#and also remembering to charge them will be a challenge
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So I'm a little too obsessed now and ordered this and the art book (which comes out in February) and it's got some very interesting information about ages and relationships that'll be very useful going forward so I'll drop the ages below and anything else interesting I found
Helm: 55 years old, king for 5 years at this point in time, spent almost his entire life fighting the hill tribes and Dunlendings. This is what makes him a king who dislikes to be challenged ok his authority and decisions
Héra: 19 years old, deep love for nature and especially the more fantastical kind, her horse is Ashere. The rest, I'm sure you remember from the movie itself
Lief: 16 years old, main roles are protecting the old maps and scrolls that keep the laws and customs recorded
Haleth: 30 years old, first in line to the throne, not expected to rule for another 20 years based on Helm's own life. A brawler by nature, he's very intimidating to those who threaten his family and he's known as one of their best warriors skilled in sword, spear and axe
Háma: 22 years old, more of a gentler spirit than his father and brother, more passionate about the songs and legends. He likes to think of himself as a warrior poet and is always carrying his carved lyre. A skilled swordsman but an expert with bow and arrow
Fréaláf: 28 years old, lord of harrowdale and first marshal of the Riddermark, the highest military rank and is charged with protecting Edoras and the surrounding lands. His horse is named éored. He was raised alongside his cousins and so has a deep bond with them all but is not above teasing them frequently. He's also very ready to stand up to Helm if he believes a decision unwise
Olwyn: 45 years old, lady's maid to Héra but more become a mentor than a simple maid or servant. Thought in many battles over the years and has known great loss but finds ways to move forward and doesn't suffer fools. She sees herself in Héra as only she and a few others know Olwyn's past as a shield maiden
Freca: 40 years old, lord of the west-march. He claims to be descended from the fifth king of Rohan, Fréawine but his hair and beard instead cast doubt and suggest the Dunlendish blood runs through his veins instead. Has very little love for the kings of Rohan. Spends a lot of time dwelling on what he doesn't have and pays little heed to the king refusing summons to attend the witan
Wulf: 20 years old. Only son of Freca. His mother has also passed like with Héra. Quiet and intense most of the time, dressing in sombre colours. His belief that Héra loves him is very fragile. Expert in swords and bows. Has very little personal ambition at the start, growing up under his father's shadow and subject to his father's whims, despite this he loves his father and should anything happen he'll repay it tenfold. Should his youthful affection be spurned, that love will turn into a pathologically hatred for Helm, Héra and all the people of Rohan
General Targg: born and raised in Dunland, he has become a trusted advisor to Freca and will likely be key to Wulf's own reign. He is wise and calm but in the heat of battle will fight fiercely yet he retains a deep sense of honour as a warrior
#lotr#lotr:wotr#lotr: war of the rohirrim#the war of the rohirrim#war of the rohirrim#helm hammerhand#haleth#Háma#Héra#wulf#Lief#Fréaláf#Olwyn#Freca#general targg
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So im still using my iphone 6s, which i got in early 2017, and why, you may ask, am i still using a 7 year old phone? I have 2 reasons for this, 1) i refuse to have a phone without a headphone jack, i will not suffer the indignity of it, and 2) i don't want to deal with learning a new operating system, because stupid apple doesn't sell phones with headphone jacks anymore i will need to get a phone that uses a different operating system
I have many reasons for wanting a headphone jack, i don't want to have to worry about charging my headphones, i have adhd i don't need to add more things to the list of things i need to do but won't remember, i like having the cord and its more convenient to just plug it in to use the headphones than to have to go into settings and bluetooth and all that, and sure in iphones without the jack you can plug it in to the charger part but what if i want to charge my phone and use my headphones at the same time, and like i know there are adapters out there that can make that possible but again i have adhd i will not be able to keep track of it.
So my next phone can't be an iphone, which tbh is good because apple is shit, but the issue with that is that any other phone i get will be using a different operating system, so i'll have to learn and get used to a new operating system, and i don't do well with change, so im going to use this old phone until it ceases to function
#iphone#headphone jack#bluetooth#i have nothing against bluetooth#i just prefer to use the faster and more convenient way of connecting my headphones#and also remembering to charge them will be a challenge#when i found out about apple getting rid of the jack i was pissed#and i've stayed pissed#i'll never buy another iphone again because of this#i definitely would have gotten a new phone sooner if not for the fact that i hate change#right now i'm basically just procrastinating getting a new phone because i don't want a new operating system#and also idk if i can even transfer my data to a new phone if it isn't another iphone#so just all of that is stopping me from just getting a new phone
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ENIES LOBBY TIME!!!
Sanji's face here.... he Knows he is going to fuck him up
THAT IS SANJI??? 😨
Holding them in my hands again....
Sanji struck a nerve there akdjaoajkq
Increible trio btw.... look at the evidence
............ me next please 🙏🏻
That is love right there I can see it
What if we all killed ourselves (except usopp is telling her the opposite ajahkdhsakjd)
I need sanji to go insane like this more often.... after the timeskip it doesn't happen as much and I love to see him suffering
This is so funny.... there is no denying to her face card
"It's not like she actually wants to die" well yes she does, but no because you know she doesn't really. It is in a quantum state right now
Luffy is such a menace akdhaksjkaak
TELL EM!!!! THAT'S MY GIRL!!!!
Look at franky worrying about robin.... do not fret luffy is coming and he will NOT lose!!!!!
This is zoro remarking how usopps fear of being left behind makes no sense.... this is so good.....
This is so endearing but it also breaks my heart....
Who is that sultry binch... (I don't recall this attack AT ALL and i'm sure we never see it again)
They botched his bbl.... 😔😔😔
Luffy's face here... he was convinced she wanted to go with them but was compelled to do otherwise but no.... he thought wrong and he can't fight to her.... I've just been staring at this page for minutes like damn.
Nevermind.... this is something your mother would say "you want to die??? Just wash the dishes and you can do whatever you want later"
"If you wanna die, or whatever...." this is so good like he knows what he is doing.... he Knows.... look at her face. After knowing how luffy and ace were as kids this just makes more sense (oda didn't think about this i'm sure but damn does it fit) also the slight manipulation.... look at all of us we're already here and look how we all miss you already... you know that post about luffy being selfish but his selfishness is jusg kindness to others... yesh
Thinking about robin's cinderella lifestyle.... why did her mother leave her with that aunt and why didn't some archeologist take her in?? Because she doesn't complain about anything just like she doesn't respond when that mother accused her of hitting her child without reason... that's so fucked
Alright this is funny (and also true)... I'm sorry fellow women....
*Justin Bieber voice* I like your laugh... dereishi shishishi
SHE'S GONNA ASK HER MOM TO TAKE HER TO THE SEA WITH HER??? LIKE SHE DOES AFTER WITH LUFFY??? MY GOD!!! I just bursted into tears like I got punched in the nose I can't keep going ajdhakajk
I lied i can keep going... but head in my hands over this....
Find out how my emotional stability survives this arc in ennies lobby part 2. coming soon
#franky calling sanji brother eyebrows is too good akdbsksnsk also ily franky#captain t bone.... he got killed tecently.... i forgot who he was until now but he actually cared thats so fucked up.... cross guild come o#sanji going against cp9 by himself.... i shant say it... SLAY!!!! also the cook being mad about being pretty cause he has no individuality.#lucci talking about a little girl being born wrong and needing to die for it TO SANJI!!! OOF!!!#the frog stopped rocketman bc he thought they kidnapped kokoro just like they took tom 😭😭😭 this fucking frog always gets me#chapter 377 and franky is in the headline with the strawhats ❤️❤️ they recruit TWO thirty year olds in enies lobby ajdhaksjks#franky biting spandex head.... yeah... and he should do it more why did he stop biting heads... he got domesticated#luffy is such a menace here like damn.... he is charging thru EVERYTHING!! GET THEM BOY!!!!#also franky is so important in giving robin hope here... like she sees him fighting back no matter what and i KNOW that inspires her...#i am going to say it hina fullbody and jango have a challengers thing going on but without hina being involved physically iykwim#when in action panels the ink just becomes lines... OOF!!! CHEFS KISS!!! MWAH MWAH#completely forgot gear 2 used the shave technique.... thats so cool..... also iron body must be haki then... and finger pistol#i dont think i can do this... after this ends we got thriller bark and then marineford starts building up...#i can endure water 7 sad moments bc everything ends up well in the end but what am i gonna do with marineford.... my god#also dr clover and dr hyruluk and crocus all have smilar plant based hair designs is that bc they are doctors or just coincidence#also robins father is dead and for sure another archeologist or similar.... thats inch resting....#which also like damn olvia and dragon had to make the same choices with their children i am sure. thats so fucked. dragon backstory when#clover knew the name of the fallen kingdom (robonosuke lore??) and also olvia knew some important information the gov didnt know... ✍️✍️✍️#SAKAZUKI SHOT THE EVACUATION SHIP???? HELLO??? I DIDNT REMEMBER IT WAS HIM!! (also olvia knew where saul was)#kuzan is sick in the head... he can't bring himsef to kill child robin but he will kill her as an adult... also his beef with akainu is OLD#like no wonder she was terrified when she saw him again. he said live like a recluse or i will end you and she fucking did. THE bogeyman#there are comments saying they hate akainu and he has just appeared 😭😭 JUST FUCKING WAIT#you guys think when luffy realised robin's enemy was the world gov he also realised it was sabo's enemy too.... bc as a child he didn't kno#also pluton was made as a countermeasure for the weapon robin could reactivate... could that be the one that was used in lulusia??#bc i thought that weapon was pluton but if pluton is just blueprints.... this makes more sense... which could also mean the ancient weapons#are a countermeasure for weapons the government already has. and thats why they're hunting them down. to have no opposition#so there must be two sides of the ancient weapons bc they call pluton that but also the unnamed one that robin could activate#so is pluton a countermeasure to uranus (the one used in lulusia i think) but neptune? trios dont make sene but a trio and their opposite d#reading one piece#enies lobby
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So, it's currently about 10°C outside, I need to wear a jacket inside, and my upstairs tenants are running MULTIPLE air conditioners.
Are my tenants (on an "utilities included" rental agreement) being assholes, or is this just "landlord brain" kicking in? 'Cuz seriously, I can't afford the bill from the ppl upstairs, & they don't seem to give a shit... am I missing something?
#also they've moved an extra person in without declaring them as an occupant#remember: I'm paying for the hot water & any extra utility use#how much of an asshole would I he for charging them for a 10% share of the electric & gas bill for the person they LIED about?#1/10 seems like a eay more reasonable amount than‚ say#the 1/6 I could challenge for based on OCCUPANCY rather than assumed use...#but. like. the tenant said her bf would be gone by the end of January & it's March#& I set the rent on the part of my home I don't NEED to cover what my crippled ass couldn't of the mortgage+taxes#so this isn't about profit‚ it's about a crippled queer holding onto a home that cost half a meter of intestine+#+& tyese assholes already stored thete rancid trash by my dad's sweaters#-blocking access to the fucking fuse box!-#'cuz I told them I don't NEED 100% of the space the contact gave me & didn't mind them using the extra to a reasonable degree...#& my mom can't even pull fully into my side of the driveway 'cuz the L driver took my spot#& they're pissing off the neighbours#who are calling the city#basically they're screwing me over 😬🖖#they literally told me that one tenant's partner was staying til the end of January#I didn't agree to pay for him to do laundry until MAY!#& I bought a YEAR'S worth of dryer sheets in January & the box is almost empty...#like. srsly#I'm also charging like 10% below average‚ NOT including the utilities agreement#I am being as fair as I can while still feeding myself#aita for being pissed off about this?#Edit: there's 4 declared occupant; i didn't raise the rent when they wnt from 3#to 4 tenants b/c I had accounted for a 4th 'guest'#5 is where I start having issues#especially when he's been here 'a couple of months' in MAY when I was told he was leaving in JANUARY...
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Play fighting with Boxer!Sukuna
Note: Reader is referred to as girlfriend at one point.
Masterlist
“Babe.”
“Not right now.”
“Babe.”
“Sukuna, I promise I’ll be done with this book soon.”
He huffed and fell back onto the couch. He had been trying to get your attention for the past 30 minutes but you were adamant on finishing your book. This is all the fault of that damn community book club your coworker recommended you join. Now whenever, you’re off work and Sukuna doesn’t have to train, you’re reading. Usually the two of you spent almost all your spare time together but now you spent half of it reading your newest book for your weekly discussion. You always did your best to spoil him with kisses and cuddles but it was never enough.
Book club be damned, he needed you to be superglued to his side every single second.
“My girlfriend has a side man and he’s made of paper.” He huffed to himself as he watched you intently read. What was so great about your book anyway? Was it worth ignoring your gorgeous (and shirtless) boyfriend? He even had a tattoo of your name on his left pec and you were still choosing to smother a book with your attention.
Sukuna’s wallowing turned him creative- he stood in front of you, trying to make sure your guard was down. You didn’t look up which meant that you were still engrossed in your book. His hand swooped in and swiftly snatched the book from you. “Sukuna.” you groaned. “Give it back, I was at a good part.” You got up to grab it from him but he raised it above his head. “Kiss me.” You glared at him and gave him a quick peck on his lips. “Done, now give it.”
“No.” He nonchalantly replied. “But I kissed you.” You wondered why he was being particularly irritating today.
“That was me begging for a morsel of your attention. Now cuddle me if you want it.” He said and cheekily smirked.
You ignored him and hopped trying to get your book. Sukuna simply dodged your sad attempts and laughed every time you missed. “I don’t even know why you’re trying.” You gave him a pointed look at his comment.
“Okay, fine, you can have your book if you beat me in a fight.”
“What? That makes no sense.” You couldn’t believe this man. “It seems like a fair challenge to me.” He said as he walked to a particularly high shelf and placed your book on top of it. “You know I can just use my stepping stool for that, right?” You said before scoffing at him.
