#At least ones that weren't profitable.

[clit-a-cola]

Periods are probably more likely to be irregular in the wasteland due to radiation and the various levels of food insecurity and S T R E S S.

But I wonder if everyone's just free bleeding or if they've reinvented pads.

Cause like depending on where you are you don't wanna waste clean water on cleaning reusable pads. But at the same time I can not IMAGINE the sort of wasteland fuck off diseases and mutations that'd result from pads cleaned with dirty AND irradiated water with who fucking knows trace amounts of FEV floating in it with the microplastics

[yeahwellyourface]

You know who I do feel bad for in all this?

The person who turned Luigi in. I don't agree with what they did, but I get it. If they are working for McDonald's, they are probably at minimum wage. Full time (which they probably weren't, cause fuck McDonalds probably doesnt want to have to give benefits)yearly pay for min wage is $15,000. The rewards together were $60,000.

Can you imagine how much that would change their life? FOUR TIMES their yearly wage. I am so incredibly privileged in comparison, but four times my yearly wage would change so many things for me.

You think about your family, and how much that could help. You think about your living situation. You think about rent and food prices and a vehicle. All of that would be so much easier, even for a little bit of time.

And then to find out that you probably won't get the money on technicalities. And if you do, you definitely won't get all of it. And even then, it will take at least a year.

Being told that you would get something that would change your life, the life of your children, and it's bullshit. Yet another reason you can't trust the cops.

And it also shows another way that authorities are so fucking stupid about this whole thing. Any trust people had in them is being blown out of the water. It is so incredibly clear the difference in ways people are treated. Children are being killed in school and nothing, but one CEO gets shot and it's considered terrorism. A CEO who profited off the deaths of thousands. But that person is more important than all us regular people. And now this reward BS. Do they actually think ANYONE is gonna help them again after seeing how they are screwing this person over

And eric fucking adams being in that fucking perp walk. That bastard has spent the past several months talking "innocent until proven guilty" and "due process"...but only when it comes to committing his own crimes. Not someone else's where he can pretend that he is some sort of hero.

It is amazing how people who are in power and people who think thay they can gain power by protecting the rich are so out of touch.

[ubeb0nes]

Sevika x Fem!Bar Owner! Reader

𖢅 ------ 𖢅

𖢅 ------ 𖢅

You were new to Zaun. No one had seen you coming, nor your success as soon as you'd laid roots down. Most people who came here for opportunity and enterprise were mad inventors from Topside, or business sharks in the Chemtech and Shimmer industry.

But you? You just ran a bar.

…You were burying your past life as a smuggler in Bilgewater by moving to Zaun, but that was neither here nor there. People had come across wealth in more morally abhorrent ways.

You learned the ways of the Undercity quickly. It'd tried to teach you a swift lesson your very first week open, when a few crooks walked in and tried to threaten you into giving up what was in your cash till. Your trusty shotgun and a few thrown glasses had been an effective solution.

You were not gonna get scammed out a livelihood down here. You swore it to yourself. You were gonna make a space that was all your own, some place people could relax and be together since The Last Drop evidently wasn't that anymore.

Then she comes around.

You knew her face. You'd seen her walking around the Lanes while you were hunting for dishware and cutlery for cheap. You'd thought "smash", and then kept it moving.

You could tell she was important even then, with the way she stalked through a parting crowd. It was no different when she entered your bar for the first time.

"What's Silco's bloodhound doing here?" "God, Sevika? C'mon, let's get a corner booth in case shit goes to hell." "Uh oh, bar lady's in trouble with the higher up's." Your patrons were not helpful.

She sat at the bar, trying to talk you up. Trying to gain information, you realized. Yeah, you weren't new to this.

Sevika was intrigued, at the very least.

Silco had sent her to scope you out. Your business had been doing too well, too fast. If you had savvy, he wanted to know about it.

And you definitely did. She'd never admit it, but she was… charmed. As much as someone like her could be, at least.

You radiated quiet control behind the bar, a rag thrown over one shoulder and another hooked on your waist while you juggled multiple shouted drink orders effortlessly. All the while making banter with her.

She was still debating whether or not to report back truthfully to Silco when the bustle of a few kids walking in cut through her train of thoughts.

You talked them down from their hyperness in a swift moment, jutting your thumb to the kitchen in the back where, apparently, there was some sandwiches waiting for them.

You shrugged off the scrutinizing look she was giving you.

"Somebody's gotta feed them," is all you said. She sees somebody else's old fire, somebody she used to know, in your eyes for a moment.

"Owner's an airhead. Nothing to worry about. Definitely just a lucky break," she tells Silco later that night.

She lets you know subliminally that your bar is off limits. Some of her men patrol around your business's property, for your property. No one comes in demanding your profits anymore.

You don't need her protection, but you still appreciate it.

You start keeping cigarillos behind the bar for whenever she comes in. She's a little suspicious the first time you offer her one and a light.

"What, are you picky about the brand?" She almost laughs at that, and takes the offering.

One of your customers calls out asking how much for a cig. "Sorry my friend, they're exclusive for the pretty lady."

Sevika feels a pang of… something. What pretty lady are you talking about? She thought the cigarillos were for her- ohhhhh…

She starts smoking less. If only to make it a whole treat for herself to stop by your establishment every week, and let you hold open a lighter while she leans forward to light her smoke and talk with you for a bit.

Your establishment becomes for her what it's already become for everybody else in the city. A safe space. A comfort.

Your warmth was undeniable. And it reflected in your place of work too, polished and furnished with a care that Sevika remembers The Last Drop used to have.

This wasn't the first time she's lied to Silco, making the executive decision herself when she didn't trust his. She hoped it wouldn't come down on you.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Welcome to my Tuesday morning PSA about plastics!

So--I was walking along the Bolstadt beach approach sidewalk here in Long Beach, WA yesterday afternoon, and I started seeing these little orange pellets on the ground that looked a little bit like salmon roe (but probably weren't). So I picked one up, and it was most definitely rubber. I went around picking up every one I could find, and while I didn't keep exact count I probably amassed 50-60 of them. I took this picture before depositing them in the nearest trash can.

These are airsoft gun pellets, and you can buy them in big jars containing thousands of them. That means that someone who decided that the beach was a great place to shoot their airsoft guns could easily litter the place with countless little bits of plastic rubber in less than an hour. We already have a huge problem here with people leaving trash, including tiny bits of plastic, all over the beach (you should see the gigantic mess after 4th of July fireworks when thousands of people come in from out of town, blow things up, and then leave again without picking up after themselves.)

But these airsoft pellets have a particularly nasty side effect. You know how my first thought was "wow, those look kind of like salmon roe?" Well, we have a number of opportunistic omnivore birds like crows, ravens, and several species of gull that commonly scavenge on the beach, especially along the approaches because people often feed them there. If I can catch the resemblance of an orange airsoft pellet to a fish egg, then chances are there are wildlife that will assume they're edible.

Since birds don't chew their food, they probably won't notice that the taste or texture is wrong--it'll just go down the hatch. And since they can't digest the pellets, there's a good chance they might just build up in the bird's digestive system, especially if the bird eats a large number of them--say, fifty or sixty of them dropped on the ground along the same fifty foot stretch of sidewalk. The bird might die of starvation if there's not enough capacity for food in their stomach--or they might just die painfully of an impacted gut, and no way to get help for it. If the pellets end up washed into the ocean, you get the same issue with fish and other marine wildlife eating them, and then of course the pellets eventually breaking up into microplastic particles.

You can get biodegradable airsoft pellets; they appear to mainly be gray or white in color rather than bright screaming orange and green. But "biodegradable" doesn't mean "instantly dissolves the next time it rains." An Amazon listing for Aim Green biodegradable airsoft pellets advertise them as "Our biodegradable BBs are engineered to degrade only with long-term exposure to water and sun and will degrade 180 days after being used." That's half a year for them to be eaten by wildlife.

I don't know, y'all. That handful of carelessly dropped rubber pellets just encapsulates how much people don't factor in the rest of nature when making decisions, even on something that is purely for entertainment like an airsoft gun. We could have had a lot of the same technological advances we have today, but with much less environmental impact, if we had considered the long-term effects on both other people and other living beings, as well as our habitats. We could have found ways from the beginning to make these things in ways that benefited us but also mitigated any harm as much as possible. Instead we're now having to reverse-engineer things we've been using for decades, and sometimes--like the "biodegradable" airsoft pellets--they still have a significant negative impact.

But--at least there are people trying to do things better, thinking ahead instead of just on immediate profit. We're stuck in a heck of a mess here, figuratively and literally, and changing an entire system can't be done in a day. Maybe we can at least keep pushing for a cultural shift that emphasizes planning far into the future--if not the often-cited "seven generations ahead", then at least throughout the potential lifespan of a given product.

[exeggcute]

the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators;  reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.

[lisafication]

For those who might happen across this, I'm an administrator for the forum 'Sufficient Velocity', a large old-school forum oriented around Creative Writing. I originally posted this on there (and any reference to 'here' will mean the forum), but I felt I might as well throw it up here, as well, even if I don't actually have any followers.

This week, I've been reading fanfiction on Archive of Our Own (AO3), a site run by the Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW), a non-profit. This isn't particularly exceptional, in and of itself — like many others on the site, I read a lot of fanfiction, both on Sufficient Velocity (SV) and elsewhere — however what was bizarre to me was encountering a new prefix on certain works, that of 'End OTW Racism'. While I'm sure a number of people were already familiar with this, I was not, so I looked into it.

What I found... wasn't great. And I don't think anyone involved realises that.

To summarise the details, the #EndOTWRacism campaign, of which you may find their manifesto here, is a campaign oriented towards seeing hateful or discriminatory works removed from AO3 — and believe me, there is a lot of it. To whit, they want the OTW to moderate them. A laudable goal, on the face of it — certainly, we do something similar on Sufficient Velocity with Rule 2 and, to be clear, nothing I say here is a critique of Rule 2 (or, indeed, Rule 6) on SV.

But it's not that simple, not when you're the size of Archive of Our Own. So, let's talk about the vagaries and little-known pitfalls of content moderation, particularly as it applies to digital fiction and at scale. Let's dig into some of the details — as far as credentials go, I have, unfortunately, been in moderation and/or administration on SV for about six years and this is something we have to grapple with regularly, so I would like to say I can speak with some degree of expertise on the subject.

So, what are the problems with moderating bad works from a site? Let's start with discovery— that is to say, how you find rule-breaching works in the first place. There are more-or-less two different ways to approach manual content moderation of open submissions on a digital platform: review-based and report-based (you could also call them curation-based and flag-based), with various combinations of the two. Automated content moderation isn't something I'm going to cover here — I feel I can safely assume I'm preaching to the choir when I say it's a bad idea, and if I'm not, I'll just note that the least absurd outcome we had when simulating AI moderation (mostly for the sake of an academic exercise) on SV was banning all the staff.

In a review-based system, you check someone's work and approve it to the site upon verifying that it doesn't breach your content rules. Generally pretty simple, we used to do something like it on request. Unfortunately, if you do that, it can void your safe harbour protections in the US per Myeress vs. Buzzfeed Inc. This case, if you weren't aware, is why we stopped offering content review on SV. Suffice to say, it's not really a realistic option for anyone large enough for the courts to notice, and extremely clunky and unpleasant for the users, to boot.

Report-based systems, on the other hand, are something we use today — users find works they think are in breach and alert the moderation team to their presence with a report. On SV, this works pretty well — a user or users flag a work as potentially troublesome, moderation investigate it and either action it or reject the report. Unfortunately, AO3 is not SV. I'll get into the details of that dreadful beast known as scaling later, but thankfully we do have a much better comparison point — fanfiction.net (FFN).

FFN has had two great purges over the years, with a... mixed amount of content moderation applied in between: one in 2002 when the NC-17 rating was removed, and one in 2012. Both, ostensibly, were targeted at adult content. In practice, many fics that wouldn't raise an eye on Spacebattles today or Sufficient Velocity prior to 2018 were also removed; a number of reports suggest that something as simple as having a swearword in your title or summary was enough to get you hit, even if you were a 'T' rated work. Most disturbingly of all, there are a number of — impossible to substantiate — accounts of groups such as the infamous Critics United 'mass reporting' works to trigger a strike to get them removed. I would suggest reading further on places like Fanlore if you are unfamiliar and want to know more.

