#Travel platform branding

[jobaermiya09]

This logo available for sell

[mallu2005]

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

“Disenshittify or Die”

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Last weekend, I traveled to Las Vegas for Defcon 32, where I had the immense privilege of giving a solo talk on Track 1, entitled "Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification":

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=54861

This was a followup to last year's talk, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification," a talk that kicked off a lot of international interest in my analysis of platform decay ("enshittification"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rimtaSgGz_4

The Defcon organizers have earned a restful week or two, and that means that the video of my talk hasn't yet been posted to Defcon's Youtube channel, so in the meantime, I thought I'd post a lightly edited version of my speech crib. If you're headed to Burning Man, you can hear me reprise this talk at Palenque Norte (7&E); I'm kicking off their lecture series on Tuesday, Aug 27 at 1PM.

==

What the fuck happened to the old, good internet?

I mean, sure, our bosses were a little surveillance-happy, and they were usually up for sharing their data with the NSA, and whenever there was a tossup between user security and growth, it was always YOLO time.

But Google Search used to work. Facebook used to show you posts from people you followed. Uber used to be cheaper than a taxi and pay the driver more than a cabbie made. Amazon used to sell products, not Shein-grade self-destructing dropshipped garbage from all-consonant brands. Apple used to defend your privacy, rather than spying on you with your no-modifications-allowed Iphone.

There was a time when you searching for an album on Spotify would get you that album – not a playlist of insipid AI-generated covers with the same name and art.

Microsoft used to sell you software – sure, it was buggy – but now they just let you access apps in the cloud, so they can watch how you use those apps and strip the features you use the most out of the basic tier and turn them into an upcharge.

What – and I cannot stress this enough – the fuck happened?!

I’m talking about enshittification.

Here’s what enshittification looks like from the outside: First, you see a company that’s being good to its end users. Google puts the best search results at the top; Facebook shows you a feed of posts from people and groups you followl; Uber charges small dollars for a cab; Amazon subsidizes goods and returns and shipping and puts the best match for your product search at the top of the page.

That’s stage one, being good to end users. But there’s another part of this stage, call it stage 1a). That’s figuring out how to lock in those users.

There’s so many ways to lock in users.

If you’re Facebook, the users do it for you. You joined Facebook because there were people there you wanted to hang out with, and other people joined Facebook to hang out with you.

That’s the old “network effects” in action, and with network effects come “the collective action problem." Because you love your friends, but goddamn are they a pain in the ass! You all agree that FB sucks, sure, but can you all agree on when it’s time to leave?

No way.

Can you agree on where to go next?

Hell no.

You’re there because that’s where the support group for your rare disease hangs out, and your bestie is there because that’s where they talk with the people in the country they moved away from, then there’s that friend who coordinates their kid’s little league car pools on FB, and the best dungeon master you know isn’t gonna leave FB because that’s where her customers are.

So you’re stuck, because even though FB use comes at a high cost – your privacy, your dignity and your sanity – that’s still less than the switching cost you’d have to bear if you left: namely, all those friends who have taken you hostage, and whom you are holding hostage

Now, sometimes companies lock you in with money, like Amazon getting you to prepay for a year’s shipping with Prime, or to buy your Audible books on a monthly subscription, which virtually guarantees that every shopping search will start on Amazon, after all, you’ve already paid for it.

Sometimes, they lock you in with DRM, like HP selling you a printer with four ink cartridges filled with fluid that retails for more than $10,000/gallon, and using DRM to stop you from refilling any of those ink carts or using a third-party cartridge. So when one cart runs dry, you have to refill it or throw away your investment in the remaining three cartridges and the printer itself.

Sometimes, it’s a grab bag:

You can’t run your Ios apps without Apple hardware;

you can’t run your Apple music, books and movies on anything except an Ios app;

your iPhone uses parts pairing – DRM handshakes between replacement parts and the main system – so you can’t use third-party parts to fix it; and

every OEM iPhone part has a microscopic Apple logo engraved on it, so Apple can demand that the US Customs and Border Service seize any shipment of refurb Iphone parts as trademark violations.

Think Different, amirite?

Getting you locked in completes phase one of the enshittification cycle and signals the start of phase two: making things worse for you to make things better for business customers.

For example, a platform might poison its search results, like Google selling more and more of its results pages to ads that are identified with lighter and lighter tinier and tinier type.

Or Amazon selling off search results and calling it an “ad” business. They make $38b/year on this scam. The first result for your search is, on average, 29% more expensive than the best match for your search. The first row is 25% more expensive than the best match. On average, the best match for your search is likely to be found seventeen places down on the results page.

Other platforms sell off your feed, like Facebook, which started off showing you the things you asked to see, but now the quantum of content from the people you follow has dwindled to a homeopathic residue, leaving a void that Facebook fills with things that people pay to show you: boosted posts from publishers you haven’t subscribed to, and, of course, ads.

Now at this point you might be thinking ‘sure, if you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product.'

Bullshit!

Bull.

Shit.

The people who buy those Google ads? They pay more every year for worse ad-targeting and more ad-fraud

Those publishers paying to nonconsensually cram their content into your Facebook feed? They have to do that because FB suppresses their ability to reach the people who actually subscribed to them

The Amazon sellers with the best match for your query have to outbid everyone else just to show up on the first page of results. It costs so much to sell on Amazon that between 45-51% of every dollar an independent seller brings in has to be kicked up to Don Bezos and the Amazon crime family. Those sellers don’t have the kind of margins that let them pay 51% They have to raise prices in order to avoid losing money on every sale.

"But wait!" I hear you say!

[Come on, say it!]

"But wait! Things on Amazon aren’t more expensive that things at Target, or Walmart, or at a mom and pop store, or direct from the manufacturer.

"How can sellers be raising prices on Amazon if the price at Amazon is the same as at is everywhere else?"

[Any guesses?!]

That’s right, they charge more everywhere. They have to. Amazon binds its sellers to a policy called “most favored nation status,” which says they can’t charge more on Amazon than they charge elsewhere, including direct from their own factory store.

So every seller that wants to sell on Amazon has to raise their prices everywhere else.

Now, these sellers are Amazon’s best customers. They’re paying for the product, and they’re still getting screwed.

Paying for the product doesn’t fill your vapid boss’s shriveled heart with so much joy that he decides to stop trying to think of ways to fuck you over.

Look at Apple. Remember when Apple offered every Ios user a one-click opt out for app-based surveillance? And 96% of users clicked that box?

(The other four percent were either drunk or Facebook employees or drunk Facebook employees.)

That cost Facebook at least ten billion dollars per year in lost surveillance revenue?

I mean, you love to see it.

But did you know that at the same time Apple started spying on Ios users in the same way that Facebook had been, for surveillance data to use to target users for its competing advertising product?

Your Iphone isn’t an ad-supported gimme. You paid a thousand fucking dollars for that distraction rectangle in your pocket, and you’re still the product. What’s more, Apple has rigged Ios so that you can’t mod the OS to block its spying.

If you’re not not paying for the product, you’re the product, and if you are paying for the product, you’re still the product.

Just ask the farmers who are expected to swap parts into their own busted half-million dollar, mission-critical tractors, but can’t actually use those parts until a technician charges them $200 to drive out to the farm and type a parts pairing unlock code into their console.

John Deere’s not giving away tractors. Give John Deere a half mil for a tractor and you will be the product.

Please, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Please! Stop saying ‘if you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product.’

OK, OK, so that’s phase two of enshittification.

Phase one: be good to users while locking them in.

Phase two: screw the users a little to you can good to business customers while locking them in.

Phase three: screw everybody and take all the value for yourself. Leave behind the absolute bare minimum of utility so that everyone stays locked into your pile of shit.

Enshittification: a tragedy in three acts.

That’s what enshittification looks like from the outside, but what’s going on inside the company? What is the pathological mechanism? What sci-fi entropy ray converts the excellent and useful service into a pile of shit?

That mechanism is called twiddling. Twiddling is when someone alters the back end of a service to change how its business operates, changing prices, costs, search ranking, recommendation criteria and other foundational aspects of the system.

Digital platforms are a twiddler’s utopia. A grocer would need an army of teenagers with pricing guns on rollerblades to reprice everything in the building when someone arrives who’s extra hungry.

Whereas the McDonald’s Investments portfolio company Plexure advertises that it can use surveillance data to predict when an app user has just gotten paid so the seller can tack an extra couple bucks onto the price of their breakfast sandwich.

And of course, as the prophet William Gibson warned us, ‘cyberspace is everting.' With digital shelf tags, grocers can change prices whenever they feel like, like the grocers in Norway, whose e-ink shelf tags change the prices 2,000 times per day.

Every Uber driver is offered a different wage for every job. If a driver has been picky lately, the job pays more. But if the driver has been desperate enough to grab every ride the app offers, the pay goes down, and down, and down.

The law professor Veena Dubal calls this ‘algorithmic wage discrimination.' It’s a prime example of twiddling.

Every youtuber knows what it’s like to be twiddled. You work for weeks or months, spend thousands of dollars to make a video, then the algorithm decides that no one – not your own subscribers, not searchers who type in the exact name of your video – will see it.

Why? Who knows? The algorithm’s rules are not public.

Because content moderation is the last redoubt of security through obscurit: they can’t tell you what the como algorithm is downranking because then you’d cheat.

Youtube is the kind of shitty boss who docks every paycheck for all the rules you’ve broken, but won’t tell you what those rules were, lest you figure out how to break those rules next time without your boss catching you.

Twiddling can also work in some users’ favor, of course. Sometimes platforms twiddle to make things better for end users or business customers.

For example, Emily Baker-White from Forbes revealed the existence of a back-end feature that Tiktok’s management can access they call the “heating tool.”

When a manager applies the heating toll to a performer’s account, that performer’s videos are thrust into the feeds of millions of users, without regard to whether the recommendation algorithm predicts they will enjoy that video.

Why would they do this? Well, here’s an analogy from my boyhood I used to go to this traveling fair that would come to Toronto at the end of every summer, the Canadian National Exhibition. If you’ve been to a fair like the Ex, you know that you can always spot some guy lugging around a comedically huge teddy bear.

Nominally, you win that teddy bear by throwing five balls in a peach-basket, but to a first approximation, no one has ever gotten five balls to stay in that peach-basket.

That guy “won” the teddy bear when a carny on the midway singled him out and said, "fella, I like your face. Tell you what I’m gonna do: You get just one ball in the basket and I’ll give you this keychain, and if you amass two keychains, I’ll let you trade them in for one of these galactic-scale teddy-bears."

That’s how the guy got his teddy bear, which he now has to drag up and down the midway for the rest of the day.

Why the hell did that carny give away the teddy bear? Because it turns the guy into a walking billboard for the midway games. If that dopey-looking Judas Goat can get five balls into a peach basket, then so can you.

Except you can’t.

Tiktok’s heating tool is a way to give away tactical giant teddy bears. When someone in the TikTok brain trust decides they need more sports bros on the platform, they pick one bro out at random and make him king for the day, heating the shit out of his account.

That guy gets a bazillion views and he starts running around on all the sports bro forums trumpeting his success: *I am the Louis Pasteur of sports bro influencers!"

The other sports bros pile in and start retooling to make content that conforms to the idiosyncratic Tiktok format. When they fail to get giant teddy bears of their own, they assume that it’s because they’re doing Tiktok wrong, because they don’t know about the heating tool.

But then comes the day when the TikTok Star Chamber decides they need to lure in more astrologers, so they take the heat off that one lucky sports bro, and start heating up some lucky astrologer.

Giant teddy bears are all over the place: those Uber drivers who were boasting to the NYT ten years ago about earning $50/hour? The Substackers who were rolling in dough? Joe Rogan and his hundred million dollar Spotify payout? Those people are all the proud owners of giant teddy bears, and they’re a steal.

Because every dollar they get from the platform turns into five dollars worth of free labor from suckers who think they just internetting wrong.

Giant teddy bears are just one way of twiddling. Platforms can play games with every part of their business logic, in highly automated ways, that allows them to quickly and efficiently siphon value from end users to business customers and back again, hiding the pea in a shell game conducted at machine speeds, until they’ve got everyone so turned around that they take all the value for themselves.

That’s the how: How the platforms do the trick where they are good to users, then lock users in, then maltreat users to be good to business customers, then lock in those business customers, then take all the value for themselves.

So now we know what is happening, and how it is happening, all that’s left is why it’s happening.

Now, on the one hand, the why is pretty obvious. The less value that end-users and business customers capture, the more value there is left to divide up among the shareholders and the executives.

That’s why, but it doesn’t tell you why now. Companies could have done this shit at any time in the past 20 years, but they didn’t. Or at least, the successful ones didn’t. The ones that turned themselves into piles of shit got treated like piles of shit. We avoided them and they died.

Remember Myspace? Yahoo Search? Livejournal? Sure, they’re still serving some kind of AI slop or programmatic ad junk if you hit those domains, but they’re gone.

And there’s the clue: It used to be that if you enshittified your product, bad things happened to your company. Now, there are no consequences for enshittification, so everyone’s doing it.

Let’s break that down: What stops a company from enshittifying?

There are four forces that discipline tech companies. The first one is, obviously, competition.

If your customers find it easy to leave, then you have to worry about them leaving

Many factors can contribute to how hard or easy it is to depart a platform, like the network effects that Facebook has going for it. But the most important factor is whether there is anywhere to go.

Back in 2012, Facebook bought Insta for a billion dollars. That may seem like chump-change in these days of eleven-digit Big Tech acquisitions, but that was a big sum in those innocent days, and it was an especially big sum to pay for Insta. The company only had 13 employees, and a mere 25 million registered users.

But what mattered to Zuckerberg wasn’t how many users Insta had, it was where those users came from.

[Does anyone know where those Insta users came from?]

That’s right, they left Facebook and joined Insta. They were sick of FB, even though they liked the people there, they hated creepy Zuck, they hated the platform, so they left and they didn’t come back.

So Zuck spent a cool billion to recapture them, A fact he put in writing in a midnight email to CFO David Ebersman, explaining that he was paying over the odds for Insta because his users hated him, and loved Insta. So even if they quit Facebook (the platform), they would still be captured Facebook (the company).

Now, on paper, Zuck’s Instagram acquisition is illegal, but normally, that would be hard to stop, because you’d have to prove that he bought Insta with the intention of curtailing competition.

But in this case, Zuck tripped over his own dick: he put it in writing.

But Obama’s DoJ and FTC just let that one slide, following the pro-monopoly policies of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, and setting an example that Trump would follow, greenlighting gigamergers like the catastrophic, incestuous Warner-Discovery marriage.

Indeed, for 40 years, starting with Carter, and accelerating through Reagan, the US has encouraged monopoly formation, as an official policy, on the grounds that monopolies are “efficient.”

If everyone is using Google Search, that’s something we should celebrate. It means they’ve got the very best search and wouldn’t it be perverse to spend public funds to punish them for making the best product?

But as we all know, Google didn’t maintain search dominance by being best. They did it by paying bribes. More than 20 billion per year to Apple alone to be the default Ios search, plus billions more to Samsung, Mozilla, and anyone else making a product or service with a search-box on it, ensuring that you never stumble on a search engine that’s better than theirs.

Which, in turn, ensured that no one smart invested big in rival search engines, even if they were visibly, obviously superior. Why bother making something better if Google’s buying up all the market oxygen before it can kindle your product to life?

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon – they’re not “making things” companies, they’re “buying things” companies, taking advantage of official tolerance for anticompetitive acquisitions, predatory pricing, market distorting exclusivity deals and other acts specifically prohibited by existing antitrust law.

Their goal is to become too big to fail, because that makes them too big to jail, and that means they can be too big to care.

Which is why Google Search is a pile of shit and everything on Amazon is dropshipped garbage that instantly disintegrates in a cloud of offgassed volatile organic compounds when you open the box.

Once companies no longer fear losing your business to a competitor, it’s much easier for them to treat you badly, because what’re you gonna do?

Remember Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the AT&T operator in those old SNL sketches? “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”

Competition is the first force that serves to discipline companies and the enshittificatory impulses of their leadership, and we just stopped enforcing competition law.

It takes a special kind of smooth-brained asshole – that is, an establishment economist – to insist that the collapse of every industry from eyeglasses to vitamin C into a cartel of five or fewer companies has nothing to do with policies that officially encouraged monopolization.

It’s like we used to put down rat poison and we didn’t have a rat problem. Then these dickheads convinced us that rats were good for us and we stopped putting down rat poison, and now rats are gnawing our faces off and they’re all running around saying, "Who’s to say where all these rats came from? Maybe it was that we stopped putting down poison, but maybe it’s just the Time of the Rats. The Great Forces of History bearing down on this moment to multiply rats beyond all measure!"

Antitrust didn’t slip down that staircase and fall spine-first on that stiletto: they stabbed it in the back and then they pushed it.

And when they killed antitrust, they also killed regulation, the second force that disciplines companies. Regulation is possible, but only when the regulator is more powerful than the regulated entities. When a company is bigger than the government, it gets damned hard to credibly threaten to punish that company, no matter what its sins.

That’s what protected IBM for all those years when it had its boot on the throat of the American tech sector. Do you know, the DOJ fought to break up IBM in the courts from 1970-1982, and that every year, for 12 consecutive years, IBM spent more on lawyers to fight the USG than the DOJ Antitrust Division spent on all the lawyers fighting every antitrust case in the entire USA?

IBM outspent Uncle Sam for 12 years. People called it “Antitrust’s Vietnam.” All that money paid off, because by 1982, the president was Ronald Reagan, a man whose official policy was that monopolies were “efficient." So he dropped the case, and Big Blue wriggled off the hook.

It’s hard to regulate a monopolist, and it’s hard to regulate a cartel. When a sector is composed of hundreds of competing companies, they compete. They genuinely fight with one another, trying to poach each others’ customers and workers. They are at each others’ throats.

It’s hard enough for a couple hundred executives to agree on anything. But when they’re legitimately competing with one another, really obsessing about how to eat each others’ lunches, they can’t agree on anything.

The instant one of them goes to their regulator with some bullshit story, about how it’s impossible to have a decent search engine without fine-grained commercial surveillance; or how it’s impossible to have a secure and easy to use mobile device without a total veto over which software can run on it; or how it’s impossible to administer an ISP’s network unless you can slow down connections to servers whose owners aren’t paying bribes for “premium carriage"; there’s some *other company saying, “That’s bullshit”

“We’ve managed it! Here’s our server logs, our quarterly financials and our customer testimonials to prove it.”

100 companies are a rabble, they're a mob. They can’t agree on a lobbying position. They’re too busy eating each others’ lunch to agree on how to cater a meeting to discuss it.

But let those hundred companies merge to monopoly, absorb one another in an incestuous orgy, turn into five giant companies, so inbred they’ve got a corporate Habsburg jaw, and they become a cartel.

It’s easy for a cartel to agree on what bullshit they’re all going to feed their regulator, and to mobilize some of the excess billions they’ve reaped through consolidation, which freed them from “wasteful competition," sp they can capture their regulators completely.

You know, Congress used to pass federal consumer privacy laws? Not anymore.

The last time Congress managed to pass a federal consumer privacy law was in 1988: The Video Privacy Protection Act. That’s a law that bans video-store clerks from telling newspapers what VHS cassettes you take home. In other words, it regulates three things that have effectively ceased to exist.

The threat of having your video rental history out there in the public eye was not the last or most urgent threat the American public faced, and yet, Congress is deadlocked on passing a privacy law.

Tech companies’ regulatory capture involves a risible and transparent gambit, that is so stupid, it’s an insult to all the good hardworking risible transparent ruses out there.

Namely, they claim that when they violate your consumer, privacy or labor rights, It’s not a crime, because they do it with an app.

Algorithmic wage discrimination isn’t illegal wage theft: we do it with an app.

Spying on you from asshole to appetite isn’t a privacy violation: we do it with an app.

And Amazon’s scam search tool that tricks you into paying 29% more than the best match for your query? Not a ripoff. We do it with an app.

Once we killed competition – stopped putting down rat poison – we got cartels – the rats ate our faces. And the cartels captured their regulators – the rats bought out the poison factory and shut it down.

So companies aren’t constrained by competition or regulation.

But you know what? This is tech, and tech is different.IIt’s different because it’s flexible. Because our computers are Turing-complete universal von Neumann machines. That means that any enshittificatory alteration to a program can be disenshittified with another program.

Every time HP jacks up the price of ink , they invite a competitor to market a refill kit or a compatible cartridge.

When Tesla installs code that says you have to pay an extra monthly fee to use your whole battery, they invite a modder to start selling a kit to jailbreak that battery and charge it all the way up.

Lemme take you through a little example of how that works: Imagine this is a product design meeting for our company’s website, and the guy leading the meeting says “Dudes, you know how our KPI is topline ad-revenue? Well, I’ve calculated that if we make the ads just 20% more invasive and obnoxious, we’ll boost ad rev by 2%”

This is a good pitch. Hit that KPI and everyone gets a fat bonus. We can all take our families on a luxury ski vacation in Switzerland.

But here’s the thing: someone’s gonna stick their arm up – someone who doesn’t give a shit about user well-being, and that person is gonna say, “I love how you think, Elon. But has it occurred to you that if we make the ads 20% more obnoxious, then 40% of our users will go to a search engine and type 'How do I block ads?'"

I mean, what a nightmare! Because once a user does that, the revenue from that user doesn’t rise to 102%. It doesn’t stay at 100% It falls to zero, forever.

[Any guesses why?]

Because no user ever went back to the search engine and typed, 'How do I start seeing ads again?'

Once the user jailbreaks their phone or discovers third party ink, or develops a relationship with an independent Tesla mechanic who’ll unlock all the DLC in their car, that user is gone, forever.

Interoperability – that latent property bequeathed to us courtesy of Herrs Turing and Von Neumann and their infinitely flexible, universal machines – that is a serious check on enshittification.

The fact that Congress hasn’t passed a privacy law since 1988 Is countered, at least in part, by the fact that the majority of web users are now running ad-blockers, which are also tracker-blockers.

But no one’s ever installed a tracker-blocker for an app. Because reverse engineering an app puts in you jeopardy of criminal and civil prosecution under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with penalties of a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine for a first offense.

And violating its terms of service puts you in jeopardy under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, which is the law that Ronald Reagan signed in a panic after watching Wargames (seriously!).

Helping other users violate the terms of service can get you hit with a lawsuit for tortious interference with contract. And then there’s trademark, copyright and patent.

All that nonsense we call “IP,” but which Jay Freeman of Cydia calls “Felony Contempt of Business Model."

So if we’re still at that product planning meeting and now it’s time to talk about our app, the guy leading the meeting says, “OK, so we’ll make the ads in the app 20% more obnoxious to pull a 2% increase in topline ad rev?”

And that person who objected to making the website 20% worse? Their hand goes back up. Only this time they say “Why don’t we make the ads 100% more invasive and get a 10% increase in ad rev?"