“Then it’s a good thing I hid it.” His sarcastic smile was now pissing you off. “But you literally fight for a living. You have the upper hand.”
“I’m in love with you. Use that as a distraction. Come on, let’s go to the ring.” You were speechless as he dragged you to the fighting “ring” (also known as your bedroom).
Since you had a smaller frame than him, he agreed to let you have the first hit. You sighed and braced yourself. You didn’t have much of a strategy except for charging at him with such a high speed that he’d fall on the bed and would accept defeat.
But as soon as you were in close distance, he caught both your arms, turned you around and threw you on the bed. He didn’t give you a second to get up before he straddled you. “Haha!” He exclaimed. Seeing you all riled up underneath him was a sight he was used to but it never failed to awe him.
“Feels familiar, doesn’t it?” He asked as he began to lower himself to face you. “This is so unfair! You’re like 200 pounds, I can’t even move you.” You said as you tried to push him off. Sukuna grabbed your hands that were fighting him and he playfully wrestled them. Who knows what would’ve happened if he used his real strength.
Thank goodness for your quick thinking because you remembered that Sukuna was extremely ticklish so you pulled your hand out of his grasp with all the strength you could muster up and started poking his sides. “Babe!” He yelled before toppling over to his side. It was your turn to straddle him and before you could pin his arms beside his head, he caught yours and pulled you down to him. He wrapped his muscular arms around you and tucked your head under his chin. Your cheeks were mushed against the very tattoo of your name.
You were literally stuck in one position. The more you tried to move the tighter he’d hold you. “Sukuna, you cheater. Why do I always do this to myself?” You sighed, accepting defeat.
Sukuna kissed your forehead and laid you both on your sides, still not letting you go. “Sweet, sweet victory.” He whispered to himself.
-•-
I need to be (lovingly) smothered by a beefy nerd. Someone like Clark Kent.
#sukuna ryoumen x you#sukuna x y/n#sukuna x you#sukuna fluff#sukuna x reader#sukuna smut#jjk sukuna#sukuna ryomen#sukuna#sukuna ryoumen x reader#sukuna ryoumen smut#jjk x y/n#jjk x you#jjk x reader#jjk au#jjk fluff#jjk#jjk fanfic#jujustu kaisen#jujutsu sukuna#jujustsu kaisen x reader#jujutsu kaisen
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hello! could you write johnnie guilbert fluff? maybe a scenario where him and fem!reader are spending a day together (filming a video, doing random stuff) just being two people in love and jake and tara tease them and call them a married couple
deaf, mute and blind | j.g.
pairing: johnnie guilbert x fem!reader
summary: you, johnnie and jake are recording a new challenge video.
warnings: use of y/n, bad writing and grammar(i’m sorry but english isn’t my first language)
an: hi, thank you <33 hope you like it!
pictures are from pinterest :)
“Hi guys, it’s me, Tara, and today I’m here with Jake, y/n and Johnnie.” Tara introduced you and you all waved to the camera.
“Hi!” you greeted her viewers.
“Today I’m gonna torture my guests… No, but I wish.” she pouted and you all laughed “Today, my guests will be playing into deaf, mute and blind but…they will have many challenges and quests to do throughout the day. But they main goal is to do shopping and bake me cookies! Any words guys?”
“I hope I get deaf, cause I don’t think I can go much longer with them talking.” you rolled your eyes looking at Jake and your boyfriend.
“Hey!” Johnnie gasped pretending to be offended, placing hand on his chest “That hurt love.”
You only rolled your eyes but couldn’t hide the smile that was forcing its way onto your face.
“Alright, so now they will draw sticks and get to know what senses will be taken from them!” Tara showed her viewers three sticks and then she turned to you “Ladies first.”
You took the one in the middle and immediately looked at written words.
“Yeah! I’m deaf today!” You did a little winning dance. Next one choosing stick was Johnnie and he got mute.
“Oh, so I will be blind.” Jake stated “That’s good actually, at least I don’t have to look at your ugly faces.” he smirked and you laughed.
Tara handed you all your things - blindfold for Jake, duck tape for Johnnie and earphones for you.
“Let me also add, that the person who won’t do the most of their mini challenges, has to take a cold shower on the street!” Tara smiled mischievously.
“Is this enough to charge her with domestic abuse?” Jake asked kind of scared.
When everyone was ready Tara started talking to the camera and you could only guess she was explaining to people what you gonna do and not long later Johnnie took your hand to let you know you were going out. You both helped blindfolded Jake to the car and Tara drove you to the nearest store.
She turned on the camera and pointed it at you and Johnnie. You didn’t see anyone talking so you decided to speak “I think Tara already told you guys but we’re making cookies so now we have to find all of the needed ingredients.” you informed and Tara pointed the camera to Johnnie who was gesturing towards some alley. He took your hand and started dragging you there with Tara going behind you but you suddenly stopped, remembering something.
You quickly turned around and jogged to Jake to walk him to Johnnie and Tara. He said something that made Tara laugh and Johnnie’s arms shudder in a silent laugh.
You really started to regret wanting to be deaf one, because not hearing anything yet seeing it, made you frustrated. Also, not hearing Johnnie made you kinda sad. But atleast you listened to your favorite songs.
You all went to grocery alley where Jake gave you his phone so you and Johnnie could find all ingredients for cookies.
Tara was pointing the camera on you all the time and you decided to speak from time to time in case she and Jake weren’t saying anything.
“So we will be doing chocolate chip cookies. Or rather we will be trying to instruct Jake to do it without hurting himself or poisoning us.” you felt a light push on your shoulder and you laughed seeing how Jake was struggling with trying to not miss your form while hitting.
Johnnie swatted Jake’s hand when he tried to hit your shoulder again and side hugged you while looking for flour.
“Johnnie, we need flour for cakes, this one is for bread.” you told him and he gave you a ‘what the hell’ face and you knew that if he could talk and you hear, he would be asking about the difference.
“Alright, I think we got everything.” you stated when you found everything and you all went to cashier’s stands where everyone was looking at you like at idiots, but that wasn’t anything new with Johnnie and Jake.
Tara quickly paid when it was yours turn and you and Johnnie walked Jake to the car.
When you were at home you quickly started to prepare kitchen for your baking.
Suddenly, you felt someone tugging gently at your arm and you saw Johnnie pointing ahead of you. You saw Tara pointing the camera at you all and you took it as a clue to start talking.
“Alright, so now we will be trying to instruct Jake how to make cookie dough, wish us luck!” you smiled sarcastically.
You somehow were cooperating well, Johnnie was showing you the recipe and you were reading it for Jake who then with your and yours boyfriend help were making most of the work.
When cookies were in the oven you didn’t have anything better to do so you sat on the floor in front of the oven and you were just looking at the cookies.
Some time later Johnnie joined you, sitting next to you and placing his head on your shoulder. You hugged him into your side and he gladly snuggled into you, kissing your shoulder.
You sat there for a few minutes, when Tara came to you with a camera and some bowl and told something to Johnnie and then showed you her phone, where she wrote in the notes that now you will be doing random challenges before you could take the cookies out from the oven. It would decide who is the loser of the video.
You all stood in the living room and Tara came to you with the bowl and you took one piece of paper.
“I’ve got ‘activity without your sense’” you read it for them and viewers out loud and then showed the piece of paper to the camera.
Moment later Tara gave you another paper, which turned out to be an instruction what your activity was.
“So I have to call a random contact and try to have normal conversation with that person. That will be hard.” you sighed “Can Johnnie and Jake help me? Like by gesturing?” You looked at Tara and she only nodded.
You looked at the camera and smiled “I’m actually kinda scared that they will gesturing wrong things and I will make a fool of myself.” you laughed and you could see Tara snorting.
Your challenges were done, it wasn’t that bad or at least you were hoping so.
Then you took the cookies out of the oven and tried them when they weren’t hot. They were really good.
“Teamwork makes a dream work, i guess.” you smiled at the camera.
Then you could finally take off the earphones and you were never as grateful for hearing Jake and Johnnie as now.
“God, it’s so good to hear people again. I missed your voice.” you told Johnnie who smiled widely at you and kissed your cheek.
“I’m glad to see again, but I’m scared of how many bruises I’ve got today.” Jake laughed while still trying to get use to the light in the room.
“Alright guys, they made it.” Tara smiled at the camera “I can’t with how cute y/n and Johnnie were today. Literally goals. You were like and old married couple.” she giggled and you smiled.
“So, who’s the loser?” Jake asked after few minutes.
“You Jake.” You laughed “You didn’t do any of your challenges correctly.”
“That’s true.” Tara smirked “You will do your punishment later.”
You stopped recording for some time so Tara could get all of the needed things for Jake’s punishment, so you and Johnnie went to sit on the couch while hugging.
“I really missed your voice today.” you admitted again quietly.
“And I missed talking to you.” he smiled “And kissing you.” he kissed you.
#johnnie guilbert x reader#johnnie guilbert#johnnie#jake webber#tara yummy#tarayummy#sam and colby#snc#colby brock#sam golbach#deaf mute and blind
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Werewolf // Cinna’s Monstertober Writing Challenge
Tags: Werewolf!Geto x Fem!Reader, Alpha!Geto x Omega!Reader, A/B/O mechanics, marking, scenting, nesting, fated mates, description of violence including murder, NSFW, MDNI
Synopsis: Suguru knew you were his before you even presented as an omega, but the pack elders did not take too kindly to him marking you at such a young age. He kills anyone who gets in his way to you.
An: If you don’t like a/b/o or omegaverse, skip this one :3. If you’re a freak like me, enjoy! Also, this was my first time making my own banner in Canva.. what are we thinking?? I am also so sorry that this one is so late.
“Satoru… I’m going to kill them. I’m going to murder them all. I can’t do this anymore. She needs me.”
Let’s rewind, shall we?
Living in a small pack has its perks. Everyone is protective over one another and will always offer to help no matter what. Pack relations are strongest when the pack is smaller, and the pack is more likely to survive.
There are, of course, some cons as well. Everyone knows your business, and everyone wants a say in how you live your life.
For the longest you can remember, Suguru has been by your side. You two would spend a lot of time down at the creek together as kids. You two practically learned everything together: how to hunt, fish, trap, and forage.
He was your insistent shadow, and the pack elders thought it was adorable when you two were younger. He would without fail abandon the other small children to always go hang out with you. The two of you were like little partners in crime together.
Though their adoration turned to concern when Suguru never quite left your side. In fact, it was getting worse as he grew older. By the time he turned 13, He was abandoning hunting trips early to come home to you. He’d sneak out of his tent to go to yours late at night. Your parents would have to kick him out every morning, chastising both of you.
Though, the straw that broke the camel’s back wasn’t simple sleepovers and abandoned hunting trips. It was when he presented as an alpha. Everyone knew he would with how physically gifted he was as a young teen. He was also too damn protective for his own good, going as far as to breaking another kid’s nose for simply grabbing your wrist.
You were only a few months younger than Suguru, but you hadn’t presented yet. When he presented first, your parents forbade him from sleeping over. They were just trying their best to protect you. You two were “too old” and “not old enough” at the same time to be sleeping together.
Suguru, given that he now had the talk from his parents, knew what your parents were suggesting, but he hated it. He didn’t understand how your parents could think so lowly of him overnight just from presenting.
He lasted three nights. Three whole nights of not snuggling against you, not smelling your hair while you two drifted off to sleep, not hearing your soft snores in the dead of night. It was three sleepless nights.
Suguru always had an inkling that you were his. It was a rather strange feeling of possession, like he shouldn’t have to listen to your parents’ rules because you weren’t theirs. You were his.
His frustration only heightened when the pack started to impose longer hunting trips on him. Shorter hunting trips were reserved for those who hadn’t presented and mated alphas. Since they were mated, they couldn’t be away from their mate for too long; thus, getting the smaller trips.
All these things led him to the conclusion: you’re his mate, and he needed to mark you to prove it.
After a particularly taxing hunting trip, Suguru’s eyes filtered through the camp. Everyone was as painfully jovial as usual: sitting around doing absolutely fuck all. His eyes landed on you, and he could feel the tension melting away from him almost instantaneously. You were in charge of looking after the small children, even though you yourself were still a child.
His feet stomped over toward you without a second thought, and his hand wrapped around your arm tightly, pulling you along behind him.
“Ah- Sugu. Where are we going? I’m working-!” You shout as he continues to drag you along silently. “Sugu- The kids…” You murmur as the two of you head further into the forest.
“They’ll be fine for a few minutes.” He responded calmly before he glanced behind him. The camp was far enough away now. No one would be able to see the two of you unless they were specifically looking for you.
“What are we doing, Sugu?” You asked with a small nervous smile. You had started to have to look up at him these days. It was as if he was growing taller overnight. No longer just a boy.
He also started to stink — well, it wasn’t like a smelly smell, but it was unfamiliar. Your parents had explained pheromones. You didn’t particularly like them since you hadn’t presented yet.
“I need you to sit still, and don’t scream.” He instructed before he dipped his head between your shoulder and jaw. He experimentally sniffed at your neck — completely scentless. The only smell coming from you was your strawberry shampoo that he had grown accustomed to.
“Why would I-“ His large hand covered your mouth before you could get out another word, and he opened his mouth before clamping down on your neck. His K9’s punctured your skin, allowing for blood to trickle down your skin.
A pained cry fled your mouth, but it was muffled by his hand. Suguru felt his heart begin to race. It was happening. You were finally officially his. No one could tell him otherwise — not even your silly parents.
He calmly reassured you that you were okay while you softly wept. Your hand covered the bloody mark on your neck. He was just marking you. You know, like it was no big deal.
