#authoritarian tendencies

[jeaninelatragedia]

Did you see that addition to your "does personality predate ideology" post?? Kinda making me lose my mind a bit and I'd love your thoughts

i did! not much to say beyond "pop psychology (if i get extremeist practically all psychology frameworks) in its necessity for pathology in the individual and the psyche is a prime framework to espouse idealist rhetorics and be really eugenic-y about it, and nothing's more eugenic-y than to claim a certain subset of people is 'mentally underdevloped' and that said supposed lack of development is a cause in [x thing i don't like, being Scary Authoritarianism in this case]." this naturally branches off into smaller points like: "okay but authoritarianism is not a meaningful framework either it was made up and ignores any complexity about social dynamics", "frameworks that necessitate particular ideas of 'maturity' or an 'end point' of a person's development only serve to continue the systematic abuse of disenfranchised groups such as children and mentally pathologized people, which is generally not a thing you want to be doing unless you're cool with getting really fashy really fast", "how are you even defining fascism if you conflate it nigh-entirely with your supposed authoritarianism while also trying to write a serious refutation on a post about the origin of fascism, that sounds counterproductive", "what do you mean you think ideology is a post-hoc justification for Emotion but that Modern Psychology is the fundamental framework that applies to the entirety of humanity's history, how do you even reach that conclusion", etc., etc.

unfortunately it's a very natural conclusion to reach if you put stock in the ideological frameworks of liberalism and psychology, perhaps due to being unquestioning about their efficacy due to particular material conditions that never necessitated that curiosity to manifest. oh well.

[my-pjo-stuff]

At this point everyone and their mother know that I'm a proud German and like to bring in fun stuff or specific things about my country up once in a while. Generally I'm trying to stir away from it, seeing as this is my PJO blog and I don't want to bore you all. But I think it's time to play my "As a German" card and say that the PJO fandom needs to take the words "fascist", "eugenicist" and "nazi" out of their collective vocabulary. Now I don't think I need to explain what those things have to do with my country. I will however explain the fact that German children tend to me made very aware of the meaning of those words. We learn about our history and the crimes committed. We learn about the past ideologies of the Third Reich and how to dismantle them. I especially have grown up being very sensitive to these things, as my parents have placed great importance on me understanding the whole of my country's history. That includes the Third Reich.

And as such to say that I am frankly horrified at the way the PJO fandom treats these very loaded terms is an underestimate. I have seen multiple different people comparing Luke and the TA to Nazis, saying they are eugenicists or even fascists.

Which is just genuinly so harmful because they are not.

I won't go into the specifics of the way they are not because it would go beyond the scope of this post while also being very easily searchable simply by googling the definition of the aforementioned words.

Using labels such as "Nazi", "Eugenicist" and "Fascist" on people and things that are not waters the term down a lot. Which is genuinely harmful because there very much are still IRL people with those beliefs! We cannot allow ourselves to forget the true horror of these words, because that would allow these horrors to return. If every villain starts being a "nazi"- then how can we recognize the actual nazi?

This fandom seems to love the "fiction has an impact on real life" argument. As a German I am genuinely asking you to apply this here. Now don't get me wrong- it's fine to point out these ideologies and practices in fiction aswell as parallels should they be found. I myself pointed out how Camp Jupiter's Wolfhouse is borderline eugenicist- but you NEED to do your proper research first. There are plenty of other valid ways to criticize characters, especially Luke, if you want to do it. But calling him these names is just genuinely harmful.

Please be careful using these words, and remember who and what stands behind them.

[dionysus-complex]

.

[basingstokemercury]

Odo: I don't understand what's so hard about just obeying the law. Isn't having a clear basis for society safer all round? Adam Cartwright: Yeah. I could never see the appeal. Odo: So I use my shapeshifting abilities to keep a close watch on all potential criminals, whether or not they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Adam: ...I think I need to reevaluate our friendship.

[mashamorevvna]

the aeducans are my kardashians insofar as i call them all coquette with no exceptions and for each family member i have selected three lana del rey hits, but this is all an elaborate ruse to juxtapose their glossy blonde look with the authoritarian tendencies festering and writhing in the family as it eats itself from the inside out, which is also a metonymy for the decay of dwarven society

[amerasdreams]

well, russia created this monster. Now that the monster is doing what monsters do--using violence--

Russia:

[bobbole]

These are straightforward attacks on students’ free speech rights to criticize Israeli and American policy, and universities that opt to meaningfully support their students would have a strong defense to mount against these abuses. But to their eternal discredit, many universities have so far been rolling out the red carpet for the fascist tendencies and policies that Trump and his acolytes proudly promote, obeying even before he took office.

Under pressure from politicians, donors, trustees, and pro-Israel lobby groups, most universities have responded to the student movement against Israel’s genocide with rampant anti-Palestinian racism, abandoning principles of free speech, academic freedom, and shared governance. They have sacrificed their own students and faculty to political grandstanding in McCarthyist congressional hearings, racist and militarized law enforcement, and draconian disciplinary processes. Outside normal procedures, they have passed ever-more-restrictive speech codes and anti-protest policies.

[half-life-crisis]

#ITOLDYou! #Podcast E-7!  #InfoOperations campaigns cause #CognitiveDissidence. This is how #propagandists #brainwash #goodpeople to #commitatrocities.

#Watch here https://youtube.com/watch?v=kzVtV40pyM8…

#Read more https://halflifecrisis.com/hlc-articles/info-operations-and-cognitive-dissidence…

#Help #stubborn #lovedones not becoming #usefulfools!

[ellipsus-writes]

The words they're afraid of.

(Read on our blog.)

The recently appointed Department of Defense head Pete Hegseth (formerly Fox News pundit, perpetually soused creepy uncle, and current group chat leaker of classified intel) banned images of the Enola Gay from the Pentagon’s website for the offense of “DEI” language. In keeping with the far right’s stated war on anything vaguely resembling diversity, equity and inclusion, even historical photos are up for cancellation. When a literal weapon of mass destruction is censored for being a bit fruity under the Trump administration’s war against inconvenient truths, what exactly is left untouched?

This is clown show stuff, but the stakes are far from funny. While some might be hesitant to compare the current administration to the very worst history has to offer, we can at least all agree that they are dyed-in-the-wool grammar Nazis. Policing language has been the objective of the MAGA culture war long before Project 2025’s debut—the wave of book bans orchestrated by astroturf movements like Moms for Liberty, and Florida’s 2022 Don’t Say Gay bill have already had a profound effect in the arena of free speech and freedom of expression (despite the far right’s long tradition of doublespeak performative free-speech martyrdom to the contrary). Don’t Say Gay ostensibly targeted K-3 education, but LGBT+ content at all levels of education (and beyond) was either quietly censored or entirely preempted in practice. The results were not just a war on so-called ideology, or words alone—but on reality and essential freedoms.

Now, words as innocuous and important as racism, climate change, hate speech, prejudice, mental health, and inequality are targeted as subversive. Entire concepts are being vanished from government institutions, scrubbed not only from descriptions but from metadata, search indexes, and archival frameworks.

If you don’t name a thing, does it exist?

These words are as numerous as they are generic: women, race, Black, immigrants, multicultural, gender, injustice. But what is painfully unserious is also particularly dangerous in its real-world consequences. The process of controlling words is a well-worn authoritarian tendency. Fifty-two universities are now under investigation as part of the President's effort to curb “woke” research and thought crimes. Institutions are being coerced to comply with a nebulous set of ideological demands, or face budgetary annihilation. That means cutting funding for entire departments, slashing financial aid, defunding scientific grants, and pressuring faculty to self-censor.