Because it doesn't matter if a user goes to a search engine and types, “How do I block ads in an app." The answer is: you can't. So YOLO, enshittify away.

“IP” is just a euphemism for “any law that lets me reach outside my company’s walls to exert coercive control over my critics, competitors and customers,” and “app” is just a euphemism for “A web page skinned with the right IP so that protecting your privacy while you use it is a felony.”

Interop used to keep companies from enshittifying. If a company made its client suck, someone would roll out an alternative client, if they ripped a feature out and wanted to sell it back to you as a monthly subscription, someone would make a compatible plugin that restored it for a one-time fee, or for free.

To help people flee Myspace, FB gave them bots that you’d load with your login credentials. It would scrape your waiting Myspace messages and put ‘em in your FB inbox, and login to Myspace and paste your replies into your Myspace outbox. So you didn’t have to choose between the people you loved on Myspace, and Facebook, which launched with a promise never to spy on you. Remember that?!

Thanks to the metastasis of IP, all that is off the table today. Apple owes its very existence to iWork Suite, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote are file-compatible with Microsoft’s Word, Excel and Powerpoint. But make an IOS runtime that’ll play back the files you bought from Apple’s stores on other platforms, and they’ll nuke you til you glow.

FB wouldn’t have had a hope of breaking Myspace’s grip on social media without that scrape, but scrape FB today in support of an alternative client and their lawyers will bomb you til the rubble bounces.

Google scraped every website in the world to create its search index. Try and scrape Google and they’ll have your head on a pike.

When they did it, it was progress. When you do it to them, that’s piracy. Every pirate wants to be an admiral.

Because this handful of companies has so thoroughly captured their regulators, they can wield the power of the state against you when you try to break their grip on power, even as their own flagrant violations of our rights go unpunished. Because they do them with an app.

Tech lost its fear of competitin it neutralized the threat from regulators, and then put them in harness to attack new startups that might do unto them as they did unto the companies that came before them.

But even so, there was a force that kept our bosses in check That force was us. Tech workers.

Tech workers have historically been in short supply, which gave us power, and our bosses knew it.

To get us to work crazy hours, they came up with a trick. They appealed to our love of technology, and told us that we were heroes of a digital revolution, who would “organize the world’s information and make it useful,” who would “bring the world closer together.”

They brought in expert set-dressers to turn our workplaces into whimsical campuses with free laundry, gourmet cafeterias, massages, and kombucha, and a surgeon on hand to freeze our eggs so that we could work through our fertile years.

They convinced us that we were being pampered, rather than being worked like government mules.

This trick has a name. Fobazi Ettarh, the librarian-theorist, calls it “vocational awe, and Elon Musk calls it being “extremely hardcore.”

This worked very well. Boy did we put in some long-ass hours!

But for our bosses, this trick failed badly. Because if you miss your mother’s funeral and to hit a deadline, and then your boss orders you to enshittify that product, you are gonna experience a profound moral injury, which you are absolutely gonna make your boss share.

Because what are they gonna do? Fire you? They can’t hire someone else to do your job, and you can get a job that’s even better at the shop across the street.

So workers held the line when competition, regulation and interop failed.

But eventually, supply caught up with demand. Tech laid off 260,000 of us last year, and another 100,000 in the first half of this year.

You can’t tell your bosses to go fuck themselves, because they’ll fire your ass and give your job to someone who’ll be only too happy to enshittify that product you built.

That’s why this is all happening right now. Our bosses aren’t different. They didn’t catch a mind-virus that turned them into greedy assholes who don’t care about our users’ wellbeing or the quality of our products.

As far as our bosses have always been concerned, the point of the business was to charge the most, and deliver the least, while sharing as little as possible with suppliers, workers, users and customers. They’re not running charities.

Since day one, our bosses have shown up for work and yanked as hard as they can on the big ENSHITTIFICATION lever behind their desks, only that lever didn’t move much. It was all gummed up by competition, regulation, interop and workers.

As those sources of friction melted away, the enshittification lever started moving very freely.

Which sucks, I know. But think about this for a sec: our bosses, despite being wildly imperfect vessels capable of rationalizing endless greed and cheating, nevertheless oversaw a series of actually great products and services.

Not because they used to be better people, but because they used to be subjected to discipline.

So it follows that if we want to end the enshittocene, dismantle the enshitternet, and build a new, good internet that our bosses can’t wreck, we need to make sure that these constraints are durably installed on that internet, wound around its very roots and nerves. And we have to stand guard over it so that it can’t be dismantled again.

A new, good internet is one that has the positive aspects of the old, good internet: an ethic of technological self-determination, where users of technology (and hackers, tinkerers, startups and others serving as their proxies) can reconfigure and mod the technology they use, so that it does what they need it to do, and so that it can’t be used against them.

But the new, good internet will fix the defects of the old, good internet, the part that made it hard to use for anyone who wasn’t us. And hell yeah we can do that. Tech bosses swear that it’s impossible, that you can’t have a conversation friend without sharing it with Zuck; or search the web without letting Google scrape you down to the viscera; or have a phone that works reliably without giving Apple a veto over the software you install.

They claim that it’s a nonsense to even ponder this kind of thing. It’s like making water that’s not wet. But that’s bullshit. We can have nice things. We can build for the people we love, and give them a place that’s worth of their time and attention.

To do that, we have to install constraints.

The first constraint, remember, is competition. We’re living through a epochal shift in competition policy. After 40 years with antitrust enforcement in an induced coma, a wave of antitrust vigor has swept through governments all over the world. Regulators are stepping in to ban monopolistic practices, open up walled gardens, block anticompetitive mergers, and even unwind corrupt mergers that were undertaken on false pretenses.

Normally this is the place in the speech where I’d list out all the amazing things that have happened over the past four years. The enforcement actions that blocked companies from becoming too big to care, and that scared companies away from even trying.

Like Wiz, which just noped out of the largest acquisition offer in history, turning down Google’s $23b cashout, and deciding to, you know, just be a fucking business that makes money by producing a product that people want and selling it at a competitive price.

Normally, I’d be listing out FTC rulemakings that banned noncompetes nationwid. Or the new merger guidelines the FTC and DOJ cooked up, which – among other things – establish that the agencies should be considering whether a merger will negatively impact privacy.

I had a whole section of this stuff in my notes, a real victory lap, but I deleted it all this week.

[Can anyone guess why?]

That’s right! This week, Judge Amit Mehta, ruling for the DC Circuit of these United States of America, In the docket 20-3010 a case known as United States v. Google LLC, found that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," and ordered Google and the DOJ to propose a schedule for a remedy, like breaking the company up.

So yeah, that was pretty fucking epic.

Now, this antitrust stuff is pretty esoteric, and I won’t gatekeep you or shame you if you wanna keep a little distance on this subject. Nearly everyone is an antitrust normie, and that's OK. But if you’re a normie, you’re probably only catching little bits and pieces of the narrative, and let me tell you, the monopolists know it and they are flooding the zone.

The Wall Street Journal has published over 100 editorials condemning FTC Chair Lina Khan, saying she’s an ineffectual do-nothing, wasting public funds chasing doomed, quixotic adventures against poor, innocent businesses accomplishing nothing

[Does anyone out there know who owns the Wall Street Journal?]

That’s right, it’s Rupert Murdoch. Do you really think Rupert Murdoch pays his editorial board to write one hundred editorials about someone who’s not getting anything done?

The reality is that in the USA, in the UK, in the EU, in Australia, in Canada, in Japan, in South Korea, even in China, we are seeing more antitrust action over the past four years than over the preceding forty years.

Remember, competition law is actually pretty robust. The problem isn’t the law, It’s the enforcement priorities. Reagan put antitrust in mothballs 40 years ago, but that elegant weapon from a more civilized age is now back in the hands of people who know how to use it, and they’re swinging for the fences.

Next up: regulation.

As the seemingly inescapable power of the tech giants is revealed for the sham it always was, governments and regulators are finally gonna kill the “one weird trick” of violating the law, and saying “It doesn’t count, we did it with an app.”

Like in the EU, they’re rolling out the Digital Markets Act this year. That’s a law requiring dominant platforms to stand up APIs so that third parties can offer interoperable services.

So a co-op, a nonprofit, a hobbyist, a startup, or a local government agency wil eventuallyl be able to offer, say, a social media server that can interconnect with one of the dominant social media silos, and users who switch to that new platform will be able to continue to exchange messages with the users they follow and groups they belong to, so the switching costs will fall to damned near zero.

That’s a very cool rule, but what’s even cooler is how it’s gonna be enforced. Previous EU tech rules were “regulations” as in the GDPR – the General Data Privacy Regulation. EU regs need to be “transposed” into laws in each of the 27 EU member states, so they become national laws that get enforced by national courts.

For Big Tech, that means all previous tech regulations are enforced in Ireland, because Ireland is a tax haven, and all the tech companies fly Irish flags of convenience.

Here’s the thing: every tax haven is also a crime haven. After all, if Google can pretend it’s Irish this week, it can pretend to be Cypriot, or Maltese, or Luxembougeious next week. So Ireland has to keep these footloose criminal enterprises happy, or they’ll up sticks and go somewhere else.

This is why the GDPR is such a goddamned joke in practice. Big tech wipes its ass with the GDPR, and the only way to punish them starts with Ireland’s privacy commissioner, who barely bothers to get out of bed. This is an agency that spends most of its time watching cartoons on TV in its pajamas and eating breakfast cereal. So all of the big GDPR cases go to Ireland and they die there.

This is hardly a secret. The European Commission knows it’s going on. So with the DMA, the Commission has changed things up: The DMA is an “Act,” not a “Regulation.” Meaning it gets enforced in the EU’s federal courts, bypassing the national courts in crime-havens like Ireland.

In other words, the “we violate privacy law, but we do it with an app” gambit that worked on Ireland’s toothless privacy watchdog is now a dead letter, because EU federal judges have no reason to swallow that obvious bullshit.

Here in the US, the dam is breaking on federal consumer privacy law – at last!

Remember, our last privacy law was passed in 1988 to protect the sanctity of VHS rental history. It's been a minute.

And the thing is, there's a lot of people who are angry about stuff that has some nexus with America's piss-poor privacy landscape. Worried that Facebook turned grampy into a Qanon? That Insta made your teen anorexic? That TikTok is brainwashing millennials into quoting Osama Bin Laden? Or that cops are rolling up the identities of everyone at a Black Lives Matter protest or the Jan 6 riots by getting location data from Google? Or that Red State Attorneys General are tracking teen girls to out-of-state abortion clinics? Or that Black people are being discriminated against by online lending or hiring platforms? Or that someone is making AI deepfake porn of you?

A federal privacy law with a private right of action – which means that individuals can sue companies that violate their privacy – would go a long way to rectifying all of these problems

There's a pretty big coalition for that kind of privacy law! Which is why we have seen a procession of imperfect (but steadily improving) privacy laws working their way through Congress.

If you sign up for EFF’s mailing list at eff.org we’ll send you an email when these come up, so you can call your Congressjerk or Senator and talk to them about it. Or better yet, make an appointment to drop by their offices when they’re in their districts, and explain to them that you’re not just a registered voter from their district, you’re the kind of elite tech person who goes to Defcon, and then explain the bill to them. That stuff makes a difference.

What about self-help? How are we doing on making interoperability legal again, so hackers can just fix shit without waiting for Congress or a federal agency to act?

All the action here these day is in the state Right to Repair fight. We’re getting state R2R bills, like the one that passed this year in Oregon that bans parts pairing, where DRM is used to keep a device from using a new part until it gets an authorized technician’s unlock code.

These bills are pushed by a fantastic group of organizations called the Repair Coalition, at Repair.org, and they’ll email you when one of these laws is going through your statehouse, so you can meet with your state reps and explain to the JV squad the same thing you told your federal reps.

Repair.org’s prime mover is Ifixit, who are genuine heroes of the repair revolution, and Ifixit’s founder, Kyle Wiens, is here at the con. When you see him, you can shake his hand and tell him thanks, and that’ll be even better if you tell him that you’ve signed up to get alerts at repair.org!

Now, on to the final way that we reverse enhittification and build that new, good internet: you, the tech labor force.

For years, your bosses tricked you into thinking you were founders in waiting, temporarily embarrassed entrepreneurs who were only momentarily drawing a salary.

You certainly weren’t workers. Your power came from your intrinsic virtue, not like those lazy slobs in unions who have to get their power through that kumbaya solidarity nonsense.

It was a trick. You were scammed. The power you had came from scarcity, and so when the scarcity ended, when the industry started ringing up six-figure annual layoffs, your power went away with it.

The only durable source of power for tech workers is as workers, in a union.

Think about Amazon. Warehouse workers have to piss in bottles and have the highest rate of on-the-job maimings of any competing business. Whereas Amazon coders get to show up for work with facial piercings, green mohawks, and black t-shirts that say things their bosses don’t understand. They can piss whenever they want!

That’s not because Jeff Bezos or Andy Jassy loves you guys. It’s because they’re scared you’ll quit and they don’t know how to replace you.

Time for the second obligatory William Gibson quote: “The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” You know who’s living in the future?. Those Amazon blue-collar workers. They are the bleeding edge.

Drivers whose eyeballs are monitored by AI cameras that do digital phrenology on their faces to figure out whether to dock their pay, warehouse workers whose bodies are ruined in just months.

As tech bosses beef up that reserve army of unemployed, skilled tech workers, then those tech workers – you all – will arrive at the same future as them.

Look, I know that you’ve spent your careers explaining in words so small your boss could understand them that you refuse to enshittify the company’s products, and I thank you for your service.

But if you want to go on fighting for the user, you need power that’s more durable than scarcity. You need a union. Wanna learn how? Check out the Tech Workers Coalition and Tech Solidarity, and get organized.

Enshittification didn’t arise because our bosses changed. They were always that guy.

They were always yankin’ on that enshittification lever in the C-suite.

What changed was the environment, everything that kept that switch from moving.

And that’s good news, in a bankshot way, because it means we can make good services out of imperfect people. As a wildly imperfect person myself, I find this heartening.

The new good internet is in our grasp: an internet that has the technological self-determination of the old, good internet, and the greased-skids simplicity of Web 2.0 that let all our normie friends get in on the fun.

Tech bosses want you to think that good UX and enshittification can’t ever be separated. That’s such a self-serving proposition you can spot it from orbit. We know it, 'cause we built the old good internet, and we’ve been fighting a rear-guard action to preserve it for the past two decades.

It’s time to stop playing defense. It's time to go on the offensive. To restore competition, regulation, interop and tech worker power so that we can create the new, good internet we’ll need to fight fascism, the climate emergency, and genocide.

To build a digital nervous system for a 21st century in which our children can thrive and prosper.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/17/hack-the-planet/#how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess

Image: https://twitter.com/igama/status/1822347578094043435/ (cropped)

@fak3r@mastodon.social (cropped)

https://mamot.fr/@fak3r@mastodon.social/112963252835869648

CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.pt

[cosmicpuzzle]

Pros and Cons of Venus ♀ in Each House

1st House:

Pros:

♎Attractive, refined and diplomatic.

♎Balanced and amiable.

♎Social and polite.

Cons:

♎Vain and superifical.

♎Uses charm to get things done.

♎Self-serving.

2nd House:

Pros:

♎Good taste (not just in food but in all things of value).

♎Financially successful

♎Makes others feel valued.

Cons:

♎Vain spender.

♎Status conscious purchases.

♎Materialistic bringing.

3rd House:

Pros:

♎Pleasant and tactful communication.

♎Good relationship with peers, neighbours, teammates.

♎Not argumentative.

Cons:

♎Sweet talks and Flirting nature.

♎Superficial Emotions.

♎Tendency towards affairs (while travel or neighbours)

4th House

Pros:

♎Good relations with family especially mother.

♎Domestic comforts and luxuries.

♎Good host to guests.

Cons:

♎Private with feelings, emotions.

♎Wastes money on luxuries.

♎Needy in love.

5th House

Pros:

♎Ability in arts, drama, music.

♎Deep and loyal in love.

♎Love of children and mate.

Cons:

♎Attention seeker.

♎Tendency towards affairs

♎Vanity and excessive enjoyment.

6th House

Pros:

♎Good relations at workplace.

♎Good sense of service,

♎Clean and hygienic environments.

Cons:

♎Critical in relationships, argumentative.

♎Uses charm to climb at workplace.

♎Mean spender.

7th House

Pros:

♎Good at forming relationships.

♎Deal maker and negotiator.

♎Fair and just in interactions.

Cons:

♎Pleasure seeker.

♎Too many relationships.

♎People pleaser.

8th House

Pros:

♎Deep conjugal bond.

♎Financial benefits from others.

♎Satisfying sexual life.

Cons:

♎Taboo relationships

♎Marries for money or sex. Makes money illegally.

♎Porn Addictions and vices.

9th House

Pros:

♎Love of learning, travel and cultures

♎Good relations with foreigngers.

♎Good parents and mentors.

Cons:

♎Falls out of love due to boredom.

♎Falls in love with teachers, elders or inappropriate persons

♎Dislikes anything that reminds them of home or their culture.

Venus in 10th House

Pros:

♎Positive social image.

♎Love of work.

♎Good relations with boss and superiors.

Cons:

♎ Uses charm and beauty to get things done.

♎Works only for money or with aim on promotion.

♎Love based on status. May trap their boss or superiors in scandals

Venus in 11th House

Pros:

♎Active social life and community.

♎Makes money through social platforms.

♎Good sense of design and brand building.

Cons:

♎Social climber and tendency towards online affairs.

♎Uses network to get things done.

♎More interested in product building than its use.

Venus in 12th House

Pros:

♎Selfless in love and relationships.

♎Charitable and giving.

♎Wise investments.

Cons:

♎Excessive spending and indulgence.

♎Addictions and vices.

♎Keeps love hidden and suffers hence.

All the above points are quite general and can be modified by conjunctions aspects of other planets and the general nature of your birth chart.

Please don't get offended if you see something for yourself and you don't possess those traits. 1 in 12 people could have these.

For Readings DM

[gravedigginbbydoll]

Tutoring and Tension

Dom! Leighton Murray x Alt fem! reader smut

A/N: Hi! This is my first time writing for something non ST fandom in a while so please be patient with me!

CW: sex, smut, porn with plot?, Leighton x reader, fem! reader (v) desperate! reader, alt reader, piercings and tattoos mentioned, makeup mentioned, oral sex (v), overstimulation, degradation, humiliation, sub! reader, dom! Leighton, use of toys (vibrator), power play, aftercare, etc.

When you first moved to Vermont, you knew there would be people like Leighton Murray. Rich, spoiled, kind of mean. 

What you didn’t guess, however, was that they would maybe be gay. 

Which was a shock to you while studying at the library, muted whispers at the table across from you. 

“I know! I know! I was shocked too! But then she pulled me into her bed and…” 

Muted squeals came from the table behind you as you rolled your eyes. You came to Essex for the fact that you could be away from your small town judgment at a prestigious school, but were starting to regret every second of it. People weren’t receptive to you, and most of the students were rich assholes who would sooner tell you that your diy patch jacket was clearly ‘Not Saint Laurent’, and call you ‘cute’ when you mentioned thrifting. 

And it didn’t help that most of the student population was scared of your look. Tattoos, piercings, dark clothing, and platform shoes. Sometimes, even colorful hair. You were a walking social pariah. You knew it, but you didn’t care. You were here to make a name for yourself through extracurriculars and studies. To follow your dreams. 

If only math wasn’t kicking your ass. 

You could never focus. Sitting behind Leighton Murray meant you had to watch the back of her perfect blonde head and that you could smell her perfume (something classy and brand name, probably, all you knew is it made her smell like florals and vanilla). You kept getting C’s and D’s on papers and tests, too distracted by Leighton’s perfect handwriting. 

And it wasn’t until you got an F that you finally plucked up the nerve to talk to the professor, begging for help. And of course…they brought Leighton over. 

“Could you help Y/N with this class, please? They’re struggling a lot.” 

Leighton looked at you with a smile, but her eyes said she wanted to strangle you. 

“Sure, Prof. I’ll definitely tutor her.” 

The two of you were sitting in Leighton’s dorm, looking over the books, your heart racing. Sure, you wore dark makeup and clothes and people were scared of you…But Leighton was much scarier. She was pretty and smart and damn blunt. You had gone over some of the problems and were still feeling your brain turn to mush next to her. You were pretending to heavily inspect an equation when she suddenly turned to look at you. 

“A-Are you, like, a goth? Sorry, I just…I don't understand this whole…Hot Topic aesthetic…thing. No offense,” Leighton blurted out, her brows pinched together as she had an awkward smile on her face. 

You laughed a bit, smiling. Her confusion was funny, despite her harshness. “Goth is a music genre…but I do like it. So kinda? I just like dark clothes…They make me feel like me.” 

She nodded a bit before putting up her book, setting it aside as she scooted closer, eyeing you. 

“Don’t tattoos hurt? You have…a lot.” 

You nodded, feeling heat travel up into your cheeks, stomach fluttering. “They hurt a bit. But I like them. They make me feel kinda like an art gallery, ya know?”

You noted her eyes traveling over your collarbones and to your cleavage, before turning to your books again, cheeks slightly pink. 

“So anyways, do you get the gist?” 

You furrowed your brows, smiling awkwardly, shaking your head. “I’m sorry, math just isn’t my thing.” 

She rolled her eyes, expression snarky as she smirked. “Let me guess…your thing is arts or social sciences…maybe even English?” 

You held up your hands, a devilish grin on your face as you attempted to match her energy, your cheeks heating up. “Guilty.” 

She tutted, eyes rolling before looking down at the paper. “Well, we’ve got to figure out some way to incentivize your learning…” 

You stared, slack-jawed, as she crossed her legs in her mini skirt, perfect pink mouth chewing on the end of her pen. She seemed deep in thought. She was like Cher in Clueless, the perfect prim and well-bred American girl…and you had such a huge crush on Cher as a child. 

She seemed to look over at you before smiling a bit, clearly catching you staring at her and your ever-growing embarrassment. She tilted her head at you, a smug expression on her face. “Do you like treats?” 

Your face heated at her sudden attention as you furrowed your brow, laughing awkwardly. “W-what? Like candy?,” You asked, voice cracking because your mind was flooded with other…ideas.

Leighton smirked and fingered the metal loop on your choker with one perfect manicured hand. Her voice was low and sultry, her eyes mischievous. “Something like that.” 

She leaned forward a bit more, whispering in your ear. “I see the way you look at me in class. It’s a bit pathetic really,” She coos condescendingly, her voice sending chills up your arm. “Big scary girl like you…all whipped over a little spoiled rich girl? What would everyone at school say?” 

You squirmed in your chair, your thighs squeezing together to relieve the throbbing need beginning to grow. “I..I just, I don’t-” 

She cut you off by squeezing your face in her hand. You felt your desire grow, your heart racing. 

