works best for you!
optional step: write daily (or weekly) check-in posts sharing what you accomplished on the different days of the challenge, what you'd like to improve on the next day, or just a general update on how you're feeling. remember that this is a feel-good challenge, not a shame-filled one, so be kind to yourself and use this reflection as a way to show compassion and empathy to yourself 💕 again, you can use the tag #bunny60days to track your progress and see how others are doing!
the only very important rule for this challenge:
if you fall off and don't complete every habit you've written down in a day, do not start the challenge over, just pick up from where you left off! remember, this challenge is about building self-trust and resiliency - this means that you won't let one bad day or break in a streak stop you from continuing your habits. being "strong and hardworking" doesn't mean doing everything perfectly from day one, it means picking yourself up when you fall off course and trying again even though you may feel imperfect.
why only three habits?
when we do challenges, it's so easy to want to accomplish everything all at once, from working out to sleep schedules to everything in between. however, when you eventually burn yourself out or don't complete everything on your super long list of habits, shame is bound to follow, and shame does not make healthy soil for a beautiful plant to grow. starting off with three habits with different energy levels is a good way to ease into habit building while still feeling challenging enough to be interesting.
i don't know where to begin! can you give me an example of some habits or goals?
absolutely! if you'd like an example, you can check out my own personal goals for the challenge here. i'll be participating too, so you know that you have at least one person joining you in your glow up! 🥰 there is also a blank template below for you to use for your own glow up adventure.
blank template for you:
my chosen habits:
-
-
-
my goals and why's:
habit one:
habit two:
habit three:
my habit energy tiers:
habit one:
low energy:
medium energy:
high energy:
habit two:
low energy:
medium energy:
high energy:
habit three:
low energy:
medium energy:
high energy:
let's do this!
bunny xoxo
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round & round! ★ [ l.dh ]
{💭} hyuck : i suggested playing spin the bottle because i wanted to kiss you, but now everyone’s kissing you except me :/
[☆] pairing. haechan x reader, slight jaemin x reader ft. 00’ line, chaewon of lesserafim and sieun of stayc
[☆] genre. smut + fluff | stoner!nct, pwp bc it’s me
[☆] wc. 6.1k
[☆] warnings. explicit content (mdni), weed/marijuana use, lots of making out, slight choking, dirty talk, fingering, sexual stuff in a semi-public place, use of the word ‘slut’, very slight degradation, not very proofread, pretty tame tbh
[☆] notes. my first time writing again in like??? two years???? istg i didn’t mean to abandon this acc 😞 pls be nice i haven’t written in a while and this is not my most favourite work but i’m warming up for more stuff in da future i just wanted to post a lil self-indulgent smth abt hyuck bc bf☝️ idk how active i’ll be because of uni and other things but i missed u guys!!! any feedback is appreciated enjoy :p
even through the clouds of smoke engulfing the little living room of jeno and jaemin’s shared flat, your hooded eyes still met.
today was an important day amongst your friend group; it was chaewon’s first time smoking up with everyone. your friends weren’t really the type to pressure anyone into doing anything they weren’t sure about, but considering the astounding majority who enjoyed smoking some variation of weed, group sessions were a frequent occurrence. you either joined in or didn’t, chaewon being the latter until she decided of her own accord that she was going to try it with the people she trusted.
you sesh with jeno most often, seeing as he was the one who introduced you to weed and taught you everything you know about it. after weeks of listening to you complain about sleepless nights, jeno suggested you try smoking a joint before you go to bed, especially since it was starting to affect your attendance. (“i can’t keep attending these zoology classes without you, y/n. every time something stupid happens, i laugh and make a joke out loud because i forget you aren’t there, and now i’m pretty sure people think i’m either insane or just really fucking lonely”.)
now, smoking up has been a pretty regular occurrence, especially since jeno introduced you to a bunch of his friends and vice versa, all of you making up one big, happy group of stoners. chaewon and sieun were your friends who got along with everyone else just fine, and though they didn’t hang out with the others as much as you did, they were still welcome whenever.
presently, you are leaning back against the couch, all the way on the end, because jaemin is sprawled out alongside you, opting to rest his legs on your lap. haechan makes a joke that you don’t understand, but you laugh anyway along with everyone else, except renjun who covers up his laugh with cough.
“you can never let me have it, huh?”, hyuck scoffs, narrowing his eyes at renjun who’s mouth forms a thin line. “i know for a fact you find me funny.”
you hear that he makes a remark back at haechan but what he says doesn’t register in your head, everything sounding far away. remembering the special occasion, you turn to face chaewon and sieun, who are giggling away on the floor about something between the two of them. you don’t know what they said but you smile anyway. she clearly seemed like she was having a good trip, and so was everyone else.
swallowing nothing, you realise how dry your throat feels, and with that realisation came this undeniable desire for some form of liquid. “jen,”, you tilt your head back and call out to the boy who was already rolling another joint on the table behind you. “did you end up buying more coke?”
“check the fridge”, he mumbles without looking at you, tongue poking his cheek out of concentration as he focuses on what he was doing. with a groan, you heave jaemin’s legs off your lap, muttering a couple ‘sorry’s when he starts to complain about the change in position.
you all but float to the kitchen, heading straight for the fridge and spotting the fresh cans of coke placed neatly in the overcrowded appliance. the first gulp feels like heaven against your parched throat, taking a few more while standing there.
“you gonna share or no?”, a voice startles you, turning to find haechan’s figure looming right behind you with a dopey smile on his face.
“god, we need to get you a bell or something. i never hear you coming”, you roll your eyes before grabbing two glasses from the cabinet. you’re disappointed to see that there was no ice in their freezer, but you pour the drink into the glass anyway.
“why are you pouring it into a glass?”, haechan furrows his eyebrows, looking pointedly between the glass and the literal can in your hand. “now we have to wash two glasses when we could’ve just drank it from the can.”
he’s right, of course, but you’re not gonna tell him that. instead, you pretend that you were planning on adding some lemon juice to the drink because you saw it on instagram. while you figure he doesn’t believe you, he humours you anyway and tries your little concoction, which ends up being pretty damn good.
out of all of jeno’s friends, haechan definitely stood out to you. you didn’t really understand why, you were just drawn to him, even way back before you met him, when jeno used to tell you about his friends. “loud and annoying” were the words he used to describe him, but the smile that appeared on his face anyway let you know that he was someone special to jeno. this was not to say his other friends weren’t special, you got along incredibly well with all of them, meshing right in with their group.
as of right on cue, jaemin’s voice loudly sounds out from the living room, “are you guys fucking in there or what?”.
sighing, you pick up your glass and begin to walk out of the kitchen, but not before purposely knocking haechan’s shoulder when you walk past him, hearing him snort before following you out as you exit the room. perhaps if you had lingered in the kitchen for a couple seconds longer, you would’ve heard haechan muttering something along the lines of “i wish” under his breath.
“jeez, took you long enough, can i have some of that?”, renjun drawls, lifting himself off the armchair with a smile, to which you roll your eyes but pass him your glass anyway. you sit down on the floor opposite the couch and he looks as if he is about to compliment your drink-making skills before haechan cuts him off.
“dude, chaewon and sieun look like they’re about to fall asleep, let’s do something”, he half yawns out, opting to stroll over to your spot on the floor and sinking down next to you.
“not…sleepy…”, chaewon murmurs, but her voice is muffled because her cheek is pressed against sieun’s shoulder, both of them sprawled out on the floor like it was a comfortable bed.
“sure you aren’t…”, jeno chides with a smile, getting up from the table to walk over to where all of you were situated. he twirls his newly rolled joint between his fingers, finally holding it out in his palm as if it were some magical gadget, and if you were being fully honest, you were sold. “round 2? or 3, I can’t really remember…”
some words of agreement were muttered across the room, chaewon and sieun even groggily getting up from what looked like a very comfortable napping spot. another rotation began, and you made sure to blow out your smoke directly into an unsuspecting haechan’s face when it was your turn.
“let’s play a game or something”, jaemin suggests, taking a long puff and passing it to jeno who sat beside him, and soon the room was hazy once again, the smell of weed infiltrating your nostrils.
“like what?”, chaewon coughs weakly in between her hit and renjun pats her back before he hands her your coke that you hadn’t received back after you gave it to him. so long for that.
“monopoly?”, jeno offers with a shrug and haechan lets out an obnoxious snore as a reply, making you laugh but you cover it up with a cough when you meet jeno’s playfully narrowed eyes. “okay then, big guy, what’s your incredible idea?”
haechan appears to actually think about it for a moment, looking around the room for some sort of inspiration maybe, until his eyes land on you.
“okay jaemin, get that empty wine bottle from last week, we’re playing spin the bottle”, he is grinning from ear to ear, wiggling his eyebrows even though all his suggestion receives is a bunch of groans and sighs.
your eyebrows are raised however, and you try not to let your reaction show too much on your face. spin the bottle? you hadn’t played that since you were maybe fourteen, but that was the least of your concerns at the moment. haechan wanted to play spin the bottle? who was he hoping to kiss? or was it just a whimsical little suggestion that was more of a joke?
it didn’t fully seem like he meant it as a joke, judging by his expression as he awaited some actual responses from the group. “what are we, fourteen?”, renjun might as well have read your mind, but he soon joins you and haechan on the floor, the others following suit. jaemin presents the empty bottle and places it in the middle of the little circle you have formed, everyone seeming slightly more keen as the joint runs out.
maybe it was the thc talking, but it didn’t really seem like a bad idea to you anymore. you were all single, attractive and close enough that it wouldn’t make things weird, and most importantly, you wouldn’t mind getting more familiar with haechan’s lips.
you shocked your own self with the sudden lewd thoughts in your head about the male sitting next to you, squirming in your position slightly. he turns his head towards you like he could hear your thoughts (“shut up, y/n, he can’t hear your thoughts…right?”) and you swear his eyes soften a bit. “are you sure you wanna play?”, he asks softly, mistaking your tenseness for discomfort, but you shake your head a little too quickly for your liking.
