#and should maybe um [redacted]

[scattered-winter]

the fact that i would have to physically walk in to my old church building and personally request my church records in order for me to legally and officially leave the church is, quite frankly, homophobic on all possible levels

[musical-chick-13]

I’m...every day. Every. Single. Day. I get closer to making that video essay that will get me sniped.

[fanartshmanart]

I am soooooo normal about my hockey guys

[threepandas]

Bird4Bird Part 5: Yandere Hawks

You know, people should be real glad he's such a nice guy. A Hero. Cause it was WAY too easy to get Her files. Tsk, tsk. Such poor security! He's kinda disappointed, honestly. He was sorta expecting a bit of a challenge.

It IS a Goverment building after all.

But maybe it's 'cause she's not a Hero herself. She's a civilian. So they don't care as much. You'd think you'd just get universal security and then lock down the Heroic files, but no. Glorified safes and lock boxes. Clear and traceable holes in all SORTS of bloodlines.

Gee, wonder why Mr. and Mrs. So-n-So have a redacted kid! Bet THEY'RE not related to any Heros! Sure won't be easy to just go to their HOUSE an find their kid's name THERE along with a few hostages!

It's theater. A joke, really. He's kinda GLAD he basically has no family, if THIS is the security they'd get.

Good thing he's removing Her files. They'll be MUCH safer with him~. A few dummy files left in their plaaaace, aaaand... back out through the blind spots in the camera coverage! Honestly, he's done harder exercises with his feathers literally concussed.

Ooooh~☆ Like that one. And that one~!

He keeps flipping through his social feeds. Might as WELL multi-task. Selfie with the skyline~♡! Aaaand upload. There we go, that's his #Aesthetic post of the day. Now PR will have nothing to complain about. Hmmmm, should like a few memes. Don't comment on THAT scandal. Joke about THAT one. Post a thirst trap modeling pic... aaaand...

He feels his feathers escape the building. Finally! It was his last hit of the night. File finally in hand, he lazily rolls to his feet, stretchs. Tucks the file away but not his phone. Then let's himself drop forward into open air. Let's his wings CATCH.

The magnificent slide of cool air against his feathers, the resistance of wind against his wings. He soars and for a moment... let's himself feeling nothing else. It is perfect.

It always is.

First things first, dropping of the files. Gotta keep them safe after all. Then... then he SHOULD be going to bed. Heck, if he doesn't feel like going alone, it's not like he doesn't have OPTIONS. He honestly has too many. But even then, the thought of it's exhausting...

They want The Mask. And yeah, sometimes it's FUN being the mask. Good for PR. Adds to his good reputation when they inevitably talk.

And they always DO talk.

They spread the word exactly as he expects them too. Dispite swearing, to the last, not to breathe a word. The picture of discretion, they PROMISE, Hawks~♡! Ha. 'Course they are. Pretty, chatty, birds. Picked for their scandal free backgrounds, photo ready faces, and hero positive attitudes.

He gets a LIST for every event he goes too. Has several, ranging from "approved in general" to "by region". Really... the height of romance, his meet-cutes. Picture perfect down to the last detail.

You'd almost thing a team of handlers PLANNED them for him.

Not to say the sex isn't great. Sex is always nice! Just... not when you're not in the mood for something REAL, ya know? When you want to get... get MESSY.

Hunt someone. See those eyes dilate, utterly AWARE and focused completely on HIM. That moment of indecision. Stay and fight? Run? Watching the scales tip and clatter in ruin to the floor. Run. Let um get a head start. RUN. Want to see those Big BEAUTIFUL Wings snap out to their full width, massive and powerful, and RIP through the air as they fling her into the sky. RUN!!!

Run away, lil predator. He's coming to CATCH you~

God, she'd be so POWERFUL in the air. So DANGEROUS. Eating up the distance like she actually stood a CHANCE. Those wings, so far from fragile its laughable. But... oh. Oh, he's FASTER. So, so much faster. Agile in a way her raw power robs her off.

She would never be able to fight him off. Would have NO chance to truely escape.

And then?

Then it's a matter of stamina. Training. And only ONE of them's a Hero~

He'd harry her. Feathers flying from ever angle, deadly sharp and far too close. Better dodge! Use your quirk! Oh DEAR, uses stamina as a fuel source does it? Hope you have ENOUGH~!

Little cuts. Kicks here and there. Pushing her lower~ Pushing her lower~ Watch out for that building! Uh oh! Powerlines! Large wingspan is a benefit in open air~ but it works against you heeeeereeeee~! Better LAND, lil harpy!

Before he knocks you from the SKY.

And he WOULD. God, it would be AMAZING. If he got her at just the right angle? He could kick her into a building, a tree, SOMETHING. Or maybe as she goes to flap? He could trap a wing. She'd DROP.

Wrap her torso in enough feathers to pin it. Slow her fall juuuust enough to really hurt, but keep her from hitting wrong. Ah~ bet she'd SCREECH. Struggle and lash like a cornered animal. Wing slamming the dirt helplessly, flapping uselessly, as she tries SO hard to get free... heart pounding, legs kicking, adrenaline surging through her veins~

He Wins, lil fighter~ now he gets his prize~♡

Ah, he bets you'd BITE. If the HPSC wouldn't kill him for it, he'd probably LET you. Let you scar him up in your rage. Leave your mark. You'd be so PISSED at losing. So nervous. And he can get that, vulnerability is a lot. Big, strong, walls all crumbling down? It'd feel like raw nerves. Being SEEN.

And he'd SEE her alright.

Even if she managed to avoid it. Managed to land, run, get herself nice and lost. He'd chase her down. Wear her down. Til the anger has no more fuel to burn. The threats have no more strength. Make her run and fight and run and climb and RUN... until her body just? Can't any more.

All struggled out~

Nothing but muscles shaking and bruises, feather cuts and the sweat that burns them. Gasping for air that can't seem to come fast enough. She never stood a chance~ But he let her try anyway.

And god. All his senses would be ON FIRE. Practically high on it. He'd be everything he's NOT supposed to be. Every instinct he's supposed to shove down on full glorious display.

He'd feed her till she CHOKES. She wouldn't get a choice. Watch the grease run down her pretty face and neck. Run his fingers through those pretty feathers and feel HIS against her skin. Preening and so, so pretty. All clean~ All those pretty little cuts and poor lil scrapes.

He put his merch on Each And Every One~

Little red feather band-aids all pretty on her skin~♡

His~ Won fair an square. Gotta take care of it. Blood and grease and sweat. Find all the places that make his Harpy bird squirm. But she can't escape. Not ever escape. He won. His, his, his. He'd make those place feel NICE. Watch her as she feels good.

She'd be so tired. So sore. She'd WANT to feel good. Be so tired of fighting and pretending. Hungry. And he'd be so good about how he takes care of her. Cause he's a HERO. Massaging hands and feathers that hold her nice and still. Careful kisses and playful teasing. Then? He'd hold those powerful, exhausted, thighs open and show her what worship feels like.

She'd make SUCH cute noises. He bets he could make her beg. Could probably make her cry.

He's fantasized, before, about not holding back. When some hero chaser is in his bed, with the "real" Hawks. Performing once again, a different facet of the Mask, all the better to pretend he is a Real Boy. Ha! What would be like? To do nothing but feel GOOD? To concentrate on pleasure? The feeling of his body moving?

To GRAB and put his back into it? Knowing damn well he'd leave bruises. Because he's stronger then them. Because his body is a weapon. Because wires in his brain were mixed up long, long ago and nothing can possibly undo it now. Wanting to snarl and shred everything around him as he rams home, deep and good like he's melting.

Wants feathers EVERYWHERE. Under him, against his skin, attached to whomever he's fucking. A God damned NEST. With blankets and feathers and tatami.

Wants to be BONELESS for how hard he fucked. How much effort it took. A marathon and a national EVENT. Wants to put on a parade and have a feast and then RUIN all of it. It's like screaming in his head, sometimes. All the instincts he is forced to repress and ignore. They blend together. Violence and hunger and horny and NEEDY AND ANGER AND-!

He lands. Outside her apartment. He's seen rats live in better places. It's an unkind assessment. But he's abruptly feeling kind of... agitated. He really should push her towards a better job. Like working for him. Or living with him. Or being HIS. Maybe both. And he'll need to hunt down a few insurance agents. Have some TALKS.

He slips a few feathers into the building. Her neighbor sleeps with the window cracked. From there? The vents. Gotcha~

The steady sound of breathing. Asleep. The rhythmic pattern... knowing it's from HER... it's...

It's soothing.

He settles back into a watchful crouch. He's still on edge. Hard. But nothing he can't fix. He has a pretty good angle from where he's perched. You forgot to fully close your blinds. And his eye sight is EXCELLENT. You look so relaxed~♡

He feels you breathe. Gently, ever so gently, let's one of his feathers drift forward to land carefully against a cheek. Warm. He can feel your pulse.

He strokes himself franticly. The cold air of night time just adding to the thrill as it teases everywhere his hand is not. His handlers would HATE this. The HPSC would NEVER allow it. He presses his other had to his face, to muffle his voice, as he desperately tries to both buck his hips AND keep his balance. So good. God she looks so VULNERABLE~

He milks the tip. Finally giving in to the urge to BITE his hand, glove leather filling his mouth. The only think keeping him upright on the phone poll he landed on, is the feathers he's grabbed himself with. And even THAT reminds him of his earlier fantasies. He spills, jerking, and raining down on the unsuspecting street below.

Good thing it's so late at night.

His entire body is riding the aftershocks. Sensitive and good. Euphoric. He laughs, wild eyed as he stares down at his hand. How depraved~ His lil hunter is certainly bringing out the worst of him, isn't she? Or maybe it's the best? It's certainly SOMETHING. And god, is it HUNGRY.

He looks back at her sleeping face as he licks his hands clean...

He should do this again~

[lynzishell]

The Past 💛 Atlas

“Atlas! Thank god you’re here, you have to save me!” Lex grabs me by the arm as soon as I walk in, pulling me away from my desk.

“What’s going on?” I ask, confused.

“If I never hear the word ‘aspen’ again, it’ll be too soon. Please talk about anything else.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She’s being dramatic,” Asher assures me, “I was just telling her about—”

“Nooope! That’s it, I’m going for a walk.” Lex throws up her hands and storms off, taking me by surprise.

I turn to Asher who rolls his eyes, laughing, and ask again, “What’s going on?”

He smiles to me, “Do you know what an aspen tree is?”

“They’re like birch trees, right?”

“No! I mean, kind of, they both have white bark and black markings, but no,” he turns to pull them up on his computer, and I glance over his shoulder while he talks excitedly, “With the aspens, the bark itself is alive and performs photosynthesis, in fact, if you look closely, it has a green tint to it. And the black marks are unique. They self-prune their branches, leaving behind these distinct black scars that look like eyes, which is going to look so fucking cool when we’re done. And the leaves! So, they call them quaking aspens, do you know why?”

“No, why?”

He shows me a few close-ups of small yellow leaves, “They’re these delicate heart shapes,” he explains, “so even the tiniest breeze makes them tremble and, well, quake. Hence, quaking aspen. So, in this level, we’re making a maze in a quaking aspen forest, right, and oh my god, when they’re animated and placed in game, they’re going to look fucking amazing! Like, these magnificent, tall trees that, when you’re in them, can be kinda creepy right, but if you look up toward the top, they’re beautiful the way they seem to shimmer in the sun. They’re just… the coolest fucking tree.” He starts to laugh at himself, “Anyway, what do you think?”

“It looks great! Is this really what Lex was so upset about?”

“I may have been obsessing over them a bit for the last week or so. I think she’s finally had enough. Perks of living with me, I guess.”

“I see. You know, where I grew up, we had maple trees all along our street.”

“Yeah? Like the ones with the massive leaves?”

