#at least a quarter i'd say

[ballroomnotoriety]

contrary to the impression any conversation with me will give, i do Not Like being angry but boy howdy! number one way to get me there is by playing dumb! when I ask how plants get their energy--well after we've covered photosynthesis--i should not feel like im talking to a bunch of dead fish!

shout-out though to the kid who, when a classmate asked me a Very Stupid Question, deadpan asked "did u read the directions?" and classmate went "no" and kiddo just rolled their eyes at me. I feel u bruh. u got me.

[wenchtoast]

laaaaaaaaaame. the notes are full of a bunch of loser nerds. anyway people who smoke are more sexy and cool than people who don't 4ever and ever

I keep seeing ads for cotton candy flavored vape pods on tumblr and it made me wonder…

Why/Why not in the tags?

I’m interested because I feel like when I was in high school/college in the mid-10s, almost nobody smoked - even if you otherwise had some pretty hard vices. I think it was considered not really worth it for something with such a small buzz. But now, idk. Maybe the advertisers are right to target people here because it’s just that popular again??

(Reblog for a bigger sample size etc etc.)

[medicinemane]

Instead of hiring the consultants people see to that just give... the worst advice ever, they should hire me because I'll be a fraction of the price and might even say something not dumb

[riality-check]

The eagerly awaited part 2 of the DILF!Steve concert saga is here!! Part 1, in case you missed it.

"You're not going."

"Come on! I haven't thrown up in an hour!"

"The drive to the venue is an hour and a half."

"Steve-"

"And if you throw up in my car-"

"Oh my God-"

"I'll kill you."

Steve doesn't need to see Dustin's eye roll in order to feel the full force of it through the phone.

"I'll just kill you. You'll have a headstone within the week that says Here Lies Dustin Henderson: Rightfully Murdered for Puking in Steve Harrington's Car," he continues as he packs Capri-Suns into the cooler for the car ride.

He doesn't remember ever being that thirsty as a kid, but if Anna wants strawberry kiwi, Anna gets strawberry kiwi. It helps that it's Steve's favorite flavor, too.

"I'd need a big ass headstone to fit all of that," Dustin snaps.

"Your big-ass ego would demand no less, shithead," Steve shoots back.

"Swear jar, Daddy!" Anna calls from her room, across the house because while she doesn't listen to Steve when he's right in front of her, she can hear him break the swear jar rule from halfway across the world.

He zips up the cooler, fishes a quarter out of his pocket, and throws it into the half-full soup can next to the stove.

(A quarter doesn't mean much, but Anna doesn't know that. The day Steve teaches that kid about inflation is the day his pockets become permanently empty.)

"Did she just swear jar you?" Dustin asks from over the phone.

"You baited me into it."

"I did no such thing."

Steve rolls his eyes. "You're not coming, though, are you?"

Dustin sighs, and, for all his teasing, Steve does genuinely feel bad. "I still feel like if I breathe wrong, I'll hurl, so, no. I don't think I'll manage the car ride, nevermind the actual show."

"Sorry dude."

"Don't be. Some dickhead will live stream the whole thing on Instagram, anyway. I'll live vicariously through them."

Steve snorts and picks up the cooler. He got Anna dressed beforehand, so it's just a matter of getting her to stop playing with whatever toy she dug up - Play-Doh has been the fixation of the week - in her room so they can go.

"Besides," Dustin continues, and Steve hates where this is going. "Anna loved the show, and you've got a reason-"

"Nope," Steve says, knocking on Anna's door. "Don't finish that sentence."

"All I'm saying-"

"I know what you're gong to say, which means you know my answer. I don't date."

Anna opens her door. From the little Steve can see inside, there are at least three containers of Play-Doh open and strewn across the floor. He thinks her Barbies are involved in it somehow.

"Time to go," Steve says, and he thinks, Please don't let there be Play-Doh in the Barbie hair.

"Five more minutes," Anna tries.

"Nope. Clean up and roll out."

"Hi, Anna," Dustin says through the phone.

"Uncle Dusty!" Anna shrieks, and she starts jumping up and down. "Are you comin', too?"

Dustin sighs, and Steve can't tell if it's at the nickname or if he's still cursing the universe. "No, but you and your dad have a great time, okay?"

"Can you, can you tell Daddy I should get five more minutes?"

Steve raises his eyebrows at her. Anna, to her credit, ignores him wonderfully.

"If you clean up," Dustin says, because he's actually Steve's favorite person right now, "you get to do more headbanging at the concert."

Anna gasps like Steve didn't already tell her that earlier today, and she gets to work on putting her toys away. Steve helps, of course, and he finds that there is, in fact, Play-Doh in two of her Barbies' hair.

Fun. They're going to turn into Buzzcut Barbies when Anna goes to sleep because he can already tell that they are the furthest thing from salvageable.

But that doesn't matter right now. What matters is getting Anna in the car, deploying the first two of many strawberry kiwi Capri Suns from the cooler, and making the drive to the venue, which Steve does with minimal road rage and accompanied by the Disney radio station.

Success by all metrics, really.

Dinner might as well be now, so Steve shells out a truly disgusting amount of money for overpriced chicken nuggets and fries at the venue. Anna will only eat half her portion but say she's hungry later, but that's what the snacks and water Steve smuggled in via his jacket are for.

They get to their seats, dinner finished up, just as the lights go down for the first opener. Steve looks to his left, half-expecting Eddie and his friends to be there before remembering that they won't be.

He tries not to feel too disappointed. He fails miserably.

The seat next to him, however, isn't empty. There's a note taped to the back of it, one addressed to Steve and Miss Anna, so Steve feels alright taking and opening it.

At the top, there's a messily scrawled phone number. Underneath, it says:

Here's my number. Probably a bad idea to call with all the noise. Texting works, though you should do that after the show. I'll be a little busy until then.

-Eddie

Steve puts the note in his pocket, puts Anna's ear defenders on, puts his own earplugs in, and looks at the stage, where-

Hang on.

He squints at the stage, where four guys have started playing a song that, frankly, sounds too much like literally all the music Steve listened to yesterday for him to care about all that much. The drummer is pretty small, with wild, curly hair. The bassist looks familiar. The lead singer, who is very talented but not to Steve's personal taste, also looks familiar. And the guitarist-

No way. No way in hell.

It's a total coincidence. Lots of guys have long, curly hair and heavy jewelry and big eyes and are wearing formal wear, for some reason, and catch Steve's eye, and-

"Thank you for such a great welcome!" the guitarist says, and his smile totally isn't doing anything to Steve, thanks very much.

Anna stops moving, where she's standing next to Steve, and climbs up into his lap to get a better look at the stage. She looks out, then back at Steve, then out, then back at Steve, making a face as confused as Steve feels.

Some days, he thinks he ended up with a clone, not a kid.

"I'll get off the mic in a second. I only do the talking because Jeff," the guitarist points at the lead singer, who ducks his head, "is really shy."

Jeff. That name is definitely relevant, but Steve is a permanent resident of denial.

"We fought about what song we were going to include next in our set list, so much so that we didn't decide until yesterday and had to consult a tiebreaker."

Okay, maybe Steve is a less permanent resident of denial than he thought.

"So, thank you to Miss Anna, who did great at headbanging for her first time-"

Anna whips around so fast, her forehead nearly collides with Steve's jaw.

"And to Steve, who's a big fan of American Psycho."

At the song name, the crowd loses their minds, and if Anna wasn't sitting right in front of him, Steve would join them.

Because what the fuck is happening right now?

His question isn't answered. In fact, about five more questions pop up in its stead when, during the bridge of the song, Jeff puts on a clear rain jacket and picks up a prop axe.

Please, God, don't let this traumatize my kid, Steve thinks.

Anna, thankfully, doesn't get scared. When Jeff brings the axe down, again and again, Steve's weirdo daughter fucking smiles. And giggles. It's kind of cute, actually.

When the song ends, she turns back to Steve.

"That's Eddie onstage," Steve says, and saying it, somehow, makes it real.

"I thought so!" Anna says, and she turns back to watch the show. Steve puts an arm around her waist so she doesn't fall off his lap when she bangs her head to the music.

The rest of the songs, in Steve's opinion, are better than the opening song. They're more melodic, which Steve can definitely get behind, and each of them has a gimmick onstage, all based off of various horror movies. It's ridiculous, but also really, really cool.

And Eddie, onstage, because it is the same guy who flirted with him and was so sweet to Anna yesterday, is really, really hot.

Steve has never had a thing for guitarists before. He's never had a thing for musicians before. Hell, until a year ago, he didn't realize he had a thing for men.

Eddie is. Uh. Yeah. Really doing it for him.

Steve doesn't know whether it's his enthusiasm, or the way he moves, or seeing his hair tied up, or the fucking dress pants and suspenders, or just his hands, but he does know he has to get himself in check because this is an all ages show and he's here with his daughter.

He already knows he can't add these songs to his grading playlist, not when they're accompanied by visuals of Eddie playing his guitar.

Sweet Jesus.

"Alright, that's our set!" Eddie says. "Thanks, y'all, for sticking around for us, and let's give it up for the next act!"

The crowd, including Anna and Steve, cheer as they exit and the lights go up.

Steve fishes his phone out of his pocket, fully intending to add Eddie's number to his contacts, and is greeted by not one, not two, but sixteen missed calls from Dustin Henderson.

Naturally, Steve calls him back. "Who died?"

"What the fuck?" Dustin yells, and Steve just puts the phone on speaker to save the rest of his hearing. "Did Eddie fucking Munson just personally thank you from the stage?"

"Swear jar, Uncle Dusty!" Anna says.

"Sorry," Dustin says. "But Steve. Answers. Now."

"How do you even-"

"Instagram live. Is Eddie the guy you were telling me about yesterday?"

Steve takes his phone off speaker. Prior experience tells him that this conversation has a less than zero chance of staying PG, nevermind PG-13.

"Yeah," Steve says. "He is."

"The one who flirted with you, and you forgot to ask for his number."

"Well, I have it now."

"What?" Dustin shrieks, and Steve is incredibly thankful that he didn't take his earplugs out.

"He left me his number on the seat."

"Text him."

"I was going to, until I saw that you called me sixteen times."

"Jesus Christ, Eddie Munson was flirting with you."

Steve rolls his eyes and hands a pack of gummy bears to Anna when she taps his arm. "He could have just been nice. I don't even know if he's into guys."

"Have you looked at him?"

"Wow, Dustybuns, I didn't know you were homophobic."

"I think it's the complete opposite of homophobic to try to get you laid."

"Hanging up!" Steve shouts because a part of him will never see Dustin as any older than thirteen, and no thirteen year old should ever say that.

"Text-"

Steve hangs up the call. "Can I have a gummy bear?"

"No," Anna says, mouth full, in her seat, legs swinging.

"I bought them."

She shrugs. "You gave them to me. Mine now."

Steve stares. She stares right back.

He sighs and opens a new pack of gummy bears.

With his mouth full of sweet Haribo corpses, Steve takes out the note and adds Eddie to his contacts. Before he can overthink it, he sends him a message:

I guess I don't have to ask you what you do for a living. Just so we're even on that front, I'm a teacher, and Anna's full time job is preschool.

He tucks his phone back into his pocket and focuses on making this a good experience for Anna, who somehow wormed her way into a conversation with the intimidating-looking couple sitting next to her.

Because it's totally not like a literal rockstar is going to text him back. Right?

Part 3!!

[drgnflyteabox]

something to remember you by

pairing: soap x fem reader summary: your boyfriend wants some memorabilia of you to take on his deployments. only, he wants his superior officer to take the photos. w.c: 3.7k tags/warnings: dubcon, cucking, mild degradation, oral (m + f, rough), hair pulling, un-negotiated kink, dom!soap, clothed man naked reader, teasing scent kink (m + f), one (1) pussy slap, crying, squirting, unprotected sex, some anxiety, reassurance mid-fuck, overstimulation, some aftercare, abrupt but open ending, reader has some internal shame around sex/kink, reader doesn't rlly like her bf

At first, it’s nothing. Dirty talk, suggestive texts, passing comments while he’s on his second deployment with a hand around his cock and you pretending to be into it.

"Think about it, babe," he’s panting, but it’s less sexy when you can tell he’s deepening his voice on purpose like Christian Bale Batman. "Don’t you wanna give me something to remember you by? While I’m out here fighting for you?"

Corny. So fucking corny. Your feet are kicked up on your coffee table, fuzzy-socked, face schlopped with a cooling gel mask. Quarter past 8 o’clock, and he’s trying to sell you on letting one of his army buddies fuck you and take pictures of you. The absurdity makes you almost laugh.

"…babe?" Oh, shit.

"Yeah honey, I’m here." You’d kind of feel bad, if it weren’t for the ick factor. It wasn’t that you didn’t like him, he was fine, it was just that since he’d joined the army he’d inched closer and closer to picking up a mic and dictating which body counts were okay to women over podcasts. That, and he’s gotten hornier. Kinkier.

Which is fine, really. Only you don't consider yourself adventurous. Sex is like a chore, something to put you to sleep, to relax the muscles. Relationships are quid pro quo - I suck your dick, you make my parents think I’m succeeding in life, deal?

Not to mention, you've never even considered stepping outside of the idea that sex is between committed couples only, sequestered away and hidden in the closet like old clothes.

"So, are you picturing it?" Schlap schlap schlap. He must’ve added lotion. "You can say no obviously, ughnnn, but I know this guy really well. I'd, ahhh fuck, sit in the other room."

"Thanks for being so considerate," you sound dry, but you’re honestly intrigued. Life has been monotonous since graduation, the transition from study to office… rough.

You aren’t adventurous. But you’re so fucking bored.

"Can I see him first?" On the TV in front of you, muted, Matthew Macfayden confesses his love tearfully in the rain. You want to be bewitched, body and soul. To feel something.

"So you’ll do it? Oh, fuck-" Not what I said, you think. His voice goes high, reedy, trembling with his orgasm. "See how fucking hot this makes me? I’ll send a pic, give me a sec."

It’s a group photo. He’s dressed in his uniform, head shaved, standing next to a group of a dozen or so men. Outlined, at the far corner with a group of guys big enough to dwarf a good third of the rest, is a man with building biceps and a smarmy grin and a confident, wide-legged pose. Hips jutted out. Fuck, he’s hot. You can see his bulge through his pants, through the picture, under a heavy tac vest.

"Get in, get in!" the apartment is clean for once. At least, clean without you getting sick of his clutter and playing maid. Did he do it himself to impress his friend? That makes you snort, but he doesn’t catch it, too preoccupied with his phone.

"Um, woah-" you start, taken aback. It looks like a porn set. There’s a plastic sheet on the ground in front of the couch. "I thought this was supposed to be casual?"

"It is, babe," he’s brushing you off, same as he did the few days leading up to this. You’d gone through some minor confidence and judgment crises, anxiety building like a balloon about to pop. All of which he’d brushed off.

It’s all fun and games, babe. Plus he’s done this before, he’s like a pro, showed me some videos - that was something you hadn't agreed to, just some pictures for him to take on deployments.

Still, trepidation makes you sweat, makes your thighs stick to the brown leather couch when you sit and try to sip water. Your socks crinkle the sheet.

You don’t turn when he arrives, still too nervous, knees stuck together and hands slipping on the glass from condensation when they start talking behind you. There’s too many what ifs - all reasons you’d used to avoid hookups in college, all reasons you wanted to break through your shell now.

Plus, you’re sick of hearing "did you finish?"

"This must be her," says an accented voice, gruff and maybe amused, "ye feelin' shy?"

No. You’re just nervous. Exposed. One of the only conditions you'd pushed was no cuck chair, but now you weren't sure how to feel to be left alone with him soon. This man is so big, so imposing.

"Hi," you say smartly. He looks just like his photo, only bigger. Bulging muscles and the same wide stance when he comes to stand in front of you. It’s only because you can’t stand sitting face-to-face with his crotch that you stand and hold your hand out to shake.