“no, no, let’s play, it’s not like we have anything better to do, right?”, you feign indifference and after everyone else agrees, the bottle is spun for the first time by haechan.
much to renjun’s dismay, it lands on him, and it’s almost comical the way he looks at the bottle pointing at him before slowly looking up at haechan. “renjunnie, let me kiss you”, haechan whines in a high pitched tone while drawing out the “you”, puckering his lips expectantly. the next three minutes consist of renjun listing every single person he would rather kiss than haechan, and you’d have half the mind to volunteer yourself if you weren’t clutching at your sides laughing at the whole exchange, slapping at both jeno and sieun who tried and failed to dodge your waving hands.
renjun finally relents when chaewon suggests he lets him kiss his cheek instead, but haechan is no quitter so he makes sure that he plants the loudest, most wet kiss on his face before sighing in victory when he sits back down. renjun is not the most happy with this, and he tells jaemin to take his turn instead while he rushes off to the bathroom to wash his face. hyuck looks indignant, calling out behind renjun, asking if he wants another one.
taking the turn instead of renjun, jaemin spins the bottle harshly, and it spins and spins and spins for what seemed like an eternity. your eyes are so focused on the way the bottle looks as it spins that you don’t even notice that it has stopped, until jeno nudges you with his shoulder. it’s neck is pointed directly at you, and you finally look up from your trance at jaemin, who wears an undeniable smirk on his face.
while you didn’t exactly see him that way, there was absolutely no denying that jaemin was a very attractive man, and he was no different presently, the sleeves of his hoodie rolled up as he propped himself up with his arms, looking at you expectantly.
you don’t want to look at haechan right now, because you can see out of the corner of your eye that his face is looking straight forward, not at you or jaemin, just forward. you wonder what is going through his head, but your thoughts are cut short when jaemin scoots closer to you in the circle.
“are you okay with this?”
and when you think about, you are. “yeah, i mean it’s just a game”, you reply, not wanting to ruin the fun or raise any suspicions, to which jaemin agrees and inclines his head towards you.
he kisses you, more fully than you were expecting, but you had no complaints really as you kissed him back, titling your head in the opposite direction to slip your lips over his. you wonder if your lips were as dry as they felt, and in the back of your mind it registers that your friends are watching you kiss your other friend because they hoot and giggle, but you can’t really bring yourself to care.
jaemin’s lips taste sweet and he smells sweet, his touch soft as he brings a hand up to your cheek, gently holding it while he continues kissing you. it probably wasn’t as long as it felt, but jaemin finally pulls away, the remnants of his sweet chapstick lingering on your lips. you are aware of how hot your face feels when you pull away and return to your spot, tucking your hair behind your ears.
“dude, what chapstick do you use?”, you ask after clearing your throat, and jaemin rummages in his pant pocket for a moment before whipping out a cute pink tube, holding it out in front of him. “strawberry dream, baby”, he winks, reapplying it on his lips. “never go anywhere without it.”
renjun returns after god knows how long, stating that he had to re-do his skin care routine because haechan had completely thrown off his skin’s ph balance, and is saddened to hear that he missed witnessing you and jaemin.
the game continues in a steadfast manner for the next couple of rounds thanks to haechan insisting we play one more round, though it doesn’t exactly go in the manner you were hoping for. the group is practically in tears after watching jeno and jaemin share an awkward kiss, chaewon arguing that they can’t claim “no homo” because it was the most homo thing she’d seen in a while, and that was saying a lot because she was, in fact, gay.
you have now kissed sieun, jaemin once again and an especially endearing renjun, who’s cheeks and tips of his ears are painted a bright red after you plant a full peck on his waiting lips. haechan grumbles something about renjun not having kissed anyone besides his mom to explain his reaction, but jeno is quick to cut renjun off before another argument ensues.
“i don’t know about you guys, but i think that’s enough exchanging of saliva for one day”, he all but sighs, lying down on the floor dramatically. while you do agree, you’re disheartened, because not once has the bottle landed on you when spun by haechan, or the other way around. it feels like the universe is fucking with you, because really how many times can you spin a bottle between a group of seven people and not have it land on the one person you want to kiss even once.
haechan looks like he wants to say something, but appears to decide against it in the end, stretching and standing up. it is then mutually agreed by everyone that it was time to watch a movie.
“super bad?”, jaemin proposes, and even though most people had already watched the movie, no one argues against it and jeno starts setting up the movie on their big screen tv.
settling into the couch, you glance over at haechan and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t feeling a tad bit disappointed. this whole spin the bottle thing makes you wonder about all the other times where you could have had an opportunity to make a move on the brown-haired boy.
you’d gone on long drives together, gone partying, even drank with just each other a couple of times. the closest the two of you had ever come to crossing that line was while you where dancing at a party and his arms were looped around your waist from behind, slowly swaying to the beat. you’d danced with him tons of times before that but you recall thinking the air was a little different than normal, more heated, but you also recall mistaking renjun for your professor, so you didn’t trust yourself. the moment came and went, and neither of you ever had the balls to address it, and now it had been way too long since to bring it up.
“this seat taken?”, haechan snaps you out of your bitter thoughts, jerking his head towards the spot on the couch next to you. you clear your throat and shake your head, scooting over slightly so he could sink down next to you. “what’s up, y/n, you look a little…not present. you still high?”
it’s funny because your mind certainly wasn’t present, it was in the gutter, but you choose to blame the weed. “yeah, i’m still high”, you answered truthfully, and so was he, his red, hooded eyes a dead giveaway.
“okay, perfect, i wanted to show you this stupid tiktok i saw”, he’s pulling his phone out of his pocket and leaning closer to you to show you some video of a cat, or maybe a dog, you weren’t paying attention. he laughs at whatever the animal did, the corner of his eyes crinkling as he does so, and you observe him instead of watching. when he doesn’t hear you laugh, he peeks over at you but you’re quick to turn your head back to his phone, letting out a very late giggle at the video.
if he did catch you, he doesn’t mention it, continuing to scroll and show you more videos. jeno finally gets the movie set up and turns off the lights, taking up the final seat left on the couch. the movie begins, and everyone falls into a comfortable silence bar hyuck, who makes the occasional comment that earns him a snort from you each time.
at some point during the movie, haechan stretches his arms out behind him, placing his arm on the head of the couch directly behind you. glancing at him quickly, you can’t tell whether the action was purposeful or not, because if it was, he was doing a very good job of looking nonchalant. you try your best to ignore it, but his hand is resting directly above your shoulder, inches away from touching you- but it never does.
you had never noticed what nice hands haechan had before. long and slender, nails clipped short and clean, his middle, ring and index finger adorned with various silver rings. you note that he wears three rings on his left hand, but none on his right. his right hand sits on top of one of his thighs, two of his fingers drumming against it following some rhythm going on in his head. his fingers are long, and the only thing you can think about is just how nice they would feel inside–
no, no, no, stop it, since when are you this horny?
you realise stressing out about how horny you are all of a sudden is just going to lead to a bad trip and you don’t want that, and you want to clear your head. even though you’re feeling a different kind of thirsty, you figure a distraction for a couple minutes would be helpful, so you excuse yourself to go get some water, jumping up from the couch and walking towards the kitchen. unbeknownst to you, haechan’s watchful eyes follow your figure as you exit the room.
finally away and in the kitchen, you fill up a glass and lean over the sink, closing your eyes to collect yourself. you can finish the movie without driving yourself crazy over haechan, right? tonight is no different than any other hangout and you don’t want to weird haechan out with your unnecessary staring and poorly concealed thirsting. you just need to stop thinking about his stupid hands, his stupid thighs, his stupid hair and his stupid kissable lips. “kissable? lock in, y/n, lock in…”
“who are you talking to?”
you wince but don’t turn around, eyes screwed shut tightly. you’ve been gone for a couple minutes and you don’t know when he left the room, but you put down the glass and turn to face him.
“what’s got you so jumpy?”, he questions, leaning against the counter. his arms are folded and his gaze is piercing, face tilted slightly to the left as he observes you. this is the second time he’s startled you in the kitchen today and also happens to be the very reason you’ve been so jumpy.
“nothing, i just…god, you need to starting announcing your entry into a room, dude…”
he furrows his eyebrows but lets out a chuckle anyway, slowly sauntering over to where you stood. eyes never leaving yours, he now stands directly in front of you, caging you in between the sink and his body. the closer proximity and dim lighting isn’t helping your case in the slightest, feeling all hot and bothered as if there was a sudden change in temperature. “what’s happening? you’re usually never like this, we’ve smoked up together so many times. are you having a bad trip?”
you understand why he might think that, what with your jerky movements, dazed staring and just overall disconnected demeanour. while you were wound up a little tighter than usual, you weren’t having a bad trip, your mind was just very slightly preoccupied. “no, hyuck, i’m fine, i just…needed some water”, it’s a half-lie you tell, choosing to not tell him the full truth for the sake of your own pride.
“you just seem…off”, he seems to pick his words carefully, eyes roaming over the expanse of your face. “no, i just…”, you trail off to try and find the words to explain this situation away, but he’s just looking at you so intensely. it’s so silent in the room and the air feels all too still, and you swear you’re trying to speak coherently but haechan switches his weight to his other leg, wetting his lips with his tongue while he awaits an answer and you just freeze. “i…”
“‘i’ what? see? you’re doing it again”, he starts, running a hand through his hair, and the muted light that leaks in through the window illuminates only one half of his face, but you can see him so clearly that even the way his pretty eyelashes brush against his cheek when he blinks doesn’t go unnoticed by you. you’re subconsciously chewing on your bottom lip, feeling a little like a deer caught in headlights. “you have this look in your eye. like you wanna…”
“…what?”
everything is still and unmoving, until your eyes zero in on haechan’s hand as he raises it, slowly bringing it to graze his fingers over your cheek. his touch leaves a burning hot trail on your skin and using his thumb, he releases your bottom lip from under your teeth, hand lingering cautiously for a fleeting moment before he drops it.
“like what, haechan?”, you repeat yourself, urging him to just say whatever it is he has to say, getting tired of this back and forth. you could sell a kidney just to see what was going on in his mind right now, because he looks torn between speaking his mind and just staying silent.
“like you want to kiss me.”
a few beats of complete and utter silence pass, not even hearing the dull sound of the television in the living room anymore over the thudding of your heart in your ears. haechan takes a small and tentative step towards your frozen figure, gripping the counter you’re using to lean against with his right hand, effectively trapping you in your place. now you really are a deer caught in headlights, because he’s spoken what you’ve been thinking about for the past couple hours into existence and he is absolutely correct.