The possibilities for censorship extend far and wide—interfering, by extension, in everything from reproductive healthcare programs, to libraries and museums. The Trump administration’s proposed budget slashing all federal funding for libraries, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services, will effectively gut an infrastructure that supports over 100,000 libraries and museums across the country—community centers, educational lifelines, internet access points, and archives of marginalized histories (starting with the Smithsonian Institution).

When you erase access, you erase participation. And when you erase participation, you erase people, and the means by which future generations might even learn they existed. A culture that cannot remember is a culture that cannot resist.

The erasure is, yet again, unsurprisingly targeted at minorities and LGBT+ people. The National Parks Service quietly revised the Stonewall Monument’s website to remove references to transgender people—a fundamental part of the original protests. Not an oversight, not a mistake, but a deliberate excision—one point in a wider plan of erasure depicted in stark detail in Project 2025, a blueprint to dismantle civil rights, defund LGBT+-related healthcare, and rewrite history from the ground up.

Dehumanization by deletion—welcome to the reactionary resurgence of doubleplusungood governance. In Trumpland, words are weapons—but not in the way they intend. Their fear of language betrays its power; that’s why they’re trying so hard to police it.

Words hurt them.

Hurt them back.

- the Ellipsus Team

[rorynni]

Why I Believe Toya Aoyagi is Implied to be Autistic (an obnoxiously long post)

I’m gonna start with the more obvious ones because I’ll admit some of them might be a bit of a stretch towards the end.

Toya has a lot of difficulty with outwardly expressing himself. He tends to speak in a monotone voice and wears a blank facial expression most of the time. As the story progresses, this gets a little better, but he’s still not great at expressing emotion. At the start of the game, this made him quite unapproachable, as people thought he was too difficult to read.

Toya also has a habit of staring at people. Most often Akito since he spends more time with him, but he’s also been known to stare at others on multiple occasions. He most likely doesn’t realise why staring at someone would make them uncomfortable and does it out of habit without noticing.

Toya struggles to identify his own emotions, with An even pointing out that it sometimes sounds like he's from another planet. He often finds it difficult to understand how he himself is feeling, to the point where others will have to tell him how they think he feels (they’re normally right, but Toya doesn’t realise this himself until they mention it).

He also takes things very literally and doesn’t pick up on sarcasm. Autistic people not only tend to have trouble expressing tone, but they also may struggle to interpret other people’s tone and often don’t recognise when someone is joking or being sarcastic.

Despite being very smart, Toya doesn’t show much understanding of social norms. He turned up to class holding a giant plushie that he’d won from the arcade, and Akito was immediately concerned with how much it must have made him stand out on the way there, something that Toya didn’t consider since he was more concerned about how the plush had been crammed into a small locker (the fact that he personifies the bear is a whole other thing).

He also idolises Tsukasa a lot despite other characters finding him obnoxious and embarrassing to be around. It’s possible that he doesn’t understand the social norms that make Tsukasa “weird”.

Toya has a tendency to get overly-fixated on the things he’s interested in, to the point where he’s had to put off consuming media in the past out of concern that he’d become obsessed with it and struggle to concentrate on music practice. Despite normally being very calm and taciturn, he also gets very excited whenever one of his interests is mentioned, as seen in the close game/OFFLINE event when Puyo Puyo Tetris is in the arcade tournament. This is very similar to how hyper-fixations and special interests present in neurodivergent people.

He exhibits quite detail-oriented thinking with an intense focus on specifics. This has hindered his singing and songwriting ability in the past.

A few rapid-fire ones I'm too lazy to go into a lot of detail about:

Nitpicky about food texture (likes octopus but dislikes squid despite them being very similar)

Hyper-empathetic to the point where he often mirrors the emotions of other people without realising it

Seems to enjoy physical contact/affection but is never the one to initiate it (although I'm fully willing to blame this on Harumichi's authoritarian parenting)

[theminecraftbee]

"Cub, now that we both find ourselves trapped in the hinterlands, I find I have a question for you," Scar asks. He's sharpening arrow tips against a grindstone. Technically, this does nothing useful (except for the fact that every time he does it, Cub gets twitchier and twitchier and gets closer and closer to another fletching table rant). It's not about effectiveness, though; it's about the fact that Scar is pretty sure Joe is somewhere out in the bush and he wants to threaten the man obliquely.

"Shoot," Cub says. "Actually, wait, do not shoot."

"Aww," Scar says.

"I'm not giving you permission to kill me," Cub says. "You can go kill Joe a few more times."

"Yeah, but that's... well, not boring, it's actually really fun, but still!"

"Tough luck then, man," Cub says.

Scar huffs. "Look, it's just... I liked shooting people a whole bunch, Cub. Chasing them down, everyone being scared of me, I could do whatever I wanted! It was like, super fun, right," Scar starts.

"You know, this shows the inherent problem with the state creating an enforcement class!" Joe shouts somewhere from the trees, giving away his position. "There's a tendency for that class to be just kind of terrible! Scar, that's terrible!"

"Yeah, but like, murder isn't real," Scar says.

"It's true, murder isn't real," Cub says.

"I feel like I should have a rebuke for that but I don't!" Joe says, and then there's a rustling noise like he's changing hiding places now to continue spying on them. Scar shakes his head fondly. What a tricky little puppet. It's too bad they're both in exile now; the inherent threat of exile is part of what made hunting people down fun!

"An-y-way," Scar says. "Anyway! It's just that now that I'm here, I'm kind of wondering, like, what was the goal? I mean, I would have hunted people down to kill them regardless of goal, right. But if everyone is in exile, they can't really... give their permits back? Or get back into compliance with their permits? Since they're, uh, in exile, and don't have access to them?"

"Yeah," Cub says, nodding.

"So, uh, is the goal just to exile everyone?"

Cub shrugs. "Gonna be honest Scar, did not think that far ahead. Did not think that far ahead."

"Oh, okay. Fair enough! I guess we're all just stuck here now, so that's neat." Scar says cheerfully, loading his arrows back into his inventory.

"That's not neat! I just wanted to play Permitmaster! I was willing to put up with your authoritarian incompetence and cruelty, but only if I got to play Permitmaster! And then I got murdered about it!" Joe shouts from a secondary hiding place.

"That sounds rough, buddy," Cub says.

"It's your fault!" Joe says.

"Oooh, you want to know what else can be our fault?" Scar says, ignoring the problem altogether.

"Noooooo," Joe says, voice pitching several octaves higher, and then Scar lunges in the direction of his voice. "Noooo! I haven't even been doing anything again! I'm like, already punished! Scar!"

Scar laughs. "Yeah, but we just talked about how this doesn't matter and isn't actually about punishment! So I want to kill you now!"

"I still don't understand how anyone thought you were ever the good guy," Joe wails.

"Yeah, that's on them," Cub says idly, and then Scar lunges, bow in hand, to chase the panicking puppet across exile. If this had all been pointless to begin with, that's perfect; it means he has the perfect excuse to keep on doing the part that's fun! It's not like he ever cared about the permits in the first place, and he'd just been given permission.

"You know, why did we do exile?" mumbles Cub behind him as he leaves. That, to Scar, sounds like a someone else problem now, so he leaves that behind.

