#and this is why simplifying the matter is stupid

[radlymona]

Uhh Australia is not 90% White. That’s way offbase I’m sorry. It’s probably closer to about 65-70% but it’s harder to determine since we don’t strictly note race in any census. We note ethnicity which is why I referred to it above.

In cities, the most important part of the referendum because they make up most of the states’ voting population (and you need a majority of states to win a referendum) this percentage drops even further. Again hard to determine exactly, but the percentage of White peoples in Sydney is something like 55%. And guess where a large portion of White Australians live in Sydney? In the aforementioned purple section. The ones who actually voted yes. The reason they voted Yes isn’t necessarily because they have White Guilt (though I’m sure it’s part of it) but because White Australians tend to be more educated at the tertiary level. This means that they actually learned about Australian settler colonialism without any whitewashing.

If that’s not enough, Sydney and Melbourne which combined are about 45% of the country’s entire population, are two of the worlds most diverse cities. The former has the third largest foreign-born population in the world and the latter has the fifth-largest foreign-born population. So yes, I do think there’s some reason to consider this population an important demographic.

Furthermore, Western Sydney electorates are considered our own version of “swing states” because of how important they are in elections. It’s not a majority white part of the city (with 2.6 million people alone). As anyone who has ever stepped foot in Western Sydney would know.

The point of this is my entire comment was that this is ignored demographic by leftists because it’s convenient, Ignoring around 30-35% of your voting base is stupid. Im not saying this was the deciding factor but it was a major one.

Further reading on the importance of Western Sydney in elections:

https://amp.abc.net.au/article/102855090

An excerpt: Migrant and culturally diverse communities, [No] campaigners said, are key to their success.

The No campaign knew that this population is overwhelmingly socially conservative and has considerable electoral power. The Yes campaign was hesitant to admit that.

Also as the article highlights, the massive cost of living crisis is hitting the working-class immigrant population the hardest. Having a referendum when the homeless rate and food insecurity has never been higher was a massive miscalculation. As much as I desperately wanted the Referendum to succeed, I think it not being delayed until unemployment and inflation had decreased enough was not the right move. It's why the No Vote was as high as it was (60%) whereas earlier in the year it was estimated it would have been closer to an even split.

the fact that indigenous people of australia are being treated as lesser at a political level in their own native country and this continues to be the case bc their colonisers don’t want that to change is disheartening.

[specialagentartemis]

I get variations on this comment on my post about history misinformation all the time: "why does it matter?" Why does it matter that people believe falsehoods about history? Why does it matter if people spread history misinformation? Why does it matter if people on tumblr believe that those bronze dodecahedra were used for knitting, or that Persephone had a daughter named Mespyrian? It's not the kind of misinformation that actually hurts people, like anti-vaxx propaganda or climate change denial. It doesn't hurt anyone to believe something false about the past.

Which, one, thanks for letting me know on my post that you think my job doesn't matter and what I do is pointless, if it doesn't really matter if we know the truth or make up lies about history because lies don't hurt anyone. But two, there are lots of reasons that it matters.

It encourages us to distrust historians when they talk about other aspects of history. You might think it's harmless to believe that Pharaoh Hatshepsut was trans. It's less harmless when you're espousing that the Holocaust wasn't really about Jews because the Nazis "came for trans people first." You might think it's harmless to believe that the French royalty of Versailles pooped and urinated on the floor of the palace all the time, because they were asshole rich people anyway, who cares, we hate the rich here; it's rather less harmless when you decide that the USSR was the communist ideal and Good, Actually, and that reports of its genocidal oppression are actually lies.

It encourages anti-intellectualism in other areas of scholarship. Deciding based on your own gut that the experts don't know what they're talking about and are either too stupid to realize the truth, or maliciously hiding the truth, is how you get to anti-vaxxers and climate change denial. It is also how you come to discount housing-first solutions for homelessness or the idea that long-term sustained weight loss is both biologically unlikely and health-wise unnecessary for the majority of fat people - because they conflict with what you feel should be true. Believing what you want to be true about history, because you want to believe it, and discounting fact-based corrections because you don't want them to be true, can then bleed over into how you approach other sociological and scientific topics.

How we think about history informs how we think about the present. A lot of people want certain things to be true - this famous person from history was gay or trans, this sexist story was actually feminist in its origin - because we want proof that gay people, trans people, and women deserve to be respected, and this gives evidence to prove we once were and deserve to be. But let me tell you a different story: on Thanksgiving of 2016, I was at a family friend's house and listening to their drunk conservative relative rant, and he told me, confidently, that the Roman Empire fell because they instituted universal healthcare, which was proof that Obama was destroying America. Of course that's nonsense. But projecting what we think is true about the world back onto history, and then using that as recursive proof that that is how the world is... is shoddy scholarship, and gets used for topics you don't agree with just as much as the ones you do. We should not be encouraging this, because our politics should be informed by the truth and material reality, not how we wish the past proved us right.

It frequently reinforces "Good vs. Bad" dichotomies that are at best unhelpful and at worst victim-blaming. A very common thread of historical misinformation on tumblr is about the innocence or benevolence of oppressed groups, slandered by oppressors who were far worse. This very frequently has truth to it - but makes the lies hard to separate out. It often simplifies the narrative, and implies that the reason that colonialism and oppression were bad was because the victims were Good and didn't deserve it... not because colonialism and oppression are bad. You see this sometimes with radical feminist mother goddess Neolithic feminist utopia stuff, but you also see it a lot regarding Native American and African history. I have seen people earnestly argue that Aztecs did not practice human sacrifice, that that was a lie made up by the Spanish to slander them. That is not true. Human sacrifice was part of Aztec, Maya, and many Central American war/religious practices. They are significantly more complex than often presented, and came from a captive-based system of warfare that significantly reduced the number of people who got killed in war compared to European styles of war that primarily killed people on the battlefield rather than taking them captive for sacrifice... but the human sacrifice was real and did happen. This can often come off with the implications of a 'noble savage' or an 'innocent victim' that implies that the bad things the Spanish conquistadors did were bad because the victims were innocent or good. This is a very easy trap to fall into; if the victims were good, they didn't deserve it. Right? This logic is dangerous when you are presented with a person or group who did something bad... you're caught in a bind. Did they deserve their injustice or oppression because they did something bad? This kind of logic drives a lot of transphobia, homophobia, racism, and defenses of Kyle Rittenhouse today. The answer to a colonialist logic of "The Aztecs deserved to be conquered because they did human sacrifice and that's bad" is not "The Aztecs didn't do human sacrifice actually, that's just Spanish propaganda" (which is a lie) it should be "We Americans do human sacrifice all the god damn time with our forever wars in the Middle East, we just don't call it that. We use bullets and bombs rather than obsidian knives but we kill way, way more people in the name of our country. What does that make us? Maybe genocide is not okay regardless of if you think the people are weird and scary." It becomes hard to square your ethics of the Innocent Victim and Lying Perpetrator when you see real, complicated, individual-level and group-level interactions, where no group is made up of members who are all completely pure and good, and they don't deserve to be oppressed anyway.

It makes you an unwitting tool of the oppressor. The favorite, favorite allegation transphobes level at trans people, and conservatives at queer people, is that we're lying to push the Gay Agenda. We're liars or deluded fools. If you say something about queer or trans history that's easy to debunk as false, you have permanently hurt your credibility - and the cause of queer history. It makes you easy to write off as a liar or a deluded fool who needs misinformation to make your case. If you say Louisa May Alcott was trans, that's easy to counter with "there is literally no evidence of that, and lots of evidence that she was fine being a woman," and instantly tanks your credibility going forward, so when you then say James Barry was trans and push back against a novel or biopic that treats James Barry as a woman, you get "you don't know what you're talking about, didn't you say Louisa May Alcott was trans too?" TERFs love to call trans people liars - do not hand them ammunition, not even a single bullet. Make sure you can back up what you say with facts and evidence. This is true of homophobes, of racists, of sexists. Be confident of your facts, and have facts to give to the hopeful and questioning learners who you are relating this story to, or the bigots who you are telling off, because misinformation can only hurt you and your cause.

It makes the queer, female, POC, or other marginalized listeners hurt, sad, and betrayed when something they thought was a reflection of their own experiences turns out not to be real. This is a good response to a performance art piece purporting to tell a real story of gay WWI soldiers, until the author revealed it as fiction. Why would you want to set yourself up for disappointment like that? Why would you want to risk inflicting that disappointment and betrayal on anyone else?

It makes it harder to learn the actual truth.

Historical misinformation has consequences, and those consequences are best avoided - by checking your facts, citing your sources, and taking the time and effort to make sure you are actually telling the truth.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Demon-haunted computers are back, baby

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

As a science fiction writer, I am professionally irritated by a lot of sf movies. Not only do those writers get paid a lot more than I do, they insist on including things like "self-destruct" buttons on the bridges of their starships.

Look, I get it. When the evil empire is closing in on your flagship with its secret transdimensional technology, it's important that you keep those secrets out of the emperor's hand. An irrevocable self-destruct switch there on the bridge gets the job done! (It has to be irrevocable, otherwise the baddies'll just swarm the bridge and toggle it off).

But c'mon. If there's a facility built into your spaceship that causes it to explode no matter what the people on the bridge do, that is also a pretty big security risk! What if the bad guy figures out how to hijack the measure that – by design – the people who depend on the spaceship as a matter of life and death can't detect or override?

I mean, sure, you can try to simplify that self-destruct system to make it easier to audit and assure yourself that it doesn't have any bugs in it, but remember Schneier's Law: anyone can design a security system that works so well that they themselves can't think of a flaw in it. That doesn't mean you've made a security system that works – only that you've made a security system that works on people stupider than you.

I know it's weird to be worried about realism in movies that pretend we will ever find a practical means to visit other star systems and shuttle back and forth between them (which we are very, very unlikely to do):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

But this kind of foolishness galls me. It galls me even more when it happens in the real world of technology design, which is why I've spent the past quarter-century being very cross about Digital Rights Management in general, and trusted computing in particular.

It all starts in 2002, when a team from Microsoft visited our offices at EFF to tell us about this new thing they'd dreamed up called "trusted computing":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/05/trusting-trust/#thompsons-devil

The big idea was to stick a second computer inside your computer, a very secure little co-processor, that you couldn't access directly, let alone reprogram or interfere with. As far as this "trusted platform module" was concerned, you were the enemy. The "trust" in trusted computing was about other people being able to trust your computer, even if they didn't trust you.

So that little TPM would do all kinds of cute tricks. It could observe and produce a cryptographically signed manifest of the entire boot-chain of your computer, which was meant to be an unforgeable certificate attesting to which kind of computer you were running and what software you were running on it. That meant that programs on other computers could decide whether to talk to your computer based on whether they agreed with your choices about which code to run.

This process, called "remote attestation," is generally billed as a way to identify and block computers that have been compromised by malware, or to identify gamers who are running cheats and refuse to play with them. But inevitably it turns into a way to refuse service to computers that have privacy blockers turned on, or are running stream-ripping software, or whose owners are blocking ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

After all, a system that treats the device's owner as an adversary is a natural ally for the owner's other, human adversaries. The rubric for treating the owner as an adversary focuses on the way that users can be fooled by bad people with bad programs. If your computer gets taken over by malicious software, that malware might intercept queries from your antivirus program and send it false data that lulls it into thinking your computer is fine, even as your private data is being plundered and your system is being used to launch malware attacks on others.

These separate, non-user-accessible, non-updateable secure systems serve a nubs of certainty, a remote fortress that observes and faithfully reports on the interior workings of your computer. This separate system can't be user-modifiable or field-updateable, because then malicious software could impersonate the user and disable the security chip.

It's true that compromised computers are a real and terrifying problem. Your computer is privy to your most intimate secrets and an attacker who can turn it against you can harm you in untold ways. But the widespread redesign of out computers to treat us as their enemies gives rise to a range of completely predictable and – I would argue – even worse harms. Building computers that treat their owners as untrusted parties is a system that works well, but fails badly.

First of all, there are the ways that trusted computing is designed to hurt you. The most reliable way to enshittify something is to supply it over a computer that runs programs you can't alter, and that rats you out to third parties if you run counter-programs that disenshittify the service you're using. That's how we get inkjet printers that refuse to use perfectly good third-party ink and cars that refuse to accept perfectly good engine repairs if they are performed by third-party mechanics:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

It's how we get cursed devices and appliances, from the juicer that won't squeeze third-party juice to the insulin pump that won't connect to a third-party continuous glucose monitor:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

But trusted computing doesn't just create an opaque veil between your computer and the programs you use to inspect and control it. Trusted computing creates a no-go zone where programs can change their behavior based on whether they think they're being observed.

The most prominent example of this is Dieselgate, where auto manufacturers murdered hundreds of people by gimmicking their cars to emit illegal amount of NOX. Key to Dieselgate was a program that sought to determine whether it was being observed by regulators (it checked for the telltale signs of the standard test-suite) and changed its behavior to color within the lines.

Software that is seeking to harm the owner of the device that's running it must be able to detect when it is being run inside a simulation, a test-suite, a virtual machine, or any other hallucinatory virtual world. Just as Descartes couldn't know whether anything was real until he assured himself that he could trust his senses, malware is always questing to discover whether it is running in the real universe, or in a simulation created by a wicked god:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/28/descartes-was-an-optimist/#uh-oh

That's why mobile malware uses clever gambits like periodically checking for readings from your device's accelerometer, on the theory that a virtual mobile phone running on a security researcher's test bench won't have the fidelity to generate plausible jiggles to match the real data that comes from a phone in your pocket:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/google-play-malware-used-phones-motion-sensors-to-conceal-itself/

Sometimes this backfires in absolutely delightful ways. When the Wannacry ransomware was holding the world hostage, the security researcher Marcus Hutchins noticed that its code made reference to a very weird website: iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com. Hutchins stood up a website at that address and every Wannacry-infection in the world went instantly dormant:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#the-matrix

It turns out that Wannacry's authors were using that ferkakte URL the same way that mobile malware authors were using accelerometer readings – to fulfill Descartes' imperative to distinguish the Matrix from reality. The malware authors knew that security researchers often ran malicious code inside sandboxes that answered every network query with fake data in hopes of eliciting responses that could be analyzed for weaknesses. So the Wannacry worm would periodically poll this nonexistent website and, if it got an answer, it would assume that it was being monitored by a security researcher and it would retreat to an encrypted blob, ceasing to operate lest it give intelligence to the enemy. When Hutchins put a webserver up at iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com, every Wannacry instance in the world was instantly convinced that it was running on an enemy's simulator and withdrew into sulky hibernation.

The arms race to distinguish simulation from reality is critical and the stakes only get higher by the day. Malware abounds, even as our devices grow more intimately woven through our lives. We put our bodies into computers – cars, buildings – and computers inside our bodies. We absolutely want our computers to be able to faithfully convey what's going on inside them.