“No, they were, um, sugar maples so the leaves were smaller, but in the fall, they’d get bright red. I remember, as a kid, playing in these giant piles of red leaves. I loved it.” I’m surprised as I smile at the memory. It’s the first time I’ve ever thought of my past and felt anything close to fondness or nostalgia. “Anyway, I should get to work.”

“Sure. Yeah, me too.”

Just as I’m getting settled at my desk, a notification pops up in the corner of my screen: “1 New Message”

Asher: hey, I meant to ask you Asher: are you going to geek con this weekend? Atlas: I don’t know, maybe Asher: well if you end up going text me and we can meet up Asher: [redacted] Atlas: Sure. I’ll let you know

I pick up my phone and save his number, checking it against the screen three times to ensure I’ve got it right, and then set it back down with a smile.

I guess I’m going to Geek Con.

Prev // Next

[stormy-river]

Transcripts from the Humanity Hotline 4

This one's a little different from the others. Also unlike the others, I don't have personal experience with the topic, so it took a lot longer to write (and it's just longer).

------

Operator: "Hi, thank you for holding. My name is Mindy. How can I help you today?"

Caller: "Hi! I know this isn't for humans, but I'm panicking and I don't know who else to call! This is the only frequency written down!"

O: "Alright, slow down. Can you tell me your name?"

C: "It's Eva. I'm a Galactic Exchange Student interning on a Shophoni ship as a xenobiologist."

O: "Alright, Eva. It's going to be okay. Can you tell me what's going on?"

C: "We were docked at the [redacted] outpost to resupply, and everyone went on shore leave for a day except, like, a couple security officers. I'd forgotten some files I'd needed to work on, so I came back to the ship to get them, and suddenly the alarms started and the ship started moving, and I can't find anybody! Well, I found one of the security, but he got knocked out when the ship lurched, and now we're in space, and I'm not a pilot! I don't know what to do!"

O: "Eva, Eva! It's going to be okay."

C: "Okay."

O: "First, I want you to breathe in slowly. Slowly. Hold it... and breathe out. Slowly. Now again... Okay. Can you get onto the bridge?"

C: "Yes, I think so. The elevators aren't working, but there are ladders."

O: "Okay. I've pulled up a file on Shophoni ships, and they should all have a navigation screen. I want you to try to find that."

C: "Okay... I don't- I don't- what does it look like?"

O: "Have you seen those old movies with submarines and ships and they have SONAR? With the green dots and lines?"

C: "Yeah."

O: "It should look similar, but grayscale. Most Shophoni ships should have one in either the front left corner, or middle left side of the bridge."

C: "Left... okay, I found it!"

O: "Great job, Eva. Bottom middle of the screen, there should be a series of numbers. That's the ship identification. Can you read out the list?"

C: "Yeah, I think it's [redacted]."

O: "Perfect. We're talking to some people from the Alliance and Shophoni government. They're going to send help, but we need your location. There should be two sets of coordinates on the right side of the screen. The top is where you are currently, and the bottom is where the ship is heading. Can you read me those numbers?"

C: "They keep changing!"

O: "That's alright, we just need to get close. They can ping the ship for it's exact location, but only if they already know it's general location."

C: "Okay... um... the top numbers are [redacted], and the bottom is... [redacted]."

O: "Perfect. You're doing great, Eva. There's a ship nearby coming to intercept you."

C: "Okay."

O: "The engineers want you to help slow down the ship. I'm going to walk you through that, okay?"

C: "Okay."

O: "Alright, you're doing great. There should be a panel in the back of the bridge, same side as the navigation, labeled 'Emergency Power.' Do you see it?"

C: "Emergency power... Yes!"

O: "Good, open that panel. There should be a release lever above it."

C: "Got it. It looks like a breaker box inside, with a lot more weird wires."

O: "Yes. We're gonna redirect the power away from the rear engines. You'll need both hands. Find the slider labeled, 'Rear Engines', and the slider labeled, 'Storage'. You'll need to move the engine slider down and the storage slider up at the same time."

C: "This feels complicated for an emergency procedure."

O: "Maybe so, but we can talk about that after getting you safe."

C: "Okay, I did the sliders. What now?"

O: "Great. Next, there should be a switch labeled, 'Engine Stop'. Flip it."

C: "I thought I already stopped the engines?"

O: "You turned off the rear engines, but everything keeps moving in space. This switch will activate emergency systems in the forward and side engines to actually slow you down."

C: "Oh. Okay, I found it. Is that it?"

O: "That's it. The rescue should be there soon. I'll stay on the line until they get there."

C: "Okay, thanks!"

[Remainder cut for irrelevance]

End Transmission

Transcription note: The problem was caused by a system glitch triggering a fault in the engines. The Alliance has since reviewed and changed many ship designs to add redundancies to all safety features. Mindy and Eva received medals for saving the ship and the three unconscious crewmembers onboard.

[echo-goes-mmm]

Ambrose and Elliot #33

Masterpost

Previous

Next

Warnings: noncon

Lord Richard Dael steered his horse down the road, its hooves clopping on the stone.

The people paid him no mind, which irritated him to no end. Back in the day, it would be a privilege to see a Lord in the city. They should be standing in awe, greeting him.

Peasants needed to know their place.

Richard scanned the crowd, looking for that white-haired boy he’d seen many times before. He couldn’t make these peasants respect him, but he could at least amuse himself with one of them.

There he was. Alone, thankfully. The little girl he was often with seemed to be somewhere else.

Richard guided his horse to the side of the street, pulling up to the boy.

“Hi, there,” he smiled, and the young man looked nervous. He was so… tempting. Worn and frayed clothes, desperate for money, a cute face. An easy mark.

“Uh- hello.”

“I have a job opening at my estate. Are you interested?”

The kid’s eyes went wide. “What kind of job?” he asked. Gods, it was almost too easy.

“Just some cleaning,” he lied. “Maybe a couple times a week; pay at the end of the month.”

“How much?” Richard wanted to correct him-  ‘How much, My Lord’- but now wasn’t the time. That particular satisfaction would come soon enough.

“We can discuss it later. How about I show you what needs done right now and we’ll go from there?”

“Right now?”

“Well-” Richard said, drawing it out. “If you’re not interested…”

“No, no! I’m interested!” he said, desperate. 

Richard grinned. 

___________________

[REDACTED] followed Lord Dael into the house. It was huge, with gorgeous stone floors and tall ceilings. 

He had heard about such wealth, but to see it was something else. And Lord Dael was a minor lord. [REDACTED] couldn’t even imagine what a real palace would look like.

“Um, are you sure you only need me a few times a week? It’s a really big place.”

Lord Dael smiled at him, and he relaxed. “I have staff for the rest, but there’s a couple rooms that need extra attention. It won’t take long.”

“Okay.”

The hall floors echoed as they walked, and [REDACTED] noticed there weren’t any other people around. Odd. He expected servants or something. He looked for any sign they weren’t alone, but there wasn’t any.

Maybe the staff had the day off?

“Just in here,” Lord Dael gestured, opening the door for him.

“Thank you,” [REDACTED] said, and he stepped inside. 

It was a bedroom, a beautiful room with a huge canopy bed and plush rugs, dark wood furniture and more books than he’d ever seen before. The walls even had wallpaper in vibrant colors.

Lord Dael closed the door behind them, and it clicked shut.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

“I’m glad you think so.” A hand landed on the back of his neck, and something was wrong.

“Um-”

Dael shoved him forward, and [REDACTED] stumbled. The Lord was on him again in a second, pushing him by the shoulders.

“What are you-”

“Quiet,” he snapped, and [REDACTED]’s heart began to pound.

The lord forced him over the side of the bed. His hands wandered, and [REDACTED] felt sick.

“No- No, don’t-” Dael shoved his face into the mattress, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

His pants were yanked off, his underwear shoved down.

Move, fight back, anything- but his body was frozen against his will.

Tears pooled and ran down his face as Dael felt him up.

“Please don’t do this,” he sobbed into the down covers.

Dael gripped his hair, yanking his head backwards. “Shut. Up.” He shoved [REDACTED]’s head back down, and [REDACTED] heard a drawer open.

A slick coolness prodded at his opening, and [REDACTED] thanked the gods for small mercies.

___________________

The sex was violent and rough, and with every thrust he felt like his organs were being torn out of him.

He cried and cried, and his only thought was please stop!

Sudden heat spilled inside of him, and [REDACTED] fell to his knees as Lord Dael pulled out. His legs shook, and his chest felt empty and hollow.

He curled against the bed frame, panting.

Lord Dael tucked himself back into his pants, and [REDACTED] had never been so relieved. He felt filthy and just wanted to go- 

Dael grabbed a fistfull of his hair, and [REDACTED] yelped as the Lord pulled him up. His legs were so weak, and it hurt.

Dael dragged him down the hall by his hair, and [REDACTED] struggled to keep up. 

His brain was still in shock from the assault, his thoughts scrambled, and he didn’t know where they were going.

Dael shoved him into another room. [REDACTED] fell to the floor, dazed. 

And then the door slammed behind him and the lock thunked shut.

[REDACTED] shot up off the floor, adrenaline overriding the pain. 

The door was stone, the walls were stone, the floor was stone-

He was in a cell.

[REDACTED] rushed to the door, pulling on the handle, but it was locked solid.

“Lord Dael!” he called. “Please, Lord Dael! Please let me out! I have to go home! Please!”

There was no answer.

“Please! I won’t tell anyone! I swear!”

He pounded his palm against the door until it hurt, but no one came.

[REDACTED] sank to his knees, sobbing. If this was the job, he didn’t want it. No matter what it paid.

___________________

Hours passed, and still no one had come for him. He had moved away from the door, and curled up in the corner for some warmth. His pants were still missing, and he was so hungry. He had skipped breakfast to make sure there was enough for his sister, and-

His sister. Who was going to pick her up from school? 

[REDACTED] thunked his head against the cold stone wall.

The lock on the door slid open, and he sat up.

“Lord Dael?” he asked. No answer. “I- I would like to go home, please.”

Lord Dael stepped into the room, holding a small bag. He crossed his arms, and [REDACTED]’s heart sank.

“Is- is that my pay?” he asked weakly, and Lord Dael grinned. 

“I said at the end of the month, didn’t I?”

[REDACTED] wiped his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Yes, what?”

His mind whirled. What did Dael mean? [REDACTED] was desperate to please him; he didn’t want to go through that again.

“Yes… sir?” he tried, and Lord Dael tossed the bag at him. [REDACTED] looked inside.

An apple and a piece of bread.

“Th- thank you.”

Dael raised a brow. “I- I mean, thank you, sir.”

Lord Dael turned, and the door slammed behind him again and was locked.

He just needed to get through a month. A month.

[REDACTED] covered his face and sobbed.

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@phoenixpromptsandstuff

[phoenixyfriend]

Raising the Minimum Wage and Its Effects

Ko-fi prompt from [name redacted]:

So, what does raising the minimum wage really do to the rest of the economy?

Hecking Complicated! I think I might need a doc of just. References for this one. But here are a few elements!

(Also, the Congressional Budget Office has an interactive model of how different changes to the minimum wage could affect various parts of the economy, like poverty rates and overall employment. Try it out!)

