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loveisanimaginarydagger3000 · 13 days ago

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The Soldier Of Death (10)- Nightmares

Natasha Romanoff X Super Soldier Reader 18+

Summary: Soldat Smerti. The Soldier of Death. You were the perfect weapon: loyal, obedient, and merciless, or so Hydra thought. What happens when these traits are put to the test? Your captivity in the Avenger's tower and the presence of a redhead makes you realise you didn't have to be a monster. The question was though; Did Hydra make you the monster or were you always one?

This fic will contains dark themes. Please read these warnings before starting any of these chapters: graphic descriptions of murder, violence, gore and torture, heavy angst, mental issues.

Please consider these warnings before reading

Word Count: 3.7k

General Masterlist | The Soldier Of Death Masterlist

Specific Chapter Warning: Dark thoughts, flashbacks/nightmares of experiments and murder, graphic descriptions of violence and gore.

—

A knock at your door snapped you out of your thoughts, blinking your eyes as your gaze flickered across your new room, briefly remembering where you were as you had zoned out for a considerable amount of time, still adjusting to the enormous change.

"Y/n?" Natasha's voice called gently from the other side of the door, an odd weight taking over your chest as a small pang of guilt invaded you, the thoughts from earlier haunting you as a mocking chuckle seemed to linger at the back of your mind, the sight of her lifeless eyes staring back at you unable to be erased. Your eyes flickered down to your hands that trembled slightly, every time you blinked the image flickering between your normal hands and blood stained ones, the darkness incessant on tormenting you, determined to ensure you suffered.

Show her the real you, let's see if she still comes crawling back to check on us.

This was the real 'you', you argued back, still refusing to accept that the darkness was truly a part of you, desperate to believe it was something Hydra put into your head and not your own sick and twisted mind.

Stop lying to yourself. You crave to hurt others, to kill others. It's only a matter of time before she sees that too.

Another knock helps drown out the sinister words, your head snapping over to the door, noticing how it opens slightly, Natasha calling your name again.

"Y/n? Can I come in?" she asks, part of you screaming no, not wanting to put her in danger while the other part of you wants her to stay with you, to help numb your conflicted state and offer a peaceful escape for a little while.

"Sure," you answer with a hesitant voice, the spy immediately picking up on your discomfort as she enters the room, her enticing green scanning over the room to see how you'd changed a few things. She noticed how the mirror in the large room was covered with a sheet, your bathroom door shut and partly blocked by the bedside table, the sofa having moved closer to the window where you were currently sat curled up, your hands hugging your knees to your chest as you stared ahead at the view. Her brows furrowed at how small you seemed, her mouth opening and closing as she was unsure of what to say, not too sure as to what caused your sudden switch in demeanour.

"Is everything alright?" she murmurs, cautiously moving to sit on the other end of the sofa you were on, observing your reaction. Your fingers started to drum against your legs in an anxious manner, your gaze still fixated on the view outside but she could tell you were watching her in your peripheral vision.

From what you could see, you noticed how the gentle glow from the sun that streamed through the window caused her red hair to appear more vivid, her skin highlighted beautifully by the light which caused it to look impossibly soft and smooth, the green of her eyes also popping as the light caused them to look even more emerald if that were possible.

"Yeah," you sigh out, aware of how obvious the lie seemed, not too bothered at the moment as you didn't want to tell her the truth, to scare her away and show her that side of you. You would never want her to see that side of you.

"You know you can talk to me, right?" she almost whispers, her eyes trained on you rather than the spectacle that was outside, the sun starting to set which was why she was originally here.

"I know," you murmur back, risking a look towards her, noticing the tenderness behind her eyes, the gentle and soft smile that she was offering to you, nothing to indicate fear or hate present on her face. A warmth replaced the odd weight that had settled in your chest, getting lost in her enchanting green as she let the gaze linger, your eyes eventually flickering away as the darkness seeps back into your thoughts.

Let me talk to her, let's see what happens then

They snickered, your jaw clenching at their mocking tone, having a vague idea of what they would do if you lost control, the desire to protect her encouraging you to continue the tiresome battle of your mind.

When you remain quiet for a little longer, the room being enveloped in silence, Natasha speaks up again. She could sense there was something going on in your mind, just not sure as to what, the redhead longing to help you be able to be free of whatever Hydra did to you, just wanting you to be able to be the real you. Not their weapon.

"Do you still want to see the sunset from the roof?" she asks in a soft murmur, not wanting to push you and make you feel as though you had to come as, although she was eager to help distract you from whatever war was going on inside you, she knew that today would have been a lot, the earlier incident of the medical tests and training along with the adjustment to everything going to have taken its toll on you.

The room once again was wrapped up in a silence as you thought over her request, the wait so long Natasha thought you may not have heard her. When her mouth opened to ask again, you responded,

"Perhaps... Another night," you whisper, looking at her with an apologetic glint in your eyes as you could tell she was just trying to help, that odd weight stomping out the warmth as disappointment took over. Earlier, you were excited to go with her but now you felt too on edge to truly enjoy it, your expression conveying your previous excitement.

Natasha doesn't take your words to heart, smiling a little as you tried to make your rejection sound as polite as possible, your words also giving her hope as you had suggested another time, your gaze flickering down to her lips as they tugged into a slightly wider smile as a small one grew on your face.

"Another night," she whispers back, her eyes holding an indecipherable glint in them as she slowly pushes herself off of the sofa to make her way back to the door, pausing and turning to look back at you. "Enjoy the rest of your night Y/n," she says with a soft smile, her tone gentle and soothing before she leaves the room, closing the door and leaving you on your own.

"You too, Natasha," you murmur back despite knowing she couldn't hear you, gaze lingering on the door before you lose yourself to your thoughts again, trying to unpick your fractured mind.

***

A sob escaped you as your veins practically glowed blue as the serum was pumped into you, fingers prying into the table you were on, denting the metal as pain coursed through you violently. A harsh whimper was ripped out of you as another needle followed the last, the restraints on your hands and feet stopping you from wriggling away from the metal needle as it slid into another vein, another wave of agony washing over your body as you could do nothing but cry out in pain. Your voice was hoarse from the last few rounds of serum, the screaming and incessant pain leaving you exhausted after each trial, this one feeling different from the last as a surge of energy seemed to consume you.

"Stay still Soldat," gritted out a scientist but you ignored their comment, your fist pulling against the restraint, snapping it with the amount of force you used. His eyes widened along with the other scientist in the room as your other hand effortlessly shattered the other handcuff, the second man running quickly to the door to escape when he found it locked, his hand wrapped around the metal handle and desperately pulling on it, knowing that he would need to leave now if he wanted to live.

You blocked out the desperate pleas from the other man as he called out to the other guards nearby, your gaze locked on the other scientist who stared at you in horror and awe, the knowledge that the serum worked again piquing your general's interest who watched behind the one way glass.

"Soldat," he trailed off while staggering back, the reality of the situation settling in his mind as you broke free of your last restraints, your eyes glossed over with darkness and malice. "Soldat-" he was interrupted by your body tackling his to the ground, the days, the weeks, the months, the years of torture and pain he inflicted on you fuelling your actions as you lost control, wanting to rip the man apart and break him.

The other scientist could only look back in pure terror as an animalistic scream was ripped out of his co-worker, your body pinning him to the ground while your hands roughly snapped the bones in his arms as he tried to pry you off of him.

"General!" The man at the door screamed, begging the man to let him be free as your hands went to the other's head, eyes holding nothing but darkness in them as your fingers pressed into his skull, killing him in the same way your general would order you to kill your victims. As usual, the bone started to strain under your thumbs, sobs leaving the man beneath you until they were silenced by a deafening crack. A sigh left you when his heart soon stopped beating, your ears zoning in on how it slowly stopped while you pulled your fingers out of what was left of his head, crimson oozing onto the concrete floor as you wiped what was left on your hands on his white lab coat, moving to stand and face the other man.

Nothing but pure rage and anger filled you as the man turned to look at you with fear in his eyes, his back pressed against the door as there was nowhere left for him to go.

They made you like this. He made you like this. It was only fair that he suffered like you did.

A gasp left you as you woke up from the vivid nightmare, your chest rising and falling as your eyes frantically searched around the room, trying to calm yourself down. You pulled the blanket up further on your body as you moved to sit on the sofa instead, not wanting to sleep in the bed as the mattress was far too soft, the feeling unnerving you as you were used to sleeping on something solid, your mind still reeling from the memory. You squeezed your eyes shut for a moment but all you could feel was the warmth that enveloped your arm as your fist went straight through the other man, fingers searching their way through flesh and blood until they reached his heart, ready to rip it out and watch as his body slumped to the ground.

They deserved it

The darkness said, their voice lacking the usual mocking tone as your hands covered your face, mind thinking for a split second that you could feel the blood from the man smearing on your face as your fingers moved to cover your eyes. You didn't bother to say or think anything back to them, simply trying your best to clear your mind, the attempt futile.

You knew you weren't getting back to sleep after the nightmare, your body itching for something other to do than drown in your thoughts, the only idea being to go back down to the training room. You were a little scared to leave your room in the middle of the night, not too sure if you'd be punished or not, so you made sure your movements were stealthy, footsteps light as you navigate your way around the compound until you reach the room, noticing how quiet and empty it was.

You didn't bother flicking on the lights as the small windows present illuminated the room softly, enough for you to see where things were to let your pent up frustrations out.

It was a cycle of cardio and weights, neither seeming to help tire you out as you either lifted the heavy bar over and over again or ran for an hour on end at a ridiculous pace, the enhanced stamina seeming to be endless as nothing seemed to tire you out, your mind wanting to sleep but body desperate to stay awake.

You didn't realise how long you were at the training room until Clint came over to you with a bottle of water, his face calm and containing a smile, hiding his concerns as he could tell you had been in here for most of the night.

"Thirsty?" he asked, to which you nodded a little nervously, not keeping his gaze as you finished the bottle in almost record speed, a pant leaving you as you realised how much strenuous exercise you had put your body through. "Everything alright?" he asked and you wished he wouldn't as you didn't want to have to talk about it.

"I just needed a distraction," you reply vaguely as you knew saying 'nothing' wouldn't have been a good enough answer, not wanting him to press for any more information.

The archer saw how you shifted from foot to foot, your head turning a little at all the sounds coming from the rest of the training room, your ears picking up all the noise as you weren't utterly consumed by your thoughts. An idea popped into his mind as he saw your eyes scan the room, his hands digging into his pockets in search of something.

"Try these," he says while handing you some earphones, your brows furrowing as you had never used them before. He chuckles a little at the confused expression written across your face, his hands motioning for you to put them in your ears before his hand pulls out his phone from his pocket. "Listening to music always helps distract me," he explains before he plays the song that was already loaded, the 80s hit causing your eyes to watch him puzzled at the strange noise, your mind noticing how it helped block out everything in the background without your thoughts taking over.

Clint watched with a small smug smile as you seemed to focus on the song, helping distract you from whatever was bothering you, as Nat came to him last night to talk about you, the archer giving her the 'best friend opinion' of the situation as she was unsure of how to help you and a little worried.

"Better?" He asked once the song had finished, a smile subtly creeping onto your lips as you actually rather enjoyed the song, nodding to him before moving to take the earphone out, the man stopping you, "Keep them, I'll play the rest of the songs for you now, but then later I'll sort you out a phone and make you a playlist." The words go straight over your head but you nod anyway, thanking him quietly before doing a few more rounds of running on the treadmill, hoping to tire your body out enough that you would sleep later without any issues.

***

The next few weeks seemed to be a constant cycle of waking up to a nightmare and sneaking off down to the training room, the ear phones a necessity to you now as you slowly but surely learnt how to use the music app on the phone, Clint's suggested playlist playing in the device as you worked out every day, still unable to get a good night's sleep. You felt guilty at how distant you had been to others, especially Natasha as you still hadn't gone to the rooftop with her yet, but you made a move to stop that as Wanda approached you in the kitchen.

Your teeth sank into the apple that you took from the fruit bowl, hoping no one would see you as the open space was empty until the young witch walked in, a mission on her mind.

"Hey Y/n," her tone casual as she walked up to you, moving to go into the fridge instead, your mind on guard as you were still not used to not having to ask permission for stuff.

"Hey," you reply back with a shy tone, still a little cautious of the witch after she invaded your thoughts, the brunette understanding of your nervousness. You took another bite of the red apple, the crunch seeming to fill the silence that brewed in the room, Wanda moving to lean against a countertop as she watched you sit awkwardly on one of the stools.

"I want to apologise to you," she says after a moment, her fingers playing with the ends of her long sleeve shirt, "I'm sorry that I went into your thoughts and made you relieve those... events."

You don't look at her as brief flashes of what you remembered filtered through your mind, your eyes fixated on the half eaten apple in your hands.

"Did...Did you see them too?" you asked, wanting to confirm your beliefs about her powers.

"I did," she quietly confesses, your eyes slowly moving over to look at her, noticing the genuine apologetic tone of her voice, "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry you had to see them too," you murmur, taking her by surprise, her brows raising a little as she watches your form seem to slump in disappointment. "Thank you for apologising, I'm going to head back to my room now," you say, wanting to leave the conversation as swiftly as possible but her words stop you, your head turning back to look at the witch.

"Wait," she says to stop you leaving, "We're having a movie night tonight, the whole team. I was wondering if you wanted to join us?" Her eyes hold a hopeful glint in them, your mouth opening and closing just as quick, unsure of what to say.

"I don't know," you trail off, her smiling a little as it wasn't a straight up no.

"It will be fun, I promise you," she says, excitement seeping into her tone as she had gotten to choose the film for tonight, "I know it's hard to get used to but, we're a family here, and we want to get to know you better." The cheerful and optimistic look in her eyes wins you over, the idea of being with everyone a little daunting but the thought of familiar green eyes and red hair help calm you down.

"I'll join you," you say, earning a wide smile from the young woman, the sight inevitably causing one to grow on your face before you say goodbye, making your way back to your room.