But we keep running as hard as we can in the opposite direction, leaning harder into secure computing models built on subsystems in our computers that treat us as the threat. Take UEFI, the ubiquitous security system that observes your computer's boot process, halting it if it sees something it doesn't approve of. On the one hand, this has made installing GNU/Linux and other alternative OSes vastly harder across a wide variety of devices. This means that when a vendor end-of-lifes a gadget, no one can make an alternative OS for it, so off the landfill it goes.

It doesn't help that UEFI – and other trusted computing modules – are covered by Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which makes it a felony to publish information that can bypass or weaken the system. The threat of a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine means that UEFI and other trusted computing systems are understudied, leaving them festering with longstanding bugs:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/09/free-sample/#que-viva

Here's where it gets really bad. If an attacker can get inside UEFI, they can run malicious software that – by design – no program running on our computers can detect or block. That badware is running in "Ring -1" – a zone of privilege that overrides the operating system itself.

Here's the bad news: UEFI malware has already been detected in the wild:

https://securelist.com/cosmicstrand-uefi-firmware-rootkit/106973/

And here's the worst news: researchers have just identified another exploitable UEFI bug, dubbed Pixiefail:

https://blog.quarkslab.com/pixiefail-nine-vulnerabilities-in-tianocores-edk-ii-ipv6-network-stack.html

Writing in Ars Technica, Dan Goodin breaks down Pixiefail, describing how anyone on the same LAN as a vulnerable computer can infect its firmware:

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/new-uefi-vulnerabilities-send-firmware-devs-across-an-entire-ecosystem-scrambling/

That vulnerability extends to computers in a data-center where the attacker has a cloud computing instance. PXE – the system that Pixiefail attacks – isn't widely used in home or office environments, but it's very common in data-centers.

Again, once a computer is exploited with Pixiefail, software running on that computer can't detect or delete the Pixiefail code. When the compromised computer is queried by the operating system, Pixiefail undetectably lies to the OS. "Hey, OS, does this drive have a file called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope." "Hey, OS, are you running a process called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope."

This is a self-destruct switch that's been compromised by the enemy, and which no one on the bridge can de-activate – by design. It's not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last.

There are models for helping your computer bust out of the Matrix. Back in 2016, Edward Snowden and bunnie Huang prototyped and published source code and schematics for an "introspection engine":

https://assets.pubpub.org/aacpjrja/AgainstTheLaw-CounteringLawfulAbusesofDigitalSurveillance.pdf

This is a single-board computer that lives in an ultraslim shim that you slide between your iPhone's mainboard and its case, leaving a ribbon cable poking out of the SIM slot. This connects to a case that has its own OLED display. The board has leads that physically contact each of the network interfaces on the phone, conveying any data they transit to the screen so that you can observe the data your phone is sending without having to trust your phone.

(I liked this gadget so much that I included it as a major plot point in my 2020 novel Attack Surface, the third book in the Little Brother series):

https://craphound.com/attacksurface/

We don't have to cede control over our devices in order to secure them. Indeed, we can't ever secure them unless we can control them. Self-destruct switches don't belong on the bridge of your spaceship, and trusted computing modules don't belong in your devices.

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/17/descartes-delenda-est/#self-destruct-sequence-initiated

Image: Mike (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/stillwellmike/15676883261/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[mothmans-side-ho]

Armand called Lestat a clown in the most round about way

s2e3 hot wired the two passions in my brain into this info dump, however seeing as a central theme of this episode (and the season) is power, status, and their subversions, it seems relevant. for context, I have 2 degrees in theatre, specifically theatre history and how trends effect form. (I am in no way an expert though, and this is very simplified). long story short, I'm relishing in being a big ol nerd about this entire season

FINALLY, we got to see Lestat (a version of) strutting his stuff on stage in a scene with peak commedia dell'arte shenanigans. Commedia dell'arte is/was an originally Italian form of theatre which was defined by lazzi (comedic bits), improv, and stock characters. these stock characters have been around from Roman times and are still super familiar to us today - the young lovers, the pervy old rich man, the soldier with bravado, etc. It's been seen as a somewhat formulaic form of theatre which relied on quickly identifiable characters and situations so audiences can sit back and enjoy the butt jokes and servant beatings.

In the book - specifically The Vampire Lestat - our beloved Lestat RELISHES in playing a character called Lelio, one of the young lovers. It is in playing Lelio that he "found a tongue for verses and wit [he]'d never had in life" (TVL pg 31). It is in playing Lelio that Lestat first gets a taste of the person he can become, and it is in Lelio that we see the first glimpses of the Lestat which so fully seduces Louis. In short, Lestat casts himself as the suave and handsome romantic protagonist, here to sweep people off their feet. The young lovers are also notably some of the only roles portrayed without masks, to emphasize their youth and natural beauty.

SO IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN LESTAT SHOWS UP IN S2E3 DRESSED LIKE THIS:

He has a half mask! He's wearing all sorts of colors! He's clearly acting as a go between between two other characters who seem to be of a higher status than him! As I said before, commedia dell'arte can be very formulaic (especially by the late 1700s when it is being codified away from being improv focused to being cemented into scripts). From all of these visual and characterization clues, Lestat is not playing Lelio the young lover, he's playing a Harlequin! And his costume seems to be heavily based off of this Harlequin (Arlecchino, Arlecino, etc.) which is literally the wikipedia image of a Harlequin.

(note, if you give a fuck, this image is depicting an Arlechino from 1671, roughly 125 years before Lestat on stage. in my mind, this accounts for the changes in silhouette, styling, why Lestat doesn't wear the mask for the entirety of the performance, etc. Also, just while we're talking about costuming, I believe the late 18th Century was still a time in which actors would have been expected to provide their own costumes, which would explain why Lestat's version is made with expensive fabrics and includes cunty little details like the bow in his hair. At the very least, I can see him making looking good a priority as the owner of the theater and as...well...Lestat.)

Okay, okay, okay. Why does this matter?

Harlequins are not characters of any social status. They're servants who are quick witted enough to get into antics but stupid enough to be commanded by animalistic instincts (lust, food, you name it). The Harlequin being beaten by their master was ENORMOUSLY funny, and is the origin of the term "slapstick comedy". They a memorable iteration of clown.

In this scene, which I'm willing to bet was inspired by (if not outright) Carlo Goldoni's A Servant of Two Masters, Lestat plays a servant who interacts with two characters. One appears to be a young woman in a breeches part - another common trope of commedia performance. The other appears to be the young male lover! We see Lestat prancing between the two, seemingly facilitating some romance plot, being paid for his compliance, and doing a good ol fashioned butt lazzi. (Could he be presenting his ass for beating? Maybe.)

So why is Lestat not the young valiant lover, but instead A LITERAL CLOWN? Three potential, not conflicting, reasons. By the time Lestat is performing (mid to late 1790s, based off Armand's earlier comment about Robespierre's 1794 execution), the Harlequin characters were the most sought after roles! At this time, we are seeing the emergence of "Celebrity Culture" where audiences sought out actors for their off-stage personalities as much as their on-stage ones. This is an extremely fitting position for Lestat to fall into. Yay a semblance of historical accuracy!

Secondly, Lestat's ENTIRE ROLE in season two is to come between this season's new pair of young(ish) lovers: Louis & Armand. Lestat's function is to repeatedly detract and distract from their relationship through Dreamstat's antics (appearing at the piano calling Louis a whore, having Louis re-kill him, etc.). Additionally, simply put, Lestat (and Sam Reid as Lestat) is a lot of fun to watch. He is absolutely a stand out (if not THE stand out) of the show! His constant ability to serve cunt is often what your eye is drawn to, he pulls focus to himself, and often undercuts the more subdued, philosophical, and morose nature of others. Both on-stage and on-screen, Lestat continuously upstages his screen partners. He does kinda function as a Harlequin. But in the end, the Harlequin's antics are also what ultimately drive the young lovers together. If not for Lestat's actions, Louis and Armand would have never met nor bonded over knowing this fucked up brat prince.

But we also have to remember! This portion of the episode is presented by Armand the mind fuckery master. It is absolutely in his best interests to paint Lestat as some sort of ridiculous, lesser being driven by animalistic nature. Especially if - by extension of the metaphor - this frames he and Louis as the virtuous and optimistic young lovers, striving to cling to each other in a world of chaos. I would be EXTREMELY interested to see if, when recollected by someone else, Lestat appears in a different role or characterized differently.

Again, given the celebrity culture of the time and Lestat being himself, it is entirely believable that he would appear in the Harlequin role (Truffaldino, if this is Goldoni's Servant). However, I think it's extremely telling that in Armand's iteration of the story Lestat is not the dignified, refined, and sympathetic young romantic. He is instead a literal fucking clown.

[seospicybin]

TOO HOT TO HANDLE.

PART II

Han x reader. (s)

Too Hot To Handle masterlist

Synopsis: You and Han become contestants in a reality dating show, Too Hot To Handle. (12,7k words)

Author's note: I had so much fun writing Han's season idk why so I hope you enjoy this one too! x

The party is in full swing.

Everyone is dancing and getting friction off each other, having the time of our lives by forgetting that everyone here is locked in this sexless retreat.

Han has his hand around your waist and you look over your shoulder at him, your eyes meet in an intense gaze. Your eyes drop to his teeth faintly biting his lower lips, getting curious of what it would be like to kiss those lips.

You drop your head against his shoulder and he leans in...

The music abruptly stops and the chime comes in. Everyone knows where to go whenever they hear it and off to the cabana we go.

All the fun and euphoria of the party seem to have evaporated once you are seated on the sofa and waiting for the boss lady to come.

The chime comes in again with her cone body flickering in purple-hued lights.

"I've gathered you all to remind you that this retreat is for finding deeper connections, not just physical ones. This information is not getting through to some guests."

As always, you can sit this one out because you haven't broken any rules yet but Lana sounds so mad and that puts you on edge.

"There has been a breach of the rules."

There's a dark cloud casting over everyone's head and you prepare yourself for what's coming, it's most certainly going to get ugly.

Asher reclines in his seat and glances at Gwen next to her, it's obvious that he did it.

"I don't want to say I lost you guys more money but..." Asher is stalling only to prolong the pain.

"Did you guys kiss or not?" Finn simplifies it for them.

Asher and Gwen exchange a look, then after a minute, Asher finally answers, "Yes."

"I thought we're here for the experience—" Gwen's words get cut off by Finn's loud scoff.

Gwen is only here for a day so it's not a surprise that she still has that mindset, that it's okay to break rules and have fun. She hasn't felt the consequences of her actions like the rest of the group.

"This kiss has cost the group $6,000."

"Mmh... brilliant," Sawyer lowly mutters.

"The prize fund now stands at $149,000," Lana announces the current amount of money in the pot.

"That is not all," Lana is not letting anyone breathe yet.

"What?" Nya gasps.

"Last night, there was another breach of the rules."

Last night, everyone behaved nicely but maybe that's just what it seemed to you. Again, you can't control everyone in here because the only one with that power here is Lana.

Mikaela is looking uncomfortable that she keeps playing with her earrings even though nothing is wrong with them. You dare to ask them, "Rio, Mikaela, did you guys kiss?"

Rio is quick to shake his head to deny it while Mikaela keeps quiet next to him.

"I'd rather speak up," Han lets his suggestion hang in the air for anyone to get the meaning of it.

"I mean..." Mikaela breaks out of her silence.

"It was an accident. We were showering together and I kind of touched," she pauses to avoid continuing her sentence.

Your jaw drops in surprise because that's just a stupid thing to do. They're struggling to take their hands off each other yet they had a shower together, it would be impossible for something to not happen in there.

"We thought it wouldn't be a rule break," Mikaela adds, in what is supposed to be her words of defense.

"It doesn't matter," Finn remarks with an annoyed look on his face.

You doubt that that's the only infraction they did in there and everyone seems to think so. You remind yourself to keep your tone calm to not upset her, "Mikaela, honey, is that it? Is that the only thing?"

Your question sends the tension soaring high but it's either they tell them the truth or face everyone's wrath. You hope they choose the former.

"We uh... we kissed," Mikaela meekly admits.

Indeed, they were aware of what they were doing and the repercussions of their actions.

"Rio and Mikaela, what you did goes against the rules of the retreat," Lana sternly remarks.

You just can't believe that they choose to act selfishly like this but you refrain yourself from talking, afraid that you'd say things you didn't mean.

"These rule breaks have cost the group $10,000."

Even Avery who's been Mikaela's supportive friend is looking just as disappointed as everyone. She has nothing to say to defend her and can only try to calm her down.

"I'm sorry, you guys," Mikaela apologizes with an exasperated sigh.

"The prize fund now stands at $139,000."

-

YOU: What are they thinking? Really? Lana is not stupid. If she said it's a rule break, it is a rule break.

-

When you think Lana is going to end this agonizing meeting, Lana continues to speak still not letting everyone catch a breath.

"Rio and Mikaela, you have broken the most rules since arriving at the retreat and have repeatedly broken the trust of your fellow guests."

You lean back on the sofa and reluctantly listen to everything, exhausted from the roller coaster of emotions Lana puts you in.

"You must now prove to them that your connection is more than just physical. You will face the ultimate test of chastity."

"Sorry?" Sawyer asks, afraid that she misheard what Lana just said.

"Rio and Mikaela, you must spend the night alone in the private suite."

Finn sarcastically laughs at that, "We're done. We're done for."

Nya looks at Mikaela and asks, "Are you going to do anything?"

That seems to trigger her that Mikaela starts to ramble, "I feel like getting negative energy, right now. We're being pointed and like... I don't understand."

Well, after what they did, it only makes sense that everyone doubts they'll pass this test.

"Please make your way to the suite," Lana orders.

And Rio couldn't take Mikaela faster to the private suite.

-

YOU: [shrugs] I think we're finished.

-

Han can't wait to sleep on it but he senses something as Lana is not letting everyone go even after Rio and Mikaela leave for the private suite.

This is supposed to be a good night for him, he told you about his feelings and it was well-received, then the party was fun.

It was great until he sees Lana's cone-shaped body. He puts his arm around to seek comfort from you and you rest your head on his shoulder right away.

"Forming meaningful relationships with people always starts with trust. My question is how much do you trust Rio and Mikaela?"

That is the hardest yet the easiest question to answer. Hard because Han trusts Rio so much, he's the closest to him amongst everyone else here but it's also easy because of what they did when they're together.

Han trusts Rio but he doesn't trust him when he's with Mikaela.

"Jeez..." Asher hisses.

"All they're doing is losing money," Finn says with a snide smile.

"If you decide to trust them and they pass the test, the $40,000 that has been lost so far will be returned to the prize fund."

Some are gasping and a few others are sighing in pessimism. Sure, $40,000 is a lot but everyone's concern is on whether Rio and Mikaela will pass the test or not.

"But if you decide to trust them and they fail the test, the prize fund will drop by a further $40,000."

"Nah, no way," Asher immediately responds with a head shake.

As much as Han wants to back Rio, he has as little faith as everyone that they'll pass the test. However, it's not just about their friendship, it's about money and the group as a whole.

"They got so much shit tonight, they're not going to do it," Gwen says.

But coming from someone who's only been in the retreat for a day, everyone dismisses her right away.

"They know they'll lose money if they do anything," Finn surprisingly takes Rio's side but Han believes it's because he wants the money back.