Reduction of Benefits

A common claim that is used to argue against the minimum wage is that it will result in companies cutting hours for their employees in order to recoup losses by having to provide benefits to fewer employees. This isn't 'the minimum wage is bad' so much as 'corporations are assholes,' but it is unfortunately still a thing that happens. (Harvard Business Review)

This is not a problem with the minimum wage itself, in my opinion, but these issues are emblematic of the weight that self-serving elements of capitalism carry. The low minimum wage is just one part of many that contribute to the current wealth disparity; if things like health insurance were universal, then bosses wouldn't be as able to cut them to employees in order to save money. Current regulations incentivize companies to hire more part-time workers than full-time, in order to avoid paying out benefits. Some cities have enacted Fair Workweek Laws in order to combat these approaches, though the impact is as of yet uncertain (Economic Policy Institute, 2018). Early reports, like the Year Two Worker Impact Report on Seattle’s Secure Scheduling Ordinance, do seem to indicate positive results, though:

In addition, the SSO led to increases in job satisfaction and workers’ overall well-being and financial security. In particular, the Secure Scheduling Ordinance had the following impacts for Seattle workers: - increased work schedule stability and predictability - increased job satisfaction and satisfaction with work schedules - increased overall happiness and sleep quality, and reduced material hardship. (direct quote from the Year Two Eval)

Unfortunately, these were approved at the earliest in 2015 (San Francisco's Formula Retail Employee Rights Ordinances, which went into effect in March 2016), which means that none of them were in play for longer than five years before COVID-19 ground the planet's economy to a near halt. I tried to find results for the San Francisco laws, but I couldn't find any studies for it; I did find an article from March 2023 that summarized which cities in California have brought in fair workweek laws, though, so maybe someone could use that as a jumping off point (What Retailers Should Know About California Scheduling Ordinances).

Companies prevented from cutting benefits by cutting hours would probably find another way to do the same thing, but let's be real: keeping the minimum wage low won't stop them from cutting every corner possible. EPI has some articles, like "The role of local government in protecting workers’ rights," that talk about how these measures can be, and have been, implemented to protect workers from cost-cutting employers.

Cutting the hours and benefits of part-time employees is a real, genuine concern to have about raising the minimum wage, and those need to be anticipated and combated in concert with raising the minimum wage. However, it is not a reason to keep the minimum wage depressed. It's just a consequence to be aware of and plan for.

Passing Costs On To Customers

A common argument against raising the minimum wage is that companies will raise costs in order to cover the raise in expenses, to a degree that nullifies the wage hike. This is, um. Uh.

Really easily debunked?

Like, really easily.

Over a ten-plus year period, research found that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage resulted in just a 0.36 percent increase in prices passed on to the consumer at grocery stores. A similar Seattle-based study showed that supermarket food prices were not impacted by their minimum wage increase. - (Minimum Wage is Not Enough, Drexel U.)

I've talked about it before, but in some cases it's just a matter of how US-based labor is such a comparatively small portion of costs for medium-to-large businesses that raising wages doesn't raise corporate expenditures that much.

That said, some companies rely on drastically underpaying their employees, like Walmart. Walmart's revenue in 2020 was approximately $520 billion (Walmart Annual Report, page 29). Now, this report doesn't actually tell us what amount is spent on labor, but it does give us the "Operating, selling, general and administrative expenses, as a percentage of net sales." This is, to quote BDC, "[including] rent and utilities, marketing and advertising, sales and accounting, management and administrative salaries."

So, wages are just part of the (checks) 20.9% of revenue that is operating SG&A expenses. But maybe I'm being mean to Walmart! After all, the gross profit margin is only 24.1%, so only 3.2% is left for those poor shareholders!

Oh, oh, that means the profit is still over 16billion USD? And Walmart cites having 2.2 million associates in that same report? And that's about $7,500 per employee per year that's being withheld? And that's before we take costs up by like three cents per product?

Which, circling back: A study from Berkeley by the name of "The Pass-Through of Minimum Wages into US Retail Prices: Evidence from Supermarket Scanner Data" found that

a 10% minimum wage hike translates into a 0.36% increase in the prices of grocery products. This magnitude is consistent with a full pass-through of cost increases into consumer prices.

Of course, Walmart does sell more than just groceries, but isn't it interesting that raising a minimum wage resulted in such a small cost increase? If we assume this is linear (it's probably not, but I have so many numbers going on already), then doubling wages from 7.25 to 14.50 would still mean only a 3.6% increase costs! Your $5 gallon of milk would go up to [checks] $5.18.

Hm. Those 18 cents might be meaningful to our poorest citizens, but if those poorest citizens are more likely to be raised out of poverty by raising the minimum wage, then it might just be the case that they too can afford the new price of milk, and have more money left over for things like... rent. Or education. Or healthcare.

Maybe even a cost cutting loss leader like Walmart can reasonably increase its wages. After all, they still have 13 stores on Long Island, where the minimum wage is $15, and has been since 2021.

(I could have just cited the Berkeley study and moved on, but after a certain point I was too deep in parsing the Walmart report to not include it.)

But also... minimum wage increases are often staggered. They start out on the bigger companies, which have the resources to accommodate those changes (unless they've been doing stock buybacks), and then later on the smaller businesses, now that a portion of the economy (those working for the big companies) has the spare change to spend money at those smaller businesses that are raising their prices by a little more than the corporations.

And at that point, all I can really say is, well.

If you can't afford to pay your employees a living wage, you're not an oppressed company. You're just a failing company. Sorry, Walmart&Co, your business model is predicated on fucking over poor people, and so it's a bad business model.

Being a dickhead, while successful, is not actually 'smart' business practice.

(This doesn't even get into the international impacts, like what an "American companies should pay higher wages abroad, especially if they charge higher-than-American pricing for their products, but also at factories where we know they're committing human rights abuses" approach could be but this is already long as fuck so that'll have to wait for another post.)

Anyway.

Inflation

This one is tied into the cost argument above, but like...

Inflation is already a thing? Inflation is happening whether we raise the minimum wage or not. Costs go up whether we raise the minimum wage or not. Who is this argument serving? Not the people who can't afford rent, surely.

Quoting the earlier-mentioned Drexel report (red highlights mine):

While the minimum wage has been adjusted numerous times since its implementation in 1938, it has failed to keep up with inflation and the rising cost of living. The purchasing power of minimum wage reached its peak in 1968 and steadily declined since. If it had kept up with inflation from that point it would have reached at least $10.45 in 2019. Instead, its real value continues to go down, meaning minimum wage employees are essentially being paid less each year. Additionally, some economists argue if minimum wage increased with U.S. productivity over the years, it would be set currently at $26 per hour today and poverty rates would be close to non-existent with little negative impact on the economy. However, because gradual change was avoided, the extra funds were instead shifted to CEO compensation. A sudden change in wages now could possibly make a more noticeable impact on the economy, which is often cited as reasoning for a slower increase over time moving forward. Gradual increases with inflation and productivity could have avoided any potential economic ripple effects from wage increases and should be considered in ongoing plans.

Increasing Unemployment

A common argument is that the unemployment rate would jump as employers were forced to let employees go. Assuming they didn't just hire more employees so they could give them less hours in order to cut benefits... not really!

A 2021 article from Berkeley News summarizes the issue, along with several others, covering some thirty years of research that started with "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," published in 1993. They also touch on the issue of subminimum wages for tipped workers, though they do not address the subminimum wages set for underage and disabled workers.

“A minimum wage increase doesn’t kill jobs,” said Reich, chair of UC Berkeley’s Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics (CWED) . “It kills job vacancies, not jobs. The higher wage makes it easier to recruit workers and retain them. Turnover rates go down. Other research shows that those workers are likely to be a little more productive, as well.” - Berkeley News article, "Even in small businesses, minimum wage hikes don’t cause job losses, study finds"

Lower turnover rates also save money for employers, as it causes them to have much lower HR expenses. How much money do you think large employers spend on using sites like Indeed or Glassdoor to find new employees?

This article from Richmond Fed does, admittedly, encourage a slightly grayer analysis:

In a 2021 review of some of the literature, [researchers] reported that 55.4 percent of the papers that they examined found employment effects that were negative and significant. They argued that the literature provides particularly compelling evidence for negative employment effects of an increased minimum wage for teens, young adults, the less educated, and the directly affected workers. On the other hand, in a 2021 Journal of Economic Perspectives article that analyzed the effect of the minimum wage on teens ages 16-19, Alan Manning of the London School of Economics and Political Science wrote that although the wage effect was sizable and robust, the employment effect was neither as easy to find nor consistent across estimations. Thus, although the literature supports an effect on employment among the most affected workers, it does not appear to be as sizable as theory might suggest.

The International Labor Organization has a similarly mixed result when taking a variety of studies into account. (I left in their own reference links.)

In high-income countries, a comprehensive reviews of about 70 studies, shows that estimates range between large negative employment effects to small positive effects. But the most frequent finding is that employment effects are close to zero and too small to be observable in aggregate employment or unemployment statistics (1). Similar conclusions emerge from meta-studies (quantitative studies of studies) in the United States (2), the United Kingdom (3), and in developed economies in general (4). Other reviews conclude that employment effects are less benign and that minimum wages reduce employment opportunities for less-skilled workers (5).

And there's the 60-page "Impacts of minimum wages: review of the international evidence" from University of Massachusetts Amherst, which looks at data from both the US and UK. I'll admit I didn't read this one beyond the introduction, because this is very long already.

Not all US studies suggest small employment effects, and there are notable counter examples. However, the weight of the evidence suggests the employment effects are modest. Moreover, recent research has helped reconcile some of the divergent findings. Much of this divergence concerns how different methods handle economic shocks that affected states differently in the 1980s and early 1990s, a period with relatively little state-level variation in minimum wages.

I'd encourage you to think of it this way:

Employer A pays $7.25/hr. Employer B also pays $7.25/hr. An employee works 25hrs/week for Employer A, and 20hr/wk for Employer B. The minimum wage goes up to $15/hr. Employer B cuts the employee. Employer A cuts employees as well, but not this one, and instead increases their hours to 30/wk for greater coverage.

The employee has gone from just under $400/wk to $450/wk. They lost a job, sure, but the end result... They have an extra fifteen hours of free time per week! Or more! With time to level out, you have less jobs, but more employment, because people aren't taking up multiple jobs (that someone else could have) just to survive.

This is a very, very simplified example, which doesn't take into account graduated wage increases (see the NYS labor table) or the benefits issue from before, but it does show the reality that "less jobs" doesn't necessarily mean "less pay" or "fewer employed" people, when so many of those employed at this pay are working multiple jobs.

Even the Washington Post agrees that the wage hike wouldn't cost as many jobs as conventional wisdom claims, and they're owned by Bezos. (Though I recognize the name of the article's author as the same person behind that 60-page Amherst report, so there's that to consider.)

The Kellogg Institute also points out that individual workers were, on average, more productive after receiving the pay increase, so the drop in the bottom line was softened. This is a bit debatable; the results varied based on the level of monitoring, but it's worth noting that most minimum wage jobs are pretty high-intensity, high-monitoring. Goodness knows you don't get a whole lot of time to yourself outside of the critical eye of your shift lead or customers if you're working fast food. They also note a decrease in profits, but I'd point out that they speak specifically of profits, not share of revenue.

To explain the difference: imagine you sell $100 of product in a day. The product cost you $50. Overhead (rent, utilities, taxes) cost you $10. Labor cost you $15. Profit, then, was $25, or $25.

A 16% reduction in the profit does not mean you now retain $11. It means that you retain 16% less of the $25. You now retain $21.

(This is, as with many of my examples, INCREDIBLY simplified, but I need to illustrate what the article's talking about, and I don't have infographics.)

Some other articles on the topic are from The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Business for a Fair Wage, The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (more critical), the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, UCLA Anderson, Vox, and The Intelligencer, which cites another Berkeley article. I do not claim to have read all of these, especially the really long ones, but the links are there if you want to look into them.

In the interest of showing research from groups that do not serve my own political views, I'm going to link an article from the Cato Institute; I do encourage you to read that one with a grain of salt, given that it's written by a libertarian thinktank, and they are just as dedicated to hunting for research that serves their political views as I am. There were a few other libertarian articles I came across, but the way they presented information kept feeling really duplicitous so I just... am not linking those, or the leftist ones I am also uncomfortable with due to the whole "I'm totally not tricking you" vibes. Also eventually I just got tired, there are so many articles on this and I am just one blogger who is not actually working for a magazine or thinktank, I am working for my own personal tumblr.