"And polite!" Loud. He introduces himself as Johnny, which makes your boyfriend's eyebrows raise. "So cute." he takes the liberty of bypassing your hand and grabbing your waist.

Oh fuck, he runs hot. His hands burn, even through your shirt. You feel self-conscious, plain, looking up at his probing blue eyes. They’re so intense, captivating, distracting you from the feeling of him getting closer and closer, till your tits are pressed to his.

"Hey-"

The moment breaks. Your boyfriend is looking at you both, unreadable expression on his face. Is he regretting this? Feeling emasculated, maybe? Hard to feel much sympathy when you’re the one about to get fucked.

And it was his idea.

"I’m gonna go to the bedroom," his eyes squint, flitting between the both of you before he scurries away, pants tented.

"Now that that's outta the way," Johnny grunts. "C'mere." And sits down with a grunt, pulling you to him.

You try to pivot, to sit next to him, but he's strong and coordinated so you wind up in his lap, back touching the arm of the couch and your legs slung over his, bum on one thigh.

"That's more like it, no?" there's that wolfish grin again, so close. One hand rests on your knee, possessively, while the other wraps around your shoulders and plays with your shirt. "Why don't we introduce ourselves?"

The hand on your knee moves to your face, gripping your cheeks in a grip hard enough to push your lips out into an embarrassing pout. You struggle a little, pulling at his wrist, but he doesn't budge.

He pulls his phone out, aiming the camera at your face, recording a video through a text-app. You can that it's a groupchat, assured by your boyfriend before that it was totally private, babe. This is jut between us.

"Now say hello," he puts his stubbly cheek next to yours, rubbing like a cat. "And introduce yourself."

"H'llo," you struggle through it, muffled by his grip. Your name is almost unintelligible, and your jaw starts to ache a little.

"Say, can I please suck your cock, sir?"

Your stomach tightens, right down to your pussy, which gushes a little into your panties.

"Cn'I please suck your cock, sir?" he's so fucking forward, just jumping in headfirst. The loss of control, your being told what to do, makes your clit jump. Sex has never been like this - you've never been so acquiescing.

"Of course you can, bonnie!" you're almost tossed to the floor, no gentleness as he pulls you toward him by the hair so quickly it almost makes you dizzy. He scoots to the edge of the couch, leaning back against it, and uses that strong arm to rub your face on his bulge. "Get me hard."

He puts his phone on the arm of the couch.

You flounder, hands finding his knees and trying to pull back. He doesn't let you.

"Use your mouth, kiss me," his hand finds a firmer hold on your hair as you start mouthing against him, tasting denim, smelling his musk, letting it get to your head and make you dizzy. "That's right, kitten."

His cock starts to chub under his clothes, and you almost wish you could feel it in your mouth. Oral isn't your favourite, but the way your pussy clenches around nothing and drips into your panties is making you think maybe you were wrong about yourself.

"Up, up," your face is rubbed a little raw by the time you sit up, looking at him. Waiting for instruction. "Everything off, except your panties."

You obey, stripping your shirt and bra and then your shorts. Your nipples tighten in the cool air of the apartment, goosebumps dancing along your arms and your belly. Self-consciousness almost has you reaching to cover yourself, until Johnny grabs you by the shoulders and twists you just enough that you're back to facing his phone.

"Look at these," he grunts in your ear, fingers finding your nipples. Pulling them, pinching them. It's not for you, it's for the camera. You feel like an object, an accessory, secondary to getting the shot of the rough pads of his fingers teasing you into whimpers.

You've never been more turned on.

"Nice, eh?" he pulls them up and out, which hurts, but draws a line of pure electricity from your nipples to your clit. "Whatd'ye think, L.T?" the name doesn't register. Army stuff, you assume.

You're turned back around sharply again to face his actual cock. He's pulled it from his fly, thick and leaking, while you were getting undressed. It's unfair, really, nice and long and curved.

"Ask me again," a statement. A command, phone discarded.

"Please can I suck your cock, sir?" the words make your cheeks burn, your body quiver, your clit jump.

"Ye can," laughter this time, worsening your embarrassment. His hand finds your hair again, pulling you down when you're too slow to touch your lips to the head of his dick. "I'm gonnae fuck your face, alright?"

Without waiting, he lifts his hips up and thrust into your mouth. It's not as deep as it can go, but you almost gag, unprepared. The next thrust is deeper, quicker. He's letting you build up to it, letting your hands rest on his knees for balance.

Your nose touches his pubic hair, inhaling the scent of him. Any attempt at hollowing your cheeks, sucking, licking, is futile. He's so quick that the best you can do is hang on for the ride, keeping your teeth in check.

Drool builds and spills past your lips, making wet sounds compete with his frankly pornographic moaning. He's a man possessed, using you while you squeeze your eyes against overwhelmed tears.

Finally he yanks you off of him by the hair, holding you up while you splutter from the unexpected change. Your hands go to your face, trying to wipe.

"None o'that, now," he bats them away, giving you a shake when you keep trying. "Leave it." like you're a bad dog.

Strings of spit connect your swollen lips to his cock, thin and gooey, that fall to your bare chest when he sits up.

You're turned, stood up and then guided to the couch to sit. Johnny slaps your thighs to get you to open them, lifting your feet for you so that your heels rest on the edge of the couch cushions.

"Awe, look how wet she is," he holds your legs, exposing your wet panties to him and to his phone, where he takes a few pictures. Again, you wonder about the appeal of this for your boyfriend. It's hot for you. Degrading, but hot. Or maybe more hot because of the degradation.

"Oh god," you say out of shock. You've never been so fucking wet in your life, and god forbid he sees how swollen with arousal you are underneath.

"Naw, just me," Johnny says, rubbing his knuckles over your pussy through the fabric. "She all wet and frustrated?"

You don't answer, hands keeping you sat up, chest heaving. You're still a little dizzy.

Johnny licks over your panties, mouthing over them not unlike what you did for him only a few minutes before. It's nothing, really, but you're so worked up that it startles a long, drawn-out moan from you.

He continues like this, never actually making contact with where you need it, with your skin. Every one in a while he turns his head to the side and grins, taking a picture or a videoclip while you tip your head back and resist begging him to just get on with it.

His nose presses on your mound, where he drags it down to your hole and sniffs.

That's what breaks your resolve.

"Please," you whine. Your voice is rough from taking his cock in your throat.

"Please what?" he opens his mouth and puts his teeth on you, not biting, just letting you feel them. Gnawing gently.

"Please do it," you look down at him, and even though he's on his knees you know you aren't the one in control. "Please lick my cunt."

A laugh, mean and condescending. Your eyes close in shame, pussy burning for attention.

"This cunt right here?" he pulls the gusset aside, whistling. "This desperate little cunt?"

"Yes, please," you curl your toes into the couch.

Something shifts in his eyes, some unrecognizable flash. It feels like danger, like you're in over your head. Johnny takes two fingers and rubs them over your clit, slowly at first, and then quickly when he feels how slippery you are.

Somewhere, a volcano erupts and it isn't comparable to the heat or the feeling of your clit finally getting attention. It zings through you, making you squeeze your muscles, taught and trembling.

The pads of his fingers are a rough sensation on your swollen skin, the worlds best vibrator, ribbed for your pleasure. All he does is rub, up and down over your clit, quickly and until your face starts to scrunch together in orgasm, trembling hard.

Then he pulls back and slaps you so hard on your pussy you scream.

You almost come from it, shocked, legs kicking out, skin burning and clit pulsing with desperation, back bowing. You keep making sound after, a long and drawn out aaaaaahhhhh while he grins like the cat that got the cream. Takes another picture, the click of the camera loud in the face of your disappointment.

The intensity of it almost brings you to tears, looking at him with betrayal and vulnerability in your face. You feel weak all of a sudden, cored, devoured, pulled apart as soft as slow cooked meat.

Your panties fall back over your skin, a minor comfort against the sting.

"Poor girl," Johnny says with false sympathy. "Let me make it up to ye."

Then you're up again, pulled and pressed against Johnny's chest until he pulls your underwear down and rearranges you to sit on his lap over his spread legs, yours dangling on either side.

"Gonna bounce ye on my cock, alright?" you nod. "Sit on it."

You lift your hips, using his knees for balance, and he guides the head of his cock to your hole. Stops you from sitting back right away with a hand on your hip, squeezing the soft flesh there, and holding you there.

"They're kissing," he laughs. You feel it, your cunt mouthing at him like a conscious being, separate from you. "Ye think they want tae meet each other?"

"Can I?" you don't fight to keep the whine out of your voice. You want to come, you want this aching and this emptiness to end.

"Can ye what?"

"Sit on your cock, please."

"Well, since ye asked so nicely," and then he notches himself properly again, and forces you down with two hands on your waist. You shout, arching, head thrown back. "Bounce on it now, kitten. Show me how badly ye want to come."

And oh god, you do. You rock forward, shaking at the feeling of him, no technique to guide you just pure intuition, brain and cunt and body as one. Distantly, the sound of the camera registers, but it only makes you move faster.

He spreads your cheeks, exposing where you're connected, putting the camera close to the wet clench of your cunt around his cock and - oh, he's filming it. There's no click, just the wet sounds of you riding him.

"Thas'right," he murmurs lowly, maybe for show. "You wanna come?"

"Yes!" you lean back, then, sweat slicked back sticking to his shirt, forgetting where you are and why you're here. Everything narrows down to your pussy, but you feel compelled to keep your hands off your clit even though you know it would make you come quickly.

You want to listen to him, to wait for permission. The thought is searing heat through your core.

Fingers find your face, slipping into your mouth. Your lips wrap around them, sucking like you would've his cock.

His other hand lifts his phone in front of you both, snapping shots of your unfocused eyes, your tits pushed into the air, his smarmy expression. He hooks his fingers then into your cheek, pulling back like a fishhook.

"Good girl," his lips against your ear, stubble scratching the hot skin of your neck. "I'm gonna fuck you for real now, alright?"

You nod, desperately. He pushes you up and off of him, face down in the cushion. He's still clothed, for gods sake, jeans rubbing against the backs of your thighs when he drags your ass back toward him.

The mushroom head of his cock finds your cunt again, pushing in, driving you nuts. You're moaning helplessly, letting him take your boneless arms to hold them behind you.

He fucks you like a man possessed, in a short strokes, barely leaving the hot clutch of your pussy. The sounds, if they were bad before, are worse now, wet and humiliating.

Every thrust feels like he's slowly inflating a balloon inside you, like something pulling taut, like pressure about to burst.

"Fuck, wait!" you shout and turn your head. The pressure is insane, mixed up with a building orgasm, twined together. He hasn't even touched your clit, and yet you're on the precipice.

Johnny leans down, lips on your ear. He slows, but doesn't stop.

"What is it, bonnie?"

"I have to pee," you'd have mumbled it before, but the feeling is so strong you can't help but whimper and cry. "Please let me up."

"Ye aren't gonna pee," he laughs. "Trust me, just trust me." Then keeps pistoning into you.

You feel like jello, like mush, the only solid part of you is about to burst and somehow it makes you feel real anxiety, dampening your enjoyment.

"Johnny-" you whimper, emotion clogging your voice. You feel vulnerable, held down and bared.

In need of reassurance.

"You're alright," he leans back down and nuzzles your wet cheek. "Ye can let go, kitten, I've got ye."

You gasp, pulsing hard around him, the feeling back again, before you gush around his cock, a spray so intense you cry as it forces him out of you.

"Good. Fucking. Girl!" he slaps your ass once, twice, on both cheeks. Rubs your flank like a horse and then plunges back into you when you finish dripping down your legs.

This is purely selfish, him fucking you hard now, jackrabbiting his hips into yours. You hear the phone again, just barely, as your ears ring.

You're raw from coming without any touch to your clit, a weird limbo between being on-edge and oversensitive.

"Gonna give me another," he's growling now, getting impossibly faster. You actually really cry when he reaches around to twist your clit, thrashing under him, not sure if you want to leap off the couch or crawl right back into him. "Come for me!" he shouts, pulling up the hood of your clit to really get at you, rubbing rough circles around your beleaguered little nub.

The second orgasm melts your brain out of your ears, so long and drawn out that you're still shivering with the aftershocks as he pulls out of you and paints your back with his release.

You pant, arm one arm dangling over the edge of the couch while you the other covers your eyes.

Johnny rubs a hand on your thigh, light and gentle, patting your bum as he stands. You move your arm just enough to squint at him.

His jeans are soaked.

You laugh, uninhibited, delirious. He laughs with you.

"All you, darlin'!" he takes another shot of you, pulls your legs apart and takes a picture of your wet, sore hole.

"Is she good?" ah, your boyfriend. He has his own wet spot on the front of his pants.

"She's good," Johnny confirms. "Ye need to take care of her now, right?"

Something in his voice changes. A different kind of authority to the one he used on you, one reserved for soldiers. For men beneath him. At that thought, your pussy makes a valiant effort to clench.

"Yeah, yeah," you hear. Your boyfriend has his phone out, his cheeks flushed with excitement. "These are great man, thanks."

You start to sit up, still shaking, but not wanting to have him see you that way.

"Man, you weren't kidding!" he goes on. Johnny frowns and steps forward to clap him hard on the back and grab his nape.

"Run a bath, do it now. Ye got granola bars?"

"Uh, yeah. Hold on."

You're touched by his concern, and wind up soaking in warm bubbles after he leaves. You wonder about the photos, about what you look like. If your boyfriend is satisfied, if Johnny is.

If you were good.

Feels like you were, but somethings changed. Johnny found a soft spot knife-deep inside you and dug himself in, made you fly and made sure you were brought back to earth after, tenderized and then wrapped in comfort.

Beneath the water, you touch your pussy. Not to masturbate, just to feel the soft sore flesh, to remember the feeling of fullness.

Maybe, after his deployment, your boyfriend will want more pictures.

Fresh material.

Beneath the water, your finger curls into yourself and you sigh, satisfied.

[topazadine]

Avoiding therapy speak in writing

I think we all know by now that therapy speak is irritating and unrealistic, especially if you are writing in a fantasy world that doesn't even have modern psychology.

Part of the reason that it is so annoying is that it is the definition of telling instead of showing: characters are just plainly informing us of their feelings rather than making us work for a better understanding. It's cheap and boring. Instead of making your characters seem like complex individuals with their own hangups and difficulties, they seem like plot points programmed to tell us things.

But obviously, you want to put these people in situations and have them talk about it! How do you do that without sounding maudlin? Here are some options.

Listen to real arguments/conversations

I cannot stress enough how important it is to listen to how actual real human beings talk to each other during heightened emotional states. They don't have to be nasty abusers, and they don't have to be perfect angels, just everyday people doing their normal thing.

Of course, I'd hope you're not seeing people argue all the time, but if you do happen to see it, listen carefully and notice how people actually address their problems. Think back to tough conversations that you have had, even if you wouldn't classify them as arguments. Consider how people acted and reacted to one another. Notice how normal humans talk about issues outside of therapy, even intelligent and emotionally evolved people.

I've had years of therapy, and even I do not talk in therapy ways about my issues when I'm talking to my family or friends. It just feels cheesy and fake outside of that particular setting - plus, it freaks other people out and can seem kind of manipulative. Try talking like that in a real conversation and see how uncomfortable it is. You'll understand why avoiding therapy speak is important.

Consider the character's own hangups

Just as everyone has their own unique speaking style and mindset, so do we all have our own argument styles. These are often informed by our pasts and upbringing; they are as varied as our own histories. However, there are a few different options.

Someone with a happy upbringing may be more assertive and willing to address their problems because they had that demonstrated to them as children.

A spoiled child will grow up to be a demanding adult who refuses to give any quarter.

Those who got yelled at a lot as children may shut down and fawn to avoid getting hurt.

Someone who grew up in a violent household may mimic that behavior and get incredibly aggressive when upset.

Individuals whose parents didn't teach them emotional regulation will lash out and get loud.

Manipulative people may stay very calm and gaslight the other person, or they may get hysterical to garner sympathy and make people focus on comforting them.