Despite its flaws however, report-based moderation is more-or-less the only option, and this segues neatly into the next piece of the puzzle that is content moderation, that is to say, the rubric. How do you decide what is, and what isn't against the rules of your site?

Anyone who's complained to the staff about how vague the rules are on SV may have had this explained to them, but as that is likely not many of you, I'll summarise: the more precise and clear-cut your chosen rubric is, the more it will inevitably need to resemble a legal document — and the less readable it is to the layman. We'll return to SV for an example here: many newer users will not be aware of this, but SV used to have a much more 'line by line, clearly delineated' set of rules and... people kind of hated it! An infraction would reference 'Community Compact III.15.5' rather than Rule 3, because it was more or less written in the same manner as the Terms of Service (sans the legal terms of art). While it was a more legible rubric from a certain perspective, from the perspective of communicating expectations to the users it was inferior to our current set of rules  — even less of them read it,  and we don't have great uptake right now.

And it still wasn't really an improvement over our current set-up when it comes to 'moderation consistency'. Even without getting into the nuts and bolts of "how do you define a racist work in a way that does not, at any point, say words to the effect of 'I know it when I see it'" — which is itself very, very difficult don't get me wrong I'm not dismissing this — you are stuck with finding an appropriate footing between a spectrum of 'the US penal code' and 'don't be a dick' as your rubric. Going for the penal code side doesn't help nearly as much as you might expect with moderation consistency, either — no matter what, you will never have a 100% correct call rate. You have the impossible task of writing a rubric that is easy for users to comprehend, extremely clear for moderation and capable of cleanly defining what is and what isn't racist without relying on moderator judgement, something which you cannot trust when operating at scale.

Speaking of scale, it's time to move on to the third prong — and the last covered in this ramble, which is more of a brief overview than anything truly in-depth — which is resources. Moderation is not a magic wand, you can't conjure it out of nowhere: you need to spend an enormous amount of time, effort and money on building, training and equipping a moderation staff, even a volunteer one, and it is far, far from an instant process. Our most recent tranche of moderators spent several months in training and it will likely be some months more before they're fully comfortable in the role — and that's with a relatively robust bureaucracy and a number of highly experienced mentors supporting them, something that is not going to be available to a new moderation branch with little to no experience. Beyond that, there's the matter of sheer numbers.

Combining both moderation and arbitration — because for volunteer staff, pure moderation is in actuality less efficient in my eyes, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this post, but we'll treat it as if they're both just 'moderators' — SV presently has 34 dedicated moderation volunteers. SV hosts ~785 million words of creative writing.

AO3 hosts ~32 billion.

These are some very rough and simplified figures, but if you completely ignore all the usual problems of scaling manpower in a business (or pseudo-business), such as (but not limited to) geometrically increasing bureaucratic complexity and administrative burden, along with all the particular issues of volunteer moderation... AO3 would still need well over one thousand volunteer moderators to be able to match SV's moderator-to-creative-wordcount ratio.

Paid moderation, of course, you can get away with less — my estimate is that you could fully moderate SV with, at best, ~8 full-time moderators, still ignoring administrative burden above the level of team leader. This leaves AO3 only needing a much more modest ~350 moderators. At the US minimum wage of ~$15k p.a. — which is, in my eyes, deeply unethical to pay moderators as full-time moderation is an intensely gruelling role with extremely high rates of PTSD and other stress-related conditions — that is approximately ~$5.25m p.a. costs on moderator wages. Their average annual budget is a bit over $500k.

So, that's obviously not on the table, and we return to volunteer staffing. Which... let's examine that scenario and the questions it leaves us with, as our conclusion.

Let's say, through some miracle, AO3 succeeds in finding those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteer moderators. We'll even say none of them are malicious actors or sufficiently incompetent as to be indistinguishable, and that they manage to replicate something on the level of or superior to our moderation tooling near-instantly at no cost. We still have several questions to be answered:

How are you maintaining consistency? Have you managed to define racism to the point that moderator judgment no longer enters the equation? And to be clear, you cannot allow moderator judgment to be a significant decision maker at this scale, or you will end with absurd results.

How are you handling staff mental health? Some reading on the matter, to save me a lengthy and unrelated explanation of some of the steps involved in ensuring mental health for commercial-scale content moderators.

How are you handling your failures? No moderation in the world has ever succeeded in a 100% accuracy rate, what are you doing about that?

Using report-based discovery, how are you preventing 'report brigading', such as the theories surrounding Critics United mentioned above? It is a natural human response to take into account the amount and severity of feedback. While SV moderators are well trained on the matter, the rare times something is receiving enough reports to potentially be classified as a 'brigade' on that scale will nearly always be escalated to administration, something completely infeasible at (you're learning to hate this word, I'm sure) scale.

How are you communicating expectations to your user base? If you're relying on a flag-based system, your users' understanding of the rules is a critical facet of your moderation system — how have you managed to make them legible to a layman while still managing to somehow 'truly' define racism?

How are you managing over one thousand moderators? Like even beyond all the concerns with consistency, how are you keeping track of that many moving parts as a volunteer organisation without dozens or even hundreds of professional managers? I've ignored the scaling administrative burden up until now, but it has to be addressed in reality.

What are you doing to sweep through your archives? SV is more-or-less on-top of 'old' works as far as rule-breaking goes, with the occasional forgotten tidbit popping up every 18 months or so — and that's what we're extrapolating from. These thousand-plus moderators are mostly going to be addressing current or near-current content, are you going to spin up that many again to comb through the 32 billion words already posted?

I could go on for a fair bit here, but this has already stretched out to over two thousand words.

I think the people behind this movement have their hearts in the right place and the sentiment is laudable, but in practice it is simply 'won't someone think of the children' in a funny hat. It cannot be done.

Even if you could somehow meet the bare minimum thresholds, you are simply not going to manage a ruleset of sufficient clarity so as to prevent a much-worse repeat of the 2012 FF.net massacre, you are not going to be able to manage a moderation staff of that size and you are not going to be able to ensure a coherent understanding among all your users (we haven't managed that after nearly ten years and a much smaller and more engaged userbase). There's a serious number of other issues I haven't covered here as well, as this really is just an attempt at giving some insight into the sheer number of moving parts behind content moderation:  the movement wants off-site content to be policed which isn't so much its own barrel of fish as it is its own barrel of Cthulhu; AO3 is far from English-only and would in actuality need moderators for almost every language it supports — and most damning of all,  if Section 230 is wiped out by the Supreme Court  it is not unlikely that engaging in content moderation at all could simply see AO3 shut down.

As sucky as it seems, the current status quo really is the best situation possible. Sorry about that.

[corvidcrossbow]

~•♡•~ Double The Fangs, Double The Fun

➳ Summary: Daryl and Scud are regulars at the bar you work at, but they're only really there for you. One night while chatting, you injure yourself, so they help you home to heal up (Vamp!Daryl & Vamp!Scud x Fem!Reader)

➳ Setting: idfk sometime, somewhere, no apocalypse (this is a crossover fic for smut lets be real)

➳ Word count: 5.5k (3k of it is smut)

➳ C/W: VAMPIRES ‼️‼️, minor wound, blood (duh), biting/vampire feeding, double penetration, hints of Scud's mommy kink

➳ A/N: I wrote doc title for this as “DTFx2” cuz of the lettering, not even realizing the “down-to-fuck” till later, plus it being 2 partners – I cooked on this title. BUT ANYWAY I AM FUELING THE VAMP!DARYL FIRE AND VAMP!SCUD TOO BECAUSE THIS IS A PLAGUE AND I AM ILL AND I WILL SPREAD IT

You stretched your arms up over your head, leaning forward against the counter in front of you. It was another slow weeknight, no customers present, hindered by the fact the bar was tucked away in some deader part of the city. It was pretty boring, but you got paid for kinda just diddleling around a lot of the time. You rhythmically tapped your fingertips against the surface, but straightened up when the door jingled open.

“Fuck, I was about to start praying you two would show up. ‘Ts borin' as shit in here,” You laughed as two familiar faces walked in from the night; Daryl and Scud. They were your regulars, stopping by most any time you were on shift. And you heard from coworkers sometimes they'd show up, see that you weren't there, and just leave.

You never found it creepy though, it wasn't like that. They were always very respectful towards you, kind of chivalrous, but not obnoxiously. They'd always buy a drink and tip heavy, or just straight up give you money – and would scare off the actually creepy drinkers: the one's that'd prey on a woman as if she was frail. You didn't require them, having pepper spray and a gun beneath the counter, but they gave you extra security. And we're good company.

Scud, who you knews real name was Josh – the more ‘loverboy’ one of the two – popped by most nights after work. He was really sweet, having grown a soft spot for him and letting him bend the rules; like allowing him to smoke a joint, or three, inside, so long as he shared them with you. He claimed he was a sort of engineer, which you found a little surprising given you'd never seen him without the skunky smell of weed wafting around his figure, but it's not like it mattered to you.

Daryl, on the other hand, was much more reserved, and you'd be lying if you said that didn't intrigue you. He appeared older, and more of a rarity, seeming to drift in and out of town: which made sense given that scratchy, deep southern accent he carried.

“Ain't gon’ pass up seein’ ya, moonshine,” Daryl grinned as he sauntered up to take a seat, Scud following right behind and taking the one opposite him. ‘Moonshine’ is what he always called you, given you were a bartender, and it was ironic because you never saw either of them till after sundown. “Shift slow?”

“Painfully,” You groaned and rolled your eyes. “Ion even know how we get enough profit to keep this place open. Not sure anyone in our staff remembers the last time we saw the owner in person. I swear this is some money laundering scheme.”

“‘Least your gettin’ paid, yeah? My boss don't even got me onna regular schedule,” Scud tisked, reaching into the pocket of his large, layered jacket and pulling out the container he kept his joints in. “Ya wanna J?”: To which you nodded and he passed you one. Daryl's observant gaze watched your every movement, as he typically did.

“Ya get yer nails done, darlin’?” He asked, squinting his pale blue eyes and setting his hand out as you lit the joint.

“Hm?” Your eyes flicked to him, understanding, and you set your palm in his hand so he could see. Pressed to your nail beds were coffin acrylics, painted a rich red, the gloss making them almost bloody. “Jus’ got ‘em done this morning. Figured if ‘m gonna be sittin’ here twiddling my thumbs half the time they might as well look good.”

“Looks perfect on ya.” Your gazes locked together for a moment, hypnotic in a way as his irises seemed to pulse, then suddenly shift down. He loomed closer and ran his thumb over your fingers, appreciating the gleaming texture that reflected in the dim light.

“Real pretty momma's,” Scud added as he took a long drag of his smoke, holding it for a moment before skillfully exhaling in a long plume that dissipated and began to fill the small space with a haze.

“Mm, thank you boys,” You turned a little, offering a bashful smile at their endless complimenting – they showered you with affectionate comments every time they came in. “Either of you want somethin’? It can be on the house, think the workers drink more than customers.”

“‘Ll take'ah whiskey – ‘nd m’payin’ ya anyway, angel,” Daryl replied, fishing for his wallet and passing you bills that more than doubled the price of a shot. Frankly you felt bad sometimes, like you were taking his money, but gave up a long time ago with trying to decline. He insisted.

As you went to grab the iconic bottle of Jack Daniel's off the shelf behind you, your elbow stuck out a bit too far and knocked over a large glass you'd been using for water, sending it to the floor where it shattered. “Ugh, never complain that you're bored at work. Fate'll always make ya clean.”

You quickly poured the auburn grog into a shot and slid it across the wood countertop to Daryl, dropping to your knees to pick up the larger shards.

“Fuck!” You seethed, accidentally slicing open the palm of your hand by sweeping it over the edge of a fragment in the other, your joint nearly falling from where you'd pinched it between your lips. Both men bounded from their stools to look over, simultaneously uttering ‘Ya alrigh's?''s. You half-clutched your fist and rose to be level again, hitching your breath with a small whine as striking pain electrified your nerves.