“am i wrong, pretty?”
judging by your sharp intake of breath and open-mouthed expression, you’d have to be a fool to think otherwise. he looks as if he’s waiting for you to answer him regardless, giving you a chance to get out of this, but your voice is no longer functioning, and it takes all the strength in your body to shake your head ‘no’.
his eyes flicker between your eyes and your lips, tongue peeking out to lick his lips again. “i suggested playing spin the bottle because i wanted to kiss you”, his voice is strained as he admits this, quiet and careful like he’s holding back while his eyes are trained on yours like he’s daring you to break eye contact. you don’t. “but then everyone else was kissing you but me.”
normally you would giggle at his little frown, but all you can muster up is a whisper of his name, finally breaking his all-consuming eye contact in favour of looking at his lips again. you don’t know who moves first, but the next thing you know is your lips are pressed together in a fierce kiss, your hands tangled in his soft, brown locks while he grip your waist and pull you into him.
he kisses you like a man starved and you do the same with equal fervour, not even being able to process that your little daydream is coming true. his hand comes up to caress your cheek, soon moving down your neck after stroking your face softly, using it to tilt your head for you. the position of his hand is very purposeful because his thumb presses into your throat ever so slightly, but his grip is still tight enough that you couldn’t break the kiss (not that you wanted to, anyway). the other hand snakes around your waist and pulls you impossibly closer, pressing his hips into yours.
you’re positively drunk off the feeling of haechan’s lips molding over yours and you think you might just ascend when he tugs on your bottom lip with his teeth, using the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. body on fire, you mewl against his lips, swirling your own tongue around his while he slowly but surely bucks his hips into yours.
no wards are spoken while your hands thread through his hair, pulling on it and letting out a sound of surprise into his mouth when his hand trails down to your ass and grips it harshly. he finally releases you from the searing kiss, but he doesn’t let you catch your breath, instead spinning you around in his hold so that his front presses tightly into your back, hands slipping around your waist from behind. this feels like a déjà vu kind of moment because you are reminded of the time when you both were dancing in this exact position, except this time you were getting exactly what you wanted.
“you know how bad i wanted this?”, his voice echoes your thoughts and breaks the silence, hands running up and down your front in a teasing manner. lifting your shirt up slightly, he trails his fingers over the exposed skin of your torso and the action makes you squirm in his hold a little, and much to your surprise, he groans lewdly against your ear. “fuck, i’ve been thinking of this for so long. kissing you, having my hands all over you…”
you get the sense he’s talking more to himself than you, but you revel in it nonetheless. his hand grips your jaw and squishes your cheeks together so your lips form a pout, forcing it to the side where he plants one, two, three kisses to your puckered mouth. his other hand slips further up your shirt where he brazenly cups your boob through your bra, fondling one of them while his tongue peeks out to flick at your bottom lip.
you’re putty in his arms, all gasps and squirms and whispered ‘haechan’s. “what, baby?”, he mumbles into your cheek, the hand gripping your jaw letting go in order to slink down to your hip where it lingers for a moment. “what do you want?”
your lack of answer doesn’t bode well with him, earning you a tight squeeze to your hip as a kind of warning. “need you to touch me”, you whisper out defeatedly, and you feel haechan laugh mockingly against your face.
“yeah? need me to touch you?”, he mimics your voice while tutting, letting his hand slip further down to where you needed him the most, but not letting you have it just yet. “think you can be a good girl and keep quiet for me? we don’t need everyone outside hearing what a little slut you’re being in here.”
everyone outside. the fact that you were just a room away from all your friends who were sat watching a fun little movie together had completely slipped your mind, but if you were being honest, you couldn’t find it in you to give a shit. everything about your current disposition was so dirty. one hand under your shirt, the other about two seconds away from fingering you right in the middle of your friends’ kitchen, while said friends were sat outside, unaware of the goings-on under their own roof.
though you didn’t think actually getting caught in this position would be the most pleasant experience, the idea of it dampened your panties and caused you to whine out loud, tilting your head back against haechan’s shoulder. you receive an immediate hand clamped over your mouth in return, haechan tutting in your ear condescendingly. “looks like the little slut can’t follow a simple request.”
even though he reprimands you, his hands begin fumbling with the button of your jeans anyway, undoing it and pulling the zipper down. one hand comes up to wrap around your front and rests on your shoulder, holding you in place, and the other he sticks down your pants and cups your heat but makes no effort to move, chuckling when you try to move yourself against it. his crotch ruts against the swell of your ass and for you, any friction is better than no friction at the moment. with one hand gipping the arm around your shoulder, you slip the other behind you to palm at his hard cock over his pants, making him let out a sound of approval.
“please, hyuck”, you shake your face free of his hand and turn to look him in the eye, and he grips your throat and presses a chaste kiss to your lips.
he seems to accept your plea, finally moving his hand against you and you breathe a sigh of relief, lost in the feeling of his fingers rubbing circles on your clit over your wet underwear. he’s quick to slip his hand inside your panties, cold fingers pressed directly on to your bare pussy, spreading your wetness all over you. when he ultimately slips a finger into your tight, waiting core, you moan but it’s cut short when he slaps his hand over your mouth again. “keep. quiet.”
if someone were to walk in, the two of you would be a sight to see. you writhing in his tight hold while his hand is stuffed in your pants, two fingers pistoning in and out of you at a fast pace as his forehead is pressed against the side of your face, releasing short breaths. you look positively fucked out, and you’re both in a state of complete bliss as you grind against each other in a timely rhythm.
“my pretty girl. if i had known you wanted this too, i would’ve just grabbed you and kissed you like i wanted, in front of everyone.”
his voice is honey-like and sultry, and his fingers are nothing short of heavenly. they pump in and out of you, and he still manages to use his thumb to toy with your clit in this position, leaving you breathless and on the edge. “can’t believe jaemin and renjun got to kiss you before me.”
you’re so wet that your cunt makes downright sinful noises as he fingers you and you’re hoping that it isn’t really as loud as it seems. “you’re so wet, angel. so this is what had you all jumpy today”, he laughs like he’s stating the obvious, and you’d have half the mind to feel shy if his ministrations didn’t feel so fucking good right now.
you’re aware that you’re close and so is he because you’re clenching around his fingers, so he quickens his pace both inside you and against your clit. “you gonna cum for me, baby? right here, in the middle of kitchen, while everyone’s outside?”, he purrs against your face and you grip the part of his arm that isn’t shoved in your pants, digging your nails into his skin in a way that’s sure to leave a mark. his words make you feel dirty in the best way, not even knowing you could feel this turned on.
he peppers kisses along your jaw and neck, sucking here and there, and through the pale moonlight bleeding into the room from the window, the red blemishes that begin to bloom on your skin are visible to hyuck, and he seems pleased with his artwork. “that’s it, sweetheart, let go for me.”
your moans are muffled against his palm when you finally come, the orgasm ripping through you so strongly that you go limp in his hands, legs almost buckling at the sensation. with the added boost of the weed you smoked earlier, your orgasm is immense, feeling it pulse through your body until it’s too much, whining and wriggling in haechan’s firm hold. he holds you still and helps you ride out your high, whispering utterances of “that’s right, baby” and “my good girl” into your ear while you throw your head back and try to regulate your breathing.
in a moment, his hand slips out of your pants, turning you back around so you’re now facing him, grinning down at you from ear to ear as if you both hadn’t just defiled jaemin and jeno’s kitchen. “you feeling okay?”, he mumbles, tucking your hair behind your ear with the hand that wasn’t soaked, pressing a number of kisses all over your face as you nod and giggled, trying to evade his attack. he lets you go just to wash his hands, and it’s when he dries his wet hands on the material of his pants that you notice his raging boner, immediately feeling bad.
“wait hyuck, let me–“
as if he’s reading your mind once again, he shakes his head and takes both of your hands into his, wrapping them around his own waist while pulling you into him. “we can save that for another time, pretty”, he insists, his expression turning shy when he realises the implications behind his words. “that is, i-if you want another time, of course–“
it’s your turn to cut him off this time, but you do so by leaning up and connecting your lips again, bring a hand up to stroke his cheek. “of course i want another time, hyuck. i want this. i want you.”
your assurances do good to bring a smile to his pretty face, taking ahold of the hand on his cheek and pressing his lips to your skin gently, lovingly. “so, so, perfect.”
taking note of the prolonged amount of time the two of you had been gone, you skulk back into the living, but this time, hand in hand.
the scene you’re greeted with is a surprising one, because you find every single one of your friends to be sound asleep, much to your amusement and hyuck’s dismay. “so you’re telling me i could’ve been hearing you moan the whole time and none of these idiots would have even known?”, he is appalled, a hand coming up to rub at his face out of frustration. “i did all that for nothing?”
“i wouldn’t say for nothing”, you reveal, biting your lip and smiling up at the boy shyly. “i might have woken them up.”
“oh yeah, well now you’re going to”, and with that, he’s dragging you back to the kitchen while you giggle, nearly tripping over your own feet before he all but scoops you up in his arms, muttering to himself about having left something in the kitchen that needed urgent fetching.
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Hi! I'm very interested in attempting to write a disabled character (not for this blog, I assure, for an book I'm writing) in which the story doesn't fetishize/objectify her prosthetic limb. I'm in many writing circles and have been for a long while, but I've never seen this issue brought to light which I realise is a very important one. I have much to change in my thought process, and thank you for bringing this issue to attention.
I'm curious, and I apologise if this has been asked before, but what sort of design could you see for a functional prosthetic that doesn't go for a plainly aesthetic appearance, or is soully to please others? I do note that you said prosthetics are generally... not that helpful. So is there a way that it could be? Or do you think it would always generally be better to not use a prosthetic, as its mostly for aesthetic purposes, as you said?
I apologise if this ask is too outright or anything, and I don't mean to intrude. Thank you for your time and have a beautiful day!
okay, i want to answer this as in depth as possible, because whenever i talk about having a prosthesis, someone will always tag some variation of "#writing reference" and i do wonder what message they're taking away, and i want to get as much of my experience out as possible to maybe help shape how this is all portrayed in the future. and yeah… this is gonna be one of those rambly smg posts that the expand feature was invented for, so i'll start with the very abridged TL;DR:
if you're writing a character with an upper limb prosthesis; don't. arm amputees are unicorn level rare even compared to leg amputees, and i've never interacted with or even heard of an upper limb amputee that regularly uses a prosthesis, let alone relies on one. fiction has lied to you for the sake of cool aesthetics, don't repeat the cycle. more in depth writing advice including nuance and "but i waaaant to" will follow.
that said, grab your donning parachute and let's get started...
context for everyone involved: i am an upper limb amputee that rants a lot about how prostheses suck, i lost my right hand roughly five years ago at roughly the age of 30 after a very rough decline in health… it was pretty rough. this question is being asked in the context of a previous rant post of mine, and i checked that the ask is about an upper limb prosthesis in particular.
the situation regarding the usefulness of lower limb prostheses is totally different; i am definitely no expert, but by all accounts, prosthetic legs are incredibly useful for many people. getting a good leg can be absolutely life changing and more or less necessary for day to day life for some; mostly because infrastructure and society is just so fucking hostile to wheelchair users. being able to walk - at the cost of pressure sores and rashes and increased residual limb pain - is a preferable option to many people than being unable to fit through a doorway or in a bathroom stall or find out that the key to unlock the only elevator is in the admin office up three flights of stairs (true story).