[pawberri]

The key problem with "proship vs anti" discourse is that the most extreme versions of each side, the ones who actually bother to identify with these labels, accepted each others worst takes as arguments they had to debate. "Fiction =/= reality" is, in practice, an absurdly reductionist, anti-intellectual, thought-terminating-cliche that dictates we can learn nothing about a person via art and that their fiction reflects no political or moral messaging worthy of critique. In response to this, the "puriteens" who are too young to possibly hope to articulate their discomfort, to untangle their position from what is often real trauma experienced online, simply argue "yes, fiction influences and reflects reality in a 1 to 1 capacity." They, and people who want to use the groundwork they laid to make bad-faith callouts, make bad arguments about how the action of engaging in problematic fiction is on equal ground to real life abuse, or is a clear indicator of interest in real life abuse. Both of these arguments are terrible, but each side seems to radicalize the other further and further into their own brands of anti-intellectual reactionary belief. "Proshippers" become libertarian absolutists about free speech and view all transgression as righteous and alternative and therefore leftist. They gain a reactionary nostalgia for the past, desiring a time when people didn't seem to care about the implications of art. "Antis" become authoritarian and hypervigilant for signs of moral decay, at their worst, willing to align themselves with government bodies that offer carceral solutions to the debate. They are willing to use harassment as a tool of punishment, which then leads to false accusations and a fear of openness that puts people at risk of being triggered via obfuscation. (That said, proshippers also take part in plenty of harassment.)

I will say that I believe both of these movements are equally sensitive to co-opting by right-wing forces. We see the authoritarian tendencies of anti culture in harassment campaigns and even the way Republican law makers co-opt "grooming." The proship/fic crowd has such extreme nostalgia for the past that I often see people align themselves with the cultures of 4chan or other happily right-wing websites. They so heavily reject the idea that a drawn sexual depiction of a child could reflect any desire that they are disinterested in analyzing what the motivation behind the depiction is. i.e If we track the history of lolicon in Japan we do find that is, yes, countercultural, but that counter culture is right wing, very misogynistic, and defensive of patriarchial Japanese culture as it is and was including its culture around rape and abuse. Plenty of fictional content works as radicalization material, and radicalization material needs to be ambiguous. There is a valid reason to be hesitant to trust people who consume this content, even if I do not believe most of them will ever be dangerous towards children. The mere presence of sexuality is not enough to make a movement left wing. This kind of thing can again be seen in right-wing libertarian movements in the US. (And even leftist movements can be bigoted and even "pro-pedophilia" or otherwise disinterested in social reform around abuse.)

Is all content with elements of age-play this way? No. But to me, that is why kink media deserves to be treated as art and analyzed, critiqued, treated seriously. It doesn't have to do anything to anyone to be worthy of a moral critique. Said moral critique just doesn't warrant harassment and cruelty and reactionary exaggerations of the person consuming said content.

Anyway, what's my point in saying all this? I don't know. I'm just begging you to tag your God damn content with specific tags instead of random and nebulous shit like "dead dove" or "dark content", and also begging you to stop harassing people who do tag their content so I don't have to guess what "dead dove" and "dark content" mean. No one will erase incest kink fics or people who feel sickened by the idea of them off this earth because we aren't god, but we could at least all be responsible about tagging, flagging, and age-gating our stuff.

[dejwrld]

⤷‧₊˚ hiromi punishes his flirty sub into submission.

warning readers discretion is advised ⸻ flashing edit, japanese rope bondage kink, dom/sub relationship, shibari rope bondage, jealous!hiromi, flirty reader, assertive dom!hiromi, written with black reader in mind, orgasm denial, orgasm control, mentions of rope burns/markings, slight age gap (hiromi in his 30's while reader is in early/mid 20's), oral (m.receiving), reader is not a hoe but the way hiromi describe her you would think sis is (he just jealous), a little praise kink, a little degradation kink, cum swallowing, hiromi is a well-established lawyer, reader is in law school & daughter of a successful judge, mentions of other jjk characters (nanami kento, toji fushiguro, atsuya kusakabe), mentions of aftercare, flashback in italics, usage of toys | wc: 3.8k, mdni

sticky note from deja — this is a repost, but same hiromi & reader from this fic. don't really consume jjk fics like that anymore but do still enjoy writing about hiromi, choso, nanami, & toji.

DURING THE TWELFTH CENTURY, JAPANESE PRISONERS WERE PUNISHED WITH SEVERE TORTURE, COMMONLY IN THE FORM OF HOJOJUTSU TIES. The traditional martial art was used by  Samurai to restrain their victims, causing agonizing pain, and discomfort. However, Hiromi was sure those same Samurai would be turning in their graves if they found out the same torture method was now used in the bedroom of many dom and sub relationships. Shibari was now a popular form of bondage play that gave many doms the power of control and many subs the satisfaction of relinquishing that control. 

And Hiromi Higuruma was now introducing this form of bondage to his rebellious sub. 

Hiromi's form of dominance was unique. Whereas others were aggressive and authoritarian, he was a perfect balance of assertiveness and compassion. However, his sub had a tendency of taking his kindness for granted, one too many times.  Some days, she had him on the verge of voiding their contract entirely,  but on others, he was so blind by his lust—agitated that his sexual desires could cloud his judgment to such an extent.

As he ends a Zoom call with his colleagues, he left his office, finally pushing the thought of work out of his mind. His house slippers drag along the wooden floors as he makes his way to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, slipping a straw in when he opens it. After taking a sip he saunters through his penthouse toward his bedroom,  smiling as he’s greeted by the wonderful sight of his sub completely bare on his king-size bed. Ropes decorate her pretty body, the thick strands wrapped tightly, rendering her helpless and immobile. It took him weeks to master the beauty of shibari and being able to successfully bind his sub in ropes was a stunning sight, to say the least. 

He nibbles on the straw peeking from his bottle as he indulges in the artistic sight of the ropes against her smooth skin. A blindfold leaves her blind, his approaching footsteps causing her head to raise from the pillow beneath her head. Hiromi takes a long sip of the water before stepping a bit closer to the bed. It was good to know that she hadn’t fallen asleep during his time in a quick Zoom call, but then again he did prop a vibrating wand set to the lowest speed against her clit before he left, pleased as her needy whimpers echoed through the penthouse. This was just the start of her punishment for her lousy behavior. 

The industry of law from police officers, paralegals, and judges to lawyers—was a small world in Japan. If word of your failure to win a case you were defending can travel fast enough to be talked about during the six o’clock evening news, then obviously the childish gossip of his sub Y/N flirting with a fucking councilman got to him before he finished his opening arguments for a case. Usually, Hiromi would brush it under the rug. She still was young, dumb, and eager to get a taste of any cock that could buy her something she could easily get from daddy. But he’d had it with her behavior. 

The sandy brown rope tied in the most beautiful knots traps her legs in such a way that she couldn’t squirm away from  Hiromi or the vibrator’s touch. Another rope wraps around her upper body, binding her arms behind her back. Hiromi’s a little worried about that one, as she was lying on her back. But it was a magnificent scene, especially with the way the thick rope makes her boobs look perkier. 

Hiromi drags the lounging chair in the corner of his master bedroom towards the edge of the bed. He plops down on the seat and leans over to remove the blindfold, placing the silken covering on the nightstand next to his bed. When he makes eye contact with her tear-filled eyes he is void of pity. His heart doesn’t soften like it usually does Instead, he just stares at her with so much hunger that one would think he was some sex addict. Hiromi leans forward to place the straw of his bottle between her lips, urging her to drink. He can hear her faint swallows while he thumbs away her tears, taking note of the dried-up tear streaks that stain her heated cheeks. 

