#2024 would be a year for override

[rawliverandcigarettes]

Ok gang!!!

It's been a while, and I think it's time to come clear about a plan I used to have, and how I am very unsure about whether or not it's worth doing.

I technically have the first chapter of The Empire of Preys ready to go. I have basically only that. I did plan to release it on the birthday of Halfway Home's last released chapter, but the truth is: it's happening smack in the middle of an incredibly busy time for me, so I have basically nothing ready as far as promotional material goes.

Also, and it was my plan for a little while, I don't think I can sustain the one chapter per week release schedule I once had with Halfway Home --and I had to come to terms with the fact that I do not have it in me to polish that story nearly as much as I did Halfway Home. I still love it, I still want it out... but I think I'll take it much slower and at a more regular "fanfic" pace for me than what I did with HH. The story of TEoP is not completed yet. I am not completely sure on how to go about certain PoV characters. But, I feel like I can't wait for a "perfect" version like I did with HH, or I will never release this story.

So, while I'm not sure whether or not I'll actually post the first chapter on the 20th of April, I will try to begin posting it relatively soon, and make no promises on when the next one will come out.

I have, however, character portraits in the work! It's coming!! At some point!! Maybe this week if I can finish my work by then!!

Anyway, I hope you are all doing fine, and stuff is doing good, and all of the things. <3

[nighthawkes]

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[obsessivevoidkitten]

Your Knight in Shining Armor

Kinktober 2024 Day 1: Whump Yandere Male Royal x Male Reader AND (separately) Yandere Male Dragon Hybrid x Male Reader CW: Painful noncon, blowjobs, minor physical abuse, verbal abuse, homophobia, internalized homophobia, bullying, kidnapping, minor character death, implied minor character murder, non-human genitalia, emotional trauma, angst, hurt with little comfort, humiliation, degradation, shame, a lot of crying, general yandere behavior, possessive yandere, whump, Dead Dove: DO NOT EAT Word Count: 3.5k (I decided to make my own list of kinks/scenarios for kinktober. I am only posting every other day and not everything is a full fic, though there are several full fics in the mix. This has been a labor of love for you my beautiful readers, please enjoy!)

The Prince of Thornhollow, Percival, was pampered and spoiled by his royal upbringing. He seemed to have been almost blessed. Not just by birth but also in ability. In contests with his knights, he was always the victor, and in his hunts, he had always been successful. The skill he possessed only served to grow his sense of superiority.

He also delighted in cruelty. All of this was unleashed upon castle servants. Since you were his personal servant, you suffered the most abuse by far. The prince tripped you, made fun of you, ridiculed you for the smallest things, and smacked you around whenever he was upset.

A few times he forced you to jerk him off and look at him while you licked the cum from his cock. He loved the humiliation in your eyes.

"You should be thanking me for letting you taste the royal seed with your peasant mouth."

It wasn't a suggestion. You had to thank him. He berated you afterward for being a girl and liking dick. It was an open secret that you fancied other men, and it was a favorite subject for Percival to pick at.

Sadly his sexual abuse didn’t end there. One time, when he was drunk on wine and you had been cleaning his chambers, he suddenly pinned you against the wall and kissed you roughly on the mouth. Sloppy and uncoordinated, you could taste the wine.

You flinched from his touch, sure that it was a cruel joke. And even if it wasn't your first kiss, you should have been from someone you loved, not someone you feared.

Percival grabbed your wrists to stop your squirming.

"Stop fighting, slut."

His words were harsh but his voice had a certain softness that you were not accustomed to from him. It was obviously the alcohol.

"You're gay, I'm an attractive man, I know you want this."

You yelped as he spun you around and grinded against your ass. You had no choice but to comply with his every whim... he was royalty. He nuzzled your neck and cooed into your ear.

"You're shaking so much, I bet your trembles will feel so good from inside you."

Percival pulled your pants down, followed by his. He took a gob of precum from his cock and massaged it into your hole.

"I bet you can't believe your luck, having the prince do this to you."

He slid a finger into you, followed by another. You wept silently as he squirmed inside your ass to stretch you out.

"I'm not a gay freak like you, this is just your reward for being such a good servant all these years. You deserve it."

The prince sucked and kissed your neck as he slowly pierced you with his cock.

You gasped for breath as the pain made you speechless. You would have fallen to the ground had Percival not been propping you up with his strong hands. There was a resounding smack as his nuts hit your ass with every thrust. You tried to squirm free, instinct overriding the attempt to obey a superior, but Percival wrapped his arms around you tightly.

"Just try to relax. You'll love it. I know you'll love my cock."

He nibbled on your ear and trailed kisses down your neck.

"Stop crying, you're being really ungrateful... it's starting to annoy me..."

He began going at a crueler pace in his frustration. He felt between your legs and you were barely even hard. He thought you'd love this, there were prevalent rumors that several knights had used you as a convenient cumdump and he was obviously better than they were. Of course, you were a virgin, and the prince was robbing you of your first time in the most brutal fashion.

After filling you with his cum he let you slump to the floor as he sneered.

He was still drunk, but his orgasm brought a bit of clarity, letting his elitism and internalized homophobia bubble back to the surface where it mingled with his disappointment and insecurity at the fact that sex with him wasn't enjoyable for you.

He was too ignorant to know that much better lube and stretching needed to be used while you were more relaxed. Percival wiped himself off with a rag and then threw it at you with a look of disgust.

"Clean yourself up, then get the hell out and don't let anyone know, or I'll cut out your tongue."

You wiped the cum and blood from you quickly and staggered to your feet before hobbling away while sniffling. He didn't do anything like that again, not even force you to suck him, but he did treat you worse for weeks.

His disposition finally went back to his normal level of disdain when he finally got his new set of enchanted armor. It was white and black, with silver and gold filigree. It became your most important set of tasks, fetching, polishing, and putting away his armor as well as helping him into it. Though even when it was perfectly polished, it was not unheard of for you to get a minor thrashing at the hands of the prince.

The life you had was pretty miserable. Even though the prince acted as a tyrant to his personal servant, you, he protected his and the crown’s image. It helped that the royal family's policies and skills at governing resulted in a fairly content lower class. Percival, especially, was beloved by many. The handsome prince with his blood red hair and muscular physique. He was quite charming and had drawn the affection of many noble ladies. This meant you couldn't find an escape or even speak badly about the prince because you would surely be ratted out.

So you went about tending to the prince as best you could and just hoping that he wasn't in a foul mood at any given time. But the prince wasn't the only thing you had to worry about.

There was a dragon-man hybrid, Rinvir, that had been attracted by a certain shiny gleam. He found that it was the valuable armor of the prince.

Of course, it may be good to have someone tend to the armor sometimes. Maybe they could polish other treasures for him. When he watched you shine the armor, he couldn't help but think how nice it would be to have your delicate human hands tend to his "sword" too. And maybe how good it would feel "sheathed" inside of you.

Rinvir wouldn't just mate with a human for such a flimsy reason, so he stalked you and the prince. Whenever he was hunting with you as his assistant, whenever you were in the training fields helping him put on his armor, whenever you were alone and tending to your outdoor duties.

He hated the prince but fell deeply in love with you. You were so kind and soft-spoken, so diligent with your work no matter what the task.

Rinvir wanted you even more than the immensely valuable armor. He still wanted the armor in his hoard, though, too. It would spite the prince nicely.

The dragon-man waited until a lovely clear day when you were just about to help Percival into his armor. He was screaming at you to hurry up as you were struggling with its immense weight. Rinvir swooped down and snatched you right up, armor and all. A flash of shiny blue scales was all the prince saw before you were gone. He stood there dumbfounded for a moment before collecting himself.

"But... that one was... mine..."

He had to have yo-, no, his... armor back. It was so valuable and had been forged partly by magical means. Luckily, his father, the king, agreed. It was an insult to their rule to let such a slight go unpunished.

Dragon-men were strong, but the prince had a good number under his command, his own talents, and the magic of the court wizard backing him up. He'd have his precious peasant back by any means! And this time, he'd not let silly shit like fear of rumors and homophobia stop him from holding you close in bed while rearranging your guts.

Oh, uh... and he'd have his fancy enchanted armor back... that was what he was really worried about... the armor... yeah...

Meanwhile, at the formerly abandoned lakeside temple that Rinvir called home, you were crying. A giant man with shaggy unkempt hair, huge blue wings, horns, and scales up and down his arms and legs had just made off with you. Surely he would eat you or kill you for sport.

"Shhh, calm down, delicate thing."

He took you to his underground treasure room and put the armor on a stand then gave his undivided attention to you.

"You're my new favorite treasure!"

He nuzzled into your neck and licked your cheek, causing you to shudder.

"I-I'm not a treasure... j-just take me back home!"

He laughed. That wasn't happening.

"And go back to that abusive royal? Not a chance. You're gonna be my mate."

At first, you were borderline hostile. Then you were extremely reluctant. But as the days and weeks turned into months, you became more and more amicable to your self-appointed boyfriend. Rinvir did so much for you. He set up a little garden so you could enjoy outside time because you always looked at peace during your brief moments in the palace gardens.

He caught food for you. Though you did have to prepare it, he was no chef. But you had to prepare fresh meat on the prince's hunts all the time. But now you got to cook it how you preferred and Rinvir left you the best bits.

When you were sore, he gave the best massages.

When you slept, he held you tight to provide warmth.

When it came to sex Rinvir was a patient and gentle lover. So far, you had only pleased him with your mouth and hands, and he had returned the favor. His cock was thick and slimy but you actually enjoyed how it felt in your hands and the taste wasn’t bad either. He never pressured you into anything and was content with letting you explore what you liked at your own pace.

He really was your savior. Your dragon in shining scales.

It had been three months. Three agonizing months without his manservant. His beloved. His father had ordered him to give up the search because at this point, it was getting costly, and the prince had matters of state that needed attending. They could always make new armor and still investigate in smaller numbers if there were solid leads about the dragon.

That wasn't acceptable to Percival. His servant was probably dead or, at the very least, being tortured by a beast. It had been so long, and there were no guarantees that you were still alive. Percival had to have closure and revenge. Even if you were alive, he'd need revenge for having to endure without you, and you had surely missed him. If you were still hanging on you probably felt abandoned.

His father wouldn't budge. And when, in desperation, Percival had told him he valued and needed your friendship, his father had laughed him out of the throne room.

Unfortunately for you, his father came down with a sudden case of "died in the middle of the night." It was assumed he had succumbed to his advanced age, though that wasn’t the case.

King Percival redoubled the efforts into finding that thief of a dragon. It took an extra month after his ascension to the throne, but he had discovered rumors of a shimmering blue dragon-man. Percival spared no expense. Took no chances. He surrounded the entire area with well over 100 troops and had hired an additional two mercenary mages to work alongside the court wizard. They had used great magic to keep the approach silent.

It was the middle of the night when they made their move. Rinvir heard them approach and woke you up quickly.

"I think the prince found us! There's a lot of them. I can't believe they got so close without me noticing!"

He held you in his arms and planned to fly off with you through the temple's tower window.

You were too frightened to speak, but you had confidence in Rinvir's ability to get you to safety.

Rinvir spread his wings and leapt from the window. But a beam of light made by the combined magic of the King's sorcerers pulled the two of you to the ground.

Percival's heart leapt at the sight of you. He could scarcely believe you were still alive. This was amazing. He'd take you back, marry you at once, keep you safe, and heal you from whatever trauma this brute subjected you to.

"SLOWLY!!! He has my betrothed!!"

Yes, he was quickly paralyzed with powerful magic, and you were pried from his grasp.

Your knightly king would have you soon. Percival would make up for every bad word he ever uttered to you, for every humiliation, for hurting you the first time the two of you had made love because he had assumed you were more experienced.

He felt silly for having brought a small army when all he had needed were a few powerful magic users. They brought you to him, and he hoisted you into one of the wagons that had been brought to take back the dragon's treasures.

Percival removed his replacement armor and pulled you right into his lap. You had been shocked into silence with everything having moved so fast. One moment, you were snuggled up with Rinvir, your love, and suddenly, you found yourself in the lap of the man who made you hate life. Who's touch made you want to vomit.

You tried to shake him off and escape his hold.

"M-my Rinvir... I got to see Rinvir..."

"Who? That glorified lizard? Has he brainwashed you!? They say the best way to break such magic is with the touch of a loved one."

His hands were all over you as he peppered you with small kisses.

"Forget that monster, you're safe now, I promise."

"Y-you don't understand! I love him! Please let us go!"

He held you tightly with one arm as he began stripping you down with the other.

"I know just the thing to break this bewitchment."

Percival figured even if you weren't under the power of a spell that giving you his cock and making you feel good would still help you get over your overgrown lizard. The king kept you on his lap but turned you to face him. He swallowed up all of your protests with a deep hungry kiss, his tongue rolling around your mouth as it invaded you.

You started thrashing more as his finger grazed your hole. He held you tight as he leaned over and grabbed a vial from a box underneath his seat. He had this wagon prepared for your rescue if it was successful.

“Please don't. J-just let me go back...”

He put the contents on his fingers and massaged them diligently into your hole, slowly adding more digits until you could handle four of them with ease. Then he slicked up his large cock.

"Don't worry. This will be so much better than last time. I'll be the only man you ever think of after this."

His mouth attended to your neck as he slid into you slowly, going at a slow pace and making sure he hit a spot in you with each thrust that made you shudder and keen.

Percival had to admit that it was his fault your first time was awful. But he had consulted books since then. If he had been this attentive the first time, he could have been bedding you for a long time. You wept silently as your body betrayed you entirely, Percival assumed that the pleasure was just too much for you. You came intensely, spurting cum all over his hard abs and chest.

He went faster, still careful to go at a pace that wouldn't hurt you, as he chased his own climax. Being inside you finally and seeing your face as it was so ruined by pleasure sent him over the edge, and he filled your bowels with his semen.

"See!? Isn't that so much better? We can do it all the time now! I forgot to tell you! I'm the king!!!"

He held you close, burying your face in his pecs as he rubbed your back.