but upper limb prostheses… see, the thing is, hands are incredibly complex organs that rely on a lot of immediate haptic feedback to work at all. hand dexterity is all about control, you need fine granular movements of the digits yes, but you also need the subtle sensations of pressure and proprioception in order to adjust your movements on the fly. i speak from experience, in the years leading up to the full loss of my hand, i was slowly losing function of it, usually swinging between numbness that made it clumsy at best, or screaming overstimulation from moving it at all resulting in unpredictable spasms… and let me tell you, a half working hand is infuriating to try and deal with. you can never know if you have a good grip on something or if it's slipping because of the wrong amount of pressure, and there's only so many smashed bottles of pickles on the floor before you give up using it all together… so amputation wasn't a great loss there, i had time to adapt.
a prosthetic hand of any kind has all of those issues and more. they're heavy and bulky, the cosmetic faux fingers or gripping claw have crude movement at best, and there's zero feedback (put a pin in this). 100% of the time you're using a prosthetic hand you have to keep your eyes on the grip and visually guesstimate whether or not the thing you're carrying is held tight enough but not too tight, that is if your "heavy duty" prosthesis can even support the weight without the servos disengaging or the wrist attachment socket just busting loose. i dropped a whippersnipper on my foot last week when my socket couldn't take the weight and i think that was the final straw in me desperately trying to prove to myself that there is a single task my prosthesis actually helps with.
this is usually where fully two handed people start talking about bleeding edge DARPA tech, and how we just need to invest more,research more, develop more. better tech, more tech, neural integration, more more more. okay i promise the writing advice is coming! for starters on tech, my experience is already with a mid-to-high end ottobock terminal device: i've got a myoelectric nerve-signal operated proportional control heavy duty greifer; about the only upgrade left for me to get would be a rotating wrist joint if i could coflex. it's not military, it's not "rockclimber that owns a prosthetic company", but it's quality tech. it still fucking sucks. secondly, that high level military tech exists primary for PR purposes so they can say they treat their discarded casualties well, "we can rebuild him, we have the technology" style. every war vet i've read about or heard from that's been gifted that high level tech also abandons it for the same reasons; it's imprecise, there's no feedback (or the haptic interface has to be fully recalibrated every time they put it on), but mostly they're more capable without one.
okay, the transhumanist ableds say (i should know, i used to be one), what if we did more ~research and development~ and got that neural feedback working? then we could have fireproof superhumanly strong robot arms to fix up everyone! here's where i take out that pin we put up before and i tell you that a class of prosthetic arms/hands already exists that has perfect proportional control, fine motor control, and physics perfect pressure feedback piped directly into the patients' existing sensory systems! they're called body-powered prostheses, and they were invented in like the 1600s. you strap a whole bunch of stuff to your arm and shoulders shoulders, and control the operation of the terminal device and elbow through cable tension by flexing your shoulders. they do take a considerable amount of training to operate - though hell i spent 18 months training to use my myo - but based on everything i've read, body-powered prostheses are the best option if you're an upper limb amputee and absolutely need a second hand for some reason.
but they don't look cool and futuristic, and according to my prosthetist, most people give up on using them too. we all give up on our prostheses, no matter the type. my rehab OT was impressed i lasted the 18 months of my training. towards the end, they even asked if the clinic director could drop in to one of my sessions to see my progress; he expressed genuine amazement at me casually using my bulky robot claw to use a brush and dustpan, and made an offhanded (hah) comment about what someone can achieve "if they stick it out to the end", implying it was somewhat of a rarity for me to have done so. several years on, and yesterday i wedged the dustpan between my ankles to sweep up into it, awkward but exponentially less effort than putting my dusty robot arm on. which, by the way, is a whole thing. look up some videos, they're all awful to don. i don't actually know the official technical name of what my clinic calls a "parachute" but it's a bitch to use! have you ever tried to pull back with your arm whilst also pushing it forwards at the same time, and simultaneously lean in to and away from an external force pulling on you? that's how you get a myo socket on.
bare with me, i promise writing advice is coming, and i promise it's more than the tl;dr. but. remember when i said a half working hand is infuriating to deal with? any prosthesis, from fancy myo tech to pirate-era body powered, will only ever be half as good as a working hand, and being juuuust within capability to do something but not quite able to is maddening! but you know what works way better than a half working hand? no hand at all. using whatever residual/vestigial limb you have - whatever "stump" you have, i hate that word - is pretty much always better than trying to use a prosthesis. i can use the inside of my elbow to grip and carry things, i can use the nub of my arm to apply pressure to hold things, open doors, use a computer mouse, turn on taps and lights, if i put a glove over it i can use it to prep for cooking. i have full proprioception and pressure feedback with skin contact, i don't think i've ever dropped and broken anything from my elbow, unlike countless things slipped from my greifer - which, by the way, absolutely will start clenching as tight as it can if i get even slightly too sweaty around the electrodes, which has both broken things i'm holding and also injured me, because surprise surprise but servo operated robot claws have pinch points on them right near the "emergency disengage" lever for some reason!
but i am exponentially more capable without it on than with it. no, i'm not fully independent, i rely on housemates and loved ones to help me out with some tasks that simply just need two handed dexterity, but none of those tasks are things a prosthesis makes me able to do anyway. i used to imagine my prosthesis would be like a bra; a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but i'd wear it throughout the day because it's helpful and take it off in the evening to decompress. in reality it's actually exactly like a bra: an absolute bitch to put on one handed, unbearably uncomfortable because it never sits right, ugly af unless you're a millionaire, and absolutely useless except for the fact that i get gawked at and judged by strangers if i leave the house without it on.
and if you really want to discover how far "no hand is better than a half working hand" goes, brace yourself, and look up the patient's stories (not medical system stories) of people that have had hand transplants. the first man to receive one hated it, he was promised a return to normal function, and what he got was a nightmare worse than being one handed; he wanted it removed again but the doctors refused because it would undermine their grand achievement of the first hand transplant. the doctors and society wanted him to be fixed, they wanted him to be normal, they wanted him to be abled. they failed. they made him less able to do things, denied his autonomy, and left him with someone else's hand slowly rotting on him, prioritising the idea of "scientific progress" and "two hands good" over the physical health, mental health, and ability to function of this man.
he's not alone; every story from the patients' perspective about hand transplants that i've read goes this way, including a woman who was born quad limb different and was promised hands would improve her life, pressured into a double hand transplant, only to find herself after the surgery essentially experiencing disability for the first time ever, because she had lived her whole life getting by just fine with her 'underdeveloped' limbs, but half working hands are worse than useless. you can try to find these stories yourself, but i'm not going looking for sources on any of these cases, because if you look back through enough of my posts you'll get a glimpse of the horrors and abuses that i too was put through by doctors who prioritised trying to "fix" me at any cost, rather than providing me the best quality of life, and in turn traumatised me and left me more broken than any loss of limb on its own could. dear goddess, i promise the writing advice is coming.
so. why do upper limb prostheses exist at all? if they're so terrible and useless, what is their function? i want to borrow something someone else left in the tags of a previous rant here, from someone who i believe works in prosthetics and/or rehab, cleaned up and anonymised at their request:
"upper limb functions are wildly more complex than: 1) bear weight static, and 2) bear weight moving.
but every single upper limb amputee i know has a fancy expensive prosthetic just gathering dust in the closet because there is literally nothing it can do like a few years of adjustment and if needed non-dominant hand retraining can't do.
the existence of forquarter prosthetics to begin with is just kind of silly and useless and entirely to make OTHER people feel comfortable, especially considering they universally are UNcomfortable for the amputee.
i hate the notion that as soon as you get the amputation the prosthetic is The Thing That Will Fix You And Make You Feel Normal again because it universally isn't!
but every forequarter person i know had like this ideal of Being Fixed By Magic Prosthetic that they were then obviously wildly disappointed by and had to do yet another grieving process with, versus if the dominant narrative were just one of: yeah. it'll take time, there is no magic fix."
and i think that really nails down what the actual purpose of upper limb prostheses is: they're not for the user, they're for the sake of other people. and not just their comfort when looking at our bodies, although based on the pressure for both amputees and people born limb different to get functionless cosmetic plastic hands, there is a lot of that. but it's not just that.
i fully believe that the reason prosthetic hands exists is to comfort the fears of the two handed. "don't worry", they say, "we can fix you again. you don't have to fear becoming Disabled, you don't have to worry about adapting or your life changing. we can make you Normal™ again."
you would not believe the number of people that have approached me to shower me with pity, to tell me how horrific my life is, how they can't imagine it. people have told me, apropos of nothing, that they'd kill themselves if they lost a hand. indirectly, that my life isn't worth living. unless, of course, i happen to be wearing my cool as fuck looking robot prosthesis! then they tell me how wonderful it is, how lucky i am, how glad they are that we have the technology to fix me. that's what a prosthetic hand says, what all the happy fishing photos on limbs4life posters at the rehab clinic say: don't worry, we can fix you. that's what the bleeding edge DARPA flexi-whatever fully articulated neuro-feedback hands say: don't worry if you get IED'd while hunting civilians for us to drone bomb, if you get hurt, we will fix you, we will fix the fuck out of you, we will motherfucking adam jensen you into a cool as fuck cyborg that your son will idolise; come on boys, don't you wanna enlist just for the chance at being as cool as this? join the bomb squad for a ticket to the upgrade lottery.
and so we arrive at fiction. as much as his dialogue options protest, adam jensen loves his robot arms, they punch through walls, turn into fucking swords! they make him the most special man in the world. what would he do without them? learn to cope? grieve? practice acceptance? take up poetry? just, be disabled? there's no power fantasy for ableds in that.
in fact, can you think of a single fictional character that's an upper limb amputee that's, well, just an amputee? they all have robot arms. not realistic prostheses, not medical devices; robot arms. sleek or bulky, top of the line or broken down self built, steampunk or nanomachines or magitech automail; they're never without them. never just an amputee. never born limb different either! there's always that element of tragedy to overcome, always suffering and misery porn, always focus on the pain and the helplessness without the absolutely vital robot arm that makes them Normal and Whole. the closest amputee example i can think of is furiosa from mad max, who iirc fucking punches max in the face with her residual limb like a motherfucking badass! i can barely lean on mine wrong and she punches a guy! but she still apparently needs a dieselpunk robot hand to drive a truck, something you can do one handed so easily most drivers don't even notice they're doing it! please don't, by the way
and so many disabled fans love to point to robot armed characters as disability representation; the winter soldier, luke skywalker, edward elric, misty knight, that genderswapped furry girl from ratchet and clank, jet cowboybebop, finn the human, and yes, adam jensen…. these are all characters that someone disabled i know has told me they love because they "represent disabled bodies"…. and i know nobody wants to hear this, because i've been screamed at for saying it before, but… they do not. they are not disabled, functionally or within fiction. they are either perfectly able bodied Normal people with chrome paint on an arm, or tortured misery porn we are supposed to pity and feel lucky we're not them. sometimes both!