“Did you cum?” Hiromi asks, reclining into his seat. He brings one leg over the other as he stares at her with those deadpan eyes of his. 

Y/N watches as he places the water bottle on the nightstand next to the blindfold. She did cum; she came more than once, actually. However, admitting that wouldn’t satisfy Hiromi. Sure, he likes knowing that she orgasmed when the two engaged in sexual activities. But he relishes the thought of being the one to bring Y/N’s body to that point, on his command. 

Hiromi gets the answer to his question when the young lady breaks eye contact. He kisses his teeth as he watches her stare at the ceiling,  her reflection staring right back in the mirror looming above. He stands to grab the vibrating wand between her opened legs, smirking as he finds her slick coating the toy. He toys with the vibration settings as he returns to his seat, his expression reverting to one of stoicism. 

“Just please touch me Hiromi, I want to feel you.” Y/N cries, finally breaking her stubborn silence. 

“No,” Hiromi states impassively. “Do you even know why you’re in this predicament in the first place?” His large hand takes a hold of her face, forcing her to look at him. 

“Nope,” It annoys him that she’s bratty enough to articulate an answer with such pride.

How can one crave and beg for his touch but still be defiant enough to answer his question like that?

“Hmm, interesting,” are the only words that come out of Hiromi’s mouth before changing the setting of the toy to medium speed. He places the vibrating wand back between her thighs, firm as he pressed it against her clit. “And be sure to not cum without my permission this time.” 

He watches her squirm against the confines of the ropes, the knots not budging one bit against her struggle. Instead, they only grow tighter around her limbs. 

“Y/N, do you remember rule 14 in our contract? It’s one rule that I hold so high, especially considering who we are.” 

Y/N can’t concentrate on Hiromi’s question due to the intense feeling that’s burning between her thighs. She feels like she’s on trial, and with each question that leaves Hiromi’s mouth, he is deciding her fate for tonight. Will she be found innocent or guilty? The young law student only moans out as she tries to remember the answer to his question, simply because she knows her dom so well. If she obeyed, he always rewarded her. 

As a law student, it was important for Y/N to eye every document presented to her in this folder. Hiromi expected her to read over the contract multiple times simply because he would adore a challenge if she caught a mistake he made or something. He specifically invited her to dinner to look over the contract, and the woman was finally getting to the end of it.

“I don’t really understand this rule,” Y/N spoke out. 

“Which one?” Hiromi inquired from across the table. I did my best to make them as clear as possible.” 

“Rule 14.” 

“What does it say? I expect you to be more vocal if we’re going to make this work. Say the rule loud and clear and tell me why you don’t understand it.” Hiromi said before cutting into his steak to continue eating. 

Y/N watched as he ate his luxury dinner. When he had a seminar at her university, she was so curious to know who Hiromi Higuruma was that she forgot the rumors were true. He was as assertive outside the courthouse as much as he was inside of it. 

Y/N cleared her throat before speaking, “The sub is not allowed to engage in other romantic relationships nor romantic gestures with other associates in the law industry. This includes police officers, lawyers, paralegals, judges, and political figures.” 

“Okay, and why don’t you understand it?” Hiromi grabbed his glass of wine to take a sip from it.

“It’s bullshit, and it contradicts your second rule of saying that we’re not romantically involved with each other—just merely helping each other with our sexual fantasies. If we’re not romantically involved, why am I forbidden to mingle with other people?” Y/N’s arms crossed over her chest, awaiting a response. 

“You’re allowed to mingle with other people, knock yourself out. Just not someone that’s in the same industry as us. It may not seem like our world isn’t small, but it is. I don’t want this to get messier than engaging in this form of a relationship already is.” 

“Messy? How would it get messy?” Y/N asked.

Hiromi met her gaze. Usually, people broke eye contact with him because he was the most intimidating lawyer in the room. But she held her head high, this one,  and never broke eye contact. It was almost as if she were challenging him.

“Former subs get attached to the point where they blabber to their little law friends or attempt to use my colleagues to make me jealous. Both of those examples are messy.” Hiromi answered.

Y/N’s lips parted to speak, but nothing came out. She just picked up the pen and signed the contract at the end. Hiromi watched as she signed it, even going so far as to leave her red lipstick print on the first page of the contract. Oh, this was going to be fun.

Y/N finally realizes why she was stuck in the intricate shibari rope bondage with a vibrator buzzing against her clit. She flirted with that councilman, Toji Fushiguro. If she thinks hard enough, she can even remember him grabbing a handful of her ass with how flirtatious she was. But in her defense, she’d had a few too many strawberry mojitos.

“Does the name Toji Fushiguro ring a bell to  you?” Hiromi moves his chair closer to grasp the wand. 

A sudden gasp escapes Y/N’s mouth as she writhes on the plush bed. Hiromi grips the wand and moves it around her wet folds teasingly, placing it on her clit in a slow circular motion. He knew Y/N so well that if her hands weren't tied behind her back, she would desperately inch away from the pleasurable action so she wouldn’t cum. Whines of desperation slip past her lips as she attempts to arch her back off the bed. Just as Hiromi could see her toes curl, he removed the vibrator from her clit. He deviously clicks his tongue while dragging his slender fingers down her bare body, fingertips grazing the ropes that imprinted her smooth skin. 

“Since you want to act like a brat, brats have to earn the privilege to fuckin’ cum.” 

His words come out as a sweet whisper, but Y/N can hear the threatening undertone clear as day. Her legs quiver beneath the ropes, swallowing the remnants of her orgasm away. The action ignited a heat across her body so hot, that she felt as if she were running a fever. 

 “I went out with the guys the other night. You know, Kento, Kusakabe, and your favorite, Toji.” Hiromi tosses the wand aside, tired of the mediocre toy. “You know, like all  guy talk…someone is bound to brag  about the women  they’re trying to fuck.” 

Hiromi stands from the chair he was sitting in, Y/N watching closely as he pushes it back to its rightful place in the corner. She can hear his footsteps against the wooden floors but is too lazy to follow his movements. The weight of helplessness ensnares her as she listens to Hiromi’s words. Through her blurry gaze, she anxiously watches  Hiromi roll up the sleeves of his white button-down to his elbows. He folds the cotton with such precision, that one would have thought he was returning it to whatever store he bought it from. The soft thump of his footsteps is soon replaced by the clink of his belt being undone, the sound, amplifying the tension already filling the room. Y/N might not be able to tell what the man is up to, but she’s certain he’s seething with jealousy after what she did, and that only compelled him to punish her.

“Toji begins talking about how he’s so close to fucking this judge's daughter. I shrug it off as just Toji being Toji: a freshly divorced horn dog that likes sticking his dick in any woman wearing a short skirt. But then he mentions your name,” Hiromi pauses as he returns to  Y/N’s side.

His nicely tailored bottoms hang loose around his waist, the band of his Calvin Klein briefs now visible. His shirt is unbuttoned, revealing his chiseled chest and the beginnings of a mouth-watering happy trail. 

“Now answer me this. Why would Toji Fushiguro know your name?” Hiromi’s arms cross over his chest, his muscles bulging slightly in the shirt he’s still wearing. “And if you answer with, ��I don’t know’—expect to be punished.” 

With lust in her eyes and desperation ravaging her body, Y/N nibbles her bottom lip as if it is a chew toy. She’s grateful that he didn’t put the familiar cotton candy-colored ball gag in her mouth before her punishment—she wouldn’t be able to do as much shit-talking if he did. But one thing Hiromi knows about Y/N is that she enjoys testing his patience.  It’s like a person filling a glass to its brim and continuing to add small droplets until it overflows.