After sweetly kissing your tears away, he proudly walked you back to camp once you had calmed down from crying, satisfied with himself. Your hands were laced together like true mates.
The first to immediately notice was Satoru, another alpha who was barely a year older than Suguru. His eyes widened as he caught a glimpse of your marked neck.
“Suguru, what did you do?” He asks like a mother scolding her son. Usually, this was the other way around. Satoru would’ve never expected Suguru to do something as reckless as this.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Satoru. I just marked her.” He shrugs nonchalantly, still so proud of himself.
“You don’t understand. She hasn’t presented. This isn’t good. We need to-“
Your face was flushed a bright red, and Satoru could see your breath becoming more and more labored with each passing second. He frantically looked around, trying to think of what to do. Suguru probably didn’t even know that he just inadvertently forced your body to present. Having been marked, your body was now plummeting itself into a heat.
Suguru could feel you gently tugging on his hand, trying to get his attention. When he looked back at you, his eyes widened. He could tell what your body was going through, but he was just a boy. He didn’t know how to handle it.
“What are you three up to? Why aren’t the children being tended to-“ A clan elder asked after seeing the small children running around without you to watch them. His eyes landed on you, and he immediately tensed up at the scene. “What- How… Geto.”
*** *** ***
“He’s just a boy!” Suguru’s mom pleaded with tears in her eyes. Her hands clasped the young boy’s shoulders. “He has a whole life ahead of him! Don’t do this to him.”
“You’re right. He is just a boy, so it was your responsibility to teach him about these things.” A pack elder spoke.
“He’s an alpha. Even if they taught him those things, he would’ve acted on his own volition anyways.” Another spoke.
“Who even allowed him to be around her? He was suppose to be on a hunting trip, no?”
“We got back early. It was my responsibility, but we were carrying back a large buck. My mind was preoccupied. I accept full responsibility for his actions.”
“You can’t take on the full burden of responsibility. Geto is old enough to know right from wrong, and he chose the wrong path. He took that girl in the woods and marked her before she even presented as an omega.” The pack leader spoke.
Suguru stood completely motionless in front of his parents. He stayed looking down at the ground. While they argued over his future in the pack, his mind was stuck on you. They had ripped you away from him the second that the pack elder had realized that your body was in heat. He wondered if you were being taken care of okay. He wondered if you missed him as much as he missed you already. He wondered if he’d get to see you again.
“He’s done so much for this pack at such a young age. Please.. Don’t do this to him. He has his whole life ahead of him.” His mother pleaded once again. “We’ll keep a closer eye on him. We’ll do whatever it takes.”
“What about my daughter’s life?” Your dad finally spoke up after being silent for far too long. “That bastard tainted her. She could’ve presented as anything: alpha, beta, or omega, but no, he forced biology upon her with a godforsaken mark. He should be shunned from the pack.”
“He can’t be allowed to be in the same space as her. He’s already proven that he can’t be trusted. The last thing we need is for a young omega to fall pregnant because an alpha doesn’t know restraint.”
“Don’t you two have family anywhere she can stay with… just until she’s a bit older? The mark might fade after they’ve been separated for a while.” Another pack elder spoke up to your parents.
“You’re seriously removing our daughter instead of the problem child? That’s fucking rich. So, what will happen when he marks another omega far too early, huh?” Your dad argued, clenching his jaw.
“I wouldn’t do that.” Suguru finally spoke up, looking your dad in the eye. A stare off between the two ensued.
“If this is how this pack operates, fine. I don’t want her in here if we protect alphas simply due to their gender instead of the innocent.” Your dad finally grit out before stomping away from the meeting.
It took three full grown alphas and Satoru to hold Suguru back while you were leaving. They wouldn’t even allow him to say goodbye to you, not even when you cried out his name. Not even when you begged, pleaded, asked why.
*** *** ***
Suguru was never quite the same after you and your family left. It had been years. He was just a boy when they took you. Now, he’s a twenty year old brooding alpha. He was aloof towards everyone, and he only confided in Satoru. His friend seemed to he the only one who understood that he wasn’t trying to hurt you. He didn’t know that his mark would cause a great deal of stress on your body, and had he known, he wouldn’t have done it.
The rest of the pack looked at him with reserved disdain. He was a stain upon their community. Your parents were well liked in the pack, and he was the reason they weren’t there anymore.
Words kept getting tossed around, and the pack members who weren’t there for the meeting were terribly misinformed. As the rumors spread, the story became more and more horrid. They painted him out to be a monster who held you down while you begged him not to and bit your neck forcibly.
Suguru never tried to correct the stories. He had nothing to prove to these people, the people that sent you away from him. They could all think of him as a monster, especially if it meant they stayed the hell away from him.
The only thing that kept Geto from expulsion from the pack was his innate ability to hunt. His beast from was truly that of an apex predator. He went on extravagant hunting trips often, and he kept the pack fed on wonderful meats.
He looked for you, his mate, on every hunting trip. He tried to remember the faint smell that started to emit from you when your body went into heat. He looked for every sign of you.
He knew the mate bond was still strong because he could feel everything through it. He hated when you felt sad. He knew you experienced some sort of nightmares without him there to care for you while you slept. Your happiness made him feel bittersweet. He wanted you to be happy, but the thought of you being happy without him made him sick.
Your heats were the worst. Suguru would sulk in his tent in a state of horny depression. He should be taking care of you, tending to your body and every desire you had. He should be helping you nest and kissing every spot on your body while cooing praises to you.
Instead, he’s laying in his own sweat and cum, too much of a sad sack of shit to make himself go get cleaned up. His tent stunk of potent pheromones. Your heats, even while being so far away, managed to throw him into a rut each time.
He could feel your dissatisfaction. You were pining for him to come help you. It was as if you were screaming down the mate bond for him to come save you. He missed you so damn bad that he started to hate the smell of strawberries. They smelled too much of you and reminded him of what he couldn’t have
He knew that the elders still kept in touch with your parents. They were high ranking leaders in the community after all. They knew where you were, and they still opted to keep you away from him.
You and him were suffering because of the fucking elders. They caused all of this. If they would’ve kept their fucking noses out of y’all’s business, none of this would be happening.
“Satoru… I’m going to kill them. I’m going to murder them all. I can’t do this anymore. She needs me.” Suguru was practically crying for help. He was sat in his tent, holding his head in shame. His arms and legs were practically trembling.
The homicidal thoughts started when you left. It was sneaky at first, but they only got worse over time. His friend was the only one who knew about them. He knew how badly Geto craved to end their lives.
“Let me talk to them. They might listen to me.” Satoru spoke calmly as he gazed as his heartbroken best friend. The tent was heavy with the scent of alpha rut and distress. He could tell Suguru was really going through it right now.
*** *** ***
Suguru’s beast form was nothing short of a monster. He was the strongest, right next to Satoru.
His black fur was matted with blood as he pawed at the remains of the pack leader. Satoru had tried to talk to them, but they instantly shut him down. Then, to make matters worse, they sent him away on a hunting trip that same day.
Without Satoru there to keep the thoughts at bay, Suguru literally couldn’t help himself. The beast shifted before he could even do anything about it, and he was instantly blood hungry.
Tears coated his face as he shifted back to his human form. Killing the elders didn’t even help soothe him. He just wanted his fucking mate for christ’s sake. He sat on the floor in a scatter of papers from where the two beasts had fought valiantly.
Nothing could replicate the feeling of emptiness that filled him in that moment. His best friend wasn't there. His mate had been gone for oh so long. The pack leaders were now all deceased. When tomorrow morning rolled around, he'd likely be ostracized from his pack for the murders.
He laid his head back against the wall with his hands covering his face. He just wanted to see Satoru one last time before he was expelled and shunned. He wanted to apologize and thank Gojo for sticking by him for all these years.
At some point, the sleep deprivation got to Geto, causing for him to fall asleep naked in the massacre that was the pack leader's tent. Nightmares of slaughter plagued his dreams. Your face haunted him. He wondered what could've been had he known better than to mark you at an early age.
It felt so real, that he swore he heard your voice, though it was different in his dream. Your voice wasn't as squeaky as it use to be. It was smooth with age and experience yet still soft spoken. Maybe he was forgetting the way you sounded? The thought terrified him. His memory was all he had left of you.
You were... laughing? No, it couldn't be you. The voice sounded more like Gojo's-
The tent unzipping. A gasp. "Shit. Don't-" Gojo's voice.
Geto fluttered his eyes open to see Gojo standing in the small doorway of the makeshift shelter. He had... a woman's eyes covered. Her bottom lip was trembling.
"Suguru, what did you do?" Satoru asked like he did all those years back, and suddenly, Suguru felt like a small child who had no impulse control. He quickly scrambled up to his feet, using a random sheet of paper to cover his manhood.
"You were gone, and I just... I just really fucking..." His words trailed as his eyes looked over towards the woman. His heart started to pound in his chest. She looked... so much like you. It was as if he was being confronted with the ghost of his past once again.
"I went to go get her, Suguru." Satoru calmly explained with a hint of bite in his tone. "You really think I'd listen to what those old geezers said about not going to look for her? I grilled every last one of them until they slipped up and gave me enough information to find her."
Geto's eyes were as wide as saucers, and his pupils were dilated as he stared at the woman who was quietly trembling next to Satoru. His hand covered most of her face. "Is that...?"
"In the flesh." Satoru said as his hand slowly dropped from your eyes. Chills shot through Geto's body as he saw his mate's face again.
"Sugu..." Your little nickname for him. His breath went labored as he took in the sight of you for just one moment. His eyes involuntarily filled with tears before he dropped the sheet of paper and lunged for you.
His large muscular arms wrapped around your frame, pulling you into a tight embrace against him. "I'm so sorry.." He whispered in your ear like a mantra. His hands roamed across your back as if he was double checking that this was real.
“Fuck. I’m so sorry.” He whispered again in a pained voice. This was not how he wanted you to see him. He was at his lowest. “I’ve missed you so much. It feels like I’ve been underwater this entire time.”
You gently nuzzled your face into his chest, and you took a deep breath, savoring his scent. A content hum fled your lips. He smelled like home. “I’ve missed you too, Sugu.”
Suguru had grown so much since you last saw him. His body was now muscular and toned. His hair was even longer. It was tied up in a half knot while the rest of it messily splayed down his back. He wasn’t just a boy anymore — a man now.
“I hate to be the one to ruin this reunion, but there’s dead pack elders that we have to deal with.” Satoru spoke up as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Suguru reluctantly pulled back from you, not ready to let go of his missing mate. “I have no intention of staying here.” He said, eyes glancing over to the corpse on the ground. “This pack is a shit show.”
“So, what do we do?” Satoru asked, cocking an eyebrow at his friend. It was never a question in his mind. Satoru was going to go wherever Geto went.
“We start our own pack.” Geto casually threw out the idea with a small shrug. “It’s not impossible. If those incompetent creatures could do it, so can we.”
*** *** ***
You were happy and content to follow Geto and Gojo wherever the two went. It had been so long since you’ve seen the two males. You had almost forgotten how much mischief they could get up to.
Every day was filled with hiking, trying to find a new place to settle down. Every night was spent around a small fire, listening to the stories of the two while you were sent away.
When you and Geto would finally lay together next to the fire, he’d lazily play with your hair and whisper sweet nothings in your ear. He’d tell you how beautiful you were and how there was never a day that went by when he didn’t think of you.
“Have I mentioned how terrible it was without you?” He murmured in your ear while his large hand was gently caressing your hip. He would carefully slip it underneath your shirt. The pad of his thumb caressing your soft skin.
“Only a million times.” You giggled in response, looking up at him to meet his gaze.
“Make it a million and one then. It was terrible.” He quietly laughed, not wanting to wake up Satoru who was snuggled on the ground on the other side of the fire.
“I missed you too.” You replied. Your hand carefully reached up and cupped his cheek. Your head was resting on his bicep while your legs were intertwined. “I tried calling out to you often through the mate bond.”
“I felt it each time.” He admitted as his hand slowly snaked higher up your torso. “I felt each time you went into heat and needed me.”
The fire calmly crackling masked the small whimper that fled from your lips. “I’m sorry. I know that probably drove you crazy.”
“You have no idea.” He muttered as he leaned in and pressed a small kiss to the mark on your neck. It hadn’t faded in the slightest. Your body knew you were his before you presented as well. “I dreamt of going out to find you.”
“Yeah? What would you do had you found me while I was in heat?”
“Mmm..” He hummed in a low tone as he gazed at you with a small smirk on his face. “I would sneak into whatever tent you were in like I use to when we were kids.” He spoke softly as his hand continued to trail up your side slowly.
“I’d find you lying there, already such a mess for me.” He went on, painting the picture vividly for you. Your eyes slipped shut as you imagined it for yourself. “Then, I’d pin you down to your nest, stopping you from taking care of yourself.” He went on, and he rolled on top of you, pinning your arms down with his free hand.
The sickly sweet scent of your arousal building lingered in the air, making Suguru’s heart pound in his chest. You smelled even more yummy than he imagined you to.
“What next?” You ask softly in a breathless voice.
“I’d kiss your lips until they were bruised.” He mumbled, and he leaned down to you before pressing his lips harshly against yours. He groaned softly as soon as he could feel you kissing back. He poured all of his love and hunger into his affections. He needed you like he needed air. You were his sole salvation - his reason for living
He carefully pushed your shirt up over your chest, and he skillfully reached behind you, unclasping your bra within a few seconds. You worked with him, pulling it away from your body before you wrapped your legs around his waist.
His hand came up and carefully cupped your breast. Hs kneaded on the soft pillowy flesh with another groan. He gently bit your swollen lip, asking for entry before proceeding to deepen the kiss. He swallowed up your small moans and gasps.
"Then," he softly pant out after parting from the kiss, "I'd mark up your neck again and again. I never want you to forget who you belong to." His head dipped into your neck, and his lips latched on to the soft skin.