"If anyone gives us shit for being gay I'll cut their tongue out."

Percival was worried because you kept shaking and sobbing, but when you cried about wanting to go back to Rinvir, his attitude went icy. He peeled you off of his dick and cleaned you up roughly but then sat you across from him.

He had to remind himself that you had suffered great trauma, and it would likely take time to heal since it clearly wasn't a mere spell that had been laid upon you. He had to remain kind to you because it wasn't your fault, and a king shouldn't treat his betrothed too harshly.

Besides, he still had to make up for all the torture he put you through.

But he was not known for his patience. As the weeks passed, he grew increasingly irritable and could no longer handle your ceaseless whingeing about Rinvir.

Percival arranged for you to meet the piece of trash.

He took you down to the dungeon where you saw Rinvir. He was encased in a solid block of some type of enchanted glass or maybe even magical ice, completely unable to move. You fell to your knees and pressed your hands to the surface of the material as you cried his name. You hadn't seen him since you were ripped from his arms, you hadn't even known whether or not he survived!

"He's still alive, you know?"

Percival leaned down and spoke softly into your ear.

"I was going to have him displayed in the throne room, but that would have been too cruel to you, and I do love you so."

The depraved king applied a special lube to his fingers. One that was guaranteed to make you cum hard.

"He can see and hear everything. Since you cry for him so much in my presence, it is only fair that he hears how I make you moan and cry in pleasure."

You were crying so desperately that Percival's words hardly registered at all. Only when he pulled down your leggings did you realize his intent. You squirmed and writhed as he put the lube in you, feeling a strange heat inside you as he rubbed it in.

He gripped your hips and lined up with your hole, your crying face looking down shamefully to avoid seeing Rinvir as Percival took you.

His cock kissed that spot inside you and instantly you started moaning. It was like he was pumping a surge of ecstasy into you with every thrust. Though tears fell to the cold dungeon floor as he fucked into you, you couldn't help arching your back and moving against every thrust in an effort to feel it more deeply.

It was something you had never done before while Percival "made love" to you.

Percival greatly increased the pace. He wanted Rinvir to hear the smack every single time he drove into you, wanted you to hear the squelch from the precum and lube as he pressed into you, and most of all wanted him to hear all the pretty little gasps and moans HIS fiancé was making that HE had caused.

Percival's throbbing cock spilled rope after rope of semen into you, causing you to practically collapse to the floor in a riot of bliss as you came. You buried your head in your arms in humiliation and guilt. Your loving king angled your head up and forced you to look at Rinvir.

"It probably hurts him a great deal to see you like this, don't you think? From now on, anytime you mention his name, I am going to bring you down here and breed you right in front of him."

Percival sneered evilly at Rinvir. He knew from your defeated expression that he had won. The king kissed and comforted you as he picked you up to take you to bed. You had a long day, and tomorrow there was a wedding to start planning... now that you were over your ex...

He left the mess that had pooled out of you right where it had fallen. Rinvir could look at all the cum he had put into you for a while as a reminder of what Percival did to those who would dare take what was his.

[omedapixel]

»» 2024 SIMBLREEN GIFTS PT 1 ««

Canning Jars Default Replacement

Happy Simblreen!! I started these last year and only just now finished them lol. I have one other gift for you guys that´ll be coming later!

This replaces the mesh and textures of the jam/preserve jars that come with the canning station. It IS compatible with Butterbot's overhaul and I would reccomment installing that mod also! (although you can use this replacement without it if you so choose)

I did NOT include the textures for meal rations sorry, I just find the idea of an entire cheeseburger stuffed into a jar a little too silly! I'd like to make an updated version of Butterbot's mod one day that includes a new mesh for rations.

Place this in your OVERRIDES folder!

» DOWNLOAD HERE

If you like more historical/medieval gameplay, stay tuned over on my sideblog @omedievalpixel cause I´ll be releasing another version there shortly!

[unnecessaryligatures]

Psych (TV) and Same-Sex Marriage in California

While rewatching Psych, I have been thinking about what audiences today versus audiences at the time would have thought about the references to the issue of same-sex marriage, and what it says about voting this November.

(This post contains some spoilers for Psych Seasons 3 and 6.)

A lot happened in California related to same-sex marriage while Psych was airing. In 2004 (two years before the show began), same-sex marriage was briefly legal for one month, though the licenses issued were later voided. It became legal again in June 2008 for a little over four months until Proposition 8 was passed that November, which modified the California Constitution to make the definition of marriage be between a man and a woman. This time, marriage licenses issued in 2008 remained valid.

Psych Season 3 started airing in July 2008. So all of this would have been on people's minds during 3x11 "Lassie Did a Bad, Bad Thing" when Drimmer sets Shawn and Lassiter up to be "former lovers" in their murder-suicide note.

Prop 8 was ruled unconstitutional in August 2010, though this ruling was not final until 2013, when same-sex marriages were again permitted.

6x3 "This Episode Sucks" is when we learn that Lassiter's mom Mona has been with her girlfriend Althea since Lassiter left for the academy, and he keeps a framed photo of them in his apartment:

This episode aired in October 2011. Mona and Althea's right to marry would have very much been in limbo while the appeals worked their way through the courts.

The final episode of Season 6, 6x16 "Santabarbaratown," contains this scene, where our waitress identifies herself as an ally:

That episode aired in April 2012. Prop 8 was still very much on people's minds.

The final season of Psych (Season 8) finished airing in January of 2014, shortly after same-sex couples were again allowed to marry in California.

In 2015, same-sex marriage was finally legalized US-wide, overriding state constitutions on the subject. (If Obergefell v. Hodges were overturned, state constitutions would again take precedence.)

However, the California Constitution still technically defines marriage as being between one man and one woman, thanks to Prop 8. This year (2024), there is a vote on the ballot to finally remove that language from the California Constitution.

So, the issues LGBTQ+ Californians (and the Psych characters) faced while Psych was airing are still very much relevant when you cast your vote this November.

[jjmcquade-misc]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr Says:

"Bayer is essentially bribing both Republican and Democrat congresspeople to insert an extraordinary provision into the Farm Bill that would give the German company immunity from lawsuits over its pesticides, especially Roundup. If these products are as safe as the pesticide companies claim, then why do they need a liability shield? This bill violates the Fifth, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Tell me, are you as outraged by this as I am?"

Let's MAHA.

For 40 years, Monsanto’s RoundUp has clearly caused dozens of diseases to explode in lockstep.

Now Monsanto wars with the constitution as they lobby for a license to kill.

A new provision seeks to create a liability shield to defend Monsanto from Americans harmed by pesticides.

By overriding state laws, this bill will enable Monsanto to make billions in profits without regard for the lives of Americans.

This provision is a direct attack on our Constitutional bill of rights: 5th Amendment - Due Process: Denies Americans rights to fair hearings. 10th Amendment - States’ Rights: Ends the power of states to protect their citizens.

14th Amendment - Equal Protection: Creates an unfair legal advantage for corporations over individuals.

Millions of Americans are dying before their time.

Monsanto says this bill is necessary because growing food is a toxic endeavor.

This is completely false.

Europe uses a tenth of the poison we do.

For all time until very recently, we’ve never grown food with poison. In reality, with technology and knowledge, it's never been easier to grow our food responsibly.

Let’s reject the notion that our food must be toxic.

VOTE TRUMP 2024

[mariacallous]

Democrats are charging out of their national convention with enthusiasm and determination ― and in far better shape than seemed possible just a few weeks ago, when then-presumptive nominee President Joe Biden was headed for likely defeat.

Vice President Kamala Harris has wiped out Biden’s deficit in the polls, and now holds small but discernible leads over Donald Trump in both national and swing state surveys. She’s also expanded the electoral map, putting in play states such as North Carolina that seemed lost to Democrats when Biden was leading the ticket. As of this writing, Nate Silver’s predictive model suggests Harris is a 52.8% favorite to win.

It will take a few days for pollsters to figure out whether Harris got the traditional convention bounce, pushing her support even higher, or whether she got a version of it beforehand via the burst of activity and favorable press coverage around her campaign launch.

Either way, it’s hard to look back on the week in Chicago and deem it anything but a smashing political success, from the (still reverberating) call to arms by former first lady Michelle Obama to the (still circulating) sight of Gus Walz, son of vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim, tearfully telling the crowd “that’s my dad!”

Harris, for her part, gave what my colleague Jen Bendery’s story called the “speech of her life.” Plenty of other analysts rendered similar judgments.

With a passionate, near-flawless delivery, Harris introduced herself as the daughter of immigrants who valued virtue and hard work, promising to fight for the middle class and vowing to protect democracy. She wrapped herself metaphorically in the flag and what she thinks it represents to the nation’s non-MAGA majority. The laser focus on trying to win over swing voters was impossible to miss, in part because it was such an overriding theme all week ― whether through cultural symbolism (like having the aging veterans of Walz’s championship high school football team appear on stage) or more overt outreach (like having former House Republican Adam Kinzinger give a prime-time address).

But the appeal to the political middle had some telling substantive elements too.

Insofar as Harris and Democrats talked about policy, they focused on causes such as bringing down prescription drug prices, providing paid leave or helping families to pay for child care ― ambitions considerably more modest than the loftier, more progressive “Medicare for All” calls that dominated the last Democratic presidential campaign and to which Harris herself once pledged fealty. Harris also went out of her way to back a bipartisan immigration bill that would tighten security without creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already here, which is a provision progressives have frequently called essential.

The platform evolved, with party leaders scrubbing a call to end the death penalty ― quietly, until my colleague Jessica Schulberg found out about it. They also refused requests to feature a Palestinian speaker on the conflict in Gaza. That part wasn’t so quiet, or unanticipated. In fact, the prospect of protests and disruptions over Biden’s support for Israel had fueled speculation that Chicago 2024 was going to end up as tumultuous as Chicago 1968. But as HuffPost’s Daniel Marans and Jonathan Nicholson observed, the fissures never blew up into 1968-style conflicts ― not over Gaza, or any other issues for that matter. On the contrary, the Democrats seemed improbably and almost impossibly unified, with would-be progressive dissidents like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) sounding downright giddy about the Harris-Walz ticket.

What explains this unified enthusiasm? Three likely reasons come to mind. One in particular has a lot to do with how the party has changed in recent years ― and what it might be able to do if Harris manages to win.

Democrats In Array

One of these likely reasons is the threat Trump poses to individual liberties, the rule of law and democracy — threats progressives feel every bit as keenly as the more moderates in the party. These threats almost certainly seem even more menacing now after so many months watching Biden struggle.

Staring into the political abyss this way has been known to focus the mind.

Another possible factor is Harris’ identity. Electing the first woman president, not to mention the first Black woman and the first Asian woman, would have obvious symbolic value. But it would also have more practical effects — namely, bringing a new perspective to the presidency and making it easier for other women, and other nonwhite politicians, to make their own way to the Oval Office.

Progressives almost by definition care about these things, enough that it can help counterbalance appeal for politicians who see the ticket as less progressive than they might like. Barack Obama in 2008 benefited from just such a dynamic, as The New York Times’ David Leonhardt pointed out on Friday: “He was more moderate than some other Democratic candidates that year, yet he still excited many progressives.”

Harris notably hasn’t talked about herself as groundbreaker, and the campaign hasn’t made that possibility a focus in the way that, say, Hillary Clinton’s did in 2016. But that’s of a piece with Harris’ broader strategy since appeals tied to race or class can alienate some of the swing voters she’s trying to win. The voters who feel otherwise, meanwhile, don’t need reminders.

This brings us to the third, and potentially most important, theory for progressive enthusiasm: Democrats have gotten an awful lot done since Biden took office. An awful lot of it consisted of initiatives or reforms progressives have long championed. And most importantly, it all happened with progressives having a big seat at the table.

The most significant and visible of these accomplishments was the clean green energy investments of the Inflation Reduction Act, which add up (arguably) to the most important climate change legislation in history, plus the law’s health care provisions, which for the first time gave the federal government leverage over the prices of some high-priced drugs in Medicare.

But the list goes beyond that, to the appointment of aggressively pro-consumer and pro-labor officials at key federal agencies, and the burst of spending during the pandemic that (whatever its real or theorized effects on inflation) drove both unemployment and child poverty down to near-record levels.

All of these feel well short of the kinds of transformations progressives would prefer with, say, enactment of “Medicare for All.” But they had, are having or will have tangible, measurable effects on people’s lives — and are examples of the kind of achievements that might be possible if Harris wins and Democrats have control of both congressional houses again.

It so happens that these are also the kinds of achievements that animate up-and-coming party leaders, even if they are not members of the progressive wing — figures like Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, or Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia. Not coincidentally, all gave Harris rousing endorsements in prime- time speeches.

But that too is part of the story about unity: The party’s “moderate” wing today feels pretty strongly about using the federal government to make people’s lives better, just as it does about protecting the freedoms Trump threatens. They may emphasize it differently — focusing more exclusively on the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy manufacturing jobs, for example, and a bit less on its environmental impact. They still land in the same place on policy.

Whether these good feelings would carry through enough to enact a legislative agenda is obviously a separate question and one that is very secondary to the question of whether Democrats even get that opportunity.

The presidential race is still a toss-up, or maybe even a bit worse than that for Harris if the polling now is missing Trump votes the way it did in 2016 and again in 2020. Republicans remain by most accounts a slight favorite to hold at least one house of Congress.

But Harris is coming out of Chicago on a roll, with a party behind her as she reaches out to the swing voters she needs to win. That’s a pretty good place to be.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Michael de Adder, Halifax Chronicle Herald

* * * *

Trump promises to eliminate future elections

July 29, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

Last Friday, Trump told Christian rally-goers that “You won’t have to vote any more” if they elect Trump in 2024.

Let that sink in. A presidential candidate promised to eliminate future elections.

The media yawned.

Actually, the media ignored the story (except for The Guardian) until commentators on social media and the Harris Campaign shamed journalists into acknowledging Trump's antidemocratic threat—which they did in a dismissive, begrudging manner.