And with an innocent doe-eyed expression, Y/N looks up at Hiromi and says, “I don’t know.” 

Hiromi's eyes roll at the woman on his bed, stepping forward to grasp at one of the ropes causing Y/N to gasp. As he tugs her to the edge of the bed his cock twitches in anticipation at thought of his oncoming punishment, the images of just what he had planned rushing to the forefront of his mind. When one has a bratty sub with a mouth as smart as theirs and an attitude to match, They’ve got to use it. 

The majority of her body lies comfortably on the king-sized bed, the same one she’s spent many nights sleeping in after an evening of wanton fun. But it’s her head that’s hanging off the bed, gulping the knot that formed in her throat as she stares up at her dom. She’s endured many punishments before. Spankings with a leather paddle that left marks on her plush asscheeks, to having her orgasm denied just when she was about to cum. The young woman should’ve been used to the punishments by now, but when she thought she had the upper hand—Hiromi was always there to remind her who was in control. 

It didn’t take long before Hiromi’s cock found comfort in Y/N’s mouth. A feeling she hasn’t experienced in a while considering his schedule has been rather hectic thanks to a certain case. If her mouth wasn’t already occupied she would’ve happily voiced just how much she missed the feeling of his cock on her tongue. Knowing Hiromi, he probably wouldn’t even take the young woman seriously at all. 

So caught up in her thoughts, Y/N fails to notice the rough thrust of Hiromi’s hips, her resulting violent gag birthing a smirk on the man’s face as he withdraws his cock completely from her mouth.  His hand envelops his spit-covered length, letting the tip brush against Y/N’s lips before inevitably forcing his cock back down Y/N’s throat —this time he wouldn’t stop. She feels the full force of his frustrations in each harsh thrust, her breath slowly being ripped from her lungs, bit by bit. Y/N hopelessly squirms on the mattress, her movements obstructed each time by the rope digging into her soft skin. 

Hiromi pulls his length out of Y/N’s mouth, giving her a chance to breathe. She looks absolutely obscene like this,  her tear-stained cheeks inciting lust in the pit of his stomach, but he forces that lust away because it would only make him pity. Before he knew it, he’d begin to coddle her through her punishment, and Hiromi couldn’t have that. He lets his palm glide up and down his shaft before repeating his previous action,  stuffing Y/N’s mouth to the point that she was seeing stars. He wasn’t sure if his behavior was due to jealousy or a broken rule, but he did know that afterward, this lesson would be ingrained in her mind, that next time you’d think twice about disobeying him.  

The pornographic sound of Y/N’s throat is the only thing heard throughout  Hiromi’s master bedroom. She can feel her pussy moistening at the intoxicating mixture of degradation and praise he was feeding her. Y/N always knew what type of vulgar phrase would tumble from Hiromi’s lips,  even if they were quite predictable, the sultry words mixed with his brash voice still makes the woman feel like there is a waterfall pooling in between her thighs.

“You look much better this way, Y/N. Don’t you agree?”

“Good girl, you’re sucking me off so well.”

Y/N knows Hiromi well. So well, in fact, the woman knows he’s going to cum just by the look on his face, his increasingly slow and sloppy strokes confirming his approaching climax When Hiromi was engrossed in his chase for ecstasy, he’d lose all sense of control, the concept of mercy unknown—no matter if he had her knees pressed against her chest or fucked her throat senseless until it burned. 

It isn’t long before Y/N  feels thick ropes of cum shooting down her throat, and there was a lot of it. Hiromi doesn’t stop until every droplet ejected from his plump pink tip paints the back of Y/N’s throat. His cheeks are as red as a freshly grown tomato, whines high pitched and strained. Although Y/N’s eyes are clouded with tears t, she’s still able to catch a glimpse of Hiromi’s sigh of relief. 

When the panting mess of a lawyer finally removes his cock from Y/N’s mouth, a thin string of saliva hangs from the tip. His muscular chest glistens with a layer of sweat as he leans on the nightstand next to his bed to keep his balance. He tears his soiled dress shirt off, letting it fall to the ground, eyes darkening as he glances down at Y/N’s pitiful form with a frown. She yelps when he grabs a hold of her tear-stained cheeks, his grip so hard that it forces her lips to pucker, giving him the perfect view of her cum-filled mouth. 

“Swallow it,” Hiromi commands stoically.

Y/N complies immediately. It wasn’t like she could protest anyway. Unprompted, she then opens her mouth and stuck out her tongue, verifying that she did exactly as she was told, like the obedient sub she was. 

“Huh, so you can listen." Hiromi’s lips curl into a smirk before placing a soft kiss on her forehead. “Good girl.” He praises, thumb tracing her bottom lip tenderly.  

As Hiromi helps Y/N back on the bed, he begins preparing for the aftermath of their session. It was different every night, most of which were filled with Y/N’s giggles while she recalled her favorite parts of the evening. Tonight his room was quiet as ever in his search for the scissors to free Y/N from the ropes still binding her limbs. Perhaps the lawyer managed to get his message across. Or maybe Y/N was collecting her thoughts—after all, this was technically a new form of punishment for her, so it was only natural. 

Y/N feels like she’s still gasping for air even though Hiromi’s cock no longer occupied it, her body aching even as the dom cut through her ropy prison. The imprints of the tethers that litter her soft skin are revealed with each snip, Hiromi’s fingers grazing them gently to alleviate the burn that no doubt lingered beneath each angry mark. Finally free from her ties, the first thing the young law student does was stretch out her limbs, a tired yawn following. 

“Next time,” she sighs, rolling onto her stomach. “You should get pink ropes. They’d look so much cuter on me,” Y/N throws Hiromi a playfully childish pout that earns her an eye roll from the nonchalant man.

“Even after all that, you’ve still got a smart mouth,” Hiromi grumbles as he runs his fingers through his hair. “Typical.” 

“You should be used to it by now.,” Y/N winks. “I didn’t expect you would go this far over Toji Fushiguro, though.” She admits, resting her head on her arms. 

“You broke a rule in the contract. You get punished for breaking rules, it’s not rocket science nor does it have anything to do with Toji Fushiguro.” Hiromi reminds her. 

He retreats to the bathroom connected to his room to run Y/N a warm relaxing bath. He even throws in her favorite scented Epsom salts to help soothe her muscles. His tasks in the bathroom were brief; he wasn’t even in there that long—but he still notice Y/N’s lack of a response. He assumes that exhaustion finally overcame her body because there were only two things that could hinder the woman’s snarky temperament,  and those were her beauty rest and her father’s black card. However, Hiromi takes aftercare very seriously within his dom and sub relationships. So if he has to disturb her sleep to get her cleaned up—then so be it. When the older lawyer steps back into his room, he is met with the sight of Y/N slipping on her neatly folded clothes, the same ones that lay previously in the corner of the room. 

He watched her dress in confusion. She’s never left his place after a session. Hiromi grew so accustomed to his favorite sub comfortably sleeping in his bed after mindblowing sex that he even bought her a spare toothbrush. 

“I’m starting to think you’re catching feelings beyond the contract.” She says out loud, sliding on the heels she came strutting into his place with. “And that will break the very last rule….” Y/N’s voice trails off as she closes the gap between them. The law student grasps at his shirt to tug him closer and pecks the corner of his lips. “Refrain from getting attached.”