He sucked, nibbled, and bit his way up and down your neck, making good on his promise to mark you up. Your hips raised up to meet his, needily searching for friction to ease the ache between your thighs.
"My poor omega.." He mumbled softly against your skin before allowing his hand to trail down and to grope you at your core.
"Fuck- Sugu.." Your voice was a soft whine, forgetting all about Gojo who was asleep not even 10 feet away.
"Shhh, princess. Don't wake him." Suguru shushed you softly with a impish grin. His hands now worked to take your pants and panties off. "Want me to keep going?"
"Please..." Your face is illuminated by the warm glow of the fire before you two. A soft blush spread across your cheeks.
"Mmm, then you have to be quiet." Suguru teased before he allowed himself the pleasure of gazing at your glistening cunt. "Oh, so pretty." He mused before leaning in to press a soft kiss to your folds.
Suguru's mind was running haywire as he generously lapped at your wet heat. He had imagined this happening so many times while he fucked his own fist. It's all finally worked out. He's finally gotten to taste you, to hear you moan his name.
Your fingers entangled in his hair, holding onto him for support while he devoured you thoroughly.
"Mmn.. Sugu~ S'close... please." You quietly whimpered out, warning him of your impending release while he slurped at your cunt, drinking down your slick as if you were a fountain of youth.
"Can you hold it, baby?" His voice was muffled as he didn't dare part from you.
"N-no, I-" You softly whine, starting to rock your hips back and forth across his tongue. You were desperate for release, nearly riding his face to get there.
Suguru tugged back away from you. "That just won't do, darling." He mumbles as he unbuttons his pants and pulls his pants and boxers down just enough. "I need your first time finishing with me to be on my cock. Think you can do that for me?"
You're quick to nod in agreement with his wish, desperately needing the approval of your alpha. You had already caught a glimpse of his size when you and Satoru first arrived. Even when soft, Suguru still isn't small. Now that he's fully hard, it's almost intimidating.
"Mmm~ such a good girl." He quietly praised as he carefully guided his cock between your slick covered folds. He held your gaze as he rubbed his tip up and down, creating a wet "schlick" noise with each movement. His poor neglected cock leaked sticky pre-cum along your core, making everything so messy.
"Bite on my hand." He instructed as he placed his hand over your mouth. "Don't want you makin' too much noise." With a small huff, you bite down onto his hand.
Humping you a few more times, Geto finally decided to push himself into you. Your body immediately went rigid as you tried to cope with the new pressure between your legs. It felt as if he was trying to split you in two, completely impaling you with his thick cock.
"Ohh~ fuuu... That's it.." Geto's voice was deeper and extremely breathy. His eyes were half-lidded as he continued to watch your facial reactions. The small tears crowding the corners of your eyes made him throb. "You're so fucking tight."
"it's not gonna fit-" You quietly whined behind the palm of his hand. Meanwhile, your fingernails were embedded into his back, decorating him with scratch marks.
"It's gonna fit, baby." He quietly reassured you as he pulled back a bit and sunk back in. Your slick coated his length, making it easier for him to push in more. "Gotta let me stretch you."
"Ngh~ ah.." Your voice cracked as your leaned your head back against the ground. Suguru's hips rolled, just barely fucking into your tight cunt. He'd add another inch with each thrust, allowing you time to gradually get use to him.
The air was filled with shushed panting and breathy whines. The sound of your sopping cunt squeezing around him was like a holy song to him. You were the only slice of heaven Geto would ever see.
He had been so caring; you hadn't even realized he was all the way in until you felt a thump towards your stomach. "Ohmygod-" The gasp fell from your mouth before you could even think to stop it. "Fuuuck... feel you right here.." You meekly murmured as you pointed towards your tummy.
"Yeah baby? Feel me all the way in there?" He humors your intoxicated speech as he's lovingly thrusting into you. "You feel so fucking good." He praised as he peppered your face in sweet kisses.
Your spongy walls cling to his dick with each soft thwack of his balls clapping against the flesh of your ass. You're completely soaked around him, allowing him to glide in and out with ease.
His fat tip was damp with sweltering pre-cum gathering at his slit. With each thrust, his tip was kissing at your womb, making you feel all dumb in the head. He occupied his mouth with kissing and sucking more love bites into your shoulders. "So good, baby... ah~ so fuckin' good." He continued to mumble praises in a pussy drunk tone.
Both of your bodies were glistening in a mix of sweat and slick. The fire raged beside you two keeping you very warm while he pumped in and out. "Can't get enough. Need more.. ngh~ M-missed you so much." He growled lowly in your ear as his tender thrusts grew sloppier - fueled by an intense need.
"Suguu~ fuck me." That little needy whine was all he needed to start forcefully pounding into you. Noise level be damned; he needed his omega on a biblical level that Satoru would never be able to understand.
Plap! Plap! Plap!
Your poor cunt was practically sobbing for him - making a complete mess between your thighs as his cock rudely drilled into you. Your back arched up off of the ground, and you could feel your eyes rolling back. It felt like you were ascending to a higher being.
Suguru caught your lips in a sloppy kiss. Strings of saliva connected your mouths like strings of fate as you muffled each others moans. "Need to knot you - f-fuck, please, let me knot you."
Your legs wrap completely around Suguru's waist. "Knot me, Sugu.. hngh~ I'm s'close.."
Suguru's legs began to shake as he could feel his balls growing heavy. Instincts completely drove him to keep fucking himself into your drooling cunt. His eyes stayed on you as he felt himself growing closer and closer to the edge.
"Sh-shit!" You hissed as your gummy walls suddenly tightened around him. The squelching noises slowed as he felt his knot starting to swell. His hands gripped onto your hips as he had to force his way deep inside your wet heat. The knot locking you two in place before he completely spilled inside you.
"Fuuucking hell..." Suguru breathed out as he stayed planted on top of you. His breath was labored as his hand brushed a few stray hairs from your face. "No one will ever take you away from me again. You're mine."
Bonus Scene!
Upon waking up the next morning on Suguru's bare chest, you sighed contently. Your body ached in the best way. Though, you knew it would only make this trek even harder.
You slowly sat up with a quiet groan. Your face was slightly sticky from sweat and drool. He had really wore you out last night.
"Morning, sleepy head." Suguru mumbled as his eyes rested upon your tired face.
"Mmm.. morning." You quietly hummed as your hands instinctively smoothed out your hair, trying to make yourself look presentable.
"Good morning, Satoru." The white-haired alpha spoke to himself in a grumpy, sarcastic tone as he stared at the two of you.
"It's too early for your attitude, Satoru." Suguru quietly laughed as he looked at his friend.
"You can deal with my attitude given what I had to deal with last night." He huffed as his lips curled into a slight pout.
"You didn't-"
"Oh, I did." He confirmed. "Oooohhh, please knot me, Sugu. Oh so big and strong!" He mocked your voice in a high pitched tone.
"Oh god, please stop." You whine as you covered your ears. A nervous laugh involuntarily bubbled up from your throat.
"Mmm, fuck. Gonna knot this tight cun-"
"That's enough, Satoru." Suguru playfully warned as he shook his head with a calm smile. It didn't bother him one bit that he heard the two of you last night because he knew that Satoru was going to hear you two again tonight as well.
Read the rest of my monstertober here !
#cinnas monstertober#jjk#jjk fanfic#jujutsu kaisen#fanfic#drabble#jjk suggestive#gojo satoru#jjk gojo#jjk suguru#jjk omegaverse#omegaverse#alpha beta omega#alpha geto#geto x reader#getou suguru x reader#jjk geto#geto suguru#jujutsu geto#jjk x reader
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This is the chance of ten lifetimes.
Every five years, twenty breakthrough actors compete over ten weeks for the name of TVs newest obsession, the silver doll. The winner, decided by the global audience, is historically known to make it big. You auditioned on a whim alongside your best friend, and somehow the both of you have made it to the final round of auditions!
Now, all you have to do is make the final cut, get along with your celebrity mentor, remember your lines and... win—all with a camera (or ten) in your face. Don't get discouraged, you made it this far for a reason.
❖ FEATURES
› Customise yourself! Groom yourself into TVs next biggest thing—pick your style, your approach to scenes, your public image, your strengths and weaknesses as an actor. As well as your appearance, personality, gender and your plan b... if you have one.
› Establish relationships with your peers! Befriend your competitors or betray them... engage in a behind-the-scenes rendezvous or two, try and gain a more intimate look into your celebrity mentors life, try and befriend everyone on stage, or keep to yourself and focus on winning.
› Compete! Participate in different challenges throughout the show. Put your best dance shoes on for theatre week, practice your screams for horror week, hope you don't get paired with someone waspish in romance week... decide how you approach each performance, and see how your choices impact your results!
› Furthermore... interact with your fans! Viewership is your best friend in The Silver Doll, so make sure you're on top of your social media game... or you can try to play the mysterious cards and keep away from public eye as much as possible, if you think that'll work out for you. Just... be careful how much you share, there's a gossip blog following the shows BTS that seems to know a little too much.
❖ ROMANCE
*full character profiles coming soon.
- Beck Taylor; he/him or she/her, 21.
Your childhood best friend that convinced you to audition beside them. Computer science student turned dropout to pursue a life on the big screen, Beck may not have years of acting under their belt, but they do have a natural talent for the dramatics. Plus, with you by their side and their on-and-off girlfriend, Sarika, at home cheering them on, they can do anything.
Beck is tall at 6'6, black, with dark braided hair and brown eyes.
- Stirling 'Sekani' Stokes, he/him, 24.
Sekani, as he wants to be known as, is the textbook example of a nepo baby. Born to two of TVs most recognisable faces, he's grown up in the spotlight. Sekani is here to prove to the world that he has the talent to grace the big screen, despite his family name... and also to prove to himself that acting is something he actually likes doing in the first place. Yeah… he’s a bit of a mess.
Sekani is 5'10, white, with messy black hair and pale green eyes.
- Troy Allard-Rose, she/her, 23.
An aspiring actress since she was making her barbies perform dramatic monologues at six, Troy is here to win, and she’ll be damned if she lets some amateurs stop that from happening. Acting is all Troy knows, she’s been in performing arts schools and film camps alike— this is her dream. She won’t let anyone tell her she’s not worthy of achieving it.
Troy is 5’5, white, with platinum blonde hair and dark brown eyes.
Esra Ihimaera, they/them, 27.
Esra is a member of the production crew, and your very own cameraperson. They’re in charge of doing the closed interviews, and also take care of a lot of the day-to-day filming. A little less extroverted than the celebrities surrounding them, but their sweet heart and eye for detail makes them a whole lot more interesting in other aspects.
Esra is 5’11, Māori, with short bleached hair and dark brown eyes.
Bethany Tian, she/they, 28.
One of the best stylists on the show, Beth is in charge of your hair, makeup and wardrobe for the next ten weeks. Talkative and energetic beyond belief, Beth is hard to get rest around, but she’s good to keep morale up. She’s styled celebrities for red carpets and space-exploration scenes alike. From SFX makeup to high glamour looks, there’s nothing you can’t pull off when Beth is the one styling you.
Bethany is 5’2, Chinese, with long pink hair and black eyes.
❖ THE MENTORS
*both mentors are romanceable
- Rome Alivia, he/him, 26.
A successful child-actor turned even more successful actor into his adulthood, Rome is a family name. Though he’s scrutinising and hard to wrench out of his working mindset, Rome hasn’t let the fame get to his head. He’s dedicated to improving his mentee’s abilities as actors rather than having a focus on winning.
Rome is 6’2, white, with brown hair and brown eyes.
- Shaan Jha, they/them, 30.
The last Silver Doll, Shaan is happy to return to the set that kickstarted their fame and fortunes five years prior. Eager to mould their best mentee into a winner, Shaan is optimistic in the best of times and downright delusional in the worst. They've proven their talents, though, and are positive it will be one of their mentees that win.
Shaan is 5'8, Indian, with long brown and blonde hair and brown eyes.
The Silver Doll is rated 18+ for depictions of drug and alcohol consumption, strong language, infidelity, and optional sexual scenes.
#upcoming if#interactive fiction#writeblr#writers on tumblr#cog#choice script#interactive game#interact-if#if wip#writers of tumblr#dashingdon#interactive fiction wip#interactive novel
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My HC is that since Zuko is royalty, the heir, and also commanded his fleet on his hunt for the avatar, he’s used to taking charge. But the way I’m thinking of it is him being casually dominant with the y/n. Things like using a soft but firm voice to make sure they eat enough, that they’re warm, putting his hand on their thigh to keep it from shaking, etc. the gaang would start to notice how it takes one look from Zuko and y/n complies. Wrapping his hand around their hips to bring them down to sit in his lap, subtly tugging their skirt down when it rides up, stuff like that.
Could I please request some of your amazing writing for casual dominance with Zuko?
pairing: Zuko x reader
notes: okay so this was actually pretty challenging to write just bc i had to be careful about not making zuko come off as too controlling while also still fulfilling the details of the request. however i think it came out pretty good !
summary: Zuko shows his love for you the only way he knows how to
To those on the outside, your relationship with Zuko appeared to be… odd.
No one could quite determine whether he saw you as an equal or as someone who needed to be taken care of. Everyone knew you could handle your own; you’d been a skilled swordsman during the war and a master at hand-to-hand combat. No one doubted your ability to fend for yourself, but it seemed once you began dating the Fire Lord there was no longer any need for you to do so. Zuko took care of you, and being with him meant never having to lift a finger and never having to worry again. You were his prized jewel, and he took it upon himself to care for you in the only way he knew how.