“Shut up.” 

She let go of your face, standing up and smiling, her expression dangerous and yet so enticing. She crossed her arms, looking down on you.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to work on a problem. You get it right, you get a treat…get it wrong…and I’ll test your limits. Got it?,” she asked, voice radiating authority and lust. You nodded quickly in agreement, the heat in your cheeks growing and traveling to the tips of your ears. 

She grinned, pointing at a problem while still standing. “Get started, baby.” 

About an hour in and your mind had become a puddle. You were face down on Leighton’s bed, your head in her pillow, no doubt smudging eyeliner and mascara on her satin cases. She was standing near you, her wand pressed against your clit as you whined, your nails clawing at the bed. She whispered in your ear, voice low and dripping with lust. 

“Aww, is someone wanting to cum?” 

You whined, your clit throbbing at the constant attention and from the overstimulation of the last 3 orgasms she had given you. You couldn’t see her but knew her expression was probably that of an evil grin, her eyes glinting with pleasure at the mess you had become. 

“Please, please, please, please…I’ll fix the problem…please..,” You sobbed, fists clawing at the bed, earning yourself a spank on the ass, Leighton gripping your hair and pulling your head to look at you, your vision of her blurred through your tears. 

“Don’t fucking mess up my bed.” 

You nodded helplessly, thoughts only swimming with Leighton, Leighton, Leighton. She dropped your head before finally diving into your pussy, her tongue delving into your folds from behind as she ate your out, the vibrator against your clit still. You cried out,  your body about to snap, your thighs shaking and clit pulsing painfully. 

You could barely hear her over your moaning, but managed to hear the muffled ‘cum for me.’ 

So you finally snapped, body shaking as you felt waves of pleasure wash over you, your eyes rolling back and shut, your thighs shaking as you came, feeling Leighton moan against you and seeming to ride you through your high, your body worn out and practically collapsing at the end. 

You laid there for a minute, hearing some shuffling before you felt a warm wet cloth wiping you off, and Leighton’s soft manicured hand rubbing your back. 

“Hey,” She whispered softly, “Turn over.” 

So you did, brain still floating as Leighton softly wiped at your face with some cool makeup wipes, cooing softly in your ear. 

“You did wonderful, baby.” 

You felt her softly remove some of your jewelry and leftover clothing before dressing you in some comfy pajamas, silky soft like her own, before she kissed your forehead. You were slowly coming back to yourself as she snuggled up next to you, eyebrows raised as she looked down at you, smiling softly. 

“So.. I imagine you like my tutoring style?” 

You let out a giggle, feeling your cheeks heat as you sheepishly offered. “Is it that obvious?” 

She grinned flirtatiously at you, hands rubbing at your side as she whispered cheekily, “You’re gonna be acing this class in no time with my help.” 

You grinned. 

You couldn’t wait for more math.

[gulfiya007]

On lukola fandom

Here’s some venting about the lukola fandom, and its ways, and consequences, from an ordinary polin, Bridgerton and Luke fan.

Starting from the way Luke’s loved ones and friends are treated by its adherents. Especially his girlfriend. The hate towards her is visceral. The whole phenomenon of bullying and stalking someone just for existing and posting on their SM account from time to time probably needs to be studied by social studies scholars and parasocial relationship specialists, cause it’s new heights apparently.

So, what if she’s proud of Luke as her boyfriend and wants to show it? What if she wants to mark her territory sometimes, to which she has a right btw? What if she trolls haters and delusional IRL shippers occasionally? Hers is probably the most relatable behavior. I myself, as an introvert millennial who doesn’t run one single SM account and cringe from the exhibitionist nature of current SM posting practices, still recognize that there’s nothing unusual about that kind of posting per se. Why was Luke’s former gf, Jade, allowed to post him all the time (which is totally alright btw), but Antonia hinting at having, say, a dinner with Luke is shady, attention-seeking, desperate, needy and despicable?

It's not that I care particularly about her. In fact, I couldn’t care less if she’s replaced by Luke with some other woman in a couple of months or if she is his future wife and mother to his kids. I still believe, regardless of her status in the relationship, she deserves basic respect and decent treatment as a human being that we know pretty much nothing about. She does not deserve the vilification and demonization that she gets.

Luke too, has a right to privacy and respect for his personal choices that are nobody’s business. He owes no one anything in terms of disclosing his dating life and confirming his relationships. If for someone, Luke bringing the girl to almost all his travels and events with himself, is not a proof or statement in and of itself about her being his girlfriend, then that’s on them. No amount of intentional misreading and skewed takes on photos will trump this simple fact.

Also please don’t bring up virtue signaling and other cancel culture stupidities, such as moral judgements passed on Luke and his close ones for political or other values purportedly held by them, of which we in fact know zilch. It’s clear that this is just another useful tool in a shipping crusade.

Nicola too, deserves, for a change, to have her numerous statements taken seriously. Let alone, privacy. She’s being stalked by her so-called fans to insanity. I am sure she, to put it mildly, is uncomfortable about her “queen” and “goddess” status among the cultists, and being a projection vessel for a myriad of sad women. Cause she knows very well this type of passionate idolatry is an inch away from hate, and the plus sign switches to a minus sign the minute she does something not to their liking, a wrong brand or person supported, or not enough disciplining of Luke is exercised. The most delusional thing about lukolas is them truly believing themselves to be Nic’s or Luke’s fans.

Which brings us to the crux of the matter. That IRL shipping is bad, period. Some lukola bloggers on tumblr, TT and IG half-heartedly try to reign in and admonish the more unhinged segment of the fandom by telling them to behave and not bring their bul..t to the actors' feet. However, this is what the lukola discourse platforms, by simply existing, still do - breed crazy fan behavior. Because the problem lies in the belief system itself. No amount of reservations, house-keeping and discipline by lukola discourse 'leaders' will do away with the tenets and premises of this religion that seep through and twist every discussion and speculation about the figures involved (Luke, Nic, etc). Since every reasoning should work towards a certain end goal, all means and distortions are good to achieve it. Finding faults with Luke's character and behavior and demanding a 'redemption' from him, hating and criticizing Luke's friends and family, attributing motivations to the actors and their loved ones that best suit theories, online stalking etc. A myth about Luke ever publicly stating he was single during promo, a ridiculous myth about Bridgerton cast and showrunners shipping lukola (news flash – nobody in the cast cares about their co-stars’ private lives, stop the kindergarten), or the “papgate” affecting in any way Luke’s job prospects. Myths upon myths that build the house of cards of the lukola dogma. I myself wouldn’t care a damn about this fandom if it really contained itself to its close corners and group chats, however, unsurprisingly, they spill over in a grand fashion and permeate all discourse.

You really believe the innocent delulu fangirling has no by-products? These are the staple manifestations of the lukola and of any IRL shipping fandom, and popular lukola theorists are pretty successful in justifying and reinforcing them. And it should not be surprising that some followers, the most zealous and stupid ones, take it too far and actually harass people and be annoying in SM.

As a Luke and polin fan, I am annoyed by this, but I am 100% sure this sh*t is affecting the actors, and you all can kiss goodbye to the chemistry between Luke and Nic naturally displayed during promo. I am sure polin will not be affected, for L and N are excellent actors and friends, but you all soon will look sadly back to S3 promo tour as magic that will never come back.

[rotten-pomegranates-fics]

Adult trio with hybrid reader

Warnings: they put a collar on you, hisoka brands you, hisoka is mean ):, mentions of having kids in illumi’s

𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍

Illumi

Illumi wants a cat because your obedient and loyal to him

He lives for having you curled up in a little ball on his lap and loves when you purr at his touch

He gets a cat bed for you but yhe always demands you sleep with him

Will declaw you if you scratch stuff and won’t feel bad about it at all

He probably force you to marry him so he can have kids with you that have your senses and agility

He likes when you rub your face on him because he can tell that you want him as much as he wants you

Illumi has you wear a collar with your name on it in pretty pink letters that’s has a lock at the back so you can’t take it off, if your bad he tightens it just enough to make you uncomfortable but not enough to cut off significant airflow

Chrollo

Chrollo wants a cat because your small it’s like your travel sized for his convinces, he brings you when he has business with the troupe

He loves reading with you purring in his lap, he likes it when you perk up when he pets you

He lives for when your ears twitch and move when he blows on them

Adore that your quiet and calm but also understands when your not

He had you sleep in a cozy dog bed for larger dogs next to his bed but there are still lots of snuggles

Hisoka

Hisoka wants a bunny because he’s a Magician and every magician need a show bunny

and your just the cutest little docile thing ever how could he not keep you

He is still a sadist so no matter how cute you are he still randomly grabs your ears really roughly when he wants to hear you squeal

He loves the way your tail goes back and forth when you get excited about him giving you Icecream or a new petty peace of jewelry

Makes you wear a playboy bunny outfit and put on little shoes for him when he’s bored

If he was mad he would pick you up by the ears just to hurt you as a punishment

He would definitely get you branded with something like his initials instead of just getting you to wear a collar

You only sleep in the bed with him tucked nice and safe under his arm wear you belong

©rotten-pomegranate- All rights reserved, don’t steal, translate, copy, plagiarize, claim my work as your own or post it on other platforms.

[techramonic]

The Pinnacle of Self-Hatred: A Close-Reading on Elliot Rodger's Manifesto

“I named it the Day of Retribution. It would be a day in which I exact my ultimate retribution and revenge on all of the hedonistic scum who enjoyed lives of pleasure that they don’t deserve. If I can’t have it, I will destroy it. I will destroy all women because I can never have them. I will make them all suffer for rejecting me… And I will slaughter them like the animals they are.” (Rodger, 2014, p. 101)

On the Friday evening of May. 23, 2014, Elliot Rodger had perpetrated the Isla Vista Killings. A series of stabbings and shootings that claimed the lives of six people, injured fourteen, and concluded with his own death from a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound on the head. Before this, Elliot was like any other normal teenager growing up.

As he mentioned in his own manifesto, he had a seemingly good childhood up until his parent’s divorce. Even until the separation, he still spent time with both sides of his family, maintaining the privilege to have access to many luxurious items such as a collection of designer clothes and even a BMW 328i. He traveled a lot, and at just the age of one, he had already traveled to France, Sussex, Malaysia (where his mother grew up), Spain, Greece, and California.

People on platforms such as Reddit often questioned why no one considered dating him at all. Elliot had also asked himself this question time and time again. In one of his youtube videos, entitled, “Why do girls hate me so much” he says:

“I’ve been attending college in Santa Barbara for two and a half years now, in those two and a half years I have experienced nothing but loneliness and misery, and my problem  is girls. There are so many beautiful girls here, but none of them give me a chance and I don’t know why. I don’t know why you girls are so repulsed by me.”

While it is easy to dismiss that Elliot solely acted upon his crime because he thought that girls were the problem, upon the surface where misogyny lies, there are layers upon layers of complexities that shaped his views. Elliot did not simply hate women and men who got with women he dreamed of, it was that ultimately, he hated himself—a hatred that manifested toward outward factors.

Elliot has exhibited a long string of stunted self-worth ever since he was a child, and while it is easy to throw around names like: monster and pure-evil; the fact remains: he is still considered a human amongst all those. One who is consumed by insecurity.

In understanding a crime, we must first examine the criminal and approach their case with empathy. Understanding the human aspect of these criminals does not however mean that one should excuse, dismiss, or condone their actions. Only understand the reasons behind their motivations. Here are some aspects I have noticed in his personality and life that may be able to better explain why.

MATERIALISM AND INSECURITY

In his manifesto entitled: “My Twisted World”, Elliot had confessed to having lived a good childhood. He was a nice kid who lived a nice life, up until his parent’s rocky divorce. While reading his manifesto, I have garnered his tendency to place his worth on materialistic things, moreso, his wealth. There were two instances of this on pages thirty to thirty-one of his manifesto. The first was when he was hesitant to invite his new friend from school over to his house because he was ashamed of his wealth:

“I was a bit hesitant to invite anyone from Pinecrest to my mother’s house, because it was located in Canoga Park, a bad area, and most of the kids at Pinecrest were upper-middle class who would look down on me for living there.”

On page thirty one of his manifesto, Elliot said that he was eager to receive an Xbox solely because many kids from his school wanted it:

“My mother bought me a brand new video game console, the Xbox. I heard a lot of kids talking about how great the Xbox was at school, so I was really eager to have one.”

This trait had continued on to his older years. In the same video where he questioned why girls disliked him so much, he stated:

“I do everything I can to appear attractive to you. I dress nice. I am sophisticated and magnificent. I have a nice car, a BMW.”

From this, it’s observable that Elliot tends to desire things just because other kids desire it too. This is rooted in his craving of validation and acceptance. This materialistic need for validation also transcended from mere objects to even his own appearance. Whenever he did not have what others had or wanted, he would be very ashamed of himself.

At the age of six, Elliot had moved to Topanga Elementary Charter School, a school based in California. The school has a thirty two per-cent minority rate, making seventy eight per-cent of the ethnicity population white. With the population being predominantly white, Elliot  had developed a view on the world that separates people by their differences: the “cool kids” and the “losers”. Mostly, Elliot described these cool kids as the higher-class, privileged, centered on attention, and white. 

“I realized, with some horror, that I wasn’t “cool” at all. I had a dorky hairstyle, I wore plain and uncool clothing, and I was shy and unpopular. I was always described as the shy boy in the past, but I never really thought my shyness would affect me in a negative way, until this point. This revelation about the world, and about myself, really decreased my self-esteem. On top of this was the feeling that I was different because I am of mixed race. I am half White, half Asian, and this made me different from the normal fully-white kids that I was trying to fit in with.”

He even dyed his hair blonde and tried to pick up on skateboarding because he thought it would make him appear more cool. On his manifesto he wrote:

“My first act was to ask my parents to allow me to bleach my hair blonde. I always envied and admired blonde-haired people, they always seemed so much more beautiful.” (Rodger, 2014, p. 17)

“I then started to notice that all of the cool kids were interested in skateboarding. I had never even ridden on a skateboard before, but if I wanted to be cool, I had to become a skateboarder.” (Rodger, 2014, p. 18)

This materialism had soon influenced his fixation on racial hierarchy. Elliot in his older years constantly demeaned and berated others of asian descent even if he was half-malaysian himself. To him, he considered whiteness as a prestige. On platforms such as reddit and facebook, he had made several negative comments regarding the appearance of some Asian men. 

A comment he had left on a reddit thread stated:

“Full Asian men are disgustingly ugly and white girls would never go for you. You’re just butthurt that you were born an asian piece of shit, so you lash out by linking these fake pictures. You even admit that you wish you were half white. You’ll never be half-white and you’ll never fulfill your dream of marrying a white woman. I suggest you jump off a bridge.” 

The paragraph entails Elliot calling out a man for linking fake pictures of himself. Elliot speculates that the man had done this because he wished he was white, then he tells him how he was not considered as attractive because he was simply born Asian. Elliot was also very fixated on his looks, specifically his height. He had repeatedly mentioned his envy of other boys and even girls who were taller than him.

On page fifteen of his manifesto, he wrote:

“As Fourth Grade started, it fully dawned on me that I was the shortest kid in my class – even the girls were taller than me. In the past, I rarely gave a thought to it, but at this stage I became extremely annoyed at how everyone was taller than me, and how the tallest boys were automatically respected more. It instilled the first feelings of inferiority in me, and such feelings would only grow more volatile with time.”

In other instances, he also noted that he was bullied for being physically weak and short, and often he would blame this solely on his descent. He saw being mixed as a form of inferiority because this made him “undesirable”.  His image of attractiveness is measured by euro-centric features: fair-skinned, blonde, blue eyes, and tall. In many instances, he changed parts of himself to better fit the narrative of being “cool”.

To him, it’s all a part of growing up and fitting in, but what he failed to see is that the more he takes and changes parts of himself for people to like him, the more it just makes him hollow. Elliot’s childhood and teen years, best summed up, is a fixation on trying to keep up with those who are higher on the social status ladder and this continued to his later years. 

EARLY EXPOSURE TO PORNOGRAPHY AND SEXIST MEDIA 

Elliot was lonelier during his teen years, at 13 years old, he stopped having contact with his only friends because they started having their own separate lives together, making him spend more time alone by himself (Rodger, 2014, p. 38). This was when Elliot recounted his first-time exposure to pornography by catching a teenager watch it in an arcade called Planet Cyber.  He re-called it as a traumatizing experience, confused on why such an explicit thing would be considered as “love”. Despite this, his innocence was damaged by this accidental exposure. Though he did feel aroused, he was more guilty and confused.

“One time while I was alone at Planet Cyber, I saw an older teenager watching pornography. I saw in detail a video of a man having sex with a hot girl …  I didn’t know anything about sex at the time. I barely even knew what sex was. I was slowly starting to develop sexual feelings for hot girls, but I didn’t know what to do with them. To see this video really traumatized me. I had no idea what I was seeing… I couldn’t imagine human beings doing such things with each other. The sight was shocking, traumatizing, and arousing. All of these feelings mixed together took a great toll on me. I walked home and cried by myself  for a bit.” (Rodger, 2014, p. 38-39)

This was the pinnacle of Elliot’s misery. A kid who searched for validation with his looks, now searched for it in sexual gratification as well. He only found himself loved if people flocked over to him. Furthermore, he had this distorted mindset that his worth is only measured by how many girls he could get and how fast he'd lose his virginity. This can be akin to the stereotypical portrayals of boys in media that often influenced teens and their concept of self-worth: the "cool" guys having lots of girls, while nerds and "losers" have none.

With this type of thinking, he tried his best to gain things that he thought women would like, yet he did little to no effort to actually get to know them and socialize. He believed that just because he had what others wanted or did not, people would love him. According to his friends, they thought he was almost always one-sided, expecting women to just swoon over him because he has things that are desirable.

ENTITLEMENT

Furthermore, despite his initial pleasant middle school years at Pinecrest High, such as dancing with a girl during a school dance (Rodger, 2014, p. 29), socializing eventually became difficult for Elliot. Often, this is because of  his appearance, where he experienced bullying because of his height. According to his friends, he barely talked to women but still complained no woman wanted to talk to him. 

Elliot was easily persuaded and subjected to peer-pressure because he had no clear identity. He always followed what was the trend because it made him feel less insecure about himself, since it was what he thought the people accepted and desired.

Despite his insecurities, Elliot had a fine record for being privileged, which he used to his advantage to "fix" certain qualities in himself that he deemed undesirable. Ever since he was younger, he often used his wealth to modify certain aspects of himself, even the smallest things: dyeing his hair blonde, purchasing designer clothes to appear more attractive and rich, purchasing mass amounts of body-building pills, and only picking up hobbies such as skateboarding and basketball solely because he found them useful in climbing up the social ladder.

Elliot also had a strong dislike for people who did not support his motivations. He expressed a strong resentment toward is step-mother, Soumaya, because of her assertive nature. He considered his dad to be “weak” for following her orders around, when in truth, she was only trying to teach Elliot a lesson about independence. 

“Not only did she kick me out of father’s house, but she forbade me to go there even for a short visit. And still, father didn’t do anything about it. Father kept saying that the house is her house as much as his, and that she has the right to kick me out. No! I am the eldest son! The house should be MY house before hers! This caused any respect I still had for my father to fade away completely. It was such a betrayal, to put his second wife before his eldest son. What kind of father would do that? The bitch must be really good to him in bed, I figured. What a weak man.” (Rodger, 2014, p. 62)

At his step-mother’s insistence, Elliot began looking for a job and eventually found work from a family friend who offered him a job for a house construction project. He felt more comfortable with it, seeing the job as helping rather than typical employment. After getting his driver’s license, Elliot enrolled in summer classes at Moorpark College but struggled with attendance, again, due to his jealousy of campus couples.

He dropped out midway through, briefly worked as a janitor at an airport office, and quit after one day. Knowing his mother would be upset, he re-enrolled at Moorpark but eventually dropped out again (Rodger, 2014, p. 70). Upon learning of Elliot’s decision to drop out again, his parents decided he would move to Santa Barbara, where he would live alone in an apartment paid for by his mother, receive a $500 monthly allowance from his father, and enroll in classes at Santa Barbara Community College (Rodger, 2014, p. 77). 

CONCLUSION

Elliot is very persistent on the idea that to be accepted, he needed to be loved, when in truth, he couldn't bear to accept himself. No one has absolutely any obligation to love someone because the other sees it as a form of validation. Self-worth comes from yourself, not from others. Due to Elliot’s constant fixation on trying to be accepted, he lost the identity that made him authentic and genuine. He lost what other people could not give him: self-worth.

Concluding, Elliot Rodger is a complex individual that cannot be summed up to one set character. He is not solely “pure evil”, he is a person with a background that influenced his decisions. He is not less deserving of humanity or empathy because just like others, he had also felt humane emotions. With criminals, it is always important to remember that to understand a certain event or phenomena of crime, we also have to understand not just the perpetrator that the media portrays, which is often easily pushed into a oversimplified narrative of “pure evil”; we must also consider the genuine person behind the crime. 

While it is important to recognize that these are profoundly disturbed individuals who must be held accountable for their actions, it is also crucial to understand that despite their crimes, they still remain human. Although, this does not mean that his background excuses or condones his actions. It only provides a framework to comprehensively understand both the case and the criminal behind it. 

[astroismypassion]

✨PART OF FORTUNE IN SIGNS AND HOUSES SERIES: 9TH HOUSE✨

Credit: Tumblr blog @astroismypassion

ARIES PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Aries and Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You would do well as a personal trainer or fitness instructor since you have great energy and motivation that can inspire clients to achieve health and fitness goals. You feel abundant when you are inspired and inspiring others and when you can experience the childlike joy and share it with those around you.

TAURUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Taurus and Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You can earn money via teaching about practical skills, business, economics or the arts, via creating and selling educational content (online courses, e-books, instructional videos), by becoming a travel writer or blogger, starting or managing a tourism-related business (travel agency, boutique hotel or guided tour company), via international law.

GEMINI PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Gemini and Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You can earn money via developing or working with educational technology platforms that facilitate online learning, via work in international business/trade, via diplomacy, engaging in media production, creating content for TV, radio or online platforms.

CANCER PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You can feel the most abundant when you have Cancer and Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You can earn money via selling home-brewed beer or offering brewing classes, via media content (podcasts, videos) connected with family relationships, emotional health, cultural traditions, life coaching, via real estate related to family homes, community housing, vacation properties that provide a sense of home and comfort, via non-profit organizations that focus on family support, emotional well-being and cultural preservation.

LEO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Leo and Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You can earn money via providing high-end services, such as image consulting or bespoke travel planning, via engaging in theatre, film, directing, producing, via creative arts (music, painting, dancing), via sharing your experiences by storytelling, via teaching, arts, philosophy or leadership.