[deadpresidents]

I just hope these next 4 years go by fast

This election isn't just about the next four years. With Trump in the White House and a Republican Senate at his side, the MAGA movement can pick up where they left off when it comes to packing the federal judiciary with right-wing judges who will control the Supreme Court and appellate courts throughout the country potentially for the rest of the lives of everyone reading this right now. It's the perfect recipe for them to continue stripping reproductive rights away from women nationwide and gives them the opportunity to turn their attention to the other issues that they have been dying to attack, from voting rights to gay marriage and every other extension of personal freedom that has been won by minorities and marginalized people in hard-fought battles over the past 60 years. This is the nightmare scenario that people have been warning folks about for the past few elections. It's here. And there isn't going to be a way to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

The consequences of this election will have a direct, negative impact on your life -- possibly on the entire remainder of your life. This country just re-elected a President with authoritarian tendencies who is the willing puppet of a dangerous Christian nationalist movement that figured out exactly how to manipulate him (through flattery) for their aims. They have created the perfect vehicle for a genuine cult of personality that they can use to achieve the goals they have been very clear about striving for over the past few years. And you can't blame anybody other than the American voters because they not only elected Trump, but they gave him a fucking mandate, with a Republican Senate and potentially a Republican House. They already have a right-wing dominated Supreme Court for the next few decades, and now they are going to ensure that the entire federal judiciary is in their control for years to come. And don't forget the fact that a few months ago, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that gave Presidents sweeping immunity for a broad (and conveniently undefined) range of "official" acts, so Trump is going to go into this second term knowing that not only does he not have to deal with the "guardrails" of responsible adults he had around him in his first term (Mattis, Tillerson, Kelly, General Milley, etc), but he knows he can get away with virtually anything and everything that he wants to do this time around. If you thought that Trump's first term was bad, just understand that they are prepared this time and now he's surrounded himself with people who will do his bidding -- people who are perfectly willing to let Trump be Donald Trump.

I wish there was a reason to cry foul, lodge protests, and challenge the election's results. But this wasn't a rigged election. There isn't any confusion about what the voters really wanted. The American people did this. People you know and care about and who say they care about you are the people who did this. We need to recognize that these elections aren't outliers anymore. Trump's supporters aren't simply chaos agents who got lucky on a bad day for the Democrats. That's the country we live in now and we have to find a way to resist it that actually makes a difference because now they have the keys to all the doors and all of the alarm codes. This country has normalized the conspiracy theories and nativism and racism that has powered the MAGA movement since the moment Trump came down the elevator at Trump Tower in 2015. He's given those people permission to be open with their hatred towards people who aren't like them, and it's actually become surprising to see how many Americans have been eager to take advantage of that. I didn't think I had any misconceptions about this country before Donald Trump because I recognized this nation's history, but I clearly had some misconceptions about people I thought I knew until I saw them wearing a red MAGA hat or noticed they had a gigantic flag with Trump's name hanging where their U.S. flag used to hang. Once that happened, it was like a switch went off with them and they started saying things in ways that I'd never heard them speak. I feel like that's happened to the entire country. It breaks my heart and it pisses me off.

For the past few years, I've been warning everybody about how elections have consequences. I imagine that there are hundreds of posts on this blog with that phrase in all caps listed with the tags. Now the elections have happened, and we have to live with real fucking consequences. And we're going to pass these consequences on to other generations because this is the one that you can't get a do-over on. When you give a movement like this the power and the mandate that this country just gave them, there is no easily rolling back the things that they end up doing. They are going to fundamentally change the lives of people in this nation and especially change the way the younger generations of Americans live and love and learn for years to come. And you have people in your life who made that happen. It's another disgusting day in America -- a prelude to another reprehensible four years (at the very least) -- and I'm ashamed of tens of millions of my fellow Americans because this one is on them. They know exactly who the man is that they voted for, and now we know exactly who they are, too.

[1-800-local-slut]

hey 👀, so hear me out 😘 . So think about this .... bubblegum from adventure time inspired reader in invincible. Okey so everybody knows how kind, intelligent, and responsible she is , but also with a darker, more authoritarian side. She is a brilliant inventor and leader, deeply protective of her people . Bubblegum is since a morally gray character that needs a mark grayson to help her better understand and work better with others . Am thinking similar to adventure time she holds a deep love for her people(humanity) that she more than willing to do many actions that are seen as inhuman inorder to protect earth from enemies. We can even explore the type of horrible things she does to certain people like in adventure time . She's always in belief that she is doing the right thing . I kinda really wanna see the characters from the invincible universe reaction to her personality . Bubblegum is such a girlboss and world class tyrant that she would dominate in the invincible universe. But every girlboss needs a man like mark who will try to straighten her out and love her anyways .

Of course I can beautiful! So sorry for the delay, work been kicking my ass 😭😭😭. But I love the way you think, this one is gonna be a little bit different, I had to make a way for the reader to capture that leadership/motherhood vibe of PB (my goat) so please read the note!

Warnings: morally gray reader, Mark loves your crazy ass, slight body horror (body snatching) but nothing too crazy <3, Kate and Shapesmith are victims of you

IMPORTANT NOTE: the reader is an observer. You're an alien whose job is literally to observe, but you grew to love Earth. You don't have crazy powers other than the powers of science and some different anatomy, but you took the form of a human when you chose to live on Earth. Also not to sound too weird BUT the reader has no physical body that can be seen by the human eye. So, you can take over any sentient life form you want. You instead took over the body of a random girl who passed away and have been living your own life. I know it's weird, but it feels very PB like to me.

༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺༻༺

🍬 Mark loves your little crazy ass! You're a little bit weird; he's noticed that. You have a tendency to spy on people. When he comes in and sees you sitting in meditation, eyes completely white he knows what you're doing. He calls it spying, you call it 'keeping an eye on things'

🍬He's quickly found there's almost two you's. The you who is a normal girl, who likes sleeping, social media, online shopping, reading, all the normal stuff

Then there's you who is...different. The you who's a scientist with some disturbing shit in your basement, you who spies on the people of Earth and has no issue putting people in prison until they learn your lesson. You see no issue with any of your actions, no matter how many human rights acts you violate. Besides, what are they gonna do? Arrest you?

🍬Cecil quickly learned he has no power over you. Not when you can literally take over the body of anyone you wanted and just do whatever. You could be you today and the President tomorrow morning. The government is aware of you and just has to be happy that you're on Earth's defense team.

🍬Mark falling for you was so unexpected. He's Invincible, the symbol of free will. He's all for 'let Earth figure it out', where you've used unsavory tactics to steer the people of Earth clear out of the path of self-destruction multiple times

🍬 The issue was, Mark was so in love with you that he didn't see your plans sometimes until it was too late.

🍬You don't feel the same at first. You're capable of loving but at the moment you just didn't feel like being in a relationship

🍬 Mark didn't see the 'evil' in you, not until you and Kate got into it. More so she got mad, you brushed her off and everyone was a bit weirded out. But you did something good. Kate's feelings were hurt, yes. But Multipaul was back in jail where he needed to be

It all started when you and Paul 'coincidentally' crossed paths. Next thing everyone knew, you were dating an assassin who suddenly wasn't so keen on killing. You never seemed too interested in him anyways, more so keeping him distracted.

Mark noticed it when you two were on FaceTime one night. Paul was there, happy to see you. You were mixing together two liquids when he eagerly called your name from a different room. You slammed the beaker down onto the table, Mark jumped from over the phone.