Too busy thinking about the movie later, you bump into someone who rounds the corner, a recognisable shade of red entering your vision.

"Sorry," you both say at the same time, her voice a little breathless as she came straight from the training room after her workout.

You seemed to get lost in a trance as you take in her outfit, the simple sports bra and leggings occupying your thoughts while your eyes focus on a bead of sweat that drips down her neck in a tantalising slow motion, the sigh causing a different warm feeling to take over you, the sensation a lot lower than your chest.

"Y/n?" she asks, a hint of teasing to her tone as you snap out of it, red tinting your cheeks as you realise you were staring.

"Sorry," your tone shy as you mumble the apology. "I don't know what came over me," you say honestly, missing the subtle smirk that took over the redhead's lips, moving past her to go towards your room, confused as to when she followed you. You stood frozen by your door as she went to the room next to you, her hand opening the door before looking over to you, her brows furrowed as you stared at her once more.

"What?" She asked out in a chuckle, the smile never leaving her lips as she was glad to talk to you again, noticing how you distanced yourself recently.

"Have you always been in the room next to me?" you ask, unaware that anyone was near your room, the thought of her hearing you wake up after a nightmare entering your mind.

"Yes," she says, her smile dropping a little but still present as she could see your hesitation on whether to ask a question. She remained patient with you, moving to lean on the side of the door frame, her arms crossing over her chest in a relaxed manner.

"Have... Have you ever heard me during the night?" your voice was laced with nerves as you didn't want people to know, a sympathetic look taking over her face.

"Why, what have you been doing in the night, alone?" she teased, trying to lighten the mood but the innuendo goes straight over your head, your brows furrowing at her words. Her eyes soften as she looks at you, nodding to answer your question as you look down a little embarrassed.

"Sorry if I woke you up," you mutter, not meeting her gaze.

"You can come to me if you have a nightmare," she says with a gentle voice, reassuring you that she wouldn't mind, "We don't have to talk about it, I just...I don't want you to think you're alone. We're here for you. I'm here for you." You meet her eyes after her words, offering her a shy smile before opening your own door and looking back at her, unsure of how to feel at the care she was showing you.

"Thank you Natasha," your tone is filled with appreciation as you smile at her, a warmth enveloping the redhead's chest at your softening features before you enter the room, leaving her to stare at the spot you were just at, unable to stop thinking about your smile.

#marvel fanfiction #angst with a happy ending #heavy angst #the soldier of death #super soldier reader #hydra #tw torture #tw abuse #tw violence #graphic #cw gore #natasha #natasha romanoff fanart #natahsa romanoff #natasha romanov #natasha romanoff #black widow x reader #natasha romanoff x reader

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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My McLuhan lecture on enshittification

IT'S THE LAST DAY for the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

youtube

Last night, I gave the annual Marshall McLuhan lecture at the Transmediale festival in Berlin. The event was sold out and while there's a video that'll be posted soon, they couldn't get a streaming setup installed in the Canadian embassy, where the talk was held:

https://transmediale.de/en/2024/event/mcluhan-2024

The talk went of fabulously, and was followed by commentary from Frederike Kaltheuner (Human Rights Watch) and a discussion moderated by Helen Starr. While you'll have to wait a bit for the video, I thought that I'd post my talk notes from last night for the impatient among you.

I want to thank the festival and the embassy staff for their hard work on an excellent event. And now, on to the talk!

Last year, I coined the term 'enshittification,' to describe the way that platforms decay. That obscene little word did big numbers, it really hit the zeitgeist. I mean, the American Dialect Society made it their Word of the Year for 2023 (which, I suppose, means that now I'm definitely getting a poop emoji on my tombstone).

So what's enshittification and why did it catch fire? It's my theory explaining how the internet was colonized by platforms, and why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, and why it matters – and what we can do about it.

We're all living through the enshittocene, a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit.

It's frustrating. It's demoralizing. It's even terrifying.

I think that the enshittification framework goes a long way to explaining it, moving us out of the mysterious realm of the 'great forces of history,' and into the material world of specific decisions made by named people – decisions we can reverse and people whose addresses and pitchfork sizes we can learn.

Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It's not just a way to say 'things are getting worse' (though of course, it's fine with me if you want to use it that way. It's an English word. We don't have der Rat für Englisch Rechtschreibung. English is a free for all. Go nuts, meine Kerle).

But in case you want to use enshittification in a more precise, technical way, let's examine how enshittification works.

It's a three stage process: First, platforms are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Let's do a case study. What could be better than Facebook?

Facebook is a company that was founded to nonconsensually rate the fuckability of Harvard undergrads, and it only got worse after that.

When Facebook started off, it was only open to US college and high-school kids with .edu and k-12.us addresses. But in 2006, it opened up to the general public. It told them: “Yes, I know you’re all using Myspace. But Myspace is owned by Rupert Murdoch, an evil, crapulent senescent Australian billionaire, who spies on you with every hour that God sends.

“Sign up with Facebook and we will never spy on you. Come and tell us who matters to you in this world, and we will compose a personal feed consisting solely of what those people post for consumption by those who choose to follow them.”

That was stage one. Facebook had a surplus — its investors’ cash — and it allocated that surplus to its end-users. Those end-users proceeded to lock themselves into FB. FB — like most tech businesses — has network effects on its side. A product or service enjoys network effects when it improves as more people sign up to use it. You joined FB because your friends were there, and then others signed up because you were there.

But FB didn’t just have high network effects, it had high switching costs. Switching costs are everything you have to give up when you leave a product or service. In Facebook’s case, it was all the friends there that you followed and who followed you. In theory, you could have all just left for somewhere else; in practice, you were hamstrung by the collective action problem.

It’s hard to get lots of people to do the same thing at the same time. You and your six friends here are going to struggle to agree on where to get drinks after tonight's lecture. How were you and your 200 Facebook friends ever gonna agree on when it was time to leave Facebook, and where to go?

So FB’s end-users engaged in a mutual hostage-taking that kept them glued to the platform. Then FB exploited that hostage situation, withdrawing the surplus from end-users and allocating it to two groups of business customers: advertisers, and publishers.

To the advertisers, FB said, 'Remember when we told those rubes we wouldn’t spy on them? We lied. We spy on them from asshole to appetite. We will sell you access to that surveillance data in the form of fine-grained ad-targeting, and we will devote substantial engineering resources to thwarting ad-fraud. Your ads are dirt cheap to serve, and we��ll spare no expense to make sure that when you pay for an ad, a real human sees it.'

To the publishers, FB said, 'Remember when we told those rubes we would only show them the things they asked to see? We lied!Upload short excerpts from your website, append a link, and we will nonconsensually cram it into the eyeballs of users who never asked to see it. We are offering you a free traffic funnel that will drive millions of users to your website to monetize as you please, and those users will become stuck to you when they subscribe to your feed.' And so advertisers and publishers became stuck to the platform, too, dependent on those users.

The users held each other hostage, and those hostages took the publishers and advertisers hostage, too, so that everyone was locked in.

Which meant it was time for the third stage of enshittification: withdrawing surplus from everyone and handing it to Facebook’s shareholders.

For the users, that meant dialing down the share of content from accounts you followed to a homeopathic dose, and filling the resulting void with ads and pay-to-boost content from publishers.

For advertisers, that meant jacking up prices and drawing down anti-fraud enforcement, so advertisers paid much more for ads that were far less likely to be seen by a person.

For publishers, this meant algorithmically suppressing the reach of their posts unless they included an ever-larger share of their articles in the excerpt, until anything less than fulltext was likely to be be disqualified from being sent to your subscribers, let alone included in algorithmic suggestion feeds.

And then FB started to punish publishers for including a link back to their own sites, so they were corralled into posting fulltext feeds with no links, meaning they became commodity suppliers to Facebook, entirely dependent on the company both for reach and for monetization, via the increasingly crooked advertising service.

When any of these groups squawked, FB just repeated the lesson that every tech executive learned in the Darth Vader MBA: 'I have altered the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.'

Facebook now enters the most dangerous phase of enshittification. It wants to withdraw all available surplus, and leave just enough residual value in the service to keep end users stuck to each other, and business customers stuck to end users, without leaving anything extra on the table, so that every extractable penny is drawn out and returned to its shareholders.

But that’s a very brittle equilibrium, because the difference between “I hate this service but I can’t bring myself to quit it,” and “Jesus Christ, why did I wait so long to quit? Get me the hell out of here!” is razor thin

All it takes is one Cambridge Analytica scandal, one whistleblower, one livestreamed mass-shooting, and users bolt for the exits, and then FB discovers that network effects are a double-edged sword.

If users can’t leave because everyone else is staying, when when everyone starts to leave, there’s no reason not to go, too.

That’s terminal enshittification, the phase when a platform becomes a pile of shit. This phase is usually accompanied by panic, which tech bros euphemistically call 'pivoting.'

Which is how we get pivots like, 'In the future, all internet users will be transformed into legless, sexless, low-polygon, heavily surveilled cartoon characters in a virtual world called "metaverse," that we ripped off from a 25-year-old satirical cyberpunk novel.'

That's the procession of enshittification. If enshittification were a disease, we'd call that enshittification's "natural history." But that doesn't tell you how the enshittification works, nor why everything is enshittifying right now, and without those details, we can't know what to do about it.

What led to the enshittocene? What is it about this moment that led to the Great Enshittening? Was it the end of the Zero Interest Rate Policy? Was it a change in leadership at the tech giants? Is Mercury in retrograde?

None of the above.

The period of free fed money certainly led to tech companies having a lot of surplus to toss around. But Facebook started enshittifying long before ZIRP ended, so did Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Some of the tech giants got new leaders. But Google's enshittification got worse when the founders came back to oversee the company's AI panic (excuse me, 'AI pivot').

And it can't be Mercury in retrograde, because I'm a cancer, and as everyone knows, cancers don't believe in astrology.

When a whole bunch of independent entities all change in the same way at once, that's a sign that the environment has changed, and that's what happened to tech.

Tech companies, like all companies, have conflicting imperatives. On the one hand, they want to make money. On the other hand, making money involves hiring and motivating competent staff, and making products that customers want to buy. The more value a company permits its employees and customers to carve off, the less value it can give to its shareholders.

The equilibrium in which companies produce things we like in honorable ways at a fair price is one in which charging more, worsening quality, and harming workers costs more than the company would make by playing dirty.

There are four forces that discipline companies, serving as constraints on their enshittificatory impulses.

First: competition. Companies that fear you will take your business elsewhere are cautious about worsening quality or raising prices.

Second: regulation. Companies that fear a regulator will fine them more than they expect to make from cheating, will cheat less.

These two forces affect all industries, but the next two are far more tech-specific.

Third: self-help. Computers are extremely flexible, and so are the digital products and services we make from them. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing-complete Von Neumann machine, a computer that can run every valid program.

That means that users can always avail themselves of programs that undo the anti-features that shift value from them to a company's shareholders. Think of a board-room table where someone says, 'I've calculated that making our ads 20% more invasive will net us 2% more revenue per user.'

In a digital world, someone else might well say 'Yes, but if we do that, 20% of our users will install ad-blockers, and our revenue from those users will drop to zero, forever.'

This means that digital companies are constrained by the fear that some enshittificatory maneuver will prompt their users to google, 'How do I disenshittify this?'

Fourth and finally: workers. Tech workers have very low union density, but that doesn't mean that tech workers don't have labor power. The historical "talent shortage" of the tech sector meant that workers enjoyed a lot of leverage over their bosses. Workers who disagreed with their bosses could quit and walk across the street and get another job – a better job.

They knew it, and their bosses knew it. Ironically, this made tech workers highly exploitable. Tech workers overwhelmingly saw themselves as founders in waiting, entrepreneurs who were temporarily drawing a salary, heroic figures of the tech mission.

That's why mottoes like Google's 'don't be evil' and Facebook's 'make the world more open and connected' mattered: they instilled a sense of mission in workers. It's what Fobazi Ettarh calls 'vocational awe, 'or Elon Musk calls being 'extremely hardcore.'

Tech workers had lots of bargaining power, but they didn't flex it when their bosses demanded that they sacrifice their health, their families, their sleep to meet arbitrary deadlines.

So long as their bosses transformed their workplaces into whimsical 'campuses,' with gyms, gourmet cafeterias, laundry service, massages and egg-freezing, workers could tell themselves that they were being pampered – rather than being made to work like government mules.

But for bosses, there's a downside to motivating your workers with appeals to a sense of mission, namely: your workers will feel a sense of mission. So when you ask them to enshittify the products they ruined their health to ship, workers will experience a sense of profound moral injury, respond with outrage, and threaten to quit.

Thus tech workers themselves were the final bulwark against enshittification,

The pre-enshittification era wasn't a time of better leadership. The executives weren't better. They were constrained. Their worst impulses were checked by competition, regulation, self-help and worker power.

So what happened?

One by one, each of these constraints was eroded until it dissolved, leaving the enshittificatory impulse unchecked, ushering in the enshittoscene.

It started with competition. From the Gilded Age until the Reagan years, the purpose of competition law was to promote competition. US antitrust law treated corporate power as dangerous and sought to blunt it. European antitrust laws were modeled on US ones, imported by the architects of the Marshall Plan.

But starting in the neoliberal era, competition authorities all over the world adopted a doctrine called 'consumer welfare,' which held that monopolies were evidence of quality. If everyone was shopping at the same store and buying the same product, that meant it was the best store, selling the best product – not that anyone was cheating.

And so all over the world, governments stopped enforcing their competition laws. They just ignored them as companies flouted them. Those companies merged with their major competitors, absorbed small companies before they could grow to be big threats. They held an orgy of consolidation that produced the most inbred industries imaginable, whole sectors grown so incestuous they developed Habsburg jaws, from eyeglasses to sea freight, glass bottles to payment processing, vitamin C to beer.