Negatively Impacting Slightly-Higher Paid Employees

Did you know that raising the minimum wage affects more than just those making minimum? It affects those just above as well. It's referred to as the ripple effect of minimum wage hikes by this Brookings article. They estimate that a wage hike would affect nearly 30% of the country's workforce.

"Price adjustments provide the principal adjustment mechanism for minimum wage increases: higher labor costs are passed through to consumers, mainly for food consumed away from home. Such an increase does not deter restaurant customers. Price increases are also detectable for grocery stores (Leung 2018; Renkin, Montialoux and Siegenthaler 2019), but not more generally. The effect on inflation is therefore extremely small." - "Likely Effects of a $15 Federal Minimum Wage by 2024," Testimony prepared for presentation at the hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee, Washington, DC (2019)

This overlaps with general criticisms of widening income equality, citing an AEA article I cannot access since it's behind a paywall. I wonder if it touches on companies like Amazon being headquartered in the city and manipulating the job market by sheer size? I can only speculate.

Plus, there are the health benefits! Which are mostly connected to lessening poverty, and through that lessening stress and increasing healthcare access, but still! Some of these results are debated, but I'd need to know more about the details to know how they're related (University of Washington).

------

I've spent most of the day on this, so if you guys have made it this far and are interested in supporting me, please donate to my ko-fi or commission an article. (Preferably for more than the base price; I'm effectively working at a fraction of minimum wage myself, which is ironic considering the theme of this post.)

(I realistically shouldn't have spent more than two or three hours on this, but I have so many strong opinions on the subject that I couldn't stop.)

(Also: There were so many more sources I didn't even get to read the basic premise of because it was so repetitive after a while.)

[krirebr]

Fending off the scaries…

How do you think IKISKB reader would react if she found Curtis in a rough state (any kind you can imagine- sad, upset, inebriated, angry) would she try to offer support? What would she do? And how would he react?

Thank you! I love them 🥺❤️

Oh, Carly, I miss these babies!! Someone tell the plot bunnies to leave me alone, cause I really need to get back to them. 😂😭

I think this would have to happen before chapter 3. Everything's too messed up after that. Or after chapter [redacted] once they're finally together.

Warnings: Just explicit language

You came back into your house after going for a swim, surprised to hear a raised voice coming from your kitchen.

"That's not- No! Absolutely fucking not!"

It was Curtis. You cautiously walked around the corner into the room. He didn't see you.

"Goddmanit!" he yelled and tossed the phone so it skidded across your table.

"Curtis?" you asked, as softly as you could. He jerked his head up at you, caught, like a deer in the headlights. You both just stared at each other, his chest still heaving from whatever had upset him.

He took a few very deep breaths, right in a row, visibly collecting himself, and then said, "I'm so sorry. That- I just not have done that here. It was incredibly unprofessional and I'm sorry."

"Are you okay?" you asked, inching closer to him, as carefully as you could manage. You itched to hold out a gentle hand in front of you but you were trying not to act like you were talking to a spooked animal, even if it's how you felt.

"I'm fine," he gritted out and then took another breath. "Just an unpleasant conversation, but that's no excuse. It should have waited til later. It won't happen again."

You were close enough that he was within your reach now, so you stopped in front of him and asked, "Is it okay if I touch you?"

"What?" he asked, his voice had dropped down to a whisper.

"I just-" you were whispering now too, "I just thought maybe you needed a hug."

He stared at you long enough that you thought maybe you'd done something wrong. You were just about to apologize and back out of the room, when he nodded, almost imperceptibly. You put your arms around his shoulders and he sank into it, wrapping his arms around your back. You stayed still, feeling like even a breath would break whatever spell you were both under.

Finally, he pulled away and you both stood somewhat awkwardly in each other's space. "Um," you started when the silence was too much, "is there anything I can do?"

"No," he said, gruffly. "I don't think so."

"Okay, well, let me know if you think of anything." You stood for another moment and then shook your head at yourself.

As you were finally leaving the room, Curtis called your name and you turned around. "Thank you," he said, so softly.

"Anytime," you breathed and then walked away.

[alyssawolf2410]

Prologue - A Coin.

Well, I don't know who I made mad, but someone or something is mad at me. This morning didn't go as planned. First, my apartment building experienced some short-circuiting last night, which caused my alarm to reset and not go off. Consequently, I had to rush to get ready for work. However, when I went to get my clothes from the dryer, I discovered burned clothes due to the circuit issue and struggled to find something decent to wear. So, I ended up missing the bus, having to run to work, and being an hour late. Unfortunately, it rained on the way to work, but I made it nevertheless.

As soon as I entered the office my boss approached me. "Miss [Redacted]! I'm so sorry! You would not believe the morning I have had. But don't worry, once I dry myself off I will start cleaning the rooms." I started but was interrupted by my boss. "I'm sorry to interrupt you but we need to talk", she glances to her side as some of the other employees whisper to each other. " Preferably in my office", her eyes returned to me. "No, it's okay. We can talk here. If my lateness was the issue, I assure you it won't happen again!", I said, a little more desperately than I hoped for. I was praying it wasn't what I thought it was. Maybe she is going to promote me, or wants me to transfer! "It's not about that. It's about our company's policy. Can you please come to my office?", she asked again. Grabbing my bag tight, I responded " No. You can tell me here". My boss lets out a sigh before saying " Fine, I regret to inform you that you are being let go". And now I'm walking home, in the rain, without a job. Dang, I sound like a telenovela. I continue my dreary way home. This rain really came out of nowhere. I reach my city's little park as it seems to be hosting an event. Horrible timing on their part. Well, it's better than being out there in the rain.

I approach a large tent and lift the flap to uncover a soft, yellow light. Lanterns sit in front of small booths. There aren't many people here even though you'd expect more to be in here avoiding the rain, too. Some people go up to the booths while others watch. The booths have a variety of food, shops, and games. There is a group of kids going from booth to booth and the youngest of the group notices me. She shuffles over to me and asks " Why are you wet?" A little girl asked. "Oh... because it started to rain. And I didn't have an umbrella," I answered. "Why didn't you bring one?" She questioned. "Um. I didn't know it was going to rain," I respond. The group of kids seems to have noticed the youngest is missing. The oldest one spots the little girl next to me. She runs up to us. Starts to drag away the child as she scolds the little one. "What did I say about wandering off? Especially when you talk to foreigners!" Okay, rude. She drags the younger one away. While the little girl with brown hair waves goodbye. I give a small wave back. I notice a gentle blue light shining briefly in the corner of my eye. I turned to my left and noticed an empty booth with a blue coin placed on it. I walked towards the booth and examined the coin that was left behind. Curiously, I peeked over the booth and realized that the booth wasn't even set up yet. I picked up the coin and noticed it had no design on it. After looking around once more, I decided to take the coin with me and started to make my way out.

~~~~

The rain had stopped, so I started to make my way home. I continued to explain the weird coin. But as I waited for the green light to cross the street. The light shines on the coin right to see "Make a Wish." A wish? So this might be for some wishing well at the event. Maybe I should have looked around a bit more before leaving. Hmm. What would I even wish for? Maybe a job? Nah, that's too boring! Let's put on my weeb for a moment. Okay, if I was some opening to an anime. Maybe I will be cliche and say I want to be stronger and destroy my enemies with the power of friendship! Hmm. If this is my protagonist moment, I want to be somewhat unique. Oh! I know! " I wish I could go to all my favorite fandoms! It would be cool to get to know the characters and explore their worlds!" I say as I flip my coin in the air. For a brief moment, the coin glows. Before I could catch the coin. Someone shoves me aside and grabs my purse. "Hey!" Ba Bump, Ba Bump.

Everything feels like it slowed down... I angrily try to follow the person, but soon realize my mistake when big bright lights blind my right side. My mind races a thousand thoughts at once. As I turn my head towards the light, my body moves forward. Ba Bump, Ba Bump.

I could hear the driver slam their brakes and try to swerve away from me... But it's too late... Time moved fast again as time stopped being in slow motion. And the vehicle slammed into me... Crash.

~~~~

I jerk upward. I take a quick and sharp breath in and out. In and out. I attempt to even my breath. I think back to chasing the guy, the truck zooming at me, and the pain. A lot of it. Am I dead? I look all over. I might be in a cave. Everything looks rocky. Multiple tunnels are going to who knows where.

However, one of the tunnels has a faint blue glow. I stand up unsteadily and walk towards the gentle blue light. My steps are slow and shaky. At the end of the tunnel, I see an underground lake with all different types of blue crystals on the ceiling. Despite how beautiful it was, it was not what caught my eye.

It was the woman sitting on top of the lake. Which is already weird enough! She had a long blue gown with trims of gold all around it. It is so long that you can't even see her feet. She also had long dark blue hair that reminded me of waves crashing into each other. And on the top of her head is something close to a crown. It is attached to the back of her head with a circle headpiece that has two rings in it with many gems. Her dark skin is also decorated with gold. "You are here early." The woman softly spoke.

I jumped when she suddenly spoke as I wasn't expecting it. "You were supposed to help her. But I should have expected this since you humans are so flawed. I need to rework the plan for you to take her home when she comes of age." The lady stands. And turns to me. I finally get to see her face. She has the crown continue to the front of her face where it dangles. She has her eyes shut. Is she an anime character? The heck. Her lips are a dark blue. However, her eyelashes are light blue.

Dang, this woman really likes blue. "Since you have some time before you are needed, where do you want to go first?" I jumped again. Lord, I need to stop dozing off. Wait. "Huh?' I blinked slowly at her. Which she probably didn't even see.

"What do you mean? Actually, where am I? I'm dead...?" It's now just hitting me that I died. Pun not intended. "You are in the in-between. Yes, you died. Now, where do you wish to go?" She continues to speak softly and flatly. "The in-between? Like in-between death and life? Since you know, I have passed away." I am now curious about this in-between. "Yes and No. You are also in-between worlds but not. We are higher than gods, but not. We are just in-between." She whispered. "Do you wish to stay here? Or do you wish to go to another?" She continued.

"To another? Do you mean another world?" "Of course. You can go to any world you wish. Just tell me its name." "Wait! Am I about to be iskaied!? OMG! I even got hit by truck-kun! And I can choose which world I can go to!?" I screamed. "Their so many to choose from! I'm having my anime/manga mommet! Wait! Can I have powers?! Or love interests?!" I exclaimed. "You can have that if you use your wish coin. And even more." She has been taking steps closer to me without me realizing it. "But only once per world. So choose wisely. If you would like, I could choose a world for you to go into."

I take a step away from her. "Wish coin?" "Yes, a wish coin. It's how you got here." She snapped her fingers. And that familiar coin appeared in her hands. "When you took my wish coin. As well as making a wish with it. You accepted my deal. Thus making you my newest wish child. And until I need you. You may have your fun in the other worlds." "A deal? What deal?!" I asked. "I am bored of this conversation. I will be sending you to a random world now. I will talk again soon." She turned away from me and started to walk back to her lake. "Hey! I'm not done asking -"

Before I could finish my sentence. I see her raise her hand and snap her fingers. There is a bright glow underneath me. I feel myself falling as a bright light surrounds me. I scream as the world changes from an underground cave to a clear blue sky. Is she trying to kill me again! I continue to fall until I fall into cold water.

Splash.

Next

[shepherds-of-haven]

Do you ever go back through your story just randomly changing things that you didn't like or didn't really fit in with the story at time?