It is tiresome to highlight the media’s failings, but this incident is so egregious that it is important on many levels. Most importantly, it underscores that Democrats cannot relent in their effort to warn the American people that Trump hopes to end fundamental democratic norms—like the peaceful, regular transfer of power as prescribed by the Constitution.

Among the issues that should drive voters to the polls in 2024, Trump’s repeated promises to end democracy should be the most alarming. But concepts like “democracy” and “tyranny” strike many voters as “abstract.” Taking away the right to vote is not abstract; doing so would render all other rights illusory.

Let’s turn this incident against Trump by convincing voters that Trump really, truly wants to eliminate the right to vote after 2024. And we must not let him (or his surrogates) weasel out of the plain meaning of his words.

What did Trump say?

 At a rally in Florida on Friday, Trump said,

Christians, get out and vote! Just this time – you won’t have to do it any more. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians. I love you. Get out – you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.

See The Guardian, Trump tells supporters they won’t have to vote in the future: ‘It’ll be fixed!’.

Like most of Trump's statements, it is simultaneously inscrutable and blazingly obvious. He is promising the end of democracy if he is elected. “In four years, you won’t have to vote again.”

The same words uttered by most other politicians might be susceptible to innocent interpretations. But those words uttered by this president can mean only one thing: He wants to eliminate elections in America. He tried to override the will of the people in 2020 by canceling their votes through coup and insurrection. He says he will do so again if he is re-elected. We should believe him.

To repeat: A presidential candidate has promised that 2024 will be the last time that Americans will vote because “everything will be fixed.” That is the equivalent of a five-alarm fire for democracy.

How did the GOP, the media, and the Harris campaign respond? You can probably predict their responses, but let’s look for ourselves.

The GOP response

In typical GOP fashion, the GOP response was (a) he didn’t mean what he said, (b) he said the opposite of what you think you heard, and (c) Trump says weird things all the time, so chill out!

The typical Republican response was delivered by New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who laughed off the statement by saying, (a) it was “hyperbolic,” (b) Trump was trying to make the point that “We want everyone to vote in all elections,” and (c) it was a classic “Trumpism.”

Saying that the statement was hyperbolic and “a Trumpism” are. not serious responses because they do not address the substance of what Trump actually said. Trump incited an insurrection by telling people to “Fight like hell” moments before the attack on the Capitol.” We are long past claiming that Trump's words should not be taken seriously and literally.

Claiming that Trump's statement means the exact opposite of what Trump said is depraved. Sununu’s interpretation of “We want everyone to vote in all elections” vs. Trump's “You’re not gonna have to vote again” is depraved. The depravity of Sununu’s perverse interpretation is not diminished because Sununu delivered the lie with a hearty laugh.

Other Trump apologists (on social media) argued that Trump was saying only that Republicans would not need Christian evangelical votes after 2024 because Trump would do such a great job of fixing all problems in America, “you’re not gonna have to vote.” That explanation makes no sense; even if Trump “fixed” all the problems in America in the next four years, the Constitution still requires an election in 2028.

There is simply no reasonable interpretation of Trump's words other than his declaration that in four years, he intends to eliminate elections (if he can).

The media’s response

As noted above, The Guardian gave serious coverage to Trump's statement. US media outlets, not so much. See, for example, Lucian K. Truscott IV’s description of the NYTimes’ pathetic response. As Truscott notes in his Substack, the Times relegated the statements to “a few lines in a wrap-up piece about what’s happening in the presidential campaign . . . and they buried it on the Times website.” The Times then breezily moved on to pedestrian coverage of the campaigns as if they were reporting the details of an itinerary rather than one of the most shocking statements ever by a major-party candidate for the presidency.

Perhaps even worse was the pathetic interview of Chris Sununu by Martha Raddatz on ABC. Raddatz asked Sununu, “What the heck did he [Trump] mean there [in the statement]?” As noted above, Sununu responded,

(a)  The statement was hyperbolic; (b)  Trump meant that everyone should vote in every election; and (c)  That statement is a Trumpism.

Sununu’s pathetic response was enough to satisfy Radattz, whose follow-up question was, “Ok. Let's turn to President Biden and Kamala Harris.”

I won’t pick on Raddatz (much). Almost every journalist on mainstream media is as pathetic as Raddatz. The inability to ask follow-up questions to ludicrous rationalizations of attacks on democracy is staggering. Most are entertainers, not journalists. Their presence on “news” shows is insulting to their viewers.

Raddatz’s failure to challenge Sununu’s answer and her immediate transition to a question about President Biden and Kamala Harris demonstrates the media’s dangerous addiction to mindless “balance” and false equivalency. Nothing Kamala Harris did over the weekend deserves to be in the same news block as a story about a presidential candidate promising to end the need for elections. Nothing.

Having watched the media fail miserably for seven years with Trump, nothing should surprise us. But the guy tried to overturn one election already and is saying he will do it again. What will it take for the media to realize that Trump is a unique threat to democracy who deserves coverage that applies only to aspiring dictators?

Even if the Times and Raddatz believed that Trump's remarks had a benign explanation, they failed to acknowledge the more plausible, malign interpretation. Instead, they were willing to assume that Trump's remarks were harmless “Trumpisms.” They are not. We saw what happened after Trump told his followers on January 6, 2021: “We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”

So, continue writing those letters to the editor and comments to stories highlighting the media’s failings. And become a messenger for Harris by amplifying her campaign’s messaging. Read on!

The Harris Campaign’s response

Kamala Harris’s campaign organization has been reacting to Trump's missteps and threats like a rapid response force to each. Early Saturday morning, the Harris campaign posted a clip of Trump's comments and attached the following statement:

Statement on Trump's Promise to End Democracy When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it. Our democracy is under assault by criminal Donald Trump: After the last election Trump lost, he sent a mob to overturn the results. This campaign, he has promised violence if he loses, the end of our elections if he wins, and the termination of the Constitution to empower him to be a dictator to enact his dangerous Project 2025 agenda on America. Donald Trump wants to take America backward, to a politics of hate, chaos, and fear —this November America will unite around Vice President Kamala Harris to stop him.

The Harris campaign’s statement is spot-on for several reasons. First, the campaign issued the statement just after noon on Saturday morning, showing a willingness and ability to rebut Trump quickly. By responding within the same news cycle, the Harris campaign shaped the social media response, which ultimately prodded the major media to acknowledge Trump's threat.

Second, the Harris campaign identified Trump's threats in plain language, including

“Trump's Promise to End Democracy.” “Last election Trump sent a mob to overturn the results.” “He has promised violence if he loses” “He has promised the end of elections if he wins” “He has promised to terminate the Constitution” “To become a dictator” “To enact dangerous project 2025”

Dangerous threats demand plain language. The Harris campaign rose to the challenge.

The campaign’s statement was strong in another respect: In identifying Trump as a threat to democracy, it identified Kamala Harris as the point of unity to stop Trump. A very smart move! Kamala Harris is giving Democrats the antidote to Trump's cult of personality. The campaign is fashioning Kamala Harris as a champion of democracy. And it is working!

Concluding Thoughts

Trump's threats present a dilemma. Should we take them seriously? Or does our attention give them credence and heft they do not carry on their own? As with most things in life, there is tension in truth. We must take Trump's threats literally and seriously. But we must not ascribe superpowers to Trump or self-executing inevitability to his threats. By taking his threats seriously, we can prevent them from coming to fruition. So, do not despair or cower in fear. Raise the alarm as we work to defeat Trump and stop his dark plans.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to rally around Kamala Harris. She held her first fundraiser in Pittsfield, MA at the Colonial Theatre. The event was sold out, with an overflow crowd in front of the theater. Kamala Harris spoke after an all-star warm-up that included former Governor Deval Patrick, Senators Warren and Markey, Rep. Neal, and Heather Cox Richardson.

According to those in attendance, the evening was “electric.” The crowd was so enthusiastic, Kamala Harris had difficulty quieting the cheers so she could say “Thank you.” She gave a great speech and pumped up the crowd even further.

In eight short days, Kamala Harris has unified and inspired Democrats in a way that has defied expectations of pundits and career politicians. She is doing so at the precise moment that Trump's veneer of invincibility is cracking. We need to sustain the wave of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris and spread it to others—so that we can push Trump’s downward trajectory past the tipping point of no return. We can do that!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[chiprewington]

Character Analysis on Chip Revvington, the Chainsaw Consultant.

Genuine Long Post Warning, as well as a LOT of images. This is going to cover literally everything we know about Chip (as of April 25th, 2024) and my take on what's provided In Canon (being his Cogs Ink profile, his Interview, the 1.3 News Article, and In-Game). This is my first try at an In-depth Character Analysis. Screenshots used are from the official Wiki.gg, In-Game, and from the Corporate Clash News Archive.

Prior to being brought on to lead the Deforester Force, it's shown he's clearly a confident Suit, and has a genuine passion for his line of work as a consultant. With his personal statement alone this can be seen on full display with how he writes about himself, including noting how he's not swayed by bribery in any manner. (also the fact he outright pokes fun at one of the bribes will never not be funny to me)

Not to mention his lack of discipline records throughout his 19 months having already worked for C.O.G.S. with his usual job as an external consultant, this plus the fact he has "positive remarks" from his previous places of work shows he's probably in very high demand and really does excel at his job.

This is also shown in his interview, where he also equally shows a lot of passion for his job and genuine interest with answering questions relating to it. Before we get into that though, I feel like it's important to also point out a couple other things that I think about a lot with his profile.

This, being referred to as the "Temperamental Terminator" in the 1.3 trailer, and considering the average age of a Consultant is ~40+ years (and I personally hc him as 48), I think it's safe to say Chip just always was a quick-tempered individual throughout his life. It's one of his less favorable traits that I personally find charming.

And these read to me like Chip's always been considered "scary" among other suits. His behavior isn't the issue (yet) though, he's just a massive guy who happens to have a chainsaw for a snout.

Which. Makes this very interesting. Jennifer, stated something similar above, but I feel as if her intentions are more... unaware than the actual company's. Jennifer sees a guy with a big Chainsaw and thinks "Oh! He can cut down trees with that!" Jennifer ily. The company on the other hand probably has had this idea of what Chip could be a candidate for. They hired him to lead the Deforester Force. His job consists of him sitting in an office. Nothing relating to physical labor in cutting down trees, he just oversees the process. "Chainsaw apparatus will be helpful [...]" suddenly takes on a much darker meaning, in my mind.

Which is how we get here. Chip being modified with a clearly experimental hardware which we all know as the Personality Override. The fact that it was only "partially successful" is a very fun thing to consider.

Note the fact that from a canon standpoint the Override was implemented "2 weeks ago". This will be important later.

(The toon who got the above screenshots is not mine!)

Another fun side-note is the fact that the Override is experimental. It's experimental hardware. Chip is the only one with it. They are using him like a guinea pig. And not to mention "Dealing with Toons far more efficiently" paired with the above company-sourced "Chainsaw Apparatus will be useful [...]", you can't make this stuff up. They turned this guy into a living weapon likely without him knowing the full scope of what would happen if he did get this position in the first place.

Okay. Now we can talk about his Interview. Which even through glancing at it you can see just how passionate he is regarding his work. He is driven and confident that his plans for the Deforester Force will work. He wants to believe that he'll set an example for the rest of the departments to execute a similar plan.

And then this question comes up. And then I have to remind you it's probably been only a couple days since he's modified. And he already has rumors circulating about him.

And the moment the subject is changed, he perks right back up into being passionate about his work.

I also feel like it's worth mentioning the fact he's been actively requesting and wanting Spruce (who recommended him to begin with!!!) to join him in the Deforester Force and keeps being turned down on it. The way this and something else I'm about to touch on are written feels like he's barely been able to see him. These two have a brotherly bond and they're being separated. He misses his brother, man.

That's not even getting into this. Even as I'm writing this I just realized the implications of something at the end of this and I'm going to have to pace around my house thinking about it. But also you can see that even though just the slightest amount of time has canonically passed since the interview, you can already see the toll the Override's been taking on Chip's behavior. While he was once passionate, he's now actively complaining about his job. It's not even about the job itself, it's about what's happened to him.

Not to mention, I feel it also displays his temper in full swing once again- even if he's justified in this sense.

I also need to pay special mind to this ending bit right here because the implication of this with everything else surrounding it fucking broke me. uugghhhhh.

Now this is something I feel is so, so, so important to his character. He actively does not like toons. He clearly shows a certain disgust for them and views them like Animals. Pests. He doesn't hesitate to proudly state his opinion on them. And then you see him in-game.

He hasn't changed his mind about toons at all. Ignoring the fact that "you critters again" insinuates this isn't even his first contact with toons (will get to this later), he's... Restrained. I don't know, this reads to me like he's actively restraining himself from blowing up. "You don't want to see what happens when I get angry." is a warning to just comply and leave.

And then because he doesn't remember he fired the rest of the Deforester Force (another thing I want to touch on), he actively gets upset and angry at the remaining flunky because of course someone as high-rank as himself wouldn't want a Flunky on such an important team. Once again, additionally showing his active temper. His active temper he just tried to restrain and bottle up.

And that's what breaks the camel's back. The Override most likely activates from excessive anger/distress, something that Chip Actively Struggles With. He has to bottle himself up because if he tries to be his usual hot-tempered self, which is who he naturally is, he's just going to lose himself. Lose himself to cog knows how long as being a lifeless machine that perfectly and efficiently complies with the commands its given.

He begs for help when he's able to partially regain control (emphasis on partially, considering the most he can do is speak and prevent Deadwood from happening), but like. Again, to me this reads as the fact he is currently Incredibly Fucking Terrified because he's completely aware the whole time the Override is active. He can see himself acting against his will. It's mortifying. He's willing to beg anyone for help because the Override is genuinely traumatizing for him.