Blood quickly began to spill from the gash, running down your wrist and upper forearm before dripping to the floor a couple times as Daryl snapped to grab a clean rag from behind the bar so you could hold pressure, moving so fast he registered as just a whoosh. As your eyes were shut in pain, theirs were blown open, locked onto the crimson that tinted your skin. They could see the microscopic way it gushed a bit more from every beat of your heart.

Tendrils of that sweet, mind warping scent curled through the air and around the pair's bodies. God it smelled so damn good – you smelled so good. They didn't wish you harm, but they'd just been agonizingly waiting to someday, by some chance, get to smell the life-giving fluid that pumped through your veins without the blockage your skin created, keeping the complete experience inside of you. And they could only dream of getting to taste it…

You spun back to face them, and swore for a second, the color of both their blue eyes had altered to match the plasma soaking into the grey washcloth in your grip – their faces flat like they hadn't eaten in years and you just baited the idea of a gourmet feast. But once you blinked, they were back to azure, concern etched across eyebrows and frowns. Maybe it was just the shitty brilliance of the bar.

“‘M fine, jus’ being mindless I guess. Scud, how the hell are ya smokin’ and working with wires ‘n soldering shit,” You shook your head, blaming your incident on the brain fog from weed, although it was a poor excuse given it should not have taken effect that fast. Perhaps you were just embarrassingly locked on auto-pilot.

“Ya look like yer bleedin’ bad, princess. Lemme see.” Daryl beckoned you over and took your hand. His body tensed, that dangerous feeling of his canines extending creeping up. It took all he had to not press his mouth to you. He knew better, he had control. You let him remove the rag, examining the cut and finding it to be quite deep, him stating it might have to be closed

“We don't got any medical stuff here ‘sides maybe a few bandaids. I'd be surprised if anybody else came in ‘ere tonight so I'll just close up ‘n deal with it home. Sorry to cut our chat time short guys…” You gave a half frown, taking an unsteady inhale and trying to mask the aching in your extremity. You smothered the joint, enjoyment ruined.

“Don't gotta apologize mama's. Wantcha to be okay,” Scud commented, mirroring your expression. Looking between him and Daryl, you felt there was some synergy connecting them, like they were communicating despite both staring at you.

“Why don't we take ya home, mebbe have me patch tha fer ya, hm?” Daryl suggested, readjusting his leather jacket as he tilted his head slightly.

“Oh, no. I don't wanna bother either of ya with that…”

“‘Ts no bother, sugar. We wanna make sure you're safe. ‘Ts late, dark, ‘nd you're bleedin’. Don't want anythin’ bad happening to ya,” Scud explained, his every word ending on a sort of mewl as he plucked his joint from his mouth to speak clearly.

“Alright – just cause I know you two will follow me to check anyway.” You grabbed your things, Daryl and Scud helping to close up the bar so you didn't further injure yourself, then leaving with you. It was reasonable for them to come with, and this wouldn't be the first time. And this wasn't the safest part of town, so it wouldn't hurt to have them.

❥-》》—————➣

When you returned to your apartment, both of them praised your designing of the interior, having not been inside before. To you it wasn't much of anything special, but again, it was just in their nature to say kind things to you.

You nodded Daryl in the direction of your bathroom so he could grab some ointment and gauze, going to sit on the couch as Scud plopped beside you. You easily could've nursed it yourself, but if there was anything you really knew about Daryl, it was his tendency to always be doing favors – and not letting you decline.

“Y'know… I know a way tah make that heal faster than any dressings could,” Scud broke the silence, dragging his gaze over your frame, and landing on your hand where you still held the soiled rag. He couldn't fucking take it anymore. He didn't have the control that Daryl did.

“What do you mean?” You now faced him, confused at the way his breathing seemed to grow a bit heavier, chest puffing further out despite his lazy posture. But he straightened some, scooting closer to you and reaching for your hand.

“Just trust me on this…” He was salivating, bottom lip practically trembling with anticipation. He was so close, access to your fresh blood right there. God how he ached for it every time he saw your beautiful face, just so damn entranced by you. He tried not to completely lose his mind as he neared your palm.

“Um… yer gonna get it infected doin’ that.”

“Won't.” And his mouth hovered right above it.

“Seriously, Scud, what are you doing?” Now you were concerned, tempted to call Daryl back. Was this some weird sex thing? His way of trying to seduce you? Taking ‘kiss my boo-boo to make it feel better’ a bit too far. But you sensed this… energy, radiating off of him, drawing out your naïve trait of curiosity. Something felt different about him, although you guess it always did – but only now could you really perceive it, having him so close. “What are you? ”

Scud's eyes flicked up to yours, blue flipped across the scale of hues to match the color you'd caught a glimpse of at the bar – the color of your blood, and those flawless new nails. “Whadda ya think I am, sweetheart?”

As his lips peeled back with a grin, you could see the lengthy, pin-sharp fangs that descended from the roof of his mouth, glistening with his famine. Your mouth fell open, pupils dilating as realization worked through your brain. Oh shit. Oh, shit..? You didn't speak, but didn't know what to say anyway.

He chuckled at your reaction. “Jus’ relax, mama's.” Finally. His tongue darted out, dragging a long lick over the front of your wound, causing you to wince and jerk a little. It didn't particularly hurt, but was so odd at the start. Scud held back a moan, but couldn't help his remarks: “Mmm, you taste so good… bettah than I ever imagined…”

You swallowed thickly, watching him work saliva over your tender flesh, and lapping away any remnants of the blood that ran down your arm. He stared intensely into your eyes as he drew a long, excessively slow lick up your limb and back to the wound. You felt it begin to radiate, an unfamiliar warmth centralizing over the cut but spreading out into your entire palm.

He brushed his lips against your fingers with a featherlite kiss, and reluctantly pulled away, letting you watch branches of skin connect together from both sides, color quickly shifting back to your normal tone, and your hand completely unscathed. You flexed your tendons, feeling it for yourself. It was completely healed, a two-week time lapsing into under a minute.

“Why'd ya show ‘er.” Daryl's voice was stern, silently standing behind the couch and startling you as you whipped around. You should've figured – it wouldn't take that long to find simple first aid in your bathroom.

“Known ‘er for long enough, D. Why let'er suffer with some gash if we can just heal it for her?” Scud replied and shrugged innocently. But his wording was key; ‘we’.

“You're both vampires,” You nodded dryly as Daryl grumbled something under his breath and came around the couch to sit on the other side of you. Now the ‘moonshine’ was really ironic. “Okay… I assume if you were gonna drain me ya woulda done it by now.”

“Don't tempt me, baby,” Scud smirked, and Daryl shot him a harsh glare. “What? Sure she appreciates the healin’ at least!”

“Yeah, I do… but it's weirdly intimate, no? Just, wetly runnin’ yer tongue all over someone, gathering saliva on their skin, tastin’ the irony remnants of their blood-”

“Quit talkin’ like that,” Daryl hissed, your sight passing back to him, watching his adam's-apple bob and his jaw tense. His eyes reddened as well, and it dawned on you how teasing your choice of dialogue must've been for them.

“Or keep goin’. Like hearin’ your gorgeous voice say such pretty words,” Scud wet his lips, volume just above a whisper. You felt trapped between two sides of a spectrum, both equally covet… and you were way more into it than you would ever want to admit. Your jaw laxed with a weary breath, mind wandering further ahead than you liked it to. “But you're right, can be real intimate.” His voice dropped lower as he neared you, keeping sights intertwined.

“You're torturing me momma's… pleas’... would give anythin’ to feel ya,” He almost whimpered, puppy dog eyes peering up at you. “He would too, he's jus’ a lil’ more shy.”

It'd be the fattest lie of your life to say you didn't find him attractive, both of them. Closing the door behind you some nights after they'd walked you home, tempted to just bring them inside. How many times you muttered dirty words as your legs tangled in your bedsheets and you touched yourself, imagining how they'd sound in Scud's whiny hitches, or Daryl's gravelly grunts…

You reached up, taking Scud's chin in the light hold of your acrylics and bringing his mouth to yours. He directly melted, turning to puddy from that alone and cravingly dabbing your lips with his tongue. When you pulled back, he tried to follow, pining for more. But you wanted to be fair, and switched to the other man.

Daryl looked like he didn't know what to do, that effort of displaying confidence broken the second the gate he'd been waiting outside of for so long actually opened. But a quick ‘C'mere’, and the curling of your pointer finger brought him to you expeditiously, rough lips chafing over your moisted ones. He shoved away his groan, not quite ready for that yet.

“This ain't gonna stop at kissin’, right?” You checked on an exhale, both their eyes boring into you from either plane, the patterns of their breathing reworking themselves. Dropping it here would be teasing you now.

“S’ain't gon’ stop less ya want it to, moonshine,” He rasped, irises captivating and luring you back to him, clawed hand coming to his cheek – that made the groan slip. He inhaled sharply, ardently guiding his tongue into your mouth, which definitely made Scud jealous.

The engineer brought his hands to your waist, toying with the seams of your shirt as Daryl harshly tugged you closer to him, gaining momentum, growing hungrier. He explored the entire cavity of your mouth, feeling the heat of your gums, the smoothness of your teeth in comparison to his canines, and drew a moan from your throat, hints of a smile crinkling.

“Yer not good at hidin’ whatcha want, honeysuckle,” The southerner purred, trailing down to your jawline as Scud's lips pressed to the nape of your neck. You weren’t sure if he could tell by your body language, or was able to read your mind or something; all the near whorish thoughts running through your psyche.

“Then you should know how long I've thought about this.”

Daryl immediately hooked his strong arms under your thighs, shoving Scud back to stand up off the couch, your legs instinctively latching around his torso as he started to leave a hickey on your neck and find his way to your bedroom.

Scud awkwardly stood behind for a second, shyly glancing to the floor, feeling literally and figuratively pushed aside by the other's dominance. “C'mon Scuddy,” You mouthed, and he looked like he came in pants right there – hurdling to track after you.

Daryl roughly threw you onto the edge of your bed, simultaneously ripping your shirt up over your head. He reached down for the button of your jeans, quickly popping it out and tearing them off, leaving you in just your lacey, red bra and panties.

“Jeez, you ‘nd fuckin’ red, woman.” He bordered on a growl, sliding off his jacket and tossing it to the floor. You sat upright on the rim the mattress, aiding Scud in dropping his many layers, but he teetered like he just wanted to fuck himself senseless with all it still on.

Both them now shirtless, you raked your nails down their chest, taking extra notice to follow the lightning-like scars carved into Scud's abdomen to your left. You let out a breathy curse at their defined v-lines and mouthwateringly sexy happy trails, discarding Daryl's belt, and gently cupping his pulsing erection through his jeans – the same through Scud's cargos.

One twitched, then the other, and you chuckled. “You two really want me that bad, huh?” You questioned, beaming up through your lashes with a flirty smirk: but that mischievous temping simmered seeing the pure lust on their features. They looked like they were gonna eat you alive, and honestly… you wouldn't mind it.

You undid their pants to drop them down, and with some sort of unspoken permission translating between the three of you, they pounced forward, resistance snapping like twigs. Scud hauled your body up the bed and instantaneously found your lips, already gasping into your mouth. His hands each found one of your breasts, fondling and pawing impatiently through your bra.

Daryl grabbed your hips, tugging you back down a little and drawing a wet lick from the hem of your panties up your navel, holding you to him as your spine arched. He kissed and sucked at the delicate skin on your pelvis and inner thighs, leaving behind litters of those gentle bruises on the surface, spotting across the curves of your body. His fangs grazed you as he worked, a persistent reminder of what a feral vampire could just take from you – but he was a humble man, and prefered to give.

You directed Scud to strip your bra, given he'd basically lost all ability to function the second your clothes were off, and even worse once he was on you. Now with your chest fully out, he was gone. He greedily sucked one nipple into his mouth, kneading the other like a cat, while Daryl curled a finger around the hem of your panties, deliberately running from side to side before he suddenly ripped them away – literally ripped. “Promise ‘ll buy ya new ones, babydoll.”