"Guys," Avery is taking her turn to speak now, "This is a real test. Watch them actually pass it."

Now that it's coming from Mikaela's close friend, everyone listens to her, and their minds slightly change.

"This is their chance of redemption," Avery concludes.

A moment passes as everyone tries to mull things over, deciding whether to trust that they'll pass the test or not for a chance to get a lot of money back.

In the end, it's being decided by voting.

"If you think that we should trust them, hands up right now!" Finn says.

Hands are rising to the air in favor of trusting Rio and Mikaela to not break any rules in the private suite. Han also raises his hand, going with the majority.

He then turns his head to see that you're not raising your hand along with Sawyer sitting on the other side of him, he respects that.

"Thank you. I have noted your decision. Goodbye," Lana ends the session with a grim closing.

-

HAN: I trust my boy, Rio so I'll ride with the majority

-

They're making a big mistake.

Yes, there's a chance to gain some money but they forget that they also risk losing more money for doing it. Anyway, you voted no and if things didn't go as they wanted, you wouldn't be a part of it.

You groan as Han puts his whole body on top of you, propping his hands on each side of your head with his face hovering only inches away from yours.

He flashes you that gummy smile, then leans in to whisper, "I feel like we're getting closer."

You put your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck, pulling him close against your body.

"And we're getting a lot closer now," you playfully say back.

He buries his head in your neck and you can feel his warm breath fanning the sensitive skin, making you tingling inside.

You still feel the slight shock from the sudden confession he told you earlier in the bathroom and you feel the need to ask him if he was just saying it because he feels like it or...

"'I like you,' huh? Where did that come from?" You ask him with your hand on the back of his hair, ruffling it between your fingers.

Han pulls away to hover above you, he props his elbow against the mattress to support his head, "I like the fact that you're a bit silly like me," he says.

You scrunch your nose at that, "You're a whole lot of silly," you disagree with him.

"You're fun to be with, you're not taking things seriously, I... I'm enjoying getting to know you," he answers.

Han then leans in and presses his nose to your cheek, "How about you? How do you feel?"

You look away and pretend to think, "Uhm... you're alright, I guess," you add a shrug to tease him.

He drops his head into your neck as he breaks into laughter and tries to muffle it as everyone else is trying to sleep in the room.

"Well, that's what I like about you, you're so chill..." he compliments.

He looks at you as he continues talking with his hand playing with the strand of hair on the side of your head, "I've been pushing my feelings away but now, I gave in," he sincerely tells you.

You place your hand on his arm and feel his warm skin as you intently listen to him speaking his heart out.

"I admitted to how I feel and honestly, don't regret it," he finishes and brushes your hair away from covering your face.

It's heartwarming to hear everything he said and know that underneath that goofy layer of his, there's a part of him that is so pure and earnest, proving to you that he's not this cool guy he disguised himself him when it comes to someone he likes.

"I don't know what you want to do with it..." You try to articulate your thoughts into words but also avoid giving him the wrong idea.

"I think it would be cool to get to know each other and see what happens, see if something comes out of it," you tell him.

You're not trying to play his game plan back to him but you want to play it cool.

"Okay," he agrees with a sweet smile.

"You blew my mind, really," you tell him how surprised you are by his sudden confession.

"Well, I kind of want to blow you elsewhere but..."

You gently slap him on the arm and pull him, holding him close to wish him goodnight.

"Goodnight," he wishes back with a soft kiss on your cheek.

-

YOU: I do like Han but also, he did tell me that he liked Avery so... I don't want to get hurt. I can only hope that he's telling the truth.

-

Lana chimes the second the lights are on.

You groan as you force your eyes to open and squint to see the cone blinking in the middle of the room. You pull the duvet to your chest, waiting to hear what Lana has to say early in the morning.

"Good morning, everyone."

"Mmh... morning," You're slurring your words as you yawn at the end of your sentence.

"Are you feeling optimistic?" Lana asks, reminding everyone of the big gamble they did last night.

"I think we'll get the money back," Avery says, standing firm on her ground.

"Given Rio and Mikaela's history, you might be, as humans say, screwed."

Is Lana hinting that they didn't pass the test? You thought by voting no, you would be excluded from feeling guilty about it but you feel it nonetheless.

"I feel broke already," Asher groans as he tries to sit on the bed.

"I think they've got it," Avery says while twirling her hair in her fingers, looking not convinced by her own words.

You don't want to think about it but here we are, talking about it the moment you woke up and now you can't stop thinking about it.

You turn on the bed and put half of your body to overlap Han's, cuddling him as usual before starting the day. You look at his face and see that his eyes are closed, even with his face is slightly swollen and his hair is disheveled, he looks adorable to you.

You poke the tiny mole he has on his cheek, "Morning, goober."

He takes your hand away to kiss your plan then puts it across his chest, "Let's sleep for another five minutes," he mutters with eyes closed.

Feeling playful, you put your mouth close to his ear and whisper, "Okay."

-

YOU: But honestly, if Rio and Mikaela cost us any more money, I'll be fuming.

-

When Lana calls you, you drop everything and go.

You're not done with your makeup yet when she calls everyone to the cabana. You drag yourself to get there with Avery linking her arm with yours.

With the two of you as the last ones to get there, you decide to sit at the end of the sofa.

Everyone is looking nervous as they wait for anyone to come in, either Rio and Mikaela or Lana.

After a while, it turns out to be the former. Rio and Mikaela look happy and you know looking happy doesn't mean they did something but it makes you nervous seeing the smiles on their faces.

Lana chimes not long after, saving them from being drilled with questions by everyone.

"Hello, everyone."

"Hi, Lana," you weakly reply.

"Rio and Mikaela, how was your night at the suite?" Lana asks the most spending couple.

"Oh, yeah? What happened?" Finn asks with faint enthusiasm.

Mikaela looks at Rio before answering, "It was romantic."

"How romantic?" Nya asks.

"Bubble bath, champagne, rose petals... it was beautiful," Mikaela answers with a smile on her face.

You look at the ones who voted to trust them and see if anyone shows regrets.

"Rio and Mikaela's stay in the suite was the ultimate test of restraint to further their connection without surrendering to physical desires."

You half-heartedly listen to Lana as you start to get a bad feeling about everything and prepare yourself for the worst outcome.

"However, this was also a test of trust."

From the looks on their faces, Rio and Mikaela seem to not expect that Lana is brewing something behind them.

"Rio and Mikaela, when you left the suite, I asked the group whether they would put their fate on you as a couple."

Mikaela's jaw drops at the information and her face dims as if someone has turned off the lights.

"If they trusted you not to break the rules, I would reimburse the $40,000 you both lost so far."

Rio rubs his hands together and licks his thick lips, having nothing to say but you can't quite tell if it's a good or a bad quiet.

"However, if you broke any rules in the private suite, an additional $40,000 would be deducted from the prize fund."

"That's how much faith we had in both of you," Avery says and intentionally, makes it sound like a warning to them.

You take another look around and can see that most of everyone regrets their decisions already.

"I can reveal that Rio and Mikaela did break the rules," Lana announces.

-

YOU: Don't say I didn't warn you.

-

To say that he's disappointed would be an understatement.

Han can't believe that someone he thinks that's like a brother to him would do such stupid things. He knows that he should not do it, they should take this test as a way to earn everyone's trust but they wasted it away.

Not to mention, wasted some more money too.

"What did you do?" Nya asks.

"We maybe uhm... kissed," Mikaela answers.

"Again?" Asher gasps in shock.

"Did you think for a second that maybe it's not a good idea? That you knew you had to resist it?" Avery says, gritting her teeth as she speaks to Mikaela.

To everyone's surprise, Mikaela doesn't look like she's feeling guilty or shows even the slightest of remorse on her pretty face.

"And because you kissed twice, you have been fined an additional $12,000."

Han thinks that's already the worst of it but Lana doesn't stop there.

"That means your night at the suite has cost the group a total of $52,000."

"I'm sorry I failed you all," Rio finally speaks up for the first time today.

"We-we don't know you bet all of that money on us," Mikaela defends but that's so out of touch.

"But we— You were put to the ultimate test," Avery pressed the focus on the matter and that she shouldn't blame everyone when they're the ones who shit the bed.

"I know," Mikaela says, defeated but still not looking sorry for what she did.

"The prize fund now stands at $87,000. Goodbye."

-

HAN: $52,000 for two kisses? [Shakes head] It's not even funny anymore.

-

You walk back to the dressing room to finish getting ready for the day even though you don't feel like doing it anymore after losing more than half of the prize money when it's not even halfway of the retreat.

You take a long sip of water from your tumbler then sit on your usual spot on the vanity table.

Nya, Gwen, and Sawyer are there too, probably can't find anywhere else to vent but here. The room is loud with their rant and frustrated groans.

Unfortunately, Mikaela steps into the dressing room and everyone gets quiet as she takes a seat on the chair. She looks at everyone but none of them is looking at her.

"I feel like I need to come here and talk to everyone," she says.

You pick up your eyebrow pencil and carefully fill in your eyebrows with it while looking into the mirror.

"You guys shouldn't put your trust in us," Mikaela says.

Instead of sincerely apologizing, Mikaela flips it back to everyone and hopes that it'll make everyone feel better. Nya scoffs at that while the others keep on ignoring her.

"I feel guilty. I feel so bad right now," Mikaela says in the hope that's enough to assure everyone that she's sorry.

Sawyer puts down her hairbrush and starts talking, "I don't think you're sorry for doing it."

You look to the side and see that Sawyer is speaking up for everybody here.

"I think you just feel bad at how bad we're reacting," Sawyer points out.

And she's right. Mikaela only feels bad because no one is taking her side and not because she feels bad for what she did.

"I mean, is it like what? Seven times? You're obviously not sorry for what you're doing," Nya also can't help herself from adding to it.

It's clear that everyone is not pleased with Mikaela and her behavior, especially without Avery on her side to help her.

-

YOU: Mikaela, [holds up hand] please!

-

"I'm genuinely sorry from the bottom of my heart," Rio begins with a heartfelt apology as the boys gather in the bedroom.

Han is not sure an apology would ail this sense of betrayal he feels but at the same time, he doesn't know what Rio can do to make it go away.

"If you were smart, you should have slept away from each other," Finn rants.

Meanwhile, Asher is sitting still on his bed, scratching at his head with a blank expression on his face.

"I put everything on you, man..." Peyton says with a low sigh.

Han still doesn't know what to say but he guesses that Rio can see the disappointment on his face as he presses his lips together into a thin line.

"I'm genuinely sorry," Rio apologizes again.

He leans forward with his hands clasped in front of him, "Over time, you'll see that," he finishes.

If only his apology brought back the money they'd lost, Han wouldn't be this mad and so would anyone, but well...

-

HAN: Obviously, they had no idea we risked that much money on them and I do feel sorry but they should have known it's called the ultimate test for a reason.

-

"Looking like a handsome sausage!"

Han breaks into laughter as you watch him getting ready in the bathroom, then continues combing his dark hair while looking into the mirror.

"We got called to the cabana," you inform, leaning your body against the doorframe of the bathroom.

"Bleugh!" Han reacts with a groan and takes a can of hairspray for his hair.

"I know," you agree with him.

Han is indeed looking good in his red shirt and dark slacks but oftentimes, he wonders why he is impeccably dressed up just to get anxious over a talking cone.

"My belly is turning," you whisper to him.

Unluckily, Han can't give you the comfort you need when he feels the same way. He puts a hand on yours and intertwines it, resting it on your thigh.

The cone chimes and everyone gets tensed at the sound of it.

"From the date I've gathered during your stay in retreat so far," Lana skips the usual greeting and that only means she's angry.

"I must inform you that some of you have not demonstrated the capacity to make deeper, emotional connections."

Is it what Han thinks it is?

"Oh, my days..." Nya weakly gasps.

He holds your hand tighter, afraid that his thought manifested into reality.

"There are two guests that have not committed to the retreat or show signs of progress."

It's becoming real now that his heart is pounding out of his chest. At this point, he can't tell who these two people are because Lana is the only one who can objectively see everyone's progress in this retreat.

"And I must bring their time here to an end."

He can't believe what he heard but as you press your head into his shoulder, he knows he heard it right. Lana is sending two people home, right now.

-

HAN: I am freaking out. I want to get to know her and see where that might go so... I don't want to go home.

-

The possibility that this might be his last night in the retreat is there. Han puts his arm around you, pulling you close and putting his head close to you, catching that natural scent of your body as he breathes you in.

"The first person who has to leave the retreat tonight is..."

Everybody is nervous and the tension is rising, everyone is uncomfortable in their seats. Han is stressed, thinking that it would be him.

"Sawyer."

Nya, the one sitting next to her, throws her hands around her while Fabian who sits on the other side, gently squeezes her shoulder.

"Sawyer, you have failed to commit to the process or make any emotional connections. I have calculated that you have the lowest possibility of forming meaningful relationships," Lana lays out the reasons why she's being sent out of the retreat.

Sawyer sadly smiles and looks at everyone, "It's okay, you guys," she says but her eyes are glossy with tears.

Nya rests her head on her shoulder and holds her hand, snuggling up to her as if she's the one who needs the comfort not the other way around.

"The second person leaving the retreat tonight is..."

Han feels like someone is squeezing his heart dry and his throat is closing up, making it hard for him to breathe.

"Peyton."

Han is unconsciously gripping your shoulder and you end up holding him, providing him the comfort he seeks by placing rubs on his back.

"Peyton, you have continued to display behavior from your player past and you have shown no remorse or signs of change."

Peyton puts on a smile and coyly says, "I don't say much but all of you are like family to me."

Avery sniffs with her eyes wet with tears while Nya looks like she knows it's coming for him.

"Sawyer and Peyton, please leave the retreat."

It feels like he's letting them down even though Han is not the one with the decision to cut them off the show. He feels sorry for them as he hugs them and bids them farewell.

"See you again, everyone!" Sawyer says for the last time before leaving the villa.

Everyone is just as gutted as he is, sitting on the sofa waiting for Lana to finish speaking.

"I hope the rest of you take this as a lesson to take this process more seriously."

When bedtime comes, it feels not right to see one bed empty.

He feels bad for them but he's also relieved that it's not him and you, he's not ready to go home yet. Moreover, he is determined to make progress in this retreat.

He dives into your arms and lets you hold him, keeping him in your warm embrace.

As if you know he needs your comfort, you gently rub the back of his neck, "I'm still here," you whisper with a soft laugh.

He smiles hearing that and places a kiss on your cheek, "I know."

-

HAN: We've just started getting to know each other so I'm glad that we're staying.

-

It's another day in the retreat and another day of spending hours to get ready for the day.

You understand that you should look presentable because you're in a TV show but doing it for almost two weeks now, you're getting tired of it now.

"You look cute in that bikini, babe," Avery compliments you as you put on a black pair of bikini.

You take a step back to see the whole look in the mirror, "Mmh, yeah, I look good," you agree with her.

One thing you learn in this retreat other than making emotional connections is that you like hanging out with girls.