"Yes baby?" You called back through gritted teeth. But when Paul did come in, you greeted him with a hug and a kiss like you weren't just annoyed fifteen seconds ago. It took some convincing, but you eventually got him to leave you alone for just long enough

In truth, you just needed to keep Paul busy. Long enough for him to stop killing. From there, all he needed to do was keep blowing off his bosses. Like a love sick fool. As long as you kept kissing him with those bubblegum flavored lips he didn't even notice the pressure mounting on his shoulders

Eventually, Paul's status as a top assassin didn't matter when his loyalty was being questioned. It was kill or be killed. One kill, just one good one to reassert his loyalty.

🍬 But someone tipped off the police, and so off to jail he went. Through methods unknown to you, Kate convinced herself it was all your fault. All you did was date the guy to stop him from killing people, which led to him being forced into a crime and then put back into prison even though he was trying to turn his life around only for you to use his arrest as an excuse to cut him loose. God forbid women had ambition!

🍬 The fallout was bad. But you just stared at Kate. Letting her rage at you about how you sold him out and let him get arrested and 'how could you break his heart?!'

"Kate, I really liked Paul! Why would I stay with someone who would kill the moment things get to be too much? That's not safe for me. I'm sorry you feel upset, but there's just nothing I could do." You flipped through your text book before scribbling notes in the pages of your notebooks. Ex in maximum prison or not, you still had college to finish.

"Don't give me that shit! I have you figured out! You set him up, no one knew about that job!" The woman was in your face; finger pointed in your chest. You peered at her over your glasses, before you looked down and continued your studies.

"I didn't even know about it." You responded evenly. Everyone in the room could see your patience running thin. Mark felt the skin on his neck tingle, he knew something was about to go down

"Okay girl. You told him to stop killing but you knew the league would go after him! You just let him destroy himself."

The moment she said that your patience ran out. The air shifted. You sat up straighter in your seat. You even folded your hands. Rex came downstairs with some loud comment before Monster Girl quickly shushed him. Everyone waiting with bated breath.

"Did I destroy him?" You asked, taking off your reading glasses and folding them onto the counter you were sitting at. The tone was inquisitive, like you were really curious even though you already knew the answer.

"Did I destroy your brother, who chose to kill someone? Did I destroy your assassin brother who was killing important political figures and allowing corrupt leaders to take their spots which created more struggle for the impoverished? I further corrupted your already morally unsound brother?"

No one moved. No one even breathed. Kate's face was flushed, tears brimming in her eyes as her breath quivered. She looked around the room, only for her own teammates to avoid her gaze. As if to say 'I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole'. Even the birds outside stopped chirping while you sat patiently waiting for her response.

"Don't talk to her like that!" And here goes Immortal. Now Mark respects Immortal just fine; he's fought for humanity for thousands of years with nothing but pain as his reward. But this was a fight Immortal should've kept out of. Everyone knows, if your girlfriend is losing an argument don't jump in. Because that makes her look like she can't stand her own ground.

"Then maybe she shouldn't have invited herself to a conversation with nothing to do with her. What happened with Paul and I is between Paul and I."

Mark hated to admit you were right. Paul was dangerous. No matter how many chances the government, Cecil, Kate, even Immortal tried, he just didn't stop. He didn't want to stop. And you didn't do anything. Even if you did sell him out, you called the police to prevent a murder that would sow political discourse. As much as it sucked, Paul needed to go to jail.

Love is strong, but it ain't that strong. If Paul wanted to change, he would've changed.

🍬 Later that day, when you were in your office Mark popped in

"Hey Mark! What's up?" You chirped playfully, taking off your goggles and gloves.

"Nothing. I just wanted to know if we could talk about today." Mark rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding your gaze. You tilted your head, face riddled with confusion.

"About today? Sure, why though?"

"Well...did you, you know? Did you do it, I mean."

"Do what?"

He sighed. He couldn't say it, didn't want to say it but he wanted to know. He needed to know.

"Did you set up Paul?" He asked exasperated. Silence settled over the cold steel lab. The only noise was the bubbling of your beaker. You stared at him with no readable expression, almost chilling him to his core.

"Hmmmm. No. I didn't. Paul destroyed himself. Now, if that's all you came to ask me, I am going to ask you to leave. I'm working."

Mark couldn't explain the feeling he got. He couldn't explain the pang in his ribs. It was cold in the room, and looking at you as you snapped your goggles on, he was almost unable to recognize you.

And Mark hated to say, he'd never been more attracted to you.

🍬 As he spent more time with you, he knew he was in trouble. You were cool, smart, friendly, but you didn't hide who you were. Without shame, you were 100% yourself even if it was a tough call. You make the hard choices Mark can't bring himself to make.

🍬 He couldn't stop loving you. He couldn't stop no matter what he tried. What made it hard was that you weren't evil. You were just smart. You made choices to protect whoever you cared about and like you always say, what people don't know can't hurt them. Which is where your next morally reprehensive action came into play.

🍬 You got caught with a needle and Shapesmith's unconscious body in your lab.

🍬 The tube attached at the bottom was filled with the green liquid that was essentially his blood.

🍬 It was a sight that freaked out everyone when they caught you

"What are you doing?!" Rex asked from your doorway. You pulled the needle from Shapesmith's arm and looked up from where you were extracting the needle.

Silence as you scanned the mortified faces of each of the guardian's looking on in horror.

"Nothing too crazy." You replied nonchalantly. As if you were too focused to even try and make an excuse. Which would be pointless seeing as you were literally caught holding the needle.

"Girlfriend this looks really weird. Are you stealing samples of Shapesmith's DNA?" Eve asked from the door, pushing her way to the front of the group. She was probably your closest friend and even she didn't know all the weird shit you do.

"Yes." You continued your work, pulling out a small wipe. You disinfected the area. The skin healed instantly.

"What the fuck?! Why?!" Monster Girl asked, literally mortified.

"Why are you all in my house right now?" Which honestly seemed like a better question for you to ask. You were a young woman, where a bunch of adults just barged into your home. Mind you, this was your private lab.

The question was pointed, as if they were inconveniencing you.

"What is wrong with you?!"

Upon seeing Kate, you just sighed. You pushed your goggles up onto your hair, like a headband before putting the small vial into a test tube holder.

"Listen. I don't exactly have the time to explain the complexities of scientific exploration to all of you."

"You aren't the smartest in the room, we aren't stupid. You know there's no valid explanation for this."

You chuckled at the comment about you not being the smartest. You pushed yourself onto your lab table, carefully placing the thickness of your thighs on the table in between the mass of beakers. Mark was ashamed of how his heart thumped in his chest at the condescending look in your eyes. As if the suggestion that you weren't the smartest was truly the dumbest thing you've ever heard.

"I actually am though. I'm a genius. Why are you all here?"

"What- because you're stealing his DNA?! He's unconscious!" Rex gestured wildly, looking around to see if anyone else to see this insanity.

"Oh please. He's fine. He asked for my help, he asked for this. He just didn't understand what he was asking me to do."

"Like hell he asked for this." Monster Girl scoffed, looking at you like she was ready to haul you off to the GDA. Even with this many people coming down on you, you stood tall against them.

"He's knocked out! What type of help could you be giving him?" Eve attempted to reason.

Mark blinked hard. Eve was right. But if you say that he asked then who were they to call you a liar? You were a genius. His palms pressed to his eyes, like he was attempting to disappear into the background. Somehow, in some way, the Guardians knew Mark had a way about him. You'd almost become his responsibility in a way, the make sure you didn't fly off the handle and do something crazy.