Someone who has gone to therapy may revert to their original argument style, or they may imperfectly apply what they have learned in a way that feels a bit unnatural. They may start out with rage, then force themselves to calm down through grounding techniques.

People who have been coached through previous emotional outbursts could demand a time out, then fail to actually calm themselves down.

Some may refuse to acknowledge they are upset and insist, in increasingly forceful terms, that they are fine.

Others may get quiet or crack a joke to ease the tension, but it doesn't really help.

Keep each confrontation short

IRL, emotional confrontations are generally not that long. They don't go on for hours and hours, though it can feel that way. No one is going on and on about their feelings and sharing every little detail of how they feel (at least not that I know of personally, maybe other people are different).

Even the worst arguments I have had, the real nexus of the argument was maybe an hour or two, though the fallout lasted much longer. I'd say there was an hour maximum of real, active confrontation, preceded or followed by hours/days/weeks of simmering frustration.

Why? Because arguments are exhausting. You don't have the energy for that in the heat of the moment. Yes, feuds and fights can last years, but each actual confrontation is short.

For longer, more serious issues, hash it out over a few sessions rather than all at once. It's rare to get everything out of the way immediately unless the characters already have a strong, loving relationship.

Show incongruencies

Especially for more reserved people, they will likely have their emotions leaking all over the place but won't actually say anything. As such, focus on body language while keeping the conversation more focused on the plot. For example, Character A might be crying but still trying to argue their point about whatever is going on.

Address physical complaints instead of emotional ones

In many cases, people will use "I'm tired" or "I didn't sleep well" or "I'm not feeling great" as shorthand for whatever is actually bothering them. It relieves pressure by not making them talk about upsetting matters while still addressing their discomfort in some form.

You should also consider the fact that some people can't connect physical sensations to feelings, so they may genuinely feel ill and not really understand why. This is especially common in people who can't emotionally regulate or have been through trauma.

For myself, I tend to somatize my feelings, so I might not feel upset, but I will feel physically sick. My stomach will hurt, my chest will get tight, or I'll get a headache, but my emotional state will seem calm. This isn't all that unusual, and many people experience this to different degrees.

As such, you can have your character say that their stomach hurts, or that they have a headache and can't discuss this anymore, or that they need to go lie down because they're dizzy. If we know they're relatively healthy, this can be a clue that they're getting overwhelmed but either cannot pinpoint their emotions or don't want to discuss them.

Let characters advance and retreat

A lot of the time, someone will address a scary emotion and then retreat again, sometimes over a period of hours, days, or even weeks. This is normal: most of us don't have the emotional fortitude to forge ahead through something difficult all in one go. Character A may say something vulnerable, then change the topic, laugh it off, say they're done discussing it, or even leave the situation.

Leave emotions partially unaddressed

Again, it's rare for someone to spill out everything they're feeling all in one go. As such, have Character A address the most important thing - or the least important, depending on their level of emotional maturity - and let it be done for then.

They might say their small piece, but when someone tries to probe deeper, they don't have an answer, or they get "stuck" on that one emotional level and cannot go further.

If Character B keeps pushing, then they may get incredibly upset and push back, or retreat.

Have Character B point out the feelings

Works especially well if the other character is a close companion or a parental figure. Often, people who know us really well will have better insight into our emotions than we do. Or, we might have good insight into our emotions but are still too afraid to open up. Having Character B point out the issue gives Character A grace to be more honest.

I can't tell you how many times I've been really upset, so I've distracted from the issue by getting angry about something completely different. Then, my mom will gently point out that I'm not actually crying about my new plastic cup being broken or whatever; I'm actually upset about XYZ. In that moment, I realize I've been caught out and admit that yes, that's what I'm really upset about.

Have Character A address it with a third character

Who among us hasn't gone to someone else to talk about our feelings? Having a third party serve as a sounding board is normal. Sometimes, Character A will feel such catharsis from this conversation that they don't address it as thoroughly with Character B.

Of course, you can use this to your advantage and create more tension if the third character gives bad advice or is biased.

Remember that just because the third party responded well does not mean that Character B does. You also have to avoid omniscience and remember that Character B wasn't privy to that conversation.

Have one confrontation be a stand-in for a larger one

I always think about the "The Iranian Yogurt Is Not the Issue" post when I think about this. Often times, things like not doing the dishes or whatever aren't actually the big deal: it's lack of boundaries, communication, or respect. A minor argument can be shorthand for a larger one that is too challenging for the characters to tackle.

This isn't just creating drama for the hell of it, though; it's about exploring the larger issues without making the characters lay it out on the table. A good reader will be able to see it's not about the Iranian Yogurt as long as you set up the relationship well.

Currently, I am writing a story where Uileac and his sister Cerie go to rescue Uileac's husband, Orrinir. On the way there, Uileac idly comments on how he wonders where a waterfall comes from because he's trying to distract himself from thinking about the fact that his husband is kidnapped and possibly dead.

Cerie, being pretty wound up too, starts arguing with him about it because she's like "why is this relevant? We're kind of too busy to think about geology right now!" Uileac gets annoyed at her for being so aggro, and she gets annoyed at him for being so irreverent. Both of them are upset about something completely different, but they're too scared and panicked to actually address that, so they release their frustrations by complaining about waterfalls.

Those bad vibes have to go somewhere, but neither of them are very good at talking about their feelings (though very good at stuffing them down). As such, they take the pressure off by sniping at one another. You've probably done this too, when you get into a dumb argument about something absolutely pointless because there's something you don't feel strong enough to discuss.

There's also the fact that if you're mad at someone about something but feel it's too stupid or petty to discuss, that frustration will leak out and everything else they do will annoy you, leading to a bunch of irrelevant arguments.

Use "reaffirmation" gestures

I talked about this in a different post, but after an argument, the "make up" stage doesn't always involve going "ohhh I forgive you" and big hugs and kisses, especially when the two characters aren't emotionally mature.

Instead, Character A makes gestures that reaffirm the relationship. This could be offering to do something Character B needs, making plans for later, or changing the topic to discuss something the other character cares about ("how are your cats doing?") etc.

Note that these "reaffirmation" gestures aren't the same as the cycle of abuse. This is more when two characters have had a difficult emotional conversation but aren't really sure how to continue being emotionally open, so they revert to something safer that still shows they care. They're not over-the-top gestures either, but more a special attention to something the other person loves. Knowing what the other person loves also demonstrates the depth of their relationship.

As always, I can't tell you what to do with your writing.

You are the crafter of your own story, and if you want people to talk like therapists for whatever reason, that's your choice. However, we want characters to feel like real people, and most real people don't lay it all out on the table every single time they're upset. If they do, they might be trauma vomiting, which is icky in and of itself.

Healthy communication isn't always perfect communication. People can have strong, loving relationships and still get things wrong - we're human. Having people calmly and rationally and easily talk about their feelings every single time is not only kind of boring, but it also feels weird, because unless we're primed to discuss those difficult topics and know we're perfectly safe, we're not going to do that.

People don't even do that in therapy, where they are paying for the service of talking about their feelings! Therapists also don't always do that IRL!

We're humans, and your characters need to feel like humans as well. That means letting them be imperfect communicators and using context clues rather than making them do all the work for the reader.

If you liked my advice, consider purchasing my book, 9 Years Yearning, for $3!

[fraugwinska]

Since @chefskjssart's artwork that I commissioned was such a BANGER, I felt like I needed to do something to show my gratitude. So, I messaged her and gave her free choice over a little One-Shot I'd gift her. And that's how we ended up here :D Where are my little TV Sluts at? You can thank Chef - and I hope you all have fun ;>

NSFW - Explicit Sexual Content - Minors DNI - 5.7k words

"Gotta say, Val, the revenue of your movies really skyrocketed this quarter, fuck me."

Vox flipped through the quarterly reports, eyebrows raised and a grin on his face while Valentino, very pleased with himself, lounged on the chaise next to Vox's desk, smoking.

"I told you I've made a good investment." He grinned and blew out a puff of smoke. "All the horny bitches out there are eating my movies up."

"It's more than that, you're even making headway into other rings, holy shit! We've even got a foot in the Lust Ring market, which is almost impossible with that kind of competition..."

Valentino hummed approvingly.

"And the best part: I didn't have to do much." He added and let the tip of his cigarette rest against his lips, his grin widening. "My newest author is a kinky little genius."

Vox turned his attention to the papers again, his smile slowly turning into a frown as he scanned the declining sales in Voyeurscopes.

"What are you talking about? All of your authors write pretty much the same shit, what could be so special about-"

Valentino laughed and shook his head. "That one is - believe me, carino. Poor bitch has the mind of a succubus on crack but she can't get off."

Vox looked up, an eyebrow raised in skeptic questioning.

"Can't get off?"

"Can't feel anything. Can't cum for the life of her." He replied, leaning back and spreading his arms. "Numb like a fucking dead fish."

"Or maybe she just hasn't found a good dick." Vox mumbled, returning back to the reports, skimming over the numbers.

"Mh, you be the judge amorcito. Because I tried." Valentino growled, taking a drag from his cigarette. 

Now that got Vox's full attention. The TV demon stared at his partner for a few seconds of silence, then laughed maniacally, almost falling off his chair while Val rolled his eyes in annoyance.

"Fucking weird little thing, she is. She can write the craziest shit, the hornier the better. Writes like a damn porn beast, but has no clue what good sex actually feels like."

Vox heaved, wiping his screen as if in tears.

"Ohoho, Christ on a Cracker Val, maybe you've been out of the business too long… are you maybe losing that golden touch?"

Valentino sneered. "Ay, and you think you would've been able to get that bitch to cum? Be my guest, I'll gladly watch you fail."

Vox grinned at the moth, his eyes dangerously teasing. The reports were long forgotten - this was too entertaining, and Vox loved to be challenged, because he loved the feeling of superiority he felt when he succeeded. And that feeling would be so much more satisfying when he'd beat his long time partner and porn prince of pride at his own expertise.

"Wanna up the ante? Make a little wager out of it?"

Valentino scoffed, then chuckled deviously. He took another drag from his long cigarette, his cerise teeth glistening with red saliva as he began to drool in anticipation.

"You know I like to play, Voxxy. Especially if the odds are so much in my favor."

Another script done.

Your best one yet, if anyone asked you. But you knew no one asked ever, so why bother?

You stood up from your desk in your private office - being Val's favorite pen pet had it's perks afterall.

You skipped the stage of employment where you'd be cramped in one of these horrible cubicles together with the other overworked, caffeinated and tired writers, typing another outdated secretary-fuck-fest-plot while the other employees complained about their last bad lay and the shitty pay.

At least you didn't have to deal with any of that. Your room was quiet and peaceful, the door able to be locked shut and the walls soundproof. No distractions, no chit chat, no loud coworkers or malfunctioning printer noises. Just the humming sound of your computer, and the whirring of the A/C Val had granted you - a luxury that most of your colleagues bitched about behind your back.

You stretched, your tired bones popping into place and you sighed. You were done for the day. Finally.

With the deadline looming over you, you had been a bit late with the last part, and the thought of being late with your work made you sick. But Val pressed for another banger (pun intended) like your last one, 'Dante's Infern-Hoe' and you didn't want to risk the benefits you were offered so temptingly by being sloppy.

But the script for 'The Devil wears Nada' sat now, freshly printed, next to your laptop, the file saved locally and in the cloud, with about an hour to spare still. You smiled, content and relieved. An hour of paid slacking off was nice, and you checked with a glance that the electric door still was set on LOCKED before you flopped down at the two-seater by the window, grabbing the remote from the small side table and turned on the TV.

A familiar voice spoke through the speakers, and you relaxed into the pillows with a small sigh, eyes closed.

As shitty as the program in Hell was, one thing it had going for it was Vox. That smooth, hypnotizing voice of the overlord that held pride's media empire in his claws was a delight to your ears, and even the mindless, overplayed commercial jingles were pleasant enough if he was the one narrating them.

For the millionth time, it seemed, your hand wandered under the hem of your pants, fingers rubbing lazily at your cunt, as you listened to him talk, advertising the latest angelic protection device that didn't do what he promised it to do.

It was insanity at this point, doing something over and over again expecting a different outcome. Every night your fingers were cold and wet with your slick and your clit bloody and raw while you felt nothing of even your most violent and feverish touches, trying for minutes to hours to experience a sensation you wrote daily about without the satisfaction of any remarkable buildup or release.

It was no use, you knew it was a fruitless attempt, just like all the others. The most you got out of your endless tries was a slight tingle one time where you were so desperate you fucked yourself with an electric rod on its highest setting, resulting in a power outage in your apartment and a big fat fine from your landlord a few days later.

Still, you craved it. Craved to one day feel at least something. After the disappointing One-Night-cannot-Stand-the-thought-of-it with your boss, the literal porn mogul you were ready to just give up. If the face of pride’s sexdrive couldn’t get you over the edge, was there any chance at all?

Valentino had been the last in a long line of desperate attempts, paartners ranging from incubi, paid whores, porn actors to even sexbots made by Asmodeus, costing you a pretty penny just for the hassle of trying to get through the return hotline to get your money back, explaining No, you don’t know how it was possible that the cock of the ‘Fuckboy 3.0 XXL’ broke into pieces after one time usage. 

You chuckled humorlessly at the memory - It was truly a pathetic time in your eternal existence, filled with you masturbating alone in bed like a sad porn star, yearning to experience sex like you wrote about in your scripts. Maybe this was hells way to punish you for your sins, your personal plan of torture - To never experience the very thing that possessed you on the daily.

The television droned on in the background, Vox advertising his latest technological developments; new features on your phone that you really could not care less about. Despite his unusual appearance, Vox was one of your absolute go-to Stand-in's for your plot protagonists. Charming, suave, depraved when called for and a dominating, thorough lover that took what he wanted, but with so much skill that his partner would cum threefold before he'd even begin to think about finishing. Cocky and yet sensual. Aftercare included. All the things your colleagues were too dumb to include, no wonder their scripts were a bust.

Yes, it was hell and therefore tastes were more... depraved than in the living world, but that didn't mean the populus secret wishes for some sort of common sexual decency was out the window, goddamn.

Your mind wandered away from your depressive ruminations, your hand never stopping its circular pattern around your swollen clit as your thoughts started to wander to its usual place, the only way that came close to what you longed for and what was the source for all of your best-selling porn scripts. Your boundless realm of fantasy.

'Come out, come out, wherever you are...'

Vox is standing in your doorway, his silhouette prominent against the bright white neon light coming from the corridor of the empty floor. His suit, neatly fitted to every curve of his slender body, is showing just how thin his waist really is, but that does not come even remotely close to describe his broad shoulders and firm, wide chest, contrasting it deliciously. His navy blue skin reflects the harsh lighting in the hallway, his screen sharp and clear, digital eyes never leaving you as he closes the door behind him, dipping the room you're in in darkness, the only source of light his brightly illuminated screen where his digital, mismatched eyes are solely fixated on you, hiding behind the long backrest of your couch.

'Found you, babydoll.' he says with that god forsaken sultry voice of his as he reaches for your throat, long fingers wrapping themselves around your neck as your breath hitches and he pulls you up from your crouched position, his long tongue running over your collarbones, the wet trails feeling as cold on your skin as his appendage feels hot. 'Now remember what I said? Ready or not...'

He presses you into a wall, his big, hard erection rubbing teasingly through the layers of fabric on your already wet core as you whimper with want. '... here I cum.'

You moan his name, the imagined feeling so painfully surreal, and you wished once more that your working fingers would elicit some sort of real, bodily response.

A cough makes you freeze in your movements. Your fantasy shatters like a mirror shot with a bullet and your eyes fly open, expecting to see maybe a dumb segment of a rerun of 'Vox2Nite'. Instead, you see the actual, real TV demon overlord, standing live and in color just a few strides away with an expression that was a mixture of confusion, curiosity and slight annoyance.

"I'd ask if I am interrupting, but it seems you already had me on your mind, huh, doll?"

