#13 students remain

[lampochkaart]

This is one of my favorite scenes in the fic

If this intrigues you, you should go and read 13 Students Remain by @whattheskyknows 👀

[templegate]

Ever since I've read 13 Students Remain I've been thinking of them as friends.

[raisomething]

This is based from 13 students remain by @whattheskyknows !!

i absolutely adore this fic!— if you're interested in it, you should give it a read! ^°^

Bonus:

[beekindtobees]

chat what’d we think of the 13 Students Remain update ? everybody cry ?

if ur not reading this fic; read it !!! golly gee it’s good. @whattheskyknows totally nails it every time !!

[lovova]

After reading the final chapter, I knew I desperately wanted to draw the three protagonists of 13 Students Remain, which are under the cut. Congrats on finishing, @whattheskyknows !

BEWARE OF SPOILERS.

[keitaisghost]

I just finished reading 13 Students Remain, and now I want to give all my long fics recommendations I have for Drv3

13 Students Remain, by @whattheskyknows

Missing(isn't always so bad), by @whattheskyknows

Amalgamate, by Docterhaifisch

I'd Trade My Life for Yours, by grayimperia

New Dangan Ronpa Reboot V3BOOT: Killing Harmony Redux, by EternalSailorNeptune_53

Or Did it Eat the Little Girl?, [Part 1] by weewooweewoo(WaitWhatDoIPutHere)

Let's go out with a Bang! [Part 2] by weewooweewoo(WaitWhatDoIPutHere)

Kudos to all these Authors!!

[whattheskyknows]

Chapter 5 au where instead of Maki breaking into the hangar, it's Tsumugi. She breaks in using an Exisal but doesn't reveal herself. Instead, she uses the voice changer using Maki's voice so both Kaito and Kokichi think she's inside. Tsumugi wounds Kokichi using the Exisal's gun and tries to kick-start another trial because everyone is too depressed to do anything (including Maki, hence why Tsumugi has taken matters into her own hands.) She leaves pretty soon afterwards, assuming Kaito will sort everything out (Kaito tells 'Maki' to leave, promising her everything will be okay.) Kaito and Kokichi are still both alive but Kokichi is gravely wounded and Kaito's illness is getting worse. Kokichi points out that it's strange 'Maki' didn't leave the Exisal and reluctantly reveals he thinks the true mastermind is trying to continue the game, bating Kaito to murder. Kaito believes him eventually and they both work together to trick the mastermind. I think they'd go down the hydraulic press mystery route, although there's a different outcome at the trial.

Stopping there because I kinda want to write this as a fic because I've already started to plan out what could happen lol

[beehiveofblorbos]

13 Students Remain does this brilliantly in recent chapters!!! It’s not the focus but wow is he ferocious and how unsettling he can be when he’s angry is highlighted + given a lot of respect

i love Kokichi being scary, idk why i just love him being able to strike fear into people's hearts.

there's just so many things you could do to make him scary too. like i love me a good "intimidation check nat 20" au where he's pretty chill/normal but he's just very good at acting convincingly scary, it plays well into his trickster tenancies.

but there's also aus where there's a valid reason for him to be scary to others- like he's a freaky monster, or did something taboo and was cast out, or has the capability/power to actually do something dangerous but simply doesn't cause of his morals but people don't know that, or hey maybe he's the origin of a folktale or boogeyman

Kokichi scaring people being the focus on an au is so fun to chew on. people should do it more imo

[yandereforme]

Yan!Mafia Batfamily x reader

Part 1:Introduction and Duke

TW: Mentions of murder, mention of harassment

After Bruce’s parents died, Bruce began having the same mindset Red Hood/Jason had in canon; You can’t eradicate crime, but you can control it.

He soon built a persona of the bat, a mafia boss that everyone knew and feared/loved. This is a less moral Batman, who doesn’t personally kill, but has nothing against murder if it’s just.(Justice remains a part of his mission.)

This leads to a slightly more complicated bat family, with each of them playing a vital role as their counterparts, and Robin being the term used for shadowing the big bat, and learning the ropes. (If you want me to expand on that part, let me know$

No one knows the Wayne’s are the Batfam, but they all know they are vaguely connected, with many suspecting a relationship between Bruce and The Bat or The Bat being an illegitimate child of Thomas Wayne(though neither theory is voiced in earshot of the Wayne’s. Connected to the Bat or not, the Wayne family is still terrifying.)

Most people are pretty scared of the Waynes and the Bats like, fearing them and avoiding them 

You, on the other hand, could give less of a shit about them.

You are an orphan with good grades and even better computer skills. So while everyone believed you lived with your parents who traveled, and that you were 17 to your actual age of 13, you got away with living on your own and working a part time job. Working as a waitress wasn’t terrible, though you occasionally had to deal with Karens and harassment.