Even though you had far more power over him. Like now, when you were sitting on the table with the dark skin of your thighs revealed. Mark was tempted to just usher everyone out and leave you to your business.

Something about him calmed you, quelled your determined spirit to take a break before doing something insane from stress.

Your hands searched around behind you for a file or something.

You found the heavy folder and dropped it on your lap.

"Shapesmith asked me to help him increase his powers. So, I agreed to help and asked if he was okay with mild sedation. I'm trying to help him stretch far enough without him ending up in pieces. Maybe fortify his core.

Also, it wouldn't be bad to have a sample of his DNA incase those sequids return. I get DNA incase of emergency. He gets stronger. It's a win win."

But Mark knew you better than that. Knew better than to just accept the first explanation because that's the answer that would create the least amount of damage. He stepped forward into your lab, and you met his eyes.

"Does he know your keeping his DNA to experiment incase of the sequids?"

"He didn't ask what I'd be doing with it!"

"Oh my God!" Monster Girl threw her hands up, as if to say she was done with the conversation, done with the madness.

"Well...I guess if he asked." With that, Eve too was done. She lifted herself off the ground and flew away. She was against barging into your home in the first place, certain you weren't doing anything bad. And then she said she was leaving if it turned out it was just nonsense.

"Dude...this is freaky. I'm out." Rex followed Eve. They were probably gonna go get food, burgers sounded good. Eventually you were the only two left with an unconscious Shapesmith behind you.

You gave him big eyes, that looked at him like you were playfully begging him. A look that made him feel like you were the only two people in the world.

"Are you mad at me too?"

Mark sighed, running a hand over his face. He leaned back against the table, before folding his arms over his chest. He could be mad. Probably should be. But he just...couldn't.

"No. But I think we should talk about informed consent."

You gave him a big grin that made his ears turn red, as Shapesmith let out a soft groan from the bed.

"If I have the time." You tease, knocking one of your legs into him. Hopping off the table, you went and sat by Shapesmith's bed.

"Did it work? Have I been transformed into Mega-Shapesmith?" He asked, hopeful and you placed a gentle hand on his arm. You looked at him like a doctor looks at a brave child after surgery. Your eyes were filled with appreciation and tender care.

"Not yet. But you're on your way hon."

🍬 You didn't really have incidents after that. Or maybe Mark just didn't catch you in the middle of anything bad again.

🍬 You just continued doing what you were doing. Sometimes you did confide in Mark, to which he was able to steer you in an ethical direction. Like asking before you use someone's blood in an experiment or telling someone if you feel like maybe you'll sew a tracker into their neck while they sleep.

🍬 Even though you'll probably do it anyways.

🍬 Mark was scared you'd never like him back. Was scared that you'd never feel the same and he'd just be left feeling hurt.

🍬 He was scared until he saw you looking at him. You were looking at him, with this look in your big brown eyes. That seemed like you were scared but helpless about it

🍬 It wasn't until one night when you did confess.

You two sat in his bedroom one night, eating pizza and conversating about everything and nothing. You showed him the new purse you wanted. He showed you the new sweater he got at the mall that he thought was really cool.

Until you were quiet. You two were sitting on his bed, you were fidgeting with the pink of your braids with curled ends as if something weighed on your mind.

"Mark. I am a genius."

Mark looked up from his phone, to see you sitting with your eyes trained on your lap. Because you don't blush, he listened closely to see if your heart was speeding up.

"I kinda know that by now."

"No. Well yes." You uncharacteristically tripped over your words, a frazzled expression before you cleared your throat. Mark raised an eyebrow at you, lifting his paper plate off his chest.

"I mean. I...I am smart. But I still have feelings. Like love. Almost like how I love chocolate. Speaking of chocolate, did you know there's a chemical in chocolate that boost endorphins, which is why chocolate creates a feeling as exhilarating as love? It's also found in peas which is funny because I don't like peas-"

Mark laughed, rolling off of his back and onto his stomach. You stared at him, looking almost offended.

"What's going on with you?"

Your face crinkled in embarrasment.

"You suck!" You assaulted him with a pillow through a self-depracating laugh, and he swore he saw tears brimming in your eyes. He caught the pillow before he stopped laughing completely.

"Why?" He asked, rolling onto his side and watching you with gentle eyes. You sat quietly on the bed, fidgeting with your fingers.

"Eve told me...that it wasn't good to contain my feelings for you. She advised me to tell you how I feel and junk. I don't know. I like you."

🍬 It took him a second to process that you just said that but from there he pulled you into his arms and that was that

🍬 You two enter a normal-ish relationship. You're still weird. Still you. But you reach for Mark in a way you never had before. You're more vulnerable with him. You let him see you cry from stress, let him help you with the mundane of your life (doing your hair, laundry, organizing your makeup) but you also let him provide insight on some of your choices

🍬 You're still you though. And there was a whole year of you two knowing each other before dating. He learned some nasty things you'd done in the past.

🍬 You lobotomized a terroristic supervillian who has been in a care facility since then

🍬 You worked harder during the war. Crafting robots, chemical warfare, anything that could kill the crazy versions of your boyfriend. It did disturb Mark to see the number of ways you could kill him if you just gave it the smallest effort.

🍬 Those tiny robots who latched onto the variants before implanting a chip into their spine were the scariest by far. A chip that detonated once they destroyed said robots.

🍬 Sadly, your powers were in science. You could fight, but you couldn't fight off three variants at once. You barely managed to kill one and almost blew yourself up in the process. But you were hospitalized for the rest of the war and spent all that time stewing in anger from all of your bones being broken. Also, from your lab blowing up when you had to try and kill three Marks

🍬 When everything settled down, you kicked yourself. How could you not have seen Angstrom Levy coming? Mark assured you there was nothing you could've done. You did good enough. You killed seven with your robots, one on your own, better than quite a few. Better than Kate and Immortal anyways.

🍬 After a while things went back to normal. Mark and you were enjoying your lives together

🍬 You often stay up working late, and Mark brings you food.

🍬 You make modifications to his suit, which Art didn't love at first but you just ignored him

🍬 You were a huge help with Oliver too, who caught some sort of mild sickness that Mark brung home from space with him

🍬 You took such good care of him that Mark for a moment pictured having genius babies with you

🍬 Oliver loves you too! You're a great sister-in-law to him. You've even changed you and Mark's plans to take Oliver something fun with you. The trampoline park won him over, especially when you two broke the rules Mark set to ensure neither of you got injured. Even when you two endured the scolding together while Mark carried you through the air and Oliver flew beside you two

🍬 Debbie was a little freaked out by you at first but she came around. Now Mark thinks she likes you more than him.

🍬 He keeps you in check. You keep him confident. A day doesn't go by where you don't tell Mark he can do anything. Afterall, he pulled you. That's an accomplishment!

🍬 You're his safe space. He doesn't have to be ashamed that he can't always be present because you understand him. He's busy, your busy. When he's off battling whatever, your providing support from home. Or when he's in space dealing with some nonsense you always welcome him back with open arms

🍬 Mark also understands that you need space sometimes to do what you're doing in peace. So, if he disappears for a while, or you disappear for a while you both understand there's a reason for it.

🍬 Mark loves you. The crazy parts, the fun parts, even the side of you that commits what he's sure are crimes against humanity. Your heart is in the right place and that's all that matters to him.

🍬 Mark loves your crazy ass. Even if you are a little bit weird.