Growing up, the Prince had never properly learned how to show affection or lovingly nurture a relationship. His parents weren’t the greatest example, and his father’s coldness left much to desire. However, his upbringing as a royal and his time commanding a fleet during his search for the Avatar allowed him to grow into a leader. In his younger years he’d been hotheaded and impulsive, but with time he had learned to be firm yet fair. He was a benevolent leader who only wished to do what was best for his people, and this same thought process extended to you.
You’d missed dinner one night and left him waiting in the throne room, too engrossed in your studies to realize how much time had passed or just how hungry you were. Your stomach growled incessantly and your head was beginning to ache, but you were adamant about finishing your book. Having recently been proposed to by the Fire Lord, you took it upon yourself to read up on the history of the Fire Nation and your expected duties as Fire Lady. You were overwhelmed, and eating dinner was the last thing on your mind.
“Y/n,” he had called, startling you out of your focused state as you rested your gaze upon his figure in the doorway. “We were supposed to have dinner together, remember?”
“I’m sorry,” you uttered bashfully, using your book to shield your embarrassed features. “I must have lost track of time. Let me just finish this last page and then I’ll-“
“Y/n,” he repeated with a pointed look, one that had you slowly lowering your text.
“Yes, Zuko,” you had finally relented. You couldn’t ignore your growling stomach any longer, and so you’d tossed your book aside and taken the arm he’d offered for you before allowing him to escort you to the dining room.
Zuko wasn’t strict, wasn’t cruel, just firm. It was his way of showing he cared for you, and you took no offense to how he so often liked to be the one in charge. Whether it be in his actions or in his tone of voice, he took the lead and you followed. This wasn’t to say that you didn’t have a mind or will of your own, but often times Zuko took it upon himself to step in whenever he felt you weren’t taking care of yourself the way he believed you should be.
His love could be conveyed through mundane actions such as wordlessly slipping your shawl over your shoulders without you having to ask to ensure you won’t be cold during a stroll in the palace gardens or resting a comforting hand on your thigh to stop the nervous bouncing of your leg during an important meeting. Anyone and everyone could see the influence he held over you, the dominant role he’d taken in your relationship, and you happily fell into place with him.
“Don’t you think it’s just a little weird?” Sokka had noted once to his sister after watching Zuko carefully wrap his fingers along your hips and delicately pull your figure into his lap as if he were handling a porcelain doll. You looked radiant in your silk robes and ceremonial makeup, a look picked out by Zuko to ease your anxieties over your lack of knowledge of traditional Fire Nation fashion, and as the Fire Lord’s fiancé you were the talk of the ball.
“Maybe it does seem like Zuko is usually the one in charge,” Katara had agreed thoughtfully, her gaze carefully resting upon your features to search for any sign of discontent or restlessness. Of course, she found none. “But I know y/n, and if she had a problem with it she would have stood up for herself and said something about it.”
The siblings watched as you conversed with various guests, your smile sincere as you spoke with the people you would soon help rule over as Fire Lady. Shifting in your seat as you crossed your legs, Zuko took note of the way the slit of your skirt had partially opened to reveal your bare leg. Wordlessly and without interrupting your conversation, the Fire Lord shifted the fabric so that your skin was kept from prying eyes. He didn’t care in the slightest if anyone saw, but he knew you would be embarrassed if guests began to question your way of dress, so he took it upon himself to fix the problem for you.
“I think it’s a love language thing,” Katara had explained after removing her attention from the scene and returning it to her brother. “He’s showing he cares through actions instead of words. Maybe it’s the only way he knows how to.”
“I guess you’re right,” Sokka relented, though his features still displayed a mild sense of disgust. “But that doesn’t make it any less oogier.”
Maybe no one on the outside ever truly would be able to comprehend the dynamics of your relationship with Zuko, but it wasn’t for them to understand. He took care of you and loved you in the only way he truly knew how to, and you appreciated him endlessly. With Zuko as your soon-to-be husband, you knew you’d always have someone looking after your best interests. All the same, Zuko knew he’d always have someone to love and accept him for who he was.
You were a perfect match.
| zuko tags: @ilovespideyyy @yiyibetch @eridanuswave @lammello @a-monsters-love @taeeemin @livelaughlovekuni @lovialy @alexatiu @heartfully10 @creationcitystreet-em
#melzula writes#request#zuko#zuko x reader#zuko imagine#prince zuko#prince zuko x reader#prince zuko imagine#atla#atla x reader#atla imagine#avatar the last airbender
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i can fix her (no really i can); b.eilish
They shake their heads saying, "God, help her" When I tell them he's my man
smut
She was loud. Her voice filled your ears like a siren’s call. Her laugh shook you to the core. The sweat made her black hair cling to her forehead and her red roots glowed under the fluorescent lights. She was a walking angel.
With a devilish streak.
“Yeaaah,” she cheered slapping the girl’s ass that was bouncing to the beat of the song.
She was entrancing. With all those beautiful girls around her yet she was the only one who caught your eye. The only one that held you locked in.
Eventually, you found yourself in the midst of the circle dancing to a song she hadn't yet released, but was all too familiar to you. She stood behind you, grinding against your body, holding your hips not giving a shit who saw.
But let's rewind a little here.
How did you end up at this party with Billie basically dry humping you in the middle of the dance floor? Easy.
It may have been hard to believe, due to the events unraveling at this party...but you were an item. Girlfriends? Maybe. Definitely girls that were friends who also fucked. But were more than friends, but didn't really care about public labels. Yeah, whatever you would call that.
She partied, you tagged along and watched. It didn't really matter because you knew she'd always come home with you and that's exactly what was happening right now on the dance floor. Your hand reached up behind you resting on her neck as her mouth ghosted near your shoulder. Everyone's cheering and own bodies bouncing to the music balanced out the fact that you were so far gone right now.
Stumbling away from the dance floor, your hands found themselves tangled in her hair. Your lips were sloppy, tongues deprived of touch all night. Her fingers dug into your hips as she pushed you against the wall. The music still bumping making the walls vibrate on your back.
"Let's get out of here," her voice husky as her lips found your neck. She placed opened mouth kisses along your skin until her teeth grazed your ear.
"No," your voice was low as you pulled her head back. Your fingers buried in her hair holding her in place. Her mouth fell open.
"Do you enjoy embarrassing me?" your voice fired against her jaw. You felt her chest heave, a sound catching in her throat.
"I thought it turned you on?" she replied snaking her fingers around your neck, it was your turn to groan. She wasn't wrong. But she needed permission and she damn well knew that.
This battle for dominance transpired from the first night you met. The first night you danced with her like you were on her bed. Then she ditched you for something so minuscule you couldn't remember anymore. And of course you had to confront her about it when she tried to slither back before the end of the night.
"What are you going to do about it?" her voice was laced with hot honey, face inches away from yours. If you leaned forward only an inch your lips would brush and surely you would melt right where you were standing.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" you whispered back challenging her. Two could play that game and you knew how to play so fucking well.
Her hand was on the back of your neck in seconds, lips brushing against your own. She held you in that position for what felt like an eternity before letting you go. A wicked smile on her face.
You didn't realize you'd been holding your breath so when you exhaled then inhaled the oxygen rushed to your brain and your legs wobbled.
"Woah," Billie chuckled holding your waist. Your hands held her arms. Your eyelids fluttered as they traced the side of her neck, so inviting. A blank canvas.
"My sweet sweet Billie," your voice angelic as one hand pat her cheek before cupping her jaw. Billie growled baring her teeth. "I think I need to remind you who's in charge here," you purred running your hand up the side of her face kissing her hard. So hard she melted into you without protesting.
When you stumbled into her house, you were quick to push her against the wall wedging your leg between her thighs. She groaned grabbing your head as your lips connected repeatedly. Your fingers worked the belt on her jeans, it clinked and clattered on the floor as you pulled her pants down.
She was wearing her slutty thong and you bit her bottom lip at the realization. Billie moaned into your mouth pushing her pelvis forward.
Your hand tugged at the fabric until it was pushed to the side, fingers desperately entering her pussy without warning. You were in charge. You made her feel it with each push, deeper and deeper. You had to crouch so your hand was at the perfect angle that sent her into a rage of pornographic moans.
She held your head, teeth biting at her shirt. Chest rising and falling dramatically as her walls tightening around your fingers.
"I know you want to cum for me," you looked up at her. Her head tossed so far back all you could see was her jaw clenching.
"No, no, no," she huffed holding your hand. Her fingers tight around your wrist. She could. She could cum right now on your fingers, but she wasn't going to give in so easily. Not without a fight. A fight that she'd happily lose. But she wasn't going to tell you that.
She tried gathering her strength, cupping your face. She kissed you ferociously kicking her jeans to the side. Her hands trailed down your ass and behind your thighs. The silent demand urging you to jump, wrapping your legs around her torso. She held you, walking you to the couch. Her body plopped down with you on top, but she was still very much in charge.
She moved under you, your lips never faltering. Her hands gripped your hips helping you move to match the rhythm of her jerks. Your skirt rode up, your underwear bunching from the friction. Billie groaned as you dug your hands in her hair, hips moving faster. She was desperate to her feel you, to taste you.
Without warning she twisted your bodies so you were pinned under her. Her hand dragged your underwear down your legs as she shimmied her body down so she had the perfect view of your throbbing wet pussy.
Her tongue ran a stripe between your folds and you moaned arching your back. She didn't waste time burying her face in your cunt. Her nose pressed against your skin as her tongue flicked your clit. She did so repeated before sucking and releasing it with a pop.
Her tongue was ruthless working in unimaginable ways to make you cum. Her lids fluttered as she drowned in the taste of your pussy. The sound of her lapping your wetness and the steady string of moans and curses falling from your lips created the perfect environment for you to just unravel all over tongue.
But doing that would be admitting defeat and you still had it in you to fight back.
And maybe it'd be a battle all night long, but it’d at least it’d be full of pleasure.
You couldn’t truly tame her.
#billie eilish#billie eilish x fem!reader#billie eilish x you#billie eilish fic#billie eilish fanfiction#billie eilish x reader#billie eilish imagine#billie eilish x y/n#billie eilish smut
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The brother’s wingmen
Ron Weasley x reader
Requested by: @technicallyfreephilosopher
You have attracted the attention of Ron, the younger brother of your bosses.
Note: This is a one off fic. If anyone requests a character that is not on the list, I will not write it
A/N: I agreed to write this to set myself a challenge of writing for someone else. I want to start writing for others (those on the list). I incorporated two of my favourite things. Fred Weasley and George Weasley. I'm also sorry that this took so long. My motivation just plummeted. I’m also sorry to the requester who’s username isn’t letting me tag
T/W: Ron not being good with the ladies, Twins acting as wingmen (yikes), Unprotected sex, riding, Ron being dominated a little,
Ron had always been proud of his brothers.
Being related to the best pranksters at Hogwarts was a blessing more than a curse. People knew you and your name was synonymous with mischief (and Ginger hair). Nobody in the family was shocked when Fred and George opened a joke shop, it was the one thing that they were the best at.
The smell of plastic and fresh paint filled the store on the day of the grand opening. There were even journalists with the Daily Prophet to document the opening of a new store in Diagon Alley. Everyone wandered around the shop in awe at the various colours, sights, and smells. Fred and George were as pleased as punch at their blooming business.
Ron found his way to the small shelf of sweets and bartered with his older brothers for a discount, and then trudged to the counter after being charged double. So much for family discount.
Every situation has a good and a bad side. For Ron, the bad bit was being charged double for something that would last him 5 minutes. The good, however, was the cashier. She was stunning.
Ron put the box onto the counter and stared at the woman. His blush was almost as bright as his ginger locks. The cashier rang the item up on the till and smiled at his expression.
Remember the different sides to every situation? A new negative side was that Ron was being watched by his older brothers…
…Who had caught onto his little crush on their employee.
Fred and George were mischievous, and that didn't change when it came to their younger siblings.
Fred slid up to the cashier and gave Ron an evil smirk.
“So Ronny, what do you think of the new store? Everything’s looking pretty good, don't you think?”
George sauntered over to stand next to Ron on the other side of the counter.
“If you want to give anything here a try, you just have to ask”
Ron was mortified. He looked over at you and saw your face. You didn’t know that the twins were implying anything. They were your mischievous bosses, this was natural.
Ron just turned and walked quickly out of the store, leaving behind an oblivious cashier and his annoying older brothers.
____________________________________________
A few days later, Ron came back when you were just finishing work. You noticed him tucked away in the corner, like he was hiding from you.
As if, like magic, one of your employers appeared behind you.
“You know, Ron could really use your help. He wanted to show you something upstairs in the flat”
You were a good employee, and if your boss’s brother wanted something, you were happy to help. Fred called Ron over and whispered something to him about you wanting to show him something upstairs.
So the both of you made your way up to the flat, believing that the other had something to show.
The twins knew what they were doing, that's why they lit some candles and covered the floor with rose petals before telling you to finish up your shift. They would be their brothers wingmen.
But where they saw themselves as Cupids, Ron saw them as winged pests. Both you and Ron were beyond surprised at the romantic display. But it all started to make sense when the front door lock clicked behind you both.
Ron panicked and tried pulling the door, getting angry when he heard his brothers laughing from the other side. Ron pulled his wand out, but then it dawned on him. This was his chance. Maybe he could try and pick up line or two and hope for the best.
He turned back to face you and found you sat on the sofa, a rose petal in your hand. He sat beside you and cleared his throat.
“You know, roses smell pretty, but they don’t smell as good as you do”
His mouth had taken over before his brain could.
“W..What I mean is…you smell great. Not that I know how you smell! You look as good as a rose, but..but better…”
It took him a minute to realise that the reason his words weren’t coming out anymore was because your lips had sealed his. His whole face went as red as the rose petals littering the carpet. His hands found your waist as his lips danced with yours. The longer the kiss went on, the hotter the room seemed.
When you both pulled away for air, your leg was draped over his leg and hand had moved higher up your back to your bra clasp.