Most of our global economy is dominated by five or fewer global companies. If smaller companies refuse to sell themselves to these cartels, the giants have free rein to flout competition law further, with 'predatory pricing' that keeps an independent rival from gaining a foothold.

When Diapers.com refused Amazon's acquisition offer, Amazon lit $100m on fire, selling diapers way below cost for months, until diapers.com went bust, and Amazon bought them for pennies on the dollar, and shut them down.

Competition is a distant memory. As Tom Eastman says, the web has devolved into 'five giant websites filled with screenshots of text from the other four,' so these giant companies no longer fear losing our business.

Lily Tomlin used to do a character on the TV show Laugh In, an AT&T telephone operator who'd do commercials for the Bell system. Each one would end with her saying 'We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company.'

Today's giants are not constrained by competition.

They don't care. They don't have to. They're Google.

That's the first constraint gone, and as it slipped away, the second constraint – regulation – was also doomed.

When an industry consists of hundreds of small- and medium-sized enterprises, it is a mob, a rabble. Hundreds of companies can't agree on what to tell Parliament or Congress or the Commission. They can't even agree on how to cater a meeting where they'd discuss the matter.

But when a sector dwindles to a bare handful of dominant firms, it ceases to be a rabble and it becomes a cartel.

Five companies, or four, or three, or two, or just one company finds it easy to converge on a single message for their regulators, and without "wasteful competition" eroding their profits, they have plenty of cash to spread around.

Like Facebook, handing former UK deputy PM Nick Clegg millions every year to sleaze around Europe, telling his former colleagues that Facebook is the only thing standing between 'European Cyberspace' and the Chinese Communist Party.

Tech's regulatory capture allows it to flout the rules that constrain less concentrated sectors. They can pretend that violating labor, consumer and privacy laws is fine, because they violate them with an app.

This is why competition matters: it's not just because competition makes companies work harder and share value with customers and workers, it's because competition keeps companies from becoming too big to fail, and too big to jail.

Now, there's plenty of things we don't want improved through competition, like privacy invasions. After the EU passed its landmark privacy law, the GDPR, there was a mass-extinction event for small EU ad-tech companies. These companies disappeared en masse, and that's fine.

They were even more invasive and reckless than US-based Big Tech companies. After all, they had less to lose. We don't want competition in commercial surveillance. We don't want to produce increasing efficiency in violating our human rights.

But: Google and Facebook – who pretend they are called Alphabet and Meta – have been unscathed by European privacy law. That's not because they don't violate the GDPR (they do!). It's because they pretend they are headquartered in Ireland, one of the EU's most notorious corporate crime-havens.

And Ireland competes with the EU other crime havens – Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus and sometimes the Netherlands – to see which country can offer the most hospitable environment for all sorts of crimes. Because the kind of company that can fly an Irish flag of convenience is mobile enough to change to a Maltese flag if the Irish start enforcing EU laws.

Which is how you get an Irish Data Protection Commission that processes fewer than 20 major cases per year, while Germany's data commissioner handles more than 500 major cases, even though Ireland is nominal home to the most privacy-invasive companies on the continent.

So Google and Facebook get to act as though they are immune to privacy law, because they violate the law with an app; just like Uber can violate labor law and claim it doesn't count because they do it with an app.

Uber's labor-pricing algorithm offers different drivers different payments for the same job, something Veena Dubal calls 'algorithmic wage discrimination.' If you're more selective about which jobs you'll take, Uber will pay you more for every ride.

But if you take those higher payouts and ditch whatever side-hustle let you cover your bills which being picky about your Uber drives, Uber will incrementally reduce the payment, toggling up and down as you grow more or less selective, playing you like a fish on a line until you eventually – inevitably – lose to the tireless pricing robot, and end up stuck with low wages and all your side-hustles gone.

Then there's Amazon, which violates consumer protection laws, but says it doesn't matter, because they do it with an app. Amazon makes $38b/year from its 'advertising' system. 'Advertising' in quotes because they're not selling ads, they're selling placements in search results.

The companies that spend the most on 'ads' go to the top, even if they're offering worse products at higher prices. If you click the first link in an Amazon search result, on average you will pay a 29% premium over the best price on the service. Click one of the first four items and you'll pay a 25% premium. On average you have to go seventeen items down to find the best deal on Amazon.

Any merchant that did this to you in a physical storefront would be fined into oblivion. But Amazon has captured its regulators, so it can violate your rights, and say, "it doesn't count, we did it with an app"

This is where that third constraint, self-help, would sure come in handy. If you don't want your privacy violated, you don't need to wait for the Irish privacy regulator to act, you can just install an ad-blocker.

More than half of all web users are blocking ads. But the web is an open platform, developed in the age when tech was hundreds of companies at each others' throats, unable to capture their regulators.

Today, the web is being devoured by apps, and apps are ripe for enshittification. Regulatory capture isn't just the ability to flout regulation, it's also the ability to co-opt regulation, to wield regulation against your adversaries.

Today's tech giants got big by exploiting self-help measures. When Facebook was telling Myspace users they needed to escape Rupert Murdoch’s evil crapulent Australian social media panopticon, it didn’t just say to those Myspacers, 'Screw your friends, come to Facebook and just hang out looking at the cool privacy policy until they get here'

It gave them a bot. You fed the bot your Myspace username and password, and it would login to Myspace and pretend to be you, and scrape everything waiting in your inbox, copying it to your FB inbox, and you could reply to it and it would autopilot your replies back to Myspace.

When Microsoft was choking off Apple's market oxygen by refusing to ship a functional version of Microsoft Office for the Mac – so that offices were throwing away their designers' Macs and giving them PCs with upgraded graphics cards and Windows versions of Photoshop and Illustrator – Steve Jobs didn't beg Bill Gates to update Mac Office.

He got his technologists to reverse-engineer Microsoft Office, and make a compatible suite, the iWork Suite, whose apps, Pages, Numbers and Keynote could perfectly read and write Microsoft's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files.

When Google entered the market, it sent its crawler to every web server on Earth, where it presented itself as a web-user: 'Hi! Hello! Do you have any web pages? Thanks! How about some more? How about more?'

But every pirate wants to be an admiral. When Facebook, Apple and Google were doing this adversarial interoperability, that was progress. If you try to do it to them, that's piracy.

Try to make an alternative client for Facebook and they'll say you violated US laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and EU laws like Article 6 of the EUCD.

Try to make an Android program that can run iPhone apps and play back the data from Apple's media stores and they'd bomb you until the rubble bounced.

Try to scrape all of Google and they'll nuke you until you glowed.

Tech's regulatory capture is mind-boggling. Take that law I mentioned earlier, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA. Bill Clinton signed it in 1998, and the EU imported it as Article 6 of the EUCD in 2001

It is a blanket prohibition on removing any kind of encryption that restricts access to a copyrighted work – things like ripping DVDs or jailbreaking a phone – with penalties of a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine for a first offense.

This law has been so broadened that it can be used to imprison creators for granting access to their own creations

Here's how that works: In 2008, Amazon bought Audible, an audiobook platform, in an anticompetitive acquisition. Today, Audible is a monopolist with more than 90% of the audiobook market. Audible requires that all creators on their platform sell with Amazon's "digital rights management," which locks it to Amazon's apps.

So say I write a book, then I read it into a mic, then I pay a director and an engineer thousands of dollars to turn that into an audiobook, and sell it to you on the monopoly platform, Audible, that controls more than 90% of the market.

If I later decide to leave Amazon and want to let you come with me to a rival platform, I am out of luck. If I supply you with a tool to remove Amazon's encryption from my audiobook, so you can play it in another app, I commit a felony, punishable by a 5-year sentence and a half-million-dollar fine, for a first offense.

That's a stiffer penalty than you would face if you simply pirated the audiobook from a torrent site. But it's also harsher than the punishment you'd get for shoplifting the audiobook on CD from a truck-stop. It's harsher than the sentence you'd get for hijacking the truck that delivered the CD.

So think of our ad-blockers again. 50% of web users are running ad-blockers. 0% of app users are running ad-blockers, because adding a blocker to an app requires that you first remove its encryption, and that's a felony (Jay Freeman calls this 'felony contempt of business-model').

So when someone in a board-room says, 'let's make our ads 20% more obnoxious and get a 2% revenue increase,' no one objects that this might prompt users to google, 'how do I block ads?' After all, the answer is, 'you can't.'

Indeed, it's more likely that someone in that board room will say, 'let's make our ads 100% more obnoxious and get a 10% revenue increase' (this is why every company wants you to install an app instead of using its website).

There's no reason that gig workers who are facing algorithmic wage discrimination couldn't install a counter-app that coordinated among all the Uber drivers to reject all jobs unless they reach a certain pay threshold.

No reason except felony contempt of business model, the threat that the toolsmiths who built that counter-app would go broke or land in prison, for violating DMCA 1201, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trademark, copyright, patent, contract, trade secrecy, nondisclosure and noncompete, or in other words: 'IP law.'

'IP' is just a euphemism for 'a law that lets me reach beyond the walls of my company and control the conduct of my critics, competitors and customers.' And 'app' is just a euphemism for 'a web-page wrapped enough IP to make it a felony to mod it to protect the labor, consumer and privacy rights of its user.'

We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company.

But what about that fourth constraint: workers?

For decades, tech workers' high degrees of bargaining power and vocational awe put a ceiling on enshittification. Even after the tech sector shrank to a handful of giants. Even after they captured their regulators so they could violate our consumer, privacy and labor rights. Even after they created 'felony contempt of business model' and extinguished self-help for tech users. Tech was still constrained by their workers' sense of moral injury in the face of the imperative to enshittify.

Remember when tech workers dreamed of working for a big company for a few years, before striking out on their own to start their own company that would knock that tech giant over?

Then that dream shrank to: work for a giant for a few years, quit, do a fake startup, get acqui-hired by your old employer, as a complicated way of getting a bonus and a promotion.

Then the dream shrank further: work for a tech giant for your whole life, get free kombucha and massages on Wednesdays.

And now, the dream is over. All that’s left is: work for a tech giant until they fire your ass, like those 12,000 Googlers who got fired last year six months after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years.

Workers are no longer a check on their bosses' worst impulses

Today, the response to 'I refuse to make this product worse' is, 'turn in your badge and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.'

I get that this is all a little depressing

OK, really depressing.

But hear me out! We've identified the disease. We've traced its natural history. We've identified its underlying mechanism. Now we can get to work on a cure.

There are four constraints that prevent enshittification: competition, regulation, self-help and labor.

To reverse enshittification and guard against its reemergence, we must restore and strengthen each of these.

On competition, it's actually looking pretty good. The EU, the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and China are all doing more on competition than they have in two generations. They're blocking mergers, unwinding existing ones, taking action on predatory pricing and other sleazy tactics.

Remember, in the US and Europe, we already have the laws to do this – we just stopped enforcing them in the Helmut Kohl era.

I've been fighting these fights with the Electronic Frontier Foundation for 22 years now, and I've never seen a more hopeful moment for sound, informed tech policy.

Now, the enshittifiers aren't taking this laying down. The business press can't stop talking about how stupid and old-fashioned all this stuff is. They call people like me 'hipster antitrust,' and they hate any regulator who actually does their job.

Take Lina Khan, the brilliant head of the US Federal Trade Commission, who has done more in three years on antitrust than the combined efforts of all her predecessors over the past 40 years. Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has run more than 80 editorials trashing Khan, insisting that she's an ineffectual ideologue who can't get anything done.

Sure, Rupert, that's why you ran 80 editorials about her.

Because she can't get anything done.

Even Canada is stepping up on competition. Canada! Land of the evil billionaire! From Ted Rogers, who owns the country's telecoms; to Galen Weston, who owns the country's grocery stores; to the Irvings, who basically own the entire province of New Brunswick.

Even Canada is doing something about this. Last autumn, Trudeau's government promised to update Canada's creaking competition law to finally ban 'abuse of dominance.'

I mean, wow. I guess when Galen Weston decided to engage in a criminal conspiracy to fix the price of bread – the most Les Miz-ass crime imaginable – it finally got someone's attention, eh?

Competition has a long way to go, but all over the world, competition law is seeing a massive revitalization. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher put antitrust law in a coma in the 80s – but it's awake, it's back, and it's pissed.

What about regulation? How will we get tech companies to stop doing that one weird trick of adding 'with an app' to their crimes and escaping enforcement?

Well, here in the EU, they're starting to figure it out. This year, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act went into effect, and they let people who get screwed by tech companies go straight to the federal European courts, bypassing the toothless watchdogs in Europe's notorious corporate crime havens like Ireland.

In America, they might finally get a digital privacy law. You people have no idea how backwards US privacy law is. The last time the US Congress enacted a broadly applicable privacy law was in 1988.

The Video Privacy Protection Act makes it a crime for video-store clerks to leak your video-rental history. It was passed after a right-wing judge who was up for the Supreme Court had his rentals published in a DC newspaper. The rentals weren't even all that embarrassing!

Sure, that judge, Robert Bork, wasn't confirmed for the Supreme Court, but that was because he was a virulently racist loudmouth and a crook who served as Nixon's Solicitor General.

But Congress got the idea that their video records might be next, freaked out, and passed the VPPA.

That was the last time Americans got a big, national privacy law. Nineteen. Eighty. Eight.

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?

Having 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 big coalition for that kind of privacy law.

What about self-help? That's a lot farther away, alas.

The EU's DMA will force tech companies to open up their walled gardens for interoperation. You'll be able to use Whatsapp to message people on iMessage, or quit Facebook and move to Mastodon, but still send messages to the people left behind.

But if you want to reverse-engineer one of those Big Tech products and mod it to work for you, not them, the EU's got nothing for you.

This is an area ripe for improvement, and I think the US might be the first ones to open this up.

It's certainly on-brand for the EU to be forcing tech companies to do things a certain way, while the US simply takes away tech companies' abilities to prevent others from changing how their stuff works.