Realizing that you weren't - in fact - hallucinating, you immediately whipped your hand out from under your panties, sitting up, flustered like a child caught with their hands in the cookie jar. How did he get in? Did you forget to lock the door? No. Did he unlock it?! You must have missed his opening and closing of the door over the voice in your fantasy. The same voice that is now echoing in reality. Oh what a shameful ending for a perfectly good fantasy orgasm.

"Um... shit, sorry, Mr. Vox, sir. I was just, you know..." you scrambled, getting nervous under the actual gaze of him as he folded his arms, waiting for you to end that sentence with a pitiful smirk. Jesus Christ, those arms are slender and muscular…

"Thinking! Just thinking, making script... scenarios..."

"Uh-Huh. And how is that coming along?" He asked, seemingly unfazed by the display before him as he took a few steps towards you.

"Oh, uh, haha, I didn't really... finish..."

He stopped directly in front of you, shutting you up with a low chuckle and his hand around your wrist, the one attached to the hand that had been in between your folds just literal seconds ago, lifting them up to look at the still shimmering wet residue on your fingers with a sneer.

"Mhm. Yeah, I've heard you have some problems with that."

Now that was embarrassing as it was alarming, and you ripped your hand out of his grip. Or better, you tried to do so anyway. It was a pointless exercise, his hand had an iron-tight grasp around your wrist as he pulled you up with one swift motion, so fast you stumbled into him, face to chest, breath caught in your throat as you were made suddenly aware how huge he really was compared to you.

"W-wow, my kinda pathetic reputation precedes me it seems. That's..." just great is what you wanted to say, but all words failed you when he lifted the hand in his grasp to his face, his thick, long tongue slithering out of his mouth just to wrap itself around your digits, lapping up the sticky residue of your arousal, watching you as your pupils widen and you squirm in his grip, mortified and turned on at the same time.

"Eh. Not as pathetic as my business partner's failure to provide something he's built his reputation on, sweetheart. Unusually smart of him to get you under contract before you shout it from the rooftops." He hummed as he tasted you, sucking in the pads of your finger hungrily and without hesitation, and all you could think of, frozen stiff like a deer in headlights, was: What the fuck is happening?

"But Val never had the kind of mindset I have... I don't do failure... or better said: I always finish what I start." His low rasp vibrated in the air around him, echoing in your head, and the heat his voice had brought to your skin left your mind racing. You asked yourself panicking if you had written too many dumb porn plots or if he was really implicating what you thought he was implicating.

"So, whaddaya say, doll..." His breath tickled your cheek as he leaned in closer, pulling you flush against him, a soft grunt of content as his hard dick pressed into your soft belly, his mouth right next to your ear, one of his hands running teasingly down your sides as he licked your ear shell. "...care to see if I can end your unlucky streak?"

'Fuck, yeah.' You thought, and almost moaned out loud as you let your head fall back to make room for his waiting mouth, when suddenly you stopped in your tracks. His hands were already groping over you greedily, squeezing your ass, your thighs, your breasts as he looked down on you, surprised to see your conflicted face.

"W...Wait. What's in it... for you?"

"Mh, you're clever. That's a new one." Vox laughed, his hand running up to the side of your face to cup your cheek, his thumb rubbing small circles on the corner of your lip. "Me and Val made a little bet, you see, and well... Let's just say: I want this to work out just as much as you do, since my success depends on yours."

"Oh.." So Val was talking about you, that bastard. He had you sign an NDA when he hired you, given that you had been unwilling to make a soul contract with him, but you guessed that that had been naively one-sided. Asshole.

Vox stroked your bottom lip, parting them before you opened them slightly on your own accord, his dark blue tongue languidly tracing the edges, waiting for your decision, coaxing you to decide in his favor. And even though you were kind of pissed at Valentino for running around telling people about your... situation - you couldn't deny it was tempting, turning fantasy into reality. And what was another overlord trying to do the impossible? Worst case - he'd try and fail, just as all the others did before, like the stupid moth pimp. At least you'd have some leverage for maybe another good deal for your silence on it. And in the highly unlikely best case…

With your decision made, you flicked your own tongue against his, humming at the unfamiliar taste and the sizzling static electricity on your tongue. Vox grinned, his sharp teeth pressing onto your lips, nipping at the sensitive flesh and growling with approval when your lips parted.

"Ohoho, baby, this is gonna be fun."

Vox ran his claws through your hair, loosening your already messy bun until your hair fell free with his playful pulls as he explored your mouth, deepening the kiss with every lick, until he could push his whole tongue into your mouth, moaning and grabbing the back of your head tightly as you let him fill you without the slightest hint of protest, fighting a desperate losing battle for air.

"Fuck, don't you need to... breathe?" you whispered after he finally pulled back, a wet trail connecting his tongue to yours, grinning down on you while your lungs burned for oxygen.

"Perks of being state of the art, sweetheart." he watched your swollen, drool covered lips - parted to catch your breath - for a few seconds longer before he inquisitively tilted his head. "Did you feel any of that?"

You contemplated lying, but figured honesty would probably be the best in this situation, shaking your head and giving him your most pitiful attempt at an apologetic smile, already bracing yourself for him to give up or get mad. "My lips tingle a little."

"Mh." He huffed as he pushed you back into the two-seater, your back hitting the cushions with a soft thump, and unceremoniously pulled on your very not-sexy-at-all sweatpants and slightly-more-sexy-but-not-quite panties until they slipped over your legs.

"How about this then?" He pressed his knee in between your legs to nudge them apart. "Can you feel any of this?" He spread your already wet slit open to run a cold claw over your hole, softly dipping first one, then two and lastly three of his fingers inside to stretch you further open and push it back in, repeating the movement slowly while keeping his eye contact trained on your face.

You hummed non-commitally, closing your eyes and pressing yourself into the cushions, trying to feel for any sensation that should come with every slow drag of his digits pumping inside of you, and not finding any of it was so fucking frustrating. You felt like you were not only disappointing yourself, but him, as stupid as that sounded. But with every added finger and still a lack of response, you saw the progression of frustrations in his face that you knew all too well - eyebrows furrowed, irritated twitches of the corners of his lips that turned into a snarl with the third added digit. You frowned, sighing and bit your lip - nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing, and fucking nothing again, just another wet hole, the clenching of your walls a habit and reflex only, no pleasure whatsoever.

"It's no fucking use..." you whined, pressing your hands to your face in frustration and fear of looking back into his eyes, "I can't feel anything at a-aaAAH...!"

Your back arched at this strange jolt running down your spine, forcing you to grind down on his hand as a strong electric current buzzed from his claw tips right through your cunt, curling in your stomach in a hot wave of wanton need and knocking the wind out of you. Your eyes flew open just in time to see the flash of victorious satisfaction on his screen before his face turned fuzzy as you began to tear up.

"There's some reaction. There we go, sweetheart." He cooed and curled his fingers in that deliciously sinful way again, making your breath catch in your throat. For the first time since you can remember, you FELT. You dropped your hands from your flushed, hot face onto the plush of the couch, fingers desperately digging into the fabric, and stared at Vox with wide eyes. He winked, nudging his head to his buried fingers, and with a shattering gasp you could see neon blue bolts of electric sparks traveling down his slender arm, crackling around the soft flesh inside of your pussy that had never felt so sensitive.

"How are y-aaaa.... aaa-AAah...." he silenced any questions you might have had or possible retort with another shock wave traveling through his hand as he dragged his fingers in and out in an agonizingly slow pace, it had your ears ringing with white noise and your eyes water with unknown, strange pleasure.

You were shaking, and though it should have frightened you a lot more than it did to be electrocuted while doing something that could be considered borderline treason to Valentino (And it still had your cunt dripping on a whim), but there was nothing left for you to think of other than the sharp shocks making every nerve inside of you buzz, your thighs already trembling in anticipation of the possibility of an unknown, but oh-so-wanted climax. Yet it was somehow still out of your reach, out of your range of senses.

"I feel like we are getting closer, babydoll." The TV demon chuckled darkly, his voice over amplified, the electrical buzz reverberating loudly in the soundless room. "How 'bout we kick it up a notch, huh?"

He pulled out his fingers in a quick, cruel movement, making your pussy clench around nothing as you already mourned the feeling. Before you had the time to voice your loss however, he had your thighs already in his hands, pushing them back to almost fold you in half and spread them apart as wide as he could get them without hurting you. With a smirk he stuck out his tongue, inhumanely long, thick on its base and pointed at the end - and let his electric energy visibly spark around it. Holy Shit.

The moment his head dipped down and his appendage swiped through your puffed, red folds, you could feel your insides buzz in sync to his delighted moan. He began eating you out feverously and obscenely, not holding anything back, just like you wrote your most popular protagonists to do - NO, this was so much better than anything you've ever written or fantasized about, his tongue twisting in patterns that felt like nothing you've ever even came close to imagine before. It was like he powered your whole nervous system, overriding every strand of nerve with his own electricity, amplifying any touch, any lick and any suction that would normally not even register a thousand-fold.

"O-Oh my g... F-fffuuuuhhh-ck.. meeee..." you moaned in confusion and amazement, your legs shaking helplessly on either side of Vox's rectangle head as he fucked his tongue into you, switching between the deep, long, thorough thrusts and fast, small, teasing flicks into the wet heat of your cunt, coating his screen in a shining mix of your natural juices and his blue neon saliva. He sucked at the protruding of your swollen bundle of nerves, your sensitive clit twitching under his attention - it was maddeningly unreal. You felt like a complete, utter sham - if this was sex, you've never written it anywhere correctly.

"I'm working on that, sweetheart."

Vox smirked against your pulsing core, humming with satisfaction at your wet, gaping slit begging for him to push back in and fill you up again, making you ache for his tongue deeper and deeper, forcing every shred of sense you had to leave your mind as you bucked into his grip in desperation, chasing another intense jolt he held just out of your reach as he laughed deviously at your hungry reaction to his teasing antics.

You didn't care how pathetic you looked, how undignified or desperate you sounded. This was nothing short of fucking fantastic, this all new, unknown sensation that you deemed impossible to ever experience and an real, tangible orgasm so close you could almost grab it. You felt a violent greed, you needed more of this, more more more, you needed to cum and you knew exactly that only Vox was able to do it - but you needed him inside of you, pushing you into oversensitivity, no matter what was required to get you over the edge. Fuck all dignity, that ship had sailed the moment your back hit the couch.

You shook your head vigorously, choking down sobs of grateful pleasure that racked your body with every curl of his tongue inside of you and a guttural moan, high pitched and broken.

"P-Please... ah, Pl..please..." you panted and Vox felt for your thighs to hold you steady. His claws sank in with such force into the soft meat of your legs he drew blood. "F... Fu..Fuck me.. please." you stammered and he smirked, a look of pure joy in his digital eyes as he stared you down.

"Oh, I will, baby." He smiled against your core, curling the tip of his tongue around your clit with just the right amount of pressure that your entire vision went blank with a broken cry and the strongest wave of static he'd managed to work you up to so far. "Don't worry about that, I'm not nearly done with you."

He fucked his long, slippery tongue back into your quivering pussy, his thumb taking the place on the sensitive bundle of nerves where his pointy tip had been and you cried out again as he found that one spot you've always read (and written) about. You had questioned it's actual existence, believing it to be one of those wishful myths girls dreamt and you by proxy wrote about - Until Vox and his fucking talented mouth and miraculous tongue brushed right up against it with expert accuracy. It made your eyes roll to the back of your skull, mouth open to cry out as your back arched like a bow string.

"Yeah, there? F-Fuuuck..." The overlord growled, watching your blissful face twist with a new kind of overwhelming pleasure. "You gonna cum for me baby? Come on, let go, good girl..."

You knew the reader-pleasing phrase by heart. You used it a hundred times and fantasized about it even more - It shouldn't have that effect on you, but yet it was that comment of his, spoken in a raspy low rumble directly into your cunt that finally pushed you over the edge, leaving you panting helplessly and cumming.

Hard. Harder than you've ever dreamed about. Every nerve ending on overdrive, every hair standing on edge - it felt like getting struck by lightning, the static electricity sizzling through your blood vessels like a thunderstorm as he was still thrusting that goddamn magic tongue into your spasming hole through the clamping of your muscles, taking you through it with small, measured licks to keep you on the edge a little longer, whines and hiccups mixed with breathless laughs leaving your raw throat as you slowly returned to reality.

This was it, what you've always longed for, you realized after your vision came back to you, staring down at the smug looking TV demon who was still settled between your legs, his glowing screen painted with the remains of your climax. You managed to give him an exhausted smile, blowing a stray strand of wild hair from your face with a quick puff before dropping your head back in the pillow, absolutely spent. Vox pressed a toothy kiss on your thigh and pushed himself back to his feet.

"You've got quite the gushy orgasm, doll, damn..." he wiped a thick blotch of your arousal from the corner of his screen, the neon blue stained fingertip disappearing in his mouth as he hummed appreciatively and licked it away. Then he looked over you, slumped lazily on the sofa, your face flushed, your hair all tangled and the exposed pieces of skin covered with a shiny layer of sweat.

"Shit, sweetheart, you look goddamn good when you're all messed up like that..." He eyed you intently and leaned down, his heavy frame caging you in underneath him, one hand trailing a line from your still heaving chest, between your breasts and up to your throat.

"T-That was.. wow. Just... wow." Clearly illiterate and 50 IQ-points dumber post-orgasm, you cleared your throat, trying to compose yourself. While you were a little disappointed that you still hadn't really fucked, he did what he promised to do. Got you off - and how. You were grateful.

Sad that it was over, maybe even sadder that the chances of a repetition were likely zero - Vox was a goddamn overlord, and who were you other than a nobody with a hard-to-please cunt?- but grateful nonetheless. And you felt the need to let him know that.

"I don't know how to than... w-what are you doing?"

You sat yourself up on the elbows with a dumbfounded expression as Vox began to undress himself, his jacket, bow tie and undershirt discarded within seconds onto the ground and he practically pounced you as he began to undo the belt of his slacks, trapping you in between his legs and under the very prominent hard-on he sported.

"What, you really thought that was it? Make you cum once, win my bet and ding-dong-ditch like a fucking amateur?" Vox laughed as he pulled his massive length out of his pants - Words were your bread and butter but they would ever fail you to describe the gloriousness that was his cock.

Almost as thick as your underarm, smooth and almost shiny, glowing with built-in LED lights along the underside of his shaft and practically weeping with precum. He knelt down on the sofa, taking your hand to run it over its full length, smearing the sticky residue along your fingers, his almost bioluminescent cum dripping thick and slowly from the angry swollen tip. "Fuck no, sweetheart. In case you forgot, let me remind you..."

He leaned down to your ear, a violent electric bold jolting from his cock through your hand right into your overwhelmed, disbelieving brain as he guided you to line him up with your still throbbing entrance.

"I always finish what I start."

Vox had never been in a better mood.

His phone - finally surviving for more than just a few days, since his win against Valentino prevented the moth pimp from smashing it, even in one of his many temper tantrums - buzzed again. A notification of another upload into the cloud. He smirked when he saw the name of the user.

The whole conversation after he fucked Val's writing savant into Limbo and back had been a fucking blast for Vox - he reveled in the morbid joy of cashing in his stake while teasing Val that he'd have to wait another eternity for the chance to make Vox star in a double length porn with him - a fantasy of the moth Vox has been always against. Not to mention that Vox had accomplished what Valentino with all his 'mighty dicks and porn mastery'-aura couldn't. Which (rightfully) sent him into his biggest hissy fit yet, so enraged that, in lieu of Vox's phone to throw against the wall, he threw his newest Robo-Assistant Kitty out the window.

Although Vox had been certain he wouldn't lose the little bet against his partner, he still felt a little relief that his ass wasn't on the next new load of crappy porn DVDs. Granted, that would've surely caused sales to skyrocket - but with his revived and improved little star author that was more than just unnecessary.