In a flash, your hands were fumbling with his belt clasp, surprising Ron with your eagerness. But he didn't mind, he liked that you were taking what you wanted. When his belt was open and his trousers unzipped, he helped you to pull his cock out from his underwear.
You straddled his waist before reaching under your uniform skirt to pull your underwear to the side. Ron spat on his hand and stroked his cock, lubing it up before helping you to sink down onto him, impaling yourself.
Your hand had to cover his mouth to stop the loud moan that left his lips. If his brothers were shrill listening in, they'd have a field day with teasing Ron. You kept your hand over his mouth as you lifted your hips, keeping the pace steady. Ron tried to get you to move faster by squeezing your hips and bucking up into you, but you stopped him.
Every time he tried to take control of you, you took it from him with a manner so sweet it didn't feel like a surrender. Eventually, he gave you the reins and sat back. His hands on your waist to hold you close, not to urge your movements. You kept your bouncing light, as if any harsh movement would break the man beneath you. His breath was hot and heavy against your palm, his cock pulsed inside of you signalling how close he was.
You kept your eyes on his, giving him gentle words through unspoken words. And that's when he let go.
His cum painted your insides while his muffled moans and groans barely escaping from behind your hand. You could hear his whimpers slowly getting louder while you used him to get off. He tried pleading, begging for you to cum to stop the overstimulation that you were putting him through.
Your walls squeezed his cock, causing his eyelids to flutter. Your juices coated his thighs, leaving a sticky reminder of the evening. Your body collapsed onto his, your hand finally leaving his mouth. The air is filled with the sound of heavy panting, until there was a bang at the door from the twins.
“Are you two love birds finished yet?”
Maybe one more round wouldn't hurt.
#ron weasley#ron weasly x reader#ron weasly imagine#ron wealsey x y/n#ron weasley x reader#ron weasley x y/n#ron weasley x you#ron weasley smut#ron weasley fanfiction
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No, “convenience” isn’t the problem
I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in CHICAGO (Apr 17), Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!
Using Amazon, or Twitter, or Facebook, or Google, or Doordash, or Uber doesn't make you lazy. Platform capitalism isn't enshittifying because you made the wrong shopping choices.
Remember, the reason these corporations were able to capture such substantial market-share is that the capital markets saw them as a bet that they could lose money for years, drive out competition, capture their markets, and then raise prices and abuse their workers and suppliers without fear of reprisal. Investors were chasing monopoly power, that is, companies that are too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to care:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi
The tactics that let a few startups into Big Tech are illegal under existing antitrust laws. It's illegal for large corporations to buy up smaller ones before they can grow to challenge their dominance. It's illegal for dominant companies to merge with each other. "Predatory pricing" (selling goods or services below cost to prevent competitors from entering the market, or to drive out existing competitors) is also illegal. It's illegal for a big business to use its power to bargain for preferential discounts from its suppliers. Large companies aren't allowed to collude to fix prices or payments.
But under successive administrations, from Jimmy Carter through to Donald Trump, corporations routinely broke these laws. They explicitly and implicitly colluded to keep those laws from being enforced, driving smaller businesses into the ground. Now, sociopaths are just as capable of starting small companies as they are of running monopolies, but that one store that's run by a colossal asshole isn't the threat to your wellbeing that, say, Walmart or Amazon is.
All of this took place against a backdrop of stagnating wages and skyrocketing housing, health, and education costs. In other words, even as the cost of operating a small business was going up (when Amazon gets a preferential discount from a key supplier, that supplier needs to make up the difference by gouging smaller, weaker retailers), Americans' disposable income was falling.
So long as the capital markets were willing to continue funding loss-making future monopolists, your neighbors were going to make the choice to shop "the wrong way." As small, local businesses lost those customers, the costs they had to charge to make up the difference would go up, making it harder and harder for you to afford to shop "the right way."
In other words: by allowing corporations to flout antimonopoly laws, we set the stage for monopolies. The fault lay with regulators and the corporate leaders and finance barons who captured them – not with "consumers" who made the wrong choices. What's more, as the biggest businesses' monopoly power grew, your ability to choose grew ever narrower: once every mom-and-pop restaurant in your area fires their delivery drivers and switches to Doordash, your choice to order delivery from a place that payrolls its drivers goes away.
Monopolists don't just have the advantage of nearly unlimited access to the capital markets – they also enjoy the easy coordination that comes from participating in a cartel. It's easy for five giant corporations to form conspiracies because five CEOs can fit around a single table, which means that some day, they will:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/18/cursed-are-the-sausagemakers/#how-the-parties-get-to-yes
By contrast, "consumers" are atomized – there are millions of us, we don't know each other, and we struggle to agree on a course of action and stick to it. For "consumers" to make a difference, we have to form institutions, like co-ops or buying clubs, or embark on coordinated campaigns, like boycotts. Both of these tactics have their place, but they are weak when compared to monopoly power.
Luckily, we're not just "consumers." We're also citizens who can exercise political power. That's hard work – but so is organizing a co-op or a boycott. The difference is, when we dog enforcers who wield the power of the state, and line up behind them when they start to do their jobs, we can make deep structural differences that go far beyond anything we can make happen as consumers:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff
We're not just "consumers" or "citizens" – we're also workers, and when workers come together in unions, they, too, can concentrate the diffuse, atomized power of the individual into a single, powerful entity that can hold the forces of capital in check:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all
And all of these things work together; when regulators do their jobs, they protect workers who are unionizing:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth
And strong labor power can force cartels to abandon their plans to rig the market so that every consumer choice makes them more powerful:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/
And when consumers can choose better, local, more ethical businesses at competitive rates, those choices can make a difference:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/10/view-a-sku/
Antimonopoly policy is the foundation for all forms of people-power. The very instant corporations become too big to fail, jail or care is the instant that "voting with your wallet" becomes a waste of time.
Sure, choose that small local grocery, but everything on their shelves is going to come from the consumer packaged-goods duopoly of Procter and Gamble and Unilever. Sure, hunt down that local brand of potato chips that you love instead of P&G or Unilever's brand, but if they become successful, either P&G or Unilever will buy them out, and issue a press release trumpeting the purchase, saying "We bought out this beloved independent brand and added it to our portfolio because we know that consumers value choice."
If you're going to devote yourself to solving the collective action problem to make people-power work against corporations, spend your precious time wisely. As Zephyr Teachout writes in Break 'Em Up, don't miss the protest march outside the Amazon warehouse because you spent two hours driving around looking for an independent stationery so you could buy the markers and cardboard to make your anti-Amazon sign without shopping on Amazon:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up
When blame corporate power on "laziness," we buy into the corporations' own story about how they came to dominate our lives: we just prefer them. This is how Google explains away its 90% market-share in search: we just chose Google. But we didn't, not really – Google spends tens of billions of dollars every single year buying up the search-box on every website, phone, and operating system:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task
Blaming "laziness" for corporate dominance also buys into the monopolists' claim that the only way to have convenient, easy-to-use services is to cede power to them. Facebook claims it's literally impossible for you to carry on social relations with the people that matter to you without also letting them spy on you. When we criticize people for wanting to hang out online with the people they love, we send the message that they need to choose loneliness and isolation, or they will be complicit in monopoly.
The problem with Google isn't that it lets you find things. The problem with Facebook isn't that it lets you talk to your friends. The problem with Uber isn't that it gets you from one place to another without having to stand on a corner waving your arm in the air. The problem with Amazon isn't that it makes it easy to locate a wide variety of products. We should stop telling people that they're wrong to want these things, because a) these things are good; and b) these things can be separated from the monopoly power of these corporate bullies:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/08/divisibility/#technognosticism
Remember the Napster Wars? The music labels had screwed over musicians and fans. 80 percent of all recorded music wasn't offered for sale, and the labels cooked the books to make it effectively impossible for musicians to earn out their advances. Napster didn't solve all of that (though they did offer $15/user/month to the labels for a license to their catalogs), but there were many ways in which it was vastly superior to the system it replaced.
The record labels responded by suing tens of thousands of people, mostly kids, but also dead people and babies and lots of other people. They demanded an end to online anonymity and a system of universal surveillance. They wanted every online space to algorithmically monitor everything a user posted and delete anything that might be a copyright infringement.
These were the problems with the music cartel: they suppressed the availability of music, screwed over musicians, carried on a campaign of indiscriminate legal terror, and lobbied effectively for a system of ubiquitous, far-reaching digital surveillance and control:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/02/nonbinary-families/#red-envelopes
You know what wasn't a problem with the record labels? The music. The music was fine. Great, even.
But some of the people who were outraged with the labels' outrageous actions decided the problem was the music. Their answer wasn't to merely demand better copyright laws or fairer treatment for musicians, but to demand that music fans stop listening to music from the labels. Somehow, they thought they could build a popular movement that you could only join by swearing off popular music.
That didn't work. It can't work. A popular movement that you can only join by boycotting popular music will always be unpopular. It's bad tactics.
When we blame "laziness" for tech monopolies, we send the message that our friends have to choose between life's joys and comforts, and a fair economic system that doesn't corrupt our politics, screw over workers, and destroy small, local businesses. This isn't true. It's a lie that monopolists tell to justify their abuse. When we repeat it, we do monopolists' work for them – and we chase away the people we need to recruit for the meaningful struggles to build worker power and political power.
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/2024/04/12/give-me-convenience/#or-give-me-death
Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg
CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
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Risshi's Sidequest: Armors of the Artisan! The goal is to find the Charged, Ember, and Frostbite sets and wear them while speaking to Risshi. She would have dialogue responding to each set, which I'll put under the cut!!
"The armor you're wearing... I wasn't expecting to ever see it again."
"The Charged Set. The nature of lightning made it a challenge to work with. The detailing was especially difficult but the set was used most often, so it had to be perfect. The amount of time I was shocked while working on it... I'll never forget."
"Ah, the Ember Set. I don't think I've sweated more than when I made that. The heat was needed to infuse its power into every stitch but sitting next to lava for hours was exhausting. That doesn't change how beautiful it is, of course."
"You found the Frostbite Set! It's as stunning as the last time I saw it. My abilities thrive in the ice and cold so you would think that it was the easiest for me to create but it was the set that took the longest. Since it's my element, I was a bit of a perfectionist, you see. It also honors my ancestor... it's very special to me."
"That was the last of the special armors. Thank you for showing them to me, Link. I remember the rituals and the festivals, I remember seeing Hylians dancing in the wonderful clothes I made. Those days were so much fun!
.......
Oh, don't mind me, Link. I just got caught up in the memories and felt a little nostalgic that's all. I'd like to be alone for a while, please. Thank you again."
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30 day fluff prompt challenge: day three
"birthday"
It was supposed to be a surprise party. Evan had spent weeks planning it, ordering the supplies, and ensuring everyone in their group had off so that they would all attend. He hadn’t mentioned anything to Tommy about it because he’d wanted him to have this moment. He’d seen the way his boyfriend was around the other people in his life.
Granted, it wasn’t like Tommy ever spelled it out. Still, there was something about how Tommy felt about the outside world, that Evan knew matched inside him. It’s how he could see the little flicker in his boyfriend’s eyes every time Chim laid a hand on his shoulder before he told him a story, or when Eddie called Tommy instead of Buck to hang out. It was the flash of a microexpression every time Bobby invited Tommy to help out on a dish in the kitchen when they got invited over for dinner.
So of course, when autumn arrived and Evan knew his boyfriend’s birthday was coming, he’d gone all out. He’d set everything in motion. Of course, the one thing he couldn’t plan for was the weather. Or, well, either of them being on call.
They were coming up on the tail end of wildfire season, and while it had been relatively quiet since mid-September, there had been college kids partying in the Angeles National Forest. A week before Tommy’s birthday, a small brush fire became something bigger. Less than twenty-four hours later, fifteen acres of land had been eaten up. At that point, it became an all-stations alert, and instead of cycling through their typical shifts like they were supposed to, entire stations were barely taking off eight hours to rest and recuperate, more concerned for their hometown than the need to get back to their daily living. The 118 and Harbor were among those stations.
He’d barely seen Tommy since the start of the fire. They were lucky to pass one another maybe once a day in the middle of their required breaks, if they managed to fall during the same periods of time. Still, even then, they were both too exhausted to do much more than sneak a quick hug and kiss in before heading back in to work.
It was exhausting. As midnight approached towards Tommy’s birthday, Evan wasn’t sure how much he had left in him. He hadn’t been home since the second night of the fire, not wanting to take the extra time to travel. There were tents set up that stations would hunker down in to rest in shifts. They’d had a singular evening in the middle of that entire week where Tommy had snuck in and fallen asleep next to him two hours before the 118 had gotten back up and headed back in. They hadn’t had a real conversation in the midst of it all due to the circumstances. The most he got to hear out of Tommy during those six days was whenever his voice came over the radio, announcing that he was coming through with a suppressant.
But then, they got lucky. Around three AM, officially Tommy’s birthday, the rain came. They’d contained about 95 percent of the fire at that point, but the rain coming through on a cold front helped. Many of the firefighters still there were so excited to see the downpour flooding the areas that they’d actually celebrated when it finally hit.
By five AM, they’d all been called off to go home for at least twenty-four hours. Granted, the fire was still ablaze and plenty of them had every intention of returning the second they were allowed to, but they had also all been out there so long that many hadn’t seen their families over the course of the entire week.
Evan was dead on his feet then. He’d been awake almost thirty-six hours, unable to sleep on his last break. He had no idea where Tommy was, but he could also barely keep his eyes open as Bobby drove A shift back to the 118, ordered them all to do as the fire chief had said and to stay gone for at least 24 hours from the time they walked out of the building.
He would’ve called Tommy, but his phone was dead. It had been for three days. Sometimes he remembered to charge it when he went on break, but mostly, he just listened out on the open channel for Tommy’s voice to know he was okay. Anytime he heard him, he tried to radio out for one reason or another, silently return the favor of letting his love know that he was still alive on the ground.