My big hope here is that Stein's Law will take hold: 'Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop'

Letting companies decide how their customers must use their products is simply too tempting an invitation to mischief. HP has a whole building full of engineers thinking of new ways to lock your printer to its official ink cartridges, forcing you to spend $10,000/gallon on ink to print your boarding passes and shopping lists.

It's offensive. The only people who don't agree are the people running the monopolies in all the other industries, like the med-tech monopolists who are locking their insulin pumps to their glucose monitors, turning people with diabetes into walking inkjet printers.

Finally, there's labor. Here in Europe, there's much higher union density than in the US, which American tech barons are learning the hard way. There is nothing more satisfying in the daily news than the latest salvo by Nordic unions against that Tesla guy (Musk is the most Edison-ass Tesla guy imaginable).

But even in the USA, there's a massive surge in tech unions. Tech workers are realizing that they aren't founders in waiting. The days of free massages and facial piercings and getting to wear black tee shirts that say things your boss doesn't understand are coming to an end.

In Seattle, Amazon's tech workers walked out in sympathy with Amazon's warehouse workers, because they're all workers.

The only reason the tech workers aren't monitored by AI that notifies their managers if they visit the toilet during working hours is their rapidly dwindling bargaining power. The way things are going, Amazon programmers are going to be pissing in bottles next to their workstations (for a guy who built a penis-shaped rocket, Jeff Bezos really hates our kidneys).

We're seeing bold, muscular, global action on competition, regulation and labor, with self-help bringing up the rear. It's not a moment too soon, because the bad news is, enshittification is coming to every industry.

If it's got a networked computer in it, the people who made it can run the Darth Vader MBA playbook on it, changing the rules from moment to moment, violating your rights and then saying 'It's OK, we did it with an app.'

From Mercedes renting you your accelerator pedal by the month to Internet of Things dishwashers that lock you into proprietary dishsoap, enshittification is metastasizing into every corner of our lives.

Software doesn't eat the world, it enshittifies it

But there's a bright side to all this: if everyone is threatened by enshittification, then everyone has a stake in disenshittification.

Just as with privacy law in the US, the potential anti-enshittification coalition is massive, it's unstoppable.

The cynics among you might be skeptical that this will make a difference. After all, isn't "enshittification" the same as "capitalism"?

Well, no.

Look, I'm not going to cape for capitalism here. I'm hardly a true believer in markets as the most efficient allocators of resources and arbiters of policy – if there was ever any doubt, capitalism's total failure to grapple with the climate emergency surely erases it.

But the capitalism of 20 years ago made space for a wild and wooly internet, a space where people with disfavored views could find each other, offer mutual aid, and organize.

The capitalism of today has produced a global, digital ghost mall, filled with botshit, crapgadgets from companies with consonant-heavy brand-names, and cryptocurrency scams.

The internet isn't more important than the climate emergency, nor gender justice, racial justice, genocide, or inequality.

But the internet is the terrain we'll fight those fights on. Without a free, fair and open internet, the fight is lost before it's joined.

We can reverse the enshittification of the internet. We can halt the creeping enshittification of every digital device.

We can build a better, enshittification-resistant digital nervous system, one that is fit to coordinate the mass movements we will need to fight fascism, end genocide, and save our planet and our species.

Martin Luther King said 'It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.'

And it may be true that the law can't force corporate sociopaths to conceive of you as a human being entitled to dignity and fair treatment, and not just an ambulatory wallet, a supply of gut-bacteria for the immortal colony organism that is a limited liability corporation.

But it can make that exec fear you enough to treat you fairly and afford you dignity, even if he doesn't think you deserve it.

And I think that's pretty important.

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/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel/a>

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

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#pluralistic #transmediale #lectures #enshittification #big tech #berlin #mcluhan lecture #Youtube

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ozzyeelz · 1 year ago

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Saw your Spy Hc post and me and my resident parent lost our shit over them!!

THEYRE SO HOT!!! WE LOVE THEM BOTH!!

Love seeing Hispanic/black/ (I didn’t read all the tags so I don’t know if you mentioned blue spy’s nationality) Spy’s!! Love love love your art of medic too!

Would cry tears of joy if you drew any more Medic/Spy 👉👈👀

Happy New Year from MD!!

EHEHE TYY I’m glad y’all like them!!! :DD

Also yes my Blu Spy is black (Specifically Haitian and mainland French for Blu, and mainland French and Spanish for Red)!!

And here’s some MediSpy for you!! :3 Im a bit late, but happy new year to you too!! :D

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hahahafangirl · 8 months ago

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gotta put my thoughts down before i forget it but the thing that did it in for me is how spy x family is ultimately and uniquely a “children-focused” work, where the major stakes require that we pay attention to the lives and dynamics of young children so that — specifically — we have to genuinely engage with and invested in their inner lives, motivations, desires, thoughts, emotions, etc.

i think this is a very unique focus in the shounen sphere, where the audience and creators are centered about adolescent boys (the shounen genre, in its name) and thus have a very wide scope of focus that nonetheless has “aged” past “childhood”. usually media about children and childhood are sequestered in its own genre (children’s shows like doraemon, magical girl anime like precure series, etc.) aimed at a different target audience who are in the same demographic as the main characters in the shows. this is, obviously, not a bad thing. but i appreciate the “genre-breaking” focus that spy x family have because it inspires a sort of empathy to children, who are often not the most favorite group of people for the typical demographic of shounen readers, that is specifically vital in today’s climate. (can’t say much about japan itself, who historically has been dealing with declining birth rates, but oh i can speak for the american individualism— ironically where sxf is also very popular in) another thing about this is it’s drive home how intertwined the family life is, and should be. agent twilight and thorn princess’s plot-lines are clearly shounen-esque (a spy fighting for world peace, an assassin weeding out traitors) but they are nonetheless inextricable from the family- and anya-focused story, because by choice or circumstances they are anya’s parents. they’re a part of a larger societal fabric that embedded them in relationships to others — children being one of them. i think that’s pretty neat.

another thing, specially about the depiction of children in sxf: they are fictitious yet realistic enough to portray real children and inspire sympathy for them. a lot of asian home media in general have the problems of portraying young children as “problems”: annoying, loud, privileged, dumb, ungrateful, etc etc. these are such complaints about children that are unfortunately way too common and way too ungenerous and mean-spirited; none of these tropes are present, even in a media full of scions and heiress. complaints about them being brats (red circus bus hijacking arc) was rightfully framed as unsympathetic and unreasonable (they’re children! they can’t help where they were born into— it goes both ways.) i think the crux of this beautiful balance sxf struck in portraying nuanced, dynamics children is sympathy. they can be loud, they can be whiny, cry at the drop of a hat, has too much energy, gross, have bad grades, clingy, inconsistent, academically unmotivated, ran off randomly— and that’s fine, because we know why they do it, we are given space into their inner thoughts, something so rarely afforded to real life children at times. but they can be motivated, they want world peace, they want to have genuine friends, they want their friends to be happy, they have crushes, and most of all they love their parents and they love the people around them.

i think regardless of everything sxf is a work that understands that children are full of love and the majority of the things they do are out of love. i think that alone makes it incredible in the current socio-econo-political climate where sympathy is spared so little and humanity spreads so thin children barely gets what they deserve. i suppose that’s the sort of war we are entrenched in.

#spy x family #spy x family meta #i guess?#it’s late and i have been rereading spy x family obsessively to cope and i just #have a lot of feelings about it #anya forger #damian desmond #becky blackbell #damian’s friends too but i don’t know their full names. sorry kids.#all of these children are so precious and i would die and kill for them and would live to build world peace for them. if you catch my drift

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kittenintheden · 9 months ago

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Poker Face

the one-shot I've been teasing has dropped! thank you to every last one of you who supported me and contributed to this. you know who you are. and if you don't know, you will. enjoy!!!

Rating: E Paring: Astarion/GN!Tav Wordcount: 2.2k Content: established relationship, gender-neutral Tav (?), quickie, semi-public sex, party sex, blowjob, penetrative sex, use of lube, The Horrors (?)

You and Astarion are having a casual evening hanging out with some friends. When you spy him from across the room, he gives you a tell only you know.

He wants you. Here and now. And you're happy to oblige.

Astarion has a tell.

Several of them, if you’re being honest, but one in particular with a specific connotation. You catch him tonight as you look over your shoulder, laughing at something your friend just said. On the other side of the room, your love leans against the wall, also engaged in conversation with someone at this casual gathering in the loft above Dammon’s shop.

Astarion smiles blandly at his company before he meets your eye and it turns genuine. A subtle change in the lines of his face that you’ve come to know so well, eyes going rounder and the sharp points of his teeth glinting through his parted lips. That isn’t the tell.

The tell is when he raises his hand to his mouth and rubs the pad of his thumb over his lower lip, letting it pull from the tension ever so slightly as his eyes look you up and down. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, and you’re not about to tell him, but you know exactly what it means even as he turns back to his conversation.

He wants you. Here and now. There’s no doubt in your mind that there’s a dull ache starting between his legs, just as it’s starting between yours.

You take a sip from your goblet, letting the wine swirl on your tongue as you pay your companions a placating smile, only half-listening to the subject of their discussion. After a few minutes, you graciously excuse yourself and move toward Astarion’s group. You notice his head turn slightly at your approach.

“Sorry to interrupt,” you say to the others as you run your fingers over his shirt sleeve before looking into his face. “I could use some air. Would you walk with me?”

“Of course, my sweet,” he says, voice the very essence of chivalry. He takes your goblet and sets it on the side table, offering his arm. You accept it and allow him to lead you outside the flat and down the stairs. When you hit the ground floor, you gently guide him with you out of sight.

“What’s this?” he teases.

In answer, you put one hand on his waist and slide the other hand around the back of his neck to draw him into a deep soul kiss. When he immediately opens to you without a hint of resistance, you know you were right. Before you pull away, you gently suck his lower lip and listen to him whine when you give it a light nibble.

“You looked like you needed a walk,” you whisper against his mouth. “Partner’s intuition. Was I wrong?”

Astarion tucks his chin and looks up at you, pupils overtaking the heated red irises of his eyes. “No.” He reaches around to twist the cloth at the base of your spine in his fist and pull you flush against him, where you can feel something rigid against your hip. “You weren’t.”

You know what that ridge is.

You open the door to Dammon’s storage shed and pull Astarion along behind you. You fumble with the nearest lantern until the flame lights, casting the space in a flickering orange glow before you pull the door shut. With a laugh, you herd him into the closest open expanse, careful where you step.

Astarion’s back hits the wall. He growls and takes you by the wrist, dragging your fingers down the fabric of his shirt until you’re pressed tight to the firm length of his quivering member through his trousers. You meet his eyes, inches from your own, and note the way he pants out his breath between the points of his teeth.

“Do you feel what you do to me?” he whispers, tilting his chin toward you. “The way my magic male love stick is pulled to you like you’re the Sailor’s Star? The way I want to put my peepee in your peepee?”

Your eyelids go heavy and hooded. You tilt your head and catch his mouth in a kiss and feel the vibration of his approving hum through his lips. At the same time, you give his heckin long chonk a slow stroke through the fabric and his body leans into yours, knees gone weak. He licks along your lip with a quiet groan.

Oh, how you love him like this. Hornt up and ready to ride, tender and eager. He’s frothin’ for you instead of thinking of his next move, and the one after that, and the one after that. Split open like a hot dog bun, 100% all beef frank and condiments spilling from him in a cascade.

Such a show of trust, of love, to let you see exactly how badly he wants to take the skin boat to tuna town. To put that knowledge and that power in your hands.

You’ll show him his trust is well-placed.

Reluctantly, you break from his mouth and he tries to follow you, tries to maintain the connection with a breathy whine. You swallow hard and run your fingers over his jawline. “Where do you want this, dearest? What would you like?”

“Your gibbering gob,” he gasps, still fighting you for another kiss. “I want you to put your piehole on me.”

“On you where?” you whisper, brushing your lips barely against his.

“On my piehole.” His voice contains the hint of a growl, now. “My neck. My chest, my stomach, my schlong.” He tests your will to hold him at bay. “Especially my big pulsating pocket rocket.”

You grin and wrinkle your nose, running your fingers up either side of his head to thread into his hair as you roll your body into his, capturing his lips with an agreeable purr. As requested, you release him and instead reach for his linen shirt, pulling it free of his trousers where he’s tucked it. He doesn’t release you from the kiss until the shirt has to go over his head. You drop it on the floor and put your hot mouth against the side of his neck, following the column of his throat with tooth and tongue. His back arches up off the wall and you use your weight to keep him in place.

Kisses travel across the expanse of his chest and over his undulating abdomen, incapable of staying still in his current state of total horned upitude. With gentle fingers, you pull at the fastenings at the front of his trousers, working them open enough to kiss and lick to the hem of his underoos. You spend a teasing amount of time running the tip of your tongue just under the band before he huffs his impatience at you.

When you sit back to look up at him, you find his eyes lidded and teeming with glossy lust, curls hanging down around his head. “I need you to slobber my knobber, my love,” he says softly.

“You do?” you ask him sweetly, even as you continue working his banana hammock to free his dingdingdong. He sighs his relief when he feels it in your hand, your fingers dancing lightly over that velvet salami.

“I love your mouth muscle on me.” He gasps sharply when you reward him with a light lick under the bulbous mushroom. “Love your sloppy toppies, your…” Another gasp as you swirl your tongue round him. “Gods, I need you to blow my job right now, I can’t think-”

His groan is low and wanting as you take him fully, letting the length of his one-eyed snake slide over the curl of your oral slug as far as you can go without gagging. You hollow your cheeks slightly, giving him the suction he seeks, and begin to move, working his love popsicle slowly.

“Yes,” he breathes, leaning heavily back into the wall even as he gently cants his hips in time with your mouth. You feel the light touch of his fingertips against your temple, moving back to play with your hair. When he looks down again to observe, he adds, “Such a sweet orifice, so perfect for my tallywacker. You are so beautiful like this. Could watch you… forever.”

Forever is a very long time, which you remind him by increasing your efforts, head moving quicker now, your tongue dragging along the underside of his organic dildo. He shudders forward, curling over you, humming.