However, after a terrible night at work where a Karen poured her drink over you and a drunk idiot slapped your ass, you had run out of willingness to deal with bullshit. So, when a trust fund brat tried to make you move from your seat in the library, you refused, glaring at the blurry person standing next to you, ignoring the gasps from the students around you.

You expected him to yell at you, or let his companion, who was glaring hard at you, deal with you. Instead, he spoke briefly with his friend in a language you didn’t recognize. After a minute or so, they both sat down and quietly studied with you

Duke was charmed by your behavior. It has been a long time since anyone outside of the family had said no to him. The look of anger in your eyes was belied by pure exhaustion. He knew you had no clue who he was, and you were too tired to care.

You were interesting. So Duke didn’t let Damian yell at you or (attempt to) intimidate you.(while Damien was very intimidating when he had to be, Duke had a feeling you would not care in the slightest.)

So Duke convinced Damian to sit with him while he observed you studying, instead of discussing Bat business like they had planned. He had known of you, and Duke remembered you being in a few of his classes, but this stunt caught his interest too much to let you go.

You weren’t sure why, but apparently the Wayne kid (or Duke as he insisted you call him) seemed charmed by you basically telling him to fuck off. He started partnering with you in classes when he would normally work alone. He started eating his lunches with you in the library or in the auditorium, even having his brother join you on occasion.

You slowly got used to his presence, and even became begrudgingly fond of him and his little brother, even though his brother tended to stare at you more often than not. You hadn’t had very many friends for a long time, so maybe this was gonna be a good thing.

A big thing with Duke Thomas was that while he may seem calm, he is one of the most calculating of the Yanderes. He will always appear to be on your side, but unable to help you. He will become one of your closest confidence trusted friend , all without you realizing how much of a manipulative and possessive Yandere he is. He just knows that letting you have more of an illusion of power will help in the long run of making you like him.

So for now he’ll be content, letting you slowly come to him, similar to a feral cat. You’ll adore him soon enough. Come to think of it, you might make an excellent addition to the family.~

Edit: Life has been hitting me like a semi truck. I won’t go into too much detail, but I just ended a long-term relationship, had one of my grandparents die, and the other have a stroke. There’s a bunch of other stuff I also could mention, but I don’t wanna talk about it. Updates will be very sporadic for a long time I think. I’m sorry and I really hope you guys understand. Got enough motivation today to finally finish the first part of the Mafia au. Don’t know when I’ll be updating any of the other ones. I really hope you like this.

[metranart]

“I can still smell her on you, you jerk.” Dabi snickered, caressing the skin of Hawk's collarbone with his scarred palm. There was an impregnate smell there... something sweet, like lingering flowers— Fairly quickly, he realized that the smell was originally and undoubtedly, YOURS.

ft. Hawks centered, Hawks x reader, Slight! Dabi x Hawks, Slight! Bakugo x reader, Slight! Dabi x reader (in future chaps)

Hawks x UA Student! Reader (Part 13)

-

Warning tag: obsessed! Hawks, possessive! Hawks, naive! student reader, violation of trust, dubious consent, mating cycles, rut response, obsessive behavior, uncontrollable thirst for reader, manipulation, forced, thigh riding, hormonal minds out of control, sexual content, first time, cock riding, teenage fuck, Dabi's toxically interested in you, Bakugo bestie yet secretly inlove wit you, love confessions, cock-drunk, Hawks trying to be good but failing miserably, gaslighting, HEAVY plot, lots of smut.

-

Keigo didn't protest, didn’t even let a sound leave his throat despite the pain his body was in. He just allowed the villain to explore his mouth, his pierced tongue felt amazingly good as it danced fiercely against his bare tongue.

Dabi’s hands went down to grip his lower back and brought their bodies closer together. Keigo braced himself against his chest, babbling when the fire-user wasted no time and pressed his face into his jaw, licking, kissing, teasing him with teeth.

“What nonsense are you babbling, pigeon?” Dabi’s breathing was so raggedly it pained his own lungs. Hawks mumbled again.

“Louder-” the Todoroki commanded against the shell of his ear, almost like a whisper: an angry, desperate, hissing whisper. “—What’s that?”

“(Y/N).” The Hero was calling for you to Dabi’s amazement, it sounded so desperate and needy. “Baby bird, I want-I want my sweet girl-…. please~”

“You are sicker than I remembered,” Dabi sneered between kisses. "Or you already forgot, birdbrains?”

Keigo shifted under him. “Forget what?”

As he moved back to his neck, Dabi snickered gluing his face against the skin of Keigo’s neck to inhale sharply through his nose, and the remaining of your sweet scent stirred a diabolic frenzy in his gut.