also you ever notice how it's basically always arms? lower limb amputations are orders of magnitude more common than upper, my prosthetist said i was probably only the 4th or 5th upper limb she'd worked with in her career, with literally hundreds of lower limb fits. but fiction doesn't seem to reflect that, huh? or any other part of the reality of disability. it's always cool as fuck robot arms, never cool as fuck wheelchairs or crutches or dialysis machines or colostomy bags. a fair few "i was blind but now i can see with Robot Eyes and also infrared and xray" around, which again, plays into that "we can fix you and make you cooler" propaganda.
by the way, up above when i was describing body powered arms, if you wondered to yourself why i went with a myoelectric one instead when i clearly believe body powered is better… yeah. i am not immune to propaganda! i too wanted to be cool as fuck. i spent years with deteriorating function in my hand for reasons that are still unknown, was misdiagnosed and medically neglected to the point that removing my hand seemed to be the only option left to offer some relief, and even that was a clusterfuck that left me worse than ever… of course i wanted to believe in the power and prestige of a cool robot arm that fiction promised me.
but fiction promises fantastical lies. and so.
we get to the writing advice portion of the novella that is this post. you asked for advice on how to write a disabled character with an upper limb prosthesis. you've read the tl;dr, you've read everything above i assume, you know i don't want you to do it. the obvious twist is that it's been writing advice all along, me trying to share my perspective on what it's like being an amp with a robot arm and how shitty it is, implying how almost any fully realised and realistic character that's missing an upper limb would give up on a prosthesis at all. you can already tell that every value judgement in me says "don't give her a prosthesis, no matter how functional or cool you make it. don't try to make the tech better to justify it, just let her be one armed, one handed. just let her be disabled, but not helpless. let her show off her elbow or underarm carry strength. let her love interest appreciate how soft and squishy her residual limb is in a moment of tenderness. let her natural disabled body be respected and valued."
but that's a personal value judgement from me, and you are the author of your own work. i know it's trite to say, but you are! even the act of deferring to someone with lived experience in the hope of doing a better job at representation is a value judgement, a good choice in my opinion, but one you needn't necessarily take. maybe you do want to write a character that has a cool as fuck unrealistic robot arm as a power fantasy, or a comfort blanket… i did.
i've been slowly writing my own probably terrible scifi epic for over a decade now, and when my arm was giving me hell back then, i'd take great comfort in this fantasy of my protagonist with her chunky robot arm, the terrible traumatic suffering of her loss, overcoming, the power and ability her advanced prosthesis gives her over others, that she alone has access to, because others are not willing to make the sacrifices required. inspiration porn. awful stuff to me now, but empowering to me then. as i grew and gained direct experience, i slowly reimagined her, rewrote her, ship of theseus'd her into an entirely new character; a reflection of me now, bitter at the whole thing, spiteful that her natural flesh arm evokes fear and distrust, but unwilling to suffer the pain and frustration of her unnatural prosthesis just to make others comfortable and respect her as "whole", however artificial that whole is. and as with the ship of theseus being two ships, once i realised the transformation, i re-added the old protagonist back in whole cloth as a separate character; proud of her robot arm and its power, but in new context, as a foil and antagonist, an in-universe military prosthesis propaganda figure to reflect how i now feel characters like her exist to us, the readers.
i'm not just sharing that as egotistical self promotion, but to highlight that, even if i sit here begging you all up and down not to write characters with robot arms for how bad and unrealistic they are; there's still something genuine and true that their inclusion can say. the great thing about the story that you're writing is that only you can write it, as they say. but i whole heartedly believe that to write to your best, you have to be aware of what you're writing and why. as tempting as it is to feel these characters form naturally in us and therefore we're averse to changing traits about them that feel organic and self evident; as authors we have omnipotent control over the text, every trait and detail is a reflection on us, so we'd sure as hell better understand why we're choosing to write a character with this trait. because anything you write without being aware of intent will take on its own meaning in the space between.
and on that note, if i don't say this, i'm leaving it to be inferred: i definitely don't want to appear to come down on the side of saying "you cannot write an amputee unless you are one", because we are rarer than single young bisexual unicorns! and it would be a tragedy if anyone read through all this and then turned away in fear, deciding to never write an amputee character (with or without robot arm) because they feel they can't do it justice… believe me, no matter what anyone says, some hack writer somewhere is going to keep writing adam jensens and winter soldiers. don't let them be the only voices in fiction! just try to do your best.
so my ultimate advice on the topic of writing a character with a prosthetic limb is to ask yourself one question in two different frameworks, and meditate on what you feel the answer is:
why does she have a prosthesis?
from a doylelist perspective as the kids say, as an author with omnipotent control, why are you choosing to write about this topic? why are you choosing to give this trait to this character? what does it say about how you view ability and disability, what makes a person normal, and what our society values? will you let her be in her natural body? or will you give her a prosthesis, force her to wear it by authorial fiat, or author her a meaningful reason to choose to? if yes, be sure you know; why did you give her a prosthesis?
and from a wastonian perspective, diegetically, inside the story, why does she choose to wear a prosthesis? what does it say about her inner character, and how she interacts with the world? how does she feel about doing it, is she prideful and loves the attention she gets, or does she resent whatever necessitates its use? how do people in this world view ability and disability, what does this society value? and above all, whatever the answer to these questions, whether or not she uses a prosthesis or is badass without one, how does she deal with the eternal freezing cold that every amputee ever feels constantly in their residual limb and why does nobody make a heat pack that fits over a nub without drafty gaps???
i can't outright tell you how to write a good upper limb amputee, but if you at least know why you're writing one and for what purpose, you're on track to write the best character that you can. that's the best advice i can give… other than, like, this whole rambly mess.
and, as a reward for reading this far, please have a very blurry cryptid photo of my cat doing his old man sit:
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Advantages to being female ("AFAB").
Biological differences in being female are often discussed negatively in order to indicate our disadvantages and where and how we are exploited within patriarchal societies.
On Ovarit, there was a thread in which users shared some biological differences to being female that illuminated our strengths. While of course biological differences in males vs. females is directly rooted in reproductive evolutionary strategy (whether someone develops down a reproductive pathway geared towards an overall reproductive system that supports gestating life and creating larger ova vs. not) I thought I would share some examples of advantages not directly connected to childbirth and childbearing. This is not an exhaustive list.
We are more flexible than male people.
We have better stamina and endurance in some extreme long-distance sports in comparison to male people (such as in ultra-marathons).
Some animals (especially other mammals such as wolves, horses, cats, etc.) are instinctively threatened by males, even if they have never been harmed by them. This is not the case with women.
We have better immune systems and survive viruses better than male people.
We survive famines and epidemics overall better than male people.
We survive variations in temperature overall better than male people.
We have better sense of smell than men.
Our chromosomes provide us with extra protection against certain genetic diseases like hemophilia, and we have more genetic diversity.
We have better balance due to our center of gravity being lower, in our pelvis's, while males have their center of gravity in their torsos. This makes us naturally better at sports like rock-climbing, gymnastics, certain martial arts, etc.
"The male fetus is at greater risk of death or damage from almost all the obstetric catastrophes that can happen before birth.2 Perinatal brain damage,3 cerebral palsy,4 congenital deformities of the genitalia and limbs, premature birth, and stillbirth are commoner in boys,5 and by the time a boy is born he is on average developmentally some weeks behind his sister: “A newborn girl is the physiological equivalent of a 4 to 6 week old boy.”
Women and girls have better color perception than males.
Multiple orgasms.
We're biologically better suited to being astronauts and living in space (note: and this was discovered 15 years ago yet this work was never published)
Some articles (debatable on credibility) suggest that we are better able to withstand complete sensory deprivation for several hours in comparison to men, who were able to withstand complete sensory deprivation for minutes.
For unknown reasons, we do not experience the same percentage of macular degeneration that men do in space.
We have a different adrenaline response. Our hormone systems work differently and so we do not lose as much decision making ability and fine motor control as men do in a crisis, making us better snipers and pilots thanks to our reaction time.
We have better life expectancy overall.
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Tumblr Rules for Redditors
Hello, fellow redditors! Many people are trying to tell you rules about how to Tumblr properly. Many of them are wrong, or assholes, or both. I am also an asshole but I’m going to not be one for a minute to give you some advice:
“Reblog this or you’re a bad person” and any variation on that is a violation of intergalactic law. Don’t do it. Also, refuse to comply if someone else does it.
Generally, people can see what you reblog, but cannot see what you ‘like’. A like may seem like an upvote, but it is much less significant than one, since it doesn’t affect visibility in the slightest. A like will be visible both to the OP of the thread, and to the person whose reblog you put the like on. Like promiscuously! It feels good to get likes and there’s no downside. (Unless you are a space alien AKA influencer.)
Tumblr nominally has the ability to browse global tags (e.g. seeing the entire site’s posts and reblogs tagged #superwholock or #reddit exodus) and to search the site for things. No one uses them and they don’t really work.
You are probably less surprised by this than denizens of literally any other website on the internet, but there’s no algorithm here. Chronological order only. (If you’re using the search or global tags, they might have an algorithm, but if they do, it doesn’t work. We don’t know because we don’t use them.)
Anyone can have absolutely any conversation in the notes of your post that they like. This is how the website works. You are allowed to complain about it, but don’t expect anyone to humor you.
Many people have ‘DNI’ lists in their blog descriptions. This means ‘do not interact’ and indicates that they don’t want you to message them, reblog from them, reblog any posts they are OP of, or even, sometimes, ‘like’ their posts. It is good manners to respect these, if you know they exist, but in normal use you probably won’t look at blog descriptions very often so it is entirely okay to violate them by accident. (When the lists get very long, it becomes impractical to check whether you violate them. Generally, just skip it. You probably don’t want to interact with those people anyway.)
Notes on posts you start will go to you no matter how many intervening hops there are on the reblog chain. If you get a post with an enormous amount of notes, this can get overwhelming. Whatever the current incarnation of Xkit (basically RES for Tumblr except we’ve switched names and maintainers seven times) is, will have a setting to deal with this. If that’s insufficient, the suggested course of action is to reblog your OP to your own blog so that you have a copy for posterity’s sake, and then delete the OP. This silences the notes.
If you and another user both follow each other, you are ‘mutuals’. This makes it much easier to have conversations with each other, which is ordinarily sort of hard since everything is purely chronological. Frequently your mutuals are your friends; if not yet true, they may become your friends.