Which makes this all the more harrowing. He can't keep the Override at bay forever (likely the only reason why he partially regained control is from the sheer amount of pain he put himself in by ripping out one of his bulbs. You can see him brace himself and wince when that happens). Once again, "save yourselves" in this context feels more like he's scared. He's terrified. Because the Override sucks. And the implication of "ALL RAM CLEARED" doesn't leave much room to assume anything other than the Override likely clears out Chip's memories in order to make more processing room for this janky hardware to run at a constant overclocked state. I wonder how much of Chip's memories have been removed because of that thing, honestly.

By the way did you know that a normal chainsaw runs an average of 12,000 RPM. Do you think about how the little RPM icon is his saw smoking as if it's overheating. What the hell is the Override doing to him internally.

Another added touch I think about a lot is how his battle as a whole is, for the most part, very predictable. You control what cheats he does. Even in technical battle terms, everything is out of Chip's control. As long as every gag hits, you're really just manipulating an enemy's AI to to make the most optimal choices to your benefit. The Override perceives "X", and responds with "Y". You're not fighting an actual individual, just a program.

Clearly, whatever it's doing to him, it's painful (not mentioning the agonizing scream he lets out during this). And thank Cog he was able to regain control at the last second because it's way too obvious that the Override's "final fallback procedure" likely involved some kind of lethal force when it lunges at the toons. (The Chainsaw Apparatus will be helpful.)

There's no sorrow in Chip's words, that's what I think. Everything here is bitter. It's numb, to me.

He's clearly been through this song and dance multiple times by now. He's pissed at the toons, at the company, and at himself. But he can't properly let it out. You know what will happen if he does. The most he can do is throw a chair and scream into the air. (which that line gets its own custom voice clip, fun fact!)

It's clear he's been isolated ever since he's been upgraded, and it seems like he's bitterly accepted it. The only thing he has left to lose is Spruce, which is why he tells the toons not to tell him. If he loses Spruce...

I don't think he'd have much left. It'd make sense why he's grown so restrained and numb and stilted in his speech. He's quickly grown to learn that he can't let himself express anymore, all because of the override.

The fact that everyone else around him views him poorly doesn't help. His employees fear him. Most of them probably don't realize something is wrong, spread rumors about him, or outright attack him through hatemail. Written in Cipher.

"Chip has some anger issues. I would be careful around him. Don't worry about the Cogs though, I'm sure they'll be fine. Might get demoted back to their initial tier, but that's what happens when you work with Chip. Good thing that Toons can't get fired-- or wait, they can, can't they? Do Toons LIKE getting fired? I will never understand those animals. And you seen Spruce around lately? I haven't. I wonder how his deforesting expedition is going. There is a secret message up ahead in Chip's room. Can you find it? If you are stuck, have you considered looking around your surroundings?"

"I can't stand Chip anymore. I know I'm a Yesman, but I have to say NO. He used to be cool up until his sensors flared off. After what he did to my fellow coworker, I don't know if I can continue working under him. Sure, he's one of the most organized managers I've ever worked with, not to mention the flowing passion he has for the Deforester Force. His personality issues can single-handedly cause all of our projects to collapse. One of my former coworkers had raised concerns about Toons taking over our buildings and ultimately undoing all work that was done on our end. That poor Pencil Pusher overstepped his boundaries with Chip when he admitted his failure to secure "our" project from the Toons. Up until this point, I have never seen a Cog fire another Cog. With a cannon."

"It grinded my gears when I saw that happen. Him and I worked nonstop for days straight, while this pile of bolts just sat there doing his paperwork. I wouldn't be surprised if he was just doing crossword puzzles or writing letters to his little buddy. If you are reading this Mr. Revvington, you are the reason for our decline. We are running out of Deforester Force members because of you. As someone who has gone through close-call battles with the Toons, I hope you experience what it's like to have boulders and anvils fall from above you. You can try to fire me with that shoddy cannon of yours, but you would have to track me down first. I've already left the area and was recruited to a new organization far more stable than you will ever be."

------

...I genuinely love Mr. Revvington. He's a Suit who's been dealt the worst hand he could possibly ever get in life. He was just like anyone else, and then everything happened ever since joining C.O.G.S.. He's isolated, he's temperamental, he's pissy, he'd genuinely be someone hard to get along with because of the fact he's struggling with all sorts of issues and would be incredibly difficult and annoying to even start talking to and forming a bond with unless you're both stubborn and have patience. He's awful, and I love him for it.

I genuinely believe he's one of the most complex, beautifully written, and depressing characters in Corporate Clash. Maybe I dive way too deep into things about him, maybe he's not that deep at all. But I like to think about him. He makes me emotional, but he also makes me happy. Thank you for making him exist.

[earth-64]

Wake Up Call - Nintendo Alarmo

All through Summer 2024 the Nintendo fandom had been in a fervor. The Nintendo Switch’s reign had eclipsed its seven year apex: the time had come for a new flagship piece of hardware to take its place. The stage seemed to be set: the game releases were thinning, the Nintendo Directs sparse, and the major game releases clearly smaller, outsourced, and not the main focus of development. Nintendo had already acknowledged the new machine’s existence with an assurance of it being announced within the fiscal year, followed by a continuous promise below each and every announcement stream that there “will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during [...] these presentations.”

As the dog days passed by, during the fleeting few weeks of Fall that still existed between the ever widening record-high Summers and devastating Winter storms, it seemed undeniable that the stage was being set. Nintendo filed new patents for motion sensor technology. Word got out that they were filming a commercial for a new piece of hardware. They flew out content creators to demo something kept under wraps. And on October 9th, 2024, fans awoke to a flurry of notifications, an early morning unheralded announcement shaking the very foundations of what was thought possible for the gaming giant: 

Alarmo.

Nintendo’s smart alarm clock. A touchscreen device with a sleek interface, loaded with 35 themes inspired by 5 games (and more to come), and a $100 price tag. Their patented motion sensing technology made for a hands-free experience. Set the alarm once and from then on, each and every morning, your eyes would flutter open to a jazzy Mario tune, and your triumphant rise from bed would be rewarded with a victory jingle, a “Lets-A-Go!”, and a shot of nostalgic dopamine. 

But is nostalgic the right word? The motion sensor only works with a very specific set-up: most notably being limited to one person, a small bed, and a room that will remain otherwise empty through the night. No spouses, no pets, no roommates. It was clear this was intended for a child’s room. So no, it wasn’t nostalgic. At least not yet. It was designed to create new nostalgia.

Nintendo Alarmo, along with the similarly aimed Pokemon Sleep, are part of Nintendo’s long-running obsession with intentionally forming habits and responses. From the scheduled broadcasts of the Satellaview to the daily-task centric Animal Crossing series, and especially the predatory practices of their mobile game releases, Nintendo had a penchant for designing parasites that attached themselves to your waking (and non-waking) cycle. 

Today I’ll be sharing excerpts from interviews with people who received Alarmos as children, and uncover the shocking effects of waking each morning to a pavlovian coin-get jingle. But first, speaking of coin-getting, a word from today’s sponsor: LoanFast. Is payday just a—

God what a waste of time. Shit’s always so negative these days. These nostalgia-grab video essays used to be pleasant. Here’s an old-school animated movie you haven’t seen since the DVD bargain bin! Top ten cartoons of the 2010s! The misunderstood genius of the Wii U! But nah, now time has crept past the optimistic millennials. We’re struggling to find the diamonds in the rough patch that was the 2020s, to salvage anything from that fucking trash heap of a decade. God, no wait. Now I sound like them. I grew up with that age of media. I love that age of media. It’s just so easy to let the zeitgeist of doomerism– Okay stop. It’s way too easy to let these things override my brain. I had to mentally backspace the phrase “easily impressionable” right there too. I watch these videos with their big words and their gloomy ways of lookin at life and I feel it all start to seep into me. 

Millennials will convince you that the 00s were the peak of human creation. That the 10s were the last big push of creativity. But that's just not true! My cartoons were way better! Our video games are just objectively cooler and bigger! Adults get stuck on trying to make fun of my generation for the same few bullshit things, if I hear one more Skibidi Rizz I’m gonna– Shouldn’t think like that. I’m 24 now. That’s an adult. I’m an adult. I keep saying that and it doesn’t sound any more true. It happened so fast. It took so much time but it happened so fast. I was just a kid, playing Super Mario Odyssey on an old LCD, and then I was a teenager and a lot happened, so much happened, and now I’m an adult playing Super Mario Odyssey on an old LCD and nothing happens, nothing ever happens. I am an adult and it is Christmas Eve and I am alone.

It was Christmas Eve then too. Back when Christmas felt like Christmas. I was 12 years old when I got the Nintendo Alarmo. December 24th, 2024 when I tore open my first present of the year. It was tradition to get one present the night before, usually something to pass the time until I was more tired than I was excited for the next morning. You wouldn’t think a clock would keep me busy but I spent the whole evening fiddling with the options, looking at every theme, resetting the time to hear the top-of-the-hour jingles for each game. I remember dad helping me put in the wi-fi password, I remember mom’s hurried trip to whatever convenience store was still open on the holiday because the damned thing didn’t come with an AC adapter. She brought back a package of Reese’s and one of those juice drinks with a plastic toy on it. It was… a Spongebob one? Yeah, and I set it on the shelf and it fell off during all the unwrapping the next day and it rolled underneath the shelf and it was down there for months and I’m remembering every single time I was sitting on the floor playing Mario and Luigi Brothership after getting it the next day and every single time I could see the Spongebob juice topper below the tv smiling at me and I never thought to get it I never put any thought into it being there it was just there until a day my mom must have swept and it wasn’t there and I didn’t think about it not being there. Until right now. 

Why didn’t that thing come with an AC adapter, god that’s so stupid.

I think about all that and I don’t think about everything that happened afterwards. I’m 12 years old and it’s Christmas Eve 2024 and I’m getting the Nintendo Alarmo and now I’m 24 years old and it’s Christmas Eve 2036 and I look over at the window sill next to my bed and the Nintendo Alarmo is still there, still ticking. The AC adapter has been replaced a couple times and it’s a bit dinged up but it’s still ticking. So much happened all the while that clock kept ticking. I’m still ticking. I’ve gotten so worked up over this fucking video and I’ve been scrolling my home page this whole time. I try to actually read the titles my eyes are glossing over: “The Untold Story of Minecraft’s 1.50 Disaster”, “What Went Wrong With Forza 2030”, “Does Sony Regret Dropping Out of Consoles?” and I almost click the last one to see which retired executive guy they’re interviewing and personifying the whole company onto this time and I stop myself. It just takes one god damn clickbait title to manufacture curiosity like that and I’ll be watching another two hour video about job layoffs and feeling like shit again. I’m so sick of feeling like shit. It’s getting harder and harder to find content that makes me feel good. 

I decide to just turn the damn thing off. I sit there in the dark for a minute, as a dim light comes from across the room: it's 11:00pm and my Nintendo Alarmo is displaying a top-of-the-hour animation. Mario runs into view, bumps a block 11 times. I hear the little coin-collection jingle 11 times, and then the screen defaults back to its calmer darker state. 

I google for a day calculator on my phone and punch in that Christmas Eve and this one. 

4,383 days. If you take into the fact that after the Animal Crossing theme releases I swapped to that for Halloween and Christmas mornings, that’s 22 Animal Crossing mornings, and 4,360 Super Mario mornings, and 1 Mario Kart morning that I hated. Who the fuck wants to wake up to tires screeching? And the “FIRST PLACE VICTORY!” out-of-bed message was a bit patronizing even for me. But yeah, 4,360 Super Mario wake up calls. 4,360 times I have heard the Super Mario Bros. theme song as the very first sound of the day. Through thick and thin, from one side of the country to the other, through every school morning from 2024 onward and every single day of every job I’ve worked, it's remained constant. A morning without that jingle is just not conceivable to me, it's as natural a part of life as anything else. As sure as I’ll eat food and as sure as I’ll take a crap and as sure as I’ll turn my computer on and as sure as I’ll sleep again the next night is as sure as I will hear that jingle. Speaking of, sleep.

I brush my teeth with Scooby Doo bubblegum toothpaste and a toothbrush that I avoid looking too closely at because its got Spongebob on it and I’m too tired to let myself start back down that path of thinking about the things I took for granted. I can feel on my teeth that the brush is awfully frayed. I’ve been putting off buying a new one for months. I don’t know why. I could just grab one at the store and swap it out and it would make me feel so much better and be so much better for me, but I just don’t do it, I just never think to get it while I’m there and that just happens everyday and I blink and it's been months and my toothbrush is still frayed. 4,360 times. 4,360 times. 

I catch my brain multi-track drifting and decide I can’t sleep without a distraction. I open Youtube on my phone and start scrolling for something to play while I sleep. I crawl into bed and I just barely remember it's Christmas tomorrow. I grab the Nintendo Alarmo and thumb through the settings, swiping through menus. 

When I wake up tomorrow I’ll think that maybe I was just too tired, maybe I just got other shit on my mind, and that maybe these old LCD touchscreens are just over-sensitive pieces of shit or that maybe just maybe I am. But tomorrow my eyes will open at the time they’re used to opening anyway and I’ll be ready to hear the special Animal Crossing Toy Day Jingle that I was so certain I set it to, and I’ll hear the horrible screeching of tires on pavement and something will snap in me and I’ll hear the “FIRST PLACE VICTORY” and think about the empty platitudes and the 12 years I can barely remember and the four thousand wake-up calls that accompanied me as I kept sleep-walking through them and I’ll wake up and something will shatter and I’ll spend Christmas morning cleaning up the shards. 

[darkfrog24]

What now

On another website, a non-American asked Americans "What now?" Here's my answer.

1) State level. This is really the only now. State governments in liberal states, such as New York, are passing their own laws on things like the environment, gun control, and reproductive rights in case Trump rolls back the federal rules. In fact, the Californians have had this plan ready for a year. (Side note: Historically, it's been America's conservative party that cared about states' rights and the progressive party has favored centralization. "States' rights" refers to the degree to which the federal government can overrule state laws and it has been a major issue in American politics since day one. The events of 2024 are such a big deal, that it's possible this pattern could flip.) Most of the laws that Americans live under day to day are state laws, which is why I was screaming at the top of my lungs for people to vote in their state and local elections even if they couldn't bring themselves to vote for Harris.