Still, he didn’t trust himself to drive. His eyes were so heavy that he wasn’t even sure he’d kept them open for more than five minutes during the time he took to shower and change at the firehouse. It was during the 20 minute period that he’d taken to do all of that, that he left his phone to actually charge so that he could order a ride once he was ready. He’d work out the semantics about his vehicle later.
And like, he knew it was a hike out to Tommy’s; that he’d be paying more money to travel across town in an Uber than he would just driving his own car. He also knew that it was the safer option, and he was about to be paid out for an obscene amount of overtime.
He fell asleep in the car on the ride over. The guy who’d driven him had been gracious enough, clearly aware of the situation plaguing their home. Plus, he’d picked Buck up from the firehouse, so he could only assume that the driver made inferences.
He wasn’t sure if Tommy was home when he got there. The truck wasn’t in the driveway, but Evan also hadn’t driven himself, and he didn’t know how long it had been since Tommy had slept. Still, he let himself in with the key Tommy had given him early in the summer, dropped his bag and shoes at the door, and was stripping out of his jeans and hoodie before he was halfway through the house. When he made it to the bedroom, the older man was buried under a mountain of blankets. He kept the thermostat low, and Evan sometimes wondered if that was because Tommy wanted him to cuddle closer when they were in bed.
Tommy didn’t stir as he settled. Evan was barely awake long enough to let his head fall into the space between his boyfriend’s shoulder blades.
. . .
He wakes up to the smell of coffee, and blinds being gently drawn. It makes him groan, tugging the blankets higher over his head.
“No,” he groans. “Not enough sleep.”
“Time to wake up, baby.” Fingers tugging at the edges of the blanket. He yanks them higher, burying his face in the pillow. Evan giggles.
“It’s my birthday,” he grumbles against the pillow. “This is rude.”
Evan’s hand comes down on his back over the blanket, making gentle circles.
“The chief sent out an all-stations notice. No one is allowed back for at least 48 hours now. I guess they finally have reinforcements coming in, although I don’t really understand the point now that the fire is mostly contained.”
Tommy huffs, reaching up and pulling the blankets off his head. He glances up at Evan, freshly showered, smelling of his sandalwood and sage body wash. The blond smiles down at him.
“Hi, sleepyhead.”
“You suck,” Tommy grumbles at him, even as he reaches for the cup of coffee that Evan is offering him.
“It’s two o’clock, T,” Evan laughs. “And I made plans for us weeks ago.”
Tommy raises an eyebrow at him as he takes a long sip from the mug in his hands. Somehow, the first sip always calms down the grouchiness inside of him.
“But if you really want, I could definitely suck something,” Evan adds. Tommy almost chokes on the hot liquid in his mouth.
Once he’s swallowed, he sits up higher on the bed, leaning against the headboard.
“What do you mean you have plans made,” he asks. “I thought we were just doing dinner tonight.”
“Sure,” Evan replies, leaning against his palm on the other side of Tommy’s legs. “Dinner. With twenty-five of our closest friends.”
“Evan.”
Evan waves his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry. The wildfire kinda shot that to hell. I’m not about to expect everyone to show up after spending a week out in the forest. Eddie told me not to even text him in the next thirty-six hours, since Chris just got back.”
Tommy nods.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t still have plans,” Evan states, waggling his eyebrows.
Tommy raises an eyebrow at him. “Should I be concerned?”
Evan just smirks, leaning forward on the bed to peck him on the lips.
“Only if you have problems being covered in bite marks,” he murmurs before grabbing Tommy’s bottom lip between his teeth, biting down gently. The older man groans softly, all but tugging Evan back into bed with him.
“Fuck dinner with all of our friends,” he murmurs once he has Evan pinned back down on his side of the bed, his legs laying halfway across Tommy’s lap. He nuzzles against Evan’s neck, nibbling against the spot below his ear. “I think I can find all of my birthday presents right in this bed.”
Evan laughs again, though it quickly fades into a moan.
“Happy birthday, baby,” he says, lifting his arms as Tommy tugs his shirt towards his head.
Tommy nods, smiling down at him as he discards the shirt, leaning back in for another kiss. “Yeah. Happy birthday to me.”
#ignore any obvious inaccuracies please#these really are just for funsies#and the fluff ofc#bucktommy#tevan#kinley#mini fic#firepilot#firebeast#the ally and the beast#30 day fluff challenge
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Tomarrymort Intermediate Pack — 16 Longfic Recs
As a follow-up to the Tomarrymort starter pack rec list, I put together a list of Intermediate Reads that are best enjoyed with a bit of context about the ship. If you’ve been reading Tomarrymort for a while, or have read everything in the starter pack, this next set of recs is for you.
These recs feature a sampling of different authors than the first list, with an emphasis on underrated fic that I think deserve more recognition (hard to define, but for the most part, I tried to find fics with fewer than 2000 kudos). So I hope that even for the readers who’ve been reading Tomarrymort for a long time, there’s something new in here to discover.
This is Part 2 of a 3-part series (see here for Part 1, and Part 3 will be an Advanced reading list that will feature works of a more challenging nature). In the meantime, please enjoy these additional 1.8 million words of wonderful Tomarrymort fic.
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Tomarrymort Intermediate Recs
aurora polaris by @aglassroseneverfades (E, 136k, WIP)
Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Harry wakes up one day with no memory of his past, upon which he’s greeted by a handsome, doting older man named Gaunt who claims that he and Harry have been in a relationship together for years. Why I rec it: A haunting psychological horror where the truth slowly creeps up on Harry that his domestic life with his devoted partner Gaunt is not as idyllic as it initially appears. The twisting, unhinged depths of Voldemort’s obsession in this fic are so beautifully portrayed. There were chills that ran down my spine as Harry starts to get his memories back and the mystery of what happened starts to unravel. I love the pacing in this fic — there’s no one big reveal; it’s a slowly unfolding sequence that gets delightfully darker and more fucked-up as the fic progresses.
dawn of a death of a dream by @cindle-writes (E, 66k, WIP)
Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Tom Riddle appears in London the morning of Voldemort’s defeat, with the last thing he remembers from 1944, and quickly realizes that Harry Potter is the key to all the answers that he’s looking for. Why I rec it: A light-hearted take on the identity porn trope, full of playful banter and delightfully charged chemistry between Harry and Tom. It’s usually Harry who’s thrown back through time, so it’s fun to see Tom scramble to figure out what’s going on when he’s pulled forward into Harry’s time. It’s also fun to see Harry try every avenue to prove that this mysterious new Tom is the Tom Riddle, even as he ends up hitting dead ends, and subsequently falls so deep into his obsessive tendencies that he refuses to let Tom out of his sight.
My Lord, Master, My Soul by FletchleyRose (E, 69k, complete)
Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Voldemort captures Harry after the final battle and decides to break him — not with torture, but with pleasure and softness. Why I rec it: The soft, creepy non-con in here is so memorable and excellent! Voldemort takes a different approach to breaking in his horcrux than what we usually see, and this particular approach leads to such delicious and hot smut scenes between them wherein Harry utterly succumbs to all the softly pleasurable attentions. I can never get enough of darkly twisted captive Harry stories and all the ways that Voldemort keeps Harry isolated and utterly reliant on him. I gasped out loud at the part where Voldemort made it so that Harry can only speak Parseltongue — this exactly the kind of fucked-up content that is so perfect and fitting for this ship.
(never) let me go by @perhaps-sunlight (M, 28k, complete)
Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Harry returns to Hogwarts after the war for eighth year, and he’s the only person in the castle who can see and talk to the ghost of Tom Riddle. Why I rec it: This fic completely destroyed me. The story unfolds in such a poignant and haunting way — it feels like the most natural thing for Harry to feel such a strong connection with Tom and fall in love with him as the year progresses. The angst in here is so delicately layered and beautifully portrayed — Harry’s feelings are muddled with a growing hope that Tom doesn’t have to move on to the afterlife and the desperation that he feels when he realizes they’re running out of time — such that the emotional beats will end up resonating for a long time after you’ve finished reading this fic.
One Year In Every Ten by @saintsenara (E, 124k, WIP)
Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If a series of gruesome murders 10 years after the war has Harry and the rest of the Aurors completely stumped, and Harry figures out how to bring Voldemort back from beyond the Veil in exchange for his help in solving the murders. Why I rec it: This is a spectacular and richly layered murder mystery featuring incredibly complex character dynamics and gorgeously lavish prose. I am blown away at the sophistication of the storytelling here — we get to delve into Voldemort’s past and so many hidden layers of his character, as well as how Harry has been handling the ‘picture-perfect’ life he’s always wanted after the war (in short: not well) — and in between, following all the clues and disparate threads of a mysterious serial killer case that could be its own standalone casefic! One of the most impressively sweeping pieces of writing I’ve seen in this ship, and there isn’t an element of this fic that I don’t absolutely adore.
Perfect Places by @skaelds (NR, 72k, complete)
Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Voldemort dies in the Final Battle, and then wakes up in a strange house with no one but Harry Potter for company, and there is no way for either of them to get out. Why I rec it: I absolutely love the trapped-in-a-room trope, and how Voldemort and Harry have to work out their differences if they want to have any hope of getting out. I adore that the entire fic is told from Voldemort POV — his arrogance and his malevolence and his rage and the utter force of his emotions are so palpable. The emotional journey in this fic is so intense from beginning to end, as they eventually come around to an understanding about each other and figure out a way out.
Promises, Promises (part 1) / Dreams in the Dark (part 2) by @mosiva (E, 72k, complete)
Setting: Time-Travel (1940s) Premise: If Harry is accidentally thrown back in time to Tom’s 6th year, and then suffers a bout of amnesia from a memory-loss spell and can’t remember anything about Tom Riddle or why he spent all semester trying to avoid him. Why I rec it: A brilliant fast burn featuring amnesia trope and tons of delicious dubcon. Tom is at his manipulative peak here, as he tries every underhanded technique to first figure out exactly what is going on with that new transfer student Harry Evans, and then when he’s figured it out, doing everything he can to keep Harry within his grasp. I cannot say enough about how hot the smut is throughout this 2-part series — so many layers of dubcon and manipulation that blew me away at every turn.
Sunspots by @crowcrowcrowthing (E, 249k, WIP)
Setting: Alternate Universe Premise: If Harry grows up in the muggle world without realizing he has magic, but he suspects there’s a bigger world out there because he’s had recurring dreams featuring Tom’s horcruxes his entire life. Why I rec it: One of the most unique takes on a book 1 rewrite that I’ve ever seen. First of all, the characters are aged up to college-age, and since Hogwarts starts at 18 here rather than at 11, there’s a lot of character dynamics that are possible to explore with older characters that aren’t possible with 11-year-olds. Secondly, Harry has access to each of Tom’s horcruxes through a magical dreamscape dimension he can access in his sleep, and he has unique and distinct relationships with each of them, including (the main) Voldemort, so there’s a lot of fascinating and multi-faceted Harry and Tom dynamics. Also, the descriptions of magic in this fic are just stunning; it’s clear that a lot of thought went into the magical worldbuilding here that makes you feel as excited and awestruck by the concept of magic as reading the Harry Potter books for the first time.
Tender Reigns Our Night by @noumena-writes (M, 69k, WIP)
Setting: Time-Travel (1940s) Premise: If Harry is sent back to the 1940s, just after Tom Riddle has graduated from Hogwarts, on a mission to stop Tom becoming Voldemort and imperiling the world of magic. Why I rec it: I love the mutually obsessive chemistry here as Harry and Tom quickly fall into each other’s thrall as their relationship heats up. The writing style is so poetic and beautiful, and I find myself rereading many sentences over again just to fully absorb the impact and beauty of @noumena-writes’ words. Even as Harry becomes increasingly entwined with Tom, he’s never blind to who Tom is, and he’s able to strike back with just as much viciousness — their relationship dynamics are so very intense and suspenseful, and the latest plot twist had me completely floored.
The Incantation of the Oak-Priest by @relic--crown (T, 223k, complete)
Setting: Alternate Universe Premise: If Harry and Tom are pulled into an alternate reality where Voldemort never existed and Harry’s parents are still alive. Why I rec it: The richness of the magical worldbuilding in this fic blew me away — there’s a whole system of magic explored here that goes deeper and is far more brilliant and sweeping than what is covered in canon. The relationship between Harry and Tom develops in such an organic, lovely way, and it was fascinating to see all the changes in this parallel universe where Harry’s parents live and what Harry’s life could have been like, were there no Voldemort. Also, the plot! This fic was so intricately plotted that it felt like reading multiple books with a complex, epic plot spanning fifth through seventh years at Hogwarts, ending in a grand showdown like in the original book series, but with a surprising twist.
The Sense of Self by SpitFire97 (E, 87k, complete)
Setting: Time-Travel Fix-It Premise: If Harry and Voldemort find themselves trapped in a strange cycle of reincarnations where they visit different points in time in Voldemort’s past. Why I rec it: A very cool take on a time-travel fix-it. Instead of traveling back to a fixed point in time, Harry and Voldemort are thrown back to various points of Voldemort’s past and relive life through certain people significant to shaping Voldemort into who he eventually becomes. The time travel theory in here is amongst the most complex that I’ve encountered — I love the concept that time is a river where multiple timelines and divergent events end up converging, rather than branching off and creating a bunch of alternate universes. I also love how organically the growing relationship between Voldemort and Harry unfolds as they progress through each cycle and gradually start to develop trust in one another and care and attraction for each other.