“Ah, good to me, so good, gods, gods, that-” His words are cut through with an aching moan and you feel his steel rod swell (somehow) and go harder (than steel) against the softness of your mouth.

Then he has his arms underneath your arms and he pulls you bodily off him, up and away, and then you’re on your feet and he’s spinning you both around until your back is the one against the wall.

“What-” you start, but then he’s face humping you with his mouth, tongue desperately tasting.

You feel his hand digging into your side pouch and for one incredulous moment you think he’s trying to bloody pickpocket you mid-doink, but then you hear the near-indistinguishable pop of a cork and realize he’s found the vial of oily sex sauce you keep on hand. He moves to your neck, suckling and kissing, and you glance down to see him pumping his piston dick with his greasy hand.

He raises glazed, ruddy eyes to look deep into you, the rosemary and citrus scent of him resiny and bright. With the same hand he used on himself, he runs his palm straight down the front of your pants and crotch sling to slip in between your legs. Immediately, you lift a knee and he grabs hold of it with his free hand, hoisting it up and wide to get all up in there.

With a winded laugh, he says, “Didn’t know how ready you’d be, and I don’t want to wait.”

“So don’t,” you gasp, your eyes rolling back into your head as his slicked hand slides against your meat curtains in a dizzying way. He works the tips of his fingers inside your love pocket, testing as much as needed, and when he’s satisfied, he pulls his hand free.

You’re fairly certain you pull out a seam in your leggings in the rush to get them off, but neither of you care. True to his word, Astarion hikes your leg back up high and plunges his fuck stem into your bajingo without further pretense, the pair of you choking back your cries as you start doing the horizontal tango, except it’s vertical because you’re up against the wall. With his hand splayed over your hip and booty-butt to keep you in place, his fingers press into your skin on that delightful edge between pressure and pain.

“I a-ache,” Astairon stammers, swallowing hard as he helps you bounce on his fat hog. “Every moment you’re near, I… I ache for you.”

With his free hand, he goes under the hem of your draping shirt and runs his cool fingers up over your torso to your chest, massaging you in slow circles and giving those pink nubs a good once-over. He churns you like butter with his wand of penetration like he can’t wait, like this is the first time, like this is the last time, like this is every time in between.

You whine out your horniness and drop your head back, exposing the length of your throat to him as your jollies climb higher, coil tighter. He clings to you as though you’re life itself, using the wall for leverage as he angles you until he hits that good shit that makes you hiccup.

“Give me this, gorgeous,” he gasps, his humpy-humps firm and rhythmic. “I want to feel your b/p/ussy clench, come on. Let me feel you, let… spurt for… gimme cummies…”

You do. Your body shivers from your toes to the top of your head, radiating in waves from the core of you. Astarion gives a strangled cry almost like a sob as the strength of your whambam hits him, rippling along the length of his tickle stick where it’s bottomed out inside you. The place where you meet goes sticky-wet with your lubricating ointment.

He hoists you higher onto the wall, your legs tight around his waist, until you’re looking down into his face, your arms wrapped around his shoulders.

“You are so beautiful like this,” you say, whispering his own words back to him.

It isn’t a lie. Never has been, never will be. He’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, gazing up at you with eyes the color of lifeblood and hair the color of moonlight as he bumps your ugly, as close as he can possibly get. Just like always, he tries to keep it together, to be the picture of confidence and seductive heat, and just like always, he can’t quite manage it as he closes in on the final moment of your bonedogging, his flesh chandelier slapping a final time.

His eyes fall closed, his brow tenses, and his lips part as quiet ah ah ahs fall from them. He grabs your hips with both hands and pulls you firmly to him, rolling once more before he releases his brogurt with a shaky exhale, spine arching and head falling back. Tension rolls off his body like rainwater, pooling beneath the pair of you as your cardinal sinning slows and stops.

Without a word, Astarion tilts his head forward again, eyes shut, and finds your mouth with his, lips soft and sweet as sugarcane. His head lolls to the side to lay on your shoulder and you feel his smile stretch against the skin of your neck.

“April Fool’s,” he whispers. “Sucker.”

so, this was a joke. obviously, I hope. APRIL FOOL'S LOL.

there is, however, a real actually sexy version and you can find that one right here. sorry. no I'm not. mwah love you all.

#astarion bg3 #astarion fanfic #astarion smut #astarion x reader #astarion x gn reader #astarion x tav #astarion x gn!tav #astarion x gender neutral reader #kitten writes #I am not sorry

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literaryvein-reblogs · 18 days ago

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Have any ideas on how a spy's job would work? I'm struggling to write about one

Writing Notes: Spy Characters

In the intelligence world, a spy is strictly defined as someone used to steal secrets for an intelligence organization.

Also: agent or asset; a spy is not a professional intelligence officer, and doesn’t usually receive formal training (though may be taught basic tradecraft). Instead, a spy either volunteers or is recruited to help steal information, motivated by ideology, patriotism, money, or by a host of other reasons, from blackmail to love.

From an intelligence perspective, their most important quality is having access to valuable information. For this reason, a government minister might make a great spy—but so might the janitor or a cafeteria worker in a government ministry.

Espionage - process of obtaining military, political, commercial, or other secret information by means of spies, secret agents, or illegal monitoring devices; sometimes distinguished from the broader category of intelligence gathering by its aggressive nature and its illegality.

Double Agent - someone who works for two sides.

Intelligence - In the spying world, intelligence means information collected by a government or other entity that can help guide decisions and actions regarding national security. But intelligence can also mean the process by which that information is acquired

How are spies recruited? Spies are recruited via an approach or pitch by a case officer. This often seeks to persuade the individual through appealing to ideology, patriotism, religion, ego, greed, or love, or sometimes by using blackmail or some other form of coercion.

How do spies go undercover? Intelligence officers often operate abroad under some form of official cover, perhaps as diplomats in an embassy. Others operate without the protection of their government and must create a convincing cover that explains their presence and activities in a country—a businessperson, perhaps, or a student. The Russians call these officers “illegals,” the Americans call them “NOCs” (for Non-Official Cover). If caught, they’re on their own, and face arrest, even execution.

How do spies communicate?. Face-to-face meetings can be impractical, even deadly—especially if spies are caught red-handed passing or receiving classified information or carrying spy equipment. That’s why sharing information relies on covert communication or COVCOM. Methods include secret writing (such as invisible ink or tiny microdots) or sending and receiving secure messages using special technology (often concealed or even disguised to look like everyday objects).

How much does a secret agent make? Professional intelligence officers receive salaries based on their level of experience, like all government employees. Few own vintage Aston Martin DB5s and order beluga caviar on a regular basis. Spies can earn a lot more money, though. In the 1980s, CIA officer Aldrich Ames received over $4 million from the Soviets for betraying US secrets, enough to buy himself a half-million-dollar home in cash and a flashy red Jaguar. But living beyond his salary aroused the suspicions of US intelligence, which ultimately led to his arrest.

The Intelligence Cycle

Refers to the process through which spy agencies acquire information. It consists of at least 5 stages:

Planning: Decision-makers task an intelligence agency to acquire information on certain topics or specific issues of concern (“requirements”).

Collection: This is where the spies, agents, case officers, tech ops, scientists, hackers, and others come in, acquiring information from different sources in a myriad of creative ways.

Processing: Collected information needs to be narrowed down, prioritized, and put into some kind of digestible format. This might also involve having to decode information.

Analysis: This is the stage where collected information becomes something useful that decision-makers can use: intelligence.

Dissemination: Intelligence agencies get the final product to the decision-maker or “customer.” Of course, it’s quite possible that this might prompt more questions… and the intelligence cycle begins all over again.

Tips on Writing About Spies

Some tips from different sources:

Being a real-life spy isn’t always James Bond-glamorous. Spies are typically brilliant when it comes to reading people—your spy character needs to be curious and patient. It may take seven years for a spy to get their footing.

Normal people make the best spies. In real life, handlers are looking for a Regular Joe or Plain Jane with access—they don’t want someone who sticks out in a crowd or whose life is in disarray. They also want someone who is honest and immediately willing to own up to any mistakes they might have made. (Elizabeth Bentley may have had problems with this.) So, having a character who is bland as vanilla (at least on the outside) may work well in your favor.

Your spy could be overheard at any moment. It’s a good idea to have your spy flip on the radio to cover important conversations, or meet in a loud restaurant. (Which also solves the problem of having a potentially bugged apartment.) Even better is to meet near a water feature—the sound of falling water is unique and difficult to filter out even in modern-day recordings.

Spy gadgets are really cool. Ticking off the KGB is not. If your spy character runs afoul of the KGB (or one of its many predecessors), be prepared for creative assassination attempts that may or may not make use of more lethal spy gadgets. (Just ask Bohdan Stashynsky, a KGB officer who used a cyanide spraying spray gun to assassinate two Ukrainian nationalist leaders.) In a pinch, the Russians might resort to a tactic like Leon Trotsky’s ice pick to the face, but either way, it’s not going to be much fun for their target.

You need a good reason to be a spy. Idealists often make the best spies, but there are other motivations that might get your character to join up with the CIA, KGB, or some other spy organization. Does your character need the money being offered? Are they looking for a sense of purpose or belonging? Do they have an axe to grind with the government? Also, remember that the CIA doesn’t coerce people into informing for them. The Russians, on the other hand… Well, they’re a different story.

Don’t draw portraits of spies, but draw portraits of people who happen to work as spies. The choices they make in their lives emerge from who they are, and those choices might conflict with the requirements of their spy work. The spy’s job may be to suborn friends, lie to adversaries, betray a trust, but it is the spy’s nagging, perhaps inconvenient, humanity that makes them suffer their choices, and excites the reader’s empathy.

Writing Tips: Spy Thriller

A step-by-step guide to writing a spy story with international intrigue and non-stop action:

Think of a killer concept. There are a lot of spy novels out there, so you need to come up with a story that has a new and unique angle. If you’re a history buff and have a specific area of interest—like Russian operatives, Nazi Germany during WWII, or American soldiers in the Middle East—go with where your passion lies. Come up with a fresh idea that people won’t feel like they’ve read before. Do some research. Find inspiration in real-life spy stories to tell yours.

Get familiar with spy tools. From spy cameras to surveillance equipment, the cool tools and gadgets of espionage fiction are part of what makes the genre fun. Get to know spycraft and tradecraft—the technology and techniques real spies use to track the enemy. Read news stories to see how espionage works today or in the time period you’re writing about. While espionage can also be incorporated into another genre, like science fiction, for the most part, spy novels emerge from actual events. That doesn’t mean you need to just use real tools of the trade. Create your own spy tech for your story.

Create an incredible protagonist. From Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, a CIA agent first introduced in The Hunt for Red October, to Ian Fleming’s most famous secret agent, James Bond, the protagonists of spy stories have long been ingrained in popular culture. Create a main character who readers will root for and who will persevere no matter what obstacle you throw in their way.

Send your character on a world-saving mission. Think about James Bond. His heart-pounding missions crossed international boundaries, and they always involved more than just taking down a bad guy: He always had to stop a massive attack that would kill innocent people. You need to justify the intense action by making the consequences big. To do this, start by coming up with your antagonist. Who are they and where are they from? What is their goal in the story? Once you know that, you’ll have your protagonist’s quest that will propel your plot.

Write highly visual action scenes. Red Sparrow and The Bourne Identity are action-packed films based on bestselling espionage novels. Spy books make great movies because the action translates well to the screen. When you sit down to start your story, think in pictures. Readers are expecting action so you need to lead with a dramatic scene that shows your protagonist at work in a perilous situation. You’ll need a few of these big scenes throughout your story—not to mention the climax which has to be big, suspenseful and, yes, visual. Use descriptive words to get the reader into the middle of the pulse-racing scene.

Use page-turning literary devices. Plot twists, cliffhangers, dramatic irony, foreshadowing, red herrings: When you write a spy novel, you’ll get to employ literary devices you might not have used before. To write a real page-turning story of espionage, make sure you take advantage of the tools that literature has to offer for maximum suspense.

You can also read about real life spies to guide your writing. Some examples:

John Walker (American spy)

Donald Maclean (British diplomat and spy)

Mata Hari (Dutch dancer and spy)

Nancy Hart (Confederate spy)

Audrey Hepburn as a WWII resistance spy

Famous Women Who Were Secretly Spies

Some of history’s most notable spies

List of spies

Some Terminology: Espionage

Agent - A person unofficially employed by an intelligence service, often as a source of information.

Black Bag Job - Secret entry into a home or office to steal or copy materials.

Clean - Unknown to enemy intelligence.

Dangle - A person who is made accessible to a foreign intelligence agency with the intent of being recruited by that agency to then work as a double agent for the person’s own country.

Eyes-Only - A designation signifying who may read a specific, classified document.

False Flag - A deliberate misrepresentation of motives or identity; an operation designed to appear as if it were conducted by someone other than the person or group responsible for it.

Ghoul - Agent who searches obituaries and graveyards for names of the deceased for use by agents.

Honey Trap - Slang for use of men or women in sexual situations to intimidate or snare others.

Innocent Postcard - A postcard with an innocuous message sent to an address in a neutral country to verify the continued security of an undercover operative.

L-Pill - A poison pill used by operatives to commit suicide.

More spy-related terms: 1 2 3

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

#spy #espionage #writeblr #writing tips #character development #writing reference #spilled ink #dark academia #literature #creative writing #writers on tumblr #writing prompt #writing advice #character building #light academia #fiction #writing resources

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genderqueerdykes · 1 month ago

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I know someone else already said this but loving the heavy cosplay

LMAO THANK YOU!!!! i didn't realize people would like it that much

i forgot about this until now: i also cosplayed RED soldier, as well. this one is also pre-transition:

fun fact: i specifically bought that pack of cigarettes for the cosplay, i don't smoke, so people who did kept asking me for free cigs and i was happy to oblige LMAOOOO. a BLU spy cosplayer asked me for some and i couldn't say no

#asks #answers #feedback #our pics #cosplay

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trypo-p · 13 days ago

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uhh im bored and it's late so. mercs if they were from Canada:

- Spy is most definitely Quebecois. That, or he's Acadian. Probably the prior of the two knowing Quebec as well... Quebec.