2) Federal level. The most powerful branch of the United States government isn't the executive branch (the president and the people who work for him). It's the legislative branch (Congress, which has two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives). There are elections to determine the president every four years, but there are elections for Congress every two years: 1/3 of the Senate and all of the House is up for reelection in those 2026 midterm elections. What Democrats and other liberals do now is start planning and strategizing to get as many Democratic or liberal coalition (note: we do not have coalitions now, at least not the way they do in other countries) that will produce a Congress that will not let Trump do whatever he wants. Here's how it works: There are some things (heard the term "executive order"?) that the President can just do, but for most things, the President and Congress must agree. If Congress approves a law, the President can either sign it or veto it. But Congress can override the President's veto and do it anyway if 2/3 of them vote to do so. That's what we call a supermajority. It also takes a supermajority to remove an impeached President from office.

Of those 33 up-for-grabs-in-2026 seats, Democrats have 13 and Republicans have 20, so even if Democrats won all 33 elections, they still wouldn't have a supermajority (Unless all not-yet-called Senate races go blue, which they might not). Overruling or successfully impeaching Trump would still be out of reach without getting at least some Republicans on board, but it would be easier to thwart him on things requiring a simple majority. EDIT: "But isn't Trump immune from being re-impeached for the same treason twice? Doesn't double jeopardy apply?" As it happens, no it doesn't! Also, I am assuming he will do more treason.

3) So what are we looking at for the next two years? There are 100 seats in the Senate and the Republicans have 52 of them, a simple majority, not a supermajority. Right now, it's not clear if they will also have a majority in the House, but let's say they will. Also, those Republicans are not the regular Republicans that were there in 2016. Almost all Republicans with honor either resigned or were driven out. I remember gay activist Dan Savage pointing out that Mike Pence, for all his support of conversion camps, was a regular Republican and we could deal with that. No, these are Trump's slobbering supporters. Let's assume that this Congress will let him do whatever he wants but won't blatantly break the law to do it. So what can Trump do with that kind of Congress?

c) Let's start with what Trump can do on his own. Trump can also issue executive orders. This includes things like waging wars, interpreting existing policies, and issuing pardons. For example, he has promised to pardon all the traitors who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. For another example, both Abraham Lincoln and George W. Bush suspended the right to habeas corpus during wartime. The Emancipation Proclamation was also an executive order. So was Truman's desegregation of the military. Pretty much all Presidents issue executive orders, and they run the gamut of good and bad. Executive orders are like laws, except Congress can overrule them. The idea for the 2026 midterm elections is to elect a Congress that will do so.

b) Let's take one of the things Trump said he'd do: Dismantle the Department of Education. Can he just do that? No. That's not something a president can do by executive order. He'd need Congress to agree with him. If even three or four Republican Senators and/or a comparable number of Republican Representatives muster their remaining brain cells and say "Oh heck no," then he doesn't get to do it. Even if they did approve, actually doing it would take years, and by then we'd get to the mid-term elections. But if Trump asks Congress to let him do something less obviously destructive or more popular, like immigration or corporate regulations, they're likely to say yes.

c) The President nominates Supreme Court Justices, and the Senate has to approve them by simple majority. If any Supreme Court Justices die or retire, Trump gets to choose their replacement and the Senate will probably approve whatever Handmaid's Tale reactionary he picks. No pulling the plug on any of them until at least 2027! This is a big deal because SCOTUS Justices serve for life and because Supreme Court precedents are a huge deal. The U.S. never passed a federal law making abortion legal. That was the Roe v Wade court case in the 1970s, and what SCOTUS gives, SCOTUS can and did take away. Trump is likely to appoint young reactionaries who will serve for decades. This is the biggest threat and the one that is the hardest to fix.

Short-term solution: Enshrine vital rights in state laws and state constitutions. Mid-term solution: Elect a liberal Congress in 2026. Long-term solution: Fund think thanks and other entities to figure out how the American people got so thoroughly bamboozled that so many of them voted for a candidate of proven corruption and incompetence and solve that systemic problem.

[imustbenuts]

im free from yakuza kiwami 2. fuck the writing in this one. this was a complete mess of pulling from the most popular generic east asian drama tropes at the time of 2006 and having it be handled by a super inexperienced writer at the helm.

i went from having no expectations, got somewhat surprised, only to end up downing alcohol and laughing hysterically before the credits rolled. so that should set the mood for how i feel about this one. thought vomit under the cut, a lot of info dump about culture incoming

yakuza kiwami 2 is pure heterosexual east asian romance bullshit.

im gonna just. describe as best as i can what i know and remember from the general media coming out from the 90s to the 2010s in around this part of the world before i just start explaining why i think this story is a mess.

so. 2 parts i swear is responsible for this rubbish.

1) East Asian Beauty Standard

the general consensus for a beautiful feminine woman AT THE TIME in this sphere is the following

be willowy thin (fat = lazy and ugly)

have black hair that ISNT short (dyed = too much individuality, too much WESTERN INDIVIDUALISM, gasp how dare!)

fair skinned (bc dark = she works in the fields and is from a lower class)

young. if you heard of the term "Christmas Cake" in japan context, yeah. (ie women over age of 25 are undesirable)

be educated and refined, bc that indicates class and femininity (failing this means shes vulgar and gasp like a barbarian)

be submissive to her male peers in the sense that her authority cannot override his at least in public (for the sake of his face)

dresses feminine and not like a man (trousers and jeans are man-ish. traditional clothing, skirts and dresses are preferred. the further back the stronger this sentiment is.)

incidentally, theres a lot of classism tied to this EABS due to sinocentric culture influences. it has to do with the chinese court system and how korea and japan copied it and a lot of the culture wholesale but. anyway. thats like over 1000 years of history in there thats not really worth detouring to rn.

and also, the worth of a man is sometimes (not always) upheld by how classy and feminine this wife of his is. as of 2024 though, this line of thought is still around in the more conservative pockets. also, the education might not matter as much these days as how deep her and her parents' pockets and wealth are.

moving on.

2) media tropes

so. off the top of my head.

if you wanted a popular romance drama in this time period, the popular offerings no matter where you looked tended to offer the same flavors of tropes.

the woman always has dark hair, is fair skinned, thin and younger than her male love interest. ive never seen this broken or subverted in my time absorbing via osmosis the dramas playing on local tv growing up in the early 2000s.

everything else about her can be subverted though. sometimes she can wear fancy pants or have short hair to indicate her strong individualism. BUT, her personality no matter how strong it begins, no matter how her intro begins will 99% of the time encounter an effect where catching feelings turns her into a meek loyal woman to her love interest.

bc she cant override his authority in this culture context.

at worst, she becomes highly irrational and even hysterical in the dramas when bad things happen. this includes things like love triangle, or a fallout of family business, drama, plot or whatever. she would cry and sometimes even die.

see: sawamura yumi. sayama kaoru.

meanwhile, the male love interest can be anything. ive seen middle aged guys to young good looking upcoming actors playing the lead, with looks varying from haggardly okay to young and handsome. it. really depends on the genre.

depending on what specific country it came from, the drama would have the male either grow, become manlier (by learning honor ig), become stupid in the name of love, but he rarely if ever actually dies. the woman effectively becomes yoshi for mario to lauch off on when they're crossing a chasm

the romance is forced. a lot of the BIG LOVE SPARK ie kissing happens in tense moments bc it builds drama, but in reality comes too fucking close to sexual assault (some of the old jackie chan movies does this iirc for slapstick even)

see: sayama getting kissed right after handling her biological father's ashes less than 24 hours ago and admitting to kiryu that shes scared. this scene right fucking here.

bc in general, the scriptwriters for popular dramas tended to be guys themselves and tended to write more human dudes. and the women in the stories are reflective of the ideal societal expectation at the time: being a Refined Housewife.

so her character development is often headed in the direction of marriage and being a stay at home mom.

if it sounds a little like tradwife bullshit, it is.

Refined Housewife

(i have massive negative thoughts about this which i KNOW for a fact is a thing bc a lot of these societal culture femininity was impressed on me as a kid in a world where it was already getting increasingly impossible to have 1 spouse be a SAHP. and also i hated the whole thing about giving face to the patriarch of the house when i personally saw so much ego dick measuring from my uncles. anyway understand that this is both a bias an a lived experience, so proceed with that in mind)

there is a problem with the Refined Housewife expectation: education.

in general, education has been a good metric to judge how classy or smart one is in asia's largely on-the-surface meritocracy based culture. people will look at each other's school first and then judge them from there, and pretty hard too.

so everyone regardless of gender will be expected to study super hard. and bc having good test scores and going to good schools looks good for the family's face, parents will often pile on tuition to the child to get them a leg up in life.

bc also no good degree from good school means no future.

but then... the woman is expected to be a housewife. 🙃 meaning... the education, her accomplishments, are kinda... tossed away in this context. put a pin in this.

it wont matter how much she studied or accomplished, bc the expectation is that the woman would marry and obey her husband, and give him face/honor that way. the kids will come eventually bc having kids = being filial to ones parents in this context.

also uh. no, having adopted kids is not thought of as being filial. continuing the bloodline is.

and if you've been paying attention, then yes, ive been skirting around the backbone of sayama kaoru's writing foundations this entire time.

Her story has been butchered so clumsily i cant even...

lets just. ugh.

she fits the EABS standard, her tropes are trying to subvert the expectations of a womanly woman in this context, she has IMPRESSIVE education and career achievements. she works in a male dominated field, and is keenly aware of sexism. she is strong, stronger than her male peers, at least we are told.

by 2006s standards, its still considered a fresh take with those alone in japan. sexism there is its own flavor of crap. (if you noticed ive not spoken about LGBTQ+ stuff at all, its bc how ridiculously BINARY the expectation is at that point in time. it still is today but less so)

however, the writing has this sense of trying to copy the popular tropes at the time while not fully understanding and dissecting them, and ends up butchering sayama's character before the romance even properly began.

i mean, for fucks sake even, sayama and kiryu has a whopping 14 year age gap. when im told these are supposed to be believable people living in japan, this is too big for me to just go 'oh ok!'. and remember the Christmas Cake thing? shes 25. (FUCKING--!!!! !!)

the problem here that i see is the writer trying to apply all of those while trying to play the tropes straight. trying to imitate. trying to make a statement but then finding out theres nothing within yourself to stand by what you want to say and backtracking.

we are told:

sayama is strong yet she goes down with 1 slap by random thugs and needing kiryu to come in and body them. because romance ig.

we are told shes a yakuza hunter but she doesnt scare a single one beyond her introductory scene.

she goes from defiant and bossing kiryu around to getting her actions overridden by kiryu and ryuji, both men, towards the end

her subtext is that shes not feminine and therefore conventionally undesirable, but then kiryu tells her shes actually feminine and therefore desired, as if its all that matters.

she becomes so stricken by grief and freaked out that she runs off solo to deal with ryuji in the most out of left pocket planning ive ever fucking seen.

and then yells as she takes out her police baton to take down the big yakuza dude, drawing attention and turning herself into a hostage.

i know the writing will fumble but i didnt expect it to fumble this bad.

for all the good the surface chemistry kiryu and sayama has, its being undermined by a fundamental failure to understand tropes and then using said tropes as a crutch so much that everything here has become a bloody mess.

this failure of over-relying on tropes without understanding them extends to yumi too. sawamura yumi was young and beautiful, and became the Refined Housewife to the Not-Male-MC and ends up regretting it, and gets killed for it.

her defining trait is that she is beautiful in subtext. thats. thats what the tattoo is. in a world where the tattoo makeths the person, thats what she is and all that she is.

dear lord.

ive read up a bit more on sayama and you know what. good that she chooses her career over kiryu. the romance would have caused both of their characters to explode with the trajectory this was heading in. ffs sayama could have had her own game. she has so MUCH potential.

and also GOOD that the writer is forced to think of kiryu in the position of the Stay At Home Parent for haruka and the orphanage down the line!!! subverting the fucking traditional BS expectation! yes!!!!!

all i got was sayama and kiryu making out before the bomb went off in front of my alcohol and salad while they're like 'eh, haruka will forgive us for dying :')'

and i ran out of alcohol.

sexism? maybe. incompetence? definitely.

hhgrhgrhrghrghrgrhgr wow this got long. ugh. guhhhhhh.

[stellamalonesolaria]

BTS Kim Taehyung x reader |The Woman At the Bar| Oneshot

pairing: office worker! taehyung x mysterious woman! fem reader

genre: mystery au | explores dark themes | supernatural au

author’s note: the build up is a bit slow partially because it’s my first time writing a fanfic but trust me the the story is quite the treat. just stay tuned in till the end :)

disclaimer:

the following story contains content that explores sensitive and mature themes that may not be suitable for the audience.

hence, viewers discretion is advised

trigger warning: mentions of depression, abetment of suicide.

5 June 2024, Friday

Gigophone Headquarters, Seoul.

8:15 p.m.

Taehyung’s pov

“Jin hyung, want to go out for drinks today?” I plead as hyung just looks at me cryptically and declines by shaking his head sideways.

why? i need someone to accompany me while i have my daily dose of liquor and i choose you today, jin hyung.

“Please brother, the drinks are on me this time.” i insist, yet again, receiving a devastating sigh from him as i anticipate a no.

“Okay but only this one time” Jin hyung says coldly, this was to my surprise

I smile at him and nod my head

As we’re walking towards the bar, which is located in the same vicinity as our office so we didn’t have to walk much, I feel a tap on my shoulders.

I turn to look around but I spot no one.

“what happened Taehyung? is there something on your shoulder?” Jin hyung asks concerned

“No-no hyung. I just felt something on my back probably a twig?” i dismiss the sensation i felt on my shoulder.

time skip.

In the Bar:

8:40 p.m.

Author’s p.o.v.

“ Our boss is such an A-hole, that bastard has kept my promotion on hold since the last two years. “

taehyung groans in frustration as jin just sighs as he pushes back his spectacles upwards to correct its position on his nose bridge.