“You assaulted this girl-....” he reminded him, “now calling her yours doesn't make it true—” 

“I—" Keigo choked on his next words, and soon felt Dabi’s hands fumbling with his belt, nimbly undoing it to then zip down his pants. 

“When you spread her thighs apart for you, well-” his large hand reached into his trousers pulling out his erect cock to caress it between his fingers, fascinated with the way the Blond's cheeks bloomed with heat. “-I really doubt she appreciated it as much as you did.”

“She understood! she did—… I couldn't control myself-... my rut response, she turned it on-… and” Hawks was growing anxious, and that send an energetic heat up Dabi’s spine. It was too easy to play with Keigo’s hormonal mind, especially when he was rutting so bad to have you, back. Doubt crawled over his skin.

“I can still smell her on you, you jerk.” Dabi said, caressing the skin of his collarbone with his scarred hand.

There was an impregnate smell when he took shallow breaths into his skin... something sweet, like lingering flowers, or fragrant incense— Fairly quickly, he realized that the smell was originally and undoubtedly, yours.

Dabi glared at him in puzzled amusement, as if the fact that your scent was so strong, and he could still smell it now, was outrageous. “—Did you even had the courtesy to pull out before cumming?”

“Shut up,” Hawks seethed quietly, teeth baring. “You are the least likely to ask that.” He sounded somehow offended by the mere question.

Worst of all, Dabi smirked, a wicked twist on his lips as he took another whiff of your lingering scent. You smelled damn good. Did this smell characterize you? He licked his lips thinking about how much it would intensify being face to face, Keigo didn’t like it one bit.

He recognized the wild look of violence on his face, and the lust shinning in his hazy eyes was anticipated. Nevertheless, the fat erection he felt pressing against his leg, wasn’t. Hawks stared wide-eyed as the sinking realization came over him.

“.... If you come a fucking inch close to her, I’m going to—”

The air was knocked out of his lungs, and with it, a nasty warning which Dabi shoved back into his lips with a toothy kiss.

“I don’t want you—” Hawks hissed between muffled smooches and Dabi clamped a too-warm hand over his mouth and pressed hard. Hawks stood still at the blazing heat and soon Dabi’s forehead pressed on his, feverish and sweaty. 

“You don’t want me, huh?” His eyes, like blue-burned coals, pierced into his golden pools of honey. Keigo could already smell the heat smoldering off of him. “You want her, don' cha? 

The flame-bender lost an unhinged, shaky breath. “Here she is, birdy.”

Dabi flipped him around violently and smashed his face into the dirty ground, his naked chest pressed to the hero's clothed back, hips drawn together, just the fabric of their trousers unplugging them apart. Dabi had twisted Keigo into a submissive stance where he was in control.

“Look at her!” One of his hands wrapped around Keigo’s jaw while the other snaked around his long, hard cock. “Look at her pretty face twisted by a grimace of pain-" Dabi forced him to look at the photos scattered on the ground. 

"No pain,” Hawk’s hand tugged at the one on his jaw, inadvertently digging into his staples. “That’s pure and raw pleasure....” Dabi was so turned on, he was dangerously insensitive to the hurt that bloomed on the back of his palm, “—my baby bird came so many times on my cock, I lost count.” 

Unthinking, Dabi squeezed at his engorged cock, wrenching himself impossibly closer against him. 

“It's the lies we tell ourselves what make us villains.”

The raven-haired mouthed against his ear, slowly starting to jack the Hero off, and Keigo mewled, deep and husky, only serving to inflame his arousal. The winged hero didn’t even know why his body started reacting the way it was, when he was noticeable enraged with the Todoroki. Even so, his whole frame rutted against his, seeking to bring friction for his aching cock.

“(Y/N)~” 

The blond called for you again, imagining that it was your hand hugging his swollen cock, your small and fragile hand increasing the speed on his thrusts, your tender palm synchronizing with the abrupt movement of his hips as he searched for his release. It was YOU jerking him off, willingly. YOU wanting to see him in pleasurable trance, raptured in thrill and joy. YOU, wanting him to spill himself all over your fingers. 

“Yes, baby bird! Fuck—” 

Dabi’s mouth went to his neck, but applied nor kisses nor bites. He just pressed against the skin and breathed in pants as he let himself be jack off by the euphoric rubbing of Hawk’s ass against his clothed erection. 

“Fuck,” the villain sputtered out angrily, disoriented, and his fingers warmed into his skin. Hawks moaned against his palm, both in pain and unbidden pleasure. “Does-Does it feels nice, birdbrains?” The Todoroki stuttered against his ear as his warm palm kept a calculated pumping motion over his shaft.