VIRGO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Virgo and Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You can earn money via nutrition counselling, naturopathy, wellness coaching, preventative care, via writing for technical and scientific publications, via developing or managing programs that facilitate cultural exchanges and study abroad opportunities. You feel abundant when you are focused on service and when you have clear communication.

LIBRA PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Libra and Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You can earn money via becoming a make-up artist, creating tutorials or selling beauty products. You feel abundant when you travel with your loved ones, your partner or as a part of the team. You find wealth via becoming a teacher in subjects like art, design, law or philosophy. You find abundance in starting a business in art (art gallery, design studio, fashion brand).

SCORPIO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Scorpio and Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You can earn money via esoteric studies, sociology, spiritual transformation, via energy work, shamanic healing, transformational coaching. You feel abundant when you dive into transformation, healing and deep psychological insights. You can also offer consulting services in areas, like crisis management, organizational transformation or deep personal development. You feel abundant when you promote healing and transformation via self-help books, wellness products or spiritual tools.

SAGITTARIUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You can earn money via offering tailored travel plans, starting a business in adventure tourism (offering hiking, trekking and cultural tours), offering spiritual counselling or coaching, helping others find their path and purpose.

CAPRICORN PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Capricorn and Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You can earn money via import/export, global consultancy, multinational corporations, via offering historical tours, archaeological digs, via eco-tourism, via international law or corporate law. You feel abundant when you are disciplined, patient and persistent.

AQUARIUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Aquarius and Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You can earn money via writing or speaking about progressive philosophical or spiritual ideas that align with modern, futuristic or humanitarian values, via online courses, workshops or alternative education methods, via technology, social sciences or futuristic studies.

PISCES PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 9TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Pisces and Sagittarius Sun people in your life. You can earn money via producing media content (podcast, video, documentary) on spiritual, artistic, cultural topic, via creating educational programs/workshops that blend traditional learning with holistic or spiritual perspective, via spiritual coaching, astrology or psychic readings.

Credit: Tumblr blog @astroismypassion

[demifiendrsa]

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance - Announce Trailer

Japanese version

Extended Cut

Extended Cut Japanese version

Special Program Spotlight

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam, Microsoft Store) on June 21, 2024 worldwide. Pre-orders will open on February 27, 2024.

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is an enhanced version of Shin Megami Tensei V, which originally launched for Nintendo Switch in November 2021.

Title logo

Key visual

Overview

The latest title in the series, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance allows players to enjoy the story of Shin Megami Tensei V in its entirety, with a new story path, untold in the original. Massively expanded with new areas, demons, and music, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance features more accessible gameplay, an improved battle system, new demon experiences, and greater field exploration. Pre-orders for the Nintendo Switch family of systems (physical only), PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Steam, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC will begin on February 27, 2024. Details on digital pre-orders for Nintendo Switch will be announced at a later date. When a grisly murder scene in modern-day Tokyo blocks the protagonist’s walk home, an unplanned detour leaves him buried and unconscious. He finds himself in a wasteland ravaged by apocalypse now called Da’at. Before bloodthirsty demons can claim his life, a savior emerges, and they unite to become a mighty being, neither human nor demon: a Nahobino. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance delivers a full-fledged RPG that can be enjoyed by existing and new fans. At the start of the game, players will choose between two paths: the story told in Shin Megami Tensei V, the Canon of Creation, or the brand-new Canon of Vengeance. This dramatic new tale of revenge introduces brand-new characters, an enigmatic cohort of demons called the Qadištu, a new dungeon and map to explore. Additionally, the original Shin Megami Tensei V battle system, demon merging and field exploration have been evolved and expanded in this newest entry in the series.

Further details

■ What is Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance?

Released in 2021, ATLUS’s renowned RPG Shin Megami Tensei V has sold more than one million copies worldwide.

This highly acclaimed game has evolved in every aspect, including the system and scenario, and will be available on multiple modern platforms!

At the beginning of the story, the player is presented between two routes. The story told in Shin Megami Tensei V, the Canon of Creation, and a brand-new route, Canon of Vengeance, a dramatic tale of revenge by the fallen.

The Canon of Vengeance follows the scenario of SMTV, but changes drastically from the latter half of the game. The outcome will be completely different. Enjoy the two divergent stories to your heart’s content.

The battle system, demon fusion, and field exploration have also evolved in depth with the addition of new elements. We are excited to deliver a full-fledged RPG that can be enjoyed by those who have already played SMTV, as well as those who are playing this series for the first time.

■ Story

Thou shalt be God—.

When a grisly murder scence in modern-day Tokyo blocks our protagonist’s walk home, an unplanned detour leaves him buried and unconscious. He awakens in a New Tokyo, a wasteland ravaged by apocalypse now called Da’at – but before bloodthirsty demons can claim his live, a savior emerges, and the two of them unite to become a mighty being, neither human nor demon: a Nahobino.

Revenge Awaits—.

Demons attack humans and seek to create a world of chaos.

Bethel, an organization that seeks to protect God’s order.

Caught up in the conflict between the two, while exploring Da’at, the protagonist meets and starts traveling with Yoko Hiromine.

Using magic, Yoko and the main character stand together on the front line.

The Qadistu, four female Demons stand in their way. “Found it, the Key of Resurrection…” A member of the Qadistu, Lilith calls protagonist the Key of Resurrection, and herself The Oppressed.

What is their purpose? A tale of revenge by the oppressed begins.

■ The Oppressed: The Qadistu

In the Canon of Vengeance, four female demons appear in front of the protagonist. Another story of creation told by new Demons.

■ Characters

Lilith (voiced by Katelyn Gault in English, Atsuko Tanaka in Japanese)

“I am Lilith of the Qadištu The one to restore the world to what it ought to be.”

A woman who is said to have been Adam’s first wife in the Old Testament. Later left Garden of Eden and turned into a demon.

Leader of the Qadištu. In order to achieve an unidentified goal, she stands in front of the protagonist.

Protagonist / Nahobino

A high school senior living in Tokyo. On his way back from school, he is involved in a tunnel collapse and wanders into an apocalyptic version of Tokyo, Da’at. His hobby is reading.

The protagonist fuses with Aogami and becomes a “Nahobino,” using this power to fight back demons.

The decision-making during the Nahobino state lies with the protagonist, and Aogami guides him with his voice.

Aogami (voiced by Damian Mills in English, Toshiyuki Morikawa in Japanese)

“Regardless of what may happen, rest assured that I will always protect you.”

A mysterious man who appears before the protagonist, who is being attacked by a demon in Da’at.

By taking the protagonist’s hand, he transforms into a condemned being, the Nahobino.

He seemingly participated in the war 18 years ago, but his memory of it has slipped away.

Yoko Hiromine (voiced by Erin Yvette in English, Chiwa Saitou in Japanese)

“With no one to save them, in the back of their mind, the victim desires only one thing: revenge against the assailant.”

She is a senior in high school at St. Marina Academy. Cool and somewhat mysterious.

She meets and works with the protagonist in Da’at. She has always possessed mysterious powers and was once called a “saint”. At the academy, she has been recognized for her power and learned exorcism magic. She also participates in the battles.

■ Over 270 Demons

In addition to existing demons, this title features more than 270 demons, including new demons newly drawn by the character designer Masayuki Doi. Enjoy an incredible demon experience!

■ Includes Shin Megami Tensei V Downloadable Content Demons and Quests!

The demons and quests that were available with Shin Megami Tensei V are included in this title as standard features! Experienced players are encouraged to try their hand at these challenging quests.

“A Goddess in Training”

“The Rage of a Queen”

“The Doctor’s Last Wish”

“Return of the True Demon”

■ Evolution in Depth!

Every system of Shin Megami Tensei V has been brushed up in detail and new elements have been added, including field exploration, demon conversations, battles, growth elements, and new demon experiences! Of course, with multiple endings—this is truly the definitive version of Shin Megami Tensei V.

Adding unique skills to all demons, new interactions with demons, and more… Many other new elements! Stay tuned for more information!

■ Additional Downloadable Content

Downloadable content featuring new demons will be distributed simultaneously on the release date.

Demon God Dagda from Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final and newly introduced is the demon Goddess Konohanasakuya, newly drawn by character designer Masayuki Doi!

Holy Will and Profane Dissent

When the protagonist goes to investigate a mysterious reaction, he meets Danu, the earth mother goddess, who claims to have come from a world that exists in another universe. Danu is apparently searching for his son, Dagda. The protagonist embarks on a search for Dagda with Danu. By completing the game, Dagda can be made an ally, and fusion will be unlocked.

Sakura Cinders of the East

Konohana Sakuya laments the turbulent world and searches for a hero who can pacify the world. She sees an image of a certain hero within the protagonist and challenges him. Winning the battle will allow you to make Konohana Sakuya your ally, and fusion will also be unlocked.

In addition, earning downloadable content that makes it easier to gain experience and in-game currency will be released at the same time.

[thatskynews]

Hey crew, just wanted to give a little context on a bug before reset; we are well aware that the Traveling Spirit isn't showing up in Aviary--no, Timid Bookworm isn't agoraphobic (although that would be pretty on-brand. ) The simple truth is that there is a LOT going on in Aviary; we are pushing the bounds of how many spirits we can have 'loaded into memory' in a single area, and ironically that led to the Traveling Spirit being "pushed out of the queue," so to speak. As Sky continues to evolve as a very-cross-platform game, we have been leaning more and more on fancy "recycling systems" which allow us to juggle game resources in busy areas. This lets our designers pour lots of content in a single area while still allowing the game to perform well on lower-end hardware. Unfortunately we managed to hit a maximum memory limit for spirits in Aviary juuust as we pushed the last patch, and the poor Traveling Spirit was sacrificed by the game engine to ensure the game didn't crash. 🔥We fixed the spirit prioritization issue as soon as we found the bug, but it was a smidge too late for the patch cutoff time. 😔

We thank you for your sacrifice, Timid Bookworm 🙏 Don't worry, you can still find the Traveling Spirit safe and sound in Home, where the game engine hasn't hit the same limit. You can find the meditation circle to Home near Aviary's entrance. ✌

(Also I find it funny that we have a bug with Timid Bookworm… wait, are worms 'bugs'? I'm an engineer, not an entomologist… 😌 help)

[rise-my-angel]

Shadows of Mandalore

Pairing: Din Djarin x Female Reader, Boba Fett x Female Reader

Length: 20k

Warnings: A/b/o (alpha beta omega dynamics), omega reader, not a poly relationship, angst/hurt comfort, mentions of past trauma, mentions of slavery, smut, oral (f and m recieving), p in v, anal play, anal sex, dirty talk via communicator, slight degradation, one mention of name calling during sex (consensual), m/m/f threesome, no m/m dynamics

Notes: Takes place during the span of episodes 5, 6, and 7 of The Book of Boba Fett.

Perhaps many years ago this vast expanse of darkness below would have been frightening. Now though, you came with the safety that those other then yourself had your back. The fade into what you couldn’t see reminded you of the vast crevasses you had been told to avoid as a child. The elders insisting you went nowhere near where the world split, but your father whispering promises of teaching you not just how to cross but to climb. Such lessons never happened, and so for a long, lonely time you continued to go nowhere near such deep falls. 

By your side however, there was more than just the promises of your long forgotten father. The pair behind you kept far away enough to watch but not listen, but one of them no doubt would not only dive off to catch you but climb up in no time. Both would, but you felt Din’s eyes trained on your back at all times. Even if he was turned to speak to Paz, never once did he not have you somewhere in his sights. Both men watching respectfully, but gave the space and distance commanded by the woman beside you. 

The Armourer sat next to you at the edge of the platform, having requested she speak to you and you alone before discussing thing’s further with those of her covert. Only somewhat taller then you, she still seemed to tower over you with bulk and authority. The fur around her shoulders and helmet designed like that of horns still intimidated you as much now as it did the first time. Sitting next to her, legs crossed as your heart beat a tinge faster, you wondered if her silence was because she sensed it. 

“You were a slave before meeting Din Djarin were you not?” There had been hints of amusement and closeness when speaking to her kind, but the formality of a leader returning with you only adding to the strange worry that you still didn’t belong. You stared out into the darkness as you nodded. Not wanting her to pick up on your insecurity. “And yet you haven’t returned to Werda since being freed.” 

It was either curiosity in her voice or a judgment, a tone you doubt even without the modulator you would be able to ascertain. Your only memory of the place now was of that night. The cracking split in the cliff side and ship so large it looked as if it was rising out of the caverns below, there was painful silence for just a moment until it boomed and lights flew from the ships interior until there was nothing left in your young understanding but fire and screams. 

There was pain in being taken from your home, your family. But where Din’s loss ended in the arms of a people who formed the brave and valiant family in place to heal. You were ripped from a home you didn’t know much about, and tossed into the hands of others with a brand that you still felt the phantom burning of on your neck. 

Omega’s were rare now. Uncommon in the galaxy, and once thought to be extinct amongst Mandalorians. From an isolated childhood to a life of slavery, finally thrusting into the vast world of the very people you heard so much about as a child. You didn’t know what confused you more. Your own presentation as an omega, or the strange fascination different Mandalorians seemed to have with such a presentation.

Din knew there was nothing left of what he called home if he were to travel back, but you didn’t know what was even left behind. Swallowing harshly, you kept your jaw set and forward. “My home, they were killed that night, or they moved on in fear. Either way I would have no way of knowing where to even find them. We didn’t stay in once place if there was trouble, but I don’t even know where home was when they took me.” 

A silence passed between you before she found her voice again. “Keeping in small numbers while hiding to protect those small amounts. An interesting trait for those who claimed to stray far from The Way.” 

Head turning to her slightly, you felt something reach within you as if trying to shield a truth that’s wanted to make itself known for a while now. Your unsure silence spoken as a prompt for her to continue. “Omegas exist outside of Mandalorians but it was with us that their numbers prospered. A presentation once treasured but whose numbers disappeared some time before the Great Purge. Whomever was left, all but perished along with our home world and for some time none of us knew where the remainder had been taken.” 

A sinking feeling in your stomach felt like a powerful weight slamming into it. The shock and surprise of the pirates who stole you from your home, and the scramble to sell you to the highest bidder. 

“Until an omega was rumoured to have shown up on the slave trade after Werda was invaded. A planet many of us thought to be abandoned along with much of The Mandalore System. Hiding our own kind in plain sight.” 

Were you not sitting, hands already wrung together and hidden away in your lap, the shaking may have become painfully clear. Your jaw clenched tightly as the only tone coming from your mouth was that of a whisper. You knew the truth of history, yet the disbelief of stories told as a child fought strongly with that. “No, we went to the Mandalore system after you abandoned it, because you wouldn’t look where you left behind.” 

A creak of distraught peeked into your voice, but neither it or your words offended her. “Who is more likely to be telling the truth, omega. If it is the stories told to you as a child, then you wouldn’t be here right now, would you?” 

Of course it was a stretch, did you truly ever believe the opposite when since day one you had trusted Din and his people more than anyone in your life before. “You said Werda was hiding your own kind, you mean-”

“Mandalorians.” Her head turned slowly to yours, her voice as sure and as absolute as ever. “Or, those born to Mandalorians. Stashed away to keep their omega’s from the very kind of Mandalorians they deemed dangerous for simply putting faith in The Way.” 

You thought of that, even now. The possible truth that the Elders of your home lied of the past and destroyed access to the outside world just to keep it that way. Even now as you walked through the hanger, your mind replayed her final words to you. 

“You are bonded to him,” nodding to Din, “and we are not to disrespect the bond between mates but know this, omega. His transgressions are not yours. You need not swear the Creed to have a place amongst us. An omega born to Mandalorians such as us will always be welcome here should she choose so.” 

Both you and Din had far too much on your minds to even know where to start with the other, and least of all to discuss out in the open as you both were stuck travelling. There were people everywhere, and the transport ship in sight was even less viable as an option. 

Little had been said since leaving the covert, but Din kept you close. A hand on your lower back or keeping you more firm at his side than normal, the spiralling whirlwind of emotions no doubt his was picking up on but also for himself. 

The Armourer had given you a place with their people in the same encounter she told Din, that he had lost his. There was a path to redemption, one that neither of you knew where quite to start but the road there would not be felt likely in his heart. 

Paz spitting he was an apostate, while the Armourer forced herself to stand collected and provided a redemption, but it did very little to settle the fiery conflict the deceleration put within him. You had gently slipped your hand into his, fingers wrapping together, making sure that this not a loss of everything. 

Din had turned to you, back to his people as he cupped your cheek with his other hand. Just like always, you met his eyes through the blackness of a visor and he found unwavering solidarity in your togetherness. He didn’t have nothing, there was still you. For now that would be enough to prevent his mind from falling apart in just another way. 

You both felt the frustration too. All of your belongings now sat either on Din’s person or in the bag wrapped across your shoulders that once held the other piece of your hearts. No home, no child, and now, Din being casted out, an apostate despite the very reason for his sacrifice being for his foundling. A part of their Creed which was supposed to be the most important thing to protect. 

He understood the gravity of what he did, and regardless of how you felt about the repercussions it was still important to him to fix. Something of his identity that through meeting Mandalorians of other kinds, still was part of who he was and wanted to be. You both would fix this, but it was hard to do that in your current situation.

Especially when that situation involved a droid falling it’s alarm that only tripped after you and Din crossed it’s path. Turning back it sat amongst a security luggage port, sticking out a key card telling you to remove your weapons. 

Both of you turning in place to walk towards it, Din was already agitated let alone being yelled at by a machine. “I’m a Mandalorian, weapons are part of my religion.” 

Coming up beside him, you could see eyes on the large man in full armour with worry as if they weren’t regularly surrounded with far more and far worse people who didn’t have the respect and restraint that Din has. “If you wish to discuss this with my supervisor, I will gladly book you on tomorrow’s flight.” 

Sharing a glance between you, a fight with an even more frustrating droid and being stuck here overnight looked even less appealing. Snatching the card from it, Din opened the secure storage, turning to you with a hand outstretched. 

The small blaster wasn’t exactly the best, nor was Din really even happy that you needed one but without the Razor Crest it was a compromise. Tossing it in, he already begun moving onto his arsenal. You remembered the first time you saw the extent of weaponry he kept on his person, yet now you could almost predict what he’d reach for next without looking. Putting it all back though, was going to be a much bigger annoyance then taking it off.

Stepping to his side, Din pulled out the Darksaber. Looking completely unremarkable in it’s deactivated state, but one of the only things that connected you both to that day Grogu left. Sparing a look at the other, you raised your eyebrows with a little tilt of your head in hesitancy.

Din didn’t have a choice, but it certainly felt odd putting a weapon of such apparent importance into a security luggage some droid was going to toss into the cargo. Pulling the card out, Din pointed at the little droid. “I know everything that’s in there.” 

“Proceed.” 

You didn’t know why, but the light hearted tone of it’s response to a threat, made you smile. An act that had Din looking at you curiously, but in an impossible to determine way. His hand returned to your lower back as you entered the transport making your way to whatever seats they booked you in. 

Gesturing you to go in first, you took the bag off your shoulders, letting it hang off the edge of the armrest next to the wall. Eyes shutting with a huff, you let your head rest back for just a moment as you felt Din move in next to you. 

It was those quiet times in the cockpit of the Razor Crest that you and Din felt the most connected. A long way to travel with the peace of just the two of you interspersed with a baby wanting in on the affection. Many times Grogu would end up on Din’s lap, venture over to yours for a while and then back to Din when he wanted to sleep. 

It was those moment’s you felt that bond the Armourer spoke of. Technically you and Din weren’t mated, but your souls reached for one another in instinct at all times and kept any from stealing you away. It was more quiet now though. An unspoken you always felt.

Din able to retain his alpha, knowing it would calm whatever senses your omega had the potential of putting off to much. Feeling his gaze, you opened your eyes to turn and look up at the man already watching you before a child turned in the seat in front of you. 

Curious gaze looking at Din in the same childlike wonder Grogu would often do. The little wave he did and the nod Din gave the kid back pulled too much at your heart. The kid looking nothing like yours but the feeling persisted of how much he was missed. 

It must have gotten stronger, because you suddenly felt a wave of calm splashing onto you from Din as he brushed your knuckle with a few fingers to catch you, voice little more then a whisper. “Cyra’ika,” You must have made Din feel more distressed then you were actively realizing. His touch moving then to brush against your cheek as he leaned in. Forehead not quite touching yours, “How long has it been since you’ve slept.” 

Eyes drooping a slight as you leaned into his hands touch. “Since before the bounty?” 

Smirking at how instantly Din sighed, you shrugged one shoulder. Neither of you slept well since the light cruiser. “I’m not even going to bother pointing out how many days ago that was.” Sliding his touch to under your chin, pushing you to look up at him. “You should try while we’re on here. It’ll be a bit before we get to Tatooine.” 

Narrowing your eyes you grasped his hand, pulling from your chin to keep in your lap. “What about you?” 

His chuckle was light enough that no one but you could have picked it up, making you pout a tad as he pulled away from your lap to slide it up behind your neck. Firmly yet soothingly holding you close to him. “I will, I promise.” 

His hand pulling you to rest gently on his shoulder, knowing that you liked the coolness of the beskar on your skin lately. You had been running hotter the past few weeks, and with little chances to lay together and surround yourself with Din’s even warmer body heat, you took advantage of the beskar’s temperature. 

Din waited until you were asleep to pull out the wrapped cloth. The shirt forged from the spear he used to rescue Grogu. A fitting transference if you asked him. If he squinted, Din could almost see the shape of his head and large ears in the wrappings, but it also certainly was just the loneliness without him pulling at his heart. 

You had each other, but missing Grogu was something else entirely and it left a painful void. He tried to keep the subject from you, Grogu was his and their clan was made just with the two of them, but you were just as important to it. An honorary member turning it to a clan of three that you insisted wasn’t true. You always wanted to keep a distance. Fearing your attachment would come across as trying to invade on their space despite how much both parties wanted you too. 

Your distress at his leaving was more evident, everything you felt lately was more intense. Screaming to the surrounding people that you were omega in distress and Din put forth everything in his power to keep you calm and safe in his arms. Even the rising level of your body heat was concerning to Din. He knew you tried to hide it, but he scanned and checked your vitals through his visor more then you knew, even before you joined him. 

Finding himself scanning you to ensure you were alright and safe between visits to Navarro. It was there he noticed your former slavers brand was red inflamed. You had been working on removing it, but it was leaving a new scar on your neck at how viciously you scrubbed it away. 

He bought bacta specifically for it, telling you to use it before bed and not to touch your fading brand until it was healed entirely. He protected you just like that now, even if it meant keeping both of your pains quiet. The first night you two were together was after Grogu had left, and the feeling off ripped away loss send you hurling towards a stress induced heat. 

Your presentation had never quite gone back down after your heat ended. Like you were stuck on the verge of another, but kept rooted to the ground by Din’s soothing presence and the command of his alpha. He hoped seeing Grogu would be good for you, even if it would still mean leaving him once more.