Instead of rivalry, the girls are very supportive of each other, you can see that from compliments being thrown around the dressing room every five minutes.

The only girl that isn't vibing with you is Lana.

After a very intense day yesterday, you feel like turning the other way instead of going to the cabana. It's like you can't go on with your day without seeing her cone-shaped body.

"Come, baby cake," Han holds his hand out at you.

You take his hand only to let him pull you hard until you topple onto his lap, making you laugh as he puts his hands around you.

"It's kind of suspicious to me that there are presents for us," Asher says.

You wouldn't notice the small boxes on the table if Asher didn't say anything, not sure if it's a present but it looks like it from how the lid is wrapped with a pretty bow.

"Hello, everyone," Lana greets as soon as she comes online.

You get off Han's lap to sit on the sofa since it's not a good time to get cuddly.

"I have a gift for each of you."

Lana confirms your guess but you get nervous instead of excited for it. It's never just a gift, there must be something else in there.

"What it is, Lana?" Finn asks.

"The gifts will serve as a reward for those couples who show me that they're taking the right steps toward deeper connections. They will be given the chance to take those connections further."

Everyone is intently listening, probably wondering if there's a catch behind this sudden gift-giving.

"Can we open it?" Nya asks with eagerness.

With the cue given by the staff, everyone takes one box from the table and discovers a smartwatch inside.

"For free?" Han innocently asks you.

You're cackling as you put the watch around his wrist and let him do the same with yours.

"When I observe two people forming a genuine connection, they will be given a green light like this..."

Lana demonstrates it by turning the watches green along with a melodic chime of hers and everyone is cheering in reaction.

"... where the rules do not apply for a little amount of time."

Han leans in to whisper into your ear to relay Lana's message, "Green light means we can fuck."

You burst into laughter and gently push his head away, stopping him from saying another silly thing. That doesn't stop him from resting his chin on your shoulder.

"I would like to remind you that those who do not receive a green light are not displaying enough progress."

You see that everyone is excited about these watches, well, the idea of getting a pass to rule break is nice but knowing Lana, earning a green light wouldn't be easy.

"Thank you, Lana!" You thank her nonetheless.

-

YOU: With this [shows watches] I think I'm ready to deepen my connection with Han.

-

Motivated by the promise of a green light, you pull Han aside, walking to the beach together to get some privacy to talk with him.

You both sit on rocks facing the beach with the surface of the water reflecting the afternoon sun at you. You've been meaning to talk to him about your feelings and you don't like talking about your feelings so it's going to be hard to open up.

However, you know he gave you a lot and you've only given him so little.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about us," you begin.

"Okay," Han says with a nod.

"I know I've been holding myself back a little," you admit to him with a thin smile.

"A little?"

You smile at that and corrected it, "I keep my guard up."

"I think the Avery situation plays on the back of your head, huh?" He correctly guesses.

Well, that's one of the reasons so you nod, "Yeah, it does."

Han gazes into your eyes even though he has to squint under the bright sun to do that, "I barely spoke two words with Avery, I didn’t vibe with her. It was purely physical attraction," he says.

He pulls his legs and puts his hands on his knees, "But spending time with you, getting to know you, it all feels natural, you know?"

You nod in agreement because it does feel natural like you've known him for years instead of days.

"I feel like now... if anyone else came in, I'd still stick with you no matter what," he earnestly says to you.

It feels like discovering a new side of him and this talk feels intimate because it feels like you're talking to his heart from how open and sincere he is with his words.

"It's not just that," you confess.

It's been so long that you haven't been this open to anyone that you forgot how and it scares you so much. You keep retreating even though you keep reminding yourself to lower your guard down even just a little.

"The last time I opened up to someone, I got badly hurt and it makes me scared of commitment," your heart aches as the truth escapes your mouth.

"That's my problem," you say with a nervous laugh.

Somehow, letting those hurt out sets you free from the burdening past and you feel so much lighter and better. As you gaze into his eyes, you feel like you can tell him anything now.

"Yesterday made a massive difference."

"What do you mean?" He asks with an eyebrow raised.

"I didn't want to lose you," you sincerely tell him.

Han leans forward, trying to get as close to you until his knees bump with yours. He takes your hands and holds them while keep looking into your eyes.

"I knew that you were the only one I connected with since day one," you confess and you hope it's enough to tell him how you really feel.

He smiles at you, the silly one that makes you can't help but smile back to him.

"I want to kiss you now," he says to you.

"We can't. Unless this turns green," you remind him while showing him the watch on your wrist.

He then looks at the vast sea behind you and comes up with an absurd idea, "Do you think Lana's rules still applies on international water?"

This is why you like him, he's not only tugging at your heartstrings but he also shakes it, teases it, and twirls it around his little finger.

-

YOU: To be honest, I wouldn't want to do this with anyone else but him [smiles]

-

sThe boys are off to do a workshop in the front yard and the girls are hanging out by the beach, talking about, well... boys.

"It's so hard to keep my hands off of him," Gwen shares.

Recently, a few people have been doing bed swaps. Since the night Asher kissed her, Gwen now shares the bed with him while Avery is now sharing the bed with Nya.

"How do you feel about him?" You ask out of curiosity.

Gwen brushes her hair to the side, "I like that he's so fun to be with and not afraid to make a fool out of himself," she answers.

"Do you see any possibility that it could be more than that?" You ask.

The question seems to take her aback that she takes a minute to think, "Yeah, I think so but let's see," she vaguely answers.

"It'd be amazing to have more people in here," Avery says.

Nya turns her head around to look at Avery, "And more of my type," she adds.

"Someone with confidence, masculinity..." Avery lists all of the things she wants from a man.

"And big hands!" Nya continues her sentence which sends everyone into laughter.

"We just need more meat in here!" Nya desperately wishes her heart out and hopes that it's loud enough for Lana to hear.

It's like Lana hears their prayers, someone steps into the villa but unfortunately, it's not one she wishes for.

Avery lets out a shriek and covers her mouth too late to muffle it, "Oh, my God!"

"Is that a new girl?" Mikaela asks, looking suddenly intimidated but doing a great job masking it with excitement.

The new girl waves her hands, looking at everyone with a bright smile on her face, "Hello, hi, babes!"

You hear a British accent and that explains the distinct charms she has. When she introduces herself, she holds strong eye contact with you, "I'm Portia."

You exchange a quick hug and kiss both cheeks, "You're gorgeous," you tell her in admiration.

"No, you're gorgeous," she flips the compliment back at you with a sweet smile that showcases her dimples.

The girls look fine sharing the attention with the new girl but you can see the sheer disappointment drawn on Nya and Avery's faces.

But guess what? Another guest walks into the retreat and finally, it's one they're looking for.

It's a whole lot of meat in one man, Nya will have her desired feast. He's tall, has stunning brown skin, and a charming smile, you spot a few tattoos on his body too.

"I'm Ed," he introduces himself around.

He looks pleased being the only man in the villa at the moment, "You're all so beautiful," he says with a grin.

Avery is smitten already, she can't take her eyes off of Ed. You're afraid that she has to share him with Nya and you notice that his eyes are on you.

"So, what is your type, Ed?" You ask, being the one to start the conversation so the available girls would know which one he's more into.

"I don't really have a type, just someone I vibe with," he coyly answers.

Avery laughs even though there's nothing funny with what he said. On the other hand, Mikaela seems to be worried that the new girl is going to steal Rio away from her when clearly, she hasn't even met him yet.

"What about you? Do you have a type?" Mikaela asks her.

"Tall, gorgeous, nice smile..." Portia answers with a giggle.

You almost choked on air hearing it, "That's Rio," you blurt out.

"Well, Rio and I, we've been together since day one so..." Mikaela indirectly tells the new girl to not touch his man. She may as well piss on Rio to mark her territory.

You exclude yourself from their chat and decide to join the other group of girls talking to the new guy.

"That's some sick tattoos you got there," Ed says as he looks at the tattoos on your arm.

"Thank you. You got some uh... impressive ones," you say, but it's hard looking at them when his toned abs keep distracting you.

He lightly touches your inner arm to show you which one he likes, "This. I like this."

You shudder at the contact like you've been zapped by electricity and at the same time, you see the boys are returning from the workshop.

-

YOU: New guests mean more rule breaks [laughs] I just hope that they catch up on our progress fast [laughs]

-

What is happening? Han comes back from the workshop to find that there are two new guests in the villa.

One is a beautiful brunette and the other one is a tattoed guy with tousled hair that makes him look like he's just rolled out of the bed looking attractive like that.

If Lana's plan is trying to intimidate him, no, it's not working. However, if the plan is to try to make him jealous then yes, she's succeeded at it.

The new guy touching your arm in an excuse to see your tattoo and as a player himself, he knows that it's just one of his tricks.

Everyone is going around introducing each other and he can see that Finn and Fabian have their eyes on the new girl, surprisingly, Rio too. He looks over to Mikaela and she has the right to drill a hole on her head with her laser eyes.

"Portia, what do you think about the boys? Do you like what you see?" Asher asks, representing the curious singles in the villa.

"Yeah," she shortly answers.

"I'm excited to have fun and get to know everyone," she says with her eyes daringly glancing in Rio's direction.

"Are you planning on breaking rules or what?" Finn asks straight to the point, still has his priorities right as the sex police.

Portia giggles at that and then lightly shakes her head, "I can't promise anything."

This new girl looks cute, with freckles dusted her cheeks and a dimpled smile but he senses that she's going to stir things up in this retreat.

With the two new guests, the dressing room is a lot more crowded than usual. Han dresses up in a black shirt and jeans, styling his hair with Asher putting his long hair into a bun next to him.

"What do you think?" Asher asks him for his opinion.

He looks at him, up and down to know if the whole look complements each other, "Great, man," he says.

Seeing the new guy able to land his hand on you merely a few minutes after he stepped into the villa, Han feels like he needs reassurance that you're still doing it with him, getting to know each other and making deeper connections.

It's so easy to play cool and confident but you've seen everything in him, he knows that you'll see right through him.

No one ever told him that liking someone makes him more insecure about himself.

While everyone else is hanging around the new guests at the firepit, he pulls you aside to talk on the small sofa where you both squeeze yourselves into.

Han slouches with his head resting against the sofa, looking up at you while you're propping a hand under your head and one leg draping between his legs.

You look so beautiful in that tight black dress, you smell so good and those lips tantalize him more than usual tonight.

With his arm around you, he aimlessly runs his fingers on the small of your back, "What do you think of the new guy?"

You peer down at his face and ask back, "Ed?"

He's only been here for hours and you already addressed him with his name. Again, no one ever told him that liking someone makes him think irrationally.

"Do you think he's good-looking?"

You think for a second then nod, "Yeah."

"Handsome?"

"Mmh," you nod again.

"And I'm not handsome?" He asks with a grin but genuinely curious what you think of him physically.

You crack a laugh and think again for a while, "Yeah."

"'Yeah I'm not handsome' or 'Yeah I'm handsome'?"

You're laughing instead of answering and his hand stops moving on your back, waiting for you to answer.

"Is that why you don't want to kiss me?" He asks, turning serious all of a sudden, then looks away to not let you see how embarrassed he is asking you this.

You stop propping your head with your hand and put your hand on his chest, "First of all, you're not handsome," you tell him.

"I'm super handsome, I know," he entertains himself.

"You're cute," you say with a gentle pinch on his chin, "And I like cute guys.

That makes him look back at you with a smile that blooms on his face, "How cute?"

You lean in close to tease him, leaving only a few inches of space between your lips and his, "Very cute."

Han is already dizzy with your warm, sweet breath brushing his cheek as you speak. His eyes drop to your lips as they tantalize him more and more.

"Kiss me then, I'm cute," he teases back by putting his hand on the nape of your neck, not letting you back away.

"How about Lana? The money, mmh?" You softly rub the tip of your nose against his cheek.

"I don't think they'd mind us breaking a rule," Han reckons since none of you have broken any rules yet it's more likely that everyone will let it pass.

You cup his jaw and softly swipe his lips with your thumb, "You think so?"

From the way you're looking at his lips, he knows that this is also what you want.

"Yeah..." he breathlessly says, his throat getting dry the more he craves your lips.

"Mmh..." you answer with a sultry hum.

Han can't take it anymore. He slowly pulls your head close until your lips collide in an explosive kiss, a kiss that obliterates his senses and stirs chaos inside his head.

His tongue pries open your mouth and you eventually cave in, letting him invade you, tasting more of you. He's so deep in it, drowning himself in it that breathing doesn't feel necessary anymore to him.

Oh, he loves your low moans that slip out against his lips and the hand that lingers on his neck. He also feels your leg slowly rubbing his inner thigh, inviting the other part of him to come and join.

He almost pouts when you pull away from the kiss, and you console him with a quick peck on the lips, "That's enough for tonight," you say.

He doesn't want to stop but he looks at the bright side of things, there's always another night.

"We should wipe that lipstick mark..." you sigh as you clean his lips with your thumb.

His hand flies to your lips, helping you to fix your smudged lipstick so as to not leave any evidence for everyone to see. However, touching your lips only makes him want to kiss you again.

As if you're reading his mind, you immediately retract yourself from him to get a space, you take the chance to fix your hair and then your dress.

He helps by pulling down the hem of your dress to cover your exposed thighs. He leans to your side and whispers, "That was a good kiss."

That doesn't enough for him, he then throws himself at you, putting his arms around you as he pinned you down on the sofa, "Fuck, that was so good," he sighs again into the crook of your neck.

Wrapping your arms around him, you bring your mouth close to his ear and murmur, "Don't get used to it."

-

HAN: It feels like I kissed a girl for the first time all over again [smiles]

-

Lana seems to let him go for the night and Han can't tell if he should feel lucky or what.

Eventually, Lana will tell everyone and everyone will know that they kissed, he is very well aware of that.

But God! That kiss was so good and it was worth every penny of that $6,000 he spent on it. He didn't even think of the money because he was kissing you and you're such a good kisser.

It wouldn't be like every other night, it would be hard for him to sleep next to you tonight and not try to kiss you. He licks his lips to get any taste of you that lingers in his and his head is spinning, a little lightheaded thinking of the kiss.

Most of everyone is already on their beds and he's been waiting for you long enough he starts to get antsy. Truthfully, he just can't wait to see you so he walks to the dressing room, he finds you sitting and applying something to your face.

"Baby," he calls you from the doorway.

"Yeah?" You answer without looking away from the mirror.

"When are you coming to bed?" he asks, half whining.

"In a few minutes," you reply, carefully dabbing the skin around your eyes with your finger.

"Come to bed..." he grumbles as he walks up to you only to realize that someone else is there.

The new girl, Portia, is brushing her hair on the other side of the vanity table. Han immediately gets embarrassed for acting like a toddler to you, not knowing there's someone else there.

"You guys are very cute," She shortly comments with a smile.

Han can only wait until Portia leaves the room to start talking with you, even though he's not sure if it's a good idea to be alone with you.

He watches as you dab your lips with lip balm and smack them together, inviting him to touch and feel the softness of your lips.

"Put some on me too," he says.