When you reblog things, you can write words both in the word part and in the tags, Modern tumblr norms are to write long rambling tags in full sentences rather than put words in the main body. Do not that only the first four tags in the list can be searched on. Unlike some other norms, violating this one and putting your response in the body of the reblog is not particularly rude. The worst it does is make a reblog chain long. Probably don’t reblog things and just say ��This.”, though.
If you want to search your blog, consider Siikr. Don’t overuse it, it’s one guy’s project.
Be verbose! This ain’t Twitter, no character limit. (Not even the really large character limit of a reddit comment.) Write a 3000-word story in a single reblog if you want, that sounds awesome. Use ‘read more’ if you do, though. Posts can be very long, one of our oldest memes is about this.
Infinite scroll is the default, but you can turn it off. Actually, check all the settings, many of them will improve your experience.
Everybody be excellent to each other!
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HOW AUTISM CAN INTERACT WITH A COMPLEX DISSOCIATIVE DISORDER
higher rates of introjection - this is something commonly spoken about in the online CDD community, meaning it is a shared experience even if there is little proper medical research on the topic. however, it has been observed that some autistic pwCDDs have more introject alters (specifically fictional introjects - sometimes called 'fictives') than their allistic counterparts. this may be due to hyperfixation on fictional media, or splitting alters sourced from special interests.
splitting due to overwhelm - meltdowns, shutdowns and other reactions to overstimulation in autistic people can lead to splitting new parts, as these situations can be highly stressful.
autistic traits differing per alter - since autism is a neurodevelopmental disability that affects the entire brain, every alter will have some variation of ASD. however, different alters may struggle with/experience different autistic traits! where one alter may struggle more with, say, language and communication skills, another alter may be more proficient in that area. however, the second alter may then struggle instead with a compulsive need for strict, unbroken routines. this is how the spectrum can present differently in different alters.
unpredictable social situations and the stress of social interaction can cause more switching - as social situations can be more stressful for autistics than our allistic counterparts, it should be noted that these can be triggers for rapid switching! we may rapid switch in order to find a part that is best suited to handle the situation, which can end in switching multiple times as a lot of autistic people struggle to cope in uncomfortable social situations, such as at school/work, during conflicts, or at events. (written with input from @kityenok; thank you!)
semi-verbality, verbal shutdown and abilities to communicate varying per alter - in autistics with variable ability to communicate, the proficiency at communication can vary between alters! in semi-verbal/semi-speaking pwCDDs, some alters may have a few more words than others, while others struggle more than the rest of the system. in autistics with frequent verbal shutdowns, there may be alters who rarely if ever experience speech loss, while there are others who are permanently in a state of verbal shutdown. the ability to communicate non-verbally (using body language, signing, or even using assistive technology and speech-to-text) can fluctuate, with certain alters being less effective at using these methods than others. (note: from what i have heard from non-verbal/non-speaking pwCDDs, all alters tend to lack mouth words. if this is inaccurate to your experience, feel free to share!)
of course, there are more ways that autism can influence and interact with alters in CDDs! if you would like to add to this list, feel free to do so. ^^
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blow off steam | Alexia Putellas x reader | part 1
summary: since Alexia got injured two weeks ago, it's obviously that she needs to blow off steam; so, after the umpteenth attempt by her to have your attention, you ask her to take control, to completely dominate you.
Warnings: dom!Alexia, sub!reader, kneel at Alexia's feet, Alexia' fingers that fuck reader's mouth while reader in kneeling in front of her, humping shoe, face slaps (three times), humiliations, degradations, use of pet names / slut, light jelaous!Alexia, dirty talk, praise, hair pulling.
words: 3131
Do not copy, translate or claim my works and fics as your own; if I find out I will report them and block you. Instead, write to me, my directs are always open, and ask me if you can publish your work/fic inspired by one of mine. However, you can reblog them!
Nb: English is not my first language and I’m not sure if it’s “blow off steam” or “blow of some steam”. I searched online but I didn’t understood, so I’m sorry if it’s wrong the way that I used
I turn off the TV interrupting the program that Ale is watching, the umpteenth trashy program.
Since she was injured two weeks ago, she has become unbearable.
She doesn't come to the field during training hours anymore, she doesn't go out, she doesn't cook, and she doesn't do anything other than be on the phone and watch stupid programs on any TV channel or streaming platform.
It doesn't bother me that she behaves like this or, at least, I understand her, I try to understand her; so I do everything for both of us without protesting, without emphasizing how to take care of the house, shopping all the different type of food required by our diets, cooking different dishes for me and her every lunch and dinner (due to the variation of her diet), do not combine well with the study for my master's degree, with the research I am doing, and with my training with the team.
I don't protest, I don't snort, I don't say anything.
I accept any comment about how overcooked the chicken is, about the fact that the bread had to be soft wheat and not whole wheat, about how messy the kitchen is.
I didn't even comment on the fact that she delegated the care of her dog to me alone, even though she can walk.
I accepted to study all night and write those essays at unreasonable hours, risking not completing my homework or showing up not prepared enough for meetings with university tutors, as well as showing up for training tired, exhausted and with less and less energy.
But today... today it's too much.
I had started studying in the kitchen, on the counter, because I had started cooking dinner and lunch for tomorrow; Ale was watching television. She knows, she knows, how much I hate having too much noise around, how much the overstimulation is a problem for me because of my ADHD, how much I go into crisis when there is too much chaos around me, no longer being able to concentrate and control myself, always ending up looking around, trying to figure out where all the voices are coming from and, when there are too many, ending up on the verge of tears.
She knows it.
But, despite this, she had started using TikTok at maximum volume at the same time as the television, creating an annoying chaos that could not even be masked by the music that passed through my headphones.
I had asked her to turn down the volume several times, I had even texted her asking her to stop because I had to study, telling her that it was important that I end that essay within three days, before the last game before the Christmas holidays.
After half an hour of trying I couldn't take it anymore, I got up, took the remote control and turned off the television.
"What are you doing?" she asks irritated.
The sharp voice.
I bite my lip.
We haven't had sex in two weeks and I haven't had an orgasm for three, and seeing her so angry floods my belly with sharps of pleasure.
Ever since we had started experimenting with sex, since Ale had started to be dominant in bed and I had started to feel free enough and trust her enough to be completely submissive, we had established 'rules'; one of the ones we started experimenting with first was about orgasms.
No orgasms that aren't given by her or that she doesn't allow me to have.
It had not only increased libido and feeling in bed, but also communication. Since we had established this rule, we had begun to talk much more about sex, to describe how we felt and to provoke ourselves; I had begun to no longer feel embarrassed to express my sex urge or tell her what I needed.
Begging her for what I needed.
So, after exactly three weeks since my last orgasm, I'm extremely needy.
Ale, at the same time, is extremely angry, disappointed, and resentful, about the injury and I know, I'm sure, that she would like to blow off steam on me, on my body, but she is afraid to ask for it, to do it. She's afraid because she's never done it before, because she's always afraid of hurting me and because she knows what I've been through in the past.
So now, because she doesn't want to express this need, she is short-tempered, rude, arrogant.
I kneel on the ground, in front of her, my legs slightly apart.
I look into her eyes.
She swallows the saliva, the phone still in her hand, as she jams her eyes into mine.
"I would like you to take control – I say, my voice trembling with embarrassment – I need you to blow off steam on me and I need to be dominated, to let you be in control"
I bite my lip.
The fear that he will refuse, that she will say no, that she will think I am crazy, increases when she does not respond immediately.
"You don't know what you're asking for, little girl"
The low voice, the seraphic tone.
"I want you to take control Reina, I want you to punish me, I want you to use my body"
She lay her phone on the couch.
"You don't have to do it for me, i-"
"I want it, Ale, I need it as much as you do" I whisper, pleading, looking into her eyes.
Nails playing with a little skin on my index finger.
She nods.
"Are there any things you don't want me to use or do?" the tone is the one she uses on the field when she's the team captain.
That confident tone, which admits no reply.
"No, Reina"
I touch her right calf with one hand, the need for physical contact advancing in me; I play with her skin, just massage her.
She grins, looking at me.
She looks at me, her face slightly tilted.
She bites her lip, as if pondering my request.
"Now I'm going to make you a list of items or practices and you have to tell me with safewords which ones are green, which ones are yellow, and which ones are red, okay? – I nod – What are your safewords?"
"Green to continue, yellow to slow down, red to stop"
"Good girl - I twitch my thighs, a knot in my belly, as her hand brushes my cheek, a satisfied look as she looks down on me – then let's get started"
After a few minutes, I had established green orgasm denial, spanking with hands and belt, the use of the collar with the leash, the use of ropes or more generally in bondage, penetrative sex with both fingers and dildos, the use of plugs and strap-ons, degradation; yellow overstimulation and preventing me from speaking by putting objects in my mouth; red blindfold. However, I asked her if she could use pet names from time to time to reassure me, so the degradation and humiliation were not the only channels of communication during a scene we were experiencing for the first time.
I clasp my hands on my thighs, my belly invaded by contractions of pleasure.
"Have you had any orgasms since the last time I got you one?" the tone is so low that it gives me goosebumps.
"No, Reina" I hurry to answer; a marked blush colors my cheeks and neck because no matter how much we talked about sex, how much we started experimenting in bed more than a year ago, I will never stop being embarrassed when we talk about these things.
She grinns with satisfaction.
"Something as needy as you hasn't had an orgasm in three weeks, hm? – she asks as she strokes my cheek with her thumb, a fake smile of pity adorns her face – Does your need to be a good girl, to please me, also beat your need of an orgasm?"
I look down immediately, my cheeks burning with embarrassment.
How can she make me so submissive, so needy, with just one question?
The panties are soaked, I feel them being uncomfortably attached to my intimacy.
"Yes, Reina, I just want to please you"
She moans openly at my answer and I see the muscles in her legs twitch.
I close my eyes to the sound.
"I don't think I told you that you can not look me in the eye"
I look at her, eyes slightly wider, position more rigid as I try to hold her gaze.
"I'm sorry Reina," I whisper guiltily.
We haven't even started and I'm already breaking the rules?
She looks at me for a moment and then her gaze, that sadistic, excited look, softens; a sweet, loving smile replaces the grin that had begun to adorn her face since she began to list what she could and couldn't do tonight.
"Amor, this is the last chance I'll give you to stop everything before we start, before I start punishing you and then take you to the bedroom, where only the safewords will make me stop – the suddenly cautious, sweet tone, like it's never been in the last two weeks – I'm not going to get angry, resentful or irritated if you tell me you don't want to go on anymore or that you're not sure anymore, baby, but I want you to tell me before you start because I don't want to start without being sure that you want it as much as I do; we will cuddle and maybe watching a film, order some takeaway food"
Her hand on my cheek, the back of my index and middle fingers caressing my skin.