Whatever deeply guttural noise that erupted from you when Daryl's tongue made contact with your cunt was everything but holy. Your hips bucked up into his face so rapidly it almost caught him off guard, his palms splayed out on your thighs and his mouth latched onto your clit. He sucked in rapid pumps, before trawling down then back up and spreading your folds. He lapped up every bit of your pooled wetness, taking a deep inhale and the hidden claws in his fingertips nearing shooting out as his toes curled.

“Fuck! Yer pussy smell's'so fuckin’ good.” His words came out as near snarls, reverberating against your core. Should the view of him not have been obscured by Scud, you're sure you would've came at the sight of him so deeply intoxicated by just the scent of you. “‘Nd tastes so goddamn lovely.”

“‘Ts not fair, man, ah wanna taste ‘er-”

“Nah. Ya got ‘er hand, pussy's mine.” Now he was snarling, possessive crimson eyes stabbing into the other man as he'd turned to look back at him, burying himself deeper into your cunt and earning another wild moan. Scud frowned a little, but you brought your hands to his hips and readjusted him to be sitting on your chest, legs on either side of your body.

“Don't worry, baby.” And you rolled down his boxers so his dick was free: fully hard, tip swollen up and flushed with color, absolutely weeping for you, and it bobbed with a twitch. You wrapped your hand around the base, giving a few pressurized strokes as he bowed forward over your head and straight up whimpered in your ear, aching and pulsing and starved of touch and attention.

“Oh-.. God, momma's… t’so good…” He wove his fingers through your hair to tug lightly at the roots and anchor himself. But the second you put your tongue on him, he jerked forward and shoved into your mouth, cumming abruptly. He couldn't help it, you were; “Jus’ so warm…”

Still you swallowed it down, swiveling the tip of your tongue along the underside of his head, prolonging his high. You weren't surprised; with how frenzied he was, acting like he'd been edged for far too long – which you supposed he had, based on how he talked earlier – you pegged him for the kind to cum fast. He probably wanted you to actually peg him too.

Daryl tipped a domino by chuckling at the early orgasm, the sound waves making you moan around Scud's cock, which in return made him slide a bit deeper again. Daryl started to hum, and removed one hand from your thigh to slip two girthy fingers into you, curling them up and pressing into that sensitive spot in your walls. He focused his mouth on your clit, drawing it in with suction while he rapidly wagged his tongue, soon pumping his fingers in and out of you, and your moans picked up.

The shallow edge of Scud's claws inched further out and held your skull, careful to not scrape into your skin, but exigent nonetheless. His breathing descended into ragged heaving against the side of your head as you worked his cock like you knew every little thing that got him going.

“Getch'yer dick outta her mouth so Ah can hear ‘er cum,” Daryl barked, breaking contact from you for just a moment. Scud groaned, wanting so badly for you to deepthroat him, but he shifted over to the side, knowing Daryl would forcibly do it anyway. Now he moved impossibly faster, fingers stretching you open and filling the bedroom with wet noises from how he had you dripping.

Getting to hear you clearly now sent him into overdrive, grunting against your clit while Scud just laboriously returned to toying with your boobs. “C'mon girl, jus’ cum. Cum fer me. Wanna see yer gorgeous face.”

“Jesus, Daryl-” Your sentence split, and you cried out, trembling legs coming together and forcing him flush against you. You rode his face, a hand flying down to tug at his shaggy locks and assisting you in rolling your hips. He clutched you bruisingly hard, nearing ripping into you.

When your limbs relaxed again, he lavished long licks over your cunt, swirling the tangy, sticky nectar of your release over his entire mouth. “Mos’ perfect fuckin’ thing.”

“Pleas’ mommas, can I fuck ya?” Scud pleaded, cupping your face to catch his distress. Sharing was hard when one party was so much more controlling. Poor thing needed you.

But seeing Daryl yank down and discard his boxers, hard cock visibly throbbing and tip shaded red, he needed you too. And you could tell a blowjob just wouldn't settle it for either of them. “Fuck, just-.. both of you fuck me.”

“Can ya handle two, sweetheart?” Daryl exhorted, swiping a strayed bit of hair from your forehead and deftly tucking it back, slightly softened eyes checking for sincerity in your expression. With your nod, they acclimated to desire once again.

He flipped onto his back, and manhandled your body overtop of him, your back flattened on his chest, and Scud hurriedly positioning above. Daryl kept your legs spread apart with his, reaching around and palming at your breast while going down to slick himself between your soaked folds, slapping himself against you a couple times. “Ya tell us if s'too much, alrigh’?”

“Yea, yeah- please, just fuck me already,” You wailed as he angled you down and slipped deep into you, Scud giving you a second to adjust before coating spit over his shaft, and gently guiding into you as well.

Your back arched as Daryl held you firm, whining in delectable pain as they strained you further open than you ever had been, your acrylics digging into his waist beneath you. Scud layered himself onto you, sucking another hickey into your chest then rocking his hips a couple of times.

When you handled it well, Daryl took it as a cue to join him, plodding more in his thrusts to still give you the opportunity to bail if this wasn't to your liking. Your eyelids fluttered closed, head lulling back to rest on Daryl's shoulder as your heavy breaths fell in line with the pace. When Scud pushed in, Daryl would pull out, and vice versa: always keeping you full while maintaining the motion that granted so much ecstasy to you three. Every one of their filthy noises sounded incomprehensibly better than you'd ever pictured.

Scud mewled against you, head buried into your breasts and giving quick pecks or licks any time he wasn't being uncontrollably vocal. Daryl did the same, groaning into your shoulder and hair.

“Takin’ us so good, arentcha darlin’? So wet, pussy so tight,” Daryl hushed into your ear, hooking up faster and faster following each of his thrusts like the speed was on a multiplier.

You twisted fingers in the back of Scud's head, triggering a loud whine when you tugged on the roots of this hair and that metal choker he always wore. He started to waver, weakly humping you like his brain was fried and just focusing on staying as deep inside you as he could. “Mmm… mommy, I… ‘m so hungry. Please…” The hinges of his jaw started extending on their own, humid exhales dampening an area by your neck. Tasting hints of your blood earlier spawned a black hole that decimated the sinkhole he'd previously had caving in over time. In the near year he'd known you, that urge to just feed from your tender flesh was all he ever thought about. And now, warm walls of your cunt wrapped around him, urging him to another orgasm… He couldn't wait much longer, he was starving.

Daryl planted his feet to make up for Scud's faltering rhythm, the strengthful build of his hips and thighs making it easy to lift you. He was trying so hard to focus on just fucking you, but as the other vampire's imploring got the best of him, he started to follow suit. “Ya know yer'a damn tease, righ’ moonshine? Lookin’ so sexy all tha time, tha seductive scent ah yers… Fuck, I kno’ ya taste like heaven…” He craned his neck up, applying pressure to your carotid artery with his tongue, feeling everything he wanted pump through you at a rapid rate.

You took in a shaky breath, vivacity emanating from the both of them and encircling you. Their dicks throbbed inside of you, the drifter pistoning while the engineer hunched, but that just wasn't enough, and it made the craving so much more pressing. Their pairs of fangs rested on the edges of your skin, tracing over it, each on one side.

“Shit… just do it-.. Jus’ fuckin’ do,” You panted, and it happened so fast you barely even realized it. Scud's bite was eager, being more frantic and on your left: Daryl's more longing, savoring the feeling of piercing into your silky flesh on the right. They drew long siphons into their throats, sultry crimson flooding their systems as their eyes blazed a mutual color.

A strangled moan ripped from your being, your consciousness floating in a haze. Daryl fucked you faster, empowered by your smooth blood, grunting savagely as his razor-edged talons dug into your breasts, Scud's on your waist: but they were so careful to not rip you up.

“Mmmnngh… oh, gods momma, m’gonna cum…” Scud lost any last sense of his composure, curving his spine and slicking out of you to cum over your pelvis. He whimpered like an injured dog, anchoring himself with the teeth lodged in you, grinding against you a few times to ride out the bliss as he messied your body with lengthy ropes of white. Waves of body-wracking pleasure made him writhe around on your chest, lost in some other realm.

“Fuck… cum fer me again, dollface. Know yer good fer me,” Daryl mumbled against you, driving into your cunt with every newfound bit of liveliness he garnered from feeding on you. Your brain stopped working at this point – those red acrylic nails scratching at Daryl's thigh with your left, and Scud's back with your right.

You felt lightheaded, loss of ichor incapacitating you even as they'd ceased thirsting, just keeping fangs planted in your muscles. The crest of euphoria floated your soul to nirvana, Daryl's tip brushing past one specific golden point in your walls and shoving you off the cliff of your climax, tightening his hold on you as you bowed and bucked, vision stripped from your senses.

Your pussy spasmed and massaged around the southerner's cock, and with a final few abusing thrusts, he withdrew and spilled his own load over your folds, resistant moans rumbling from his vocal cords. All three of your chests heaved intensely, fighting to steal any oxygen from the lust-filled atmosphere of your bedroom.

Daryl's hands drifted to your midsection to push up and roll Scud off of you to the left, knowing he was too much of a fucked out mess to do it himself. He gently laid you between the two of them, smoothing a caring hand over your chest and pressing a kiss to your upper arm. “Ya feelin’ okay, moonshine? Didn't take too much, righ’?”

“Yea, ‘m good.., jus’ need a minute,” You wheezed, eyes shut and soma trying to recuperate. Daryl peeled himself from the bed, going to wet a rag, and fetch some water and food. Returning, he compassionately cleaned away the cum smeared across your curves, supporting you as he helped you drink and all – then gathered extra layers of healing saliva over your puncture wounds just to make sure they'd seal over.

He soothed you by tracing patterns with his calloused palm, the three of you resting for a long while and wrapping thoughts around what just happened.

Scud snaked his arm around yours and cuddled right up against your side, keeping lips pressed against you with his whiny hums. “Wanna feel more'ah ya mommas…” To only say he was needy was an understatement, he was full on reliant – vampiric endurance adapting the role of an exponent for such.

“Let ‘er rest.”

You brought your nails to Scud's scalp, gently scratching his head and he practically began to purr. Even if Daryl shoved him off, you appreciated how benevolent he was to you, and could tell he felt less-than right now, lacking your focus. “That spit of yours work on swellin’ too?”

He nodded with a mumbly ‘Mhm…’

“Then how bout'cha lick my pussy till it feels better, ‘nd we'll keep goin’ till botha ya are ran dry, hm?” You suggested, planting a kiss on the top of his head and sensing the energy shift.

And they were both on you all over again in an instant.

©corvidcrossbow 2024. I do not give permission for my works to be copied, modified or adapted to other platforms. My work may be translated only if asked and with proof of given consent.

[vypridae]

my au's sun and moon after their first day/night out without the other. posting these because i have major art block and wanna post at least SOMETHING for yall BFGJHFGHKJF

(context for au below cut)

so in my au, sun and moon were originally two separate animatronics. they performed together at the theatre for a while. at some point, around the time bonnie was suddenly replaced, fazbear ent. LLC.'s profits went down. so, the company's ceo (who shant be named) provided the techs with a few ideas to save the company money, or make them more money to make up for the loss with bonnie's disappearance. one of those was scrapping sun and moon.

sun and moon were the techs' pride and joy at the time. but, with losing money (and being threatened to be replaced if they couldn't get profits up somehow), the techs decided that sun & moon's theatre performances weren't working. so, they put them in the superstar daycare instead of the theatre; a lot of adults kept being fired from the daycare and that was also losing the company money, so why not get rid of the human daycare staffing altogether? along with that, they had come to the realization that having two animatronics in one small area like this would be cause for costly monthly repairs. so, they decided to redo the attendant altogether and put both ai's in the same body. used old parts from their other bodies to build this one, so as to save money. spent a lot of time on them, since they were the tech's pride & joy, but couldn't get the transition and ai bugs smoothed out in efficient time, so they gave up. threw the attendant into the daycare and started focusing on the glamrocks and DJMM, the ones that actually made a lot of money for the company.

the art takes place that first night sun and moon come into consciousness, neither of them realizing they can speak to the other in their joint headspace, nor realizing how. this is that first day/night without the other.

[q8qwertyuiop8p]

"Wow Silco's not on that mural!" " Zaun really hated him!"

It's literally a firelight mural... of course they are going to paint Jinx with her "real" father because the firelights hated Silco and loved Vander.

