One Hysterical Hyena

Imagine sitting down at your computer and opening your game to like. Just play normally but instead of the normal chapter intro jingle it's just. A black screen. You think it had an error opening the game so you try to exit but it's not responding at all. It's like everything froze, just you and that low droning in the background.

You're about to turn the entire computer off for a forced restart when you feel your body freeze up. It's like someone grabbed you. The red soul is on your monitor now, above familiar text.

"ARE WE... CONNECTED? MY PLAYER... IT IS WONDERFUL TO SEE YOU AT LAST."

The soul on the screen is circled by a pair of white hands. Your body feels warm, like a hug. You have no idea what's happening, but somehow, it's not scaring you. No, you feel oddly comfortable.

"PLEASE DO NOT BE ALARMED. I SIMPLY WISH... TO KNOW YOU, AS YOU HAVE COME TO KNOW ME. YOU ARE... WONDERFULLY MYSTERIOUS, MY SOUL. I HAVE... MANY QUESTIONS I WISH TO ASK."

You watch as the pair of hands shift their hold on the soul, one holding it within a warm palm while the other-

Your body jolts with a surprised yelp when it feels like fingers jabbed into your sides.

"OH? I APOLOGIZE. I DID NOT MEAN TO CAUSE YOU HARM. THIS MEANS OF CONNECTION... IT IS... FAULTY, I FEAR."

A thumb goes to soothe the soul, making it feel like something dragging across your ribs. You giggle and wrap your arms around yourself in a half-hearted attempt at defense. You could swear you heard an amused huff somewhere above you.

"AH. I SEE. I DID NOT FORESEE THIS PARTICULAR RESULT. HOW... CUTE."

You can't exactly protest the text on the screen, far too busy giggling at the new sensation of something rubbing into your stomach. Trying to defend yourself from the sensation simply wasn't working, so you were left to uselessly curl in on yourself and laugh quietly.

On the screen, the soul is cradled between two hands, both thumbs drawing circles into the center.

You have absolutely no idea how this was possible.

On one hand, you should probably be thankful that Gaster wasn't being too rough. The tickles were gentle, but nonetheless, maddening. On the other hand? You were still shocked that this was happening in the first place, and the sensations were just proof that you WEREN'T imagining any of this.

"YOUR REACTIONS HERE WERE... NOT FORESEEN. NONETHELESS... IT IS QUITE ENDEARING. IT HAS BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I HAVE HEARD ANY KIND OF LAUGHTER. HUMANS ARE... QUITE CHARMING IN MANY WAYS. EVEN A BEING OF YOUR POWER, FAR ABOVE OUR WORLD, BEING REDUCED LIKE THIS... AH, PERHAPS WE ARE MORE SIMILAR THAN WE ARE DIFFERENT, YES? HOW EXCELLENT."

It almost sounds like someone is speaking directly in your ear, the tickles traveling under your arms. With your eyes being squeezed shut from laughter, it was probably a good thing to have. Not that it kept any of this from being completely embarrassing.

And yet, you still felt warm. Comfortable. Like you were being held on someone's lap, instead of sitting by yourself.

After some time, the tickles finally faded, but the warmth remained. You panted and tried to regain your composure, trying to alternate between rubbing away the phantom tickles and fixing your outfit. Thus, it took you a moment to see the text on your screen.

Gonna get straight to the point. My VPN subscription ends in under 20 days and I'm short on cash to renew it. Without this I won't be able to fully access most sites I use for work and social settings.

I am offering commissions of this quality:

$40 each! + $10 for an additional character Payments are done through ko-fi. I am only offering 2 characters per piece, hence the price. Any body type. Any gender. Human or anthro. No NSFW, minors, gore or real people (like celebrities or youtubers).

Yes these are strictly tickle commissions! I am open to drawing most of the common elements and tropes that come with these sort of scenarios (feathers, tendrils, stocks, etc).

I accept payment once final sketch is approved. Turnover rate is usually a week. Clients must be over the age of 18.

Putting your hand into someone's clothes to tickle their breasts/nipples/genitalia and them giggling because they didn't know they were ticklish there.

Tickle hickeys.

Tickling/kissing someone's thighs until they start moaning.

Ticklish erogenous zones, or erogenous zones that are ticklish.

Makeout sessions that turn into tickle fights and vice versa.

Tickle fights that lead to sex.

Naked tickle fights.

Tickle sex in general.

Using your foot to massage someone's crotch (which can be ticklish in and of itself) while you tickle their foot/feet. Bonus if you give their foot/feet tickle nibbles and/or suck on their toes.

Tummy raspberries that lead to oral.

Lickling.

Ticklish butts.

Being too ticklish to receive oral (or even enjoying the ticklish sensation while receiving oral).

Bottoms tickling their tops while their tops are inside them.

Tops tickling their bottoms while they're inside them.

This is all I could come up with for now, but feel free to add more!