You hand him the lip balm to put it on himself but he refuses, shaking his head at you. You reluctantly put it on for him, and slowly glides the lip balm on his lips.

"Okay, now we're ready to kiss," he says after smacking his lips together.

You gently push him away and swivel your chair to the other way, "Told you not to get used to it," you say, getting up from the chair.

He puts his arms around you, hugging you from the back while you're putting your things back into your make-up bag. You smell so good that he can't help but plant his nose in your neck, getting himself drunk in your scent.

You start walking in the direction of the door, dragging him to you with your hands on his, "Let's go to bed."

"One more kiss," he whispers with a soft kiss on the sensitive skin behind your ear.

You look at him through the reflection in the mirror with his head buried in your neck, "We can't rule break again," you tell him.

He starts whining like a baby, humming against your skin with his arms tightening around you.

"You're just a baby, mmh?" You gently nudge his chin with your shoulder.

"It's better to get scolded for two kisses than one," he offers his idea to you.

You softly laugh at him and you seem to be more worried about anyone finding the two of you here alone from the way you keep looking at the doorway.

"I know you want it too," he teases you, then playfully bites at your ear shell.

You take his hands away from you but instead of walking away, you push him until he's pinned against the Asher's close on the other side of the dressing room to prevent anyone from walking in on you unnoticed.

"You won't stop until we do it, mmh?" You murmur, putting your body against him and dropping your hands on his shoulders.

He looks into your eyes as they sparkle and he can see that you want it too. But you get ahead of him, crashing your lips against him and knocking the air out of him.

Somehow this kiss is better than the first one and he gets even hungrier for you, opening his mouth to take more of you.

He twirls your tongue with yours and mischievously, you gently tug it between your teeth as he tries to pull away, giggling when you finally let go.

The temperature in the room seems to have raised a few degrees, making him feel hot all over yet he pulls you incredibly closer, leaving not even an inch between your bodies. He has one hand on the arch of your back and the other on the nape of your neck so he can angle your head as he pleases

With your body pressed against him, he can feel it starts to mold to his body and he wants to feel every curve of your body with his hand.

You immediately drag his hand back as he attempts to touch your rear, clicking your tongue at him as you pull away from the kiss.

"That's enough rule breaks!"

You leave him with his mouth hanging open and his lips wet from the kisses, it's cruel that you leave him wanting more.

"We can't enter the bedroom together so..."

You take steps back from him and walk in the direction of the door, "Wait for a few minutes then you can come to the bedroom," you instruct him.

He manages to catch your hand before you walk away, "One more kiss."

"No!" You refuse but with a sly smirk on your face, hinting that you're not completely opposed to the idea.

"I know you like it," he says, standing in the middle of the room, defeated.

You stop by the doorway and look over your shoulder, "I meant it, wait for a few minutes!" You remind him.

You know what? They'll eventually know so he doesn't why you bother to avoid everyone's suspicion.

-

HAN: I started paying attention to the little things she does. How she purrs in her sleep like a kitten or scrunches her nose before smiling [shyly laughs] everything about her is adorable except the kisses... her kisses are out of this world!

-

Is this how everyone feels when they know they're about to get exposed by Lana?

Surely, you can't calm down like usual since you blatantly broke the rules twice last night. You didn't even think about the money at that time and the guilt only hit you right now, fast and hard.

Well, it's not like you commit a murder or something, it's just a kiss, well... two kisses and they cost $12,000. You gulp air thinking of the money you spent on those two kisses but in your defense, it was worth every cent of it.

You glance at Han and he flashes a knowing smile at you, there's no way out of this but through.

When the chime comes, your heart drops to your stomach and you inhale air to calm yourself.

"Hello, everyone," Lana starts the session as usual with a lukewarm greeting.

"Hey, Lana," you reply with a weak smile.

Han takes your hand so you can stop playing with the frayed hem of his sleeveless top and takes your other hand, pinning your hands by the wrists on his lap to make you stop fiddling altogether.

"I must now inform you that yesterday, further rulebreaks occurred."

You turn your head at him and he's looking calm, he even winks his eyes at you which you respond with a scoff.

Avery points her finger at Mikaela and Rio, the biggest spender in the villa.

"Not us," Mikaela immediately denies.

You look at Han, giving him the signals to start talking before the tension rises. He gets the cue right away, letting go of your hands to hold it instead.

"It's us," he coyly says.

Rio says something in Portuguese while Asher claps his hands, both impressed at him. You see that the response is not as horrifying as you thought it would be.

"Did you kiss or did anything else?" Finn asks, wanting to know how much you did so he can calculate the damage.

"We kissed. Twice," Han answers.

You get so embarrassed at how proud he is at admitting the rule breaks that you start laughing next to him. You suppress another wave of laughter to apologize.

"We're sorry, guys, everyone," you sincerely tell them.

-

YOU: Everyone is taking it well and I think it's because they know we have a genuine connection here.

-

"These rule breaks have cost the group $12,000," Lana informs.

However, you know it's not going to stay this calm when the bills turn up.

"The prize fund now stands at $75,000."

Now everyone's faces dim at the amount of money left in the prize fun and it's not much. You are sorry for breaking the rules but it's not right to put the whole blame on you.

Avery crosses her hands together and warns everyone, "No more rule breaks!"

It's so easy to say for her to say now. It was easy for you to refrain from anything sexual but now that you have a partner and you try to build a connection with him, it's so hard because physical affection helps you to achieve this connection you're having with him now.

"Is that all, Lana?" Finn asks.

"As you know, I encourage genuine romantic connections so I have planned dates for our latest guests," Lana comes with an announcement instead.

That gets the new guests, Portia and Ed excited hearing it. Only Mikaela looks like she's plotting a murder plan in her head.

"Ed, please select someone from the group to take on a date," Lana orders.

Feeling like he needs to show ownership over you, Han puts his arm around you as Ed is looking at the girls to take on a date.

Ed's eyes land at you for a second before it shift to Nya, "Are you up for anything later, Nya?"

Nya smiles so brightly and pretends to not care, "I don't know. I'll have to go check my schedule," she jokingly says.

You look at Avery and she looks a bit disappointed with it. She is pretty and all but maybe Nya fits his vibe more.

"Portia, please select someone from the group to take on a date."

Han leans into your ear and whispers, "I'd be worried if I were you."

You snort at that and you're not saying that there's zero possibility for it, it's just that you know Portia has her eyes on Rio. Not sure if she's gutsy enough to take someone's man on a date.

"Uhm... I would like to try and get to know someone," Portia says and she happens to sit next to Rio.

"I'd like to take..." she stalls with her eyes secretly glancing at Rio.

"Rio on a date," she finally says.

There's no one here that is not surprised by her daring move. Portia may look adorable with her freckles and blonde hair tied into pigtails but damn, she is ballsy.

"Sorry, Mikaela," she says to her but you don't hear any guilt in that apology.

Mikaela only nods and forces herself to smile, "Here we go," she sighs.

This only reminds you that you're indeed in a TV show and you believe the viewers would enjoy this drama so much because you're secretly enjoying it too.

"Thank you very much for the date," Rio says which only takes the drama further and sets Mikaela on fire.

Gosh, you feel incredibly good for not being a part of that drama. You put your hand across Han's chest and are just grateful that what you have with him is genuine.

-

YOU: If Rio kisses Portia on their date [shakes head] all hell will break loose on this retreat.

-

Mikaela is pacing around in the dressing room while the girls are getting ready for the night, except the ones that are on their dates.

"You have every right to feel like this. It's so shitty, I know," Avery says, validating her emotion while doing her make-up.

You see that Mikaela is on the verge of crying as she holds the back of her chair and grips at it, "it's been hard for me to build a genuine connection with Rio," she says.

Avery pauses doing her make-up to give her a gentle squeeze on her arm, "I know, I know," she comforts her.

Putting the drama aside, you feel bad for her because as wild as you can be you refrain from stealing someone's man. It's girls code and you're not a fan of anyone that has no respect for that.

"Mikaela, sit down, honey," you tell her because she's looking like she's about to faint.

She obeys you, taking a seat next to Avery and rubbing her temple in distress, "If he goes in and his head turns, just know that he's making poor decisions," she stutters her words trying to hold in her tears.

You're bad at comforting people so the least you can do is listen to her and make sure she feels heard.

"He's entertaining this, he-he's..." Mikaela can't keep it anymore so she bursts into tears.

In a second, Avery comes to her aid, holding her as she's crying. You reach for her shoulder to place tender rubs on it to comfort her.

"It's just that... I haven't been vulnerable to one person in so long," she says with a quivering voice.

You can relate to that more than ever and you'd feel the same way if it happened to you.

-

YOU: That's just what happens when you get too close to someone, they'll gain the power to control your emotions.

-

Consider him lucky that Mikaela-Rio-Portia drama diverted everyone's attention away from his $12,000 worth of rule break.

But here's a new problem: Han craves it more than before.

He blames you for having such addictive kisses that he can't wait to have more of it. However, he craves for something more than just kisses now.

Yes, he's aware of how dangerous it sounds but how can he can stop thinking about sexual things when you're always looking so damn sexy.

Just like tonight, you look so gorgeous in that black silk dress with thin straps and it showcases your beautiful neck that he wants to tear it off of you.

You drain your wine before sitting on his lap, "Hi, crawdaddy," you greet him with a giggle.

He sees you licking the drop of wine trying to escape the corner of your mouth and he wishes he could do it for you.

"You look so hot," he praises you with his hands on each side of your waist.

"Mmh?" You squint at him.

"What do the kids say now?" He thinks for a moment before continuing, "Fire!"

You laugh at his choice of compliments and put your hands on his muscular chest.

"You're fire!" He says again with a sly grin.

The night is lovely with the full moon hanging in the sky and the winds blowing so softly, brushing his skin with salty, warm air.

But all he can feel is the touch of your fingertips on his neck as you look into his eyes, "What are you thinking?"

Should he tell you what is inside his head right now? Not sure if it's a good idea though.

Han tucks the strands of hair escaping your ponytail behind your ear and keeps his hand there, holding one side of your head with such love.

"We have so much sexual chemistry going on, don't you think?"

"Mm-mmh," you nod in agreement.

"And I think we can have sex," he says.

Before you get it wrong, he quickly adds, "Only if you want to have sex."

You nod again and scratch the tip of your nose with your knuckle.

He puts your hand away and leans in close, "What do you think?"

You seem to hesitate to answer him, "Hmm..."

He leans in closer and places a soft kiss on your neck, you keep a safe distance with your hand firmly resting against his chest.

"I think we should stick to the rules," you tell him.

Then you put your hand on his neck and look at him as you continue talking, "I just don't want us to have sex and suddenly things change, I don't want things to change between us."

He pulls you close and locks his arms around you, "Things are not going to change between us," he assures you.

"I know," you say, "I'm just scared that it would happen."

He completely understands what you're saying that you're afraid that sex would change things between you and him.

"I know what you mean," he tells you.

To console himself, Han places another soft kiss on your cheek and looks at you as you endearingly brush his hair to the back.

"Don't get me wrong, I'd like to have sex with you," you bluntly say with a sly smirk.

"But..." You don't even get to finish your words as you pull him into a hug but that proves you're just as sexually frustrated as he is.

You pull away to look down at his crotch, patting his thigh as you say, "Down, boy!"

Han laughs, embarrassed that you know he's having a boner when you're only sitting on his lap. He wants you so much but at the same time, he wants to prove that it's just more than physical attraction.

With or without sex, he's a happy man to be with you.

-

HAN: I've been horny as it is... [sucks air through teeth] Hopefully I can hold out.

-

Another drama unfolds during bedtime.

You're joining Avery in chatting on Asher's bed, the three of you are chatting when Mikaela suddenly comes. She looks unhappy, duh, you'll be too when your man is on a date with another girl.

"Portia has disrespected me, she said some things on the date so I will be having some conversations with her," she says.

The three of you automatically look at each other and notice that Mikaela is having a meltdown. There's a concerning thing going on in the room so you walk back to your bed and so is Avery.

Mikaela is impatiently waiting for Portia to come into the bedroom while Rio is comfortably snuggling close to her on the bed.

You don't wait to share it with Han once he gets onto the bed, telling him everything he missed while he's away in the dressing room.

"Things can get ugly and I'm worried," you tell him.

Mikaela is an intelligent person, but when it comes to her emotions, she can be intense and almost volatile. You're right to never try to mess with her.

Han offers his arm as your pillow so he can cuddle you as it gets intense in the bedroom, you can see that from how everyone is looking tense on their beds.

The wind sends the door shut and Han gets startled, thinking that it's Portia as his head snaps in the direction of the door.

"What a fucking stress!" He sighs as he snuggles to you while you're lowly chuckling at his reaction.

The drama has to end in an unsatisfying way because Portia doesn't get on the bed yet even after the lights are out.

-

YOU: Mikaela has this fiery attitude so I... [laughs] I was really afraid that there'd be a fight but thank God for Portia's long bedtime routine.

-

There's already tension between Mikaela and Portia this morning and you can only hope that the workshop will help to sort things out.

There's an instructor already waiting in the front yard and a small bonfire in the middle, you wonder why they set a fire during the day.

"Hello, I'm Amy, a relationship expert," she introduces herself.

Everyone is sitting in a circle around the small bonfire and intently listening to Amy talking.

"Today's workshop is about letting go of the past so that we can be present. Let's talk about any issues in trust that we have with men."

She looks around as she asks, "Who wants to share first?"

No one seems to want to talk about their feelings, including you. You feel uncomfortable letting yourself bare and be vulnerable, especially in front of everyone.

After a few minutes passed in silence, Gwen decides to be the first to share her emotional baggage, a shocking one about how her friend cheated with her boyfriend.

Everyone starts to share their story and when it comes to your turn, you're shriveling a little but you remind yourself that you're in a safe space.

"My thing is when I fall in love, I tend to throw it all out there and end up getting hurt for it so... I kind of become numb because I don't want to get hurt," you honestly share.

"And do you find someone here you want to open to?" Amy asks.

"Yeah," you shyly answer.

You suddenly feel like a schoolgirl falling in love for the first time all over again but isn't it what love does to people? Making you a bit loopy.

"I found someone here that I like and I'm slowly opening up to him, and I'll continue to share more of me with him," you make a promise to yourself.

"That's good. That's great!" Amy praises you.

When you look back, you feel good knowing that you're slowly changing as a person, you came in as someone who's against relationships and now, you're sharing an emotional journey with someone, together.

The workshop started as a heartfelt talk between the girls until Mikaela's turn. You get the feeling that she'll use this as a chance to confront Portia.

"I met Rio here and he's just a really special guy, I've never met anyone like him."

Mikaela is looking at Amy then as she continues talking, she looks at Portia, "Last night, I had to sit through and watch Portia take Rio on a date, and obviously, I feel uncomfortable with it," she tells her right to her face.

You and the rest are watching Mikaela calmly handle her emotions and talk it out in a mature way with Portia.

"I don't want to feel like it has to be a competition or territorial. I want us girls to be on good terms but I think you break a boundary here," Mikaela concludes, throwing the ball at her court.