These steep woods and lofty cliffs by Rimeme (M, 76k, complete)
Setting: Canon Divergence – Book 6 Premise: If Harry runs away to America after Sirius’s death and disguises himself in the Muggle world for many years before getting discovered by MACUSA and offered a job with the magical government. Years later, he is recruited back to Britain to work for the Ministry, under none other than Undersecretary Thomas Gaunt himself. Why I rec it: A thoroughly enjoyable read from beginning to end — I devoured this fic in one sitting. Harry makes an extremely rational decision here — why not run off from the war if Voldemort is trying to kill everyone you love? But then, when he comes back undercover 15 years later, things don’t quite seem to add up. Britain doesn’t seem like it’s been taken over by a genocidal Dark Lord, but there’s something nefarious simmering under the surface. Voldemort as a very rational Undersecretary Thomas Gaunt is a delight here, with his seemingly very reasonable focus on progressing wizarding society. It was fun to follow along as Harry slowly starts to put the pieces together, and I love how relentlessly Voldemort pursues and seduces Harry in this fic, until he's utterly unable to resist his attraction to a Voldemort who seems to have turned over a new leaf.
These Violent Delights by @heirofdragons (M, 55k, WIP)
Setting: Time Travel (1940s) Premise: If Harry, Ron, and Hermione accidentally find themselves thrown back in time to the late 1940s, four years after Tom has graduated Hogwarts and is working at Borgin and Burkes. Why I rec it: A highly entertaining time travel fic with Harry stumbling back in time to find Tom Riddle in the full dregs of his Retail Hell years post-Hogwarts. Their chemistry is delightfully charming as they prod at each other and do everything to get under each other’s skin (including attempted murder), while growing undeniably attracted to each other. They simply can’t stay away from each other, despite Harry knowing who Tom turns out to be, and Tom knowing that Harry is the one who destroys all his Horcruxes and ends up defeating him in the future.
Three Turns Should Do It by @vdoshu (M, 284k, WIP)
Setting: Time Travel (1940s) Premise: If Harry gets thrown back in time after an accident with the Time Turner in 3rd year, and ends up as a disembodied voice in Tom’s head from the time that Tom is 11. Why I rec it: I absolutely love Tom growing up alongside Harry who is a kind of caretaker presence in his mind, helping make his days a little bit less lonely and helping him navigate the unfortunate circumstances he’s thrown in. This is probably the most extensively researched WW2 era story I’ve ever read; at times I felt like I was learning more detailed history about everyday life during WW2 than I’ve ever read out of a history book. This fic does an amazing job of fleshing out the pivotal events of Tom’s Hogwarts years and showcasing Tom’s humanity, and the bond of mutual trust and love that he and Harry build over the years is so beautifully portrayed. It also does a great job of exploring the question of predestination and whether anyone has the power to change the fate that lies in store for them.
Til Death Do Us Part by @duplicitywrites (M, 117k, complete)
Setting: Voldemort Wins AU Premise: If Harry gets captured by Voldemort and held as his captive, in a world where Voldemort had won the war sometime before Harry was born, and Harry has been fighting against Voldemort his entire adult life. Why I rec it: The emotions that this fic evokes are so moving and heartfelt. The evolution from Harry as Voldemort’s prisoner to Harry as Voldemort’s trusted advisor unfolds in such a beautiful, unrushed way. Harry is in his early 30s when he’s captured, so he’s older than what we typically see in fics where he’s Voldemort’s prisoner, and his maturity and composure really shine through as he starts working together with Voldemort and trying to exert his influence to improve the fate of the wizarding world. He eventually breaks through Voldemort’s shell, and helps Voldemort to grow in so many ways as the story progresses — particularly in his understanding of love and acceptance of death as a part of life.
With a resolute heart by Act_Naturally (M, 84k, WIP)
Setting: Same-Age AU Premise: If Harry and Tom attend Hogwarts together and are selected as Hogwarts Champions for an AU version of the Triwizard Tournament that is structured more like the Hunger Games tournament. Why I rec it: This is a skillfully-written generation mashup featuring an incredibly suspenseful and high-intrigue setting. There’s a dark overhang of dread and anxiety that permeates every character interaction and training session, as we’re informed that most of the champions (8 from each of the 3 schools) will not make it out of the Tournament alive. Yet the chemistry between Harry and Tom builds and builds despite the life-or-death stakes — Harry is immediately attracted to Tom, and Tom admires Harry’s resourcefulness — even while they each realize they may be the death of the other.
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#Tomarrymort Intermediate Recs#tomarrymort#tomarry#harrymort#aethon recs#tomarry recs#tomarrymort recs#harrymort recs#hp fic recs#longfic recs#ao3 recs#fanfic recs#tom riddle#voldemort
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Amatonormative assumptions and the language of a hard launch: a rambly DnP essay thing
I have a lot of Discourse Thoughts about hard launching and all that, but there’s not much I can say that hasn’t already been said. This fandom is one that generally has significant representation on both sides of any major issue; any take you look for you can find someone genuinely believing. What I am interested in analyzing is how some people are insistent, whether or not they want it to happen or believe it will happen, that they haven’t Hard Launched, and others are equally insistent that they have. Because on the surface those should be completely contradictory takes, but a large amount of people believe each to be true.
I’ve seen posts making comparisons to PJ and Sophie, and I definitely think that’s a useful tool because it brings up the real question here: how do we speak about romantic and platonic relationships, and what underlying assumptions are at play when we use or don't use certain words?
Firstly, this issue is obviously mostly to entirely due to homophobia. Why do people assume PJ and Sophie are a couple just because they live together, even though they've never used the words? Because they're a man and a woman. Why couldn't DnP be publicly open about their relationship back in the day? Because they're gay. I'm not going to spend too much time on this point because it's obvious, but I feel like it's important to remember that Dan and Phil's relationship wasn't some Great Secret for no reason. They weren't no-homo-ing because of privacy or whatever, but because they weren't yet ready to face the immense challenges being publicly out sticks you with, especially in the early 2010s. If homophobia wasn't a thing, everything else I'm going to say in this post would still be true, but it would all be significantly less charged. Just remember that gay marriage wasn't legal in the UK when DnP met each other, and that 2000s pop culture overall was routinely, openly, virulently homophobic. Just keep that in mind. (Also, everything I talk about in this post refers to 2019 onwards, after they came out. I wasn't around for the no-homo era and can't speak on it. I'm also not going to be talking about the speculation around their relationship, because that's been talked about so much. It definitely is a factor in all of this, but you know that already)
Onto the main point of this post. The reason DnP haven't "hard launched" (that term itself is incredibly vague, but its popular meaning in this fandom seems to be explicit confirmation of a romantic relationship, which is how I'm using it here) while also having clearly done so is because their use of language does not line up with conventional expectations of how language around romantic and platonic relationships should be used.
The concept of "dating" as we think of it today is relatively recent, and language around it is even newer. The terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" only became prominent in the mid- to late- 20th century, and it took a while for them to gain the connotation (of almost always meaning a romantic relationship) that they have today. And yet people have still had romantic relationships for forever! How these things were described would depend on the society's norms around marriage and sex and often on the exact social dynamic of the couple. Today, we think we're better than all that and can find words for anything.
I'm no expert on what makes a relationship romantic vs platonic or even how to define those terms. I find it hard to define the concept of romance in a way that doesn't bring with it centuries of heteronormative amatonormative assumptions. And boy are there assumptions. (No, people who live together for life do not have to be romantically involved, that's a silly thing to believe.) When people see a relationship that lines up or does not line up with those assumptions, they expect it to have a clean, simple label. But the words we used for romantic relationships outside of marriage, due to how new they are, are completely not simple!
While these days they seem to be the most "unambiguous" terms to describe a romantic relationship, "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are essentially euphemisms that can seem infantilizing and demeaning of the seriousness of a relationship. It's easy to see how they aren't for everyone, even if many people are fine using them for serious committed relationships. "Partner" is kind of ambiguous on purpose, thought like bf and gf, I think it's on its way to becoming a word with mainly romantic connotations. The term "significant other" is out of fashion these days, but just like bf, gf, and "partner," it's basically a euphemism that doesn't mean much in and of itself. We have no words to describe an unmarried romantic couple that aren't on some level unclear or unindicative of the actual nature of the relationship.
Dan and Phil have acknowledged that they were once in a romantic relationship, have made many many jokes about having sex with each other, and are committed life partners. On some level, you can take the combination of these things as a very clear confirmation of a current romantic relationship, which many do. Yes, this requires making a few assumptions, but they aren't the craziest assumptions in the world. In fact, as one can see from the PJ and Sophie example, they are assumptions that are often normal and expected to be made in social situations. So why do so many others not see it this way?
Well for one, we are a mostly queer community that understands the complexity of queer relationships and how these assumptions do not get applied equally. We see how these assumptions are often used against queer people to devalue their identities, especially those on the ace-aro spectrum and/or in queerplatonic relationships. We also are an extremely online community, familiar with the complicated layers of discourse around RPF and shipping, and hesitant to make assumptions in a way that could potentially damage relationships or invade someone's privacy.
But honestly? It's because DnP don't call themselves boyfriends. They don't explicitly frame their activities in romantic ways (e.g. call things dates). The terms they use and jokes they make, even in 2024, are not the sort of things we expect from the set of assumptions that go with a committed romantic relationship. (This is also where the discourse about whether or not they're open/poly comes from, but that's a topic for another day.)
The Date Night video stretches this to its absolute max. The game is full of cards about kissing and other things that fit cleanly into the set of romantic relationship assumptions, but they didn't use any of those cards. They only used things that were ambiguous, and tried to downplay the romantic implications as much as possible aside from the lampshading of it at the start of the video ("this is a great game to play with your best buddy as well" "phil says no homo" as well as the entire "ugh i can't believe they send us this" tone of the intro). The use of "partner" in this video is the clearest example of this. The game uses this word exclusively- after all, it's a standard, accepted, gender-neutral word for people in a romantic relationship. Phil confidently reads it off the card, with the "I don't care which set of assumptions this assigns us" attitude that's been prevalent over the past year and past few months especially. Dan avoids it half the time, and at the end of the video, seems to clearly mock the term, saying it in a silly voice and then comparing it to how stereotypical cowboys use the word. This stuck out to me; it made it very noticeable that they don't use that word at least in videos, and made me think about the connation of the word they do use-- "friend." That term, unlike any of the words I've mentioned so far, implies literally nothing. "Friends" can be people with a barely positive relationship or people with an incredibly meaningful relationship they center their life around. With no other qualifiers, it also implies that the people in question don't have a romantic relationship (are "just friends"), or even (because of amatonormativity) that their relationship is not especially deep or meaningful.
Dan and Phil have defined their relationship in quite a few ways-- or rather, Dan has, in BIG and in his interviews for WAD. These quotes circulate on here constantly as people discuss the meaning of them. I'm not really interested in talking about those as they've already been talked to death. I do think it's worth noting that we only get these things from Dan-- the one time Phil has ever spoken on his "current dating life" it was just to say "I don't want to talk about that, the door is closed." Obviously some of this is because the interviewers were pushy, but also I'm sure Dan enjoys his elaborate poetic metaphors enough to not be able to shut up about them haha. (Very unrelated but I wonder if this will come up if they end up doing interviews for TIT?) The thing is, these definitions show a deep, meaningful, complex, committed relationship. They include directly romantic terms like "husbands," "soul mates," and "normal gay relationship." You would think being willing to call someone your husband, even with a million other words around it, would mean you wouldn't have a problem calling them your partner, right? Yet these words do not reflect the language they use when speaking about each other in videos!
There are times when they say "friend" "buddy" or "mate" in a clearly humorous, ironic way, and seem aware that it isn't a term that makes people think of a committed, long term relationship. Other times, they use the word as if it is a fully accurate descriptor of their relationship-- in the glue story, Dan jokes about being ashamed to be seen as "the friend of the glue guy," and in How Phil Nearly Died, he quotes himself telling the hospital staff he is looking for "my friend." I use the hospital stories as examples because they are high-stakes (or seemingly high-stakes in the case of the glue story) situations and examples of how other people in their real lives perceive them. The way they choose to tell these stories to the internet is one in which the fact that a random hospital worker would likely interact differently with Dan if he was Phil's friendly roommate as opposed to his life partner doesn't matter. In other words: if they actually do call each other "friends" irl around strangers, those strangers probably have a very different impression of their relationship than we do. Their consistency in describing themselves doing so just means that they want to consistently use the term "friends" in their videos, not that they actually do that in real life. But to a viewer who is unsure about their relationship status, the fact that they are clearly life partners, no matter platonic or romantic, but in all situations opt for a word that does not imply that seems to be confirmation that their relationship is not clearly romantic, or at least that they don't want to refer to it as such.
If I have to draw a conclusion from all this, it's that DnP consider their relationship very complex and unusual (ymmv on if it is, lol) and have had to deal with a ridiculous level of scrutiny about it nonetheless. Again, Phil has almost never spoken on this, but Dan clearly dislikes any descriptor that carries with it a sense of assumptions about the nature of the relationship, hence why he uses like fifty contradicting ones or strange metaphors instead. "Friend" carries with it no assumptions. You can be "friends" and be in a romantic relationship-- plenty of people say "I married my best friend." But our society considers romantic relationships to be more meaningful and important than platonic ones. People assume that if you are in a romantic relationship, you would want to describe your relationship exclusively using terms that carry that set of assumptions, because that is the most important part about it. I honestly think Dan is being quite subversive in refusing to do so.
I have no idea if or when this will ever change, but I hope I've given enough context for those who are convinced they've already hard launched to understand why others are still waiting, and for those who don't think they have to understand why the issue is more complicated than it seems. This topic has fascinated me ever since I first started watching them, and I hope this post can help people reach a bit more of a understanding, rather than inciting more discourse.
#Obviously I am open to discussion and corrections#I wrote this all in one sitting and I'm sure I left things out or wrote things in unclear ways.#dan and phil#phan#dnp#mine#long-winded thoughts#danandphilology
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