- Demoman is Nova Scotian, more specifically he is from Pictou. I literally have nothing else to add to this as I am also from NS and he would fit in with us perfectly.

- Soldier is most definitely from Windsor ON, and used to work for the RCMP. He is still very much patriotic. We stand for the flag (maple leaf) and kneel to the cross (....red cross??? I guess?)

- Firm believer Scout is probably from New Brunswick. Something something it's kinda french and also the bad drivers (all new brunswick drivers) there remind me of Scout's reckless personality. Not only that but NB is pretty tightly knit, he's got a big family so the family name would be pretty well known.

- Sniper lives in British Columbia. It's known for its scenery in nature and it fits him. Also the stereotypes for B.C. are that the people there are laid-back environmentalist stoners. Valve would still make them stereotypical if they were Canadian, let's be honest here. However... If we're making it similar to the comics, Sniper is originally from Washington.

- Pyro exists... Somewhere— in Canada. They could be from anywhere and it would probably work out right fine.

- It really depends with Medic. Him being from either Saskatchewan or Nova Scotia fits. Saskatchewan is definitely the most "German" place in Canada, however the most Canadians with German origins are found in Nova Scotia (I myself am a prime example, I'm like 70% Scottish 20% Irish and 10% German or something like that roughly)

- Engineer is probably from someplace in rural Ontario. I don't exactly know "too much" about Ontario m'self, however. When anyone thinks of Canada I feel like the first place they think of is Ontario. That's like me with America and Texas.

- Heavy is probably somewhere in the prairie provinces (for all you Americans that's Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) or Nunavut.

#trypo.txt #tf2 #trypo-p #team fortress 2 #tf2 scout #tf2 soldier #tf2 spy #tf2 sniper #tf2 demoman #tf2 pyro #tf2 engineer #tf2 heavy #tf2 medic #canada #canadian tf2 au #i did NB dirty but literally every time I go there theres ALWAYS a bad driver what is up with you guys

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wood-white-writer · 1 year ago

Text

"Didn't mean to make your heart Blue" || [5/...]

“Where I'll be looking in their eyes when they're down, I'll be there on their side. I'm losing by their side.”

— Mitski, "Bet On Losing Dogs"

Pairing: Buggy the Clown (Live action) x F!Reader

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 6

Summary: You were an apprentice of Gol D. Roger’s crew in your youth, long before his eventual demise. Along with the Red-Haired Shanks and Buggy, you were a formidable trio; the embodiment of a new generation of pirates yet to come. But times changed, and so did you and your friends.

It's been a few weeks since the events in Orange Town, and Luffy notices something that others do not. So, he decides to ask you.

Warnings: Canon typical violence, LA!Verse, No (fully bodied) Buggy this chapter, Luffy being the precious cinnamon we all love and must protect above all else, flashbacks about Shanks, past discussions, Luffy and Reader have a heart-to-heart.

A/N: I was initially going to write them going to the Baratie this chapter, but it became too long so next one for sho.

Taglist:@kurinhimenezu, @carpinchootaku, @ay0nha, @teh-vampire-bunny, @lokiscure, @internationalsuper-spy @detectivesparrow , @yuriwk, @notyuralycat, @angeli-fucking-cat, @machinema7k (If you want to be tagged for this story, just send me a message or leave a comment :))

You're sitting by the table in Party's bar, nursing a cold glass of rum against your cracked lips as you observe to the kid - Luffy - demonstrating his newfound Devil Fruit powers without any regard for poor Makino's furniture.

You don't get him, at all. Then again, you don’t get kids.

You've never thought of yourself as someone who easily got along with them ... or people in general. Shanks has always been the better-suited one for that kind of work. Whereas he is smiling and grinning at the kid’s mischief, you've barely offered him more than a glance at most.

Your crew has been positioned in Foosha village for the better part of the month, stacking up on resources and food in preparation for your next job. Incidentally, the Red-Haired Pirates also happened to be in town for similar excursions. You rarely see Shanks nowadays since you parted ways several years ago, but whenever you happen to come across one another, you share a drink on his tab.

While your crew is around and about, replenishing their strength and vigor for the work to come, you're content with just sitting here at your leisure. When you're not plundering or fighting or attacking Marine bases, you can't find it in yourself to do much of anything anymore.

Nothing adds any purpose to your life save for what keeps you fed and clothed, which in the life of a pirate, simply means pirating.

"I've heard you had good fortune on your latest heist," Shanks says from where he's sitting opposite of you. "For your efforts, the Marines have granted you among the highest bounties in all of the East-Blue."

You hum noncommittally in response, not offering much to the conversation in terms of merriment. "The quality of the Marines has been in decline. It says more about their effort, or lack thereof, than mine."

"Do you know what they call you nowadays?"

"They call me a lot of names, you got to be more specific."

"'Cross-Hairs, the Beast of the East'. It's got a certain ring to it, don't you think?"

"Sure."

Shanks smiles the kind way he always does. Always has done.

"Gum-Gum Pistol!"

The sound of yet another chair breaking has you rolling your eyes without even looking, and poor Makino ages ten years in seconds across the bar counter.

"Luffy!"

"Sorry!"

Shanks laughs heartedly at the display, only to cut it short upon noticing Makino's even glare sent his way from across the bar.

"You were careless," you state matter-of-factly and take another gulp from your drink. "You should've kept the fruit hidden more securely."

"Now, in my defense, I didn't think the lad would searching through my loot."

"Well, you should've." You slam your glass down, strong enough to leave a dent in the wooden surface. "What kind of captain leaves his loot undefended and unsupervised? Especially when it contains a Devil Fruit?"

Shanks doesn't argue with your statement and settles with taking a gulp of his own drink, letting your words simmer in his head. "You're right, I should've been more observant. Now, it'll be more difficult for him to achieve his dream."

"His dream? Of what? Becoming the King of the Pirates?" Try as you might, there's no suppressing the snort that escapes through your nose. "There's only ever been one King, and we all saw what happened to him. What do you think is going to happen to a kid who can't even swim?"

"Oh, come off it!" He gives you a playful nudge to the rib, which you reciprocate with a glare. He remains undeterred. "You mean to tell me you've never thought about finding the One Piece? Not even once?"

"I have no interest in whatever plunder Gol D. left behind."

"Then, what does interest you?" He rests his elbow on the edge of the table and leans over to your side. "What is your dream?"

You grit your teeth under your lips, a flash of blue circulating in your head. "Dreams are for fools and children," you point your head to where Luffy is currently sitting, trying to put the chair back together with a half-empty tube of glue and little luck.

"Come on, I know you better than that. Surely there's something in this world you want more than anything?"

"What I want is ..." You have half a mind to tell him the truth, whereas the other half wants to push the idea further down to the bottom of your chest. "Is another bottle of rum."

You raise your arm to Makino to gesture for another one, but Shanks is quick to lower it with a gentle shove of his arm. You flash him a scowl and brush off his hand, but unlike your crew or anyone else, he's not afraid.

"The point which I'm trying to make before you're completely pissed," he starts. "Is that no matter how much opposition one faces, it's that dreams are never out of reach if you have the will to reach for them."

He inclines his head over your shoulder, and you turn around to see Luffy successfully putting the chair back together. You don't know how he did it - it looked pretty busted minutes ago - but there it is, wholly intact.

And when the boy smiles, it's so vibrant and full of joy that it's almost blinding. He proudly runs over and shows the repaired chair to Makino, who proceeds to pat his head and hand him a plate of food.

"See?" Shanks grins. "Nothing is impossible."

"You can hardly consider putting a chair back together the same as achieving an impossible goal."

He shrugs. "Maybe not, but you won't know unless you try. All it takes is a little spirit."

You watch Shanks for a couple of minutes in silence, processing his mythic words, then shift your attention over to Luffy who's preoccupied with shoving an unholy amount of food into his mouth. If this is to become the future King of the Pirates one day, then it'll be an interesting future indeed.

"A little spirit, huh?"

— — —

You're sad.

Luffy first notices it when you leave Orange Town, and it lingers throughout your voyage.

For as long as he's known you, you've always been a person of relatively few words; never speaking unless you feel the situation requires it, and only acting when necessary. Even following the Kuro situation™, getting the Going Merry, and adding Usopp to his crew, he can tell that you're not all there anymore.

Not to be mistaken, you're not conspicuous with the way you behave. You still act like usual, talk like usual, however little, and commit yourself to your work on the ship, almost to an excessive extent.

All in all, nothing’s changed about you. However, he’s gotten used to your face and general lack of expression most of the time, and though it doesn't seem to alter, he still catches onto the fact that you're sad.

"Hey," he asks the group and props himself in the kitchen, legs crossed atop his seat. "Do you think she's any different?"

"Who? Your friend?" Nami asks, raising an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Well, I think she's sad."

"Doesn't look any different to me," Zoro supplies while polishing his swords on the table.

Usopp's in the middle of munching a piece of loaf, and answers with his mouth still halfway occupied. "Dunno how she usually is, but she's kinda terrifying if you ask me."

"No, she's not," Luffy dismisses lightly.

"What's her position on the ship, anyhow? How'd you come across her?"

"She's always been with me," Luffy answers without any thought. "And she’s a good fighter.”

Zoro — to everyone’s surprise — nods his head to this in concurrence.

Their Captain claps his hands together to get the subject back on track. "But anyway, I just think she seems kind of down now."

"How can you even tell? With eyes like these, —” Usopp puts both of his index fingers at the crow’s feet of his eyes and draws them back to imitate yours. It’s borderline shameful, truth be told. “— I can’t tell for shit what she’s feeling or thinking.”

“I just can.” Luffy shrugs.

“Has she said anything?” Nami asks. “Anything to make you ask?”

“No, not really.” He heaves a sigh and props his hand under his chin, contemplating. “But she's been different since we left Orange Town.”

"If you ask me," Zoro speaks up. "You should ask her about her relationship with that fucking clown."

"Who? Boogie?"

"Buggy," Nami corrects. "Didn't you notice that at the end? They have a history, it's obvious. They know each other, and I don't know what pirate customs are like nowadays, but I doubt you'd touch the face of an enemy unless there was something going on. Has she said anything about it?"

Luffy shakes his head. “No... but then again, she never does tell me much about anything unless I ask.”

The tangerine-haired girl blinks as if the answer to this whole predicament is obvious. She quickly comes to realize that, to Luffy, it’s not.

“So…” she prompts slowly.

“So…?”

She rolls her eyes at his inability to catch her drift. “Go ask her.”

It’s like the thought never even crossed Luffy’s mind in the first place because truth be told, it hasn’t. He lights up like a candlestick on the spot. “Yeah, I should just ask her!”

“Ask me what?”

The members of the Straw Hat pirates (save for Zoro) withdraw in various unique positions, having not heard you make your entrance before you speak.

You’re standing in the doorway to the kitchen, eyebrow slightly quirked at the Baroque-esque scene in front of you. Deciding not to address the display, you simply ask, “Anything I should know about, Captain Luffy?”

Usopp doesn’t even dare to answer, because he knows you sure as hell don’t see him as a captain in general, much less your captain. He swears he notices you briefly look in his direction at the mention of the title, and a shiver runs across his skin. Like static electricity in the air.

“Oh, yeah,” Luffy turns to you, not an ounce of fear in his eyes as he pops the question. “Are you sad?”

You blink once, then twice, like the inquiry on its own is of unfathomable origins to you. “Do I look sad?”

The boy in the straw hat nods. “I think you do.”

“Then I’m not.” It’s not only an answer, but also a sentence that marks this subject as finished on your part. One that does not permit any subsequent additions.

You incline your head to the deck above. “We’re going to have company soon, likely Marines, and they seem to be in supply of heavy fire this time.”

———

The situation with the aforementioned opponents temporarily distracts the crew, yet Luffy maintains a close eye on you, taking note of anything that can point him to the source of the unknown problem. You talk relatively little with the other crew members, but you seem to have developed an amicable enough relationship with them compared to when you first met.

Before, you could care less about getting to know them. Now, you’re actively going out of your way to ask Nami about her cartographic skills, even giving her tips for additions to her geographical detailing. You provide Zoro pointers on self-developed defensive techniques and ways to paralyze opponents in certain spots (which he seems appreciative of).

You even give Usopp a short nod when he tells you one of his fantastical stories, even knowing that they’re full of shit.

Luffy’s happy, but he still sees that you are not.

It’s all in your eyes. They’re hollow somehow, like the end of a barrel. He doesn’t know how he knows, only that he knows, and he’s known for a good while now.

So, that night, Luffy finds you in the kitchen by the windows, absentmindedly snacking on a red apple while you gaze into the dark nothingness outside. He also discovers that he’s subconsciously become quite observant of your habits as of late.

For example, you specifically pick red apples above any other color when they happen to dock someplace, not even paying any mind to the green or yellow ones. Just the red ones.

“Hey,” he positions himself next to you on the bench, a piece of loaf tight in his hand. “Why are you sad?”

You turn your head just a fraction to the side to look at him, not annoyed, but not appreciative of the focus he’s settled on as of late. "Shouldn't I be asking you that? The Vice-Admiral looks a little weary as of late, after all. Are you sad about it?"

"Nope."

“So why do you insist that I’m sad?”

“Because you are,” he states like it’s obvious.

You huff humorously and return your attention to the window that supplies no real view. “How can you tell?”

“I just can.” He takes a generous bite of his food and continues talking, oblivious to the crumbles that fall while doing so. “When I’m sad, I—”

“Eat?”

“Well, yeah.” He swallows the bite down. “But I also like to talk about it with someone I trust. Shanks used to say that true friends are the kind of people you can share your heart with and not get hurt.”