Oh, absolutely! I consider the entire alpha build a first draft, so I definitely go back and change things as I see fit (recently taking out fairmath is a good example, but I also quietly go back and heavily edit/rewrite/revamp scenes between characters all the time); I also think that, as the years of development have gone on, some worldbuilding facts or lore or spoilers about future plot threads I've mentioned no longer apply to the game in its current state (I recently changed the whole calendar system so that a month is 63 days instead of 42, for example; or I'll read an old post about a character's thoughts on marriage and think 'oh that's definitely not right anymore'; or something of the sort). So if you read any obscure lore posts prior to, like, 2020 on this blog, they have maybe a 50% of being completely accurate, haha. There was even a point where I said that Norms have gold-tinted skin that kind of glints in the light (not like the vampires in Twilight, thank you), which I have since once again mentally retracted, lol. So no one should take things I said in the past as 100% gospel, is my point!

More than going back through what I've already written and changing things, though, I tend to heavily change things from my planned/outlined version as I'm writing it, not after. In my outline version of ShoH, Mimir was supposed to show up in Lavinet's chapter as an advocate for the Elementals, and Chapter 7 involved getting trapped in a small farming community in a snowstorm and, um, somehow Wintry would have been recruited as a companion or something (I don't really remember) but I definitely know the Changelings and Thurl weren't involved. By the time I got to Chapter 6, though, I threw those plans right out because they just didn't feel right and just sort of improvised as I went along! I tend to do that much more than most would expect (since I don't really spoil you guys on where the plot's going, you wouldn't know my original plans and how much the current iteration is different from them lol), so it's less noticeable than if I were to go back and change the material I've already made public to you, if that makes any sense.

But I do definitely still do that, and I mentally retract, redact, or rewrite things about the Blest world or its characters in my head all that time, primarily because those details no longer fit or I'm not as big of a supporter of them as I may have been in the past! Hope that all makes sense!

[samthecookielord]

<33 what will you do if you win the tournament

TRIPLE QUESTION ROUND: 2 new questions and 1 old question

1 says: "Oh! Ummm the prize was like... just hanging out with someone, right? And it's platonic, right? Because if so I may or may not invite some friends to hang out too! If that's okay, haha."

2 says: "Rub it in my dear brother's face that I won what he couldn't, obviously. And, hm... maybe if I like you enough, you can assist us in our plans for destruction."

1 says: "Heck yeah!! :] I'm bi"

2 says: "Yes, what of it? Do we have a problem? Hm?"

1 says: "Oh I already go to therapy, thanks! Huge shoutout to my therapist they're really cool. Sooo I guess that's... a 2?"

2 says: "What is that."

(tourney)

Previous answers:

1 said (R1:M8) - Q: "do you play an instrument. Or sing. Or whatevercer" - A: "OHHH OH OH OH I like to sing! Well, uh, not regularly, but I've recorded covers of songs I really liked sometimes before! :D LIKE [REDACTED/Bug Spray] AND [REDACTED/insert other bug spray song here]- OHHH AND [REDACTED/insert other bug spray song here] IS A GOOD ONE TOO- okay at this point I might as well name the whole album, eheh..."

1 said (R2:M4) - Q: "would you do a blind date tournament with your oc's?" - A: ":O!!!!! I DON'T KNOW WHAT EXACTLY THAT ENTAILS BUT IT SOUNDS FUN!!!!! Oh my god this is just like the plot of [REDACTED/Space Boyfriend]... AND I SHOULD TOTALLY GET [REDACTED/Storm]'S CHARACTERS IN ON THIS TOO..."

1 said (R3:M2) - Q: "You're walking in the woods. there's no one around and your phone is dead. out of the corner of your eye you spot him. Shia LaBeouf." - A: "PFFFFT- HE'S FOLLOWING YOU ABOUT 30 FEET BACK. HE GETS DOWN ON ALL FOURS AND BREAKS INTO A SPRINT. HE'S GAINING ON Y-"

1 said (R4:M1-1) - Q: "tell me about your best friend" - A: "OH MY STARS OH MY STARS THEY'RE THE COOLEST PERSON IN THE WORLD!!! All their stories are always so neat and amazing and they're always there for me when I'm feeling down or when I just gotta ramble about something!!! They mean everything in the world to me!!! Both them and [REDACTED/Kel]!!! Um- hah, don't mind me."

1 said (R4:M1-2) - Q: "how would you describe your outlook on life using emoticons?" - A: " :O 💫🌠🌃✨⭐🌟🌠🌠💫☄️☄️🌌🌌🌠🌈🌠💌🍉🍨🍨"

-

2 said (R1:M10) - Q: "would you wanna rule the world" - A: "AHAHAha- you know what? Yes, yes I'd love to! I'll put that one on our itinerary, how about that?"

2 said (R2:M5) - Q: "have you ever killed a man" - A: "You don't know HOW badly I wish I did. Oh, but don't worry, I'm working very quickly to fix that little issue."

2 said (R3:M3) - Q: "opinion on horses" - A: "Elegant creatures. They will be spared in the forthcoming destruction~ Though, I'll admit... there's... a certain one I was fond of. She must be long gone by now."

2 said (R4:M2-1) - Q: "would you smooch a ghost" - A: "I don't think I even need to answer this one. The real question here is, would you?"

2 said (R4:M2-2) - Q: "anything to smile about?" - A: "The distant taste of sweet, sweet vengeance on the horizon, of course."

[white-boy-bracket]

Showie woke up on the right side of her bed. This was odd. Why was she-

Something warm.

“Aaah!” She let out a shriek and kicked out desperately, her foot connecting with something- she swung her arm in its general direction-

“FUCK-, Showie, OW.”

Oh. 

Oops.

Heart racing, she quietly scooted off the right side of the bed and slid down into the space between the bed and the wall. 

A pause. Silence, broken only by Xigbar’s groaning. Oops.

Chest heaving, she asked, “A- are you okay?”

"Can't ever get a decent sleep in this place," he muttered. He sat up, a hand covering the steady stream of blood coming from his nose.

Showie peered over the edge of the bed, watching him limp towards the bathroom, blood dotting her marble flooring. She would have to clean th- she would have to get that cleaned. By a. Not by a kin. 

She lowered herself so she was laying on the cool marble floor, the same temperature as her skin. Or the temperature of her skin normally. Now, the left side of her body was warm. :(.

What had happened? Why was- what?

She should be relieved, she supposed. When she’d awoken, she’d thought it was-

She hummed to herself, hitting her forehead with her palms (clink, clink, clink). No. No, she wouldn’t think of that. She didn’t have to think of that. There was no reason to think of that. It was Xigbar, she didn’t need to worry. She was safe. 

She didn’t feel safe. She felt small. Her heart still raced. She was thinking about it. She was thinking about it.

--

Holding a wad of toilet paper up to his nose, Xigbar limped back into the main room just in time to hear Showie (hiding behind the bed) sob.

“... I'm not going to make you talk. Clearly whatever that just was was some kind of response." He paused, as if debating his next words. "... But if you want to talk, I can listen."

He heard a little gasp between sobs. 

Maybe 30 seconds later, he saw Showie peek out from behind the bed. Pale as a ghost. Paler than a ghost. Hair the same color as her skin, the same color as her eyes- huh. 

She said nothing. Just stared at him for a while. Felt reminiscent of when he’d been teleported into this tournament to begin with. 

When she finally did speak, her voice sounded small.

“I thought you were [Name redacted]. I’m sorry. Sorry.”

“[Name Redacted]?”

“M- m- my [relation omitted]. Sorry.”

“Ah. In that case, I think I got off easy with just a bloody nose and a bruise," he quipped. 

She didn’t laugh. He thought she closed her eyes, but it was hard to tell in the dim light. 

“Want me to kill him for you?”

Silence.

“He still alive?”

Silence.

“I. I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maybe. I’m not sure.” She pressed her face into the bed. The white comforter was the same color as her, Well. Her. Her whole she. Xigbar briefly considered what a nightmare it would be to lose her in a snowstorm. Smack right into her. Get another bloody nose.

“How long ago did you last- Like, when’d you…?”

She pressed her face further into the bed. Her reply came out so muffled he couldn’t hear it. 

“Huh?”

She lifted her head, “I didn’t.”

“What?”

“I ran.”

Silence. 

“Oh. Well.”

Silence. 

“I should.. Sleep somewhere els-”

“No!” Her head jerked up, her eyes wild, “I- I me- I mean-”

He held his hands up in surrender, “Alright.”

“A- alright.”

“Okay.”

“Oka- sorry.”

A bit of blood dripped from the toilet paper onto the floor.

A pause. 

“I’m gonna get new- I’ll be back.”

When he got back, she was sat on the very edge of the bed, blankets pulled around her in a manner that was probably supposed to be like her cloak. Looked a bit silly, though. Xigbar didn’t mention it.

“I was thinking,” She said. 

He waited. 

And waited. 

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking. Um.”

He waited. 

“Yeah?” 

“We. um. We should.”

“Yeah?”

“Check the spike pit.” He got the feeling this was not what she was originally going to say. He didn’t mention it. 

“Check the spike pit?”

“For bodies.”

“They’re in there. I saw them.” And he did. It was a bloody mess. 

“We should check for bodies that shouldn’t be down there.”

A pause. 

“To revive.”

“Oh, right,” He said, “Forgot that was something you did.”

Silence. 

Silence. 

He crossed to the wreckage of the bed the kins had brought in for him and tossed Showie her cloak. She was looking the other way, though, so instead of catching it, it covered her like a cartoon ghost.

--

He looked at the (pink) tablet she’d handed to him as they descended the stairs into the (now spikeless) spike pit. She’d made him open yahoo dot com, like someone who’d learned of the internet five minutes ago. 

“What are you having me look up?”

“Go to tumblr.”

“What? Why?”

“Go to tumblr.”

“Okay, okay.” He went to tumblr.

‘@showierunner’ was logged in. 

“Showierunner?”

“I had that url before I knew you.”

“Okay, doll,” He said, not believing it.

“Hm.”

They reached the bottom of the spike pit. Bodies lay strewn across the floor. 

They approached the body of what probably used to be an old man. A massive hole had been stabbed through the middle of his chest, and he was covered in blood.

Showie knelt down and waved her hand over the body.

Gabriel Agreste. Deceased

The words appeared over the body in pink cursive font.

“Type Gabriel Agreste into the search bar.”

“On tumblr?”

“On tumblr.”

“As a search engine?” Xigbar’s finger hovered over the search bar, “You know there are. Actual search engines?”

“I like to see what people post about them. It gives me more information about what kind of person they are than their wiki pages do.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, typing it in.

“What do you see?” She said, poking at the wound with some kind of stick. He wasn’t sure where she’d gotten it, though.

“Uh, looks like he got second place in a shitty dad tournament,” he said after scrolling past many, many gifsets.

“Hm,” She said, standing up. She nodded to him, and they walked over to the next body.

She knelt beside a body wearing jeans and a button down.

Jon Arbuckle. Deceased.

Before he had the chance to type it in, she was walking over to the next body.

“What, no chance?”

“Garfield annoys me! Too many people per round yell because he’s an orange cat!” She waved her hand in annoyance like she was trying to shoo the idea away.

“Don’t you like Firestar for that same reason?”

“Firestar is different. He remade himself and became a great leader of his clan. I like that.”

The next body. An old man in a fancy, old timey looking suit.

She didn’t even stop. “That’s George Washington,” She explained, “I only put him in this poll to die-”

“Damn, Showie-”

“I’ve taken some interest in Stanley- before yesterday, I mean- and I noticed the two of them- not him and george washington, him and Cesare- they’ve been spending time together.”

“You know the white boys by name?” Why was he looking them up?

“The ones that got past round one,” She said dismissively.

The next body. A blonde teenage boy in a white overshirt and jeans.

Adrien Agreste. Deceased.

“Agreste. Gabriel’s son?”

He typed it in. Gifsets. Art. “What are you looking for? Text posts?”

“Anything with the vibe.”

“How’s this for the vibe?” He showed her a piece of fanart that had the boy blindfolded and crying. 

“Hm.” She took the tablet. Her hands practically glowed in the darkness of the pit (she hadn’t bothered to put on any makeup). She swiped her finger across the screen, then frowned, and tapped a few times. 