Portia gets quiet and she takes it all in really well, she smiles at her before speaking, "I respect you for speaking out and I'm sorry," she sincerely says.

A smile finally rises on Mikaela's face, "Thank you so much, Portia, that means a lot," she responds.

Like a parent, you feel proud watching them solving their issues in such a grown-up way and you hope it continues to stay good like this.

Amy then hands out a piece of paper and pens to everyone and comes with a new instruction, "You're going to write the things that have happened with your life that you're ready to let go of and forgive."

It feels good to be able to share things with everyone but it takes everything in you to write things down without getting emotional.

On your paper, you write, 'Good enough, perfect, comparison.'

Amy wants you to share the reason why you wrote those things down. You take a deep breath before explaining it.

"I never feel good about myself but the girls are..." You pause to look at everyone as they smile at you.

"They're all beautiful and kind, they help me learn my differences and things I love about me."

They're all cooing at you and you know how cringe it is but you don't feel embarrassed about it at all. It feels nice to let them know that.

After everyone shares what they wrote on their papers, Amy instructs everyone to take that paper and ball it up before throwing it into the bonfire.

"Just feel like you're putting it all behind you, right?" Amy says.

She gathers everyone into a circle before ending the workshop with a group hug to let go of all the bad and take the good with you.

These girls may seem superficial but you can feel that you and them are in this together and it's a really nice feeling. Despite that you're all different, you feel this sense of belonging toward each other, a sisterhood.

-

YOU: I still have some way to go but I know that I'm learning and Lana is starting to knock down my wall [smiles]

-

Going back to the villa, you go straight to the dressing room to dress up for a party Lana suspiciously throwing tonight.

You put your bad thoughts aside and focus on dressing up for the party as it has a Black and White theme.

Han comes up behind you and playfully bites you on the shoulder.

"Ouch!" You yelp in pain.

You continue fixing your make-up in front of the sink since everyone else is crowding the dressing room, "Why did you do that?"

He puts an arm around your waist, "Because you're edible," he answers with a foolish grin.

You glance back at him and sense that he's chipper than usual. You get it that it's getting hard to stay away from each other with sexual attraction getting more unbearable every day.

Gosh! There's not a day when you don't think of ripping his clothes off and having hot, filthy sex with him.

"That's not how I want you to eat me," you joke back.

He plants a long kiss on your neck, "How do you want me to eat you then?"

You chuckle and look at him, "Want you to eat me well, that is."

He puts his other arm around you and draws you closer, "I can do that."

"Yeah?"

He breathes you in and looks at you through the reflection in the mirror, "I can show you," he says.

Before it gets dangerous, you put an end to this conversation and playfully elbow his stomach.

"Ouch!" He yelps in pain this time.

You pull him into a hug for an apology and kiss his cheek, "Let's go, hubba hubba!"

A party is necessary so everyone can blow some steam off for being locked up in this sexless retreat but it also means that Lana plans to throw everyone off.

That doesn't stop you from enjoying the night and the company you're with. You're dancing to the music with your hands draping around Han's shoulders as he slowly sways your body together to the fast-paced music.

After the workshop, you feel much lighter and better, more importantly, you feel confident about how you feel. You look at Han and you feel like you can share anything with him, you can see a relationship with him.

So you hold on to him, tighter and closer but Lana, being the ultimate cockblock she is, chimes in and stops the party.

-

YOU: I have no idea what's about to come next but I know it's not going to be good.

-

It's like the fun has evaporated and been replaced by anxiety once everyone is seated in the cabana waiting for Lana to come online.

"I am very disappointed to report there were several breaches of the rules."

When Lana skips the formality and goes straight to the rule breaks, it means that she's pissed off. You feel good for not breaking the rules with Han after the last time so you don't have anything to worry about. You can freely guess who did it this time.

"We kissed on the date," Ed is kind enough to own up to it fast.

"I think it was okay, yeah," Nya adds to it.

Everyone seems to let them get away with it, maybe because it's one kiss and Ed and Nya are a potential couple. You don't know but you sense that they wouldn't like what they hear next.

"Ed and Nya, your rule break has cost the group $6,000."

Avery is rubbing her temple while Finn seems to have had enough of people selfishly spending the prize money.

"There was another breach of the rules," Lana informs.

Everyone is tense once again, looking around to catch any guilty faces and you bet the biggest spender has anything to do with it.

Han looks over his shoulder at you, covering his eyes he says, "I may have broken the rules in the shower," he meekly says.

Surprised, you spit out, "You did what?"

Han can't be doing another rule break with anyone else, you know that for sure and that leaves with one possibility. You cover your eyes this time as he admits it to everyone.

"I did a little... uh self-gratification," he blurts out at once, aware of how embarrassing it is.

Everyone bursts into laughter at his confession as he hides his head in your neck. You can't do much about it since he didn't tell you about it

"Han, your act of self-gratification has cost the group $4,000."

-

YOU: I'm actually quite offended. Did he not want my help?

-

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[reneesghostinthelivingroom]

First: I want to say that I LOVE your writing. Like when I requested something before and I saw you actually did it, I squealed. Reading your fics literally makes me some happy when I'm down.

Second: I was wondering if I could request another poly!Plastics fic with a Janis best friend reader. R was a bad home life (it can be abuse, neglect, detailed, or glossed over. Whatever you're comfortable with) and the girls, plastics and janis, start to notice it (Like R's behavior or clothe change or something). The girls team up and coast R into telling the truth. R ends up living with Janis (or regina if you want) and they all have a big sleepover at the end.

Now I did read your request rules and I know that you don't write abuse relationships and if family also falls under that category that's completely fine. You don't have to write this fic if it makes you uncomfy and if anything you can take the poly!Plastics fic with a Janis best friend reader idea and have a completely different plot.

Hope you have a good day.

Bruises and Cuddles

|| poly!plastics x fem!reader

(i myself am poly)

|| Warnings; swearing, hinted at abuse, injured reader

|| Summary; reader doesn't have the best home life in the world. As the girls and Janis begin to notice, they take matters into their own hands.

Requests open!

Started; August 31st

Finished; September 9th

slowly getting back into the posting grind 🫡

~~~

You had just walked into school, shoulders slumped and exhaustion etched in your features as you made your way to your locker. Which was right next to Janis', your best friend.

As you approached your locker Janis noticed your state right away with a grimace," you look like shit." Leave it to Janis to compliment you. Right?

Opening your locker, you sighed as you heard her words. It wasn't exactly the reminder you needed, you knew how you looked. You had pulled your hair into a messy bun, tried to cover the bags under your eyes with makeup but you weren't as skilled at that as your girlfriends so parts peaked out. Even your clothes looked sloppy.

"Gee, thanks, Jan." You responded, Janis had been noticing stuff like this from you for the last while now. Since the beginning of grade 10 you'd been coming to school looking like you had just escaped hell. She was starting to get suspicious, wondering about what your home life was really like behind whatever facade your parents put up whenever your friends were over.

"We hanging out later? Damian pirated some movies," Janis gave you a playful nudge as she smirked, pushing her worries to the side for now. Hoping that maybe at the least she could get you out of your house for a while.

You hadn't been listening until she nudged you, getting your attention. You blinked and looked at her," huh- what?"

"Movie night." Janis simplified, a frown on her face as she realized you really weren't doing well. Maybe this wasn't something she could just push aside for now.

"Oh, I can't tonight. Sorry." You replied, its not that you didn't want to. You really, really did. But your mom's been getting on your ass about being out late so often and grounded you over it. Honestly, a stupid reason for getting grounded. But you weren't about to argue with her. You knew better than to do that because of how she reacts whenever you do. Let's just say, she isn't winning the 'mother of the year' award anytime soon.

Janis watched you with studying eyes, a plan forming in the back of her mind. She had to get your girlfriends involved, as much as she wasn't the biggest fans of the plastics. She was sure that having them on her side for whatever this was would be better than going about it alone. "Right."

The bell rang.

"Well, see you when we see you." Janis gave a mock salute ad she walked off to class, you frowned as you watched her leave. Feeling bad for having turned down her offer. For the fourth time in a row that week. You haven't said why, you didn't want her to be concerned or take some reckless action. You knew Janis would try to sneak you out of your house or some shit and didn't need that.

Throughout the week, more instances like that would come up. It would either be one of your girlfriends who found you in an exhausted state, sometimes with a few bruises or Janis would be the one to see it.

One day, Regina had been the one to find you first and had enough of seeing you so beaten up and exhausted. Janis happened to be near by so she rounded her up first, then Gretchen and Karen.

Working together (shockingly) the plastics and Janis pulled you off to the bathroom after making sure no one was in there. They had briefly discussed a game plan beforehand, knowing this was a situation that needed a more gentler approach compared to how they (mostly Regina and Janis) normally handle things

"We gotta talk about.. this." Janis gestured to you with a frown, she didn't know how else to word it without being extremely blunt.

You looked beyond confused.

"But you just gestured to all of me?" Your arms folded across your chest as you glanced at Karen, who was watching you with a sad look. You tried having a silent conversation with her but she didn't pick up on any of your social cues. Maybe not the best one to get information from about whatever this was.

"We're worried you're not getting the right- parental care at home." Gretchen blurted out, Regina gave her a side eye and Gretchen looked at her apologetically. You sighed.

You should have guessed they would notice. It's not like you hid it that well either though. Should you lie? One look at Regina's gaze told you no. It's like she could read exactly what you were thinking. Swallowing thickly, you decided to go with the truth. Your eyes met Gretchen's, being too nervous to look at either Regina or Janis. They could get intense with things like this. And Karen just didn't understand.

"It's my mother." Simple. To the point. Confirmed everything the girls had suspected.

Gretchen's expression softened and she held her arms out to you, you easily went into her hold and relaxed as you felt her arms wrap around you. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Didn't want you guys to worry." Your words were muffled as your face buried into Gretchen's neck, holding her tight.

Regina and Janis shared a look. Almost as if having a silent conversation.

"That's it." Janis said, then both Regina and Janis said at the same time; "You're living with me."

They paused and narrowed their eyes at each other. You looked up at them in slight confusion as you saw them doing a very aggressive and intense game of rock, paper, scissors to decide who you would stay with. You were silently thankful they didn't make you pick.

"Ha! Suck it, bitch!" Janis threw her hands into the air. You assumed Janis won. Regina rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. You could just tell that she wasn't pleased in the slightest. Janis turned to look at you with a smile," You're gonna come live with me. No arguments."

You sighed but nodded, grateful for your friend.

And that's exactly what you did. You moved in with Janis' family, they welcomed you in much to your mom's distaste. She didn't approve of you leaving but your dad helped get you out. He didn't like how his wife treated you, so he gladly helped you leave.

The times after that were good. You were finally getting the proper rest you needed and your bruises healed. Whenever you weren't at Janis', you'd be with your girlfriends. Who always made sure to give you cuddles and comfort.

Despite your past, your future looked good. And you couldn't be happier with how things played out in the end.

~~~

Hoping to get back into my usual flow of writing. I think it sounds kind of close to it? I just haven't written in so long that it might be different and a little rushed. So apologies of it isn't as good as it could have been 🙏

[thatswhatsushesaid]

this person has me blocked, which is something i used to genuinely lament because occasionally i'd see bits of their very thoughtful commentary floating across my dash, and i'd find myself sighing sadly over what other gems of wisdom i was missing out on by not having access to their blog. i'd even lament about it via dms to some of my pals who did still have access to this person's blog. what interesting discussions must have been happening beyond that "???" "this is no one" "uh, who??" opaque door that tumblr always presented to me whenever i clicked on this person's username? would i ever know?

a friend this morning: want to see a bad take to get mad at

me: obviously yes

anyway as it turns out, it looks like i'm missing out on exactly nothing, actually, so that's a huge relief

more seriously, recalling the insightful commentary that i have seen this person reblog in the past when it has come across my dash, i am frankly in awe of this one, because it is so profoundly disconnected from reality and how people experience stories. like i'm not even sure where to start with peeling back all of the wrongness layers at work here because i haven't taken my adhd meds yet this morning, but the primordial stupidity at this take's core (coming from someone who is clearly smart, ftr, i am targeting the stupidity of the concept, not the person) has made me genuinely angry. it's not even just about applying this framework to mdzs, though of course it is principally about that because this book DOES actually place class front and centre at multiple points in the narrative. it's the idea that we just shouldn't be having conversations about classism, or sexism, or [x]-ism, in the romance genre, because don't we realize the point is the romance, actually?? these other things clearly don't matter and aren't worth talking about??? and this mindset is so utterly foreign to me because at no point have i ever felt compelled to stop myself from thinking thoughts about a book because "oh, but this is genre fiction, i need to turn my brain off to read and enjoy this, i forgot." or "this thought is not appropriate because genre fiction, i'd better stop thinking it before i ruin the story."

like. i am deeply, deeply sorry for this person, actually, that they are not picking up on precisely what mxtx is putting down in the text, especially considering mxtx has explicitly explored themes of class in at least two of her novels (i'll get back to you on including svsss once i've read it). but also, a critique of class in the jianghu, or how mxtx has written her female characters, is entirely as valid use of fandom time and energy as writing one more definitely original and not remotely repetitive thinkpiece on the power of wangx!an's morally good love to overcome all obstacles (not saying OP wrote any of these, just that there ARE a bunch of them out there).

like. why do you want to simplify the experience of reading and thinking and talking about these books? why do you want to push for more boring analysis of stories? why are you using your platform to encourage this? i'm so mad about it actually. people listen to you, and this is what you're encouraging them to do: think less.