“It-It feels...-feels fu-.... fucking amazing, baby—MY baby bird.” The stuttering laughter on Touya’s chest was palpable against his back. 

“You, awfully amusing—delusional narcissist” Dabi chuckled out a sharp moan, and tilted Hawks’s chin up crashing his lips against his in a bruising tangle of saliva, solid tongue against solid tongue in an impish ballet of wills.

Dabi was doing things with his mouth that shouldn’t have been possible. It should have been illegal, no wonder why he was one of the most feared villains. The sensations, the velvety, experienced tongue, the piercings decorating it. All so functional and alive against his own mouth. 

Dabi Todoroki felt like you. Less tender and more abrasive, nevertheless, you were similar...both passionate creatures he ought to bow to. If he put you together in the same bed with him, it would undoubtedly be a night to remember and hold on to for the rest of his orchestrated existence.

“(Y/N), suck my tongue~” he begged, and the villain conceded all too happy. 

The lewd sound of his stapled fist pumping the Hero’s heated piece of meat made him hiss a low and dangerous curse against his lips. 

For some reason this intimate act of angry lust infused in allorgasmia tints was more fulfilling than when they'd fucked by nature's mere design. Hawks used to arrive urged and salivating, begging to be attended to during his rut, and Dabi just wanted a hot and ready hole to deposit his vast and excessive, load. It was a good deal. It never involved feelings or anything as fool as that. Just instinct, raw and frenetic.  

Dabi wanted more of that, he wanted Takami Keigo on the brink of insanity, unfortunately for the blond, the flaming villain knew by heart how to reach his perverse goal.

“—Wouldn't you rather, your baby bird,” Touya Todoroki started, he also knew how to tweet pretty as the birds did, he could play the right notes to disarray his victim’s feathers, “—to surrender her body for your use rather than taking initiative yourself, blondie?” 

“Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes! I want that... -so, SO bad!” Dabi laughed throatily at Keigo’s reaction. 

“You could be squeezing that perfect pair of tits together and sliding this fat, veiny cock between them,” his fist caressed the Blond's erection insistently, from head to base and back to head again, letting the pad of his thumb massage the mushroom tip in lazy, continuous motions until he felt the shivers quaking his whole frame, “rutting into her until you came inside her fertile womb, her gummy walls milking ‘till the last ounce of cum from your heavy and full, balls.” Dabi chuckled coarsely, “she, resigned to lie there and let you.”   

“FUCK, YES!” Takami Keigo blasted, his forehead glued to the photos on the floor, his only tie to you, his only source of comfort was you and only you. Those photos would help him get through the entire month.

Dabi utterly ignored his laughable clinginess. It had nothing to do with him, and instead, pushed for his own entertainment.

The fire-bender was only concerned with the heat. All that bristled his scarred skin was the butterfly-fluttering feeling of that blessed heat, that came from raw domination. All he could think of now was you, not even Keigo anymore.... YOU –the picture of Keigo's baby bird’s being fucked against a trash can would have to suffice this time.

Your lips parted in thunderstruck dazzlement, dry, and begging to be wetted by his pierced tongue– 

Yes! You ought to be touched appropriately, by a meaningful man, not a double agent-spy who didn't even know how to please you, properly.

There was a shaky commotion as Hawks came hard and plenty all over his stapled fingers, and then a needy curse that Dabi distantly recognized as Keigo's after-coital pleadings.

“Don’t let go—hold my cock inside your warm palm…” requested in lost fervor a flippant, Keigo. 

“As pathetically needy as ever—but I’ll buy…. Why?” Dabi mused, condescension taking an amusing upgrade in his voice. His quirk-induced palm, still holding him tight. 

���Because-Because I want to pretend that I am inside her-…” he declared without a trace of shame or embarrassment, “deep inside MY sweet and beautiful, baby bird. She´s so warm and perfect~” 

Hawks sounded delirious, no doubt still lost in the mist of orgasm, and that obvious vulnerability deflated Dabi's need to come, and inflated his need to seize the moment.

“So, she wasn´t just a spurt of the moment—” Keigo denied his head hard, almost offended by the insinuation. “She’s way too precious to me.”  

“Must be some rut thing of you, birdbrains” he conceded, slowly but concealingly milking the last drops out of Keigo’s now-flaccid cock, “you’re the only person I know who builds nests and woos his mate so devotedly—…in other words, the girl’s not special…more like just a whim of your beating and blinding, instinct, so to speak.” Dabi stated, matter-of-factly at the panting figure under his solid frame.

“She’s SPECIAL—specially created for me…” Keigo declared, his heaving lips pouting a little. Dabi chuckled, finally untangling his palm off his dormant cock. 