This annoys you, that much he can tell. A nail digs into the apple you’re holding, leaving a crescent-shaped indent on the red skin. “Shanks said many things, and not all of it's true.”

This doesn’t deter him from pressing on the matter. “If you keep all the hurt inside, it’s going to turn bad. You know, Makino said that if you leave a piece of ham in the fridge too long, it’ll get sour and people can’t eat it.”

“Only you could find a way to compare this sort of thing to food.” You withdraw your finger from the apple and end up leaving it alone altogether. A minute or ten of silence waves between you, laced with unspoken questions and denied answers. “Tell me, Luffy, just how much did Shanks tell you about his past?”

He thinks for a moment, mimicking your movements by putting his loaf aside. “Just about his adventures with the Red-Haired Pirates, and a little about the time you served with him. Is it true you were strong enough to throw a three-hundred-pound man to the ground when you were thirteen?”

He swears it’s a snort that he catches leaving your throat, but it’s hard to differentiate it from your more-than-usual scoffs. “He exaggerated.”

“Really?”

“The man was two-fifty, at most.”

Luffy grins with genuine admiration, so much so that your face tilts back slightly, being overwhelmed by the mere brightness that is him. “Wow! You must’ve been quite a beast when you were a kid!”

He notices it again, the sadness that latches onto your eyes like insects to sour meat. Whatever brief smile adorned your lips moments ago disappears like it was never there at all. Thinking he said something wrong, Luffy prepares to apologize when you speak again.

Your voice is soft yet faint like you’re afraid speaking too loudly will make something bad happen. “It wasn’t just me and Shanks, back then, you know.”

The Captain of the Straw Hats thinks it’s almost unnatural of you to be this demure, but he doesn’t interrupt you.

“Buggy was there, too. It was the three of us, together.”

“Oh, yeah.” He remembers it now. “He did mention that in Orange Town. You served the same crew.”

“… He did, did he?”

“He said you and Shanks betrayed him, but I didn’t believe him.” Luffy knows you and has known you for longer than he’s known a lot of people in his life. You’re one of the few permanent people he’s had, and he knows with a certainty that you’re not the kind of person who leaves anyone behind, not without reason.

Even if you did have a reason for leaving Buggy, it must have been a good one.

Your mouth opens and shuts several times in the span of a minute like you’re hesitating to talk about the past. You’ve never been one to talk about it, except to share some details about your time as captain, and even that was limited to the bare minimum.

Still, Luffy, being in no hurry for you to reach an answer, waits patiently by your side until you do decide to talk about it.

Talk about what he believes is the reason for your sadness.

“We were close back in the days,” you begin slowly. “Me, him, and Shanks. It was us against the rest of the world, and we were going to sail together to the end of the seas one day. It was our dream.”

“Then, what happened?”

You put your palm over both your eyes and rest your elbow on the window frame, heaving a sigh that resembles someone who’s spent too much of their life working and working and working without catching any breaks. Pure, simple exhaustion weighs you down, Luffy can tell.

When you speak next, you sound tired too, and perhaps a little strained. He can’t see your eyes, and so, he can’t truthfully tell what you’re thinking now. “The thing is, I don’t know what happened. All I know is that he decided he didn’t want to stick around.” You breathe through your nostrils. “Our captain was gone, and so was the crew, but we three were still together, and I thought we were going to stay together.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No … We didn’t. I don’t know what happened, but one day when I was talking with Shanks about what to do next, Buggy came in, and it … He looked at me like … Like he hated me.” You exhale. “He did hate me, and I don’t know what it was I did, but he practically told me that we were done … And then he left. I never saw him again, up until Orange Town.”

Luffy doesn’t require your eyes this time to tell that you’re sad now because you are. You’re so sad that it’s destroying you from the inside, and even that is an understatement on its own. There are no tears trickling down your cheeks, no quivers or thickness to your voice, no nothing to base his assumptions on, but he knows.

He stays silent for a short while, doing nothing but look at you. You’re one of the strongest people he knows. He’s seen you fight; seen the strength you possess, the fire in your eyes. You’ve stayed with him ever since Shanks left Foosha Village, you’ve looked after him from the sidelines when you thought no one was watching.

You’ve been with him throughout everything, and seeing you like this makes him feel blue on your behalf. You don’t express it yourself – you never do. You carry your weight with the same kind of strength you always do, never letting anyone see you beyond just that, and sometimes, he wonders if you’re lonely because of it.

At least, now he knows why you’re so sad. You’re heartbroken.

He’s never been acquainted with the feeling himself, has never felt any particular inclination toward it, but he can tell it’s your heart that’s hurting now, and it’s not as easy to heal as that cuts he received on his chest from the butler.

His hat seems to itch the harder he thinks about it, as if there’s something digging at his scalp through his hat. He thought Nami patched it up for him. He tries to scratch at it, but for some reason, it doesn’t cease. Maybe he’s got lice?

He ignores it. “It’s weird. Bunky seems to think you were the one who left him for Shanks.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know. You’re not that kind of person.” He says it so easily, without a smidgen of doubt or hesitation. You look at him through your peripheral vision, and your eyes slightly widen at his statement. “But, do you know what happened between them? Shanks and Bonky, I mean?”

“No, I don’t.” You admit with a shake of your head. You’ve tried to figure it out for years, and at some point, you decided to give up. “Shanks never told me, but whatever it was, it was enough for the stupid clown to leave for… He chose a childish rivalry over me.”

“Then, there you have it. It’s all just a big misunderstanding, so why don’t you just tell him if you meet him again?”

“You seem awfully defensive of the guy who destroyed an entire village and almost drowned you.”

“Yeah, but talking about him seems to make you happy.”

You freeze for a bit, snort, and turn your back to the window frame, leaning back and crossing your arms across your chest in silent resignation. “I tried to explain things to him back in Orange Town, and a fat load of good that did. Like I said, he hates me, and he’s sure as hell not my favorite person at the moment. If we do meet again, it likely won’t end any better than it back in Orange Town.”

“You know, –” Luffy takes another bite of his bread. “It didn’t sound like he hated you.”

“Hmm?” You raise an eyebrow, halfway curious and halfway skeptical.

“He still remembers that you like red apples and that you hide knives in your shoes. Is that true?”

You raise both your eyebrows and look at Luffy like he’s just grown a second head. Without a word, you pull your left foot up until it rests on the bench, and withdraw not one or two knives, but four. Small and subtle, hardly enough to turn any heads, but in a flash, you throw it across the kitchen until it lands on a specific spot on the opposite wall.

Bull’s eye.

“We used to have knife-throwing competitions,” you reminisce idly, staring at the knife lodged deep into the wall. “I was good, but Buggy was better.” Your lip tilts up an inch or two. “We made bets, and whoever lost would have to steal a bottle of whatever liquor we happened to find in the next town we docked at.”

“Oh?”

“I ended up snatching quite a lot of bottles, but once every blue moon, he would have to snatch one instead.” You smile. It’s an actual, genuine, honest smile this time, and Luffy can’t help but marvel at the sight. It’s a rare thing for you to smile like you’re doing now. It’s usually brief or sarcastic and never seems to reach your eyes.

This one does.

He thinks you look pretty when you smile. It’s your smile, and it’s so warm that he wishes you could do it more often. He tells you as much, and a red color falls over your cheek. You promptly turn your face to the other side to save face, and it makes Luffy think.

When he thinks about his dream of becoming King of the Pirates, he can’t stop himself from smiling ear to ear. So, that begs the question: “What is your dream?”

What makes you smile?

“My dream …” You reach for your apple and hold it against your face, the uneaten side of it shining against your face. “Is unattainable.

“I don’t think it is,” Luffy says without missing a beat and takes your hand in his, determined to make you see that. “I think that no matter how much stands against us, dreams are never impossible if you have the will to reach for them. All it takes is a little spirit.”

He doesn’t know where those words come from, but he’s heard them from someplace, and judging by your staggered reaction, you’ve heard them too.

“A little spirit, huh?”

“Exactly! So, please tell me, what’s your dream?”

You look straight ahead into the room, resting your elbows back on the window frame without a word. He thinks you’re about to decline his question or ignore it altogether. However, he’s surprised to hear you actually answer this time, truthfully too.

“My dream was to sail the seas with him again.”

Suddenly, the itchiness on his head stops, and it stays that way.

#buggy the clown #buggy one piece #buggy x reader #buggy the clown x reader #one piece live action #one piece x reader #buggy the clown fanfiction #buggy x you #buggy x female reader #one piece #monkey d. luffy #one piece luffy #straw hat luffy #straw hat pirates #shanks #red haired shanks #akagami no shanks

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pastel-medic · 9 months ago

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My name is Xed/Pastel ^v^ (He/Xe/They)! I am 24 years old and any other art accts will likely have the username pastelxapple if you want to find me on other platforms!

Medicsona:

Mercenary Intros

Full Refs:

RED Team:

BLU Team:

Gentlesurgery Ship 💜:

Roulette Class AU:

Blog intro, tags, & rules ⬇️

Ko-fi (sketch comms):

Strawpage:

Tags:

#my art (or #xed art) - My art tag! You can find my artwork directly with this tag 🐍✨

#ask box - All replies to my inbox are tagged with this! It comprises mostly of Q&As of my mercs or other characters, art requests, and other questions!

#roulette class au (or #tf2 roulette class au) - This is the tag for my TF2 AU, the Roulette Class AU! The long and short of it is I swapped all of the mercenaries' classes and there's major differences in the lore.

#quixote - My gentlesurgery ship tag! So not to confuse my ship with RED Medic and VLT Spy from the usual gentlesurgery ship you can find their content separate from that with this tag!

#medic brothers - This tag is specifically for my Medic Brothers (Fritz and Ludwig), so any art and lore for them are tagged with this!

#lore crumbs 🍰 - Small pieces of art and/or posts about my ocs or AUs! 👏🏼✨ I try to tag posts with any info or headcanons about my characters/AUs ^^

#shortcake medic - Tag used for any art I make of my Medicsona, Shortcake Medic! 🍰💖

#tsu art - (or #twin art) - Art tag for my twin's artwork 🦊 (@/hoshi-tsubasa )! I love sharing her work and she deserves more praise for it! ^v^✨ Yes she is a furry so be kind!!!

#moot art 💖 - Art tag for my artist mutuals! I love to share their work so I keep this tagged to their stuff so I can find it again (cuz I'm dumb and don't wanna scroll through reblogs for eternity)

#other artists (or #reblog) - This is the tag I use when I reblog other amazing artists' work!

General Info:

I've technically been in the TF2 community for more than 6 years but I just recently got back into it as of 2024!

Pr0shipper/“problematic” accounts DNI!!! I will block you >:(((

@/hoshi-tsubasa is my twin! Her art is just as incredible so go check her out too if you'd like! She also draws TF2 stuff here and there, plus she has some TF2 merch you can check out on her redbubble!

My main ship is Gentlesurgery, which I draw quite a lot! If that ship is not your cup of tea I kindly suggest to be polite and just move on, harassment and hate will not be tolerated here. I also have other favorite TF2 ships that I don't have listed above in the "Meet The Artist" template that I may draw from time to time! However, please be mindful that I don't really draw HeavyMedic (Red Oktoberfest), MedicScout (Quickfix/Blunt Trauma), or SniperScout (SpeedingBullet) ships, as those are not ships I'm particularly fond of compared to others (MedicScout cuz as a passionate MedicSpy shipper it just feels uncomfy for me) ;3; very sorry! (ALSO ABSOLUTELY NO SPYSCOUT GET OUT OF HERE WITH THAT DISGUSTING STUFF) I do like most TF2 ships tho (I especially love all Spy ships)! 💖

Please be aware I likely will not draw nsfw! There may be suggestive art tho from time to time :3c Some things will be tagged with tw if needed!

Also please do not tag my art with ship tags unless I have them put under my art! I am not comfortable with certain dynamics being labeled as ships, especially if the dynamic is not meant to be in any form romantic/sexual ;;

My hyperfixations do shift so I may hop from one media to another or draw crossovers! I will usually post my other non-TF2 art on my instagram, but all TF2 content will be here!

In addition, please be aware I have ADHD and an alter system (DID), so please note that I may go silent with posts every once in a while. My mental health is not a subject I care to make front and center here, so I prefer any questions or topics of such be kept private! Thank you! 💖

If you can I encourage you to reblog my artwork if you like it! Traction on tumblr is very different than on other social sites like twitter and tiktok, so it would mean a lot to me if you could share my art! 🥺💌 I'm deeply humbled if you enjoy my content, thank you!

Ask Box Rules:

This is a 16+ ask blog, so if you wanna ask me or my version of the mercs something pls feel free! Anon questions will be turned on and off from time to time, but if people completely abuse it or things get out of hand I will shut them off permanently ;3; Also please respect that there's a limit for how much you can ask of me, I won't consistently draw the same thing over and over if it's asked for like more than 3 times (especially by the same person)!

Also, if I do not respond to your ask, it may be because I am either uncomfortable with the ask, am unsure how to respond, or simply do not feel that it is an ask that needs to be posted. I am also NOT an rp blog so I will not respond to rp-like asks. Please respect this, thank you!

Please be respectful! I have major anxiety and communication/socializing is difficult for me, so I may not engage in conversations much ;0; I do get super nervous with parasocial behavior!!! I will do my best to respond to my inbox so please be patient with me 💌

Fanart/Art Rules:

Art Trades are for mutuals only! I rarely do them but think they're fun! Also will only do an art trade if the level of art quality and skill is the similar to my own, thank you! 💖

This isn't entirely an art request blog but depending on the question in the ask box I might doodle something if I'm interested enough! 🍰✨ I don't really draw ship requests often tho! ;3; Might do some that I like but depends!