I look at her, every fear gone, every tension leaves my body.
She is always her, the sweet, caring, loving girlfriend who would never hurt me or continue something I don't want.
No matter how much she needs to blow off steam, she would never hurt me.
I shake my head.
"I... I want to do it Reina, but-but only if you want it completely too" I answer, my voice trembling with embarrassment, but my gaze fixed on hers.
She smiles.
Her beautiful smile.
"I love it when you call me Reina, I'll never stop saying it" she whispers as she runs her thumb over my bottom lip, as she frees it from the grip of my teeth.
I open my lips allowing her to stick it past my teeth, into my mouth; she pushes it all in, until she hits my chin with her palm. I lick it slowly as I look straight into her eyes.
After a while she replaces it with her index and middle fingers, pushing them into my mouth slowly, and then she starts to move them, as if to fuck my mouth.
I go along with it, licking her fingers, opening and closing my lips against her skin.
She groans looking at me.
"So submissive, at my feet, while you call me Reina – she pushes her fingers harder into my mouth, until she touches my chin with her palm again, and touching the back of my throat, gagging me – My dirty filthy slut"
I gasp.
I place my hands on her knees, as if looking for a support to hold on to while she fucks my mouth with her fingers.
She sneers.
I look at her from below, her lips slightly open twisted into a grin, her eyes veiled by sadism, her cheeks flushed, her tongue occasionally caressing her lips, her brow furrowed, the hair of her forelock escaping the grip behind her ears.
"Hands behind your back, I don't think I told you you can touch me"
I groan in surprise as I hurry to do what she says, squeezing one hand into the other until my nails are in my palm.
The tips of her fingers touch the back of my throat with each thrust, and with every moan I make, she grins; She tells me to breathe through the nose when she realizes that, due to gagging, I struggle to breathe through my mouth.
She continues like this for some time that seems like minutes, she fucks my mouth with her fingers, her gaze alternating between my eyes and my mouth, a sadistic grin, until she takes them off completely.
I moan, finally free to breathe through my mouth.
She wipes the fingers against my cheeks, the back on one cheek, the inside on the other; the trickle of saliva that still connects them to my lips.
She puts her hand on my right cheek and I know what's going to happen.
"Disobedient little girl – the first slap is light against my skin, more for the scene than for anything else – Twice you disobey my orders and I didn't even touch you"
I gasp looking at her, her lips still slightly parted.
Then, as she walked away, her hand hits my cheek.
We both moan at the same time, her greasing and lowest, mine louder.
No matter how much I expected it, it's getting more and more exciting every time.
"Color, little girl?" she asks, an attentive look on my face trying to understand what I think about the slap.
"Green... green Reina" I moan.
"Dirty little," she whispers as she caresses my face, "So needy just because I fucked your mouth, hm?" she asks, as she runs her fingers over my lips, but without pushing them any further.
"Yes-yes Reina," I say cautiously in response.
Then, suddenly, she moves one leg between mine until I feel her foot, covered by her favorite and most expensive pair of shoes, in contact with my intimacy.
"Hump my shoe, slut"
It's an order said as she leans back on the couch. She opens her arms, resting them on the headboard of the sofa.
I wade at her, my eyes wide open with the request, but my pupils probably dilated with excitement. I'm incredulous.
"Color, little girl?" she asks when, after a few seconds, I don't move, her voice warm, lovely.
"G-green Reina – I whisper hesitantly, realizing the time that has passed, realizing that by doing so I was disobeying – I'm sorry"
She moves her torso toward me, her hand grabbing a hand of my hair. "Do you want to add a third punishment to the two you've already earned, hm? – I answer with a faint no, Reina – Then, move" she continues, her tone suddenly more authoritative and dominant, no longer disguised as feigned pity, her back coming back into contact with the sofa.
I bite my lip and moan when I feel her shoe move slightly against my clit.
"C-can I put my hands on your leg Reina?" I ask, my voice faint, the need to touch her, for physical contact.
"Aw, little girl, can't you even keep your balance? Okay, grab my leg. You can lean against it however you want," the mocking tone.
My hands grab her calf.
My torso is against her shin as I slowly begin to move.
I'm wearing thin shorts and panties made of almost non-existent fabric, so with every movement I feel the relief of the shoelaces against my clit.
I moan, I whine, unashamed.
I squeeze her leg as I rest my head on the lower part of her inner thigh, just above the knee, breaking eye contact.
As soon as the tip of her shoe starts to move against me, putting pressure on my hole, I start moving faster and faster; I'm not sensual, I'm not pretty bent over her, my back arched out, my head down.
"Dirty little slut," she says while her hand scratches my scalp "How does it feel to hump against a so expensive shoe that I've been looking for months in any shop in Barcelona, to be so slutty that you seek satisfaction and pleasure by rubbing yourself on a shoe without shame?"
I whine in humiliation.
"Please Reina, can I... can I-"
Her hand clenches in my hair, forcing me to look at her.
"Don't even try. This is just the beginning – she hits my cheek again – Did you think it would be so easy after disobeying me?"
I bite my lip, looking at her with the most puppy look I'm capable of; my vision slightly clouded by excitement and tears.
I open my mouth a couple of times, attempting to speak, but no sound other than a moan comes out.
When she notices that I am not responding, she stops moving her foot. "Color?"
"Green" I answer immediately, as I continue to move on her shoe, hoping that she will move again.
The shoelaces against my clit.
The contractions of pleasure in the lower abdomen.
She grinns as she looks at me.
She reaches down to kiss me, her hand still in my hair.
Then, as it all began, she moves the shoe away from my intimacy.
"How do you feel, hm? What would people say if they could see you like this, at my feet, desperate after humped my shoe like a slut, hmm? What would our teammates say if they saw you like that? – she grins, the hand that makes pat pat on my head – How do you think Aitana and Ona would react, mh?"
I close my eyes.
"None of them will be able to make you feel like that, reduce you like that, like I do. Not even Lucia. It doesn't matter how hard they try"
"Please, please," I whisper as I tighten my fingers around her knee.
The humiliation becomes pleasure, contractions of pleasure stronger and stronger, when she starts talking about the team, about my friends, about Lucy.
Of her jealousy of Lucy, caused by the fact that we are so close friends and that she is also dominant in bed; the eldest is openly dominant in bed, while Ale is much more modest in making her sexual performances public to the team. Modesty for which I am grateful, but which makes her feel clearly in competition with the English player.
"Please what, little one?"
Cheeks that burn when I hear the pet name.
Her fingers forcing my chin to look at her.
Her blonde hair is tousled.
"Touch me, please Reina... I-I need to-"
Humiliation breaks through my legs, which I immediately clench.
To be at her feet, to call her Reina, to be so desperate.
"I just want you, Reina... I... on-only you. No one else," she moans, "I beg you."
"Get up, go to our room and strip. I want you on the bed, on hands and knees. In less than ten minutes I'll be there."
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2015 - 2024
it has been a while since ive felt the courage or need to post something like this. i worked very hard to scrub all pre-2016 photographs of me off the internet in fact, something i realize was not in the spirit of the person who inspired me at all.
for the sake of brevity im not going to post the entirety of my transition. some two or odd years into it i was fully immersed in the feminine persona i was trying to become but still filled with a yearning that seemed to be incurable.
it was a chance encounter on this website that changed my course forever. i saw a transition timeline by a user who has since deleted their blog, detailing year by year their journey to become a kind of trans woman i didnt even know could exist at that point: a trans-feminine butch.
the clarity of their vision intrigued me. it opened a door where previously i only saw an insurmountable wall. this was something one could want to become. this was not a failure state. this was a lighthouse.
"you measure yourself by stricter standards than you do cis women", my then therapist said, "you allow yourself to play with masculinity in your art. in your art you seem to be able to separate it from male-ness. do you think you might want that in real life?"
immediately after that conversation, i looked at the timeline post again. i decided to get a haircut - a variation of the same short undercut that has become my go-to since. i slowly phased out the dresses that had carried my thru the hardest times of my budding transition. most of them i gifted to other trans women who had more of a need for them.
i set to work on my self once more with new purpose and i found first joy, then peace in the never-ending process of becoming. like every terminally online dyke in 2020 i read Stone Butch Blues, read The Locked Tomb, read Hot Allostatic Load, buzzed my hair off twice, got way too many tattoos to count, found community and friendship in my local queer scene as well as among butches online, and learned that i have the capability to love more than one person. and i love all of the people i used to be and no longer am; the problem child, the teenage romantic, the spiteful young man, the girl wrestling with herself, the baby butch still worried about keeping her tokens of femininity about her, the idiot who tought working night shifts was a good idea, and the clown who said this would be short post just some paragraphs ago.
the user who made that post was a lighthouse that went out as soon as i made it to shore, if you forgive the sentimentality. i am not half the butch they were (and maybe still are?) but maybe that's enough to be worth something to someone. it is something to me.
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Can you elaborate on what you think would be the minimal needed changes to fix what you see as an issue in Civ? Civ has done fairly large shifts in some mechanics before, and "civ like" is still an interesting game space that can scratch certain itches
yeah i mean as i said, the baked-in racism arises from a certain set of core assumptions that i think lock it into that position, which are that civ is a
1) symmetrical
2) 4X
game about
3) 'real world civilizations' (deeply loaded terms ofc but that's how civ envisions them)
4) trying to 'win the game'
5) with a global
6) and transhistorical
scope
so, in its role as a symmetrical (1) game with victory conditions (4), civ as a text has to take positions on what constitutes a 'successful civilization'. as a (2) 4X game this definition also has to include some variation on the profoundly loaded eponymous Xs, 'explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate'. furthermore, as a (1) symmetrical game with a global, transhistorical (5, 6) scope, it has to necessarily create a model of what 'a civilization' looks like and apply it to every 'civilization' it wants to include, at all points in their history.
this all kind of naturally leads into civ being a game in which the colonial european imperialist powers are the default 'civilizations' and all other cultures are basically just like them -- a game where technology progresses linearly and innovations are made in the order they were in european imperial history -- a game where all cultures fundamentally work in the same way and hold similar values, a game where all religions are based on christianity (i mean, just look at civ vi's system, where every religion has a 'prophet', 'apostles', 'missionaries' and 'inquisitors'), a game where not only do cultures have teleological overarching 'goals' but where these goals are shared and these goals are fundamentally based on imperialist visions of 'victory'.