“he still favours you a lot as two years ago” jin says ominously. if taehyung wasn’t aware about jin’s professionalism, he would have thought that jin sounds salty but that isn’t the case.

“i know i know but he thinks i don’t deserve the raise until i prove my competency again” taehyung rolls his eyes as he blurts this out, half wasted.

taehyung loosens his tie as he feels the warmth due to the drink creeping up

Seokjin can hold his alcohol well but cannot hold his pee. he excuses himself to use the washroom.

Suddenly, while Taehyung is immersing himself with the club’s ambience and his bitter drink, a woman enters the bar.

the woman is dressed in complete black. her black satin dress hugging her curves, her medium length silky hair reaching her mid-back with red streaks at the end, wearing two inch pointed YSL heels and carrying a black bag that slung around her shoulders. she is the embodiment of beauty.

she walks over to where the taehyung is sitting.

“Good Day Sir, May I have one glass of vodka topped with soda?” the woman in black asks

the waiter mesmerized by her charisma responds, “Sure madam, drinks are on the table today”, she smiles at this statement.

taehyung’s pov

‘what a seductress.’ i think as i feel myself growing hot because of this new presence in this club.

the woman takes her drink and then places herself on the seat right next to mine.

i can see her up close, her features are remarkable but she feels somewhat familiar . have i seen her somewhere? is she perhaps a model?

I’m pulled out of my train of thoughts when she snaps her fingers at me, grabbing my attention.

“Hi, I’m-“ loud music overrides her statement so i never get to know my name and to not sound aloof i don’t ask for her name again either.

“Taehyung.” i say, “What is a pretty girl like you doing in this cheap bar?” I ask curiously. by the looks of her attire, she looks like she lives a lavish life.

“Just reclaiming what’s mine” she says in a weird tone. ah whatever, i’m too drunk to decipher the underlying message of her statement.

her hand slowly starts to travel up my right thigh, whew that is hot but too fast too.

“ma’am, i’m not that easy” i state coquettishly as i remove her hand from my thigh and place a gentle peck on the back of it.

“oh really?” she says smirking a little

she then sips her drink, leaving a red lipstick stain on the glass and offers me to drink from it

i look at her lips. she has some kind of charm to her, she is so fucking pretty.

beep. beep.

my phone rings,

a notification pops up

“when are you returning home?”

the text displays

i grunt in annoyance

“half an hour” i text back dryly.

i keep my phone to the side again, i better go get jin hyung so that we can leave for home.

the pretty lady catches my eye again as she offers her drink to me, once again.

i politely decline. “no thank you madam.” i say. even when you’re 29, stranger danger still exists.

a slight frown forms on her face as she persists for me to have a sip.

I feel annoyed so I get up, bow to her and leave to find Jin hyung. he must be in the washroom.

I enter the men’s washroom. I knock on the door in which Jin hyung is but he asks for five more minutes.

Just as he says that, I feel the door knob click before me as I sense another person entering the bathroom stall as well.

The lady at the bar has invaded the men’s washroom.

I’m too drunk. this has to be it. otherwise, why would a woman enter into our territory?

“Taehyung-ah” she calls out my name

oh shit. she is inside the men’s washroom. i feel scared, doldrum and fear creeping in, never in a lifetime has anyone made me as uncomfortable as her.

my safety is compromised.

I compel for Jin hyung to get out as quickly as possible amidst ignoring her reprimands for not responding to her well.

He gets out, he sees the woman inside, he washes his face, to get a clear view of her, he looks shocked as he contemplates her existence in the washroom.

He grabs my hand and rushes out of the washroom, going over to pay the bill for our drinks.

My head starts throbbing a lot.

Suddenly, the woman screams at the top of her lungs. “Taehyung” that’s all she says.

my headache grows worse

she jumps onto me and starts attacking me by clinging to me.

I scream back in protest, trying to defend myself.

Everyone else in the club except for Jin hyung because he has gone over to pay our liquor dues gathers around us

Seeing the lady ferociously attached to me like a beast, they try to remove her grasp over mine.

They succeed so in doing that, her nails engraved marks onto my skin.

What a crazy woman

“Who are you miss? why are you troubling this fine gentleman? you know you could be locked up for physical harassment?” one of the people from the crowd asks her.

“I AM HIS WIFE” she shouts at the man

a brick hit my head, is this gaslighting or no way…is she my wife??

my head hurts a lot

the woman comes closer to me, “I’M YOUR WIFE TAEHYUNG, YOUR WIFE, YOU LOVE ME AND YOU ALWAYS WILL LOVE ME. EVEN DEATH CANNOT DO US PART” she says.

My wife…?? Why do I have no recollection of her then? who is she really?

so many unanswered questions flash my mind, why can i not remember what happened two years ago.

what? why did i suddenly think of what happened two years ago.

Suddenly i feel a broad, well built chest hugging me, i look up at his tears stained cheeks.

Jin hyung is weeping sorrowfully but why?

“your wife is dead, Taehyung, Y/N is dead”

too much to decipher, i fade into unconsciousness.

Author’s POV

flashback

5th July 2022

“Happy birthday sweetie, daddy loves you so much”, Taehyung says that to his five years old daughter

“Thank you so much Appa”, His daughter says smilingly.

His daughter then looks at him and smiles sadly, “Daddy, mommy made me a cake”

Taehyung listens to her surprised

“A cake? your mommy baked you a cake? aww that’s so nice of her” He says praising you.

“But she added salt instead of sugar” Minjee sighs as she says that.

“Sure it wasn’t intentional sweetie, mommy loves you a lot!” Taehyung says while he internally is aware of the truth.

“Mommy loves me? I’m sure she wants me dead” a frown forms on her face as she states this into nothingness, she quickly plasters her face with a giggle to not make the ambience of the house depressing.

Taehyung hugs his daughter, she is so mature for her age, he feels angry at you for not controlling your sentiments towards your own blood.

“How do you know that honey, every mother loves her child” taehyung tries to convince his daughter but his attempts go futile,

“She’s been bathing me with rubber gloves on, the thought of touching me with her bare hands repulses her”, minjee says with pools of tears in her eyes.

Taehyung tries to change the topic by bringing up the fact that Minjee’s grandfather, your father who is also the chairman of the company he’s working for, has nominated him for a promotion.

“That is so cool daddy, I’m so proud of you” Minjee says as she pecks his cheeks afterwards to congratulate his victory, he smiles and looks at her endearingly.

He goes into his shared room with you, his wife, who has been diagnosed with post partum depression due to the twin you miscarried while having Minjee.

“WHAT KIND OF SICK MOTHER ARE YOU?” taehyung screams at you

you say nothing

“Answer me Y/N” he says strictly, “YOU COULDNT EVEN MAKE HER A NORMAL CAKE, YOU WASH HER USING A GLOVE? HOW THE FUCK DOES SOMEONE HATE THEIR OWN AKIN?” he continues raging.

“I don’t want to hate her Taehyung”, you say crying,

“She’s my own, how can I hate her but whenever I go near her, I feel disgusted with myself and her, for some reason, i just cannot shake this feeling and this is causing a wreak havoc in my life!”, you continue,

“I’m a terrible mother, I’m not even a mother for how I feel towards my own child, I’m a moster!” you exclaim.

“THEN FUCKING CHANGE YOURSELF” he shouts at you.

“the therapy is not working, i just hate her so much. sometimes i wish for her death” you scream

taehyung feels something switch within himself, he simply grabs your shoulders, set up a noose using his belt, “you die, not her” he says without thinking and then leaves the room going to meet his daughter.

After some time, silence is all he hears in this house but then suddenly the door bell rings, revealing his father in law who also happens to be his boss.

“How are you taehyung, happy birthday to my little princess”, your father takes out a large trunk filled with toys for his beloved granddaughter.

Minjee hugs her grandfather and peppers his cheeks with little kisses as a sign of affection.

“Okay now let me go meet my daughter, Taehyung, son, please call her”

Taehyung complies as he opens the door.

he falls on his knees to his horror, as he sees you hanging from the fan with the same noose he tied for her.

He feels his heart and his head throbbing, realising he has a heart attack, he falls down.

He hears footsteps coming inside, he then grasps faint shouting from your father.

…flashback ends

5th july 2024, 9:40 p.m.

Taehyung regains his consciousness with fleeting memories from the past.

He has had another heart attack due to the sudden whiplash of events from the past.

“TAEHYUNG” jin calls out to him as taehyung slowly opens his eyes, his heart rate returning to normalcy

he hears another cry, “Appa” from his daughter whom he started to ignore ever since that incident, he got into anti depressants and memory suppressants which repressed a part of his hippocampus’s ability to remember heart wrenching moments.

he has forgotten about the existence of his little family due to the medication and the deep state of trauma but his daughter did not deserve this.

He immediately hugs his daughter and apologises to her for putting her through so much bullshit, she hugs him back. (she will need a lot of therapy when she grows up god)

“Taehyung, you had been in coma ever since the incident at the bar” Jin says worried.

“Hyung, was Y/N really there? you saw her didn’t you? Hyung please answer, she’s alive right?” Taehyung says with glint of hope in his eyes, hoping his lover is alive and well.

Jin looks down at his feet, “you’ve been suffering from visual and auditory ever since the…everything happened in the club was in your imagination that’s why i wasn’t willing to accompany you that day because you imagine her especially on that day, the same thing happened last year but not as severe as you going bonkers and then landing up in a coma” he says sadly.

Taehyung feels upset evidently, he apologises to Jin hyung and then his daughter, “I promise I will provide you with everything you want, I will compensate you for all the emotional damage by diligently going to therapy and actually trying to heal and move on”, he trails

“as for her, I haven’t processed her death yet so I will unfold myself slowly during the therapy session and hoping I could also reconcile with my father in law but i don’t think that would be possible anytime soon” he says maturely and then faints

3 years later.

Taehyung is sitting on a crimson coloured sofa in the confines of his therapist’s office whose name he keeps on forgetting as she sits in her white blouse, black pencil skirt in front of him, holding a notepad in her hand with a pencil stuck to her hair as a hair pin, scribbling down his condition and symptoms. She has administered him with a large dose of anti depressants to deal with his post grief depressive syndrome which has resulted in the suppression of few parts of his memories while this does not disrupt his daily life routine but surely does provide minor inconvenience such as forgetting trivial details. although the medication and counselling sessions have thoroughly helped him gain clarity over his past and how to deal with the trauma he has been through to be able to nurture and nurse his daughter better but still he is a lot of therapy sessions behind to reach the state of invigoration.

The therapy session begins:

“ so the medications are working, sir? “, the therapist asks.

“yes ma’am, I have reconciled with my father in law while I now prove myself to be worthy enough of that promotion, madam.”, Taehyung replies, delivering the happy news that she acknowledges with a cryptic nod.

“I think we’re ready to unpack now.” she says, expecting him to speak about the most crucial part of his past, you.

Taehyung breathes in to relax before saying, “about her? well i think i’m ready as well to face my inner demons, to face her.”

the therapist puts her notepad down on the table and sighs. Taehyung looks at her expectantly.

Therapist: we’ll go over that in our next session, till then, take care mister taehyung.

Taehyung nods his head in agreement to her statement, smiles at her, “Thank you so much for your help till this moment, miss..” ah there he goes forgetting her name yet again.

“Ah you seem to have forgotten my name mister kim”, the therapist smirks to which taehyung just shoots a boxy smile and says, “sorry madam.”

The next statement of hers, rubs that smile off his face and sends chills down his spine as she says her name.

“Y/N”.

the end

[heavy-swing]

FFXIV Write 2024 - Prompt #6 - Halcyon

Content Warnings: None

Spoiler Warnings: None

Summary: A young Aelita Tirasch jumps at the chance to spend some time with the coolest person on Etheirys (her mom, Lunya), and her mom jumps at the chance to share a bit of what she left behind in Bozja. Small note: I've started lightly borrowing words from Slovak or Czech as a stand-in for a "Bozjan" language, so in this story, "milacik" translates to "sweetheart". Check it out below or on Ao3:

“So you're telling me you got everything done already?”

“Yep,” Aelita replied, ticking each item off on her fingers as she said it. “Made my bed, swept the kitchen, watered the plants outside and added the fertilizer, too.” She hoped the extra emphasis didn't go unnoticed.

“And it's just a coincidence that it got done right before your mother is due to go into town, I bet,” Jaromir replied, seeing right through his daughter's plan. Aelita avoided making eye contact, hoping that her choice of when to do her chores wouldn't override the fact that she had still done them.

“Well, if all your chores are finished, then there's no reason to keep you around here.” Aelita just about exploded with joy. 

“Thank you, papa!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around his waist in a big hug. She came up to about his chest now, and every passing year meant she gained a little bit more ground. Jaromir knew they'd be seeing eye to eye sooner rather than later, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for it. 

“You're welcome, my star. I've got one condition for you, though–”

“Always listen to mama,” Aelita finished, interrupting him. “Of course I will!”

“I still have to say it, even if you already know.”

Aelita rolled her eyes, playing up her annoyance. “Do you? I'm twelve summers now, I'm not a kid!” 

“True, true. But just because you're not a kid doesn't mean you're not my little star!” It was Jaromir’s turn to squeeze his daughter in a most embarrassing hug. Aelita was just thankful they were inside, away from anyone who might witness this indignity.

Just as Jaromir released his hold, Lunya walked in through the door, tool bag slung over shoulder and her hair tied back with a bandana. “One more for Limsa, then?” “Mama!” Aelita exclaimed, running over to her bed to grab the bag she’d packed for the journey, full of her own tools and a couple snacks for the road (it was mostly snacks). She dashed back over to her mother’s side at the door. “Ready when you are!” “No time like the present, then!” Lunya turned her focus to her husband. “I’ll be back in time for supper, and if I see any half-decent fish in the markets, I’ll bring them with.” Jaromir crossed the room to give her a quick kiss. “Okay, I’ll see you then, milacik.”