“You’re going to kill her with that monstrous cock you carry between your legs,” he smeared some ropey lines of cum between his forefinger and his thumb before continuing, “Your Hero name should be: Vlad, the Impaler—” 

Keigo huffed, unamused. 

“She’s built to take me in with no problem, I filled her so well last time… you could even see the shape of my cock inside her tummy, regardless, she was whole, just like that…” the blond sounded amazed, and Dabi thought to himself: sure, I saw it-...it’s printed on paper. Nevertheless, he kept those thoughts to himself. “—I’ve never been able to bottom down on someone like I did with her…” 

Instantly and almost fiercely, Hawks shrugged away from Dabi’s dominant touch, and the villain allowed it, playing perfectly the part of the understanding lover and the ‘good’ friend.

“…I still don’t understand how you didn’t send her to the hospital—” and there was when Keigo made the worst mistake of his entire life. 

“Her quirk.” He shared, flatly, slowly fixing his pants on his hips, buckling his leather belt as if he weren't revealing your biggest weapon. “She has the ability to cure anything, my baby bird has a very special quirk—similar to that of recovery girl.” The blond boasted very proudly, too distracted by the villain’s pampering attitude and his own endorphin-flooded brain to realize that he had doomed you. 

Dabi didn’t reply, and he merely grinned. One of those dangerous grins that characterized him. All tooth and sinfully, corrupt.

Dabi’s turquoise eyes gleamed with something akin thrill, beloved malice, the Hero just spatted what he inched to know… Just what he suspected. 

You were the key to his revenge. You would help him kill his father and end his filthy lineage. You would cure his body from the fire that afflicted him. You would allow him to become more powerful than anyone. You would be HIS…

COMING SOON PART 14....

➡️ NSFW Artwork of this story 🥵

@wtvbabes @dreamlessnight @naomi1247e @alicecil87 @geniejunn @justanerd1 @bakugosgirl01 @toxicxmindsposts

[aroaceleovaldez]

The himbo, malewife, goofball -fication of percy jackson is such a crime by both the fans and riordan. It has made Mr not like percabeth as a couple because in all posts and in later books annabeth is such a girlboss, while Percy's dumb and can't fight his way out of a paperbag without her. All the posts are about how annabeth will be an architect and percy would love to be a trophy husband.

Even the humor in the books went from Percy's sharp wit and snark to 'my pancakes can't drown because I'm a son of poseidon.'

And now this recommendation letter bullshit.

Honestly now I'd wish percy just separated from annabeth (but they remain best friends.) He stays home with his family, becomes a camp counselor, helps young demigods, holds God's accountable and eventually becomes a social activist. (I also dislike him doing something marine biology related. It's clear he hates academics but he always wants to help people. Him helping demigods and mortals is such a wholesome profession for him.)

I fully agree with the first half of this, though I slightly disagree with part of the latter.

The later-series and fanon mischaracterization of Percy is at least a solid 50% ableism minimum, full stop. He's being warped into a very stereotyped ADHD character and the exact reason why he's being characterized as "dumb" is because of ableism. Percy is a very intelligent character! That's exactly why he's so in sync with Annabeth and they're such a strong duo! It's just generally Annabeth is more book/academically smart.

I disagree with where you say he hates academics - because that's one of the common misconceptions about his character. Percy doesn't hate learning or academic subjects! He's not even bad at them! We know explicitly that when he is in an accommodating environment he is interested in learning and gets significantly better grades! Percy only dislikes school because it is generally an environment that systematically he struggles with. It's literally just he has a learning disability (two, actually)! That's it! When his learning disability is accommodated for he does well! It's almost like that's what accommodations are all about! We know this from the first series! It's discussed pretty in-depth! Percy isn't a dumb character and he doesn't hate learning, he's just been let down by school systems so much that he's inherently distrustful of them. If they actually accommodate him though then he does just fine!

And that's exactly what CHB was all about and why New Rome University was supposed to be such a big thing for him! CHB is a learning environment geared for demigods. NRU is a demigod college. Both inherently imply an environment meant to cater to and accommodate students with ADHD and dyslexia! They are both systematically structured to be able to accommodate him! Heck, CHB and CJ even both address in the wider themes of the series a metaphor about how ADHD and dyslexia are commonly seen as childhood disabilities, and how it can be more difficult to find accommodations into adulthood because of that attitude but those disabilities don't just go away - that's why CHB is a summer camp but they talk about how demigods outside of CHB don't often fare well. The metaphor there is those who are not getting help or accommodations are struggling. Because that's how that works! This is a fully intentional metaphor from the first series! CHB is never framed as being perfect for demigods, because one of the entire central conflicts of the series is Percy and Luke going back and forth about this flawed system meant to help and support them but still letting people fall through the cracks. The "claim your kids by 13" thing is a metaphor about how acknowledging a child's disabilities (and possibly getting a diagnosis) earlier/as early as possible means they will have more time to learn and build up resources and support for themselves to be able to use later in life. One of CHB's major flaws is that it can accommodate demigods to a certain point, but it can only do so much before those demigods have to leave (the metaphor being accommodating school systems when those disabled students do not have any other forms of accommodations in their lives.)