But you know who the zaunites didn't like? Vander. Vander did absolutely nothing for them, he was enabling oppression, turning a blind eye to the enforcers and the suffering of Zaun, and they were absolutely sick of it. That's why Zaun turned its back on him and embraced Silco.

Silco was by no means a perfect leader either, he brought horrible suffering to the Zaunites himself, especially those who were most impoverished. But Silco also did a lot of good for the undercity. If it weren't for him, Zaun would not have shimmer to treat all sorts of ailments, to keep people alive long enough to recieve care and prosthetics. If it weren't for him, they would not have the shimmer they need to fuel devices like Sevika and Smeech's prosthetics. It is because of Silco that little Zaun has an army of shimmer beasts and weapons to fight for freedom and defend itself from the cat. Shimmer gave Zaun a new product that wasn't under Piltover's control with which it could strengthen its economy, and we see the industries of Zaun florish under Silco. As we see illustrated in the ending of episode one, it is only through shimmer and the sacrifice that comes with it that Zaun can turn the tables on its oppressor, and I don't think the Zaunites, especially Jinx, Sevika, an the others leading this fight, will forget so soon.

In the game Convergence, which takes place after Zaun's independence, we still see Silco's symbol plastered in the undercity. His symbol remains on the assembly building in the season two trailer. Silco even seems to have a cult-like following; the eye has a strange significance in Zaun, we see Zaunites making offerings of eyeballs to a turtle-like diety that is covered in jars of eyes and has Silco's symbol inscribed on its praying hands. The Zaunites know Sevika and Jinx were loyal to Silco. It would be in their best interest to paint Silco as a hero and his death a tragedy executed by Piltover.

Bonus: I don't understand why people make such a big deal over Silco employing children in the shimmer factory like he invented child labor or something. Child labor has been a thing in Zaun at least since Piltover has been oppressing it. Silco and Vander worked in dangerous conditions in the mines as children. Ekko worked for Benzo as a child. Vander's kids steal from people to make a living, they aren't doing much better. Silco didn't get rid of child labor but he did ensure the profit from it went towards the Undercity rather than the greedy hands of Piltover.

[romanoffsbish]

Close Your Eyes; Give us Your Hand

WandaNat x Fem!R

Warnings: Drained / Overworked R | Sad Lovers

When your girlfriends come back from their mission they are met with an unfamiliar feeling of loneliness. You didn’t intend to worry them, but you got used to going through the motions of the cruel world alone and it is apparently up to them to bring you back to a more peaceful reality. | WC: 4,238

Wanda knew something was off when you left this morning, she barely got a kiss on her cheek as you rushed out the door to get to work. Normally you'd cuddle into her as she cooked, eat breakfast with both of them, then you'd rush out so you weren't late. This anxious rush out the door was deeply concerning.

Natasha felt it as she ran into you in the hallway, literally, your rushing body slammed right into her sweaty one, her arms wrapped around you to steady you, but also to offer some comfort. "Everything okay lovebug?" The redhead gazed at her watch, noticing that it hadn't even hit 5am, her concern deepened.

"Sorry Nat," you rushed out, both in speech and from her arms, shocking her a bit. "I'll see you later."

The redhead stood in the hall, a bit bewildered as the usual response to a hug is your body melting. Her once easygoing morning off was now riddled with worry.

"What's up with lovebug?" Wanda sighed as she saw the redhead enter the apartment with a clear frown. "Okay, good, so it's not just me who sees it then..."

——

Natasha shook her head, and approached Wanda to give her a reassuring kiss on her forehead. "Let me go get cleaned up sweetheart, then we can figure it out?"

Wanda nodded, then moved back to the kitchen to finish making the breakfast you'd skipped out on...

Meanwhile, you were clocking into work—early, head hung low from a mix of both exhaustion, and guilt.

Not only have you allowed yourself to be severely overworked, by the kind of boss who doesn't lift so much as a finger, but you're also now lacking in the girlfriend department. They'd been gone on a mission for a month so you'd become so used to just rushing on out, and sleeping alone. A cycle that perpetuates hurt.

Now that you have a minuscule moment to think, you realized that you left the both of them with a frown.

You didn't have time for guilt though, so now your frustrations are heightened, and you wanted to leave, but bills don't stop, so you very well couldn't either.

"Y/N to the front, a party of two is waiting for you."

You looked at your watch and cringed, not only did you have unread messages in your group, "Lovers," but it was way beyond the time in the shift where one should take a break, and you hadn't had one, now it was lunch.

Lately, you'd been working through at least part of your lunches, to ensure your productivity remained proficient (even if capitalism barely benefited you). Working your body down until you're on fumes while hardly profiting is just not beneficial in the long run.

You knew that, but again, the bills never stopped.

Your boss raised a brow in question in your direction, and you simply shrugged, pretending you didn't know what (who) was awaiting you at the front of the store.

Wanda's face lit up at the sight of you, but Natasha's eyes observed you with concern as you were sluggish.

"Hey my loves," you greeted, tone clearly exhausted, but you wore a soft, appreciative smile. "What's up?"

Wanda lifted her arm, showcasing the bag in her hand. "You left without breakfast, so we brought you lunch." You winced at the call out, words at the ready to both defend your rush, and to get out of the current offer.

The natural redhead saw it in your eyes and frowned. Natasha reached for your hand, and tugged you out the door towards a table before you could turn them down. You knew then that there was nothing you could do to skip all of today's breaks, and your body was relieved.

It was frigid outside, even with the sun still shining, so Natasha naturally pulled your body against hers as she sat beside you, and this time you melted into her, making her heart beam with endless joy. Nat kissed your temple, and you snuggled closer. As you cuddled into one, your other girlfriend unpacked her bag.

"I made soup," she slid a bowl in front of you, then ladled some from her tupperware, you eyed it warily. "It's good detka, for your body and in flavor, eat up and maybe there'll be something sweet to follow." Wanda slyly held up a bag of homemade cookies, you smiled as you caught her playful wink, then you moaned, "This is delicious my love!" You shoveled down the spoonful of whatever soup Wanda had made like you hadn't eaten in weeks, and in part, that was true.

TV dinners, vending machine snacks and skipped breakfast was the previous, solo months meal plan.

Wanda knew, you know she did. The soup was packed full of vegetables, from her garden you presumed, but you couldn't taste the undesired flavors as she had added a delightful array of seasonings to mask them. It's not that you don't like vegetables, it's just that you don't like them enough to consume them on your own.

"Thanks detka," Wanda chirped, eyes full of adoration fell on you, but you were too busy eating to notice. The women watched you silently, eyes flitting between your face and the others. They had a mental conversation, one that would require your later input, but for now they just wanted to enjoy the serenity of the moment.

"Are you guys going to eat?" Natasha squeezed your hip as Wanda shook her head. "We already had some, this whole container is for our hardworking detka."

"So eat up krasivaya," Nat purred against your temple, a smirk sent Wanda's way as you squirmed beside her.

You giggled, hiding your face against the redhead's shoulder, stomach suddenly alit with the nerves you usually feel whenever your lovers compliment you.

Everything was feeling lighter, even after less than twenty minutes, the dark cloud above your head had all but disappeared. "Thank you guys, I have been—."

"Y/N to the dock," the speaker crackled, interrupting your moment of calm, and repeating with unnecessary urgency. You nearly groaned, but you put the mask back on as you stood up, and slid your hands down over your uniform, ironing out any wrinkles.

"That wasn't even thirty minutes..." Wanda huffed, you sighed, "From the moment I left the back it counted."

"That can't be legal," Natasha grumbled, but she stood up and pulled you in for a tight embrace. "We'll be at home, waiting for you. Your shift ends at two right?"

You nodded against her chest, and allowed yourself an extra second just to breathe her calming, woodsy scent in before giving her a soft peck and migrating into the embrace of your slightly taller girlfriend. Wanda held you so tight that your tense back actually popped, you groaned into her neck, but it was in clear satisfaction.

When you pulled away you heard a crinkle, and found your pocket was filled with a ziplock bag full of cookies. "Thanks Wands," you leaned in to peck her lips, but her hands trapped you for a moment longer as she deepened the kiss. It had been ages since she last had been able to, and your time constraints need not apply.

Natasha pulled her away from you after a moment, allowing you the chance to head in (against their hearts desire) and they waved you off with loving smiles.

"We are in agreement?" Wanda nodded, kissed her on the cheek, then left the redhead behind to fly home.

Natasha sat in the car they'd driven, listening to an audiobook while eating some of Wanda's cookies; watching, and waiting for you to leave the store.

Three hours later, an hour beyond your shifts end was when she finally caught a glimpse of you. It broke her heart to see your unfiltered face, the mask you wore for them had fallen, and you just looked fragile, like glass.

She would be fixing that...

As soon as your car tore out of the parking lot she got out of hers, the overwhelming sadness became anger, and your boss barely made it two steps out the door. Natasha had not so gently pressed her into the wall to the right of the store where the merchandise trucks sat. Offering privacy, and shielding her public reputation as a reformed Russian assassin turned America's hero.

"For starters, you never saw me," Natasha's voice was clipped, to Amy—the boss, it was all too menacing. It took her less than a second to nod her head. "Good."

"Now, as for my business. Y/N has been being worked too hard, so now, you are going to offer her time off."

"I-I don't have the capability to—," she had stuttered, but Natasha's darkened laugh full of cynicism cut her off, her voice was even deeper now, "You and I both know you can make it happen. Don't play dumb Amy."

"Okay...”

Natasha smiled devilishly, "See, I knew you were smart enough not to test a widow's patience..." she lifted her right hand up, fingers pinched, "It's very thin."

Amy nodded, her throat bobbed as she gulped down her fear to ask the necessary question, "How long?"

"Three months."

"Um, that's a long time, I can maybe do a month..."

"Fair point," Natasha mused, pretending to consider it, but then she cleared her throat and lowly said, "Still not nearly as long as you'll spend begging for mercy for all the damage you've done to our beautiful angel."

"Consider it done," she squeaked, and Natasha winked as she let her go. "Pleasure doing business with you."

"Oh, and Amy..." Natasha stopped, then pointed her finger at the slightly trembling woman. "Y/N's not to work beyond the actual limits again. Understood?"

"Mhm..."

Natasha walked away with a triumphant smirk, keys twirled around her fingers as if she had just been on a normal stroll, and hadn't just threatened a civilian. The women's love knew no bounds for you though, so they would break every rule known to man for your sake.

Which is why Wanda was turning your living room into a dream as you both drove back home. Fortunately, with their Avengers salaries, you'd been on the top floor, in the luxurious loft. Your living room alone was the size of the average New York single bed apartment.

With the help of her magic she was able to create a massive fort, giving the nostalgia of childhood to you, but also leaving room for a premium air mattress, the TV, and a table full of your favorite movie snacks. It was nearly perfect, all she needed was you to arrive.

As the heard the keys in the door she made a beeline to cut you off just as soon as you entered, trying to keep the surprise hidden until Natasha returned with the rest of what's meant to be found within. Wanda's lips quirked up as she watched you enter, your shoulders shook as you adjusted to the enveloping warmth that contrasted the outdoors, and you smiled as she took your jacket and beanie off to hang on the racks.

"Welcome home," she hummed, and pulled your still slightly shivering form into her even warmer embrace. "I've run you a bath sweetheart, let's get you relaxed."

You leaned into her instantly, and kissed her throat. "Oh my love," your eyes instantly glossed over in gratitude as you whined, "You didn't have to do that."

Wanda playfully glared at you as she reluctantly pried you off of her body, and asserted why she actually did. "You are stressed and overworked, the actual least I could do is to take care of you detka, which I love."

You allowed her to undress you further, then help you ease into the tub that radiated with a calming warmth. Wanda kissed your forehead, then met your pout with a simple smile as you didn't seem happy watching her leaving. "I'll be back soon, for now this is your time."

"I want it to be us time," you quietly sniffled, and the woman nearly gave into you. "Where's Natty at?"

Then she remembered the plan, reassured you that there would be time to cuddle after you'd spent some time just relaxing a bit, then she was out the door so that there was no room left for you to question her.