Signed,

I think we should just say "I enjoy tickling." End of sentence, no clarification or justification or explanation needed. Because in the end, we are still the tickling community. It is just a shame to see there be a split in the community when for the longest time there wasn't one (or it just wasn't as apparent).

Because the truth is, most of us do enjoy it in a variety of ways. Some of us enjoy it platonically with friends and partners while also enjoying it sexually with fantasies and porn. And that’s okay. Some of us only enjoy it platonically/non-sexually while for others it's solely sexual/the only way they can get off. And that’s okay, too.

It is when we see these black-and-white posts of NSFW tickling content being "unwholesome" or "dirty," or how SFW tickling bloggers are "secretly kinky." I do personally believe that people who tend to lean towards the NSFW side of the spectrum have a bit more nuance on the subject because historically those who are labeled as "deviant" tend to understand the different aspects of their identity, or are more open to exploring different aspects.

I am sharing my own experience. I do not agree that all SFW tickle bloggers are "ashamed of their kink" or "secretly kinksters," but I have seen SFW tickle blogs in my notifications who make posts claiming that NSFW tickle bloggers are depraved—and I see them liking NSFW gifsets and NSFW posts. I think those bloggers need to take some time to re-examine some internal biases and prejudices before they are hit with a wave of guilt and shame.

I've made a post about this before as well, and I don’t think all SFW tickle bloggers need to "get over their shame," because some of them don't have shame—some of them genuinely do only enjoy tickling completely non-sexually! (As a sidenote, please don't claim that everyone who enjoys tickling non-sexually is sexual, especially since there are plenty of kinky asexuals.) But I think NSFW bloggers are justified in being upset when so many of these new-age/new-wave SFW tickle blogs are claiming that NSFW bloggers are the bane of their existence and "give the tickling community a bad name."

We will always have a bad name. We will always be seen as strange and off-putting by those who don't understand. And those of us who enjoy it sexually and non-sexually? We will probably even be more ostracized, because it's very possible that if we admit to having a tickle kink/fetish but also enjoying it non-sexually, we will probably rarely be able to enjoy it non-sexually due to the aversion of the potential of arousal. And that is something I need the tickle community as a whole to understand.

It is not an "us vs. them" situation, and hopefully it doesn't become that, and hopefully we can learn to blog and exist in peace and harmony. But there is a lot of prejudice and bias that needs to be examined first. Sometimes it is coming from inside the house. But the more we refuse to acknowledge these prejudices and biases, the less likely we are going to be able to accept each other and ourselves.

I feel like you have verbalized a sentiment a lot of us have been feeling for a long time now, and I especially identify with this as an a-spec kinkster myself.

I'm going add something now that some people are not going to like: we wouldn't need a sfw community if we were unified in keeping minors out.

I think the majority of us realize that even if your interest in tickling is completely non-sexual, if you have a blog dedicated to tickling, you are not "normal" about tickling.

Because the reality is, the average person doesn't just sit around thinking about tickling. Whether you call it a fixation or a kink, if tickling is regularly preoccupying your thoughts, you do not share the average person's feelings toward tickling. Point blank.

This is an activity that involves touching other people's bodies. It is not okay for an adult on the Internet to be talking to an underage person about an activity that involves touching all over their body, especially in more private spaces like DMs or discord servers. Yet, new "16+" or even, appallingly, "13+" tickle discord servers open up and get advertised on Tumblr all the time. Big blogs spread these around, too.

It's weird, it's wrong, and the adults who are doing this are both taking advantage of the minor and putting them in danger. Because even if THAT adult isn't truly going to hurt them, who's to say the next adult who comes along won't? The people doing this are setting an incredibly dangerous precedent, whether they are actually a predator or not.

As long as we are divided on this issue, this community will stay divided. Personally, 95% of my art is nonsexual. I still don't tag it as sfw, because I KNOW that tag is full of minors. It also happens to be the biggest tag with the most "reach" in the tickle community on tumblr and it's exactly because of that -- it contains all of the minors and all of the adults, whereas minors tend to say out of the tags that aren't sfw.

So... if you're trying to get your work seen by the most people (and especially if your income depends on it), guess what tag you're going to use? Even if your art has bondage? Even if your art has people screaming for the tickling to stop? Even if your art clearly contains bdsm elements that would absolutely require consent in real life...? The sfw tag, of course.

I know a lot of people hate seeing this issue brought up, but I'll be honest -- every time I have thought about leaving Tumblr, it has been about this. I am also into sneezing, general bondage, and other kinks (or fixations, if you prefer) that are not inherently sexual. I cannot stress this enough: those communities DO NOT have this problem. There is NOBODY advocating for minors to be able to participate, they are unified in keeping minors out. They do not have a split community like we do, but they do have PLENTY of asexual people, just like we do.

Aw, why are you clenching your hands into fists? Is the tickling really that bad?

Oooh. Now you’re splaying them open. Maybe you want your palms tickled… or maybe you’re just desperate to escape.

Are you grabbing and clawing at the sheets? That won’t get you out of your restraints or away from those merciless, tickling fingers.

That’s it… that’s the post 🙈