[markantonys]

While I still don't think the show has done enough to show why the world despises and fears male channelers (since it really should've been embedded into the world building, so far we only know that the Aes Sedai hate and fear them) and it does kinda lessen the impact of the narrative that none of the EF5 had at least an initial gut reaction to Rand being able to channel. I do wonder how they're gonna handle that topic moving forward, cause it kinda has to be addressed now that Rand is actively channeling. I could see it being expanded more deeply as Rand's madness progresses/tie it into his arc.

the show has made it ABUNDANTLY clear that Male Channelers Are Considered Bad News By All. it IS embedded into the worldbuilding. was the king saying that logain's gone mad and trying to kill him not enough for you? was the people of tar valon jeering and throwing fruit at him not enough for you? was rand and mat saying "hey if i'm a male channeler please kill me" not enough for you? was rand's terror the second he realized selene saw him channel not enough for you? was selene's act of how a normal person would react to finding out her boyfriend can channel not enough for you? was his heartbroken yet unsurprised reaction to her rejection not enough for you? was the whole backstory of a male channeler causing the apocalypse not enough for you? do you think that show-onlys are completely incapable of putting all these pieces together along with aes sedai treatment of male channelers and coming to the conclusion that male channelers are probably not very popular with most people and it's going to be very tough for rand that he is one?

literally what else should they have done that would make sense within the very small world and very early story of the first 2 seasons/3 books that they didn't already do? shown emond's fielders sitting around the dinner table talking about how much they hate and fear male channelers when none of them has ever met one and thus it's not relevant to their lives? wasted time doing a whole sidequest for rand in s2 where his abilities are discovered by some Average Citizens and they react badly? shit all over show!mat's characterization and given him a negative reaction to rand in s2 that would not make sense for his current show headspace, just for the sake of furthering rand's randpain? i'm sick of the rand stans who act like rand is the only character who matters and mat's characterization should be sacrificed just so we can go "oh poor rand uwu even his own best friend is mean to him". portraying mat in 2x06 as the sort of person who bullies and kicks his best friend while he's down would've been beneficial because......? what is so wrong with the show making the ef5 feel like mutually loyal friends instead of "rand is the best and most loyal friend in the world but the rest are little shits who abandon him as soon as the going gets tough"? seeing as in the books, mat continues to be an extremely loyal friend to rand throughout the series but most readers are too stupid to see through his unreliable narration and realize he doesn't mean it when he says that rand channeling is like him eating babies, i'm not surprised the show decided to simplify things in order to convey the true heart of mat's character (loyal and caring friend to rand) in a more obvious manner.

and i guarantee you that no show-only is going "oh, it's only aes sedai who have a problem with male channelers, everyone else thinks they're cool". that's not happening. show-onlys are not stupid, and they understand that male channelers are considered bad news by all; or maybe they haven't thought much yet about how male channelers are viewed by the average public, but in future seasons once we see rand getting shit from the average public, they are not going to be surprised or confused or go "but i thought it was only aes sedai who had a problem with them and everyone else thinks they're cool?", they're going to go "oh, well we've seen how much aes sedai hate them, so it makes sense that everyone else does too". stop. think for 2 seconds about "have i actually seen a large number* of show-onlys misunderstanding X and/or do i think it's plausible that a large number of show-onlys would be likely to misunderstand X, or do show-onlys have enough context clues to figure out X for themselves or to be unsurprised when X is expanded on and made more explicit in future seasons and i'm working myself up into a state over a non-issue?"

*there are always going to be a handful of people incapable of critical thinking who willfully misunderstand what the show is showing us, just like there are readers like that with the books, hence unless a LARGE number of general-population show-onlys are misunderstanding X, as opposed to just 20 idiots on twitter, i do not consider it a failure by the show in portraying X.

[beanghostprincess]

I don’t have many Op friends I can talk about this with but one of my top ship tropes is when it’s established that Luffy is slow on the uptake regarding people’s relationships and even HE knows someone is in love and pining. Like, to make a point at how utterly obvious it is. Sanji cuts food for Usopp into little bite sized pieces? Luffy just asks him something that indicates Sanji and Usopp are in a relationship and the cook almost chokes. Nami tries to write a letter and is getting visibly frustrated at not finding the right words and he just looks over her shoulder like „Say Vivi I said hi!“. He witnessed Shank and Buggy finally meeting at laughtale and there is just a bunch of „I WOULD HAVE FOLLOWED YOU!“ „I never wanted you to leave!“ „YOU WERE A COWARD!“ „Why does that matter now?!“ „BECAUSE I ALMOST GAVE UP MY DREAM FOR YOU!“ and Luffy just looks at this insane display in front of him while his idol does a homoerotic sword vs dagger fight with a clown and just „Are you seeing this shit Zoro?“ like… congrats . You’re being such a lovesick idiot even Luffy is like „Damn bitch you got it bad“

Honestly, this is extremely in character and pretty much not far from the truth. Luffy, despite being a dumbass, is a very perceptive person when it comes to people's feelings. One of his best traits as a main character is that he's empathetic to the point of knowing how people feel or what they want without needing to know the background or the rest of the story. I actually hate when the fanon perception of Luffy gets simplified to "he's an idiot" because yeah, he might be reckless and stupid and he's very silly, but he's emotionally mature to a sickening extent. Savior complex much? (Not that he wants to be a hero, god forbid, he would hate that. I just mean that his constant need to save everyone so nobody he cares about dies on him or gets hurt again has made him really aware of his surroundings and people's feelings). And, well, tbh he has always been like that. Very honest and perceptive, I mean. He might be a bit slow when catching up to some things and he might not know why people feel what they feel sometimes, but he knows what they're feeling. Get me? Like he might be aware of Nami being mad at him, for example, and not knowing why, but being aware that he has to do something to change that.

What I want to say with all of this is that Luffy noticing romance within the crew is extremely canon because he knows how his friends act, and if he notices changes in a person towards someone else, he might be stupid but he's not that oblivious. Like, he knows something's up. And to him the whole concept of pining is so stupid because if you feel something, just let the other person know! But then again, his relationship with Zoro is just different from that, and not everyone can have a devoted long-term marriage without saying a word.

And his reaction towards people pining would be hilarious because the guy would be exhausted from the crew having crushes and not doing anything. A Sanuso trope I love is Luffy going to Usopp like "Hey, confess already because Sanji has been distracted lately, and if he stops cooking because he is sad and pining for you I will be very mad" and he says shit like this and goes away and leaves Usopp alone with that information as if it was the most obvious and normal thing to do. But, you know, Luffy gets things done around here, at least.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

I sometimes picture stage 2 getting frustrated by the way the body seems to constantly need to move and fidget.

Like Dust and Horror could be yapping on about something killer finds uninteresting and so his mind starts drifting away, pondering other things, only to come back to when one of the others ask him to stop tapping the fingers.

And he wasn’t aware he was tapping the fingers. He doesnt know why he was tapping the fingers.

Is he going to stop? Nah. Their annoyance with him is amusing. (Even if Nightmare were to order him to stop, it’d still be difficult to actually do because the body just does it naturally. Doesn’t matter how many times the boss attempts to punish him for his “annoying, distracting movements.”)

I’d also imagine that Killer’s inability to focus or concentrate, especially when whatever the topic is doesn’t interest him, often tends to earn him a lot of irritation from the others and gets him in a lot of trouble with nightmare—who needs him to be “sharp” all the time, and killer is aware he needs to be attentive to nightmare’s moods, needs, wants.

I’d think he’d have a lot of issues remembering detailed instructions and completing tasks. Nightmare often needs to order him to get him to do something (which killer constantly has to force himself to remember to do and actually try to motivate himself to do), but once killer is hyper focused, any of the others disrupting his focus or distracting him tends to make it harder for him to do it again and he often just rushes through it. Making “stupid mistakes” that often end with him yet again in trouble with the boss or at the other end of someone’s irritation.

Because he struggles to remember long, detailed verbal instructions the others may even simplify instructions for him but it makes him think they are talking down to him, as if he is a child that they think is dumb and can’t be trusted to perform complex tasks or do simple things when asked to.

And also the idea of people thinking he’s annoying because he “talks too much,” when in actuality he is info dumping about his hyperfixations—or as he’d say, “this really cool thing.”

I’d imagine he’s the type to get easily lost in scrolling through social media and neglect doing the things he was supposed to do, which might even result in nightmare taking away his phone and not giving it back until he finds killer’s work satisfactory.

Which not only drives in the idea that killer is a child being punished, he’s also yet again being denied things.

Having his stuff taken from him. His phone is his connection to the outside world, to a sense of time, to his memories of his cats and color, his connection to color.

He places a lot of importance on the phone, it’s his. He even scavenged a lot of money to buy it himself instead of stealing it, color was very proud of him for doing that, he earned it. And yet still, nightmare gets to take it from him? Is it not his?

I don’t know I was thinking about how a lot of people seem to hc that killer has undiagnosed adhd, and I was wondering how that might effect his life and performance under nightmare; even how the symptoms might manifest across his different Stages. Feel free to say how yall think killer might be effected by it.

[gravitycavity]

[Preview] Sunshine (Pomni x Ragatha) Chapter 8

Faintly, Ragatha lifted her head. The will to fight faded in her eyes, as though she knew that the frigid despair pumping from her ruptured heart was unstoppable; only a scant few places — the bottoms of her flat Mary Janes, the stitched tips of her simplified hands, and half of her cherubic face — remained un-abstracted.

Still, she spoke through the pain. “I…love you so much, my Sunshine,” she croaked, leaning her head against Pomni’s chest. The weakened grimace upon her face shied away from two tearful eyes. “I’m so, so sorry our story had to end this way…”

“H-Hey! Don’t talk like that!” scolded Pomni between haggard breaths, “It’s not over yet! Everything’s gonna be okay!”

“Maybe,” Ragatha choked out, her worn-out voice shattered to pieces. “Whatever happens, Pomni, I want you to know — you are everything. Just everything. My whole wide world. And you always will be,” she said. Pearly tears glistened down the soft curves of her cheeks. “No matter what comes next, I’ll never forget the time we spent together. I just wish I could have learned your real name. Or brushed my thumbs across your real cheeks, or rested my head on your real shoulders…”

“You will! I promise you will!” Pomni said, a frog in her throat. Her fierce gaze, wet with tears, fixed on the crooked elevator doors down the hall. She was nearly there. A stone’s throw away. Nearly to the end of this horrendous nightmare. “We’re going to get out of this stupid game together, no matter how long it takes us! We’ll find each other in the real world, no matter how far we have to travel, because…” Pomni shakily swallowed, “Because I love you! I love you, Ragatha, more than anything else in this stupid world!”

Ragatha smiled, despite everything. “Sunshine…?” she breathed. The creaking of floorboards beneath Pomni’s feet — and a distant, monstrous groan down the hall — filled in the pregnant pause before the dolly found the strength to speak again, “Humor me?”

Pomni’s brows squinched together. Humor her? What was Ragatha talking about? “H-Huh?”

“Do you…do you still remember the color of your eyes…?”

“Uh—” Pomni’s head flinched slightly. Ragatha’s question wasn’t unusual — but decidedly out-of-the-blue. Her eyes. What color were her eyes? The gut response of ‘ I don’t know’ or ‘why do you ask’ waited impatiently on the tip of her tongue, and yet, Pomni knew in her heart that that wouldn’t do.

“I, um—” Pomni glanced down. Ragatha stared back, black abstraction spreading across a patient, yet expectant look. “That’s a good question…”

It had been ages since Pomni had given herself more than a passing glance in her toothpaste-flecked bathroom mirror, let alone looked away from her big, ugly blemishes long enough to notice such a trivial detail. She could barely even recall the last time anyone had brought up the color of her eyes. Sometime back in the ‘00s, she figured — when life was simple, and she was old enough to count her age on just two hands.

In truth, she was only half-sure, but she couldn’t leave Ragatha hanging. Pomni chewed on the answer a little while longer before finally spitting it out: “Uh. J-Just brown. I think,” she huffed, squinting at her destination. She was close enough now to make out the distinct “C&A” etched above the elevator door, “Nothing too special.”

“Brown…” Ragatha swooned, “...such a charming color. Copper pans, Autumn leaves, fancy leather couches…” she cooed, wearing a peaceful smile even as strands of abstraction stretched across her mouth, “...I can almost see them now. Goodness gracious, how beautiful they are…”

- - -

New chapter soon! Promise!

[youkaigakkou-tl]

(sorry in advance for the long ask) i feel silly for not noticing earlier but i realized that "Sano Mikoto" follows the same "__ no mikoto" name pattern that several japanese gods have. but that also made me wonder: if the 佐 from sano's name means "help" then his whole name sounds like "the god of help/assistance". but based on how that doesn't align with his yakubyougami nature and how ebisu reacts to hearing the name in ch 53 (his reaction is a bit more clear in the jpn raws) (1/2)

佐 doesn't really mean "help" on its own, it only somewhat means that when it's part of the word 補佐 "hosa" , which means "assistant" (in an organizational structure to a chief or leader) rather than like "helping people". Most of the time 佐 is just used as a kanji to represent the sound "sa", which is somewhat frequently the case for the on-readings (similar to chinese pronunciation) of kanji.

This is particularly prevalent when it comes to ancient literature like the creation myths and stories around gods, where the stories originally only existed in verbal form, and when japan adopted the chinese writing system some 1500 years ago, they applied certain chinese characters to the sounds that existed in japanese (the 50 or so hiragana that exist now) in order to put the stories into writing.

(and then over time 50 or so kanji got simplified into hiragana for normal use but thats neither here nor there. but names got to keep their kanji, which is why creation myth gods often have stupid long names that are 1 kanji per syllable, and the kanji used dont mean much of anything by themselves)

(theres also that often the kanji chosen will have been positive words, stuff like "fast" or "wise" or "powerful", in addition to the chinese word sounding like the japanese syllable (which was the more important part). Its unclear whether all these attributes were all applicable to the god named, its just as possible people afterwards applied those attributes to them in future retellings of the stories because the kanji was in the name. sort of a chicken and egg problem. and anyway, does it really matter what the one "true" interpretation of a story is, if one exists at all? it's a very modern sensibility to demand one, when for much of history stories only existed in the air between a storyteller and a listener. im getting off track here)

this is a lot of words to say, what is significant about the 佐 in "sano", is that it's the same one as in susanoo-no-mikoto. susanoo, notable for being associated with storms and disaster, for being exiled from heaven after causing some sort of destruction, and for being a child of izanagi and izanami and born after their first child hiruko (or rather, ebisu).

the thing about the yakubyougami thing, as with every other youkai and everything about folklore, is that at the end of the day, it's a story. youkai are just a set of attributes and circumstances that are wrapped up as a story, and in turn given a name and a face. a kamaitachi is just the occurrence of "wind whipping up suddenly and dust and leaves cutting someone" wrapped up as a story of "what if an imperceptibly fast weasel with knives did it?!"

it's why there can be so many different versions of stories for the same youkai, with behaviors and appearance differing from place to place, or the same "story" being given a different "name" in different places

(relevant to the latest chapter, i sort of suspect this is why theres like 10 different monkey youkai whose lore is just "this monkey is a FREAK")

what im getting at is, this isnt really like scientific taxonomy classifications, where theres genes you can sequence or criteria you can check to see if something is the right species. (and even then, there's birds stranded on isolated islands, fish sealed in caves, microorganisms in general, etc etc) there's not like a "youkai auditor" that goes around auditing if you're Really the youkai you say you are.

nor is it like you intrinsically know what youkai you are and all the lore about it and what behaviors youre supposed to have and what powers you have etc. you're told that by your parents, and in cases where that isnt possible, you figure it out somehow. like with beniko (popped out of a house and raised by humans), they looked it up and people have come up with a name for the phenomenon, which was called "zashiki warashi". or in cases like odawara where you really do just come to life alone, i imagine you either make a name for yourself, or humans who come across you will make a name for you.

which is a lot of words to say, sano can call himself whatever the hell he wants to make his life easier and not have to explain his backstory or have classmates make guesses at his backstory, as long as his traits somewhat fit. especially since recently he's often in the same scenes as kurahashi, who is now confirmed to straight up not be who or what he says he is.