You didn’t allow yourself a goodbye. Turning your gaze away to leave the moment to them alone, and from the distance he felt more torn apart inside at how raging your omega screamed. Letting what you subconsciously saw as your own kid, just be taken away after everything to rescue him. 

Maybe that’s why Din was handling it just the slightest bit better, he felt Grogu’s gentle touch on his cheek and their eyes on each other until they were no longer together. You didn’t let yourself have that, and if Din wasn’t also fighting this internal struggle of what his people now saw him as? This would be easier for you to handle, but the two of you had too much stolen from you and what to show for it? 

No home, no child, just a weapon that held a responsibility Din had no interest in. Tatooine wasn’t a great place, but maybe enough familiar faces to ease both your pains for even a little while. 

Leaving the artificial light of the transport into the blistering suns masked by nothing but the sand below had you squinting walking off the ramp. Throwing the bag back over your shoulder you remembered the last time you were actually on this planet. 

For the first time since you begun travelling with them, it was the first time anyone outside of Din had given you any kind of flirtatious attention that wasn’t dripping with a creepiness. Cobb Vanth was more chatty then you were used too, and honestly? Having a man smile charmingly at you like that almost felt as unusual as it did somewhat flustering. 

Sitting around a fire, Grogu had been happily plopped down between Din’s feet to sit closer to the fire occasionally climbing gently over his boot to glance over at you, only to find you looking right back. A little game between you and him, who caught who staring first and who would be the first to look away. 

One of the Tuskens had made a rather loud noise to another, breaking Grogu’s concentration and giving ample opportunity for the Marshall to whisper yours over onto him. “You know, I was wondering if I could see the resemblance, but some kids just take more after their father’s don’t they?” 

A hint of a smirk formed as you turned yourself to look at him properly, your voice an inch lower. “Or maybe all those years in the sun just means you don’t see too good.” He chuckled, but it wasn’t as deep and warm as Din’s, though it was odd you’d compare. 

He was quiet for a moment, watching you sip the odd liquid the Tuskens had given you all and it also didn’t feel as nice when Din quietly watched you. Though, you figured it at the least was better then the annoying feeling when it was Calican watched you. Acting as if cocky spunk would endear you to him. “The kid’s his. That much is obvious, now you got me wondering where you fit into all this exactly.” 

Cobb had meant it as a genuine question. A Mandalorian shows up demanding the return of the Marshall’s bought armour, has a very small baby in toe with big ears and curious wide eyes, and you by his side. Not a bounty hunter, nor a Mandalorian, and what Cobb knew all to well was the faded mark of a slave brand on your neck healed out to almost nothing. He was interested in this strange trio that walked into his town and rallied the what he normally felt was a group of dangerous creatures together for a common goal. 

To you? It felt much like then Xi’an asked you the same thing. Only she meant it with malice.  A judgment upon your person that even worse, was extended to the kid. A kid that they sent their bug droid to kill just for being associated with Din. She was the first one who made you question if you belonged with these two. 

Cobb didn’t mean it that way, but you felt it. And surprisingly, so did the kid in question. Grogu at some point had found himself up on Din’s lap. Little hand reaching over to you with a grumble as if upset you were too far away. The man beside you chuckled more, “Just like me as a boy, could never go too long without his mama’s attention.” 

Your heart lept at the word, but quickly Din had scooted over to get your side pressed up against his. Grogu crawling half into your lap before falling over and letting out a half purr half grumble. Din’s voice was in your ear this time, and the warmth filling your veins brought calm to your memory once more. “I’d suggest you hold him a while, but I have a feeling he’d just get upset all over again.”

Hand reaching down to trail softly over his ear, you smiled. Not that you could sense it quite yet, but Din smiled at the sight just as brightly. “Maybe we spoil him too much.” 

A gloved hand reached down to grasp at Grogu’s little hand, baby fingers wrapping around one of his while the remainder covered it entirely in the leather. “Spoiling was when you spent the last of your earnings on that plush instead of that drink you enjoyed.” Din had geared you towards a specific vendor one day, hoping you’d catch the sight of the man selling this strange dark blue drink you loved only to stop at Grogu cooing. 

You had turned to look at him, sat happily in the bag Din kept on him and his big eyes trained on a brown frog plush, a bit on the rough side and just short of his own height. Naturally, you folded instantly. 

Now though, it was just one of the very little items you had left. Din kept the metal ball on him, and you kept the plush frog in the bag once for Grogu himself. The droid at the security station was in far worse condition. Paint chipping and it’s voice box stuttering and movements lanky. It didn’t feel as welcoming as the memory you sank into just seconds before. 

Headed towards the main part of town, thing’s didn’t appear to be in quite as working order as you expected. Nothing was occurring, but there was a quiet unsure feeling among the people like waiting for violence. Din, naturally, kept you pressed almost right as his side until Peli’s hanger approached. 

“Where’s your unlikely companion?” As instant as you froze up in place, Din’s alpha reached out to tame the rising flames before they could spark more. The way he could command your presentation without speaking were it from anyone else, would be alarming. 

“I returned him to his own kind.” 

Peli’s response though, almost cracked something akin to a smirk. “Why the hell would you do that? I could have good money off that thing.” 

Pushing past the dryness in your throat, you turned your head to her. “Pretty sure keeping a baby for just a petting zoo is illegal.” Her head turned to look over at you, the little glint in your eye much easier to read then the stillness of the Mandalorian few were used too. 

Shaking her head with an amused smirk of her own, “It’s not illegal. Just morally dubious. Besides, those big bright eyes would have made me a killing.” 

Approaching something covered in a sheet in her hanger, you and Din paused to glance at one another hesitantly. You weren’t a ship expert but something tells you she had a completely different plan then what she called you both for. “Ready to have your mind blown?” 

Well, that wasn’t really the word. More confused, at least Din was more straight forward. “Where’s the Razor Crest?” 

“I never said I had a Razor Crest, I said I had a replacement for the Razor Crest.” The more you looked at it, the more interested you became. The general design looked familiar but not in a way you would have seen out in the open space. 

The two of them went back and forth for a bit, Din saying “This is a pile of junk.” and Peli trying to sweeten the deal with promises of modification and big game about it being a Starfighter used by some Naboo Queen. Pacing around it, you think you may have read a book with something like this in it. 

Early on, you had started reading up on ships and internal ship mechanics trying to prove yourself useful to Din beyond just watching Grogu. Starfighter’s were in that text somewhere that pinged at your vauge memory. Something you actually know about in a way that’s helpful, finally. 

“I’m telling you Mando, you gotta believe me. This is a classic.” 

While she had inadvertently knocked a panel right off it’s loose hold, you turned to Din from where you stood by one of it’s engine thrusters. “What if we fix it first?” His head tilting, you started gesturing around it. “I mean, we’ll need to fish around for parts, but it doesn’t look salvaged, more like it’s just been stripped.” 

You felt a shiver at his silence, glancing around before backtracking. “Just, I mean it’s not what we wanted, but if we can get it to work,” 

Peli’s high pitched voice yelled out as she pointed to you, “That’s when, not if, missy.” 

Smirking slightly, you raised your hand sin defence. “When we get it to work,” You moved back closer to Din a little unnerved at his silence. “You get to keep all your weapons on you in a Starfighter at least.” 

Could you see under his helmet, you’d see the amused yet done look on his face. Peli, a scrappy friend who was the hardest person outside his clan to say no too. Then there was your hopeful look, and an understanding that you had perked up at the idea of working on the ship for the first time in weeks. 

It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it was a temporary one that seemed to brighten your face. Glancing up at it, then down to you, your eyes wide and mouth slightly parted in hope. “Fixed up it’ll sell for more then we paid.” 

Peli had a protest to it, but the excitement in your eyes was just the right amount for Din. Hanging your bag up on the wall, you grabbed a pair of gloves and all three of you had some work to do. Peli disappeared to start on looking for certain parts, leaving you and Din in the peaceful quiet. 

Seamlessly working back and forth, interspersed with the goofy little droids that astounded you that they knew how to do anything. But they made you smile sometimes, and hey, five times out of ten, they passed you the right tool. You didn’t even know where to start on the Jawa’s, or more accurately, whatever strange arrangement she had with them. 

You were behind the ship, hands deep in one of the still stripped open panels with half the wiring either missing entirely, or hooked up wrong. “I dated a Jawa once.” Your head flying up, the dead silence Din gave her contrasting Peli not even considering the oddity of what she just said. An R5 unit passing by you, bleeping and shaking from the scavengers still hovering the area. 

Side eyeing it, you just shook your head muttering, “Trust me, buddy. Getting stripped for parts is the least of your worries out there.” Turning away it bumped into you slightly by accident, jostling you forward as one of the open wires sparked. Zapping at your fingertips, one hand gloveless just to have fit your hand through. Pulling back with a quiet hiss, you shook your hand and sat back on your knees. 

Pressing the heel of your palm into your forehead, the warmth came now from beside you not just within you. Peeking to the side, Din kneeled by your side, his hand outstretched towards you. “Here, let me see.”  Handing him the tool but he didn’t take it, just looked at you. “Not that, cyra’ika. Your hand.” 

Dropping it, you hesitated for just a moment ultimately knowing Din would just yank it towards him if you refused. Palm up, he traced your fingers up and tickling the soft sensation. You shrugged not yet brave enough to look at him. “Just a zap, it’s fine.” No words, he looked you over until the image of just dirt and small, older scrapes covered it. But he didn’t give it back. Sparing a look around the room, Peli was no where. “Din.” 

He himself sighed, shoulders dropping in exhaust that had you yearning for the privacy to help wring tension out of. “Sorry, I know. I just-” 

What he expected out of you was not what you had either. “Maybe you should go without me.” 

Helmet snapping up to you, a surge of paralyzing disbelief rushed forth into you. Trying to slip your hand back, Din in fact, yanked you right back into his touch. His heart pumping silence demanding an elaboration. 

Stammering you felt far less confident in this idea then you had when it arrived as a fleeting thought. “I just mean, this means a lot to you two and I wasn’t even there from the beginning,” Din said your name in warning, and pulled you further into him just as you unconsciously fidgeted too far from his comfort. “I just shouldn’t-” 

Peli’s voice rang out higher then both of yours could possibly dream of combined. “I don’t know why you’re always in such a hurry. Build me a ship, fix my blaster holes.” 

Her interruption granting just enough surprise from Din to slip out of his grasp, pushing up from your thighs and walking around the ship the long way from him. “Find us a ship is different then build me one, Peli. Besides we’re the ones doing all the work.” Gesturing to the slowly standing Din. 

Waving her hand at you, “All the work? Trust me, dealing with a bunch of eager Jawa’s always asking me out is hard work, believe me.” The funny thing about Peli is either she didn’t see your narrowed brows as you stared confused at her because it didn’t matter, or she did and ignored it. “You’d know what I’m talking about if you didn’t have a human sized massiff glaring down your potential suitors.” 

Voice flat as ever, one hand on his hip Din just stared Peli down until she threw her hands up in bemused defeat. Not before mockingly covering her mouth and leaning into you, “All alpha’s this protective or just the Mando variety?” 

There was a joke somewhere deep within you, but it was hard to get out at Din’s stare. It wasn’t something you came too lightly, but more and more you couldn’t help but feel this pull of failure that permeated every conversation or thought of Grogu. Not that you’d say it, but you somehow felt like a disworthy omega. Not even given herself the chance to say goodbye to her child and now lacking the ability to comfort the loneliness and dark pain creeping into her mate. 

Or supposed mate, in this case. Kicking nothing at your feet, it became too hard to face that reality the closer the ship was to finished. That was the plan, see Grogu once the ship is acquired but maybe you didn’t deserve it. Grogu was Din’s, his foundling. Not yours. Just a tag along that accidentally fit a nice role of doting omega that now wandered the galaxy lost and without use. 

Tension between you and Din was palpable. His eyes on you at all times the second they were anywhere but the ship. Yours, never met his back. Even through the visor, you found his his eyes perfectly every time. Even his covert making mention of the ease in which you spoke to them like the helmet was just who they were like your face was. 

By the time the Jawa's returned, you had been crouched by a panel away from the door. Knowing both by the quick scramble of small feet and R5 shaking like the least brave droid in existence. Catching it’s attention, you inhaled and exhaled with dramatic movements. But the droid just beeped more. 

Never met a droid that was such a baby before. 

Din’s voice rang out through the hanger. “Where did they get a cryogenic density combustion booster?” 

“Do you really wanna know?” 

Sounded like a fair question, neither you or Din had found the Jawa’s holding a favourable track record of being in the ownership of things belonging to him, or Fett for that matter. A thought that sparked in your head and begun plotting itself out..

“They said they crawled under a Pyke spice runner and crimped it off while they were refueling. Gutsy little fellas.” Hands pausing mid movement, you turned your head just enough to hear her the slightest bit clearer. “Let me tell you something, Pykes do not mess around. Ever since they've been moving spice through the system, everything's gone to hell. Everyone's afraid of 'em and law enforcement won't even go near 'em.” 

Eyes glazing over, you bit part of your bottom lip as you lost yourself in wonder. Things around here looked calm, but that might be in part of fear of what may come through. You’d had enough encounters both with their kind, and that of spice runners in general. Their work and cooperation with the slavers trade were synonymous with one another. Many people you had seen sold off in favour of high quality cut, but not you it seemed. No spice was worth selling an omega until an even greedier profiteer came along with a heftier offer.  

Gears turned, but perhaps ones which wouldn’t make Din very happy. What did though, was how gorgeously fast the Starfighter was. You watching from a view point separate from her hanger, the machine flying through the sky with impressive skill. Peli leaving the field test over to you, saying something about cleaning up after them, either her droids or the Jawa’s who knows.

He unbeknownst to you, could hear the joy in your tone along with the smirk on your face more akin to proud them smug. “How’s the handling?” 

“A little bumpy,” the slight echos of control switches flipping on his end, “let me open her up.” 

The speed catching attention of those on the street’s below, you felt something shiver down your spine without recognizing it. Nor that your tone felt much raspier to his deeper one. “Controls are more sensitive then a Razor Crest, going to have to ease me into this one.” 

It didn’t translate through both the communicator, or the modulator on his helmet but there was a shift in his seat and a grunt along with a more boiling point of his blood before he spoke. “I’ll be gentle. Don’t you worry mesh’la.” 

Face flushing, he called for you again. “Talk to me, sweet girl tell me how I’m doing.” 

If he was doing this on purpose that was unfair. You squirmed in your seat along with a tightness in your chest that felt more thrilling than was appropriate for being alone in a friends control bay. Swallowing your tone down, you shook your head. “Manoeuvrability looks good, take it through Beggar’s Canyon so I can see the navigational stats.” 

Still learning how to read navigational equipment outside of the Razor Crest, you squinted as you watched it coming through, putting together the pieces in your head. “That’s better, you look good out there.” 

“Says the pretty girl giving me orders.” The deepness he spoke in was intentional, it had to be. There was a silence in your bones as he chuckled. The communicator making it feel deep in your chest. “There we go, nice and tight.” 

You barley registered what he was actually doing on the Starfighter, the communicator holding tight in your grip. “What’s an omega got to do to get an alpha to talk to her that way?” 

Oh Din could dish it, but he could not handle hearing it back right in his ear like that. He groaned shamelessly, coming at you like a warning. “Mesh’la..” 

Pushing up from the chair, you braced a palm on an empty space of the control board, far too warm for your own good. “No, please I understand. She’s sleek and gorgeous, I’ll give you space.” Din muttered something in Mando’a that you didn’t know. “I’ll meet you back down there, okay? Treat her gentle.” A quick glance back up to where nothing was visible anymore, you sighed out clicking it off. 

The trek down to the outside wiping away the fluster in your heart, glad this was working out at least in the meantime. Looking around you saw the hanger closed up oddly enough.  Hopping down the final step, you closed the door behind you looking over at the woman with her hands on her hips looking up much like you had chasing a ship too fast to spot. 

“Peli?” 

You jumped back as she did, her hand on her heart as she walked over to you. “Maker, you think that man gets himself into enough trouble, now he’s got people stopping by here looking for him.” A breathless rant you stepped closer to her, hands up almost trying to bring the manic down a tinge. 

“I was gone for less than ten minutes, what happened?” Watching her shake her head, she dramatically inhaled and let it all back out before nodding to the closed doors. 

“Someone came looking for him, both of you. No idea how they knew either of you were in my business but I locked ‘em up in the hanger. Figured Mando’s more equipped for that than you or me.” 

Glancing over, you watched the closed doors for a moment with narrowed eyes until you heard the sleek sounds of the Starfighter back in atmosphere. You and Peli backing up to give him space, it landed like nothing. Peeking inside, Din made it look easy enough but you had a distinct feeling getting used to this one wouldn’t be as easy as before. 

The Razor Crest was a gunship, but more forgiving to pilot. Peli meeting him with amusement in her own voice. “How was it?” 

Din glanced at the pair of you, making Peli cheer to herself as you grinned. “Wizard.” He climbed out of the seat as you walked over, leaning on the side to look over days worth of work. His tall frame loomed over you, were he not in public you’d have felt his hand tilt your chin up to look at him. Instead he stood as close as he could get away with, a strong scent of his inner alpha radiating your senses. 

Your eyes a little dumbfounded at how strong he smelt and how small it made you feel, in a way you wanted more of. “I know it’s not what we wanted, but it’s something, right?” Before he could respond, Peli came back over. 

“Oh, someone claiming to be a friend of you two dropped by.” Holding her hands out, she switched her tone. “Don't worry. I told her I didn't know where you were. Then I locked her in and engaged the hangar security system.”

“She tell you her name?” 

Before anyone said another word, they did for you. “Fennec Shand.” Spinning around, you saw her sitting up on a tricky hanger ledge with a smirk. Hopping down each one, you felt a real grin forming as you and Din met her halfway. “By any chance you looking for work? The pay is good.” 

You could feel even just still beside him, Din’s hovering presence the second anything switched to business. Especially lately. “What’s the bounty?” Being tossed the pay, neither of you even glanced at it’s contents. 

Fennec shook her head, “No bounty, we need muscle.” 

Now the dots made sense. The Pykes, the strange aura of the city streets. Boba Fett challenged the leadership in a different kind of way, no doubt such a name and conquered title would set forth an a new challenger to test it. “Fett’s after the Pykes?” 

Her sharp gaze nodding at you, “Encroaching on his territory. He sure would appreciate it.” 

Neither you or Din had to even look at one another to feel your answers. It wasn’t often Din was shown fair and unselfish loyalty and neither he or Fennec needed to help you when going after Moff Gideon. But they did, and you felt that connecting chain tighten in agreement between you and Din. Tossing the pay back, he was absolute. “Tell him it’s on the house. But first,” 

If he felt that strength of understanding between you go slack, he said nothing until the three of you parted ways. The walk back to the hanger where your stuff hung was painfully quiet and he didn’t deserve this strange silence over something he likely wanted you to look forward too. 

But if Din was straight forward with you, so would you be in return. “Din, I’m not going.” 

He stopped right in his step, turning back to you almost as fast as the very ship you watched sail in the sky. His tall frame hiding the brightness of the sun but leaving your shadows feeling intimidated. “Oh I hear you the first time. What the hell do you mean you’re not going?” 

You opened your mouth to speak but nothing came from it as people passed by in the area. Din noting the same, pulled you to the side of the building all but crowding you against it. Trying to pull himself down, his tone turned sweet but you were faster to get it all out. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go with you. To see Grogu.” Your throat closed up, and your hands trembled at your sides. 

Din slightly leaned back, his voice in quiet disbelief. “Mesh’la why would you-”

Crossing your arms across your chest you shook your head. Sinking in on yourself as the wall served as something of a backrest. “He’s your foundling. Not- not mine. You were the one he said goodbye to, I just don’t think I should be there. It’s..between you two.” 

No longer caring of the sight, Din finally captured your chin in his fingers. “Why would you think that?” 

Truthfully you didn’t quite know. Something inside your chest clawed at you and it bled into your lungs until the air felt too strained to breathe. Your arms hung uselessly at your side wishing that you could just hide in his chest like you could before. “I- The Armourer called you a clan of two. Not three. And I guess...I just think there are things you two should do just with each other, without me tagging along.” 

His head leaned into yours, voice tighter then normal as his grip did the same. “You are not just tagging along. You belong with me. With us, you’re apart of our clan.” 

But were you? That first night, those first few days once Grogu was gone. You and Din spent that time together and isolated, your heat had sped into you full force and it’s strength sent his own rut slipping over the edge. So much of those few days you spent in the others bare arms. Blindfolded you felt every touch of his lips, the hot air from his breathe as you freely raked through the lush hair and scratching ones on his face. 

Then the days were over, and the reality of having no home and no child felt painful. You clung to the other like never before, and it had been weeks of almost never leaving the other’s side. Perhaps a number of hours for Din to nab a bounty, but that’s it. It was just the darkness and wandering pain of you both unable to find the lives you lost and just maybe you only had that bond because he lost his other. 

You weren’t even mated. You were just an omega who followed him around the galaxy, it was Grogu, his very foundling that was the love of his life. A truth you never questioned but maybe it was a role that you shouldn’t intrude on. Maybe your place was just this. An outlet for an alpha who was desperate to not lose everything. So you were a body to keep safe. 

You wanted to shake, cry, plead your sorrows, but none came. Just a far off stare, watering in your eyes that were his helmet reflective you’d be forced to stare back at yourself and not the blackness. “You’re a Mandalorian, and he’s your foundling. Just because I’m an omega doesn’t mean I’m one of you.”

Hands drifting up you traced over the Mudhorn on his shoulder. That’s where their clan was created, it wasn’t the day he went back for him on Navarro and took on a stray. “It doesn’t feel right.” 

Capturing your hand in his, Din stared intently struggling to find any kind of word, and even worse, unable to reach your omega. You pushed him out, just to keep him from convincing you. Something you hadn’t done in a long time. “He’ll want to see you.” 

Shrugging, you faked what was likely a not very well executed expression of casualness. “He misses you more then me. He always does.” 

For a moment the both of you just stood in the streets of Mos Eisley, your hand caught in his as you stared the other down until Din broke. Leaning further, he closed the gap. Pulling you in by the back of your neck and resting your forehead against his. A shaky exhale just audible through his modulator and your own shaky one not helped as he held your connected hands over his chest plate to his heart. “This conversation isn’t over, mesh’la.” 

Nodding together, you basked in his warmth as much as you could, trying to steel the spiralling inside of you that screamed of failure. Finally nudging him lightly, you smiled up at him. “Go give the kid his shirt, you went through enough as it is to get it forged.” 

Just another list of things you and Din would have to figure out at some point. His covert. It took more then another few minutes to convince Din to leave without you. Everything deep within being an alpha saying leaving you behind like this was a bad idea. Even if you’d be perfectly safe, he refused to accept that this was you feeling perfectly normal. 