Val's fears that a good dicking with a Happy End would sort of break the little writers 'Sex-Spell' and her scripts turn into shite like the rest of Val's useless crew produced proved to be the exact opposite. Ever since Vox made her cum - on his fingers, mouth and cock for multiple times that fateful night - her scripts improved even more, resulting in stellar sales reports, a major spike in cashflow and a personal inquiry letter for a meeting from Asmodeus himself (which Vox contemplated to frame and hang over his fucking bed like a medal of honor).

And since Valentino, in his hurt pride and childish, stubborn pettiness refused to speak or fuck with him, Vox had no qualms of paying his little writer a few more visits. Every time he found impish joy in finding new ways to make her cum, and after one shag-date where he actually stayed long enough for an after-sex-cigarette and some smalltalk, he discovered that she wasn't just a kinky, but also an interesting bitch with great taste in whiskey and a crude sense of humor that was just up his alley.

"I'm curious doll." Vox said as he took another drag from the cigarette before he handed her the bud, throwing his arm around her shoulders and pulling her onto his bare chest as he lounged on the new, bigger sofa he got for her office (more space and much more versatility) "What the fuck did you do to end up in hell? You don't seem like the ax-murder type."

She chuckled mischievously. "I was a pretty popular crime author back upstairs. I hit a pretty bad writer's block, and decided to get in some field work to inspire me for more creative ways of murder. No axes, but I did have a fable for knives." She grinned, inhaling the thick smoke as he laughed and the way her tits pressed into his skin had him almost hard again. "You know what's the most ironic part?" She asked, putting the bud out in the ashtray on her side table and glanced back over her naked shoulder to him, a devious glint in her eyes. "I got the electric chair for that." That woke his cock fully up again, and he couldn't help but take her for another round.

His assistant babbled something about his schedule, but Vox didn't listen. Instead, he planned on visiting her office again, maybe he'd even stay after and order sushi for two, who knew? The media Overlord smiled smugly as he opened the database and looked over the newest script you had uploaded to the cloud. It was when he read the title that he burst into ringing laughter.

'Electrocutie - One Big Cock Shock'

[yandere-fetish]

Yandere Patient X Female Reader

Part One

warnings: disrespect, rude, slow burn

Yandere Patient is a highly dignified CEO on his way to one of his many companies from the vast countryside. He's reading the newspaper and catching up on the latest magazines, detailing the latest hot topics and debates. The indifferent expression paired with wire framed glasses only made his handsome face more attractive.

The driver comes to a stop at a stop sign while looking both ways. There's no one around. He turns right to drive towards the city.

Yandere Patient reaches for a small drink out of the mini fridge, then the car jerks.

*SKIIIRRRTT*

*CRASH*

Yandere Patient is knocked out as his legs are disfigured in a gory way. The pain was unbearable, but Yandere Patient was in no condition to feel the pain due to the concussion. His eyes flutter shut as the driver is crawling out the front seat, attempting to check on his master.

Yandere Patient scowls at his uncle's suggestion. He doesn't need anyone to take care of him. He doesn't need an extra person supervising the way he moves or watching his every breath.

Yandere Patient didn't need a babysitter. He's a damn grown man, for God's sake!

"They're not a babysitter. They would live in the servants quarters and tend to your needs. Just treat them like a maid. They would only aid you when you need them to—"

"*scowls* And I won't need them!"

"*sigh* Nephew, there's just some things you need to understand in life, mainly that there's no 'I' in 'team'. You cannot do everything by yourself."

"Tch. Watch me! *wheels away in his new wheelchair*"

"Jenna, *sighs and stares at a picture of his sister* what am I going to do with this kid?"

This is where you come in.

You show up at noon, ready to meet your newly appointed patient after hearing so many coworkers complain about how aggressive and snarky this patient has been since joining their agency as a client.

You really hadn't wanted to take this patient under your wing but since the agency was willing to fire anyone who didn't at least try, so you had to.

The sooner you come, the sooner you can leave.

So, here you are, standing on the doorstep of a luxurious mansion with a thirty-foot driveway. You'd never dream of living in a place such as this, let alone working in one.

Funny how you'd be doing both for a while.

When the door opens, you're greeted by a tall and broad-shouldered with a friendly smile. He welcomes you in while telling you, in detail, about his nephew's accident and his.. preferences.

At first, you're shocked and confused, but nonetheless you agree.

"I'm (Y/N) (L/N) from True Home Care. It's nice to meet you, Mister—"

"*scowls and ignores you* I thought they sent the last one?"

"Now, now, nephew. She's come all the way here. The least you can do is try her out for a day."

"I told you and that cheap company that I don't need anyone's help! I'll be fine on my own!"

"Just give her a chance. I'm certain it'll work out this time—"

*glares at his uncle and wheels away*

"*sighs* I apologize, Mrs. (L/N). He's moody, as you can tell. He should come around with some coaxing."

"I.. I'm sure he's not very open to strangers. I'd feel uncomfortable opening my home to one, especially several. And it's Miss— I'm not married. *smiles*"

"You're not? *clicks his tongue at the thought of an idea* I apologize again. Let me show you to your room for the time being."

It's been a a week since you first arrived at Yandere Patient's home. You've quickly become used to your room that's the size of a living room with a comfy as fuck bed to go with it. The 65" TV was definitely a nice addition, and let's not get started on the en suite bathroom and the walk-in closet.

To say you were happy was an understatement.

Now, though, you had wished you were still in your comfy bed instead of in the kitchen, gathering Yandere Patient's favorite tea.

In the sitting room was Yandere Patient and his uncle. They were once again discussing your presence in the mansion, as if you weren't in the other room. The loud noises made you flinch from time to time, but you just reminded yourself that whatever happens will happen. You've done your job well and that's all that matters.

When you're finished with the tea, you serve Yandere Patient, silently keeping yourself to the side while the two argue again.

After the uncle strikes a nerve into Yandere Patient, he walks out of the house. Yandere Patient is so pissed that he slams his hands on the table, making the teacup jump. You flinch as Yandere Patient fists his hands, his muscular arms flexing in anger as he suddenly begins to try to stand.

You're too late; Yandere Patient is all ready on the floor. He slams his fists into the hardwood, bruising them severely.

You're careful to go to his side, helping him up. Yet, the moment you touch his arm, Yandere Patient automatically shoves you away from him with a scowl.

You end up running into a sharp, marble vase table with nothing on it, luckily.

"Get the hell out of here! You're not wanted, nor needed here!"

"*on the verge of tears* You know what? Fuck you!"

"*bewildered at your sudden back talk* What..?"

"You think I want to take care of some selfish, inconsiderate twenty-some year old brat who only calls his uncle when he has a problem? I'd rather lay on my back and give birth to a child to take care of instead of someone like you! If it wasn't for the high pay, I wouldn't even be here taking this damn abuse! I work damn hard everyday to make sure your needs are met, and what do I get in return? Verbally ridiculed and now physically abused! I don't give a mother fuck if you're rich, handsome, or have power; my job is to take care of you and to only take care of you! If I wanted to care for a whiny and stubborn man, I'd go online and get myself a boyfriend!"

*stares wide eyed at you as you're huffing from anger and pain*

"Now, let me help you get up and to the bath so that I can take a fucking break, Sir."

After wheeling him into the bathroom and helping him undress, Yandere Patient is extremely docile and quiet. There's no protest or stubbornness coming from him, much to your relief.

Yandere Patient, on the other hand, notices how you skim over his body but you don't linger anywhere at all. He frowns, not really understanding why. Looking away as both of you help Yandere Patient into his wide garden tub, you silently tend to his needs.

Yandere Patient apologizes, to which you scoff at but accept his apology.

It's silent while you're helping him dry off and get dressed. Even while you're wheeling him to his bed.

But when you begin to aid him into bed, Yandere Patient notices the bruise from earlier forming into a nasty one.

Since your scrubs were moving to reveal your skin when you bend at an angle, he could see how clearly he had hurt you. Something churns in his heart at the memory of pushing you out of anger, embarrassment, and frustration.

Yandere Patient doesn't realize what he's doing until he's gently touching the bruise on your side.

"*flinches while standing up* What are you doing?"

"I didn't mean to hurt you.."

"It's.. it's all right. I'm not bleeding so there's nothing to worry about."

"*furrows his brows* It's not okay. I went too far. Let me make it up to you."

"Don't worry about it, Sir. There's nothing you need to make up for."

"I insist. I'll treat you to a meal, or a day at the spa? Girls care about their skin, right?"

"*smiles* It's not necessary, Sir. Have a good night. I'll be down the hall if you need anything."

*after you've left*

"I'll make it up to you, somehow.. someway."

Part Two?

[twelve-forfend]

Well, I did say this was a multi-fandom blog... Alright, let's do this.

The Qing Jing Peak Lord's Bamboo House

(and the symbolism therein, as recorded in the donghua)

I was snooping through the establishing shots of the Qing Jing Peak Lord's Bamboo House, and had to laugh as I always do at all the gay symbolism that managed to sneak its way inside. But then I looked a little closer, and was floored by just how much passive storytelling was packed into background assets. I talked about it at length over discord, and at the urging of others decided to make a shareable post on social media as well.

First, the shots which first piqued my interest in this topic years ago:

Shen Yuan transmigrates into the stallion-genre webnovel entitled 狂傲仙魔途 (translated as Proud Immortal Demon Way). The author's and his own usernames are dick jokes.

Notice the chrysanthemum vase, the cock vase, and the stallion statuette.

The stallion and cock are obvious nods to these jokes on their own, but for the uninitiated, the chrysanthemum is a symbol of gay sex between men, as the asshole itself is often euphemistically referred to as a chrysanthemum. This should have been Shen Yuan's first clue that not all is as it seems here! These are the personal quarters of Shen Jiu — the original Shen Qingqiu!

But let's move to the main room you first walk into upon entering the bamboo house.

There it is: the writing on the wall.

As the Peak Lord of strategy and the scholarly arts, Shen Qingqiu would naturally have calligraphy and paintings hanging everywhere! So let's break it down.

On the top we have 道㳒自然 ("Dao Follows Nature"), which comes from a Dao teaching by Laozi (founder of Daoism) meaning that life, death, the entire universe, the heavens and earth and everything outside and inbetween, all follow a set of laws referred to as the nature of things. Although unrelated to the Buddhist couplet below, it's certainly relevant!

Originally hanging in right-to-left order, I've arranged them to read left to right here to make things easier to keep track of. The calligraphy reads 西方竹葉千年翠；南海蓮九品香 and is a couplet commonly found in Guanyin temples. My classical chinese is not as strong as I'd like, but this translates roughly to "The bamboo leaves in Paradise are green for a thousand years / The fragrance of lotus flowers in the South China Sea is as thick as 9 sticks of incense."

The character 西 for West is used to denote the destination of enlightenment/purity: the buddhist Paradise (think Journey to the West). The South China Sea is where Guanyin was born. Upon the Lotus flowers is where Guanyin is commonly depicted as sitting. The "9 sticks of incense" though literal can also refer to the 9 tiers/grades of reincarnation lotuses with the 9th tier being the lowest, meant for those who in life committed the most evil of crimes — the 4 parajikas — and who can only manage a sincere Amitabha recitation 10 times and no more than this.

To put this in context with Shen Jiu (the same jiu as in 9/九), the 4 parajikas committed by the 9th Tier Lotuses Reborn (officially entitled the Lowest of the Low) are:

Sexual Intercourse

Stealing

Murder

Claiming attainments of stages of pure mental concentration that have not been achieved (in other words, rushing or lying about your cultivation/enlightenment, or maybe even becoming a Peak Lord without having formed a golden core beforehand).

From what we know in the context of the novel, Shen Jiu is innocent of at least the first of this parajikas, but the overall view of Shen Jiu in the eyes of others in the story is that he is guilty of them all. This calligraphy can be seen as a condemnation or a reminder for the character Shen Jiu, who even as the Peak Lord Shen Qingqiu is widely thought of as a scum villain and the lowest of the low.

Phew! That's a lot to unpack.

But if you turn your gaze to the original screenshot, you'll see to the right that there's a vase painted with a blue bird. This vase appears in several rooms of the bamboo house, and seems to be the image of a qingniao (青鸟; lit: Qing bird, wherein 青 can mean blue/green/clear-but-brackish black).

These qing-coloured birds are messengers and foragers of the Goddess-Mother of Paradise (Xiwang-mu 西王母, the "west/paradise" character from before, lit West-King(unisex)-Mother). They're a highly intelligent species who are exceptional in song (a good representative for Qing Jing's scholarly arts and pursuit of qin!), and the older ones might learn to speak human tongue. As a subspecies of luanniao (鸾鸟 lit: luan bird), they're thought to be related to The Phoenix and indeed thought to be the lifetime/samsara just before being reborn as a Phoenix.

If given to a "master" they don't like, the qingniao may refuse to pass messages or sing until they're set free, but if they do get along with you then they're loyal to the end.

As a point of interest, the Qing generation of Peak Lords uses the character 清, which is 青 ("colour of nature; brackish black, blue, green; young) + the radical for "water," resulting in the meaning of clear (as in water or heart; see-through); distinct; quiet (as in still); just and honest; pure; to settle or clear up; to clean up, expunge, or purge.

And as a bit of trivia, Liu Qingge's sword Cheng Luan 乘鸾 means "to ride the luan, take flight on the back of a luan." (Relevant, because the qingniao is considered a subspecies of luanniao).

With the Lords of both Qing Jing and Bai Zhan referencing this bird, I really wonder about its significance! It's spawning plenty of theories and headcanons for me.

Heading back outside for a moment, you'll find that in the Quiet Pool (清静��池 qingjing xiaochi (yes, the same Qing Jing the peak is named for)), there are lotuses, and on land there are flower shrubs which are either wide-petaled chrysanthemums (gay bottom jokes ahoy), or a type of peony, the king of flowers demarcating wealth and prosperity. Either way, a blossom fitting of our Qing Jing Peak Lord Shen Qingqiu!

My one regret is that I cannot get a clear shot of the fan hanging on the wall to try and translate the calligraphy on it. If anyone can snag one, please tag me! I also couldn't translate the paintings with poems hanging in Shen Qingqiu's bedroom (it's just too small and blurry for my bad eyes to make out). If I make another post attempting these things, I'll append them to this initial post in an edit afterwards.

[harleehazbinfics]

OMGOMGOMGOMG HOW WOULD CHIEF CANNIBAL READER X ALASTOR REACT TO CHARLIE DAD COMING TO THE HOTEL

Love Rival??

A/N: POLLING IT RN, ARE WE MAKING THEM THE OFFICIAL RIVALS??? AND ALSO DO WE DESERVE A KISS? CUZ THIS CHAPTER IS THE CLOSEST WE WILL EVER GET TO INTIMACY

Cannibal chef! reader m.list | Author profile

The day finally came when Lucifer, Charlie's dad, would come to the hotel. So, out of consideration for your friend, you hosted a dinner party to leave a good impression on Hell's King himself.

So, you busied yourself in the kitchen for the past hour trying to whip up as much and as fast as you could, given the limited time you had been offered.

Everyone was gathered as they would on any regular day since you had started preparing breakfast. However, today they brought a little bit of... class~. They wore their best outfits seeing how special this event started to be and wore suits and dresses to dinner.

After everyone was present and settled themselves down. You appear before them donned in your chef's uniform, an apron wrapped around your waist stained with sauces and your hair curled, tied into a bun inside a hairnet. You introduce each dish that was placed down in front of them by Alastor's shadow puppets.

"Ooh! This pasta are incredible! Compliments to the chef!" Lucifer exclaims lifting his head and grinning at you.

"Oh, thank you!" you replied while gave him a polite smile and nodded your head.

While you we were wiping Niffty's face that was covered in the ragu with a napkin. Lucifer turns to Charlie and says, "Say, do you always eat together like this? I wouldn't mind staying here if that were the case."

While he was laughing at his own jest. Alastor, who sat opposite of him, glared at him not even being subtle about it. "It's a shame that his majesty has so many important matters to deal with. He hasn't even come to see how his daughter was in a while and finds his only reason to stay is through my companion's cooking," Alastor jabs at him while delicately cutting the meat on his plate that you especially made for him.