Eventually, the women had finished the luxury fort, but they never caught a glimpse of you. Natasha was the one to go check on you as Wanda plated up the rest of the themed snacks she'd made for movie night. When the redhead found you, with your lower body dressed, but your upper nude, and smushed into the mattress she found herself dynamically conflicted.

For starters, you looked too cute to wake up, and also, if you were this tired maybe she should leave you be. Then she realized that wasn't the correct response either, because you would be so upset to find out what was missed— food and cuddles, plus, you still thought that you had work tomorrow morning, but you didn't.

The redhead flipped your body over, and without lust in her eyes she admired your exposed torso. Her eyes fell to the inked reminders of your love, their lips that you'd etched into the skin of your hips. Staking their claim to you, for them, and never wavering in stance. Natasha and Wanda found the concept endearing, and in turn they followed suit, each getting lips stained into their skin; Natasha's were near her heart, on the side over her ribcage, a well kept secret that held purity, and Wanda's were on either wrist, covered by her gloves while on missions, but exposed to her whenever she needed the reminder that her loves are real; true.

After a moment she felt another set of eyes on her, and then there was pajamas snapped onto your body. "Can you carry her without waking her?" Natasha smiled as her partners idea was made obvious, so she nodded then scooped your now dressed form up and out.

Once they made it to the living room the witch held the covers open with tendrils of red while ensuring the front door and windows were locked before joining the both of you underneath the illuminated fabrics. You began to stir in Natasha's hold now that you were sat down on the unfamiliar air mattress, head leaned back against her cushioned chest, her scent strong. "Natty?"

The redhead ran her thumb over the apple of your cheek as she stared down the slope of your nose and chuckled softly as you woke up in an adorable daze. "Yes honey?" The amusement was spurred on as she felt you shiver, it wasn't cold but her voice was raspy.

"Where am I?" Wanda smiled, then leaned closer to whisper in your ear, "Open your eyes and find out."

With a soft wince you did as told, the lights were too bright, forcing you to blink rapidly, but after a moment of adjusting you noted they were actually dim in comparison to the norm. An array of blush pink and off white fairy lights, with clipped polaroids of you and your lovers were strung all around the wall of sheets.

There was an instant quiver to your lip, your body was at a perfect state of rest, yet you felt so overwhelmed. With love, admiration, gratitude and also reprieve. The photos took you down a silent memory lane, from the still of your first date, where Wanda had captured you dancing with Natasha beneath the stars, to the time when you were really sick with Covid, and Wanda was nursing you back to health with her soups and cuddles (even though you obviously protested her proximity).

Nothing could ever keep them away from you, and you knew that they were hurting as you forced them to. It was like a wave of clarity washed over you, and for the first time in so long you felt genuinely relieved. Which was lost on Natasha as you turned into her and cried.

Natasha looked at Wanda in worry, but the witches smile squashed her rising fears. The redhead firmly pulled you closer, and held you as you lightly sobbed into her chest. Wanda's hand gently slipped under your sleep shirt, running up and down your back, nails scratching at your skin as a way to comfort you too.

"It's okay malysh," Natasha whispered as she rocked you, "You are going to be just fine detka, let it all out."

Once your overdue sobs turned to hiccups you moved to sit up, and subsequently pulled from Natasha's grip. The redhead wanted to stop you, but she saw a little bit of determination in your eyes as you turned to face them both so she retracted her hands. "I'm sorry."

Wanda cupped your cheeks, wiped away your tears, then kissed your salty, shimmering lips to shush you.

"Apologies come when you've done something wrong detka," she scolded you softly, "and you haven't. If anyone needs to apologize it's us, you needed us and we weren't here, but I promise that's gonna change.”

You gulped, and your voice trembled, "Change?"

"For the better," Natasha clarified, smiling at you in a way that could only be interpreted as akin to a warm hug. "It's time that we take care of each other better detka, you shouldn't have been able to overwork."

"I-I need to work," you began to defend, but Wanda cut you off with a pained laugh, "You never have to work, because we have it all covered, whatever you need."

Truthfully, you didn't need to work, but you told them you'd hate not having your time filled whenever they are both away, or to leech off of their riches. They were against it at first, telling you that whatever they had was yours to have, but they didn't push the issue then.

Now though, after what they saw today they decided it was time to move forward with a lot of things. Wanda would retire her crown, and be home to tend to your every whim, you would quit your job just after the well earned, fully paid leave. If you persisted that you needed to work, you'd be Natasha's assistant as she would mostly be fielding missions out to others.

"I want to work though, make my own money," you further defended, "I can't buy you gifts with your own money, it wouldn't be right. I need to earn my own."

"Which is fine," Wanda relented with a smile, then Natasha jumped in, "but not for that stupid ass store."

You wanted to fight her on that, because you loved your coworkers but you didn't have it in you to negate the truth to her words. "That I can agree on."

"Good girl," Natasha teased, but Wanda's slap to her shoulder told you there was more important things left to discuss so you turned to her. "I'm retiring the crown detka, and Natty here is taking a massive step back."

Each of your lovers reached forward, grabbing one of your shaky hands and scooted forward to comfort you. They could see your self intrusive thoughts bubbling before Wanda could hear them. "We want to do this."

"I-is it because I'm worrying you into this?"

"No detka, you are seeing this in the wrong light, we want to do this because we hate being away from you. Natasha and I are miserable without you, and it's also time we start working towards the life we all want."

Because, if it was time for progression, then that would come with the overdue wedding bells, and babies cries. Natasha could still be an Avenger, sure, but she wants to be equally as present in your family as you both. It was a surprise to you all those years ago, when she was the one to tell you that was her dream; it wasn't time then, but you all know it is the right time now.

"Really?" Both women placed a kiss to your cheek, and nodded so that you felt their confirmation. Your heart had started flipping within your chest, and you raced out of the fort before either woman could stop you. It was cause for concern, but you were back before they could get up to capture you, with a radiant smile.

"I've been saving up for a long time," you blurted, "It had to be perfect, you know? You guys deserve that."

"Nothing has to be perfect at the expense of your wellbeing detka," Wanda admonished you, but the aura flipped to excitement as Natasha rushed out, "What has to be perfect?!" You giggled, and a surge of impatience pulsed throughout you, causing you to pull the ring box from behind your back and open it.

Inside were three rings, all similar in the fact that they were gold, but each with a uniqueness. On the left of the box sat Natasha's, the band was thicker than the average, crafted with style and missions in mind, but still thin enough to let the oval shaped diamond shine. On the right was Wanda's, the band was thinner, as it suited her preference, with a pear shaped emerald in the center, and tiny diamonds that lined the band.

You found it amusing that no words had to be said, no grand speech, they both just hastily grabbed their own rings to slide onto their finger. Each one whispered a soft yes as they kissed the other's ring cladded finger. You naturally went to slide the simple gold band you'd purchased for yourself, to match theirs, onto yours but Natasha stopped you with a firm grip on your wrist.

"Let us ask," she pleaded, you blinked back your shock, and dropped the band into Wanda's awaiting hand. Who then slipped it onto her chain, you frowned, but then she pulled a box from beneath a pile of snacks and you realized that you were never truly out of sync.

Natasha pulled you back into her lap, and rested her chin on your shoulder, craning her neck she placed a kiss on your warm cheek. "Y/N, you have made us the happiest we've ever been, this world hasn't been kind to us, you either, but somehow you're still so sweet. The darkness never had a grip on your soul like ours."

"Natty..."

"Hush," she chuckled, "I've come to terms with my past detka, as has Wanda, and that's all thanks to you."

Wanda nodded along to Natasha's words, the ring was held up between her fingers as she waited her turn.

"When I found Natasha, it was like I could stand on my own two feet, she taught me how to be a human again," Wanda sniffled, "and then we met you and it was like we could finally breathe—you saved us entirely Y/N."

Natasha helped to lift your frozen arm up from behind, and extended your hand out to Wanda who slid the ring onto your finger. It was still a simple band, but the inside was inscribed, "Y/N—Nash Dom (Our Home)"

The redhead linked your fingers and pulled your hand up to her lips next after Wanda had sealed the deal. You asked them what it said, as you felt the indents of the words against your skin and they both smiled. Natasha whispered the Russian with tenderness, then Wanda offered the translation when your eyes asked.

"I love you both," you declared the obvious, "with my entire heart I promise you that I will never give us up."

"We wouldn't dream of allowing it either," Wanda joked as she crawled forward and kissed your lips, and as she pulled away she sighed away her prior burdens. Natasha and her shared a soft kiss before the witch had returned to her prior pile of pillows, then the redhead turned you to face her and kissed you with a smile.

"We love you too," she whispered the words that didn't even need to be spoken, then she helped Wanda to get your plate prepared so you could all get settled down.

The rest of the night was spent watching movies, eating most of the witches delicious snacks and talking candidly about the dreams you'd all just reconfirmed. It was mostly just Wanda telling you and Natasha all about the wedding of the century, it appeared you two only had to show up—dressed properly and on time.

Wanda consequently fell asleep first, and you appreciated the chance to admire the peace she naturally radiated when she was unconscious.

"Detka," Natasha whispered softly, keen on not waking up the slumbering witch, who was holding onto you tightly from behind, softly snoring into your bare back.

"Yes Natty?" Your warm breath against her collarbone sent shivers down her spine as you turned back to face her, naturally nuzzling closer. "It's okay to rest now."

"I know," you sighed dreamily, "I just want to feel this safety for a bit longer, then I promise to close my eyes." The corner of Natasha's eyes crinkled, and you shared a sweet kiss with her, tempering her need to cry at your endearing words; the assassin with a heart of gold, you would always tease. "You're forever safe here detka..."

[0law]

💖💖🛋️💖💖✨

B: Hello again, Stanly

Ready for another dose of nightmares? Today I made something that will melt your eyes and….

S: Just spill it. My dreams are lucid enough to destroy your silly theatrics.

But I admit, reliving that horse race was great. I was finally able to change the outcome.

How about you look for something profitable? Even better, just keep wandering around the room where you're not in the way.

S: Even if you're a millennial creature or whatever, there's always something new to learn, like how to make good jokes. That would be fun. Your sense of humor borders too much on the creepy, too much for my taste.

B: You are a… those nightmares weren't bad jokes told!!!!

Whew, it's been so long and something has me so exhausted and sad. If you would just lend me your body for a moment to apologize to Stanford and the kids, maybe I wouldn't be such a mess. I'm sick of living with this guilt. Snif, snif.

What do you say, will you finally allow me to do something good with my infamous existence?

S: Yes, I can understand you. I know how important it is to ask for forgiveness in order to move on. You've admitted something very difficult; I think I'll give you a chance?

Really? Ha ha ha ha. Good one, Bill! You're getting better at jokes.

So you finally pulled out the sorry bad guy card? Ha ha ha ha. I've been waiting for it for a while. Good thing I wasn't drinking anything. Ha ha ha ha.

Ha, ha, ha, ha.

B: Shut up already, you idiot! When you least expect it, you and everyone will pay. I'll make every pore of your pathetic old man meat have 2 inch thorns in it.

S: Ha ha ha ha. I must admit, if this wasn't a dream, in real life you would have laughed me to death.

B: I'll rip you to shreds!!!

[bellychaser57]

Gainer boyfriend

By anon

I met him on a dating app. Our first date was at this restaurant known to serve big portions of food. When I arrived at the restaurant he told me he was waiting for me inside. So I came in and saw that a lot of the costumers were bigger people. I also noticed the waitors and waitresses where very handsome and pretty. I mostly notice the big muscular biceps all the waitors seemed to have and their tight pants showing off muscular things and jiggly booty. That's when I saw him, this cute cub seated in a booth. he's belly was gently pressing the table, not enough for the table to be in his gut though. He had perky moobs and big arms. When he saw me, he tried to get out of his booth. He stood up beside me. Slightly taller, he had a wide butt, and thick thighs that looked muscular, but probably weren't. We hugged, I accidentally grabbed his love handles which were nice and soft. We ordered our food, I didn't know what to take so I took a sub, he took 2 chicken pitas. I told him I did appreciate a man with an appetite, and that he looked like having a big one. He was flattered. He told me he was a gainer, and that he didn't really eat as much as he wanted to to gain even more. He wants to become a 400lbs chub. That money is currently an issue for him to achieve his dream goal. I told him I could be interested in helping out as I could. He could move into my apartment, I can already pay rent and my own stuff, he just needed to find a way so that he could bring in some money, all of which would go to him eating if he wanted. He thought it was a good idea but he wanted to wait until he did have a steady income. Months go by, I often offer to pay him all you can eat buffets, but not frequently enough to make a difference on his weight. Every time we went, we always had a great time, talking, eating and catching up with eachother like friends would. On one of these evenings, he announced that he now had a steady income. He did live streams on Twitch of him playing games and eating. He also told me he started an onlyfans and for now, he had enough daily to just eat his profit. I was overjoyed for him!