Finally returning to the Starfighter, you wrapped the bag around your shoulders once again. “You contact me if anything goes wrong.” Stopping you in place Din tilted your head up again. “I mean it, Cyra’ika. If the Pykes are as big of a problem as Peli said, I don’t want you wandering the streets alone when I’m not here.” 

Nodding, you secured the communicator on you visible for him to see. “It’ll be fine, Din. You’ve taught me well.” 

Shoulders dropping, he sighed deeply. Something muttered in Mando’a you couldn’t translate leaving his mouth as only a sliver of his alpha was allowed to seek out your comfort. His gloved hand stroked the side of your cheek before turning to hop into the pilot’s seat. Stepping back he called you before closing the top. “Tell Fett to behave himself around you until I get back.” 

Your head jolted back for a second, confused, “What?” 

If there was a smirk on his face, you heard it loud and clear. “Just until I get back, Cyra’ika.” There was little fanfare watching him take off, mostly because the Starfighter just moved at astounding speeds. It would be interesting to see what she’ll feel like with the new hyper drive. 

Tucking everything against your chest securely, you took more than a few minutes getting yourself confident enough to make the trip there. A combination of the last time you were there, it was still the days a brand sat plastered on your neck with the world muted heavily on suppressants. Also, it was the first time on a speeder bike in the drivers seat, without Din also there hands on your waist and gentle words encouraging you. 

But you were under Din’s instructions, and in terms of his protectiveness towards you, his rules were followed and you trusted them whole heartedly. So your insecurity had to be shoved down for at least a number of hours. 

At least there was significantly less risk going by yourself to what was formerly known as Jabba’s Palace this time around, all on your own. The sands of Tatooine were bright and lifeless, not much to watch your back in the kind of way ones may have in the past. 

Sat high on a ragged cliff were the highest of the towers stemming up from the hidden depths of the building below. The main entrance was just as foreboding as memory told, large and fortified to the degree you wondered if it was built such a way for posturing rather than practicality. 

Wincing as you climbed off the bike, you yanked off the old dusted helmet tossing it onto the seat as you walked up. Unsure where to even place your eyes, you debated heading around the long way for where you knew a hanger was. Just as your feet turned in place, a metal slot opened shooting out an extended arm with a circular eye glowing red at the end. 

Looking you up and down, the gatekeeper droid seemed to be scanning for weapons. Slowly, you let it watch your hand reach for the blaster at your side, holding it up by the ends away from the trigger as it considered you for a moment. Telling it your name you kept your other hand up for the droid to keep it’s eye on. “I’m here to see Boba Fett. I have business with him and Fennec Shand.” 

In an instant, the droid flew back inside and the slot slammed shut leaving you in the bright sand. A second passed as you considered what to do, when the large doors slowly rose open. Just high enough for you to walk safely under there was a Gamorrean there watching you. Jumping back you were about to bend to put the blaster down, when he barked something at you and gestured you down the vast empty corridor. 

Raising your eyebrows, you slowly brought the blaster towards your side watching the guard do nothing to stop you. Either you were already deemed welcome, or just looking at you the guard could tell you weren’t any kind of a threat to anyone inside here. 

Sheathing it, you slowly begun walking down the hall as the dim light faded along with the door lowering closed once more. The corridor itself was large, so much so that even a crowd of Hutt’s could fit themselves in no problem. Your boots barley making a sound as you walked through, trying to recall through the fog.

Following in a line should lead you to twist that narrowed down to a stairwell surrounded by blocking rocks carved around them. The activity was silent and not bustling with life as was the time you had been here. Dragged through the crowds with a chain around your wrist to keep your slaver from losing you to the wandering eyes. Not that you noticed. 

Many of your slave owners in that time kept you completely dosed. Sensing that your presentation would stir up whatever alpha’s were in the vicinity they kept you on heat suppressants for years to keep them from ever happening, which in turn, helped keep your scent dulled to that of a mild sweet scent that only the most keen of alphas may not have been able to pick up on. 

The blockers were the worst though. You couldn’t get distracted either, any incidents and you might become damaged property and what good is an omega to sell if she isn’t in pure condition. So you were muted from the world as it was to you. A dreary and fog filled mind that made the beings around you barley feel like human. The effects were worse depending on who was giving them to you, and being dragged to Jabba’s palace, you were effectively a walking sedation. 

The unaware confusion and bumps were replaced with the clarity that there was little but silence until you reached the turn leading to the main room. Slowly what sounded like faint talking, rose up to defiance and yelling. Pressing yourself against the wall, your heart sped up in your chest. The one voice was enraged, but the other was deep and scarring with absolutes. “Whatever arrangement you had with Fortuna, ended with him.”

You could hear Boba Fett further in the room, just enough solace to have you slink a number of steps along the wall before your toes reached the top of the steps. “I made a deal with Jabba, not him. But at least he had the honour to uphold that deal unlike you.”  

Peeking around the wall, you could see not much except for the shadow of a tall, lean figure that even in posture was clearly irate. Fett through his modulator was without question, the power and deepness rippled through your veins in a way only one other had done so. His voice speaking to whomever was there. “If I were anything like my predecessors, you would have been in the stomach of a rancor already for this disrespect. If you want to be treated with the same respect, earn it. Otherwise you stay at the bottom like all the others who’ve tried me.” 

Biting your lip in surprise, the other party begun taking the steps up. Slowly the red tinted scales matched the steam he no doubt wished was coming out of his ears. Kneeling down, you could see with each word he was being told, the snarl on his twisting face morphed. Hand at his own side twitching until he made it only a third of the way up.

Body stopping in place, he turned back to the main room, hand now touching the blaster at his side. A silent exhale through your nose, you very slowly took your feet down. Back pressed against the wall and each foot step slow as you matched the position towards your own weapon as your heart pounded out of your chest. 

The slimy rage coated your ears unpleasantly as you came close behind him. “Maybe this little war of yours will teach you what happens when you turn your back on your allies, Fett.” You barley felt your lungs even work, pulling your blaster out the same painfully slow speed that he was. Your eyes wide and hands trying not to shake, you took one final step behind his back. “Or I could just do it for them.” 

His hand rose up, blaster ready to fire until you rung the shot out firstt. The force jolting you back slightly, but there now was a burning hole in the Elomin’s chest. Blaster dropping from his hand to the ground, you lowered your aim. Coming up behind him, you breathed deeply before rising your boot up to kick him over out of your way. 

Him slumping over to the ground, you took the final steps down before kicking the blaster away from his still hand. Stepping over his feet, you looked up as you put your own back to see the throne room empty save for the one figure. 

Standing partway up the steps, Boba Fett stood clearly having just turned around to fire only to have seen the man slump over before. Lowering his own, your exhale was much calmer this time around as he tilted his head at you. Down a smaller corridor closer to him, Fennec appeared with her own weapon out, but with narrowed eyes dropped it just as fast at the sight. 

Her disposition changing as her eyes dragged up to you, now moving with a lighter bounce towards Boba whose stance relaxed back. “Thought you’d get here when Mando’s back.” 

Sighing out, you walked further into the room. Boots making a notable clunk as you walked along the gated doors cemented in the floor. Head turning to glance down but nothing was visible to the naked eye. “Should I leave and come back?” 

Boba chuckled, watching your curiosity with that of his own. “Nonsense. This place could use an omega, dim enough around here as it is.”

Looking back up, Boba stood on the lower level closer to you while Fennec perched herself casually on the arm of the throne. “Good to know I’m still a useful piece of decoration after all this time.” Behind you the steps of the Gamorrean filed down as he barked more into the air. 

Boba only nodding once to the body at it’s feet. “Get rid of that.” Like nothing at all, you remembered why many crime lords used them as guards. Pulling the Elomin away like it weighed nothing. Turning back to him, you almost jumped at how close he was. 

Both he and Din were far too silent for two fully armoured men of their sizes. “He said it would be safer here then back in the city.” Watching you, it was hard to assess where he stood with you. At this point you could read Din’s slight shifts as good as full sentences, but Boba Fett was still a mystery. One sending shivers down at the black visors cold stare that only intimidated you in such an enticing way back working behind the cantina bar in Navarro. 

But Boba, if you could guess anything, seemed to enjoy making you squirm under his stare. Keeping it up in pure quiet unlike Din’s change of smooth causality to relax you. “Unless-”

“He’s right. No safer place then with us, little one.” 

Eyes flickering to Fennec who watched you with a playful curiosity of her own. Strange as it was, you sort of missed her teasing yet sharp and unquestioning aura. Nodding, you readjusted your bag, if just out of fidgeting nerves. “Okay, so, uhm, what now?” 

Veins flowing with something that burned the way he stared at you, a feeling that wasn’t determined in your strange state. Broken only by Fennec coming up behind him unphased. “How about a tour?” 

Raising your eyebrows, you failed to hold back a smile. “That in your new job description?” In an exaggerated flourish with a deadpan stare she gestured you down the corridor she had come in through. Taking a second to speak quietly with Boba once you moved out of their range. Glancing around, not much had changed it seemed but it was a large room now that you stood in it so freely. 

Turning for just a second as she caught up with you, you caught his eye. Helmet turned a fraction to the side right at you, there was a wave shivering through your chest that had you swallowing nervously. A moment lasting only seconds before you let Fennec give you the run down of this place. 

By evening, the city was ramping up just as the suns disappeared and a calming night washed over the empty dunes. Despite such a high up point, the sight of the planets lands below in the dim early evening light did no such comfort, but not quite for the events to surely follow. 

Hearing the sound of armour, you perked up just as fast as you then deflated. It was of no offence to Boba, but he held a different kind of scent then Din. Just as strong, and strangely alluring but his alpha felt cooling and in control, whereas Din’s was warm and overwhelming. Your fingers twitched on the edge of the balcony as you returned to the skies.

Foolish to think he would just arrive as you seeked him out. You were the one who didn’t go with him, you had no right to miss him. For a second, the hiss of a helmet being removed startled you alert and straight. Coming down only at Boba’s light chuckle. “Didn’t think I looked that bad.” 

His voice bare sounded less scratching, more like a scarred rasp that you wondered if it was a result of the same events that left the physical ones on his face. Eyes flickering over as he came to stand next to you, you gave half a smile for as long as your energy could muster it. “Sorry. Should be used to it by now.” 

Shaking his head dismissively, his own gloved hands mimicked your position. “Nothing to be sorry for, little one. There’s few people who see me without it, but you’re welcome to be one of them.” 

It should feel like an honour, but your heart had little room. Leaning down to rest your forearms on the edge, your legs leaned back by the knee to accomodate stretching your back for a second before relaxing into the stance. There was no uncomfortable feeling in the quiet between you, but something seemed to be picking at your brain. “Your father was a foundling, right?” 

Out of your peripheral vision you could see him turn slightly to you and nod. Biting your lip for a second before continuing. “If he was a foundling, that would make you one as well. Since he raised you.” 

“Is there a question in there?” 

You inhaled your nerves, and blew none back out. “Why would Bo Katan say you aren’t a Mandalorian then? I mean,” Your hands moved to dig at the others nails mindlessly. “On top of everything else she said.” 

Suspecting he knew you were going prying for information in a much more roundabout way, you were still glad he played along. “Kyrze believes in blood supremacy. She was born to a powerful family thus she feels power belongs in her hands by birthright. Outsiders brought in are looked at as less then.” He noted the still somewhat confused narrowing look in your eyes. “I share the exact dna of thousands upon thousands of other clones. To her, my blood is as far as worthy it could get.” 

To even your surprise you jumped in before he could even finish his sentence. “But it’s not about who you’re born to, it shouldn’t matter if you’re a clone. D- Mando’s a foundling, a lot of people in his covert are foundlings they’re supposed to be treasured.” 

“Like omega’s are supposed to be.” 

Whipping around to look wide eyed at him, only to fall flat at the teasing glint in his eye. Shoulders deflating as you turned back to the view a shake of your head. Boba rested one palm on the railing as he turned towards you, mind putting your pieces together. “How about you tell me what’s really bothering you, and I can stop guessing the wrong answers.” 

A shake trembled in your neck and slid further down into your muscles. The trains of thought in your mind pathing you from grievance to grievance wondering what it was it all stemmed from and truly there was only one answer. The same answer you tried avoiding with everyone. 

Boba’s own stare weakening your resolve, forcing you to once again look back into the night for a ship that still wouldn’t come. Breathing deep for a moment before the racing of your heart got out of control. “Everyone talks about my presentation like it means something. Looking at where I’m from and telling me that they lied about where we came from or who we were when I already know that. I knew my family lied the second I was taken off world and the planets and people were nothing like the vicious monsters they made you all out to be. I thought, maybe if I could get out of this one day, finally be free to do as I please, I’d be my own person again.” 

Jaw set, you dug your nails into the harsh railing of the balcony. “But I’m still just an omega. I’m important, I’m uncommon, I belong to these people, no I belong with the people my mother was apart of, I’m supposed to be treasured as a rare commodity to Mandalorians but all I’ve done is get passed around from group to group solely beacuse of a presentation I can’t control. I’m seen as an omega, and so everyone thinks their the ones entitled to have me. Except...” 

Boba seemed to stand closer to your side now, his voice quieter but deeper as it hit your ear. “Except for Djarin.” Without committing in whole, you glanced only for a fraction to the man beside you but said nothing. “He wondered why you never asked him about you or your kind, when clearly he knew.” 

Saying nothing to answer the question he posed, it was obvious he wanted you to fill in the blanks for yourself. It was easy to strip away the barriers and see what was always there. “Because I went to him, not the other way around.” 

“To the others, you are a commodity. Who gets the omega, those her kind were stolen from or people like Kryze’s kind who wanted you out of the way in the first place.” You never did like the suspicious way Bo Katan looked at you, but Din was always there to keep you firmly at his side. "In a way you are right. There probably aren’t many people who see you as anything more then an Omega. But the ones that want you for more then that are already here. Or, in spirit.” 

His head gesturing to the night sky. Two people he meant in that case. So many people obsessed with what you were, and where you belonged or didn’t belong. Something you slowly came to realize, was a common threat amongst both Din and Boba as well. An apostate and an outcast, both alongside an omega who had no idea what her place in the galaxy was outside them. 

“What about you?” Turning your head enough to see him meet your eyes, a knowing deepness in them which you didn’t even catch in yourself. Not sure what it was you truly were asking. “You were asking me-” 

“The polite thing to do when getting to know someone is to ask questions.” Pausing, you squinted at him in slight confusion until the smirk forming on his own face made yours fall flat. “I’m interested in where you came from, because I find you interesting. Just as Djarin does.” 

Taking a step towards you, you straightened up as your lungs tightened in something feeling like a strange set of nerves, not quite stemming from intimidation. Before he found himself intimately close in your space, you found your habits slipping back. “I’m sorry. For dumping all of this on you. I just, I’m not used to being away from Mando without even having the kid, everything just feels weird.” 

Those very nerves turned into shivers flowing through your veins as Boba tilted your chin up to look him in the eye. “Nothing to apologize for, little one. You’re confused and upset,” the knuckles under your chin traced up so his thumb and brushed over your cheek, then down very gently across your bottom lip. 

You had never seen the exact look glazing over Boba’s eye in Din, but the feeling it gave you was all too familiar. The interested pull of an alpha calling to you. “Boba?” He hummed in response, “Is there a reason Mando wanted me to tell you to behave?” 

Oh the chuckle which emerged deep within his chest pulled your soul even closer in ways you once felt purposely from Din. “He sends me his pretty, little omega to protect. One who defends my honour, and opens up about what’s hurting her? I can’t imagine why he’d want me to behave myself around that.” 

His thumb pulled slightly at your bottom lip before sliding off of you entirely. Turning away to pick his helmet up, “You should sleep. Fennec will want to train you more in the morning while we have the time. Once Djarin arrives, I suspect thing’s are going to escalate rather quickly.” 

He almost reached the door by the time you called out for him, his face still just as warm as it was listening to you throw up whatever troubles brewed in your head. “Will be be mad at me? For not going with him to see Grogu?” 

Expression not changing, the quiet tenderness spoke out in his tone. “I don’t think there’s anything you could do to make him feel that way. Not with the way he speaks about you to me at least.” 

Your lips parted slightly, but he gave nothing else. Leaving the room and thrusting you back into the quiet solace of the dark windy balcony. Your brain stuck in a whirlwind. 

Sick to the stomach of feeling as if you have failed your duties as an omega to protect and support your family, but twisted over what the world wanted from you as the very same presentation. Boba’s warmth wasn’t quite the same, it would never quell the yearning to see Din again. 

But it did bring you a comfort that no one outside that little clan of two had ever provided before. If you were lost in your place in this world, maybe it meant something that the connection you felt with both men, also had their own turmoil of where and how to belong amongst their people as well. 

As it turned out, he was painfully right. Factions gathered, and the Pykes moved in quickly. Whatever negotiations their enforcer Cad Bane had assumed would take place were refused and the violence followed suit leaving little people left on your side. It was a mess, and left you feeling terribly out of your depth. 

Making it worse, you had no idea what happened on Din’s journey. Everything moved too fast and neither of you had time to talk. Just a questioning hopeful look from you, and a stilted head shake of no from Din and a sorrow sat upon his shoulders as danger loomed closer. 

Fighting ensued, and you were grateful that Fennec was a relentless mentor. Pushing you enough in the day and morning prior, building a trust that you could and would follow her lead out on the streets enough to handle yourself when she needed it. Her focus kept you focused. 

She was skilled on the sidelines, left better out the line of fire as a silent take down. A trait in which she recognized was suitable in you, even if by both your admissions, you were nothing close to a fighter. But in war, being a lesser suited follower was fine by you. 

Impossible to say how long the confrontation lasted, but the silence in the streets felt as if it was a sound you hadn’t heard in years. Leaning up against a wall, you shrugged part of your upper arm from the top of your shirt. Fennec coming to crouch at your side as you poured a bit of water of a burn striked through your skin from the dirt and sand kicked up into it. Wincing at the stinging, you glanced up to her and back. “Pretty sure only have a graze is a miracle if you ask me.” 

A slight smile on her face, Fennec reached forward to pull your shirt down better, gently taking the container to do it at an easier angle. “You did better then you think. Just because fighting isn’t your thing doesn’t mean your bad at it. You have a good teacher.” 

Smirking through the final wince as she dragged the fabric backup, “Yeah, I’ll be sure to pass the message onto Mando.” 

Briefly considering helping you up gently, Fennec resorted to just tossing the container onto your lap and standing up alone. “You always get bratty when you’re injured?” 

Throwing your head back in a laugh, you pushed yourself up with palms pressing against the wall behind you. “Maybe next time you should teach me how to do more then mouth off.”  Sharing a laugh, she led you to where the others were gathered in all likelihood. 

From a distance, you could see a rancor, flopped down on it’s side breathing heavily in sleep visible from where you were. But the image became clearer as you approached. 

In the stories of the old world your father told you, they were always grand. Powerful vivid images painting in your head from the words spun of drama and theatrics. Reunions one of those stories always told in whimsy. But there was none to be found here, not in your confused, torn heart. 

He was small, and cuddled next to the rancor on his side, but Grogu’s little green figure was easy to spot from miles away. Stopping mid step, the sights in front of you didn’t quite catch up to your brain. How was he here, Din hadn’t come back with him not by the weightful dread on his shoulders. 

Peli was also here. For some reason. Talking to the one from the meeting that you couldn’t quite tell was annoying or just a bit of a coward. The sight was unusual, but you could see the silver shining off Din’s beskar as he slowly approached the slumbering pair. Steps careful around the large creature, before kneeling down. 

His hand gently running over Grogu’s side who shifted closer into his touch. Din scooping him up in his arm to let him sleep soundly. None of them had seen you yet, and maybe you didn’t want them too. A fleeting thought that stabbed another dagger into your omega’s heart and told your conscious self that you weren’t worthy of that soft, gentle love they gave each other. 

Din’s attention was solely on the kid, cradling him up to watch him as he ran his hand over what he could get. Before you could rationalize it, you took a step back. No plan, what or where to go, but intruding on it felt wrong now. You didn’t go to see him int he first place. Why would you deserve to be apart of this reunion? 

Heart screaming to go see both of them, let yourself hold the one your soul treated as your own and the man who gave you a love once never known before. Your eyes stung like the burn on your upper arm, and before the tears could so obviously overtake you, you let them have this together. 

There was no plan in your head, just the need to get back to the palace where your stuff was and hoping reason and logic would kick in by that point. Instead all you got was more of a memory that made it feel worse. The terror of Din telling you to take the child and leave him. That he needed you, and staying here to help was futile. You could still feel the desperate way Grogu clung to you as you carried him from the room, both of you leaning into the other. Grogu’s scared and exhausted head burrowed into your front, as you looked at IG-11. 

Pleading in your gaze to fix things, you and Grogu might be able to do this together but neither wanted to do it without Din. The binding that kept you three whole. Only the memory didn’t serve as some great analogy like your father tied into his tales. 

Din and Grogu started without out, they didn’t need you. Everyone offered someplace for you to go, a purpose to serve but the only one you wanted didn’t feel as if you were worthy. You failed as an omega to Grogu, and a fierce alpha such a Din would surely admonish you it. If you thought the palace was quiet before, it was even moreso now. 

The biggest threat to his rule this far was taken care of, so hopefully this silence would turn peaceful not stay eeiry as it was now. The bag was tossed onto whatever bed you found yourself falling into the night before. Chucking your blaster beside it, you dragged your feet over. The first thing you saw though, was that silly little frog you kept for him. 

It was stupid. Din gave him what he needed, and more then plenty of what he wanted. The pieces of why Grogu found his way back to Din unknown, but you didn’t see yourself in that future. Slowly picking it up you could still see the way the kid clung it to his chest, making a content little cooing noise only to immediately get upset when you tried to get up and leave him be. How normal it was for the kid to switch between cuddling with Din and cuddling with you, and the excitement on his face when he wanted you to watch him about to do something particularly silly, usually to Din. 

Nothing had felt right since your heat had ended. Where you and Din stood was unknown, he was closer and protective of you, his touch similar to that of one bonded to you, and yet you were ummated. Just a companion who filled a painful emotional void once his son was gone, and now that they were together you failed to picture that dynamic going anywhere. 

He didn’t need to look for the Jedi now, he had enough of a ship to start making his way across the galaxy in his own quest for atonement and so your usefulness had worn out. Maybe you’d stay here if you could convince Boba you could find some way to be useful at all. 

No plan was made still. You had no idea that you even had passed out. The strenuous events of the day, the emotional turmoil of the past weeks and the fear you were no longer wanted had piled too high on the very little sleep you managed to get. 

Totally unaware of your surroundings, you weren’t at all aware of the voices in the room or the weight on the bed that joined you. In fact, such presence was only realized, when the weight on the bed seemed to jump, and land at your side with a high pitched coo. Sound increasing in distress until it was at your face and snuggled right up beside your head. 