And that's why Camp Jupiter was framed as being so revolutionary for Percy because it had an environment acknowledging that this is not just a childhood disability, adults with ADHD/dyslexia exist too and still need and deserve accommodations, AND is a place where those accommodations are available. That's why Camp Jupiter and NRU are treated as such special and important things to Percy, because it's essentially Percy being shown this type of thing can and does exist and it is available to him. It is an option he never thought was possible. Percy never thought he'd be able to go to college because he would not be able to go through school without accommodations, but NRU proves otherwise.

The part that's absolutely stupid is Rick then proceeded to retcon NRU so that apparently it's not a full college and Percy still has to take classes at normal mortal college which DEFEATS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF NRU EXISTING. Rick has fully retconned that demigods struggle past the ages of 16-18 when they're on their own (see above elaborated metaphors) and in doing so we have fully killed all symbolism in literally all of that. It's so stupid. And by having the plot of the CoTG trilogy entirely be that Percy is not actually allowed access to NRU in the first place because he is a son of Poseidon and has to do extra to even be accepted is stupid!

All that to say, I agree the marine biology feels like a huge cop-out and a disservice to his character by reducing him to just a son of Poseidon. The literal only reason why it's the default option people take for him is because oh, fish thing, fish guy. But I feel like everyone ignores the really obvious answer for what Percy would want to do which is - writing. Both his parents are writers/authors and he clearly admires that about them. Percy likes telling stories! He canonically is already a published author in-universe! That's what the books ARE in-universe! The first series fully exists in their universe and Percy is the author! This is explicit canonical information! Percy canonically has help physically writing it down (accommodations) but he is still the credited author! Percy is a writer! Already! Canonically! Why are we making him a marine biologist he already has a profession that ties into his character significantly more. Like you said, Percy likes helping people. That's what the books in-universe are supposed to be for! It's point blank at the beginning of the series! Book one! The thing everybody quotes all the time! The books exist because it is Percy trying to give advice to other demigods who don't know what's going on yet! It's Percy's writing down his experiences to help new demigods understand and contextualize their experiences so they can understand themselves better and figure out what's going on - WHICH IN ITSELF IS ALSO A METAPHOR ABOUT ADHD/DYSLEXIA! Because the core of the series has and always will be built around ADHD/dyslexia! Percy as a protagonist EXPLICITLY was created so that ADHD/dyslexic kids could see themselves as a hero!

Sorry that all was a very tangential rant but my point being: Absolutely. Percy in newer stuff in the franchise and in fanon is horrifically mischaracterized in ways that are functionally either fully ableist (shoutout TSATS for just outright claiming Percy is intentionally lazy and skips school out of disinterest, which is like the number one ableist attitude towards kids with learning disabilities) or a complete erasure of Percy's disabilities. Also I think he should be a writing major not a marine biologist.

[lampochkaart]

Hey, guess what? I finaly finished my fanart for 13 Students Remain written by a wonderful @whattheskyknows! I've been subscribed to it for a long time, but never drew anything which is actually a crime. I'm fixing my mistake now!

This is probably my favorite fanfic ever, I highly recommend reading it (especially if you like oumota and amamatsu)! Very well written, and full of both funny and sad moments (that now live rent free in my head). It's pretty long, but it's REALLY worth it! I don't want to say more because I don't want to spoil anything. Just check it out. It's so underrated it's insane!!

Vague fic spoilers below "read more"

I wan't to point out little details I put in this.

I depicted here the main characters of each simulation loop after the main game, along with the people they became closest to (and who supported them a lot), as well as the main "antagonist" of their respective loops. In Kaede's and Kokichi's cases it is Tsumugi, but Kaito was most shaken by his memories.

Also Kaito is here providing support in each loop. And in his own everyone is there for him (just like he deserves)

Version without text

[templegate]

God i love @whattheskyknows's 13 students remain. Anyways fanart under the cut. Massive spoilers for the fic!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Amazon’s financial shell game let it create an “impossible” monopoly

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then San Francisco (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

For the pro-monopoly crowd that absolutely dominated antitrust law from the Carter administration until 2020, Amazon presents a genuinely puzzling paradox: the company's monopoly power was never supposed to emerge, and if it did, it should have crumbled immediately.