“Love you too,” she replied, noticing Aelita standing impatiently just outside the front door, staring at her. “All right, all right, it’s time to go, my little star!” She took Aelita’s hand in her own and they started down the road that would eventually lead to Limsa Lominsa and the forge of Naldiq & Vymelli’s. — “Excited to see the city today, are we?” Lunya asked. They were a good ways from home, but Limsa was still small in the distance.

“Mhm! I’m excited to see where you go to work. Everything you talk about when we’re practicing at home sounds so cool… well besides the metal, I guess!” Aelita replied, her face hardly big enough to contain her grin. “That’s true, it does get very hot! This workshop is… well, it’s a lot better than anything near the house, but…” Lunya trailed off, falling back into old memories. “But?” “...I know it might be boastful to say, so I need you to keep this between you and me. Think you can do that?” Aelita mimed zipping up her lips and throwing away an invisible key. “Okay, well… the workshop in Limsa is nice, but… the one I had in the old city was better, no question.” They stopped and moved off the side of the road to a boulder with room for both of them to sit on. “The furnaces were always the right temperature, I had every tool you could think of, and I got to spend day after day doing what I loved with people I cared about. And it was mine. My own little place where I got to set the rules.” Lunya looked wistfully towards the ocean, an unspoken longing to return to those better days in her eyes, and that expression had Aelita transfixed. “All yours? You mean you were the boss, all by yourself?” “That’s right, all me.” “Not even papa could boss you around?” “Not even papa.” Aelita’s face was pure awe. “I want to be the boss someday. Have a huuuuuuge shop, all to myself, and everyone in it has to do what I say!” “You will, my star, I know it.” Lunya smiled warmly at her daughter, trying to ignore the beginnings of tears forming in her eyes. “You might even get to see that old shop, someday. If…” she trailed off, gathering her resolve. “...Not if, but when we all make it back to Bozja. To the old city.” 

She shook herself out of the melancholy stroll down memory lane she’d unintentionally stumbled into. “But first things first: you can’t have your own shop if you don’t practice, so let’s get going, okay? Then I can show you what a real forgemaster looks like!” Lunya made sure to do her best bicep flexing pose for Aelita, who was unsurprisingly over the moon. My mama’s the best! Aelita thought to herself as Lunya took her hand and they got back on the road together, forging a path straight to Limsa.

[starleska]

I am definitely here to find out more about your OC Harper if you wanna share 👀👀👀

oh my god yes yes yes thank you so much Jam i would LOVE to gush about Harper Spiel and their bizarre backstory, thank you so much 🙈💖 Doctor Who OCs are so fun to make!

my dear Harper's story begins right after the events of The Giggle! Harper Spiel is a 26-year-old ludologist, or games specialist: a former world champion in several board games who turned their fascination with games into a lucrative career. previously they worked with the British government investigating high-profile gambling rings and other criminal operations which involved gameplay mechanics! 👀

following The Giggle, UNIT wanted to find out all they could about the Toymaker, and so they hired Harper to create a full report on him...against The Doctor's wishes, and without his knowledge. during their research, Harper discovers that the Toymaker is not an isolated incident: he has cropped up in gaming lore and texts throughout history as a godlike entity no one can win against. most people would steer well clear...but Harper takes this as a challenge 🔥 so, they begin a series of experiments with the Toymaker's Toybox. Harper spends weeks trying to engage the Toymaker without opening the box, attempting to coax him into a game, but comes up short. until they have a mad idea! on their birthday, Harper brings a sand timer to the Toybox, and challenges the Toymaker to emerge before the sand runs out. they have no way of knowing if the game is accepted... until a bang!! then, a flash of light...and the vague image of a grin with far too many teeth, beaming through the fog. when Harper awakes, they are no longer in their own timeline. they are in 1984, in an empty lot where the UNIT building hasn't even been constructed yet! 😱 it takes a few days for the Doctor - specifically the Sixth Doctor - to find Harper, and it's because the TARDIS has become absolutely fixated on London in 1984 and he can't work out why. this leads him to Harper, who the Doctor recognises as a temporal anomaly: a living entity displaced in time who should not be able to exist in this reality, but has been rejected by their own. according to the Doctor, Harper's birthday - originally March 22nd, 1998 - is now March 22nd, 1956...which would make them 65 years old according to their original reality!! if not...that means they're minus 40 💀 the Doctor, horrified by this mess, takes Harper into the TARDIS and tries to bring them back to 2024...but the TARDIS nearly implodes! he then tries every workaround he knows, but something about the game Harper opened up with the Toymaker has caused their own timeline to shun them. like it or not, the only safe place for Harper to exist (at least without increasing timey-wimey shenanigans) is within the TARDIS 😉 so!! Harper gets stuck with the Sixth Doctor, to his chagrin and their delight. Harper is familiar with the Doctor, but only his most recent regenerations, and they take delight in playing off his bombastic, arrogant personality. they're always getting stuck into some part of the TARDIS they shouldn't be, or wandering off and nearly causing a category 5 space-time event. they're a magnet for disaster and time distortion, and it drives the Doctor mad! 🙈 but as funny as their relationship is, there is real grief here. the Doctor soon recognises Harper to be somewhat like him: a scientist whose fascination often overrides their emotions, so the process of understanding that they will never see their friends again (as they have no family to speak of) is tough. it doesn't take long for the Doctor to soften towards Harper...after all, Harper is something which the universe itself is trying to reject. who can relate more to that than the Sixth Doctor, whose regeneration was characterised by fear, anger and feeling like an alien in his own body? aaaand that's Harper Spiel!! unwitting companion to the Sixth Doctor and challenger of the Toymaker 🥰 their adventures would be characterised by them attempting to find some way back to Harper's original timeline safely, with Harper insisting they need to find the Toymaker to make it happen...😭

[skylermadness]

Ocular Override (Montgomery Gator TF)

(Original Date of Upload: April 1, 2024)

Just a heads up, all the TFs I upload this week will be featuring my boyfriend!

Original Description:

Story commission. This was a rather fun one to write! I've been wanting to do a Monty TF for a long while now so I'm really glad I was given the chance to actually do so. Admittedly I still feel like I'm still not the best at robot TFs due to how complicated they tend to be, but I think I did relatively well here. Especially since it plays with some concepts that I typically don't usually do in my writing. Plus writing out that reality shunt felt really satisfying. Makes me want to do more mirror shattering in TFs! Now my question is does this count as a sequel to my Glamrock Freddy TF from a few years ago...

   One of the worst parts of having to use glasses has to be when you have to obtain a new pair for one reason or another. If you just had your prescription changed you have to undergo multiple processes to get a different set of glasses alongside the week of waiting for your sight to adjust. On the other hand if your current pair were to break and you had no backups you would have to jury rig some kind of temporary fix as you await a new pair to arrive. And while both of these events do not happen very often for glasses users, when they do have to happen it always feels like the most annoying series of weeks in one’s life.

   Recently Arti had been experiencing the broken glasses part of the two examples. The initial incident had only happened a few weeks back where one of the temples got snapped from its hinge after the glasses slipped off the back of their head and into the path of their wheeled desk chair. That had luckily been the only major damage it had sustained, but it meant they had to order a new pair of glasses to replace the broken ones. They also had to tape the temple back on as a temporary fix which had its own selection of issues such as the temple breaking off at the slightest movement or their hair sticking onto the tape’s glue.

   That was only the endeavor they had been experiencing throughout the past few weeks. The relief they had felt when they got the arrival date for the replacement glasses was only surpassed by the relief they experienced when they heard the doorbell of their home ring to signal the parcel had arrived. Finally would they be free from the mild inconvenience of a broken sight aid!

   Then Arti had opened the relatively small box, the relief they had experienced being squashed by pure confusion. “What the hell…?”

   They brought out and held up the single object within the box to their face. It was a pair of glasses, but it was not the kind you'd wear to deal with your myopic eyesight. Instead of being rounded rectangles like glasses usually possess, the frames were shaped like five-pointed stars. The lenses lacked perfect clarity and were instead tinted a deep purple. Judging by the feel of the temples in their hand the entirety of the framing also seemed to be composed of plastic. In general these glasses felt like some kind of pair of decorative shades or something and were far from what Arti had ordered.

   “Took an eternity to even order these things too,” Arti commented in mild frustration. Now they'd have to go through the process of ordering another replacement and send this back. Yet another series of inconveniences to add to the heightening pile it seems.

   They continued to stare at the oddly-shaped sunglasses for another few seconds. While they were displeased with this result, Arti still felt like it would be a waste not to try them at least once. The object looked rather stupid, yes, but it's not like they'd ever go out of their way to buy something like this of their own volition. So why not wear them for a short bit and see just how dumb it would look?

   With that in mind Arti headed to the nearest place in their house with a mirror. Predictably this was going to be within the bathroom. Once in front of a spot where they could look at themselves properly, Arti slipped off their shoddily taped glasses and replaced them with the star-framed ones. Expectedly the shaded spectacles looked ridiculous on the young enby’s face.

   There was something amusing about it at the very least. Arti couldn't help but smile slightly at the sight. Although the lenses were far from being up to their prescription and even with these on, things looked blurry. It made for a good five seconds of silliness though.

   “Hm, I wonder what Mike would say if I sent him a picture of me with these on…”

   As they mused to themselves Arti had been left oblivious to one thing thanks to the remaining blurriness. That was the appearance of a pair of sparks of red-colored electricity jaggedly moving themselves along both the temples of their new eyewear. The two crimson bolts spiraled around the extensions until it reached the glasses’ hinge, in which they would promptly zap into the sides of Arti’s head and give them a sudden shock.

   “Crap-” Arti stepped back a bit, raising up a hand and placing it onto the side of their head. Another second then passed before they started feeling their eyes twitch slightly. “The fuck’s going on with my…”

   Their statement trails off as they take notice of something impossible happening to their vision. It seemed to actually be improving at a slow and steady rate. The blurriness of their surroundings just casually being lost as everything was slowly coming into proper focus!

   Arti began to stammer in astonishment. “What the- why- how??”

   Of course with how the glasses were tinted Arti hadn't noticed the irises of their eyes was shifting away from their usual indigo and warming to a bright red. What they did end up noticing was a weird tingly feeling overtaking their body. This was followed by what seemed like small sparks of red emanating from their form and through their clothing. They looked down at their body to inspect all of these events going on, but were almost instantly greeted by a very freaky change of sort that had begun to happen to their hand.

   Purple. A shade of purple had crept onto the back of it. Even worse was that purple hue was spreading across their skin, overtaking the once pale tone with ease. A glance at their other hand seemed to prove it was mirroring this color change as well. After a few more seconds however Arti realized something else was happening alongside the color changes as well. Wherever the purple spread it looked as if the appearance of their skin smoothed out in a way. Like the actual fleshy appearance of it was lost, organicness replaced with a sleek look of artificial creation. And with how their hand was splayed they could even watch as the muscles that arise on the back of the hands seemed to completely and utterly lose visibility. What remained was perfect and purple-colored smoothness.

   Arti felt as if they couldn't just stare and decided to actually feel the discolored segment of their hand, the enby taking note of how stiff their fingers had seemed to begin feeling as they did so. But the moment the fingers of one hand touched the dorsal area of the other they could instantly tell just what their skin had become.

   “Plastic!?”

   A plastic-like substance at least. Sleek texture with a hard feeling to it. That didn't even seem to be the only major loss of organicness either. The longer Arti stared at each hand, the more changes that ensued. The stiffness in their hands was proven to be a byproduct of the transformation as they bore witness to their fingers segmenting. Skin-turned-plastic splitting around itself to reveal some kind of metallic ball-shaped joint. First was where the fingers met the hand itself, and the second was at the joint halfway through the fingers. Furthermore once they split at that joint it seemed like the discoloration changed instantly. Instead of purple their shifting skin tinted into a plain green color. Even their fingernails weren't left unscathed as they grew longer and thicker, alongside sharpening. They had even darkened, each of their fingers now being tipped with a deep black claw.

   The last major change that entered their hands was one of size. By the time their palms began to harden, the overall size of each hand was increasing in width, length, and thickness. Larger and larger, becoming such a size that they were already looking pretty intimidating. This was further exacerbated by the fact that their fingers were plumping up as well. Becoming increasingly thicker alongside the surprising change of two fingers on each hand merging together and leaving Arti with four fingers per hand. Inorganic, thick, clawed, powerful. Just staring at their hands gave them a mixed feeling of astonishment and fear.

   Then the changes began to move across their wrists and beneath the sleeves of their jacket. Another split entered their wrist to properly divide their hands and forearms, which was then followed by the flesh of their arms hardening into green plastic. As this occurred the region expanded in diameter and circumference, bulking up in size to fit the new proportions of their hands. This had caused the sleeves of their jacket to begin filling out a bit, folds smoothing out as their arms thickened up. Both forearms also seemed to garner one additional change in their lower halves. A thick, black stripe formed an inch or two above their wrist. Where the stripe formed the plastic rose in elevation while dull, silver-colored spikes formed to give this addition the appearance of a spiked bracelet.

   Their upper arms wouldn't be left unscathed. Another divide split their forearm region from their upper arm, meanwhile the joint that made up their elbow morphed into a large green metal sphere. The same tone of green etched into the skin of their upper arm as the plastic shifting progressed. Smoothness only continued to overtake their limbs, enhancing the artificial feel that was etching into their body. It would be more apt to call the plastic forming around them some kind of chassis as it seemed their muscles and bones weren't exempt from this loss of organic feel. Biceps and triceps morphing into thick wiring, bones becoming a series of metal rods, all of which supposed a bulky plating that was thicker than their limbs had normally been. There even seemed to be rectangular incisions forming within the sides of their upper arm plating which seemed to be some kind of portion of the chassis that could be removed.

   The sight of their sleeves filling up had prompted Arti to try and roll one up. It was proving difficult though as their limbs had already grown enough in size to make their jacket begin to feel smaller. Although they quickly became distracted by what seemed to be growths arising on their shoulders and tagging the apex of their sleeves even more. 