Once your eyes fluttered open, big black ones wasted no time in realizing it. Grogu say on his side in front of you, one ear flopped out while the other sat low on his face as he reached out to you. Little hand brushing your cheek before a stubborn little noise flew from his mouth and he jumped almost with no effort right into your neck that managed to push you back. 

“Easy, Grogu.” He almost whined defiantly at the voice behind him, as he held onto you much like that very day. Following you sitting up so your back was against the wall, he started looking between you and the voice, dawning on you it belonged to Din. 

Head whipping over, Din stood by the wall underneath a window. Boba a few feet away, amused at the kid’s antics. Before you could even ask, Din stepped over, sitting down to face you on the opposite side of the bed. Bag and blaster now sat neatly on a surface opposite the bed. “I wasn’t allowed to see him when I got there, saying it was bad for his training for me to be there.” 

Instantly, your brows narrowed, but Boba interrupted right as you opened your mouth. “The real enemy to the Jedi. A loving family.” Your sleep riddled brain couldn’t decipher the double meaning in his tone, but you remembered Ahsoka telling you she couldn’t train Grogu because of how attached he was. That Din was a father to him and that somehow would get in the way. 

“Fett.” Boba raised his hands in surrender at his tone. Din turning back, watching Grogu turn his head, still wanting you to hold him but watching Din with bright affection. “I asked them to give him the shirt, and left. He was right there,” Din’s hand reached out, stroking one of the kid’s long ears making him purr into your chest. “But he came back anyways. He returned to us, of his own accord.” 

The hand on Grogu slipped up to trace over your cheek. “I thought if you could see him, maybe it would make you feel better, but maybe it was better you didn’t come. If I could barley handle it, not sure tearing an omega away from her own foundling a second time would do you any good.” 

It should have clicked that it was unusual Din was having this conversation with you, a third party in the same room. But clicking the gears in your head into place, Boba mentioned both of them had talked about you. To what extent the back of your brain was asking. 

Looking at the space between you on the sheets, just a whisper was summoned. “After everything, I didn’t think it was fair to be just as lost as you, me being upset didn’t matter as long as you were more lost.” 

Boba’s presence was felt behind you now, giving your trio space but never quite enough keep away, which was fine with you. Din leaned in, pulling the back of your neck to keep you close, resting his forehead against yours. Chuckling as Grogu leaned in, gently leaning in the middle, and leaving your touch enough to rest a hand against the side of his helmet. “Our kind belongs together, mesh’la. Not just our presentations, but us. We’re in this together. Got it?”

Biting your tongue, you forced a choking feeling back down your throat for another time. Your hand moving to cover the little one of Grogu’s on Din’s helmet and briefly, Din covered both of yours with his free one. The serene moment ruined, by Grogu letting out a yawning whine as he dropped in both your touches. 

Pulling back, you let Din pick him up. “Alright. Back to sleep, kid.” Seemingly only going into a small room attached to this one, Din chuckling at a little sound Grogu made in his arms. “I know, well this is what happens when you play with a creature eight times your size.” 

Pulling your knees up to rest your forearms over, you watched Boba with a curious look. If he was here not just now, but this whole time, the two Mandalorians must have something up their sleeve and Maker knows you have no idea what they had put together. “Is there...something feels off here.” 

His eyebrows raised in a mocking way that didn’t quite match the play in his eyes. “Only if you want it to be.” The deepness in his tone rippling through you in a way annoyingly like Dins. “It’s all up to you.” 

The sound of a door sliding shut had you looking up to Din, now leaning against the door with his thumb looped through part of his utility belt and the other resting his forearm up on the door frame. A sight that was so simple, yet heated your blood noticeably. “Am I missing something?” 

Din stepped towards you, a hand reaching out for you to take. Letting him pull you up gently, he stood tall in front of you. “I’ve been trying to think of a way to get you out of your head. You’ve been on edge since your heat, and I hate watching you this way.” 

Fingers gently reaching to brush against the cool metal of his chest plate, you shook your head indignantly. “D- Mando,” 

“You can say my name, sweet girl.” You had no idea what was going on here, but you were being pulled so close to the warmth of in’s alpha, but also, part of you in another direction. A pull that Din would be able to sense, and yet, was allowing. 

Swallowing, you didn’t realize Boba stepped closer towards you. “Din, I’ve been trying to be there for you, you don’t need to do anything.” 

“Except he does.” Turning your body partially, you felt Din’s hands fly firmly onto your waist in no time and turned you to press your back against his chest fully. Boba only a few feet away, keeping a respectable distance unbecoming of the darker look in his tone and voice to boot. “An alpha can’t ignore their omega in distress, your pain becomes his. And best be sure you’ve consumed Djarin, little one.” 

Din’s hands tightened with his voice closer to your ear. “Not just me.” 

Your Mandalorian behind you, and Boba a step closer looming over you. “What are you-” 

Din’s hands trailed up, sliding just under your shirt to squeeze slightly at the plush skin he found underneath. “You say no, and this all stops.” Apparently Din expected a response, tightening his grip as he spoke sharper. “Okay?” 

Nodding fervently at his tone, it made your head spin. “Okay.” 

Pulling you closer into his chest, Din’s rasp even behind the modulator continued to destroy something inside of you, weakening your resolve to his touch. “Let us take you, mesh’la. Both of us.” Your mouth parted slightly, eyes trapped on Boba which if you could think clearly, was likely by Din’s design. His rasping words and touch, ached still further by Boba’s dark and intimidating eyes that raked over your body. “Get you out of your head.” 

Your gaze never left Boba’s even as you tilted slightly back towards Din. “Both of you?” 

Din nodded, and so did Boba. Oh this could not be what they both discussed about you, yet here you are. Boba took his turn to make a softer case, letting your true alpha pull your senses underwater as he gently swims his way over. “The only thing anyone’s asking of you, is to let us treat you like a kind, sweet,” Each word he stepped towards you until he was in your space just inches further away then Din was to you. “Pretty, omega you are.” 

Your breathing heaved as his own gloved hand traced your bottom lip just like he did before. Din’s comment for Boba to behave. There was no way they discussed this before, and yet? The protectiveness, the possessive feeling which could consume Din at the sight of other men, another alpha looking or touching you as if you really were just property weren’t there. “But Din-”

Giving you once last reassurance. “It’s okay to say no, mesh’la. But don’t just say it on my account. I want you to want it.” 

The air was stark and silent as you contemplated what on earth you were about to get yourself into, but there was a heat radiating from within and burned almost painfully as Din touched, you pressing you against his back to where he was losing his patience to hide how hard having you pressed against him like this made him. 

Din’s own mind both needing this yet confused at why he needed this. There was an angry possessive feeling he had around you, but Boba Fett came to be someone he trusted. And someone who he could trust with you. Putting you between them and forcing this constant looming anxiety in your heart out even if just for a time. One wouldn’t be enough, but between both of them? You’d have nothing left to focus on but their touch and their words and that’s the level of control Din wanted you to give up. 

Watching Boba touch you was going to be a jealousy that he didn’t know why he was willing to handle, but just maybe it’s beacuse you didn’t get to see how you looked together. Never having the gift of sight as Din touches you, only he knew how insatiable you made him and how addictive you looked writhing in pleasure. 

And he knew, you didn’t get to look at Din as much as you wanted. Always ready to let him blindfold you like an obedient omega so make sure he can take as much as his greedy mind needed. But if Boba was there, Din could sacrifice that just this once. 

You breathed heavily as Boba brushed over your lips, and it was Din’s words right in your ear that crumbled the insecurity keeping you from letting them take you as they wished. 

“Let him kiss you, mesh’la.” Looking back at him, he pushed you forward gently. “It’s okay.” 

It was an overwhelming feeling. The guilt of such an intimate act with another man, but the purring encouragement from Din to just let yourself give up control in their hands. Your hands hovered over Boba’s chest plate, fingertips only slightly making shaking contact. 

Din behind you undoing parts of his own armour almost turning your focus before Boba tilts you up to look at him under your chin. Leaning in he gave you plenty of time to back away, brushing his nose against yours feeling his breathe on your face. 

One hand grabbing your hip, and the other keeping his hold he teased bridging the gap but never sealing the deal. Din’s voice rang out, commanding an order from deep within, calling your omega to obey. “Mesh’la.” 

Jumping in your bones, you pushed up on your toes to press your lips against Boba’s. A small sigh coming from you as your hands continued to shake despite smoothing your palms out. And as soon as you crossed that initial barrier, Boba overtook the control from you immediately. 

Comparing the two of them is impossible. They are of completely different realms in nature with their touch. Boba is like a wildfire. Bursting at the seams from the onslaught, running hot and dangerous that can consume you if you let it do so. Once in it’s trap, escape only possible if it lets you. 

Deepening the kiss, you could feel your lips swell and bruise from the rough treatment, and once he bit the bottom lip he was so enraptured with, you gasped. Not just a gentle teasing nibble like Din, no should he have bit slightly harder he would’ve drawn blood. Your gasp was as much of a whine, his hand raking into your hair and tightening his grip to continue to move you. 

His tongue brushing into your mouth, tasting your own and coaxing you to follow suit. Your hands rising to dig into his cowl as he kissed and licked into your mouth until you had to pull back for air. Grabbing both your hands he pulled them in front to the side of his chest plate. “Undress me, little one.” 

It was hard to tell if they used their presentation to command you, or if having two of them in the room like this was just turning your brain into sludge. Nodding fervently, you swallowed trying to focus hard on taking each part of his armour off with care, just like you do Din’s. Who had ideas of his own. 

Pulling you into his chest once more, only now you felt much more the softer press of his body without the coolness of the armour at his back. Slightly pouting at not being able to do it for him. Din pulled your outer layer down your arms and stood back to let you continue. 

Hesitating once his upper body was done, you look up to Boba wide eyed in question. Shaking as he nodded, raking his hand through your hair once again as you knelt down. Your body feeling like it truly was becoming surrounded by fire at how this position felt, but you made sure to take your time undoing every piece, putting it down gently to where you now could see Din’s not too far away. Stacked just the way you do it. 

Looking up at Boba, now like Din, just in his flight suit, you ran your hands innocently up the length of his calves. “May I?” Dancing up to the bottom of his shirt, Boba chuckled. Watching slowly as you stood up. Hands raising his shirt as you did so until you stood in front of him. He did no work. Watched with dark amusement as you had to lean close into him to pull it off until it was down his arms. 

Din’s touch, crowded you just then. None of the patience, Din pulled your shirt and chest band up and off in one swoop. Not yet touching you he kept his arms around you, one on your hip the other by your mouth. “Bite.” 

Gently taking the leather between your teeth he pulled it off letting you see his hand as he yanked his other glove off and gently took the other from you. Finally able to look, you realized you didn’t really get the chance to see Din the way you could look at Boba now. 

Greedily reaching to run your hands over his large chest, eyes trapped on every scar, burn, gunshot that was painted on no doubt a story to follow. You didn’t know Din’s by sight, but you knew them by touch, so you did the opposite. 

Fingers tracing only lightly across each mark as you barley blinked staring at him. The heat in your limbs travelling between your legs. Skin rough in some places and soft in others you reached down to his pants and gently tucked the seam into your fingers. Not waiting for permission, you went to slowly move when Din did the same to you. 

Yanking your bottoms down, underwear in his grasp in one go. Tossing them aside. You whined in your chest as you felt his rough hands now bare run across your skin while you gently finished undressing Boba. Another sight you never got to see, but the heat between your legs now felt much like a need. 

He was a large and thick man, in more places then one including his cock. Thick and begging for your touch it was more then half hard. His hand thumb traced your bottom lip and tugged, gaining your attention. His eyes black as anything as his face twisted in a more aggressive harshness then the soft patience before. “Small mouth to fit such a thick cock.” 

Your thighs squeezed together as you ran your hands up his thighs glancing back at his length. Shuffling closer, you reached up to run your thumb and forefinger over his leaking tip. His legs steeled in a flex at the sensation along with his muscles constricting. Running them up and down his length slightly before gently cradling him close to the base of his cock. Almost like a kitten, you licked gently over the tip. Each time slipping more of him inside your mouth. 

Knees engaged each side of you as Din’s helmet soothed your sweating skin and leaned into the back of your head. His own hands running over your thighs but much firmer then your touch. He said nothing, but the more of Boba’s cock you slipped into your mouth the more overwhelmed you felt. Boba it seemed, was just as talkative in the bedroom as Din, but with one small difference. 

Boba took pleasure in being mean, and you only got more wet the more he talked. “Djarin’s far too easy on you it seems. Go on, little one you can fit more then that.” Sliding more in, you could feel Din run down to rub gently at your clit, making you moan around Boba’s cock. 

Almost like he couldn’t help himself, he ran his fingers over your throat as you slowly took more of him into your mouth. Full and overwhelmed you felt your nerves on fire as much as the fingers on your clit rubbed harsher, pushing more pressure into you as your mouth soaked the thickness inside it. 

Head starting to bob up and down, you felt tears at the corner of your eyes as well as your heart pounding each time you tried taking him deeper. “All the way this time, that’s it.” You cried around his cock as your nose pressed against the coarse hair around his pelvis soaking as saliva built and even dipped from your mouth the deeper he kept himself in. 

Din’s touch on your clit making you burn and shake wanting so desperately to grasp onto his arms but they were firmly set on Boba’s thighs as you slid his cock in and out of your mouth. “I knew you’d have such a filthy mouth, just not such a messy one.” His fingers swiping the saliva on your skin before tipping your gaze up slightly to see your eyes fluttering. “You wet from his fingers, from sucking my cock or are you just that much of a little greedy omega?” Moaning once more you felt him throb in your mouth as you felt almost lightheaded. 

One of Din’s hands slid up, groping at one of your breasts, fingers twisting your nipple enough to make you want to arch back into his touch, but he only shushed you gently in your ear. Your breathing already strained feeling that much weaker at how much your body wanted to writhe at Din’s touch. 

“Your girl like a mess, Djarin?” 

Both of Din’s hands stopped moving for a second, like he was contemplating something before he slid his hand down, shoving between your thighs as much the angle could offer. Sliding two thick fingers smoothly into your soaked pussy he groaned just quiet enough you could hear it. The one on your breast moved down to your stomach. “No, just greedy.” 

Din’s helmet now resting on your shoulder thrusting his fingers in and out with such little resistance and every slide of Boba’s cock making you clench that much harder. Groaning louder at how much he could see your wetness from even here, his other hand stroking your stomach with his thumb. Refusing to let you wince or flinch at your insecurity. No, he wanted you on full display. 

Boba’s hand raking around the opposite side of your head he pulled you into him close as he could, feeling him twitch inside of your mouth before letting go. “Fuck, such a filthy fucking thing, that’s right swallow all of it, good girl.” Boba’s cum spilling into your mouth, so close to the back of your throat and the twisting of pleasure Din was bringing you with his fingers made you almost want to cry it was too much. 

Slowly pulling you off inch by inch both men watched a mixture of saliva and cum almost dripping from your gasping mouth as Boba’s cock finally left you. Din’s hand turning you by your neck gently to look partially back at him, the darkness of the visor even contrasted to the gritted teeth and dark panting face of Boba’s. He still brought you comfort as Din brushed mercilessly against a sensitive wall inside of you. “Doing so good for me, sweet girl. So fucking good,” 

Your hands free you reached back to grab at whatever you could of Din as the heel of his palm roughly rubbed your clit as he thrusted them in and out almost rougher then before. Gasping you arched back, unashamed at how much it put your tits almost on display. “Din, please let me cum. Please, I’m so-” 

Whinging you couldn’t even finish your owns entrance as he pressed his other palm hard against your stomach as he sped up enough you could hear how much you soaked him. “Come on, you can cum mesh’la. All for me.” 

“Taking all the credit isn’t your style,” Boba’s voice was further away, rasping with a dash of cheeky as Din pulled you right over that edge. Holding you tight against him as you cried out as your orgasm washed over you. Seizing your muscles tightly in his hold. 

“F-fuck, not ugh, your name she’s crying is it though, Fett?” 

Talking about you like your orgasm wasn’t in his arms and on display it just made you stutter a moan out even as you came down. Pulling his fingers out of you, Din pulled you up with him turning you to face his front. Moving your hands to gently pull his shirt off, you wanted to reach to run your hand over his chest only to get pulled roughly into Boba’s back. “He can have you whenever he wants, so how about you lay out for me?” 

Gently climbing up onto the bed, you could see Boba moving around to the end of it and Din carefully climbing up near the wall behind you. Just as you settled, Boba yanked you towards him at the edge of the bed. Spreading your legs wide to fit himself between. 

“Let’s see if an omega tastes as sweet as she smells.” A man with patience in many aspects of his life, but none as he pulled your hips closer to put his mouth on you. Crying out almost immediately as he licked from your entrance up to your clit. 

Din’s breath stuttering behind you, his eyes behind the helmet stuck on how much you gasped, back arched and legs already tensing in Boba’s hold. Brushing your hair sticking to the sweat of your forehead back, raking gently in his bare fingers like out of everything the soft silky feeling is what had him transfixed. 

Sucking your clit before almost biting it to make you jump, he Boba chuckled deep into your pussy as he licked inside of you. The roughness of his hands but the warmth of his mouth working you over so gently making you moan. Thighs wanting to close, but he kept them wide on the bed as he could force them. Refusing to even give you the reprieve of hanging them over his shoulders. You’d still have some control were he to do so. Your core inside hot and burning, too soon after Din made you cum on his fingers you grasped at your chest mindlessly. 

Only to have Din grab them. Despite pulling your head up to his lap, Boba never faltered. Just moving with the action to keep his mouth tasting you. Din however, wrapped your fingers in each of his before pushing them down on either side of you. His own cock unfairly hard and still confined by his pants, but he needed you to come again. He never gets to fully see how you look cumming on his mouth, but now Din refuses to miss it. 

Shaking in his hold, you were far too close from your last orgasm. The coil inside you twisting and flaming as Boba never faltered in his moves. Feeling a smirk against you as your stomach muscles started to tense up. Your hips lifting from the bed slightly as he pulled you into his mouth from a better vantage. His tongue deep as it could go, you started to loose yourself. 

“You gave me one, mesh’la. Fett deserves one too, for everything he’s done for you.” 

Boba’s nails dug into your skin as he pulled you right over that edge, not even hearing the noise coming from either of them. Just ringing in your ears as you came, falling apart on his mouth that refused to stop licking you up and down until you stopped spasaming. Your senses like you were drifting underwater, only soothed by Din’s soft touch letting your hands go to gently cup one of your breasts again, like the small massaging sensation and gently playing with your nipple just enough of a spark to keep you near the top. 

The two Mandalorians however, had no plans on giving you time to catch your breathe. Like you were a doll light enough to be tossed around, Din manoeuvred you to straddle his lap. Your hands instantly running down his chest, eyes wide at how broad and soft he looked outside of even just his flight suit. 

One of his hands ran up the length of your spine, the other running across your hip over you ass and back down your thigh like a pattern. “Pull me out, sweet girl.” 

Nodding mindlessly, you reached for his bottoms. Thighs clenching around his as you pulled his cock out, long and intimidatingly thick as well. You knew it felt as such but seeing what you had previously fit inside of you made you shiver. Wrapping your hand around it, you ran your thumb over his tip. Gathering as much precum as you could and stroking his cock with it, slow and a light grip that Din never touched himself with. His voice raspy and lustful. “We can do this a few ways, but it’s all up to what you’re comfortable with. We can go easy on you if you’re more comfort-”

Shaking your head furiously, “No, no whatever you want. Both of you, please I want you to do whatever you want,” Turning to see Boba who also was know up on the bed behind you. 

His hand reaching out to keep your head turned on him with his hand on your jaw. “Are you sure?” A second nod yes, had Din groan. Covering your hand with his and tightening your grip on his cock. Boba’s eyes on you. “I’m gonna open you up back here while you sit on his cock.” 

Dins hands reaching behind to pull your ass cheeks apart enough to sting. “Come here, sweet girl. Let me feel you.”

Looking back you propped yourself on his shoulders as Din held you by your hips. Sinking you down was far too easy, from making you cum on his fingers and Boba’s mouth you soaked his cock before even sitting on it fully. Din moaned as he sunk into you fully in one go. His helmet dropping into your chest as his own stomach heaved trying to control himself. 

Your moan was high pitched and needy, hands grasping onto the bit of hair sticking out from his helmet his hands pulled your chest more into him. But as soon as you tried moving, Din held you in place head lifting up to look disapprovingly at you. His tone sharp as his words were short. “Are you in charge?” 

Pausing, you clenched around him, making an even wetter mess already but you shook your head no. Your mind too in the clouds to even joke otherwise. Feeling Din trail his hands up to hold you by the back of your neck and waist. Pulling your forehead to his you shivered at Boba’s hands on your hips. 

His large frame pressing into your back as his hands trailed downwards, squeezing your ass lightly, then rougher each next one. Finally, one of his fingers moving down. Collecting the wetness still soaking you and nearly the bed at that point before moving it back up between your cheeks. 

Stilling briefly as he pressed against your ass, heart racing but your head still in the clouds could do enough to nod. Boba leaning closer to your ear with a deep, “Good girl,” before sliding his finger inside of you. 

Gasping, you pressed into Din more who tightened his grip on your hair, but held you not in comfort but to keep you nice and steady for Boba who was keen on riling you up more as he spoke. “Never been taken here have you, little one?” Chucking deep when you shook your head no. “Not treating her right are you, Djarin? If you’re leaving some of her firsts for me.” 

Sliding the hand on your waist, Din moved his thumb against your clit. “I’m the one filling her pussy nice and full, aren’t I sweet girl?” You moaning just as Boba slid in a second finger and such a moan turned into a whine. Your body on fire, your insides already burning to the ground your body only able to focus on either of what their hands were doing. 

There was a stretch and a burn inside your ass that just two of Boba’s fingers were pulling from you, but the gentle side of a third had you jump. Crying out desperately as Din’s hand in your hair tightened painfully. Voice scattered, you didn’t know if you were even making sense as you writhed in place. “I, fuck, I don’t wanna- wanna upset either of, of you..” 

The hand now loosening, Din slid it down to the back of your neck, pulling you to look at him. His voice as rough as you looked. “You could never, cyra’ika. Fuck, you could never upset me, upset us.” 

Boba leaned into your ear, free hand wrapping around the front of your neck. “You ready to take me, little one? It’ll be a stretch, but I’ve opened you up nice and wet for me.” You swallowed, your eyes on Din and your focus on the their hands but you nodded. “You sure?” You nodded again. “Hold onto him, then.” 

Din sat up better, holding you in his lap. The second Boba started pulling his fingers out, Din thrusted just out of you enough to set your insides alight. Thrusting back in but slowly, forcing you to feel his cock stroke against every inch of inside you as you moaned. 