She made a noise of disapproval and grabbed Xigbar’s hand? And started using his finger to scroll?

“Showie, what-”

“It doesn’t recognise my finger.” She said by way of explanation.  

“How do you use it normally?” His wrist was twisted in an uncomfortable way.

“Those touchscreen bandaids.”

Huh. okay. 

After a moment she handed the tablet (and his hand) back to him, “We’re reviving this one,” She said, lifting Adrien up and draping him over her shoulder effortlessly. 

She walked right past a few more bodies without stopping. And a cookie? A few bodies and a cookie. 

She paused over one corpse, “Ugh! Paul Matthews. He went against Garfield in the round where you smuggled yourself in. I actually tableflipped that one. Too many people yelling! But here he is! Back because of the food form.” She sounded disgusted. 

Something was off about the body. Xigbar nudged it with his foot, and-

Not a corpse. Paul Matthews jumped and whimpered, then quickly went still again like they somehow hadn’t seen that.

“Oh.” She said, sounding very annoyed. 

Xigbar summoned one of his arrow guns and aimed it-

“Not yet, Xigbar,” She raised a hand.

“You. Paul.”

He played dead.

“How did you survive?”

He played dead. In one hand was clutched a lunchbag. Did he bring a snack to the death match?

She kicked him. This time he stiffened but otherwise didn’t react. 

She was getting frustrated, Xigbar could feel it. She kicked him again. 

“Stop playing dead! I know you’re alive!”

“Hey, fake it ‘til you make it, right?” Xigbar said, waving his arrowgun a bit.

She seemed to consider it. Then she appeared to get an idea. 

“Guess we were wrong, Xigbar!”

“What?”

“He’s dead! Must have been a final firing of the nerves!” She said, clearly acting (poorly) (he got the sense this was on purpose).

“You sure?” He said, playing along.

“Yeah! I’m sure! You know when you catch a fish, and you chop its head off and then cut the entire body into little pieces, but the head keeps moving and the mouth keeps trying to breathe? Sometimes for hours?”

“Sure,” he said. If she said so. 

“Must have just been that. Let’s go ahead and head back to the apartment, and press the button that drops all of the bodies into the incinerator!”

“Incinerator?!” Paul Matthews gasped.

They both turned to look at him.

“Do I kill him?” Xigbar wanted to. He wanted to kill him. Blow off some steam. 

“I almost respect the audacity to lay there and pretend to be dead after squealing like a kitten,” She said.

“Audacity or Idiocy.” 

“Hm. Perhaps the second one.” She walked closer to Matthews, being sure to keep her head low, “What do you think, Paul? Are you stupid or just impertinent?”

He stammered, and Xigbar laughed, “Guess it's the first one.”

“Hush,” Showie said, amused, “Let him speak. And Paul, there is a correct answer.” She leaned down to get a better look at him.

It was then that his hand, which had been creeping into his lunch bag, suddenly jerked upward.

The gun inside the bag fired directly at Showie’s head.

[lizadale]

bit of find bleck!au that i still really like. it was a neat concept to play with

yes they were stranded in the middle of the ocean at the start of this warp point, no i will not elaborate

[]

[[L-43.d-Ω : world of pitch]]

 When they first arrive in the dimension, they stand there for some moments, waiting.

For a sound, for a smell, for a movement. For their eyes to adjust.

But none of it happens, and Nastasia breaks the silence by clearing her throat. They expect the sound would be startling, or that maybe it should echo into the nothingness, but if anything, it is more subdued—all but swallowed.

“Um, guys?”

O’Chunks exhales. “Yeah.”

“Let’s clear this up right now, ‘k? Can anyone see?”

Four simultaneous answers are the only proof that they remain rooted together in the same spot.

“Nay.”

“Nope.”

“No.”

“N-no…”

The unasked question is: is there anything here to see? It isn’t the sort of darkness of when a light is turned off, where you can still see outlines or the shifting of a hand waving in front of your face. There is nothing but an existence darker than black, a yawning void in which everything is still. They can tell their eyes are open, if only because the backs of their eyelids bring more solace than struggling to perceive.

Mimi sounds the smallest. She fumbles without displacing her feet until her hands find someone. Her fingers close around the still-wet blouse of Nastasia. “Dimmy, take us back.”

“Into the ocean?” he asks incredulously. He sounds incredibly close to the ground, for once, voice steady with forced calm.

Nastasia shivers, having been distracted enough by the sight (lack thereof) to forget her clothes are damp and uncomfortable. She plucks Mimi’s hand from her shirt and lets her fingers scrabble to rest between her own.

There’s a click, a switch turning on and off, and then a narrow, damp elbow bumps O’Chunks’ arm. “Lay off, ye blighter,” he rumbles, though there’s no real bite in it, and he doesn’t move an inch as Luigi tries to get his bearings, feeling his way with shaking hands around O’Chunks’ thick trunk to where he might stand in front of him.

“Dimentio,” he calls gingerly. “Where’s your stupid face?”

A shuffling of feet, and then the soft sound of flesh brushing against flesh. Luigi has found the face in question, clumsily.

“Luigi, please,” Dimentio deadpans. “At least offer me dinner first.”

“Shut up. I can’t even—I can’t see your eye.”

“Yes, I believe—” There is a light smacking sound as Dimentio irritably swats Luigi’s hands from his face. “—that this dimension must not process light in a way that matters to us.”

“To us,” Nastasia repeats. “Meaning what, exactly…?”

“Even if we can’t see, things that live here might,” O’Chunks guesses, immediately regretting it for the whimper it draws from Mimi into the bleak silence that follows.

“…Perhaps.” Dimentio sounds strained, as if this hypothesis was something he had in mine but dreaded being voiced aloud. He wasn’t keen on the idea that beings could see his actions without him knowing they were even there. What is the point of having an audience when you cannot enjoy their reactions?

“Can’t you adjust?” Nastasia asks.

“The fact that I have not means that this world is more likely to involve more than an absence of light.”

She is unnerved by the fact that Dimentio keeps redacting previous theories for new ones. He has no idea, for once—has not come in readily equipped with how to deal with this place, and the stiffness in his usually tailored voice becomes more and more apparent the more they press for answers.

“Let’s, um—” She wets her lips, still stinging with salt.

“We go forward, since we cannae go back,” O’Chunks says firmly. “And find another door.”

•※•※•

It isn’t an easy task, navigating the unknown.

They might be outside, given the soft texture of the ground, but there’s no way to know for sure. The air is stagnant—not necessarily stale, but very still—and carries nothing in it. They stumble forward, close together so as to avoid losing each other. Mimi leaves Nastasia’s side to crawl onto one of O’Chunks’ shoulders, not wanting to risk dirtying or tearing her dress on things she can’t see.

The area is vast and spacious. It takes many minutes of walking a straight line until they toe into a wall made of uneven stone. They keep silent, feeling their way around it; if there is a wall, someone must have built it. Someone who can supposedly see.

“Stop,” Nastasia breathes, as they reach the end of the cobbled wall. “Mimi, can you—can you still see us? Our color?”

“Y-yeah.”

But that’s all she can see, when she concentrates—splotches of moving color where normally they would only be outlines accompanying regular vision. She can distinguish between them, from the tints and shades of their little group, but beyond that—nothing. She can vaguely see them and nothing else, just their souls, floating, surrounded by black.

“Can you see anyone—anyone else?”

“No,” she says. “Since we got here there’s—no one.”

There is silence for a few moments, and no one moves.

“Luigi,” Dimentio says, tense.

Luigi exhales shakily. “I only feel you guys.”

“This whole dimension’s dead?” O’Chunks asks, scuffing his shoe on the wall, keeping their place, some strange notion that if he doesn’t keep contact with something solid the ground might stop existing. “Did it not get spat back out?”

“I—” Dimentio starts, and then stops because he hadn’t really considered it, the idea that although the Void was reversed some dimensions didn’t come all the way back. “This is something else,” he decides on, because even if it were theoretically possible, it wouldn’t apply in this case. It couldn’t be that the light never came back into the dimension, because bringing light into it now doesn’t work either.

They shuffle along again, but they don’t make it very far; Nastasia’s foot scrapes against what might be another stone wall, having just avoided walking directly into it. On the other side of them, Luigi isn’t as lucky, emitting a startled cry as he stumbles. Dimentio makes an equally perturbed noise, having been close enough to be the thing that Luigi instinctively grabs on the way down, and they both tumble in a heap on the ground.

“Only a matter o’ time, eh,” O’Chunks comments, amused. “Surprised he lasted on both feet long as ‘e did.”

“Buy me a drink, Luigi?” Dimentio says coyly, though his annoyance is palpable. “We can go see a movie, if you like.”

“Shut up,” Luigi snaps from close to the ground. “Ow.” There’s that same clicking noise from earlier, click-click, and he huffs in frustration. “Ooh, that’s—O-oh. Um.”

“What’re yeh—?”

“The thing I tripped over—Ow!”

“Let go of my leg,” Dimentio hisses.

“I don’t—I d-don’t have your leg??” Luigi says unsurely. There are several patting noises as one or both of them try to feel their situation out, then a more urgent shuffling as Dimentio struggles to free himself from whatever in the dark might— “Heyheyheyhey, it’s a vine, chill out. Here.”

Dimentio makes a wary sound of dismissal.

“At least I—think it’s a plant,” Luigi says, voice still doubtful. “Feels like a plant, or it was. Dead shrub, maybe—”

“You’re not helping.”

“I mean, since that’s usually how you decorate graves, h-heh.”

“G-graves?” Mimi says shrilly, directly into O’Chunks’ ear.

“Th-think I tripped over a marker,” Luigi tries to laugh off, but it’s a hollow effort. “It’s—stone, but there’s writing in it, y-y’know, like… Uh, there’s another one over here. Maybe you shouldn’t, ah, sit on that? Pretty rude.” Another telltale sound of Dimentio smacking Luigi’s hands away.

“So, we’re in a cemetery,” Mimi says flatly, less than amused. At least they have an answer, though, that makes her feel a bit better.

“Not what I meant by dead dimension,” O’Chunks mutters.

“You know I, uh, I can usually tell, y’know, when I walk into a cemetery, even with my eyes closed…” Luigi swallows audibly. “But there’s no, uh, there’s—Dimentiopleasegetusoutofhere.”

“I do not believe we’ve traveled far enough,” he replies, followed then by the sound of him flipping. It’s less than a second before he flips back, coughing and sputtering, having just wound up under the sea they left behind.

“You can’t see where we can go?” Nastasia asks, unable to hide the twinge of desperation in her voice. “The only sense this place inhibits is sight, but—if Mimi can still see our souls…”

“No, I canno—stop it, you hound,” he rasps around a cough at Luigi, who has tried patting the magician’s back to help force water out of his nose. The rest of Dimentio’s statement is lost among the ensuing mini slap-fight.

“If light is impossible to perceive here,” he eventually continues, “then I cannot—well. No. Ugh.”

“Crivvens,” says O’Chunks. “If he can’ even explain it, we’re doomed.”

•※•※•

What ends up happening is they all settle where they are, except for Dimentio, who drifts off alone to find a plausible area to flip from. None of them like the idea—least of all, they suspect, Dimentio himself—but not having to traverse on the unseen ground is optimal, and should something happen, he could always teleport back to them.

Nastasia crawls carefully over the dry, cracked earth. She pictures in her mind the edge of a desert at night, the caked dirt not yet fully sandy but barren, chilled, and dusty. It doesn’t help that her clothes are still damp, the stillness of the air doing little to dry them.

She finds Mimi first, obvious for her shrill squeak at being touched. Mimi’s skin is cool and unnaturally smooth. Where her fingers bend the joints knob out like bolts instead of bones, and there’s a light vibration under the surface of her, a machine humming. It isn’t normally visible even with light, but the area around her shoulder has a slight ridge where Luigi had reattached her arm, just a small dip that can only be discerned by touching. Her hair is textured faintly like yarn.