In the next few weeks, he started moving in, we turned the spare bedroom into his streaming studio and every night, after his streams we would go grocery shopping for his next day binge. In the matter of time, his weight started rising, and rising. His belly got bigger. So did his moobs, arms and already thick thighs. He became softer and softer each week. I started by messing around and trying to lift him at first, always somewhat succeeding, and noticing he was getting heavier each time. I quickly had to stop, my spine was going to break. I would, at least once a day surprise him with a sugary treat when I came back from work. A box or two of donuts, a cake I bought at the grocery store. On weekends I would bake my special cookies. Oats and chocolate chip. Eating two was filling for me, he would eat the 22 others. I would also make extra buttery rice crispy treats, cakes and other desserts. He thought I let him eat the left over icing, little did he know, I whipped up a batch just to see his eyes light up with joy every time. I really liked seeing him happy and eating everything I set in front of him. At supper time, I would cook a meal for a family of 4. Would myself one portion and he would eat the rest. It always impressed me. Eventually, we had to ditch my double bed and go for a king size. He was getting massive and wide. I liked when he squashed me accidentally with his weight. I think at first it was accidental, but by now he's getting a little fun out of watching me be happy. I really like to explore his growing body by pining him to his back and giving him full body massages.

Living with my gainer boyfriend is bliss!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Yanis Varoufakis’s “Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism?”

Monday (October 2), I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab. On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.

Socialists have been hotly anticipating the end of capitalism since at least 1848, when Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto - but the Manifesto also reminds us that capitalism is only too happy to reinvent itself during its crises, coming back in new forms, over and over again:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html

Now, in Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis - the "libertarian Marxist" former finance minister of Greece - makes an excellent case that capitalism died a decade ago, turning into a new form of feudalism: technofeudalism:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781847927279

To understand where Varoufakis is coming from, you need to go beyond the colloquial meanings of "capitalism" and "feudalism." Capitalism isn't just "a system where we buy and sell things." It's a system where capital rules the roost: the richest, most powerful people are those who coerce workers into using their capital (factories, tools, vehicles, etc) to create income in the form of profits.

By contrast, a feudal society is one organized around people who own things, charging others to use them to produce goods and services. In a feudal society, the most important form of income isn't profit, it's rent. To quote Varoufakis: "rent flows from privileged access to things in fixed supply" (land, fossil fuels, etc). Profit comes from "entrepreneurial people who have invested in things that wouldn't have otherwise existed."

This distinction is subtle, but important: "Profit is vulnerable to market competition, rent is not." If you have a coffee shop, then every other coffee shop that opens on your block is a competitive threat that could erode your margins. But if you own the building the coffee shop owner rents, then every other coffee shop that opens on the block raises the property values and the amount of rent you can charge.

The capitalist revolution - extolled and condemned in the Manifesto - was led by people who valorized profits as the heroic returns for making something new in this world, and who condemned rents as a parasitic drain on the true producers whose entrepreneurial spirits would enrich us all. The "free markets" extolled by Adam Smith weren't free from regulation - they were free from rents:

https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/

But rents, Varoufakis writes, "survived only parasitically on, and in the shadows of, profit." That is, rentiers (people whose wealth comes from rents) were a small rump of the economy, slightly suspect and on the periphery of any consideration of how to organize our society. But all that changed in 2008, when the world's central banks addressed the Great Financial Crisis by bailing out not just the banks, but the bankers, funneling trillions to the people whose reckless behavior brought the world to the brink of economic ruin.

Suddenly, these wealthy people, and their banks, experienced enormous wealth-gains without profits. Their businesses lost billions in profits (the cost of offering the business's products and services vastly exceeded the money people spent on those products and services). But the business still had billions more at the end of the year than they'd had at the start: billions in public money, funneled to them by central banks.

This kicked off the "everything rally" in which every kind of asset - real estate, art, stocks, bonds, even monkey JPEGs - ballooned in value. That's exactly what you'd expect from an economy where rents dominate over profits. Feudal rentiers don't need to invest to keep making money - remember, their wealth comes from owning things that other people invest in to make money.

Rents are not vulnerable to competition, so rentiers don't need to plow their rents into new technology to keep the money coming in. The capitalist that leases the oil field needs to invest in new pumps and refining to stay competitive with other oil companies. But the rentier of the oil field doesn't have to do anything: either the capitalist tenant will invest in more capital and make the field more valuable, or they will lose out to another capitalist who'll replace them. Either way, the rentier gets more rent.

So when capitalists get richer, they spend some of that money on new capital, but when rentiers get richer, them spend money on more assets they can rent to capitalists. The "everything rally" made all kinds of capital more valuable, and companies that were transitioning to a feudal footing turned around and handed that money to their investors in stock buybacks and dividends, rather than spending the money on R&D, or new plants, or new technology.

The tech companies, though, were the exception. They invested in "cloud capital" - the servers, lines, and services that everyone else would have to pay rent on in order to practice capitalism.

Think of Amazon: Varoufakis likens shopping on Amazon to visiting a bustling city center filled with shops run by independent capitalists. However, all of those capitalists are subservient to a feudal lord: Jeff Bezos, who takes 51 cents out of every dollar they bring in, and furthermore gets to decide which products they can sell and how those products must be displayed:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

The postcapitalist, technofeudal world isn't a world without capitalism, then. It's a world where capitalists are subservient to feudalists ("cloudalists" in Varoufakis's thesis), as are the rest of us the cloud peons, from the social media users and performers who fill the technofuedalists' siloes with "content" to the regular users whose media diet is dictated by the cloudalists' recommendation systems:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

A defining feature of cloudalism is the ability of the rentier lord to destroy any capitalist vassal's business with the click of a mouse. If Google kicks your business out of the search index, or if Facebook blocks your publication, or if Twitter shadowbans mentions of your product, or if Apple pulls your app from the store, you're toast.

Capitalists "still have the power to command labor from the majority who are reliant on wages," but they are still mere vassals to the cloudalists. Even the most energetic capitalist can't escape paying rent, thanks in large part to "IP," which I claim is best understood as "laws that let a company reach beyond its walls to dictate the conduct of competitors, critics and customers":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Varoufakis points to ways that the cloudalists can cement their gains: for example, "green" energy doesn't rely on land-leases (like fossil fuels), but it does rely on networked grids and data-protocols that can be loaded up with IP, either or both of which can be turned into chokepoints for feudal rent-extraction. To make things worse, Varoufakis argues that cloudalists won't be able to muster the degree of coordination and patience needed to actually resolve the climate emergency - they'll not only extract rent from every source of renewables, but they'll also silo them in ways that make them incapable of doing the things we need them to do.

Energy is just one of the technofeudal implications that Varoufakis explores in this book: there are also lengthy and fascinating sections on geopolitics, monetary policy, and the New Cold War. Technofeudalism - and the struggle to produce a dominant fiefdom - is a very useful lens for understanding US/Chinese tech wars.

Though Varoufakis is laying out a technical and even esoteric argument here, he takes great pains to make it accessible. The book is structured as a long open letter to his father, a chemical engineer and leftist who was a political prisoner during the fascist takeover of Greece. The framing device works very well, especially if you've read Talking To My Daughter About the Economy, Varoufakis's 2018 radical economics primer in the form of a letter to his young daughter:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374538491/talkingtomydaughterabouttheeconomy

At the very end of the book, Varoufakis calls for "a cloud rebellion to overthrow technofeudalism." This section is very short - and short on details. That's not a knock against the book: there are plenty of very good books that consist primarily or entirely of analysis of the problems with a system, without having to lay out a detailed program for solving those problems.

But for what it's worth, I think there is a way to plan and execute a "cloud rebellion" - a way to use laws, technology, reverse-engineering and human rights frameworks to shatter the platforms and seize the means of computation. I lay out that program in The Internet Con: How the Seize the Means of Computation, a book I published with Verso Books a couple weeks ago:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

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

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

[brynn-lear]

"𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐩" 𝐈𝐧 𝐀 𝐁𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞

Relationship: Diluc Ragnvindr/Gender Neutral!Reader Synopsis: Diluc doesn't seem to like the ex-pirate who visits Angel's Share all that much, but he'll change his mind soon enough. (600 words)

Everyone working for the Dawn Winery didn't know what to make of you for the longest time.

You were becoming a new regular in Angel's Share, though you never bought alcoholic drinks for yourself. Instead, you'd go out of your way to pay Charles extra with specific instructions. You'd buy yourself a glass of wolfhook juice, pay for the next customer's shot— without batting an eye on the price tag, mind you— and then request to keep the glass bottle left behind. The staff would find you chatting up whoever was lucky enough to have their 1L pain reliever paid in full. There had been rumors that you once worked for Beidou from The Crux, so there's no wonder where you received the fortune.

There's also this tiny fact that you enjoy staring at the owner a lot.

If you want to be more charitable for troubled folks, there are better ways to go than paying for their drinks. Therapy is a better start; at least, that's what the Master believed. Despite profiting off your dubious goodwill, he wasn't fond of the execution. Diluc was under the impression that you find a twisted sense of pleasure in watching others poison themselves slowly. A hypocritical line of thought coming from the owner himself, so he has yet to voice them out loud. On the other hand, Venti doesn't think you're any cause for concern. The archon even implied you were an artisan— an attribute that confused Diluc even more.

"Is Master Diluc here?" Venti chirped, one foot inside the tavern while the other hovered outside in case he caught everyone in a sour mood (which isn't a rare occurrence on his end).

Diluc pinched the bridge of his nose. It was far too early for him to open the tavern, so he was the only one occupying the ground floor. He didn't look at Venti, instead his eyes were on last month's payment logs.

"What do you want, bard?"

Venti's face lit up as he marched forward. "I knew you would be too busy this festive season, so I bought you something from (Y/n)'s stall at the recent art fair!"

"(Y/n) sold something?" Finally, the jaded businessman met his gaze. He doesn't attend those. They were more or less Kaeya's scene than his.

"Not just sold— they literally sold out pretty quickly, actually!" Venti grinned, chuckling to himself. "Here's yours, open it!"

…

...

"A... vineyard in a bottle…?"

"Yep! I heard (Y/n)'s hobby was to make ships in a bottle, but this time, they're very inspired by something— or someone— else." Venti nodded, giving him a quick and playful wink. "I guess you two have much more in common than you thought, huh?"

"Instead of emptying bottles, you were both born to fill them."

Diluc chuckled softly.

He gently took the ship on the box, inspecting it. Diluc must admit, he doesn't quite understand the meaning of every detail, but the colors of the miniature people alone reminded him of regulars and other Dawn Winery staff. The people held baskets of grapes, some positioned themselves for a picnic, and he swore he saw a version of Stanley drinking with Venti by the vines.

Diluc made a strangled and surprised noise when he saw a particular red-haired man hidden from plain sight, pouring what was quite possibly grape juice for the (h/c) haired person facing him.

"I suppose so." Diluc nodded, fondly gazing at the ship. "I suppose so."

Ah, so that's what those stares were for.

You were collecting bottles to make these.

Maybe you weren't so bad after all.

[sgiandubh]

When Cait married Tony she said they would honeymoon in Italy when it, meaning OL, was over. Good way to get it paid for by OL related appearance next March. Too bad she has to put up with Sam for a couple of hours. Sam, who said many times how he hated S2 costumes and was teased much by Meril, because he didn't like the feminine look. Too much like his true nature. He will certainly bring one of his prostitutes over past 3 years, Ashley being the latest, if her unnecessary week in UK last week for for anything else. 4 trips to Scotland for her in a year. It's clear which business she's really in.