I don't mind fanart! If you'd like to make fanart for me please tag me so I can see your lovely work! However pls don't draw my ocs or version (aus included) of the mercs inappropriately or in ships I otherwise am not comfortable with, as they already have pre-established relationships ;; Also please do not misinterpret/take creative liberties with my Medicsona (Shortcake Medic) specifically, as he is my personal sona and I am more sensitive about art of him! He is not an oc, he is a sona, so I am uncomfortable with misinterpretations and/or nsfw art of him. If you are unsure about anything please ask me first, I am very firm and particular about him! Thank you!!! 💖🍰

If you want to use my art as a profile pic please ask me first!!! DO NOT REPOST OR EDIT MY ARTWORK!!!!

#please be kind about my personal favorite ships or characters #I can and will block anyone who is rude about them :(((#also please don't flood my comments trying to convince me to like other ships #I get anxious easily and it makes me uncomfortable #team fortress 2 #tf2 #team fortress 2 art #tf2 art #tf2 engineer #tf2 medic #tf2 spy #tf2 sniper #tf2 scout #my art #xed art

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neathbound · 5 months ago

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Koloman Republic: Analysis

I'm specifically of the opinion that they're a coalition of agents for White.

Their flag

Purple, a notably regal color. Also similar to irrigo, associated with the Great Game.

"Lux," of course, for light.

Geese are a symbol of collective effort, as their V-formation allows them to fly more efficiently. Collective effort, however, isn't always merely republican; take "goose-stepping" for example.

The tongs, possibly for forging a new republic, possibly for forging the Chain.

The rope and the hat honestly elude me.

Other tidbits

They're associated with lilies and lavender, both of which commonly symbolize purity.

They aren't noticeable at the opening ceremonies, and the game specifically notes that they've either "assimilated" (which spies would be good at) or didn't come (they've got something else to do while everyone's distracted).

Naturally the wide spread of apparent cultures could indicate a group of agents of different nationalities; I'd also note (and this could be me showing my ignorance here) that they seem to imply that the Republic stretches from the Alps to the Adriatic, which isn't necessarily a huge swath of land, despite how often the game emphasizes how many disparate cultures seem to be represented.

Entirely self-indulgent, but it's specifically noted that they're supposedly famous for their architects and engineers - people who create and maintain specific systems and structures.

Smarter people than me have explained this in more detail, but they seem to be named after a historical figure who was (suspected of being?) a spy.

I've almost certainly missed a few things, and obviously any number of these could be red herrings. It would be pretty funny if after all of the suspicion, they turn out to really just be a normal Surface country.

#fallen london #coilheart games

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jasmineandcedar · 4 months ago

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"His head went quiet." | Peace and quiet in the mind of a shadowsinger

[Second Solstice] “It's beautiful," she [Elain] whispered, lifting it from the box. The golden faelight shone through the little glass facets, setting the charm glowing with hues of red and pink and white. Azriel let his shadows whisk away the box as she said softly, "Put it on me?" His head went quiet. But he took the necklace, opening the clasp as she exposed her back, sweeping her hair up in one hand to bare her long, creamy neck [Azriel's BC).

When I read that Azriel’s head went quiet in the bonus chapter, I often think of it in a wider and perhaps more symbolic sense. As in, Elain gives him peace and quiet. He relaxes with her in the garden, sunning his wings. His shadows vanish in her presence (here’s a post I wrote dissecting my perception of the meaning of this). His soft and gentle side comes out around her (meaning he has no need to be stone-faced and guarded, as he usually is). However, I also believe the peace and quiet she gave him in that precise moment is also very specific and contextual.

What had been plaguing his mind leading up to their moment during Solstice night?

[Second Solstice] Sleep, they [his shadows] seemed to whisper in his ear. Sleep. I wish I could, he answered silently. But sleep so rarely found him these days. Too many razor-sharp thoughts sliced him any time he grew still long enough for them to strike. Too many wants and needs left his skin overheated and pulling taut across his bones. So he slept only when his body gave out, and even then only for a few hours (Azriel’s BC).

“Razor-sharp thoughts” and “wants and needs”. These words give meaning to Azriel's actions in ACOSF. All throughout ACOSF, we see Azriel distressed and clearly not OK, because of his feelings for Elain. Even to the point that Cassian (who, let’s be honest, is not the most observant) notices.

[Azriel telling Cassian Nesta and Cassian are wanted at the river house] “You and Nesta are wanted down there.” “Because of the shit with Elain?” Azriel stilled. “What happened to Elain?” Cassian waved a hand. “A fight with Nesta. Don’t bring it up,” he warned when Azriel’s eyes darkened. Cassian blew out a breath. “I take that as a no regarding the meeting topic, then.” “It’s about what I discovered. Rhys said he requires you both there.” “It’s bad, then.” Cassian surveyed the shadows gathered around Az. “You all right?” His brother nodded. “Fine.” But shadows still swarmed him. Cassian knew it was a lie, but didn’t push it. Az would speak when he was ready, and Cassian would have better success convincing a mountain to move than getting Az to open up. (ACOSF)

[Cassian asking Azriel if he wants kids] Cassian looked over at Az. “You think you’ll ever be ready for one?” Ever be ready to confess to Mor what’s in your heart? “I don’t know,” Azriel said. “Do you want a child?” “It doesn’t matter what I want.” Distant words—ones that prevented Cassian from prying further. He was still happy to be Mor’s buffer with Azriel, but there’d been a change lately. In both of them. Mor no longer sat beside Cassian, draped herself over him, and Azriel … those longing glances toward her had become few and far between. As if he’d given up. After five hundred years, he’d somehow given up. Cassian couldn’t think why. (ACOSF)

[Azriel, Cassian, and Nesta training] Nesta’s stare seared him from across the ring. Cassian might have flexed his stomach muscles as he approached the chalk-lined circle. Az shook his head and muttered, “Pathetic, Cass.” Cassian winked, nodding to his brother’s equally muscled stomach. “Where have you been exercising these days?” “Here,” Azriel said. “At night.” After he returned from spying on their enemies. “Can’t sleep?” Cassian took up a fighting stance. A shadow curled around Azriel’s neck, the only one brave enough to face the sunlight. “Something like that,” he said, and settled into his own stance across from Cassian. Cassian let it drop, knowing Az would have told him already if he’d wanted to share what had been hounding him enough to exercise at night, rather than in the morning with them (ACOSF).

Clearly, Azriel’s head has been nothing but quiet all throughout ACOSF. But during Solstice night, with Elain, it went quiet. What happened before his head went quiet? It's reasonable to assume that what preceded his head going quiet is what caused it. So, what was that?

[Second Solstice] “It's beautiful," she whispered, lifting it from the box. The golden faelight shone through the little glass facets, setting the charm glowing with hues of red and pink and white. Azriel let his shadows whisk away the box as she said softly, "Put it on me?" His head went quiet. But he took the necklace, opening the clasp as she exposed her back, sweeping her hair up in one hand to bare her long, creamy neck (Azriel's BC).

“Put it on me?” Elain asked, and Azriel’s head went quiet. Why? What is it to put a necklace on someone? It is to act.

Up until the necklace, Azriel knew Elain was aware of his feelings for her, and why he hesitates to act on them.

[Second Solstice] He [Azriel] left the rest unspoken. Because her mate was here, sleeping a level up. Because her mate had been in the family room and Azriel had needed to stay by the door the whole time because he couldn't stand the sight of it, the scent of their mating bond, and needed to have the option of leaving if it became too much. Elain's large brown eyes flickered, well aware of all that. Just as he knew she was well aware of why Azriel so rarely came to family dinners these days. (Azriel’s BC)

So, Azriel knows they have feelings for each other that they both are aware of. They have shared glances and brushing of fingers.

[Second Solstice] It had never gone this far. They'd exchanged looks, the occasional brush of their fingers, but never this. Never blatant, unrestricted touching (Azriel’s BC).

What is missing, for those feelings to be more than mutual feelings, is action. What Azriel doesn't know (I think) is if Elain would be ready to act on those feelings, beyond the occasional brush of their fingers and a lingering glance here and there. I am doubtful he had expected Elain to be willing to act on it that Solstice night, and I am convinced he had never felt entitled to it. Why do I think this? Because he never planned for a future with her in it beside him.

[When Rhys confronts Azriel during Solstice night] "So you'll what?" Rhys's voice was pure ice. "Seduce her away from him?” Azriel said nothing. He hadn't gotten that far with his planning, certainly not beyond the fantasies he pleasured himself to (Azriel's BC).

Why had he not allowed himself to plan beyond his fantasies? Because he didn’t feel entitled to a future with her. Why do I say that? Think about what planning is. It is imagining a future you want and how to get there. If he didn’t expect Elain to be ready to act on their mutual feelings, it makes sense he had no hope of a future with her, because he is not entitled to a future with her that she doesn’t consent to.

Think of what kind of person Azriel is. And then think of the circumstances required for him to imagine a future he wants with Elain, and to imagine how to get there (= planning). Azriel is a guy who is seemingly intent on consent and not pushing himself on, especially, women. Look at how he acts with the priestesses in ACOSF. And with Elain, he extends a hand, an arm and so on (an offer). But not only that. He extends a hand, an arm, after having asked her (offer and permission).

[Azriel has just flown Elain to the town house] Azriel smiled faintly. “Would you like me to show you the garden?” She seemed so small before him, so fragile compared to the scales of his fighting leathers, the breadth of his shoulders. The wings peeking over them. But Elain did not balk from him, did not shy away as she nodded—just once. Azriel, graceful as any courtier, offered her an arm. I couldn’t tell if she was looking at his blue Siphon or at his scarred skin beneath as she breathed, “Beautiful.” (ACOWAR)

[Feyre offering to take Elain to the garden] I dragged a hand over my face before going to Elain and touching her too-bony shoulder. “Can I set you up in the garden? The herbs you planted are coming in nicely.” “I can help her,” said Azriel, stepping to the table as Elain silently rose. No shadows at his ear, no darkness ringing his fingers as he extended a hand. Nesta monitored him like a hawk, but kept silent as Elain took his hand, and out they went. (ACOWAR)

So, when Elain said, “put it on me?” I think it meant to Azriel that Elain showed him she was willing to act on their mutual feeling. It is an explicit expression of consent for him to act (offer and permission). Then, he “nearly groans with relief and need” when she allows him to put the necklace on her, urges him to touch her, and gives him her consent to kiss her (offer and permission). What is he relieved about? That she is willing to act. She confirms not only that she feels the same, but that she is even braver than him and ready to act. Even with her mate upstairs.

If Elain is willing to act, there is a possibility of a future. It opens the door towards a future with her that he could imagine, and if he can imagine a future with her, he can imagine how they’d get there. That is what it means to plan. Something he couldn't have allowed himself to do before "put it on me?" and all that followed in that interaction (with Elain leading it).

Look at what happens after he learns Elain is willing to act. He is questioning the Cauldron itself openly for the first time, with Rhys. I see it as the first seeds towards a bigger plan.

[Rhys confronts Azriel during Solstice night] Azriel stiffened. Let his cold rage rise to the surface, the rage he only ever let Rhysand see, because he knew his brother could match it. "What if the Cauldron was wrong?" Rhysand blinked. "What of Mor, Az?" Azriel ignored the question. "The Cauldron chose three sisters. Tell me how it's possible that my two brothers are with two of those sisters, yet the third was given to another." He had never before dared speak the words aloud (Azriel’s BC).

Consider Azriel’s nature. He is not impulsive. He works in the background. Waiting for the right moment to act is not only a cornerstone of his job, but of his personality, as evident in his assertion that spying suits him precisely because of that. He is not careful and prudent because he is Spymaster, he is Spymaster because he is careful and prudent.

[Training with Nesta and Cassian] “Right,” Cassian panted through gritted teeth as he blocked Az’s kick and bounced a step back, circling again. “Whoever lands the next blow wins.” ��That’s ridiculous,” Az panted back. “We go until one of us eats dirt.” Az had a vicious competitive streak. It wasn’t boastful and arrogant, the way Cassian knew he himself was prone to be, or possessive and terrifying like Amren’s. No, it was quiet and cruel and utterly lethal. Cassian had lost track of how many games they’d played over the centuries, with one of them certain of a win, only for Az to reveal some master strategy. Or how many games had been reduced to only Rhys and Az left standing, battling it out over cards or chess until the middle of the night, when Cassian and Mor had given up and started drinking (ACOSF).

[Cassian and Azriel on the lookout] “Four fucking days,” Cassian hissed from where he and Azriel monitored the castle. “We’ve been sitting on our asses for four fucking days.” Azriel sharpened Truth-Teller. The black blade absorbed the dim sunlight trickling through the forest canopy above. “It seems you’ve forgotten how much of spying is waiting for the right moment. People don’t engage in their evil deeds when it’s convenient to you.” Cassian rolled his eyes. “I stopped spying because it bored me to death. I don’t know how you put up with this all the time." “It suits me.” Azriel didn’t halt his sharpening, though shadows gathered around his feet (ACOSF).

When Azriel says “this was a mistake” about the almost-kiss, and “tonight had proved he 'd been right to do so” (Azriel's BC) about staying away from Elain, it is obviously not an expression of rejection. He didn't suddenly change his mind about Elain. He is questioning his impulsivity and recklessness. Because, as much as I, for entirely self-interested reasons, wish Rhys didn’t interrupt them, making out downstairs during Solstice (and whatever that might have led to) was quite reckless and impulsive. Clearly, none of them had planned to do that.

Azriel achieves his goals not through impulsivity and brute force, but through careful consideration and strategizing. I think that, since Elain said “put it on me?”, he has perhaps been cooking up some "master strategy" to make them happen (I, too, don't think it was a coincidence he was present to find out the Cauldron had, in fact, been tampered with, in HOFAS). He got her explicit consent, and a minute later he is questioning his religion in front of his High Lord. I think there might be some miscommunication initially in Elain’s book, given how Elain probably doesn’t know Rhys is the reason Azriel decided not to follow through with the kiss. And I think Azriel definitely will struggle with his feelings of not being worthy.

But then, I think we’ll be privy to some master strategizing on their part, challenging not only Rhys but fate itself.

#elriel

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