Pro-monopoly economists embody Ely Devons's famous aphorism that "If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

Rather than using the way the world actually works as their starting point for how to think about it, they build elaborate models out of abstract principles like "rational actors." The resulting mathematical models are so abstractly elegant that it's easy to forget that they're just imaginative exercises, disconnected from reality:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/03/all-models-are-wrong/#some-are-useful

These models predicted that it would be impossible for Amazon to attain monopoly power. Even if they became a monopoly – in the sense of dominating sales of various kinds of goods – the company still wouldn't get monopoly power.

For example, if Amazon tried to take over a category by selling goods below cost ("predatory pricing"), then rivals could just wait until the company got tired of losing money and put prices back up, and then those rivals could go back to competing. And if Amazon tried to keep the loss-leader going indefinitely by "cross-subsidizing" the losses with high-margin profits from some other part of its business, rivals could sell those high margin goods at a lower margin, which would lure away Amazon customers and cut the supply lines for the price war it was fighting with its discounted products.

That's what the model predicted, but it's not what happened in the real world. In the real world, Amazon was able use its access to the capital markets to embark on scorched-earth predatory pricing campaigns. When diapers.com refused to sell out to Amazon, the company casually committed $100m to selling diapers below cost. Diapers.com went bust, Amazon bought it for pennies on the dollar and shut it down:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/18563379/amazon-predatory-pricing-antitrust-law

Investors got the message: don't compete with Amazon. They can remain predatory longer than you can remain solvent.

Now, not everyone shared the antitrust establishment's confidence that Amazon couldn't create a durable monopoly with market power. In 2017, Lina Khan – then a third year law student – published "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," a landmark paper arguing that Amazon had all the tools it needed to amass monopoly power:

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox

Today, Khan is chair of the FTC, and has brought a case against Amazon that builds on some of the theories from that paper. One outcome of that suit is an unprecedented look at Amazon's internal operations. But, as the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Stacy Mitchell describes in a piece for The Atlantic, key pieces of information have been totally redacted in the court exhibits:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/amazon-profits-antitrust-ftc/677580/

The most important missing datum: how much money Amazon makes from each of its lines of business. Amazon's own story is that it basically breaks even on its retail operation, and keeps the whole business afloat with profits from its AWS cloud computing division. This is an important narrative, because if it's true, then Amazon can't be forcing up retail prices, which is the crux of the FTC's case against the company.

Here's what we know for sure about Amazon's retail business. First: merchants can't live without Amazon. The majority of US households have Prime, and 90% of Prime households start their ecommerce searches on Amazon; if they find what they're looking for, they buy it and stop. Thus, merchants who don't sell on Amazon just don't sell. This is called "monopsony power" and it's a lot easier to maintain than monopoly power. For most manufacturers, a 10% overnight drop in sales is a catastrophe, so a retailer that commands even a 10% market-share can extract huge concessions from its suppliers. Amazon's share of most categories of goods is a lot higher than 10%!

What kind of monopsony power does Amazon wield? Well, for one thing, it is able to levy a huge tax on its sellers. Add up all the junk-fees Amazon charges its platform sellers and it comes out to 45-51%:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Competitive businesses just don't have 45% margins! No one can afford to kick that much back to Amazon. What is a merchant to do? Sell on Amazon and you lose money on every sale. Don't sell on Amazon and you don't get any business.

The only answer: raise prices on Amazon. After all, Prime customers – the majority of Amazon's retail business – don't shop for competitive prices. If Amazon wants a 45% vig, you can raise your Amazon prices by a third and just about break even.

But Amazon is wise to that: they have a "most favored nation" rule that punishes suppliers who sell goods more cheaply in rival stores, or even on their own site. The punishments vary, from banishing your products to page ten million of search-results to simply kicking you off the platform. With publishers, Amazon reserves the right to lower the prices they set when listing their books, to match the lowest price on the web, and paying publishers less for each sale.

That means that suppliers who sell on Amazon (which is anyone who wants to stay in business) have to dramatically hike their prices on Amazon, and when they do, they also have to hike their prices everywhere else (no wonder Prime customers don't bother to search elsewhere for a better deal!).

Now, Amazon says this is all wrong. That 45-51% vig they claim from business customers is barely enough to break even. The company's profits – they insist – come from selling AWS cloud service. The retail operation is just a public service they provide to us with cross-subsidy from those fat AWS margins.

This is a hell of a claim. Last year, Amazon raked in $130 billion in seller fees. In other words: they booked more revenue from junk fees than Bank of America made through its whole operation. Amazon's junk fees add up to more than all of Meta's revenues:

https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2023/q4/AMZN-Q4-2023-Earnings-Release.pdf

Amazon claims that none of this is profit – it's just covering their operating expenses. According to Amazon, its non-AWS units combined have a one percent profit margin.