Lucifer splutters nervously as he aggressively denies the deer's claims. Lucifer watches as you approach Alastor's side and pour him his drink, seeing your heart shaped manic eyes ogling him while Alastor exuded a softer aura around him.

"Hohoho," Lucifer laughs in revelation before raising his own glass, "Uh, chef dear? Could you also pour me a drink?"

You raise eyes towards him, eyes turning normal before giving him another smile before coming over to his side. Lucifer gives Alastor a smug grin as you poured him the wine and sees how Alastor narrows his eyes at the blonde, as if asking him what the hell he was doing.

"So, you uh.. you made all of this by yourself?" Lucifer trying to start a conversation with you and keep your eyes off Alastor.

"Why, yes! Given I only had an hour to prepare, this is the least I could do," you reply with a small smile.

You didn't find it odd that much that this very important person was talking to you so candidly. You didn't really mind that much given how well he complimented your cooking so, all of his antics flew passed you head as he continued conversing with you.

By the time Lucifer decided to go home, you all gathered at the door to send him off. After he gives Charlie one last hug, he steps closer to you. All of you were confused at his actions especially what happens next.

"I'm sorry for my sudden intrusion then. I'd love to try you cooking some other time," he says with a flirtatious smile after he kisses the back of your hand.

Your eyes widen open as Alastor's ears peel back while giving the blonde a snarl. After he disappears, Alastor wipes the back of you hand on his coat and takes you to his quarters to get rid of the outrageous' sent off of you.

While in the bath as he scrubbed you down without batting an eye at your naked form. He takes the stained hand of yours and bites down on it with his sharp fangs deeply causing it to bleed.

"You belong to me. Got it?"

🔗TAGLIST:

@bonnie-02, @marxo5, @whaatttlaufey, @froggybich, @rybunnie, @midorichoco, @lucifers-silhouette, @kimmis-stuff

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Country Rose 3

Warnings: age gap, power dynamics, creep behaviour, other dark elements. As usual, be mindful of your content consumption.

I also beg of you to leave me some tuppence in the form of a comment and/or reblog. You are cherished!

Enjoy, my loverlies.

You go down and find Martha in the kitchen. She smiles so brightly as you appear and offer to help her finish the corn. You can't help a sliver of glumness. Your mother never was so happy to see you. No, it's her disappointment that pushed you accept the job  to move away to the middle of no where. 

The more you think about it, the more you doubt yourself. To what end are you putting yourself through this desolate purgatory. It might be novel and peaceful now but you always tend to grow bored with the familiar. It's the very reason you flunked out of college. You couldn't do the same day over and over.  

"What are we making with the corn?" You ask, hoping the conversation can ease the tension, not just with Martha but in your mind. 

"Oh, I got some potatoes to roast and some beef. Homegrown," she explains, "you do a lotta cookin', sweetheart?" 

"Mostly out of boxes," you laugh, "but I'm willing to learn. How are you roasting the potatoes? Quartered? Sliced?" 

"Oh, you are so darned helpful," she brightens and gently taps your arm, "you can grab the sack just there," she points to the pantry door, "and give em a scrub before you cut em. Anyway you like. I'll pick out some seasonings." 

"Sounds like a plan," you agree. 

You set to work. You haul out the heavy canvas bag with a grunt and barely get it on the counter. Martha hands you a metal strainer, dented from years of use, and you fill it, rinsing the skins in the deep sink. 

"Clark said something about school," Martha says, "you'll learn a lot more out here." 

"Oh, yeah, dropped out," you turn and pick up the knife she set out with the thick board. "You know... just wasn't for me. My mom didn't want me sitting around and to be honest, I hate doing nothing." 

"Lots to do around here," she assures. 

She doesn't seem sad at the statement. She seems excited for your help. You're almost relieved as you expected cow dung and horse flies. 

"I'll be sure to carry my weight," you promise as you start chopping.  

"Mm, how sweet you are," she trills, "I see why Clark brought you here." 

"Uh, yeah, I'd hate to let him down. And it's a far way from home." 

"Why, you're grown. Not really meant to be home, is it? Finding your way like we all do," she hums and fills a pot with water, covering the corn cobs. 

Before she can attempt to lift it, you're at her side, "let me, please." 

"Oh, dang, you are just like, Clark," she mutters  "I'm not out to pasture just yet." 

"I know, but... it's heavy even for me," you assure her and show your effort as you carry the pot to the stove. 

"Mmm, still my house," she frowns and backs up. "Well, when I was your age, me and Jonathan were married for a while. Couple years but... no kids. Not til Clark came along." 

"Oh? How old were you when... when you had him?" You ask out if courtesy. You peek at her. You're not sure of her age and you're not bold enough to guess. Clark has to be at least in his mid-30s. 

"Oh, yes, about his age now," she answers as if reading your mind. "He's mine. Ours. Not by blood. Could never... you know..." she looks grim as she lowers her chin, "all the same, me and Jonathan never saw him as anything but ours." 

"Adopted?" You wonder. 

"Think we were meant to wait for him," she perks up, "anyway, how can I be sad with such a good son? Don't ya think?" 

"Yes, Clark is very nice," you agree. 

"Sweet boy," she preens, "strong, gentle, smart." She clasps her hands together, "I'm sure I don't need to say it." 

"Mm, uh huh," you murmur, not really sure what she means. 

“I know a lovely idea,” she says, “I have the meat marinating so why don’t you take him some of my sun tea? It’s his favourite.” 

“Ah, um, sure, I can do that.” 

“And take your time. You don’t gotta stay inside all day,” she chimes. 

“There’s a pitcher in the fridge. Put some ice in before you rush off. Have some yourself if you like.” 

You take the task as an opportunity to see more of the farm You pour a glass of the dark iced tea and add a few cubes of ice. Martha watches you go with a bright expression that leaves you a bit uneasy. It’s just her way, you guess. Maybe it’s a part of her condition. Clark mentioned she wasn’t quite herself. 

You head out and stop at the top step of the porch. You realise, you don’t know where to look for him. Instead, you look out at the fields and the barn, and the meeting of blue and green off on the horizon. It’s beautiful. You think this is what it feels like to have your breath taken away. 

“Hey,” Clark startles you as he appears. “Dinner already?” 

“Um, just tea, your mom sent it out,” you come down the steps to meet him. His skin glistens in sweat that dampens the edges of his shirt. The fabric clings to the thick muscles beneath.  

“Thanks, you have any?” He accepts the glass and gulps deeply. 

“Not yet, maybe with dinner.” 

“How’s ma doing?” 

“Fine, fine. I’m just helping her. She seems happy.” 

“She would be,” he shrugs, “always wanted a daughter. Spoiled me for sure but I know. She would’ve done well with one.” 

“Yeah, uh, but she loves you.” 

“Well, yeah, but every mother wants a daughter,” he says, “what about you? How are you settling in?” 

“Um, good. It’s... different.” 

“For now,” he says, “but you’ll get used to it.” 

[axelsagewrites]

Hello, dear reader. I'd like to make a wish for Rhaenyra's little sister, maybe a year or two. And she never liked Alicent, who after marrying the king tries (along with Otto) to demote her to bastard status (but Viserys loves his little girl too much to do this to her). Of course, things get even worse when Rhaenyra's sister gets engaged to Harwin...

Thank you for your attention, I like your stories 🫶🏻. Another thing, can I stop by more often? I wish I had more of my ideas adorned with your writing

Harwin Strong*Suitable Match

Pairing: Harwin x f!reader

Word count: 1320

Warnings: Step parent hating step child, secret relationship, kind of implied smut

a/n: ahh thank u sm for being so sweet and ofc request as much or talk however much u want. sorry i didnt reply sooner i just didnt want to lose the request x

Masterlist Here

A life of a princess was something to envy. Well so many had claimed however after the death of your mother life felt like an ever falling spiral. Your sister began to grow closer to Alicent after the death and while you were happy for her to have a friend Alicent had always been unkind to you.

It had started small with her asking Rhaenyra not to let you join in their games to her unpicking your needle work whenever you would wander off to stretch your legs. Soon you gave up on even trying to be nice to her. anytime she was invited to dinner was met with loud sighs from you.

“Why does she hate me?” you pouted one night as Rhaenyra upbraided your hair.

Your sister rolled her eyes as she began to brush your hair out, “She doesn’t hate you. she’s just not used to a little sister,”

“She’s mean,”

“Cmon she isn’t that bad?”

-

You didn’t want to say I told you so when Alicent was betrothed to your father but the look on your face said it for you. at least Rhaenyra was able to marry and move away. you were instead stuck living at court with your evil stepmother and her spawn. Well, the children were kind to you, but Alicent constantly used them to get under your skin.

She’d send toddler Aegon running over with pretend crown shouting that he was going to be king. Or she would have a 2-year-old Aemond claim he was your husband. She tried to make Helena spill wine on your dress one time, but the poor girl burst into tears and confessed to you instantly.

Instead Alicent settled on insisting that your chambers were given to Aegon. Something you managed to convince your father against from at first but soon you were moved to a wing of the castle usually just for guests. You would’ve complained about longer if you hadn’t realised your new chambers window overlooked the kings guard training ground.

From your window you’d pretend to be doing needle work while secretly watching break bones fling any man that challenged him like a rag doll. Eventually Harwin caught onto your staring and would send his own glimpses up between sparring. It was also handy that your chamber was only a short walk from the guards’ sleeping quarters and Harwin soon became a frequent private guest of yours.

-

“Ser Barros is coming to court next week,” your father told you over a family dinner, “and I heard his son is looking for a wife,” he said, shooting you a hopeful glance.

“I heard he’s a fine man father,” you said kindly knowing full well it didn’t matter. Somehow every match they tried to make for you was sabotaged. The tall dark Baratheon boy was ever so keen for weeks for your hand then one day disappeared like a ghost. The gorgeous Lannister man that would bring you fine jewels suddenly decided a dornish match was of more importance. Even the Tarly boy you had courted had inexplicitly decided to join the nights watch. Every time Alicent wore the same twisted smile.

The only ones she didn’t send running were the incredibly old and decrepit looking men from minor houses, but it wasn’t hard to convince your father they weren’t suitable matches. “Perhaps we should set up a luncheon to great the boy,” Alicent suggested making your father smile widely. She really had twisted him around her finger.

-

“I wish I could stay here all day,” you pouted as you lay your head on Harwin’s bare chest.

His chuckle vibrated through you as his arm wrapped tight around your waist, “Me too princess but I have my duties and you have yours,”

“I thought your duty was to serve me,” you sighed dramatically, pretending to try get away.

Harwin laughed, his arms moving to cage you against the bed as he moved to lay over you, “I think I serve you just fine princess,” he said, his lips moving to kiss along your jaw.

“Oh yeah?” you asked and Harwin hummed in response as his kisses grew lower.

-

As expected Borros’s son went running after only a week and now you were in another awkward family dinner however unluckily for you the children all had the cold so now you were sat in stoney silence with just your father and Alicent. “You should really think about your future dear,” she said with a fake sweet smile, “We worry for you,”

Instead of replying you grabbed your wine, drinking a hefty sip of it. Viserys sighed, “Alicent is right dear. You must marry. At this point we’re going to have to start considering marrying you to a tree!” he said, flinging himself back in his chair. “Honestly what even happened between you and the boy?”

-

The days that followed were awkward to say the least. Alicent walked around smug as all hell and your father continued to sulk. You decided enough was enough and when Alicent went out to the sept you decided to track your father down. Unsurprisingly you found him staring over a model of the city.

“Father?” you greeted, walking closer to the tired looking man, “May we talk?”

“Of course, sweet child,” he said, nodding for you to sit beside him before sighing, “You know I worry for you?”

“I do father, and I do appreciate it,” you lied but did your best to look sympathetic to your clueless father, “but I was thinking. Well. I found another match you see father,” you spoke, and his head perked up as he waited for you to finally spit it out, “He’s sweet and kind and his family is well respected. You even like his father, and I was just thinking- “

“Out with-it child,”

You took a breath before finally asking, “Have you considered Harwin Strong yet father?” Viserys sighed, his eyes turning away but you continued, “Think about it! I’d be able to be at court and help Helena with her studies. Plus, you have four more children so four more matches. You already have the Velaryon which secures the crownlands. Harwin and I would secure the Riverlands. Then after you betrothed Helena, Aegon, Aemond, and Daeron you will have six of the seven kingdoms on your side. Your reach will go far especially if our children do the same,”

“You want to dilute the blood of old Valyria?” he asked, sounding exhausted as he spoke.

“No father, only strengthen it,” you said, moving to hold his hand, “Besides there is no other Targaryen or Velaryon to wed unless uncle daemon is brought back from exile- “you said but your father raised his hand to hush you.

He paused for a moment before nodding, “I will think about it. but for now, leave me. I have a lot to consider,”

“Thank you, father,”

-

Apparently Alicent must have missed this chamber meeting because somehow the news came back finally in your favour. Harwin would be your husband. You were so happy when your father told you that you instantly hugged him before rushing to find Harwin however that night at dinner Alicent shot you many dirty looks.

Finally, you had undermined her. you’d won. Well, that’s how it felt at first, but her glares began to sink into your skin till it itched. As the dinner ended, she tapped her cup with her fork, “A toast to my dear sweet daughter,” she smiled at you making your father beam, “May she have a marriage like ours,” she said, holding his hand tightly but you felt your stomach flutter.

“Here, here,” your father said, standing to kiss your cheek.

Alicent did the same, her arms twisting round your back into a bony hug, “Do not forget yourself darling,” she whispered sweetly in your ear, “You don’t win that easily,”

Taglist: @clairacassidy @valeskafics @starkleila @jacesvelaryons

[vroom--vrooming]

Sihtric Kjartansson x Reader

Sihtric and Uhtred's sister wants to get married but for that to happen they need Uhtred's blessing...which may not be so easy to get

The night air in Coccham is cool and filled with the chirping of crickets as you slip out of your quarters, your heart racing with anticipation. You’ve become adept at sneaking out to meet Sihtric, your secret love, in the secluded grove just beyond the village. As you approach, you see him waiting for you, a smile lighting up his face when he catches sight of you.

"There you are," he says softly, pulling you into his arms. "I was starting to worry."

"Sorry," you whisper, nuzzling into his chest. "Uhtred kept me longer than usual."

He chuckles, brushing a kiss against your forehead. "I have something for you." From behind his back, he produces a small bouquet of wildflowers, their petals vibrant even in the dim light.

You smile, touched by his gesture. "You always bring me the loveliest flowers."

"And you'll always wear them beautifully," he replies, tucking one into your long black hair. "They remind me of you."

You kiss him then, a soft brush of your lips that quickly deepens. His hands cradle your face, and you lose yourself in the warmth and passion of his embrace. Each stolen moment with Sihtric feels like a precious gift, every kiss a promise of your love.

Time seems to stand still as you hold each other, but all too soon, reality intrudes. "We can't stay long," Sihtric murmurs, resting his forehead against yours. "Uhtred will notice if we're both gone for too long."

You sigh, wishing you could stay wrapped in his arms forever. "I hate sneaking around like this. I wish we could be together openly."

"Me too," Sihtric says, determination in his voice. "And we will be. I'm going to talk to Uhtred. I'm going to ask for his blessing."

Your eyes widen in surprise and worry. "Are you sure? You know how protective he is."

"I know," he replies, his gaze steady. "But I love you. I want to be with you, openly and proudly."

The next morning, you watch nervously from a distance as Sihtric approaches Uhtred. Your brother's expression shifts from curiosity to shock as Sihtric speaks. You can't hear their conversation, but Uhtred's widening eyes and dropped jaw are enough to tell you it's not going entirely smoothly.

Later, Sihtric finds you, his expression a mix of hope and resignation. "He was… surprised," he says, trying to sound optimistic. "He asked for time to think about it."

"That's something, at least," you reply, squeezing his hand. "What else did he say?"

Sihtric hesitates. "He, uh, kind of told me to stay away from you for now."

Your heart sinks, but you refuse to give up. "I'm going to talk to him," you declare. "He needs to understand how much we love each other."