Dear Business She Is Really In Anon,

I think you should be ashamed of yourself, for writing plain libel with no other arguments than your own twisted, bitter and irrelevant world view. If you consider that Ashley Hearn is a prostitute, just because she traveled four times to Scotland since late May 2024, then you are nothing more than a sad, sad troll, who thinks thousands of other women who happen to work in the marketing and sales sectors, all over the world, are also whores, right? You know very well all her trips have been more than thoroughly documented and you also know they did have a tangible impact, as far as that company is concerned. You should also get your fucking timeline straight before you treat us to your word vomit, because even the hatred you gratuitously spread around must have, technically speaking, at least some modicum of plausibility. She did not start to work for SS one year ago, punk: she started to work for them on May 21st 2024, which is exactly six months.

When C married McGill there is no way for you to tell what she said. You weren't there, you are a damn Social Zero and you just rely on word-of-mouth and ridiculously contradictory press releases and interviews. A honeymoon takes a week-end perhaps only in your shanty town and making the ball's organizers 'pay for it' is beyond ridiculous, including as far as C herself might be concerned (what is she, a cheap profiteer?) - supposing that 'relationship' would be anything more than a mutually convenient arrangement of sorts, of course. Sorry, but not the case.

Yeah, too bad she had to put up with S, against all odds, for eleven years, now. This is what really wrecks your pea brain, right? That, and being proven wrong and embarrassingly dumb, over and over again.

For your next endeavor, I suggest you'd turn your attention to your homeland telenovelas (you misspelled Maril Davis' name like a Brazilian and that is a dead giveaway).

Talvez Escrava Isaura seja uma substituição decente e mais acessível? Há reviravoltas baratas (gaslighting, veneno, delírio) o suficiente para mantê-la ocupada por um bom tempo.

You may wonder why I still answer your tragically ridiculous comments? Well, because it is time for someone to shame you and also show the true, dull and derisory colors of your stupid monomania.

[Later edit]: in no way did I want to imply anything negative about Brazil or its culture. I could have definitely better used one of the bajillion other Globo productions, dealing with Carioca intrigue and/or football wives. If I haven't, it is just because Escrava Isaura was a huge international success even in the Nineties, and remembered as such by many. While I am sensitive to the social and political inacceptable problem of slavery, I maintain that the 1976 adaptation of Guimarães's novel is simplistic and formulaic enough, hence more appropriate for Anon. I am sorry if my poor joke was construed differently and I apologize to all the people who might be offended. If you know me, you'd also know I am probably the last person to disrespect your country and culture.

[whygalaxy]

Poor bunny in a golden cage

♡⃕ Relationship} Yandere! Abusive! C!Quackity x Bunny Hybrid! Fem! Reader

♡⃕ Summary} "Quackity was obsessed with you. Your greedy parents beat you to him… What could go wrong?"

♡⃕ TW.} Abusive relationship; Mention of abuse (Physical and Psychological); Non Con explicit; Choking; Sadism; threats; Your parents being jerks; Quackity being extremely abusive; False imprisonment; Mention of stalker; possessive; Dacryphilia; Rough sex; dumbfication; Mild Stockholm syndrome; Mild Size Kink.

♡⃕ Notes} English is not my first language, there may be mistakes. I'm sorry for anything. Not reviewed (Please, it's two in the morning)

This fanfic may not be suitable for sensitive people

You and your parents, a small family of hybrid bunnys, move to Las Nevadas, hoping to find a better living condition. Your parents were constantly arguing recently, as they were poor and wanted to find a new way to earn money.

You sold some carrot cupcakes that you made, in the poorest part of Luxurious City, but it didn't bring in as much profit as your parents would have liked - “300 Dollars a month is a pittance! You can’t buy anything!” Your father screamed, invalidating all your efforts.

୭  🩹 ✧ ˚.  ᵎᵎ  🩸

It was a silent night, and you were here, trying to sell at least half of your carrot cupcakes. You could hear some laughter in the distance, you look around, finding two silhouettes walking towards you.

They keep walking, walking straight past you. "Hang on!" You shout. The men turn to look at you, they were both wearing luxurious clothes, they didn't look like they were from here… The man with long black hair caught your attention.

“W-Wouldn’t you guys.. want to buy a carrot cupcake?… it’s only 10 dollars…” You stutter shyly, looking down, your ears flat against your head. The smaller one seemed excited, dirty with green goo. He runs to the stall, grabs one and quickly hands over the money. He takes a bite, savoring the flavor - “it’s very good, Mrs. Bunny!” He says, sounding like a child, you laugh, finding him adorable.

You could feel the other man's gaze on you, you look at him from the corner of your eye. He had a strange gleam in his eyes… Almost… Scary…

The small man waves at you, walking away. The taller man looked at you for a moment longer, before turning and walking away, without saying a word.

୭  🩹 ✧ ˚.  ᵎᵎ  🩸

It's been a week since you saw the strange man. Your parents were fighting more and more, and this time, they were cursing you too, saying how useless you were and how you didn't make money for them.

But one day… You come home after a long day of selling cupcakes, your parents were strangely quiet… no fighting…

You see them sitting on the couch, a big smile on their faces. How strange… “Honey! My lovely girl!” Your mother says, getting up to hug you, you thought this was strange, your parents weren't that affectionate… Your father gets up too, hugging you - “You will bring great profit to our family!” he says with an awkward smile.

You were confused, I didn't understand what was happening. What were they referring to? You look at both of them confused - “W-What’s going on?…” You ask, completely confused by the situation.

“The President liked you! Then we sell you for 1.5 million!” His mother screams in joy, making his eyes widen. They… Sold you?! What do you mean, how was that possible? They were your parents, they were supposed to love you, not discard you. You could feel your eyes filling with tears.

“I-I… I can’t accept this… I…” You say, trying to move away. But your parents stop you, they couldn't let your merchandise go out like that. Your mother grabs a glass of water, you were too shaken to notice anything. “Drink, darling.. it will help you” She says, handing you the glass, helping you sit on the couch. You drink, but you feel strangely drowsy, your eyes meeting a black blur, and then you collapse onto the couch.

୭  🩹 ✧ ˚.  ᵎᵎ  🩸

You wake up lying down in a comfortable place, your eyes were still blurry, but they quickly adjusted to the light of the place. You sit up, realizing you were on a bed, you look around the room. It was an extremely luxurious room, with shades of gold and red, your eyes widen and shine at the luxurious place you had never seen before.

The room seemed to have some childish tones, with some pink and white touches scattered throughout the room, the bed was full of stuffed animals, mainly rabbits. You get out of bed, trying to explore the room. But as soon as you stand up and take two steps forward, you fall onto the fluffy rug that surrounded the bed. It felt like something was making it impossible for you to walk freely.

You turn around to look at what had made you fall. Your eyes widened, a chain stuck around your ankle, maybe it was the drugs that were in your drink, but you hadn't noticed it before, and it was pretty tight apparently…

You get up, sit on the bed, staring at the big door that was in front of it, your ears pressed against your head, waiting for something to happen… Suddenly, the door opens, your ears quickly perk up.

Your eyes widened when you saw who it was. It was the strange man from that day… Wait, he was the president of this country? He walks up to you, a smile on his face, highlighting the gold tooth he had. You pull away, bumping into the headboard in the process.

He sits on the bed, next to you. He reaches out to caress your cheek, with a gentle smile on his face - “My little bunny… so adorable… you're mine now” He says, his face getting closer to yours, you could feel his breath.

After your first meeting, Quackity felt strangely attracted to you. A shy, small, adorable little thing. So sweet and submissive…it seemed extremely fun to break you.

Quackity chased you for that week, and the more and more he found out about you… the more obsessed he was.

Now you were in this place, totally trapped with this maniac… you didn't know what he had in store for you, and you were afraid of it.

He pulls you closer, stroking your hair. You could hear him whisper - “So beautiful… So small… So… mine”

୭  🩹 ✧ ˚.  ᵎᵎ  🩸

One month… one month you were with this maniac, and the feeling was the same as being in hell.

Cuts and purple marks spread all over your body, Quackity took out all his anger on you. He would hit you and cut you, just for his sadistic pleasure, he loved seeing you crying and screaming. Watching you break down little by little, only to become an empty mind completely submissive to him.

It was currently almost two in the morning, the ticking clock noise could be heard. You were trying to sleep but you couldn't, you had a feeling something bad was going to happen… You were currently lying in bed, wearing only a Quackity shirt that was much bigger than you.

Suddenly, the door opens, revealing Quackity. His white blouse had the first three buttons open, his tie was untied. You could smell alcohol and cigarettes coming from him.

He walks towards you, crooked steps indicating he was drunk. You look at him, completely scared, not knowing what he could do to you, trying to move away, but the chain on your ankle stopped you from going that far.

He sits on the bed, grabbing your wrist and pulling you closer to him, your head against his chest. You could feel him smelling your hair - “So sweet…” He whispers in his slightly drunken tone of voice.

You could feel their hands moving over your body. You let out a slight scream when you feel their hands squeezing your ass, you try to move away. He wouldn't do that to you… would he?

He spanks your ass - “Be quiet, be a good girl and accept this. I don’t want to hurt you” His tone of voice was threatening, you were shaking with fear. He pushes you, laying you down on the bed.

He lifts your big shirt that you were wearing, exposing your small breasts, he smiles… You were so cute. He bends down, taking one nipple into his mouth, starting to suck while playing with the other. You moan as his tongue grazes your hard nipple. You scream when you feel him bite your nipple hard, causing tears to run down your eyes.

You could feel him smile, you try to stay quiet, knowing that if you stayed quiet, it would be less worse. He leaves hickey marks on his chest, red and that would probably turn purple later. He forcefully opens your legs, ripping off your panties, clearly out of patience.

He lets out an irritated sigh when he feels that you're not wet for him at all - “I can't believe you're going to make me do this…” He says in a growl. You start to moan softly when you feel his thumb start to rub your clit, and soon one of his fingers enters you, preparing you for his cock.

He was out of patience, trying to finish this as quickly as possible so he could get his cock inside you. One finger soon becomes two, two fingers soon become three. His pace was relentless, you could feel yourself getting closer and closer. You were extremely sensitive, the stimulation on your clit combined with the relentless rhythm of his fingers inside you dragged you closer and closer to your limit.

You scream as you cum, your juices running down his fingers. He smiles, removing his fingers from inside you, taking them to his mouth to taste your juices - “So sweet… So sensitive…” He whispers, starting to take off his clothes. He completely unbuttons his white shirt, the red tie at the sides, he pulls his pants and underwear down. His hard cock springs out, its reddened tip oozing precum.

Your eyes widened, heavens… He was big! He holds your hips tightly, positioning his cock in front of your throbbing entrance. You scream as he thrusts inside you, even though you were prepared, it still hurt.

You cry as he pushes his cock all the way inside you, the tip hitting your cervix. He at least had the decency to wait for you to adjust. But soon he starts moving, his pace is never slow, but strong and fast. Hitting your cervix hard, leaving it bruised.

You screamed with each thrust, tears streaming down your rosy cheeks. You hated yourself for this, hated yourself for enjoying this. You scream too loudly when his tip hits your G-spot, making you cum hard. He laughs, laughs at how pathetic you are.

He reaches out with both hands, his big hands wrap around your small neck, squeezing lightly. You wrap your small hands around his wrist. trying to push him away? or pull him closer? you don't know anymore.

He continued to fuck you hard, making you more and more stupid. His thrusts soon began to become sloppy, indicating that he was getting closer as well. He soon stops brutally, his grip on your neck tightens, leaving you gasping for air, your nails scratching his wrists as he fills you with hot cum.

You cum again, squeezing his cock as your pussy sucks up his cum. He soon lets go of your neck, red handprints around your neck as you start to breathe again. He pulls his soft cock out of you, laying down next to you as he pulls you closer.

He kisses your forehead and lips, smelling your hair - “My bunny… My good girl… My everything… Mine, just mine..." He says breathlessly, hugging you tightly as he started to sleep. You sit there thinking, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be a good girl for him… In this beautiful luxurious room, like a golden cage…

<3