Mimi’s hands fumble up Nastasia’s arm until they find her face, shaking fingers relaxing at the shape of the other’s glasses, which are nearly bumped off in the exchange. Printless thumbs press into the hollows under her cheekbones, curious.

“You knew it was me,” Nastasia tells her, fighting the urge to straighten her glasses. Nearby, she hears the clicking again, and her ears twitch. Click-click. Click-click.

Mimi frowns, although she knows it’s pointless. “Sure, but I can’t actually see you, s-so…”

She seems calmer now, not over her fear of the dark but assuaged by the familiarity of the people around her. Still, Mimi curls a bit in on herself, receding into safety, and it isn’t until Nastasia drops her arm and it collides with something warm that she realizes O’Chunks has comforting arm around her middle. (Click-click. Click-click.)

O’Chunks grunts unsurely when Nastasia rests a hand on his arm, feeling the strong muscles there tighten protectively. His skin is warm and rough under a coarse layer of hair, blemishes of almost-scars dotted on the outside while the side that faces his body is soft and fleshy. The inside of his elbow is like a furnace. She must leave her hand there too long because O’Chunks fidgets restlessly, tightening his hold on Mimi reflexively.

“Ye need somethin’, Nastasia…?” he says. He’s on guard, she can tell by the lowness of his voice, and she doesn’t blame him.

“No, just…figuring out where everybody is.” She crawls forward again, over Mimi, and nearly stumbles over O’Chunks’ legs. His free arm automatically catches her around the shoulders. She leans subconsciously into his palm, the warmth pleasantly counteracting the chill.

“Ye’re still wet,” he says, bothered. He rubs her shoulder, where her shirt is plastered to her skin still. (Click-click. Click-click.) “Are ye—Oi!” he throws his voice over his shoulder, “Give it a rest, already!”

“S-sorry,” Luigi says, far off. There’s a rustle of clothing as he presumably shoves something in his pocket. “Nervous tic.”

Flashlight, Nastasia realizes. He’s been absently pressing the button on and off this whole time, as if holding out hope that a beam will miraculously appear.

“Where are you?” Mimi asks incredulously, because Luigi sounds at least a good forty paces from the rest of them.

“Loaded question,” O’Chunks mutters. “Where’re any of us?”

“If I stay still, I’ll fall asleep,” Luigi says, “so I’m, uh…teaching myself braille, I guess?”

“Fall asleep? In this place, lad?”

“It’s dark,” Luigi says defensively, as if no one noticed. “It’s dark and quiet and I’m exhausted.”

“Get over here,” Mimi huffs. “You’re gonna get lost, you dummy.”

“…Are they readable? The markers?” Nastasia asks.

“No,” Luigi admits, obediently wandering closer. “I don’t know what language it is, so—OUCH!”

Luigi hits the ground again, followed by frantic scrabbling and the sound of stone knocking together. They might assume he’d tripped once more, until it’s apparent that there’s another body tangled there with him. O’Chunks starts to stand until Mimi cackles, lessening the thought that it may be an animal or a stranger.

“D-Dimentio?” Luigi barks, attempting to disengage. “Hello??? Can you NOT?”

Dimentio gasps sharply, inhaling as if surfacing from under water. “I hit—a ceiling!” he spits out indignantly.

“What—stop flailing! You knocked over a headstone, we’re gonna get cursed!”

“I flew up and hit my head on somethi—get your hands off of me!”

“I can’t see you, moron, hold still—whoops, my bad.”

“Excuse me!”

“Chunks, sound off,” Luigi says wearily.

“Righ’ here, lad.”

Luigi deposits Dimentio near O’Chunks’ side, like someone might set their garbage by the curb for pickup. He makes a discomfited noise at the treatment and loss of familiarity—O’Chunks lightly bumps his shoulder against the magician to provide grounding. Nastasia, half-sitting on O’Chunks’ legs, finds Dimentio with her foot and lets her leg lean against his arm. She expects him to complain or move away; he does neither. It’s hard to say if the slight tremble of his body is due to temperature or nerves.

“Ye’re wet, too,” O’Chunks accuses Dimentio, nudging him again. “Why not get a change o’ clothes?”

Dimentio makes a tsking noise with his tongue, indicating the brush of a sore subject.

“Three o’ ye gonnae catch cold like this,” O’Chunks says, either not catching on or ignoring the sullen response. He rubs Nastasia’s shoulder again, not thinking much of it, calloused thumb warm under the sleeve of her blouse. She doesn’t find it in her to mind.

“I’m a bit drier than I was,” she offers. “The amount of dust here helps, I guess.”

“If you guys’re so cold, why don’cha just take off your wet clothes?” Mimi scoffs. “It’s not like we can see ya anyway. Then you’re not getting us wet, too—”

Somewhere behind them, Luigi, distracted by the turn of the conversation, trips again very loudly.

“Would ye stop an’ sit down, ye dotty gowk?” O’Chunks snaps, flustered. “Ye’re stressin’ me th’ HELL out!”

Luigi responds by sneezing several times in quick succession, capitalizing on Nastasia’s remark about the dust as his fall has definitely stirred some of it up.

“Ok, ok, where are you,” he capitulates, voice nasal and sneeze-worn.

“Right here, where I been th’ whole bloody time,” O’Chunks growls, clearly having had enough of trying to keep track of everyone without his sight.

Luigi shuffles closer, crawling to keep from stepping on anyone. “Pillow. Who’s willing to—Oops, hi…Nastasia?” he says, having brushed against her arm in passing. “Wow, your skin is soft—”

O’Chunks grunts and roughly shoves Luigi away from her, still viscerally irritated.

There’s a thick pause in which Luigi seems to be calculating how to react to that, or if he should at all. In the end he decides it’s not worth it—O’Chunks has been increasingly on edge and talking about it probably won’t help, so he sits there and meekly says again, “Pillow?”

“Pass,” Dimentio says immediately.

“Not it,” Nastasia says.

“No vacancy,” O’Chunks grumbles, pointedly drawing Nastasia over the side of his leg so she’s all the way in his folded lap.

Nastasia holds her tongue, barely—not necessarily angry at being relocated but rather on the principle of his actions the past five minutes. Every muscle she can feel on him is wound tighter than a coiled spring. She knows it’s because he feels like he’s the one who has to keep watch, who has to listen for danger because they won’t see it when it comes. But it’s not an excuse for lashing out at Luigi’s tendency to babble when he’s nervous.

“Ugh, okay, c’mere,” Mimi says, all ingenuine reluctance, shifting her legs carefully away from O’Chunks and smoothing her dress out over them. “But don’t drool on me.”

It’s obvious that the shove has gotten to him, as when Luigi speaks next it is very quietly and with barely veiled relief. “I do a lot of things in my sleep, but not that.”

Nastasia having been moved backward has removed her point of contact with Dimentio, and she can’t help being surprised when he shifts himself to get the contact back, tentatively finding her pantleg with careful fingers. She reaches out and, thinking holding hands might be more than a bit too much, lays the back of her hand on top of his. He doesn’t move.

His glove is wet— not in the way Nastasia’s clothes are still damp, but more freshly wet, still cold and heavy with it. He did flip briefly back into it earlier, but hardly long enough to be fully soaked again. It doesn’t make any sense until, suddenly, it does.

It must not have been the only time he flipped back into it by accident. He did it again more recently. The fact that it’s happened more than once is a clear indication that Dimentio truly can’t see other dimensions around them at present, and it’s not because of the dark, it’s because he can’t get the water out of his left eye.

It’s a vicious cycle; he must have been flipping back and forth to find somewhere away from the water, only to continually disrupt his own magic by nearly drowning himself every time.

“Um.” She reaches out cautiously, until her fingers brush against Dimentio’s jaw.

He feels like an odd combination of delicate and dangerous, skin soft but features angular. His hair is a salt-swept, bedraggled mess. Past the bridge of a sharp nose, the left side of his face is a framework of narrow scars, like fissures in his skin. Nastasia traces along them underneath the opening of his eye for a moment, noting that the cracks are small enough that she’s never noticed their presence even in the light. Eventually, he twitches slightly and she draws back, understanding that she’s outstayed her welcome.

“Nassy, are ya feeling people up again?” Mimi asks.

“Wh-what?” Nastasia stammers at the allegation. “No, I just—”

“Here,” Mimi says blithely, pawing until she locates one of Nastasia’s hands and bringing it to rest on something…furry? “Feel how soft Gigi’s hair is!”

Nastasia balks. “M-Mimi!”

“What? I think he’s asleep already, it’s fine! You know how hard to wake he is.”

Luigi is asleep, if the steady sound of his breathing is any indication, but that hardly excuses people violating his personal space without permission.

…His hair is plenty soft, though. As expected, he’s a lot drier than she is, presumably since he’s been moving around a lot more.

“…Mimi,” she says slowly. “Where is his hat.”

“Huh? I dunno?”

“Mimi.”

“He took it off when he laid down!” Mimi says defensively.

“If he wakes up and it’s missing…” Nastasia warns.

“It’d be his own dumb fault!” Despite this, Mimi can be heard groping around in the dark for the missing article. “Here! Here it is!”

The hat is pressed incessantly into Nastasia’s side until she clutches it, bewildered. “Why are you giving it to me?”

“You’re the one who’s so worried about it. I don’t want it.”

•※•※•

Time passes—or, at least, they think it does. It’s hard to tell when there’s no frame of reference for time even existing aside from counting the number of breaths they take. Everything is so still, but now there’s almost a thickness to it, as if they’ve escaped one sea only to tumble into another.

O’Chunks challenges himself to sit stiller than the still, so if anything dares move he will know. His ears strain beyond the girls’ prattle for any sounds of something approaching, anything looming in the darkness.

It’s a little easier, now that Luigi has settled and isn’t roaming around blindly, a ridiculous distraction. Dimentio is back from his groping search, sitting stiffly, barely brushing O’Chunks’ left shoulder, and he’s trembling. Obviously, he’s trying hard not to, but he can’t help it. He isn’t afraid as much as he is cold, O’Chunks knows, because Dimentio can hide emotions better than anyone he’s met, but as for physical reactions...

It’s an odd sort of torture. O’Chunks knows he runs hot as a furnace, maybe just his free arm around the magician would be enough of a comfort. But it’s Dimentio. Although his fiercely protective tendencies beg O’Chunks to act, it would be an unwelcome gesture, and Dimentio doesn’t deserve it anyway. Why can’t he just flip into D for a change of clothes?

On O’Chunks’ right side, pressed closely against his side, Mimi is finally relaxed. Gone is the instinct to run full tilt until the light reappears. Luigi is asleep, the anxiety that accompanies his awareness no longer bleeding into the space he inhabits. His head is a heavy, reassuring weight against her legs, an anchor. His heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest, too, for once slow and controlled under her hand.

“Oi,” O’Chunks starts guardedly, making Mimi jump, as Dimentio has shifted away and removed himself from their pile.

“I will find us a way out,” Dimentio says flatly, from the air, of course where O’Chunks can’t determine his position.

And, to his dismay, Nastasia says, “I’ll go with you, ‘k?”

There is a pause; Dimentio doesn’t say anything against it, which is as good as an admission of ‘I’m okay with that’ as he ever gives.

“Nae, Nastasia,” O’Chunks grinds out through clenched teeth. “I don’ think—”

“You—” Nastasia says softly as she stands, and her hands find O’Chunks’ chin, traveling up the jutting ridge of his twice-broken nose until she has her index finger pressing into the knot between his eyebrows. He can barely feel it, he realizes, his brow so thoroughly pinched with edge. “—need to calm down.”

He nods against the touch obediently, willing himself to trust her, to accept the consequences of it.

•※•※•

“How do you know, um, you’re not just retracing your steps?”