   By the time the creeping plastic segmented their shoulders and formed yet another metallic sphere for a joint, the green seemed to shift back to purple on the spot where the shoulder met the torso. This change in color came with a rise in their chassis that extended outwards from each end. The way this formation seemed to be shaped already gave it the appearance that Arti was gaining a pair of shoulder pads of all things. And considering the size of them it didn't take long for them to bust through their sleeves and reveal themselves.

   The way the bathroom light shined over the purple plastic only continued to make Arti feel weirded out. “What the fuck is going on with me!?”

   A slight groan then escaped Arti’s throat as they felt a series of compressions and aches surge across and within their torso. Hidden beneath their undershirt was more of that wave of green plastic washing over their front and back. At the furthest sides of their body it maintained a deep green coloration. However as it converged closer onto their chest the shade of green took on a lighter shade. At the same time it seemed like their chest was expanding in a way, growing forwards and filling their shirt out more than it had prior. But it didn't seem to be expanding with muscle of any kind. Seeing as the more the green overtook their body the smoother their form became, and the more they felt their internals shift and churn thanks to the mechanizing of their form. Beneath the casing was just more and more wiring replacing their muscles while their skeleton continuously became metallic.

   The lower half of Arti’s body wasn't exempt from these changes either. While the upper half seemed to be one concise segment of chassis, the moment the changes reached a two-thirds point of their body a dividing seam formed between their chest and abdomen. Greens would easily jump from their upper torso to their lower, but as plastic overtook their flesh it became increasingly evident that their abdominal region was garnering a certain hollowness to it that it didn't have prior. As if their vestigials had just been disappearing or melding into their machinery.

   Arti could only step back a bit, placing a robotic hand onto the sink as they clutched their abdomen. It didn't hurt, none of this had necessarily hurt. It had only really felt like a constant barrage of pressures and aches but nothing that was outright painful. Such a thing added a certain level of surrealness to the young enby’s transformation.

   “D-damn it-” Arti grunted out. They still were having trouble grasping just what was going on. How could a pair of glasses just cause something like this to happen to their body!? Were they becoming some kind of cyborg, or were they just transforming fully into a robot?? Neither felt like the most promising of outcomes!

   They could still feel their form getting larger. As if by the time their spine started to shift they were forced to get taller. Five foot nine, ten, eleven. All the while their body seemed to get wider and larger as if to fit a newly established change in proportions. As if despite the fact they didn't seem to be becoming something organic they were still getting some kind of body type that would replicate a build that could be defined as broad, muscular even. An obvious difference from their previously skinny, twinkish body.

   It had also meant that their shirt would finally begin tearing from the strain being put onto it. Horizontal rips forming across the deep indigo fabric to reveal the bright green of their plastic underbelly. They couldn't tell if they wanted to be fascinated or disturbed. It didn't help that they could also begin to see what seemed to be seams forming around their neck as well to signal that it too was beginning to be consumed by the roboticizing.

   That in itself caused a growl to escape their throat. A primal sound that was layered in a mechanical undertone. “N-need to reverse this-” they stated, eyes twitching a few times as they spoke. Their voice seemed to be getting equally as primal, alongside getting deeper as well it seemed. Their mind was even picking up a strange hint of natural aggression entering their vocal tone as well. They tried to ignore that for now though, they had to focus on undoing all of this. And seeing as the glasses had to be the cause of this…

   Arti started lifting up a hand until it was close enough to one of the glasses’ temples. But just seconds before they could try and rip the accessory off their face their body was forced to endure another mounting in pressure, this time in their rear.

   The lower half of their body had already been in the process of transforming by this time. It started with a large black colored band circling their waist, raising a bit from their plastifying skin while gaining dull silver spikes and a silver rectangle that emulated a belt buckle. Beneath this makeshift belt the greens started to layer the area under their waist and shift into a pattern of light and dark shades that emulated the appearance of scale-textured pants. The same smoothness that overtook their body consumed this region as well by smoothing out their groin and rear in quick succession. But none of this was the cause of the spontaneous pressure grown, that came with formation of some kind of bump in the rear portion of their waist chassis. The pressure continuously mounted as the growing bump strained against the back of their pants, just trying it's best to escape the denim confines. A good few seconds passed, Arti uncomfortably growling all the while, before the loud sound of something bursting out of their pants echoed through the bathroom walls followed by an equally as loud sound of plastic hitting the hard-tiled ground.

   Looking behind them, Arti was greeted by a tail. The appendage seemed to be divided into five cylinders split with seams that revealed spherical joints. Each cylinder was green in coloration and adorned with spikes atop them. It was obvious that this tail was some kind of reptilian one more than anything else.

   “H-how!?” was the only response they could formulate by this point. Everything was just getting weirder by the second and they couldn't keep track of it all anymore. Their attention would also quickly be diverted again by the sound of the buckle of the belt they were wearing snapping alongside the button of their jeans breaking off. Their waist had finally seemed to widen enough to force them to their limits, and they could practically feel the aches in their legs as the segmenting and changes finally reached the limbs.

   The transformation of their legs was effectively the same as it had been in their arms. Diameter steadily increasing as the now scale-like painting adorned the plastic chassis of their upper legs. All the while their quad and hamstrings muscles were yet again shifted into wiring that coiled around their lengthening and metal-shifting leg bones. Their knees would be reduced to another ball joint as the upper region was divided from the leg’s crus, which had also been in the process of being transformed. Their pants steadily filled up more as their legs bulked up in size and increased in circumference. And while they didn't rip apart, the lengthier size of the limbs caused their legwear to ride up the lower half of their legs a bit.

   The most drastic change came with their feet. The color changes yet again shifted from green to purple. The size of both feet steadily increased, this thickening quickly becoming tangible beneath their shoes as various portions of each foot indented into the footwear. The sides and top of each shoe bloating while the toecap seemed to practically swell in size from the way their toes pressed into it. Even more bizarre was as the bumps representing each toe grew more prevalent it seemed like the amount of them lowered. First it was five, then four, then three massive bumps. Then a few more seconds passed and in one quick instance their shoes just exploded. Clothy shrapnel flew through the air as their much larger and thicker feet were released from the confines of footwear. And larger didn't seem to be an understatement either as it seemed each foot practically doubled in size and thickness from this transformation. The final adornment they would get was the attainment of black claws that promptly unsheathed out of each toe.

   Heavy steps sounded as Arti continuously readjusted themselves. They would guess they were a little over six feet now and they were not used to it. Then again it's impossible to get used to any of this.

   Another growl escaped through increasingly mechanizing throat. They could feel the internals of their neck tingle and itch, throat moreso as they felt constant pins and needles in their vocal cords. No doubt it was becoming some kind of voice box. 

   “I need to stop getting distracted!” Arti frustratedly said as they slammed their fist into the sink. 

   Their voice had basically stopped its fluctuation by now. It was fully deep, fully mechanical. Its tone was overtaken with vibes of combativeness and arrogance that seemed to straight up be programmed into it by now. That had to be a sign of some kind of indicator of what was to come. They were already eighty percent transformed at this point. They had constantly just been watching their transformation and not doing the one thing they knew could probably do to undo it. And who knows what'll happen once their whole body was transformed. They could practically feel their face begin to pressurize now…

   Now with some sense of resolve Arti lifted up a hand again and grasped onto the glasses. Without any hesitation they yanked them off their face with such an amount of force that you would assume the glasses could have been glued to their face! But as they brought the glasses downwards and away from their face they were given no clear indicator that the transformation stopped. They were just granted with the piercing crimson gaze of their improved eyes in the mirror’s reflection.

   That and the still-mounting pressure in their skull.

   “Damn it…”

   The changes to their skull then properly kicked in. Plastic began to crawl from their neck and onto their head while their face started pushing forward. The way their face was morphing was instantly noticeable as them growing a muzzle with just how it was elongating outwards. This was further noticeable with the way their nose was meshing into the upper portion of the muzzle, the nostrils flaring and enlarged as they poked out the muzzle’s apex while the cartilage-turning-plastic practically reshaped to take on a more animalistic appearance that would fit Arti’s new facial shape. It also seemed the further forward the muzzle pushed the more its shape became noticeable reptilian. Almost boxy upper jaw and a more triangular lower jaw, both divided from each other by a seam. Their lower jaw had also taken on a lighter shade of green while the upper half and rest of their face took on the darker shade.

   The muzzle they were growing wasn't the only portion of their face that was shifting into being more animalistic. By the way their head was stretching to the size and reshaping it seemed the transformation was hellbent on making their entire skull adopt this practically gator-like appearance. They could even feel their teeth change within their mouth, each and every one becoming staggeringly sharper than they had ever been while each tooth started varying in length to the point the inside of their mouth just looked asymmetrical. It also felt like their tongue had dried as it practically fused into the plastic of their lower jaw as well.

   What was one of the more overt changes is what happened to their hair. Typically long and fluffy-textured, their hair seemed to be rapidly pulling into their head as the inorganicness crept across their scalp. Deep indigo follicles shrinking away into pure nothingness, easily replaced by the sleek green smoothness of their plastic casing. Although as the waves of plastic began to converge closer to the middle of their scalp something different happened to their hair. Instead of disappearing it ended up shorting upwards, practically restyling away from its lengthy and floofed appearance to something much different. Follicles thickened, merged as organic cells reshifted into plastic at an atomic level, as the color of their hair brightened to red. All the while the style of what remained of their hair ended up organizing itself to a perfectly, practically geometrically cut mohawk that had the exact same plasticky texture as the rest of their entire body.

   At the same time as their hair changes, Arti was left to watch what remained of their human facial attributes disappear. Their ears shrunk away into nothingness with holes shut by the plastic. Eyebrow hair melted into black plastic that would serve as their new eyebrows. As their eyelids got consumed the color of them had shifted to purple instead. All while it seemed their eyes just slightly sunk into their skull as if they weren't apart of the casing that made up their head. Opening their jaw would prove that something was going on deep within their head. As if their actual skull had been reduced to an extension of some kind of endoskeleton that was hard to see.

   Would that mean their brain had been mashed into circuitry? Their consciousness now being streams of data and strings and code?

   “I'm a… robot now…” Arti said. Were they stunned? Were they defeated? They weren't sure what to do about this. How to handle it. All they wanted was a new pair of glasses, damn it!

   Right, the glasses. Arti had still been holding them in their hand. The very object that started their transformation. All they could do was just unhand them and let them drop to the ground. 

   At the very least it seemed Arti’s vision had improved. Perfectly clear, they had thought. Although for some reason the world around them just felt wobbly. Like the walls and ground were beginning to melt and swirl. They weren't sure if that was actually happening or if their newly mechanical vision just had some weird additions to it.

   They were sure of one thing though. They were confused, and they were pissed.

   Looking at their reflection in the mirror their eyelids dropped a bit to morph their expression into one of frustration. Arti then lifted up a fist and proclaimed, “God fucking damn it!” before ramming the fist into the glass of the mirror to shatter it. The sound of glass breaking echoes off the walls of the room. It echoes through the walls. Because as the mirror shattered, the reality around Arti does as well.

   They were quick to notice the room beginning to break, but all they could do was watch in pure confusion. “W-what the-”

   The world then broke. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, it all broke apart into glass-like shards and fell away. Even what remained of the clothing Arti had worn was seemingly burning away into reality-warped shards. The ground beneath Arti rapidly destabilized because of this, the ground opening up into an endless void. They only had a few seconds to register what was going on before everything fell into the void, them alongside with it.

   “GRRAAAGHHHHH!!!!!”

   For about fifteen agonizing seconds Arti was left to fall down into darkness. Fear strongly gripped in their circuitry as they truly didn't know what was happening. A subjection to purgatory, a condemnation to Hell, something they couldn't truly register. At least that was how it was for that quarter minute. Everything abruptly halted once their back slammed onto the cold hard ground of a room that practically materialized around them in an instant.

   “SHIT-”

   A beep promptly went off in their head, followed by an automated message. “Swearing is not permitted on Fazbear Entertainment premises.”

   Arti blinked a few times before letting out a groan. “Wha…? The hell do you mean Fazbear Entertainment…”

   Another beep followed by the same automated message. What's worst is they could tell it's coming from inside their mind. They didn't want to grasp the implications of that right now though. Instead they started to sit up and take a look around. 

   It didn't take long for them to notice that the room they were in felt massive. Metallic shelves with various boxes seemed to line the area they had fallen into. Considering the close proximity they were to the ground they could also tell that the place was pretty dusty as well. If they were to hazard a guess they believe they're in some kind of storage room. That did not make this situation any less purplexing…

   Another beep played in their mind followed by the automated voice. “Our sensors have detected that animatronic 5 [Montgomery Gator] is currently in Storage Room B…”

  An eyelid raised. “Montgomery Gator?? I-I’m not-”

   The void just ignored Arti and continued. “Please be aware that we are in operating hours. Prolonged periods of time outside of your designated pathing may result in your programming being deemed faulty. If this is to occur-”

   “I'm not Montgomery Gator! I'm-”

   “-you will be reprogrammed or scrapped. Please return to your designated pathing in [10 minutes]. Thank you.”

   Faulty programming? Reprogramming?! Arti let out a frustrated sigh. “What the fuck have I been put into…”

   Beep. “Swearing is not-”

   “Yeah, yeah…” Arti interrupted with a growl. They didn't necessarily want to be reprogrammed, so their only bet right now is to return to their designated pathing. And as they thought that an internal map of the establishment they were in projected in their mind almost instantly. 

   “Jeez, how did I even know that-” they muttered in surprise. Analyzing their internal map Arti started their trek to where they're apparently supposed to be. Their steps echoed through the storage room as they did so, the human-turned-animatronic trying to think of just how to tackle all of this.

   They surmised that if they wanted to avoid reprogramming they might as well try their best to pretend to be this Montgomery Gator for as long as they could. Perhaps if they were lucky they could find some way to reverse all of this. Although they would be lying if they said they weren't hoping this was some kind of fucked up dream.

   So forward Arti walked to a new life. One that they could only hope was going to be temporary…