to drill into some specific examples: you can't play a game of civilization without founding cities. you will constantly be founding cities. when you're playing as 'the mongols' or 'the cree' or 'scythia', this makes no sense! these were peoples who historically had rich culture, science, arts, and certainly a notable military history, but were (to varying degrees, at varying times in their history, i don't mean to create a new and similarly heterogenous absolutist category here) nomadic!
similarly, to advance in civilization you must invent 'the wheel'. 'the wheel' is necessary to many later innovations, while of course the andean peoples represented by the playable 'inca' never made significant use of the wheel because the lack of suitable pack animals and environmental factors meant that it did not, in fact, prove a suitable tool for transporting large quantities of heavy goods. for an even more glaring example, a lot of early military technology is locked behind 'horses', which is pretty absurd considering that several of the game's playable civilizations, in the real world, developed plenty of military technology despite living on a continent without any horses!
so having established what i mean by 'the issue', which is that the game's core assumptions lock it into imposing a eurocentric, imperialist vision of 'civilization' onto cultures where it doesn't make sense, here's a few different jenga blocks you could pull out to resolve it:
SID MEIER'S EUROPE
the pillar you knock out here is #5. keep the game engine and core assumptions just as founded on eurocentric imperialist societies as they are now, and just make it about european empires doing imperialism. now, i think we can immediately spot some problems in there -- how are we going to represent the rest of the world? after all, this kind of just creates a situation where, either as NPC factions or as outright exclusions, all other cultures in the world are deprived of any meaningful agency in "history". this one just kind of gives you a new problem and also from a gameplay standpoint results in a game that just Has Less Stuff On It. i think this is a bad one
SID MEIER'S ELYSIUM
now here's one you can get if you knock out pillar #3. keep the same assumptions and gameplay and transhistorical global narrative scale, but remove the 'real-world' aspects. you can get real silly with it and add fantasy stuff to it, or you can be a relatively grounded 'our-world-but-to-the-left' situation. now to some extent this already matches a lot of the features already in civ games: after all, unless you specifically load in a 'true start location earth' map, you're usually playing on a strange parallel world with semiplausible but wholly original continents! now, you also need to get some fucking Nerds and Geeks working at your company to build out your fictional world, or you'll just end having pointlessly pallette swapped a bunch of factions that are now just Schmance, Schmina, and the Schoman Schempire, and not really have avoided the issue. but if you do that, and invent a deep and rich fictional history to riff on, then you could create something really cool and incorporate alt-tech or fantasy or retrofuturistic elements or all sorts of cool shit.
the downside of this is that it makes your game less accessible and appealing to a lot of people. a big part of (at least the initial) appeal of civilization is pointing at the screen and saying 'hey i recognize that thing!'. it is instantly more accessible to someone who isn't super invested in strategy or fantasy dork shit to say to them 'you can be BRAZIL and nuke FRANCE while at war with CHINA and allied to BABYLON'.
more importantly than that, i think some parts of the historical theming (because let's be honest, it is ultimately theming, i don't think civ is interested in 'history' in any serious way) serve a pretty load-bearing role in the game's information economy. it's a pretty tall order to ask a player to remember the unique abilities of dozens of factions and unique wonders, and the historical background makes it a lot easier. e.g., it is a lot easier for a player looking at wonders to remember 'the pyramids need to be built on desert' or 'broadway will help me make more culture' than it would be for them to remember the requirements/effects of 'under-eusapia' or the 'wompty dompty dom center'. i think this is one of the number one things that, if subtracted, would meaningfully create something that is no longer 'sid meier's civilization'.
SID MEIER'S ALPHA CENTAURI
now if you cut out #3 and #5 and #6 on the other hand... sid meier's alpha centauri is not technically an entry in the civilization franchise, but i think most people correctly consider it one. it has similar 4X gameplay to the series, and its (very bad) spiritual successor beyond earth was an official entry. instead of 'civilizations', the playable factions are splinters from a colony ship that fell into civil war as soon as it landed, each one representing a distinct ideology. now, y'know, this doesn't mean it's free from Some Problems (the portrayal of the Human Hive in particular is some of the worst apects of 90s orientalism all piled together) but i think they're problems it's not at all locked into by its design!
SID MEIER'S THERMOPILAE
by cutting out #5 and #6 -- making a civ game about a particular time and place in history you could achieve something much more richly detailed in mecahnics while also being able to handwave a lot more homogeny into it. giving the same basic mechanics to, say, every greek city-state in the peloponnesian war is far less ideologically loaded than giving them to every 'historical civilization' someone who watched a few history channel documentaries once can think of. it also lets you get really into the weeds and introduce era-and-place-specific mechanics.
the scale needs to be smaller conceptually but it doesn't really have to be smaller in terms of gameplay -- just make maps and tech trees and building more granular, less large-scale and more local and parochial and specific. this also gives you the advantage of being able to do the opposite of the last two options and really lean hard into the historical theming.
if this sounds like a good idea to you, then good news -- old world does something pretty similar, and it's pretty good! worth checking out.
SID MEIER'S LOVE AND PEACE ON PLANET EARTH
what if we take an axe to #2 and #4? instead of putting all these civilizations into a zero-sum game of violent expansion, make it possible for several civilization to win, for victory goals to not inherently involve 'defeating' or 'beating' other factions. now, that doesn't mean that the game should be a confictless city-builder -- after all, if you've decided to be super niceys and just try and make your society a pleasant place to live, that doesn't mean that the guy next to you isn't going to be going down the militarist-expansionist path. hell, even if all you want to do is provide for your citizens, a finite map with finite resources is going to drive you into conflict of some kind with your neighbours in the long run.
to make this work you'd have to add a bunch of new metrics -- 'quality of life', for example, as a more granular and contextual version of the 'happiness' mechanics a few games have had, or 'equality', game metrics that you could pursue to try to build an egalitarian, economically and socially just society where everyone is provided for. after all, why shouldn't that be a goal to strive for just as much as going to mars or being elected super world president or whatever?
SID MEIER'S DIVERSE HISTORICAL CONTEXTS
ultimately, all cards on the table, if i was made god-empress of The Next Civ Game, this is the option i'd go for: jettison #1 as much as practically possible, introduce as much asymmetry into the game as you can. some civilizations keep the established settler-city model -- others are nomadic, building their units in movable 'camps' -- maybe the 'colonial' civilizations, your USA and Brazil and so on, can be like the alien factions from the alpha centauri DLC, only showing as NPCs at the appropriate point in the timeline when other civs are colonizing other continents, or putting you into an accelerated-forward version of the game if you choose to play as one.
you could combine this with a more interesting version of humankind's civ-choosing system, where you lock certain civilization choices behind specific gameplay events. this would let you do crazy shit with the balancing -- imagine an ostrogothic kindgom civ with crazy strong abilities and units that you could only choose to play as if your capital is overrun by barbarians, or a hungarian civ that requires you to have started as a nomadic civ and invaded somewhere, or a soviet union civ that requires you to lose a revolution, or a usamerican civ that requires you to split off all cities on a foreign continent from your original civ -- you could add so much variety and so many new and bizarre strategies into the game with this!
as for the universal aspects of tech and the narratives of linear progression contained within, there are lots of approaches that already solve this! stuff like stellaris' semi-random branching tech paths, or endless space 2's circular tech web, could allow civilizations to take tech paths that make sense for them, rather than imposing one single model of 'technological progress' on the wole world.
obviously there's limits to this, right -- civilization isn't going to be a detailed historical materialism simulator any time soon. but i think abandoning the idea that every faction has to play fundamentally the same and introducing some severe asymmetry as well as choices that you can make after starting the game would work wonders to wash out some of the racist and colonialist assumptions built into the game's foundation, while also (imo) creating a more fun and interesting game.
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Spicy Snippet #1: Orion
As a thank you for 6k, I will write a variation of romantic/suggestive stuff for the ROs. I don't usually write in those contexts because I like sticking to canon in order not to spoil it when the the time comes in-story, but I think we are overdue for some! Starting with Orion!
"This is inappropriate."
Even though the words are said through a throaty hum you can feel against your lips, you don't stop nipping at Orion's throat. He sits with one arm propped, the other on your back as you straddle him on the edge of the bed. Orion, with all of his complaints, is hilariously compliant. He moves his head to give you more space for his neck, shuddering when your biting turns to salacious swipes of your tongue.
"Should I stop?" you ask through your kisses, your words muffled. The question has Orion's arm gliding over you to hold you tighter, the answer loud and clear.
"Are you trying to give me a hickey?" he asks. His voice trails off when you lick just the right spot, making a small squeak of a whimper leave his lips. You've learned that Orion is a vocal participant, his breathy reactions only encouraging you further. "You know..." His throat bobs when he swallows. "Cameras." He can't even form a coherent sentence, which is the most satisfying part.
"I will be on my best behavior."
"I doubt that—" In one swift move, Orion grabs you and rolls you over until he's hovering over you. You're breathless from both surprise and excitement. He has you pinned with his hands on either side of your face, and his cheeks are flushed.
"Can you imagine?" He says, leaning down to brush his lips against yours, featherlight. It makes your body shudder. "Us doing this in a room of executives?" He brushes his nose against yours with endless delicacy, teasing you. So close and yet not quite there. "Forced to watch?" His mouth goes to the hollow of your throat, his teeth grazing your skin until you're swallowing. "Think of the scandal."
Another thing about Orion Quinn? He's a cheeky bastard.
You can hardly breathe, especially not when Orion sits up, towering over you as he begins unbuttoning his shirt. His eyes stay on you, his fingers deft and skilled, your gazes never breaking.
"You—" You swallow, propping yourself up on your elbows. "You would faint if that were to happen."
A low laugh escapes him, but his gaze turns hungry, heated at the thought. Almost as if fainting isn't what he would do at all. "You're right. HR would have me ruined."
"You are HR!" You lift your hand to put it on the last button that remains, fully intending to unbutton it for him. Orion puts his own hand over yours, directing it over the buckle of his belt. Your mouth waters. You know exactly what he wants, and he's not shy about telling you. "Knowing you," you swallow, using two fingers to remove the loop of the belt from the buckle, "you would punish yourself."
"Saying that in this context is quite suggestive." He grins, taking the belt off and tossing it aside. Your fingers get to work on the button of his slacks.
"I'm being completely serious." You bite your lip, your body heating when he grabs your hand and plants a chaste, loving kiss to the inside of your palm, removing his pants with his other hand. "Get your mind out of the gutter, horndog."
"Sorry," he says, not sounding sorry at all.
He proceeds to bend down, nuzzling his nose into your neck until you're letting out a surprised laugh, failing to swat him away when he continues to tickle you. Eventually, he stops. And then Orion Quinn begins doing something else that has you forgetting exactly what you two were even talking about. Doesn't matter.
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