That evening, you corner Uhtred in his quarters. "Brother, we need to talk."

He looks up from his maps, raising an eyebrow. "About Sihtric, I presume?"

"Yes," you say, taking a deep breath. "I love him, Uhtred. He loves me. We want to be together, to get married. Please, give us your blessing."

Uhtred sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't realize… You've kept this well hidden."

"We had to," you reply softly. "But I don't want to hide anymore. Please, Uhtred."

After a long pause, Uhtred nods slowly. "I'll speak to Sihtric."

Later that night, Uhtred calls Sihtric into his quarters. "You know I'll kill you if you hurt her," he says gruffly, eyes hard.

"I know," Sihtric replies earnestly. "I'd never hurt her. I love her."

"Then you have my blessing," Uhtred says, his voice softening. "But remember, I'm always watching."

Sihtric can hardly contain his excitement as he rushes to find you. He sneaks into your quarters, grinning like a boy. "Uhtred gave his blessing," he whispers, pulling you into his arms.

Tears of joy fill your eyes as you kiss him, your heart bursting with happiness. "We can finally be together," you say, your voice trembling with emotion.

He kisses you again, deeply and passionately, his hands tangling in your long black hair. "I can't wait to marry you," he murmurs against your lips. "And I'll spend the rest of my life making you happy."

With Uhtred's blessing, you and Sihtric no longer have to hide your love. You walk hand in hand through Coccham, drawing smiles and curious looks from the people around. Sihtric brings you flowers every chance he gets, and you wear them proudly in your hair.

Your love is no longer a secret, and every day is filled with moments of joy and passion. You steal kisses in quiet corners, share whispered conversations late into the night, and dream of the life you'll build together.

Days pass, and the new dynamic becomes a part of everyday life. Yet, some things remain the same.

One afternoon, as you and Sihtric share a private moment in the kitchen, he gently tucks a stray lock of hair behind your ear, his fingers lingering on your cheek. His gaze is soft, filled with love.

Uhtred walks in at that exact moment, catching sight of the tender exchange. He groans loudly, making a face. "Do you two ever stop?" he asks, throwing his hands up in mock exasperation.

You laugh, leaning into Sihtric. "Not if we can help it."

Uhtred shakes his head, muttering to himself as he leaves the room. "Just remember, Sihtric, I'm always watching!"

Sihtric chuckles, pulling you close. "I don't think he'll ever get used to it."

"Good," you reply with a mischievous grin.

And with that, you pull Sihtric into another kiss, knowing that no matter how many times Uhtred catches you, nothing can dim the happiness you feel in each other’s arms.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Conspiratorialism and the epistemological crisis

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me next weekend (Mar 30/31) in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON, then in Boston with Randall "XKCD" Munroe! (Apr 11), then Providence (Apr 12), and beyond!

Last year, Ed Pierson was supposed to fly from Seattle to New Jersey on Alaska Airlines. He boarded his flight, but then he had an urgent discussion with the flight attendant, explaining that as a former senior Boeing engineer, he'd specifically requested that flight because the aircraft wasn't a 737 Max:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/boeing-737-max-passenger-boycott/index.html

But for operational reasons, Alaska had switched out the equipment on the flight and there he was on a 737 Max, about to travel cross-continent, and he didn't feel safe doing so. He demanded to be let off the flight. His bags were offloaded and he walked back up the jetbridge after telling the spooked flight attendant, "I can’t go into detail right now, but I wasn’t planning on flying the Max, and I want to get off the plane."

Boeing, of course, is a flying disaster that was years in the making. Its planes have been falling out of the sky since 2019. Floods of whistleblowers have come forward to say its aircraft are unsafe. Pierson's not the only Boeing employee to state – both on and off the record – that he wouldn't fly on a specific model of Boeing aircraft, or, in some cases any recent Boeing aircraft:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/22/anything-that-cant-go-on-forever/#will-eventually-stop

And yet, for years, Boeing's regulators have allowed the company to keep turning out planes that keep turning out lemons. This is a pretty frightening situation, to say the least. I'm not an aerospace engineer, I'm not an aircraft safety inspector, but every time I book a flight, I have to make a decision about whether to trust Boeing's assurances that I can safely board one of its planes without dying.

In an ideal world, I wouldn't even have to think about this. I'd be able to trust that publicly accountable regulators were on the job, making sure that airplanes were airworthy. "Caveat emptor" is no way to run a civilian aviation system.

But even though I don't have the specialized expertise needed to assess the airworthiness of Boeing planes, I do have the much more general expertise needed to assess the trustworthiness of Boeing's regulator. The FAA has spent years deferring to Boeing, allowing it to self-certify that its aircraft were safe. Even when these assurances led to the death of hundreds of people, the FAA continued to allow Boeing to mark its own homework:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc

What's more, the FAA boss who presided over those hundreds of deaths was an ex-Boeing lobbyist, whom Trump subsequently appointed to run Boeing's oversight. He's not the only ex-insider who ended up a regulator, and there's plenty of ex-regulators now on Boeing's payroll:

https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/boeing-debacle-shows-need-to-investigate-trump-era-corruption/

You don't have to be an aviation expert to understand that companies have conflicts of interest when it comes to certifying their own products. "Market forces" aren't going to keep Boeing from shipping defective products, because the company's top brass are more worried about cashing out with this quarter's massive stock buybacks than they are about their successors' ability to manage the PR storm or Congressional hearings after their greed kills hundreds and hundreds of people.

You also don't have to be an aviation expert to understand that these conflicts persist even when a Boeing insider leaves the company to work for its regulators, or vice-versa. A regulator who anticipates a giant signing bonus from Boeing after their term in office, or a an ex-Boeing exec who holds millions in Boeing stock has an irreconcilable conflict of interest that will make it very hard – perhaps impossible – for them to hold the company to account when it trades safety for profit.

It's not just Boeing customers who feel justifiably anxious about trusting a system with such obvious conflicts of interest: Boeing's own executives, lobbyists and lawyers also refuse to participate in similarly flawed systems of oversight and conflict resolution. If Boeing was sued by its shareholders and the judge was also a pissed off Boeing shareholder, they would demand a recusal. If Boeing was looking for outside counsel to represent it in a liability suit brought by the family of one of its murder victims, they wouldn't hire the firm that was suing them – not even if that firm promised to be fair. If a Boeing executive's spouse sued for divorce, that exec wouldn't use the same lawyer as their soon-to-be-ex.

Sure, it takes specialized knowledge and training to be a lawyer, a judge, or an aircraft safety inspector. But anyone can look at the system those experts work in and spot its glaring defects. In other words, while acquiring expertise is hard, it's much easier to spot weaknesses in the process by which that expertise affects the world around us.

And therein lies the problem: aviation isn't the only technically complex, potentially lethal, and utterly, obviously untrustworthy system we all have to navigate. How about the building safety codes that governed the structure you're in right now? Plenty of people have blithely assumed that structural engineers carefully designed those standards, and that these standards were diligently upheld, only to discover in tragic, ghastly ways that this was wrong:

https://www.bbc.com/news/64568826

There are dozens – hundreds! – of life-or-death, highly technical questions you have to resolve every day just to survive. Should you trust the antilock braking firmware in your car? How about the food hygiene rules in the factories that produced the food in your shopping cart? Or the kitchen that made the pizza that was just delivered? Is your kid's school teaching them well, or will they grow up to be ignoramuses and thus economic roadkill?

Hell, even if I never get into another Boeing aircraft, I live in the approach path for Burbank airport, where Southwest lands 50+ Boeing flights every day. How can I be sure that the next Boeing 737 Max that falls out of the sky won't land on my roof?

This is the epistemological crisis we're living through today. Epistemology is the process by which we know things. The whole point of a transparent, democratically accountable process for expert technical deliberation is to resolve the epistemological challenge of making good choices about all of these life-or-death questions. Even the smartest person among us can't learn to evaluate all those questions, but we can all look at the process by which these questions are answered and draw conclusions about its soundness.

Is the process public? Are the people in charge of it forthright? Do they have conflicts of interest, and, if so, do they sit out any decision that gives even the appearance of impropriety? If new evidence comes to light – like, say, a horrific disaster – is there a way to re-open the process and change the rules?

The actual technical details might be a black box for us, opaque and indecipherable. But the box itself can be easily observed: is it made of sturdy material? Does it have sharp corners and clean lines? Or is it flimsy, irregular and torn? We don't have to know anything about the box's contents to conclude that we don't trust the box.

For example: we may not be experts in chemical engineering or water safety, but we can tell when a regulator is on the ball on these issues. Back in 2019, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection sought comment on its water safety regs. Dow Chemical – the largest corporation in the state's largest industry – filed comments arguing that WV should have lower standards for chemical contamination in its drinking water.

Now, I'm perfectly prepared to believe that there are safe levels of chemical runoff in the water supply. There's a lot of water in the water supply, after all, and "the dose makes the poison." What's more, I use the products whose manufacture results in that chemical waste. I want them to be made safely, but I do want them to be made – for one thing, the next time I have surgery, I want the anesthesiologist to start an IV with fresh, sterile plastic tubing.

And I'm not a chemist, let alone a water chemist. Neither am I a toxicologist. There are aspects of this debate I am totally unqualified to assess. Nevertheless, I think the WV process was a bad one, and here's why:

https://www.wvma.com/press/wvma-news/4244-wvma-statement-on-human-health-criteria-development

That's Dow's comment to the regulator (as proffered by its mouthpiece, the WV Manufacturers' Association, which it dominates). In that comment, Dow argues that West Virginians safely can absorb more poison than other Americans, because the people of West Virginia are fatter than other Americans, and so they have more tissue and thus a better ratio of poison to person than the typical American. But they don't stop there! They also say that West Virginians don't drink as much water as their out-of-state cousins, preferring to drink beer instead, so even if their water is more toxic, they'll be drinking less of it:

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/03/14/the-real-elitists-looking-down-on-trump-voters/

Even without any expertise in toxicology or water chemistry, I can tell that these are bullshit answers. The fact that the WV regulator accepted these comments tells me that they're not a good regulator. I was in WV last year to give a talk, and I didn't drink the tap water.

It's totally reasonable for non-experts to reject the conclusions of experts when the process by which those experts resolve their disagreements is obviously corrupt and irredeemably flawed. But some refusals carry higher costs – both for the refuseniks and the people around them – than my switching to bottled water when I was in Charleston.

Take vaccine denial (or "hesitancy"). Many people greeted the advent of an extremely rapid, high-tech covid vaccine with dread and mistrust. They argued that the pharma industry was dominated by corrupt, greedy corporations that routinely put their profits ahead of the public's safety, and that regulators, in Big Pharma's pocket, let them get away with mass murder.

The thing is, all that is true. Look, I've had five covid vaccinations, but not because I trust the pharma industry. I've had direct experience of how pharma sacrifices safety on greed's altar, and narrowly avoided harm myself. I have had chronic pain problems my whole life, and they've gotten worse every year. When my daughter was on the way, I decided this was going to get in the way of my ability to parent – I wanted to be able to carry her for long stretches! – and so I started aggressively pursuing the pain treatments I'd given up on many years before.

My journey led me to many specialists – physios, dieticians, rehab specialists, neurologists, surgeons – and I tried many, many therapies. Luckily, my wife had private insurance – we were in the UK then – and I could go to just about any doctor that seemed promising. That's how I found myself in the offices of a Harley Street quack, a prominent pain specialist, who had great news for me: it turned out that opioids were way safer than had previously been thought, and I could just take opioids every day and night for the rest of my life without any serious risk of addiction. It would be fine.

This sounded wrong to me. I'd lost several friends to overdoses, and watched others spiral into miserable lives as they struggled with addiction. So I "did my own research." Despite not having a background in chemistry, biology, neurology or pharmacology, I struggled through papers and read commentary and came to the conclusion that opioids weren't safe at all. Rather, corrupt billionaire pharma owners like the Sackler family had colluded with their regulators to risk the lives of millions by pushing falsified research that was finding publication in some of the most respected, peer-reviewed journals in the world.

I became an opioid denier, in other words.

I decided, based on my own research, that the experts were wrong, and that they were wrong for corrupt reasons, and that I couldn't trust their advice.

When anti-vaxxers decried the covid vaccines, they said things that were – in form at least – indistinguishable from the things I'd been saying 15 years earlier, when I decided to ignore my doctor's advice and throw away my medication on the grounds that it would probably harm me.

For me, faith in vaccines didn't come from a broad, newfound trust in the pharmaceutical system: rather, I judged that there was so much scrutiny on these new medications that it would overwhelm even pharma's ability to corruptly continue to sell a medication that they secretly knew to be harmful, as they'd done so many times before:

https://www.npr.org/2007/11/10/5470430/timeline-the-rise-and-fall-of-vioxx

But many of my peers had a different take on anti-vaxxers: for these friends and colleagues, anti-vaxxers were being foolish. Surprisingly, these people I'd long felt myself in broad agreement with began to defend the pharmaceutical system and its regulators. Once they saw that anti-vaxx was a wedge issue championed by right-wing culture war shitheads, they became not just pro-vaccine, but pro-pharma.

There's a name for this phenomenon: "schismogenesis." That's when you decide how you feel about an issue based on who supports it. Think of self-described "progressives" who became cheerleaders for the America's cruel, ruthless and lawless "intelligence community" when it seemed that US spooks were bent on Trump's ouster:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

The fact that the FBI didn't like Trump didn't make them allies of progressive causes. This was and is the same entity that (among other things) tried to blackmail Martin Luther King, Jr into killing himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter

But schismogenesis isn't merely a reactionary way of flip-flopping on issues based on reflexive enmity. It's actually a reasonable epistemological tactic: in a world where there are more issues you need to be clear on than you can possibly inform yourself about, you need some shortcuts. One shortcut – a shortcut that's failing – is to say, "Well, I'll provisionally believe whatever the expert system tells me is true." Another shortcut is, "I will provisionally disbelieve in whatever the people I know to act in bad faith are saying is true." That is, "schismogenesis."

Schismogenesis isn't a great tactic. It would be far better if we had a set of institutions we could all largely trust – if the black boxes where expert debate took place were sturdy, rectilinear and sharp-cornered.

But they're not. They're just not. Our regulatory process sucks. Corporate concentration makes it trivial for cartels to capture their regulators and steer them to conclusions that benefit corporate shareholders even if that means visiting enormous harm – even mass death – on the public:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

No one hates Big Tech more than I do, but many of my co-belligerents in the war on Big Tech believe that the rise of conspiratorialism can be laid at tech platforms' feet. They say that Big Tech boasts of how good they are at algorithmically manipulating our beliefs, and attribute Qanons, flat earthers, and other outlandish conspiratorial cults to the misuse off those algorithms.

"We built a Big Data mind-control ray" is one of those extraordinary claims that requires extraordinary evidence. But the evidence for Big Tech's persuasion machines is very poor: mostly, it consists of tech platforms' own boasts to potential investors and customers for their advertising products. "We can change peoples' minds" has long been the boast of advertising companies, and it's clear that they can change the minds of customers for advertising.

Think of department store mogul John Wanamaker, who famously said "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Today – thanks to commercial surveillance – we know that the true proportion of wasted advertising spending is more like 99.9%. Advertising agencies may be really good at convincing John Wanamaker and his successors, through prolonged, personal, intense selling – but that doesn't mean they're able to sell so efficiently to the rest of us with mass banner ads or spambots:

http://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

In other words, the fact that Facebook claims it is really good at persuasion doesn't mean that it's true. Just like the AI companies who claim their chatbots can do your job: they are much better at convincing your boss (who is insatiably horny for firing workers) than they are at actually producing an algorithm that can replace you. What's more, their profitability relies far more on convincing a rich, credulous business executive that their product works than it does on actually delivering a working product.

Now, I do think that Facebook and other tech giants play an important role in the rise of conspiratorial beliefs. However, that role isn't using algorithms to persuade people to mistrust our institutions. Rather Big Tech – like other corporate cartels – has so corrupted our regulatory system that they make trusting our institutions irrational.