The slow pace making you lean into him quietly, only to cry at Boba now pressing his cock up against you. Leaning forward, he pulled you out of Din’s hold making you lean back against his shoulder to look up at him. Like they were in sync, Din slowly pulled partway out of you as Boba barley pressed his tip in. 

Din’s final reassurance once more like fired the bullet. “It’s okay, cyra’ika. You can kiss him.” 

This time Boba kissed you, his roughness resuming from before and Boba slowly started to push inside you as Din slowly filled your pussy back up. Your body feeling like it was panicing, heart racing from all the stimulation, but Boba kept slowly filling your ass until he, like Din, was sat fully inside you. 

Pulling his lips from yours, not bothering to hide how deep he had his tongue in your mouth he clenched his jaw at the feeling. “You still with us?” It took you more then a moment to answer, barley with an uh-huh as you clenched around both of them. 

Din’s thrusts slowed down dramatically, his cock almost just grinding in you with painfully gritted teeth hiding behind the helmet. Boba, started to fuck you, but far less gentle. Both of them, feeling the desperation of your omega yearning for more of it. 

You couldn’t describe how it felt to have him pound you from behind that way, it was new and almost so foreign it scared you but you were desperate for it. Crying and moaning only speeding his hips up more and more. The slapping of his skin against yours contrasting with how soaking wet your pussy was with each slide of Din’s cock was obscene. 

Should have made you feel embarrassed but with your body pressed between their chests you couldn’t find yourself to care. “Fucking tight little ass, can barley shove my cock inside you can I?” He pounded harder, your body bouncing more on Din’s from the force. 

“Should feel what her cunt’s like, I’d never-fuck, would get you to fucking leave if you felt her.” Din and him just not speaking to you, but about you and yet it just felt too good. Like they wanted to get you out of your messy head, and to do it, treated you like a you for their pleasure and you were burning on the inside. 

Boba’s voice scratched to hell in your ear, “Gonna let me cum inside your ass, little one? Spill inside you just like Djarin would?” Looking up at him you nodded, Boba sharing a glance with Din that you didn’t see before he kissed you again. 

His cock pounding into you fast, your ass jiggling with the force as Din sped up inside your pussy. Himself leaning back against the wall, watching your face and your body transfixed as his thrusts were slower but far rougher. 

It seemed to sneak up on Boba, his orgasm. A few sudden thrusts almost too fast for you to be able to handle, before he pressed up against your back, head sinking into your neck with a groan. You felt his cock throb inside you before it started to fill you with his cum. Thick and lots of it he fucked you until he was empty. Slowly pulling out, to watch your ass gape without his cock still there to fill it and his cum leaking out of you. 

Din, didn’t waste time. Flipping you around so he was on top of you, pressing deep inside your pussy and fucked hard as soon as you were laid out for him. His cock so painfully hard and desperate to cum inside you, Din was rougher then normal. Your legs wide as possible to the point of strain, and the sound of his hips slapping into yours was loud. 

You didn’t expect it then, but you came from nowhere. Your orgasm splitting inside you and washing over your body as you arched back into the bed. Boba, leaning over to kiss you, his tongue commanding yours as Din started to lose composure. 

“Defect, my perfect girl with the tightest cunt, gonna fill you up okay? Gonna let me spill inside this pussy the way I want, like you deserve- oh fuck, baby,” His helmet dropping into your chest as he held both your hips still as he came. 

Slow thrusts as he too, felt like his cum spilled inside you forever. Your ass still full and whatever leaked out now spread against your cheeks as you were pressed into it from behind. Boba’s lips and tongue swallowing your moans and cries as Din gave a few final pushes. His body shaking from how hard and just how much he came inside of you. 

Both of them, let go of your body very gently. Boba slowing his kiss down to something gentle, before pressing a peck to your swollen lips and one to the bridge of your nose. Din took longer to pull out of you, his cock still half hard from how worked up he got, waiting until he went soft before leaving your soaked warmth entirely. 

You weren’t sure if you passed out, or if you dropped that hard. You felt Din’s touch and his gentle words but not much registered as you tried coming back to your senses. Only really feeling back in the world as you settled against Din in the water. 

Water? 

Looking around, you were in a large tub built into the stone ground like an indoor pool. Leaning back you felt his helmet and arms wrapping around your front. “Welcome back, mesh’la.” 

Laughing lightly, you looked around the room. Not quite a room like a refresher, but it seemed to be solely for the tub in there. “Did I pass out?” 

Din traced his hand over your stomach, “Not quite. You were out of it for a little bit though, thought a bath might help bring you back a little bit.” Smiling weakly you just leaned back into him. Enjoying the quiet. 

A question however poked at your brain, “Where’s Boba?” 

“Checking on the kid. Figured it might be a bit calmer for you to come down from tonight with just me for a little bit.” Pausing he almost sounded worried. “Did you...like it?”

Turning in his arms, you straddled his lap hands on his shoulders much more relaxed this time despite both of you being naked now. “I did. It was...a lot. But I liked it. You were were..” Din suggested the word rough, which made you laugh. “Yeah, but I was going to say safe. I don’t think I’d do anything like that with anyone else. But Boba-” 

“You trust him.” Nodding gently, he ran a hand up and down your back. “So do I. Would you ever want to do it again?” 

Leaning into his forehead you smiled. “I think so. As long as I get just you most of the time.” It wasn’t really obvious that the screaming insecurities didn’t rear their ugly head in that moment. You were stiff, quite sore, but content and snuggling into Din like a loth-cat. 

It was quiet for a bit before you asked about Grogu, only to feel mostly as confused as he did for how he got back. Either he was sent across the galaxy all alone or Peli’s story was just wrong. Either seemed plausible considering what you knew about your curly haired friend and the Jedi. 

Not that everything was perfect, but you felt content. The protectiveness of how Din held you was that of an alpha shielding his omega from the world around you. Din almost brought up the question of mating you, but he wasn’t sure his timing would be the greatest were he to bring up that biting into your neck to mate was all he had been thinking about since he got you in the bath. 

He also had a necklace. Two distinct animal skulls carved of beskar into them for when he did. But for now, you both soaking in this elaborate tub in each others arms would have to do.

Besides, he wouldn’t live down the amount of shit Boba would tease him with for mating you right after letting Boba fuck you the way he did. There might be a bit more of this dynamic to explore. 

He and Boba trusted one another, a companionship that made him trust the other man treat you with the proper respect of a fellow alpha. Omega’s were precious to Mandalorians, but Din didn’t want to share you with his people just yet. 

Sharing your affections with just one other was an acceptable middle ground. Well two others. 

The second you saw Grogu again, the idea of you leaving this little clan became practically impossible. 

[monstrousproductions]

Introducing our brand new show...

Travelling Light is a science-fantasy podcast launching on November 9th

Follow the Traveller on their journey through the stars as they collect stories for their community archive, and help shape their world through audience submissions and choose-your-own-adventure decision making.

Subscribe now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you prefer to listen, and check out today's teaser trailer. If we're not showing up yet on your podcatcher of choice, give it a few days - it can take a while for the RSS feed to get picked up by all platforms.

We have a brand new website for you to peruse at monstrousproductions.org, and as well as our Twitter account we've got a shiny new Instagram for you to follow as well! See the link in our bio for more ways to get in touch.

We can't wait to share the show with you all! Tune in next week for a full trailer and until then, let us know what you think!

[fiddlepickdouglas]

Where do you watch your Thai BL dramas and do you recommend any to start with?

WOW how did I miss seeing this????

Oh boy this is gonna take a while for me to properly answer because you managed to ask, in so few words, a question that has a long answer! (Which I am all too delighted to give, HEHE)

This ended up being such a long post omg, here's a read more.

So starting with where: There's quite a few places. Streaming services with a prescription, YouTube, and even a few free sites where fans will typically upload content (depending on availability and access, these update latest if a show can be found at all).

Streaming platforms (featuring Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai content):

iQiyi - Chinese owned, has a free option with ads and a subscription option. Also features bonus content on certain shows that subbed users can access if you're into that. Has a good balance of stuff that isn't LGBTQ+, lots of great Chinese wuxia - I'm honestly amazed they have as much queer shows as they do but I am not complaining because there's a lot of good ones there.

GagaOolala - Taiwanese owned, has a free option with ads and a subscription option. Stout LGBTQ+ collection. There's certainly other programming but it's thing is being more out and proud, so it's a win for me.

Viki - American owned, allows users to add/edit subtitles. I haven't used this one much, but I haven't needed to get a subscription so far with the shows I have sought to watch and haven't been bothered with ads either? Not sure how that works but I haven't needed to bother looking into it lol

Other sources I've used to watch other BLs are YouTube (there's so many, and they're for FREE), DramaCool, kisskh, and Bilbili.

In this next bit, I'll be summarizing different studios that produce Thai shows, including Thai BL specifically. I'll summarize the studio and then list recommendations for shows.

First up:

GMMTV - (most content on YouTube, some has been put on iQiyi and Gaga though) This is a popular one for Thai shows, and Thai BL especially. It's nicknamed the Disney of BL for a reason (pumps out a lot of new shows each year, huge roster of actors signed to them, very focused on branding and promotion, etc.). A lot of people's first Thai BLs are among their shows, since it was the company that produced the show that launched Thailand's BL industry onto the map. They can be hit or miss with the level of satisfaction, but overall there's plenty to choose from and much to recommend.

Shows I recommend from this company:

Bad Buddy

This is the first one I watched and it changed my fucking life. Pat and Pran are the perfect mix of next door neighbors who were raised to be rivals, but they can't help becoming friends, and eventually fall for each other. It does great subversion of a number of tropes and has a kissing scene that so memorable I bought a t-shirt that's worn in it. The acting is superb and it's both funny and devasting in a lot of good ways. There's a sapphic side couple who are incredibly cute as well!

Be My Favorite

Pisaeng and Kawi, two guys who can't seem to accept their feelings, each live out multiple time lines where they can't help but be drawn together when Kawi is given a time traveling device. This show ponders the affects of one's actions and how living your truth can make or break the happiness you seek in life. This show was unprecedented in how good it was, especially since the leads were an unusual pairing. I love them I love them I love them.

SOTUS

This is the one that kick-started everything back in 2016 for Thai BL. It follows a group of college freshman who are subject to ritual hazing by their seniors, and one student worms his way into the heart of the senior leader. This show set out to censor fags (cigarettes) and not fags (gays). There's so much cultural significance that it's difficult to describe. It sets the tone for a number of BLs to follow.

Not Me

Do you like gays? Do you like social activism? Do you like batshit plots that put you on your fuckin knees for the whole ride? Have we got a show for you. I don't know how to summarize this one without immediately feeling insane, I love this show with all my goddamn heart. Twins Black and White get separated because they have a connection where they can feel the same things when they're close, and it has proven dangerous. Black gets put in a coma and White takes on his identity and joins an anarchist gang to find who hurt his brother. Not everything is what he thinks, though. Also this show inspired my first tattoo because Yok is my favorite boy forever and ever amen.

The Warp Effect

Alright, it's not a BL, technically, but my GOD is it queer. Don't believe me? Here's a list that I made of not even all the reasons why this show is so queer. It addresses so much about sex ed, relationships, consent, kink, body shaming, and even features a non-binary character. A boy, who made a promise to his late mother to save his virginity until marriage, breaks the promise and wakes up in the future. He has to help old friends and acquaintances resolve things that happened on that fated night if he hopes to return to his youth.

3 Will Be Free

Also technically not a BL, but it is poly!! A sex worker, a club host, and the son of a mafia boss end up on the run together after being involved with the wrong people and being in the wrong place...and killing a guy. By the same director of The Warp Effect, so you're guaranteed a similar flavor of thorough queerness.

More shows by the company that I recommend: A Tale of 1000 Stars, Moonlight Chicken, Enchanté, Vice Versa, The Eclipse, My School President, Wandee Goodday, Only Friends, Midnight Musem, The Gifted (those last two aren't BLs but the vibes are there).

Next up!

Idol Factory - (YouTube channel for watching) Founded by actor Saint Suppapong with the purpose of creating a studio that harbors a safer and more positive experience for people in the industry. Well known for producing one of the first and most popular GLs or girls love shows.

Shows I recommend from this company:

GAP The Series

Sam has been Mon's idol since she was little and now she's secured a job working at her company! She's so excited! Until she realizes that Sam is...kind of heartless. Her unwillingness to let her boss walk all over her does more than win over a good professional relationship. It's got all the drama of class divide and arranged marriage along with it, so it's a fun ride and makes for an iconic entry for lesbian cinema.

The Sign

Phaya and Tharn aren't just reincarnated lovers, they weren't even human before! The story follows a curse that's followed them since they first met as naga and garuda, both powerful legendary creatures who have fought each other for ages. In the present, they train as police officers and end up working together in a case related to Tharn's tragic past.

The Loyal Pin

This one actually hasn't started airing yet (August 4th!!!!) but it's about a lady and a princess who grew up together. From the looks of things, it's gonna have drama and angst up the wazoo so I'm looking forward to it.

More shows by the company that I recommend: Secret Crush On You (I haven't personally seen this one but it's been on my list and highly recommended)

Next up!

Domundi - (uncensored versions on iQiyi, cut versions on YouTube) It's more of a "content creator" company, so it includes musicians as well as actors, so there's not many shows under their wing. But they are good with high heat (more explicit) BL stories. One currently airing, Battle of the Writers, includes Chinese wuxia elements which is incredibly interesting and kinda ballsy (there's suspected attempts to lower viewership for censorship reasons). I highly recommend watching it just for the sake of elevating it, there's a cut version on YouTube.

Shows I recommend from this company:

Bed Friend

Poor Uea is traumatized to hell and back; it's like the world is out to get him. He and his coworker King decide after a one night stand to be exclusive fuck buddies, and ngl it's HOT. We get catboy kinks in this one! Their connection deepens and they have to figure out what they both want from each other. Also all the shitheads get owned, it's really nice to watch. It inspired a Jennette McCurdy meme from me.

Middleman's Love

This is the story of Uea's best friend Jade, who sees how happy his friend is in his new relationship, and takes his turn being Emma Woodhouse. Well....it doesn't go to plan. He keeps pushing Mai toward someone else and doesn't realize that Mai likes him. This one starts incredibly goofy (I put that as a warning), and then gets steamy later on.

Battle of the Writers

This one just started airing! Ob-un is accused of plagiarizing fellow author Chan, and after things have been cleared they end up on a writing team together. The wuxia characters here are characters from their novel. It seems their relationship will parallel certain aspects of the story.

Next company!

Wabi Sabi - (YouTube channel for shows) They've recently lost a whole bunch of actors (several to GMMTV no less) due to terminating artist management, so I'm not sure what the future looks like, but they've released several shows that are considered BL staples.

Recommended:

Until We Meet Again

Dean and Pharm are reincarnated lovers who previously had a tragic end. This one is heavy on the emotions, the first 10 minutes took my fucking knees out. Has lot of themes of intergenerational trauma and how important having supportive parents can be. Pharm is so cute, I need to squish him!

Between Us

It starts around the same time as Until We Meet Again, but from the perspective of Team and Win. They have their own angst issues and family traumas that make them messy, and there's a lot more development of the side characters that were featured in the first series as well. I especially enjoy the sideplot for gamers Waan andTul, lol, I wish they could get their own series too! I do recommend watching UMWA first if you don't want to be confused about a few scenes in this one.

Final company, let's go!

Change 2421 - The company that made the omegaverse alpha-alpha car racing BL. That one. Need I say more?

Recommended:

Pit Babe

Mx. omegaverse alpha-alpha car racing BL themself. Babe is a star racecar driver with special abilities. He's charmed when he meets Charlie, but things begin to change for him faster than he can recognize. The home he ran away from tries to force him back as he attempts to reveal its worst secrets.

This Love Has No Long Beans

This is currently airing! Oab is your chef from Kitchen Nightmares that judges harshly with a tough exterior but genuinely has a good heart. Having lost his passion for cooking, he decides to set up a contest to find a successor to take over his restaurant. Plawan chooses to enter this contest despite having no skills and already having gotten on Oab's bad side. Things get heated when Plawan's determination to make it through the competition ignites the passion for cooking again.

There's plenty more companies, but these are the ones I am most familiar with. But there's still more!

Shows I recommend that aren't from the companies listed above:

Kinnporsche

The mafia BL that took over. I have so much brain rot about this one that it's hard to summarize without going crazy. Porsche and his brother have been struggling to keep their beloved family home, so he takes an offer he can't refuse - working as a mafia bodyguard. Kinn, the current mafia head, is undeniably attracted to him and it ends up making them inseparable in more ways than one. I especially enjoy the side couples, VegasPete and KimChay (there is ENDLESS insanity from all possible pairings tbh).

Love in the Air

It's kinda split into two stories, Payu (or Phayu, honestly the spelling gets switched a lot and even I don't stick to one thing) and Rain, and Prapai and Sky. PayuRain are the most couple ever, that's just the best way I can put it. The actors have incredible chemistry and set a fucking standard for making out. Sky and Prapai will make you cry. They handle some pretty intense material and do an incredible job with it. Also bisexuals with motorcycles and light mafia action.

I Told Sunset About You/I Promised You The Moon

Not only an iconic BL series that strives for telling an incredibly realistic story (no goofy sound effects or gags here), but the cinematography is absolutely gorgeous. Also the messiest bisexual awakening known to man. Oh my god. So much crying. Sooooo much angst. It's okay if you throw shit over this one, it's worth it, I promise. Tee and Oh go through pretty much everything that could make weaker couples hate the other person and that's what makes them top tier.

Ingredients

This whole series is a grocery store commercial? Ignore that, these roommates have the most adorable development. I binged this and was crying at 2am. Tops is an aspiring chef and Win is his himbo roommate who is trying to make it as a musician. As they each work toward their dreams, they become important aspects of each other's lives. Also, if you don't come out of this obsessed with Jeff Satur (or anything else he does), I will question your taste. Pun intended.

Old Fashion Cupcake

Japanese BL? Older queers? Office romance? Age gap? A confession scene that meets Jane Austen level standards of desperation? Togawa and Nozue are something else man. They make it a game to pretend to do what young women do as an "anti-aging" technique, but really it's Togawa's scheme to hopefully catch the eye of his boss. Incredible, no notes except maybe I'd like to have a Thai remake? Please?

And last but absolutely not least...

Semantic Error

A fantastic Korean BL. Rivals to lovers and 10000% ADHD4autism. Jang Jaeyoung is prevented from graduating by Chu Sangwoo and makes it his personal mission to get under his skin. And well....it works lol. They're both the most characters, I adore them and their chaotic stumbles into romance. Bonus Choi Yoona bisexual goddess side character, we love her.

Kiseki: Dear To Me

Taiwanese BL that's also split somewhat split between two stories. Zong Yi takes in a wounded Zhe Rui. The student realizes he's keeping a gangster in his dorm and tries to ignore his charms but ends up being drawn into his world. Meanwhile, Ai Di and Chen Yi, other members of the gang, deal with the consequences of Zhe Rui's disappearance.

Well. That was a whole lot. I hope this isn't too overwhelming for you! I've only been in the BL fandom for a couple years so this is barely scratching the surface as far as what's out there.

[raventhekittycat]

Hey Detective Conan nerds guess what I just did? Went to to the departure ceremony of a brand stanking new Conan train that's what! Today they unveiled the Super Hakuto Detective Conan Edition. It had departure ceremonies in both Tottori and Osaka! I went to the one in Osaka.

Not the best video I know but here it is coming into the station!

Here's some of the details of the train. It was only at the station for a limited amount of time because people were actually riding it so I didn't have time to take super great photos sorry. In two of the photos though you can actually see some of the details inside the train!

I also have a crappy video of the departure which I'll upload in a reblog since you can only have one video per post.

Here's the sign from the departure ceremony (which was ticket only and I wasn't able to figure out how to get one).

And the logo for the train by the limited goods booth.

I didn't manage to get the special commemorative freebie they were handing out but I heard they ran out in the first minute so I don't feel as bad. I'll also upload pics of the merch I bought at the PR booth upstairs but rn I'm trying to let my body rest after traveling around all day (I got home from Osaka after about 4.5hrs on trains, half being local), so that will probably happen a different day.

As for details about the train, the Super Hakuto is an express train that runs between Kyoto and Tottori via Osaka. It's actually run by a private company and is not one of the JR companies' trains, though in Osaka it uses a JR platform and runs on JR lines. The Conan model is planned to run about once a day roundtrip on weekends and holidays.

Anyways enjoy! I made my fully planned solo trip in Japan (and ever actually I guess) to see this train. I'll definitely have to ride it in the future!!

[gabrielsbubblegumbitch]

You mentioned Velvette being friends with sucubi in one of your post and made me start think about the Vees opinions/relationships to hellborns!

I was already wondering about that Topic in relation to sinners in general, but lets keep the Focus on the three:

Do they employ them? (There was that imp girl (Dia) that worked for Valentino in pre-show stuff but she is nowhere to be seen now.)

They do try marketing to them as well, would be stupid not to. So they must have people that are able to travel between rings to facilitate their business there.

Do they partake in the classist ideas we see depicted in 'Helluva Boss'? Seeing Imps and hellhounds as the lowest of the low while other hellborns they "respect"

Just something interesting to think about, since Hazbin is prob gonna focus on the sinners only a lot of things like this will be left for headcanons i guess

Ah my friend, do they partake in classist ideas? Look at them, does anyone of this bunch looks like the would miss an opportunity to bully someone? If there wasn't classism in Hell, Vox would personally invent it. So yeah I think they treat like shit all casts that are formally below them. Maybe Velvette would be a little nicer because she doesn't have fragile ego to maintain. But Val would shot imps for fun because unlike sinners they can actually die so it's more satisfying. Also I think Vox despises all hellborns because they make him aware of his own limitations - even if he was the most powerful Overlord, he still wouldn't be Mammon and he hates it. It's a glass celling he can never break.

I like to think that Valentino and Velvette can really get along with succubi. I know Ozzie would tear Val into pieces but his demons didn't really seem to share his ideals. So, succubi can for sure party but they also can get them all the nice stuff from earth if Vees need anything because as Viv mentioned "everything in Hell is off-brand and of terrible quality". I can imagine Valentino spending fortune just to get a quality silk dress smuggled from Earth.

They probably have some shark demons on their payroll like you mention to facilitate their businesses in other rings and Vox is especially fond of them because you know... They are sharks and they are native to Greed. What else... Valentino probably hired a shit tone of hellhounds when he discovered furries?

Knowing as much as I do about higher hellborns like Goetias I cannot really imagine any of them to have intrest in fraternizing with sinners. Maybe Velvette would be influential enough with her social media platforms to connect with younger or less dignified of them. Technically Stolas, Stella and her shitty brother with overtly complicated name live in Pride so maybe one of them would cross path with Vel during some fancy fashion event.