Now, this is an eye-popping claim indeed. Amazon is a public company, which means that it has to make thorough quarterly and annual financial disclosures breaking down its profit and loss. You'd think that somewhere in those disclosures, we'd find some details.

You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. Amazon's disclosures do not break out profits and losses by segment. SEC rules actually require the company to make these per-segment disclosures:

https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3524&context=lawreview#:~:text=If%20a%20company%20has%20more,income%20taxes%20and%20extraordinary%20items.

That rule was enacted in 1966, out of concern that companies could use cross-subsidies to fund predatory pricing and other anticompetitive practices. But over the years, the SEC just…stopped enforcing the rule. Companies have "near total managerial discretion" to lump business units together and group their profits and losses in bloated, undifferentiated balance-sheet items:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2021/dec/crouching-tiger-hidden-dragons

As Mitchell points you, it's not just Amazon that flouts this rule. We don't know how much money Google makes on Youtube, or how much Apple makes from the App Store (Apple told a federal judge that this number doesn't exist). Warren Buffett – with significant interest in hundreds of companies across dozens of markets – only breaks out seven segments of profit-and-loss for Berkshire Hathaway.

Recall that there is one category of data from the FTC's antitrust case against Amazon that has been completely redacted. One guess which category that is! Yup, the profit-and-loss for its retail operation and other lines of business.

These redactions are the judge's fault, but the real fault lies with the SEC. Amazon is a public company. In exchange for access to the capital markets, it owes the public certain disclosures, which are set out in the SEC's rulebook. The SEC lets Amazon – and other gigantic companies – get away with a degree of secrecy that should disqualify it from offering stock to the public. As Mitchell says, SEC chairman Gary Gensler should adopt "new rules that more concretely define what qualifies as a segment and remove the discretion given to executives."

Amazon is the poster-child for monopoly run amok. As Yanis Varoufakis writes in Technofeudalism, Amazon has actually become a post-capitalist enterprise. Amazon doesn't make profits (money derived from selling goods); it makes rents (money charged to people who are seeking to make a profit):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Profits are the defining characteristic of a capitalist economy; rents are the defining characteristic of feudalism. Amazon looks like a bazaar where thousands of merchants offer goods for sale to the public, but look harder and you discover that all those stallholders are totally controlled by Amazon. Amazon decides what goods they can sell, how much they cost, and whether a customer ever sees them. And then Amazon takes $0.45-51 out of every dollar. Amazon's "marketplace" isn't like a flea market, it's more like the interconnected shops on Disneyland's Main Street, USA: the sign over the door might say "20th Century Music Company" or "Emporium," but they're all just one store, run by one company.

And because Amazon has so much control over its sellers, it is able to exercise power over its buyers. Amazon's search results push down the best deals on the platform and promote results from more expensive, lower-quality items whose sellers have paid a fortune for an "ad" (not really an ad, but rather the top spot in search listings):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/29/aethelred-the-unready/#not-one-penny-for-tribute

This is "Amazon's pricing paradox." Amazon can claim that it offers low-priced, high-quality goods on the platform, but it makes $38b/year pushing those good deals way, way down in its search results. The top result for your Amazon search averages 29% more expensive than the best deal Amazon offers. Buy something from those first four spots and you'll pay a 25% premium. On average, you need to pick the seventeenth item on the search results page to get the best deal:

https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3645/

For 40 years, pro-monopoly economists claimed that it would be impossible for Amazon to attain monopoly power over buyers and sellers. Today, Amazon exercises that power so thoroughly that its junk-fee revenues alone exceed the total revenues of Bank of America. Amazon's story – that these fees barely stretch to covering its costs – assumes a nearly inconceivable level of credulity in its audience. Regrettably – for the human race – there is a cohort of senior, highly respected economists who possess this degree of credulity and more.

Of course, there's an easy way to settle the argument: Amazon could just comply with SEC regs and break out its P&L for its e-commerce operation. I assure you, they're not hiding this data because they think you'll be pleasantly surprised when they do and they don't want to spoil the moment.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

Image: Doc Searls (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/4863121221/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[beekindtobees]

13 students remain’s last chapter posted….how we feeling chat

i love this fic, if you haven’t read it yet, i urge you to do so. i know it’s long and looks kind of daunting, but it’s well worth your time. especially if you’re a fan of time loops.

anyway. here’s some art.

(vague spoilers for the last chapter of @whattheskyknows ‘s 13 Students Remain below)

[lovova]

@whattheskyknows

My best attempt at drawing the Scourge of the Stars from the latest "13 Students Remain" chapter! I really loved that scene~ If you haven't tried this fic yet, seriously, do it, it's so good.