Think of federal privacy law. The last time the US got a new federal consumer privacy law was in 1988, when Congress passed the Video Privacy Protection Act, a law that prohibits video store clerks from leaking your VHS rental history:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/07/why-vppa-protects-youtube-and-viacom-employees

It's been a minute. There are very obvious privacy concerns haunting Americans, related to those tech giants, and yet the closest Congress can come to doing something about it is to attempt the forced sale of the sole Chinese tech giant with a US footprint to a US company, to ensure that its rampant privacy violations are conducted by our fellow Americans, and to force Chinese spies to buy their surveillance data on millions of Americans in the lawless, reckless swamp of US data-brokerages:

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/14/1238435508/tiktok-ban-bill-congress-china

For millions of Americans – especially younger Americans – the failure to pass (or even introduce!) a federal privacy law proves that our institutions can't be trusted. They're right:

https://www.tiktok.com/@pearlmania500/video/7345961470548512043

Occam's Razor cautions us to seek the simplest explanation for the phenomena we see in the world around us. There's a much simpler explanation for why people believe conspiracy theories they encounter online than the idea that the one time Facebook is telling the truth is when they're boasting about how well their products work – especially given the undeniable fact that everyone else who ever claimed to have perfected mind-control was a fantasist or a liar, from Rasputin to MK-ULTRA to pick-up artists.

Maybe people believe in conspiracy theories because they have hundreds of life-or-death decisions to make every day, and the institutions that are supposed to make that possible keep proving that they can't be trusted. Nevertheless, those decisions have to be made, and so something needs to fill the epistemological void left by the manifest unsoundness of the black box where the decisions get made.

For many people – millions – the thing that fills the black box is conspiracy fantasies. It's true that tech makes finding these conspiracy fantasies easier than ever, and it's true that tech makes forming communities of conspiratorial belief easier, too. But the vulnerability to conspiratorialism that algorithms identify and target people based on isn't a function of Big Data. It's a function of corruption – of life in a world in which real conspiracies (to steal your wages, or let rich people escape the consequences of their crimes, or sacrifice your safety to protect large firms' profits) are everywhere.

Progressives – which is to say, the coalition of liberals and leftists, in which liberals are the senior partners and spokespeople who control the Overton Window – used to identify and decry these conspiracies. But as right wing "populists" declared their opposition to these conspiracies – when Trump damned free trade and the mainstream media as tools of the ruling class – progressives leaned into schismogenesis and declared their vocal support for these old enemies of progress.

This is the crux of Naomi Klein's brilliant 2023 book Doppelganger: that as the progressive coalition started supporting these unworthy and broken institutions, the right spun up "mirror world" versions of their critique, distorted versions that focus on scapegoating vulnerable groups rather than fighting unworthy institutions:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

This is a long tradition in politics: hundreds of years ago, some leftists branded antisemitism "the socialism of fools." Rather than condemning the system's embrace of the finance sector and its wealthy beneficiaries, anti-semites blame a disfavored group of people – people who are just as likely as anyone to suffer under the system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_is_the_socialism_of_fools

It's an ugly, shallow, cartoon version of socialism's measured and comprehensive analysis of how the class system actually works and why it's so harmful to everyone except a tiny elite. Literally cartoonish: the shadow-world version of socialism co-opts and simplifies the iconography of class struggle. And schismogenesis – "if the right likes this, I don't" – sends "progressive" scolds after anyone who dares to criticize finance as the crux of our world's problems as popularizing "antisemetic dog-whistles."

This is the problem with "horseshoe theory" – the idea that the far right and the far left bend all the way around to meet each other:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/26/horsehoe-crab/#substantive-disagreement

When the right criticizes pharma companies, they tell us to "do our own research" (e.g. ignore the systemic problems of people being forced to work under dangerous conditions during a pandemic while individually assessing conflicting claims about vaccine safety, ideally landing on buying "supplements" from a grifter). When the left criticizes pharma, it's to argue for universal access to medicine and vigorous public oversight of pharma companies. These aren't the same thing:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/25/the-other-shoe-drops/#quid-pro-quo

Long before opportunistic right wing politicians realized they could get mileage out of pointing at the terrifying epistemological crisis of trying to make good choices in an age of institutions that can't be trusted, the left was sounding the alarm. Conspiratorialism – the fracturing of our shared reality – is a serious problem, weakening our ability to respond effectively to endless disasters of the polycrisis.

But by blaming the problem of conspiratorialism on the credulity of believers (rather than the deserved disrepute of the institutions they have lost faith in) we adopt the logic of the right: "conspiratorialism is a problem of individuals believing wrong things," rather than "a system that makes wrong explanations credible – and a schismogenic insistence that these institutions are sound and trustworthy."

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/2024/03/25/black-boxes/#when-you-know-you-know

Image: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/nrcgov/15993154185/

meanwell-packaging.co.uk https://www.flickr.com/photos/195311218@N08/52159853896

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[cxvii666]

WHY'S THIS DEALER? TAKING THE PISS?!

cw: recreational drug use, bad language, reader is a dealer (loosely based on my last encounter with a fem plug), idiots in love, 21st century love at first sight,

- eventually will be a multi part fic im prolly gonna upload on ao3 but for now standalone

(i make myself laugh)

it's all denki's fault.

i mean it's normally denki's fault, (with a mixture of himself, kirishima, and mina, depending on the context, the situation, or, who bakugou is most mad at), but this time, it is DEFINITELY ALL DENKI'S FAULT.

"dude cmonnnnn. i already promised everyone i'd score for the party."

trust denki kaminari to make promises he can't keep.

so this is where hanta sero ends up, on the corner of the road, in miserable weather, freezing his ass off, waiting for this dealer. it's just gone half ten and hanta's not a fool, so when he saw the "i'll be der for 10" message pop up on his phone, he didn't leave his dorm till quarter past. but now his vape is dead, his phone is on like 10%, and his fingertips are cold, so yeah, he's a little bit pissed off. pissed at himself for not buying a new geek bar, pissed at denki for begging and whining and promising to 'let him have first draw', and pissed at this dickhead for taking their sweet time.

it's a new guy, the dealer. well at least, the number denki gave him was different than usual and their style of texting was nothing like the guy he usually picks up from. hanta likes to think he's relatively chill dude, but if this fucker, who charges even more for a 3.5, doesn't hurry up, he's gonna crash out.

after another slow ten minutes and another "yh man im almost there" text, a car finally pulls up in front of him. he stamps out what's left of his roll up and pushes himself off the fence he was leaning on as the car window slides down.

hanta fumbles and nearly drops his phone out of his hands when he sees you, sat in the drivers seat.

pretty half lidded eyes stare at him, he thinks he hears kendrick playing from your aux but he can't be sure because he's so caught up in you. fingers tapping rhythmically against the wheel, you look up at him through your lashes and call out slow and tired,

"sero, yeah?"

and, oh my god, his family name has never sounded better than it did coming from your plush lips.

he nods dumbly before realising that you probably can't see him very well in the dim lighting of the side road. "yeah. yeah, that's me," he coughs out, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible.

you face breaks out into a shy smile directly contrasting the cold stare down you'd be giving him before unlocking the car.

"omg, cool! sorry for making you wait so long! i know it's cold, d'you wanna hop in the passage seat rq?" and hanta doesn't even have time to internally debate the pros and cons of getting into a complete strangers car, because his feet are already carrying him across the road and into your front seat.

as he settles into your passenger seat, you slide your chair back the slightest and start rummaging around in a clearly well loved black leather handbag. hanta tries to still, or at least calm, his beating heart. you look strangely familiar, like he's met you in a dream or something. he takes a deep breath and remarks how your car smells faintly of oranges and you begin, "so who gave you my number?"

"kaminari-"

"wow" you laugh, your top lip curling slightly, teeth showing, hanta thinks your so pretty, "you know kaminari? damn, that guy's in my prac maths class and he's-"

suddenly hanta cringes internally, mind flashing back to a scene, maybe a couple days ago, of him and denki hitting blinkers at the bus shelter outside campus, talking about something stupid, them joking about hanta's apparent lack of game (which is not true at all), and denki saying something about some pretty girl in his class who he smokes with sometimes and, in his words, was, 'exactly y'er type bro'.

"he's one of my roommates." is all he says though his lazy smile tenses slightly, no way denki planned this, right?

you hardly notice, rambling about your maths module, and the lack of work that got done between the two of you. you're trying to keep your voice even and not take too many glances at the hot guy, sero hanta, kaminari's cute roommate, who you had instagram stalked literally on the way over, while you were stuck in traffic, because you'd seen him on the blonde's story. it was some badly taken photo of a group of four guys all sat on top of each other on the same couch, two of them laughing, four beers and an open pack of amber leaf on the table. but sero, cheesing at the camera, sat on the thigh of a different blonde who seemed literal seconds away from punching his lights out, had caught your eye.

so to have him here, in your car, right next to you. so close you could practically smell him, and he smelt gooood, the standard stoner boy scent that you expected but with a mix of something spicy, lord-

when you finally look up to him from where you've been digging in your bag, phone in hand, hanta shuffles with the dead vape in his pocket trying to make it less obvious he'd spent the better part of five minutes just staring at you.

"speak of the devil." you shake your phone at hanta to take and on the screen is a recent chat between you and his best friend as well as a snap of him clearly drunk yelling at the camera from five- five minutes ago??

"he's so unserious." you laugh again, and take your phone back from hanta typing out a quick response then clicking your phone off. "you wanted an eighth yeah?"

hanta nods dumbly, still kinda shocked that denki pulled this off without him realising, and you pull out a little plastic bag with a couple nuggets inside and hand it to him.

he goes to grab the cash in pocket but you stop him with a gentle arm to his shoulder.

you drop your arm quick enough, overthinking your next actions but say anyway, "don't worry 'bout this one, yeah-"

"-what? nah 's fine i've got cash," he trails off, you're looking at him, beautiful wide eyes.

"no i've already made up my mind," you grin slowly at his slightly flustered state and for a moment neither of you talk. the song has long sinced changed and your radio is now playing an old rnb track he doesn't recognise but he finds himself relaxed in your presence.

"besides, i made you wait for so long, and," you continue quickly, your smile even wider, as hanta fixes his mouth to complain. "you're a friend of a friend, right?"

when he finally makes his way back to the party, denki's there, cheesing like an idiot, and when bakugou asks why he took forever, and he parrots him "yeah, sero, what took you so long?" slick as shit, hanta can't even bring himself to be pissed.

yeah it was denki's fault, but the weight of your number, your actual number, with your first name and a '<3' next to it, in his phone makes it worth it.

he throws the little baggie to his 'friend' and steals a vape off the table.

"dude stfu or i'm never picking up for you again."

[brittle-doughie]

Taking a break from angst-time for some good Ole fashion family drama!

I'd like to request a scenario where a matriarch relative from Y/N's family roping them into an arranged marriage with an upper-class cookie (whoever it is up to you)

Said relative is introduced coming to the kingdom where they try to take y/n cookie to their would-be-fiance, only to notice a plethora of cookies either following, stalking, or budding in on their "familial reunion."

P.s. Hope your having a safe belated new year, brittle-doughie! Your the best

- 🥀 Anon

Forced Connections

Much appreciated, my dude. Arranged marriages pretty much spell disaster for the would-be spouse if you run a kingdom!

Crowned Cupcake Cookie, that was the name of the cookie in the photograph sent to you, the one you were apparently meant to be wedded with for the sake of “keeping the doughline pure”, as Sugar Cane Cookie, your family’s matriarch, would put it.

AN: Many thanks to Runebrave for massively carrying with the design, as you guys may know, I don’t have a single creative bone in my body lol

Your mother, Molasses Cookie, couldn’t be any more embarrassed that her side of the family is meddling with your personal life, wanting you to choose how you want to live it, wanting you to choose who you want to be with…but Sugar Cane Cookie insisted.

She was expected to arrive with Crowned Cupcake Cookie soon, which means having to break the news to your Cookie Kingdom before they did. They deserved to know…

You opened the door to your quarters to see Financier Cookie standing by, she gave a small bow to you.

“Y/N Cookie, I see that you are alright today. It gives me relief knowing that you haven’t gotten hurt.”

And it helps to know that a cookie like her is always keep watch over you, when she makes it to the schedule at least. Quite a number of cookies are always gunning to make your bodyguard spot such as Caramel Arrow or Raspberry Cookie, had to break up a few scuffles on occasion.

But that’s a topic for another day, you’d rather you give her the news of what’s to come..

You tell Financier Cookie to be ready, for your kingdom will have…important guests arriving soon..

“I’ll be sure to be on my best behavior and that will go for the other cookies. May I ask who these guests are?”

It will be your family matriarch, Sugar Cane Cookie…and your soon-to-be fiancé, Crowned Cupcake Cookie-

You see Financier Cookie stop in her tracks, a thousand yard stare straight ahead, as her grip on her sword shakes.

“….What?”

Now now, you know that sounds like a big shocker already, but it’s being forced upon you and you really can’t-

“A forced marriage…as if the circumstances can’t get any worse…”

You asked for her to please settle down, this was beyond your control once it was made known to be an order in your family!

Financier’s grip on her sword tightens up as she takes deep breathes, indicating the hidden rage that was boiling inside her

“Don’t worry about it, self-discipline is something I need to practice for anyway…just don’t expect me to be cordial with this…fiancé of yours if she steps out of line…”

If Financier could get like this, there’s no telling how the others will be…

———————————————————————

Jealousy is hitting Kouign-Amann Cookie when she learns of the news. What kind of cookies were your family to try and set you up with something arranged?! As opposed to..what your heart wants..

She can proudly boast that her skills as a Paladin exceeds what this visitor can do for you, anything crossing your path can just meet her sword! What can this visitor do? Because they probably won’t be able to do as much compared to Kouign!

Not giving up is also another part of being a Paladin! Nothing this newcomer can say or do will deter her at all, even if it ends up in a fight! Because Kouign is more than willing to put this cookie six feet under if they push their luck…

———————————————————————

Almond Cookie is on the case. Not only was this arranged marriage done without an agreement on your end, but you weren’t even on a first name basis with this other cookie? This has gotten him on high alert that required a whole lot of coffee, he’ll need it if he’s to dedicate his time to this problem.

He’ll be right there with you for when your arranged spouse has entered the station. The safety of the Cookie Kingdom’s ruler is of the upmost importance to everyone, including him. Especially him. He felt like being your barrier, the wall of protection that you can count on!

And..just reading on whatever files he can scrape on up on this Crowned Cupcake Cookie…he’ll definitely need to be on guard for whatever she has planned or would be ready to do. He’s more than happy to slap her in cuffs if she so much as LOOKS suspicious..

———————————————————————

Did this mean you won’t be able to come to her picnics anymore? You’ll be giving all your time to Crowned Cupcake Cookie?

It was a pretty unfortunate realization for Cherry Blossom Cookie, she felt like what you and her had was going pretty nicely. It just felt like a pain to her heart to suddenly lose that connection to a cookie she’s never heard about.

She can’t just deny your future spouse a picnic though. In fact…she very much would like to invite her to the best picnic! She promises to make Cupcake’s food R E A L S P E C I A L to commemorate the occasion. She’ll make it so good, it would be to D I E for…

———————————————————————

Your cookies could only internally cringe when Crowned Cupcake arrived on the train and was already hovering around you. She went on a long speech about the fairy tale romance of a princess meeting the one she loves being a reality for her. Financier’s self-discipline was TESTED with how much Crowned was putting her hands on you.

Almost as if she sensed it, Crowned Cupcake started to giggle, her back towards the envious crowd of cookies. She turned back towards them, with wide eyes and creepy smile, her right eye twitching.

“Oh? Am I sensing objections between me and my dearest being together…? If that’s the case…”

She put away her staff…before slowly pulling out a sword from behind her, with dry strawberry jam staining the blade, her smile growing more deranged.

“I’m more than happy to settle any differences. Dungeon or execution..? Hehe…”