Dimentio waits for Nastasia to step over whatever might be on the ground, until her hand is flat against the back of his shoulder again.

“We are going southeast,” he says, only half-annoyed that he has to keep stopping for her. A slow trek, yes, but not a lonely one this time. “I have not been this way yet.”

And he has tried north and west already; both run parallel to the dimension they’d been in prior, so the hope is that the opposite direction will yield better results. He is sick of flipping into punishing wetness.

There is something less mind-numbing about having someone following along with him. It’s somewhat easier to gauge how far he’s gone, hearing accompanying footfalls, whereas even with an innate sense of distance gliding through the air is…it feels like distance is a concept that doesn’t exist with the absence of light. How can you tell, when your surroundings never change?

“Hold still,” he says, shrugging her hand off. She lets it fall to her side, and he flips into a sky. The atmosphere is cool and too thin, even though his lungs automatically adjust to accommodate his need to breathe. The clouds are dark below him, smelling like a coming storm. A few kilometers away is the ground, what looks like a tall forest dotting flat land.

Not a good place to flip with anyone in tow, but it’s a start, and blessedly not underwater even if it promises to still be damp. A little farther, maybe, will take them to a flip point safely closer to the ground. He doesn’t travel at all to experiment, because then he would lose Nastasia. Grudgingly, he returns to her.

There aren’t enough words to describe how startling flipping back into a lightless dimension is, the way his eye attempts to adjust to something that renders it useless. Since Dimension D is effectively transparent, it depends on light to shine through it—since this place has no light, neither does his dimension.

In hindsight, he could have gone in to fetch clothes just a minute ago, where there was light, but soon they should be out of here, anyway.

“Nastasia,” he says.

“Here.” Her hand fumbles up his back until her grip finds his shoulder again. “…You’re not as wet as you were.”

“Yes. It is nice.”

They carry on. There are columns of trees dotted around them, or something else tall that disrupts the flow of the air, but nothing smells green. A forest as dead as the rest of the dimension, or maybe an odd collection of pillars.

Twice more he flips back and forth; the first time finds him even farther from the ground than the last, so they change direction. Then they must travel too far, for the next dimension is completely different. It’s dry and open, but judging by the quality of the air the others wouldn’t survive in it for long.

Nastasia doesn’t comment other than her initial observation that they must have broken away from the ocean. With anyone else, Dimentio knows he wouldn’t be so lucky. After his third experimental flip (back to the cloudy area, closer to the ground but still too far a drop for Nastasia or O’Chunks), she breaks her silence.

“Dimentio. Can I ask you something?”

This is hardly a question in itself; it comes off more as a warning. Her tone indicates that whatever she’s about to ask will be something he’d rather not answer.

“What are you going to do when we find Blumiere?”

He hums, dragging her along. “Whatever needs to be done.”

She enjoys the answer about as much as he appreciates being asked. Her fingers dig into his cloak. The air around them thickens.

“It seems rather late in our journey to be considering this,” he remarks, forced to stop moving when she no longer follows. “And if you find my judgement inaccurate, you are not entitled to agree.”

She digests this statement slowly, equally disturbed and confused by the intimation.

“If you try to hurt him…” she begins, and he laughs over her, sudden and sharp as a knife.

“Hurt who? You have never even met Blumiere, and you are set on defending him?”

Nastasia squares her shoulders. “He’s—”

“—Already dead,” Dimentio says, voice clipped. “He died the moment he opened the book, when that thing took him. And I will destroy him as many times as it takes for him to rest in peace. Hand off.”

Her hand comes off his shoulder, he flips through and back once more, clicking his tongue in annoyance: still too far from the ground.

“Because he still has it,” Nastasia says hollowly, recalling her discussion with Merlon back before they left Flipside. “The book.”

“It still has him,” Dimentio corrects her. “And if there is no way to separate them, well—” He stops abruptly, and she bumps into him. “Fire.”

“What?”

“Fire,” he repeats tersely. “There is smoke on the wind.”

Nastasia tucks her hair behind her ear, attentive. Faintly, she hears the crackle of something burning. It can’t be more than several feet away if it’s small, one hundred feet if larger.

There is something incredibly, undeniably unnerving about knowing a fire is nearby but not being able to see it.

“We can’t go this way,” she says, tugging him backward, “we don’t know how close—”

Her voice is drowned out by a crash of what sounds like a terrible peal of thunder. The sound is so dense that she can’t tell how close it even is, simply that the scale of it is massive. The ground trembles with it, and Nastasia stumbles backwards, away from Dimentio. Something screams past her ear, loud and disorienting, but the next one doesn’t miss.

Her arm erupts in pain just above her elbow and she cries out. She knows before touching it that something has torn her skin open, the wound searing madly as if on fire—it is, she thinks, panicked because her instinct to cover it with her other hand is halted by the feel of heat radiating off of it. Her skin seems to cauterize itself.

“Nastasia!” Dimentio hisses from somewhere to her left, and there’s the sound of debris bouncing off one of his barriers. “Where—”

“H-Here—” she starts weakly with a groan, only for something startlingly cold to collide with her side—Dimentio has taken off his cloak and thrown it at her. The wet cloth slaps painfully into her injury, but it takes away some of the urgency. The burning sensation is soothed enough that she can focus again.

She scrabbles around the earth, trying to find Dimentio, when from behind them the unmistakable roar of O’Chunks sounds like a battle cry, “NASTASIA!”

There’s too much noise to really distinguish everything happening at once, but it sounds a lot like O’Chunks is blindly barreling through obstacles to get to the source of her pained yell.

“Don’t come this way!” she shouts desperately. “We’re coming back!”

The sound of crackling creeps closer, an increase in temperature, a thick swirl of barely breathable air.

Dimentio laughs grimly, replacing one broken barrier wall with another, hoping it’s big enough to keep Nastasia, wherever she’s fallen, out of harm’s way. “Not dust… Ash!” A volcano. A land desolate of greenery, consisting of cooled lava trails. The uninhabitable grounds of soot and death.

“Nassy!” Mimi cries as O’Chunks heavy, pounding steps approach. “Are you okay?”

“D-don’t come—” Nastasia tries again, struggling to right herself.

Another barrier shatters; Dimentio finds Nastasia and pulls her by her uninjured elbow roughly toward the crackling. “Yes, come!” he shouts, as Nastasia tries to dig her heels in, confused. “Hurry, perhaps!”

“L-let go!” Nastasia snaps. Dimentio yanks her until they’re up against a wall of his making.

O’Chunks snarls at the fright in her voice, honing in on it. Dimentio jerks out of the way when O’Chunks nearly plows straight into him. Close enough now, he presses into Nastasia with his shoulder (one); touches O’Chunks’ shin with his foot (two); finds Mimi, perched on a large shoulder, with one hand (three); touches Luigi, still sleeping, damn him, under an arm, with the other (four)—

All accounted for—snap.

They land in a discombobulated heap in the grass. The rain has finally started to fall, but it’s a pleasant smattering of drops.

It might even have been enjoyable, after all that sudden heat, were it not for O’Chunks’ giant hand closing around Dimentio’s throat. He makes a weak croaking sound, legs kicking uselessly as he’s lifted from the ground against a tree.

“O’Chunks—” Nastasia winces, rolling off of her side and blinking into the shocking light, pupils shrinking at seeing too much now. She’s cradling her arm, still with the cloak wrapped around it, stained red. “Stop it—”

“Shouldn’ta left her with ye, known it weren’t enough tae trust that ye wouldn’—”

Mimi jumps up with a shriek, wide eyed and disoriented, trying to pull O’Chunks’ arm away.

“—can’ believe I let ye—ye touch her ag’in I’ll—”

“Chunks, he didn’t hurt me!” Nastasia barks angrily. “Put—him—down!”

He seethes, glaring the rest of the meaning out, and reluctantly opens his fingers enough for Dimentio to crumple, limp and coughing, down against the trunk. He jerks his arm out of Mimi’s grasp; she barely notices the aggression in it, instead kneeling by Dimentio to help him recover. Then O’Chunks turns around, finally looks at Nastasia, and the angry color drains from his face.

“Nastasia, yer…yer arm!” He approaches, crouches down and reaches out to remove her makeshift wrapping.

She pushes away on her feet, sliding backward on the forest floor until Luigi presses a reassuring hand against her back, having been woken by the fall. “Don’t,” she warns, looking O’Chunks right in the eye, and he flinches.

He stands frozen for a moment, lost.

Behind him, Dimentio coughs so hard he retches.

That gets O’Chunks moving. He turns and walks very carefully into the trees, disappearing into them.

Mimi rises quickly.

“No,” Luigi says gently, peeling the cloak off to look at Nastasia’s wound, and Mimi stops to stare at him. He didn’t sleep enough; he looks exhausted. “Don’t follow him yet. Give him some time to cool off.”

Nastasia pushes her glasses up to rest on her crown, pressing her fingers into the bridge of her nose, wishing it would prevent the headache building behind her eyes. In the process Luigi’s hat, which absently she had put on to keep track of it, falls from her head and back into its owner’s hands.

“Oh,” she says, wondering if she should apologize for wearing it without permission.

“Thanks for guarding it while I was out,” he says around a yawn, stretching out lazily on the lawn, under the gentle rain. “Should probably wrap that.” He nudges her arm. “And clean it.”

His eyes close, leaving that duty inevitably to someone else.

•※•※•

[krethes]

same one more to love anon here SPICY SNIPPET PLS OR ALL OF THE ABOVE OR WHATEVER YOU WANT

Here's a little bit of spice, little bit of oh god why!

He hears it before anything, a muffled groan, a too-sharp smack that breaks through what has to be three layers of silencing charms, not that they're doing much good. Remus looks swiftly up at Sirius. "You told him we're coming, yes?"

Sirius waves him off with a scoff. "He's my brother and it's the middle of the work day. I hardly need an appointment, Moony!"

The squeak of a wooden desk on a tile floor makes Remus think otherwise. "Maybe we should send a Patronus?"

"Yeah, Pads, you can show off your new wolf!" James teases, slinging his arm around Remus's shoulder. "Sure Reg'll get a crack out of that."

"I'm not sending in a Patronus!" Sirius snaps. He rolls his eyes and flicks James's nose, for good measure. "He's here every day from the arse crack of dawn to seven pm, workaholic twat that he is."

Remus grimaces and wishes, not for the first time, that he could just shut off his stupid hearing. Except it's not just that. Scents are now filtering through, permeating his brain and firing off synapses that really are not appropriate. "It's not that I don't think he's here," Remus says in a final attempt to avert this crisis. "Rather the opposite, in fact. It's just… um. He might be with someone?"

Sirius gives him an odd look. "I mean, we're not strutting in there naked and tied, are we? I'm sure his client will survive the interruption."

"Yeah!" James agrees. "He fired his last assistant, too, right? That Amanda bird? So it's fine!"

Remus looks heavenward and sighs. God, why was he in love with two absolute idiots? He braces himself for the worst as Sirius opens the thick cedar door emblazoned with "Chimera Cursebreaking". Remus hangs back, but even still, he gets a fairly decent eyeful of the scene. 

Regulus is poured over the side of his desk, trousers down but shirt fully on and buttoned (with cufflinks and all), getting absolutely railed by his mate: {REDACTED}.

[lipstickontheglass1985]

also god the guy ordering before me was SO rude to the [redacted local chain] employee. like he was trying to pay with a 100 eur bill and the employee was like "um sir maybe u happen to have cash of smaller nominals..... or maybe you can pay with card" and the guy was so PISSED. he was like "no i dont have smaller cash and also i cant pay with card because [reason i didnt catch] but in that case u guys should have a sign that says card only if you cant accept cash!! you want smaller cash? well i can give u 70 cents is that what you want? I DONT CARE IM A CLIENT!!!!" and its like brother. its 10 am on a sunday. is that really neccessary.