[crossdressingdeath]

It's so weird to me seeing people insist that all Rooks are going to be the exact same with no real variation between them besides the names based on the fact that they all get involved with the Veilguard after prioritizing saving lives over their faction (if you look at the blurbs even the "they go against orders to save people" angle only applies to Thorne, the others didn't know or didn't have actual orders to go against, and even "prioritizing lives over their faction" doesn't apply to Mercar (going against slavers is kind of their job and the Shadow Dragons want them out of sight to protect them) or de Riva (they didn't actually know about the wider mission at stake and could easily have assumed that their superiors urging caution didn't mean letting civilians die)). For a few reasons, actually. First and most obviously... people are making a lot of assumptions based on the very brief and vague backstory overview you get at the start of the game. The character introductions we get at the start of the game have always been a brief overview with no emotional details; the details come in the game proper (which is also when Rook will I'm sure get the chance to discuss how they feel about their faction and the events that led to them leaving it; it's very strange to me that so many people seem convinced we won't get to make decisions about that based from what I've seen solely on the single paragraph of background information we get before the game even starts). Bioware didn't stop in the CC of DAO, DA2 or DAI to ask us exactly how our character felt about their background, they let us decide that for ourselves during the game, and I really don't understand why people are assuming it'll be different here.

Secondly it's based on a massively oversimplified view of what exactly happens in each backstory blurb. I mean there is of course the general setup of each character's background before the incident that led them to the Veilguard (do not come here and try to tell me that a baby found by the undead and raised by necromancers in Nevarra is the exact same as a kid raised by a military family in Tevinter, using the two whose childhoods we have any information on as an example; they are not the same and would have very different viewpoints on the world), but there's more to it. The actual incidents are quite different if you look at them beyond that basic "prioritized lives over the faction's best interests" angle! Aldwir choosing to give up a valuable artefact to save their teammates isn't the same as Thorne refusing to wait for reinforcements when a nearby village would be destroyed before they arrived, which isn't the same as Laidir pissing off the nobles and risking drawing the authorities' ire down on the Lords by killing a corrupt noble, which isn't the same as de Riva unknowingly compromising a larger mission by rescuing Antivan citizens taken captive by the Antaam. These are different events! Saying they're all the same is a very, very simplified read of them!

But I'm sure people will still argue that they're too similar because of that very simplified read. To that I say: every Warden is the exact same because they all get involved in a dangerous event and then get recruited by Duncan. Every Inquisitor is the exact same because they all go to the Conclave and pick up the Anchor. The details of their backgrounds and their thoughts on those backgrounds and their dialogue that's impacted by their backgrounds don't matter, the inciting incident is the same so clearly they're all the exact same character and the only things that change are names, classes and aesthetics.

...Stupid, right? Obviously if you boil down the protagonist of an RPG to the most basic description possible they're going to appear the same as every other possible protagonist of that RPG. The protagonist needs a plot hook to get them involved in the main story and that plot hook is always going to be similar to every other potential protagonist's plot hook. The Warden needs to be in a situation where they would get recruited by Duncan, and it makes for easier writing if that happens in a situation where there's a good chance they'd be grateful for it. The Inquisitor needs to get the Anchor. And in this game Rook needs to be in a position where their faction wants or needs them out of the way for whatever reason and Varric would want to take them for the Veilguard. With those two factors in mind, them putting innocent lives over their faction (for lack of a better way of putting it, see my comment on Mercar and de Riva in the first paragraph) is a good choice. It's something that ensures their faction will encourage or order them to join up and something that would encourage Varric to pick them! If you agree that it's stupid to claim all Wardens or Inquisitors are the exact same regardless of backstory because of the inciting incident that gets them into the plot (which I assume everyone does), then don't automatically assume that all Rooks are going to be the same because of their inciting incidents having some similarities.

[zmediaoutlet]

Well, Sam wasn’t wrong. The panic room wasn’t any kind of paradise to be locked in, no matter how much the occupant needed it. Cot’s a piece of crap, too. Dean knows Bobby doesn’t go for the softer things, much, but man. Given that being shut in here had a pretty decent chance of turning into your last night on earth, he could’ve at least sprung for a mattress pad. A decent blanket. Something.

Dean sits on the edge of the bed. He turns his wrist against the handcuff and looks at the underside, the blue veins. Knows he could pick it if he had any damn thing left on him to pick it, but Sam didn’t leave him much but his boots. Knows he could pull, and bleed, and dislocate or even break his thumb and force his way out that way, but Sam’s locked him pretty tight and he’s not positive he could drag his way out, and if he screwed it up then he’d just be in a bunch of pain, and Castiel’s probably too mad at him to heal it. He could just bleed out. He turns his wrist in the cuff again, grips the edge of the mattress with both hands. Easy to imagine. The blood sluicing down—and it’d take a while, unless he hurried it along somehow—snapping a spring off the bed and making the wounds jagged and wide and red—making the world slow and slide and shut down, hopefully permanently, so he wouldn’t have to bear it anymore. So Bobby and Cas and everyone who ever relied on him wouldn’t have to bear it, anymore. Except of course it wouldn’t be a solution because he can’t. Everything he was ever taught flooded up against that last lead door and stopped. More’s the pity.

The panic room door opens, creaking. He keeps looking at the floor.

“You want some water, or something?” Sam says.

Dean smiles at the iron between his boots. “I’m good.”

Drag of metal on metal—Sam pulls the desk chair over, sits a yard away from Dean. Not far enough away that Dean couldn’t grab him, if he made the lunge. If he wanted to. He doesn’t know why Sam isn’t worried about it.

“What’s in the box?” Sam says. Dean smiles at the floor. “Don’t make a Brad Pitt joke. The box you had, in the motel in Cicero. I put it in the trunk before I drove the car back up here.”

Dean looks up. Sam’s watching him. Small frown but he’s not mad. He doesn’t even seem disappointed, even if Dean’s been—everything he’s been.

“What I had,” he says. His voice is rough and he clears his throat. “Just… stuff. I thought maybe you’d…” He shakes his head. “Feels stupid. Talking about, you know, crap maybe you’d remember me by, except here I am. Just stuff. Dad’s jacket, my gun, my keys. Wrote a letter.”

Sam raises his eyebrows. “A letter.”

Dean shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, now.”

Sam looks like he’s not sure about that. Dean wishes he hadn’t mentioned it. Imagines Sam ripping off the duct tape and reading the stupid crap he’d written down and thinking that it was all Dean had wanted to say. Felt too messed up to leave without even a note but he couldn’t—formulate it, not out loud and not in writing either, turned out, especially if Bobby or someone else might see it too. How much he loved Sam and resented him and needed him and how this hole in the center of his gut that had started who knows how long ago had just gotten bigger, and bigger, and he’d worried that what he felt for Sam would fall into it and get lost but it didn’t seem to work that way, somehow. The hole got bigger and what him-and-Sam meant got bigger, too, and stranger and stronger and more unwieldy, until there were days that Dean thought he’d suffocate under it, or drown maybe, or that he’d lose his mind with worry, or that he’d—start to hate Sam, maybe, for making him this terrified. For being this thing he couldn’t stand the idea of losing and yet that had been lost to him over and over. Until the hole felt like it took up all of him, just this absence held vastly empty under the barrier of his skin, and what him-and-Sam meant was going to destroy the whole planet, and it felt more right to just—simplify the equation. Subtract the thing by half and maybe there’d actually be something left, afterward. Even if Dean weren’t around to see it then at least there’d be something.

“I wish I could make you believe it,” Sam says. Dean refocuses. The spinning shadow of the fan above cuts random light over Sam’s face. His mouth tucked up on one side, sorry. “I don’t know how. There’s not any—evidence I can show, or logic. It’s not a case. It’s just something I know and I can’t make you understand.”

“Guess I shouldn’t have dropped out,” Dean says, and Sam smiles in this weird flat way that doesn’t look like smiling at all, and Dean can’t make him understand, either, how sorry he is, and how little it matters that he’s sorry. That he has to say yes to Michael because there is no other way he can think of in the world to save as many people as they can but also to save Sam, from Michael and from Lucifer and from himself, most of all, and to save Dean from having to see that, too. He’s thought about how it’ll go. When they got to talk to Jimmy Novak he explained that being possessed by an angel was like being chained to a comet: terrifying, absolute, a blaze of blinding light, and Dean thinks—hopes—that that’s true, that with an archangel it’ll be worse, that he can close his eyes and sink into it and there’ll be pain, he’s sure, but he’s been through hell and pain’s nothing he worries about, if he won’t have to see his brother fall.

“I’m kinda jealous Cas got to beat you up,” Sam says. Dean snorts. Then Sam leans forward, quick, takes Dean’s face in both hands. Dean stiffens but Sam doesn’t—hit him, or choke him, or kiss him. All equal possibilities considering the day. Sam only looks him in the eyes, with this expression like—he’s five years old and wishing for answers Dean can’t give. Dean reaches up with his uncuffed hand and grips Sam’s wrist. His pulse fast under Dean’s thumb. Sam takes a deep, shuddery breath in, closes his eyes tight. When he opens them they’re damp but he doesn’t look five anymore. “We’re going to save Adam and you’re not going to say yes. I don’t care if you don’t believe it. I know.”

This year’s been too terrible for the empty pit in Dean to feel any smaller. “Okay, Sam,” he says, because it’ll get him out of this room. Sam nods and stands up and goes for the keys. Dean watches him, tall and broad and beautiful, and wishes he had faith.

[eastgaysian]

me: i guess it's just the more i think about it, the humor in/around bg3 starts to feel like larian cares more about pleasing people, even if it breaks immersion or flattens/flanderizes characters, than making a game that's fun and funny because of a consistent internal logic and sense of genre and setting.

the tulpa of tom wambsgans i keep in the attic: people do like funny games.

me: but what does it mean for a game as an interactive medium to be funny? like, people find it funny if a game is broken or janky, but a game can also be funny because the mechanics are working and they're designed in a funny way. like, the disco elysium skills are effectively their own cast of characters as a part of the mechanics, and intentionally made into a huge element of the game's humor. watching harry fumble is a lot funnier when the peanut gallery always has something to say about it. or even, i dunno, the very obsidian bit of dialogue choices going 'yes,' 'no,' '[lie] yes,' '[lie] no.' that's humor that relies on the nature of dialogue trees.

tulpa wambsgans, who i've forced to play disco elysium: right. there's plenty of times when you thought the mechanics of bg3 led to funny situations, though.

me: that's not exactly what i'm trying to get at. or it's not the biggest part of it. like, i feel like i've brought this up one too many times already, but the 'hot githyanki girlfriend' dialogue choice you get when romancing lae'zel - it's 'funny,' right? it's supposed to be funny.

tulpa wambsgans: i mean, it is, funny. isn't it?

me: i mean, not to me. i think it's fucking cringe. but it's like, why is that cringe to me, and not disco elysium's 'i want to have fuck with you?' on the surface, it seems like kind of similar humor, like it's your character saying stupid shit. but in disco elysium, the joke is on you-as-harry, because that became your dialogue option after you failed. and the... i'd argue central conceit of disco elysium, maybe, is that harry as an amnesiac wreck with a bunch of skills talking to him in his head is the only way to in-world make sense of a guy who acts like a video game character. and the joke is that you're a video game character selecting dialogue options, but if you were a real person, like harry's supposed to be, you'd seem like a fucking weirdo, and people in the game treat you like a fucking weirdo.

tulpa wambsgans: so what's the problem with baldur's gate 3?

me: i guess it feels like the joke is on the game for being a game that wants to be taken seriously? on the characters within it, for being characters that can only take the game seriously? i don't know if that makes sense. when you incorporate in memes like the god's favorite princess stuff or whatever it was, that's for the player, like almost as a reward for making that joke about the game outside of the game. but it's also, i mean, it's a huge... oversimplification of everything shadowheart's got going on, right? like, shar is or was explicitly abusing her.

tulpa wambsgans: it's a joke, though.

me: right, but what kind of relationship does that create, between the player and the studio, and the player and the game, if the player is rewarded for these kinds of jokes by having them funneled back into the game as part of its reality? the game of fandom telephone where canon events and characters get simplified and miscommunicated over and over, but this time the studio, the makers of canon, are in on it. i mean, it doesn't need to be about jokes, i think that just bothers me more because people tend to have such a positive reaction to jokes. like, lae'zel's dismiss to camp dialogue being changed as well as minthara's recruitment no longer conflicting with halsin's is i would argue part of the same problem.

tulpa wambsgans: ....does any of this really matter?

me: tulpa tom wambsgans you know i only come up into the attic to talk to you about shit that doesn't matter

[quirkwizard]

Hey Wiz! I need your help with this quirk Idea I have called "Rev Up" where the user uses their body heat from everyday activities or movement to build up heat which then in turn becomes the source of their power bit by bit they would look more and more like Molten man from Spectacular Spider-man, this is primarily built and used for speed, making for mad dashes and quick close quarter combat, however I need help fleshing this idea out more and making it much more cohesive (Part 1)

Part 2 of Rev Up, As for it's abilities it isn't limited to speed but due to the user's personality that's what it's used for mostly, this quirk can use the heat of the body and vent it out to a large concussive force like Jax from Mortal Kombat 11 using his excess heat as a projectile. As an ultimate move version of this, he could do a copy of the pokemon move "Overheat" basically venting out all his heat in a large AOE blast leaving him defenseless and freezing due to removing ALL body heat

Rev Up Part 3: As for why it speeds up the user via Body Heat is because it's cool, I don't actually have a reason for now which is why I figured to ask for your help as you know your stuff and much more about quirk and quirk effects than I do. At first I thought it was due to the legs being the main source of locomotion and due to that, heat but it felt like I was just making up some stupid science mumbo jumbo, I'd like to ask for your help, thank you

Rev Up Part 4: Weaknesses, this quirk affects the user's personality, as they build up heat they go from their usual calm, collected and thoughtful demeanor to a reckless and rushing one due to the heat making a mess out of the brain and it's functions making him have much more adrenaline than usual, not just that heat is not just their source of power but also their weakness due to their body overheating without venting and burning out leaving them far weaker than post overheat

Rev Up Part 5: I'm sorry this is the last one, I need your help to make this quirk idea much more realistic (?) or much more cohesive in execution via maybe an analysis? Is it perhaps too simplistic? Can more applications be made to it? Are the weaknesses not enough? I'm sorry for the long essays, and thank you always for your quirk analysis I loved reading them all

As a small aside: you don't need to justify the effect as long as it fits within the Quirk's own logic. It doesn't matter that Iida's legs have pipes coming out of them, it matters more that they need fuel and stall out like a car.

I think that there is something in here, but it needs some trimming and revising to get there. There is a lot going on with this Quirk. While they could be from the stream of consciousness way you wrote your ask, I still think it'd benefit from some scaling down. I would remove the user exerting all of their body heat and using it as a projectile. The whole venting thing seems counter intuitive for balance since one of the big downsides is that the user can end up overheating and burning out and the range attacks seem out of place with the rest of the Quirk's design. Keep it physical augmentations to start out with and maybe keep some of the greater heat based applications to after they start training the power or have it be something they build up to at the higher levels of the power. On that note, I may change around the core premise some. Instead of building up heat from just walking around, as that seems way too passive and easy for a power like this, you could have it be tied to their adrenaline. The more pumped up they feel, the more potent their Quirk becomes. That ties into the user's body heating up and the altered mindset they get when they use the power while simplifying the premise some. Finally, I'm not sure about the name "Rev Up". Something like "Heat Up" or "Burnout" may make more sense for this.