#but i can't tell who they are trying to appeal to. other than. me. a toy collector with bad taste?

[starlit-mansion]

we went to target over the weekend and the forge action figure from the dnd movie was on 70% clearance which was low enough to allow the objective funniest piece of merch into my home

[solelifauna]

Yandere Batfam & Neglected Reader Prt. 4

Unemployment was not on your bucket list.

The rest of your shift dragged on, each minute weighed down by the persistent presence of Dick, Cass, and Damian. They loitered, the tension in the air thick enough to choke on. It was unnerving, knowing they were there—observing, calculating. You tried your best to ignore them, focusing on the customers and getting through the shift, but their eyes on you were impossible to shake.

Eventually, you glance at the clock. Your shift is finally coming to an end. A wave of relief washes over you. Soon, you’ll be out of here. You’ve been expecting a call from Alfred any minute now, either letting you know he’s “on the way” or already outside waiting for you. You clutch onto that thought, hoping for a quick getaway.

But that’s when you feel it, a firm hand on your shoulder. You flinch, startled, and whirl around to find Cassandra standing right behind you, her eyes sharp and her smile almost unsettling in its warmth.

“Y/N,” she said softly, her tone gentle but somehow–wrong.

“Can I–um–help you?” you ask, your voice betraying your unease. Cass is just as overtly intimidating as the others, if not more so. You know who trained her, you know what she's done, what she's capable of.

“We’ll take you home,” she says simply, the statement hanging in the air like an unbreakable decree.

You blink, not sure if you’ve heard her right. “What? I—Alfred’s picking me up,” you stammer, trying to figure out why the hell they’d want to take you home instead.

Cass’s smile doesn’t falter. “Change of plans.”

You glance past her toward the table where Dick and Damian are waiting. They’re already standing, Dick’s usual smirk plastered on his face, while Damian looks like he’s already irritated by the mere suggestion of you being in the same car as him.

“Uh..” You contemplate walking home, imagining the quiet and cool Gotham air being far more appealing than sharing a car with these three. Maybe it’s not that far to walk? Maybe you’ll survive the trip on foot? But you know better than to argue with them—not when Dick is involved.

With a resigned sigh, you nod. “Okay,  I guess. I still need to get my bike though.”

Cassandra hums in approval.

The walk to the car was stifling. Dick led the way, his usual playful grin in place, but there was an intensity behind it that made your skin crawl. Damian followed closely, his silence more oppressive than any words he could’ve said. When you reached the sleek black car, one of Bruce’s more extravagant vehicles, your hesitation grew, but there was no turning back now.

As you slip into the backseat, you find yourself next to Damian, who's already glaring out the window like you’re the most offensive thing in the car, and the leather seat that smells faintly of expensive cologne. Cass takes the passenger seat, her calm demeanor oddly comforting despite the situation, while Dick slides into the driver’s seat.

The car hums to life, and soon enough, you’re speeding through the streets of Gotham. The tension inside the vehicle is thick, almost unbearable. You stare out your window, watching the city blur by, trying your best to disappear into the seat.

“Y/N,” Dick’s voice broke the silence, far too casual for the tension in the car. “You didn’t tell us you were working at that cafe.”

You shrugged, not trusting yourself to say much. “Didn't think I needed to? Why does it matter?”

Dick’s eyes flicked to you in the mirror, a glint of something dark behind his seemingly easy going demeanor. “It seems as though there's a lot of things you haven't told us (Y/n), hmm?”

He just completely ignored your question, and like an idiot, you dignify his question with your own response.

“I don't know why you in particular care, considering you haven't bothered to in the past four years.” You remark, crossing your arms. 

Dicks smile only widened as he cooed at your response. “Oh I don't care (Y/n), but you can't just do whatever you want, right? Your last name’s still Wayne last time I checked, do you know what that means?”

His eyes flicker to you, staring at you through the rear view mirror. You just shrug nervously, you had no idea where he was going with this.

“It means you’re not allowed to just fuck off and do whatever you want. What happens when you’re working and a rouge or random criminal recognizes you? It’ll be our job to drag you back.” He says smiling all the while. Dick doesn't really curse, not like this anyways, and it's starting to scare you. 

There was something sinister beneath his seemingly friendly demeanor. The way he was talking about you, it made you feel more like a possession than a person. You shifted uncomfortably in your seat, eyes flicking to Damian and Cassandra. None of them seemed to be fazed by Dick's words. It was like they all understood something you didn't.

"Look," you muttered, "I just needed the job, okay? I didn’t think it was a big deal."

He just nods, “Which is why you'll be putting in your two week’s notice.”

Hold the phone.

“I'm sorry what?”

“I'm sure I spoke clearly, didn't i?”

“I'm–I'm not quitting my job.”

“Yes you are. In fact, you're going to call your boss and let them know right now.”

“You’re fucking crazy if you thin–”

“I'm not asking (Y/n).” He says, a certain edge to his voice. “Call your boss.”

You’re scared. You don't know why he’s doing this. Shaking, you pull out your phone, staring at the screen as if it could somehow save you from this situation. You know they won’t let you get out of this. Not with the way Dick’s smile is hovering on the edge of something dangerous, not with Damian’s silent approval and Cassandra’s eerie calm. The power dynamic is suffocating—this isn’t a request; it’s an order.

“Call,” Dick says again, his voice now a warning.

You swallow hard, your fingers trembling as you scroll to your boss’s number. You want to refuse, you want to stand your ground, but the fear of what would happen if you did keeps your rebellion at bay. You press the call button, and the phone rings in your ear.

“Hello?” your boss answers, their voice friendly and unsuspecting.

“Hey Daniel, it’s Y/N,” you say, your voice shaking. “I—I’m sorry, but I have to put in my two weeks’ notice. I—uh, I can’t work here anymore.”

There’s a pause on the other end. “What? Y/N, is everything okay?”

No. “Yeah, it’s fine,” you lie. “I just… something came up, and I can’t keep the job.”

Your boss hesitates, clearly concerned. “Are you sure? If this is about needing time off, we can work something out—”

“No, I’m sure,” you cut them off, glancing at the rearview mirror, where Dick’s eyes are still watching you with that unsettling intensity. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

You hang up before they can ask more questions. There’s a sick feeling in your stomach, like you’ve just lost something.

Dick hums in approval. “Good. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

You don’t respond. You’re too numb, too angry to even find the words to fight back. The rest of the car ride is silent. When you finally arrive back at the manor, you slip out of the car without a word, making a beeline for your room. You can hear them behind you, talking quietly amongst themselves, but you don’t care. You just need to be alone.

The worst part was, you didn't even get to go back for your bike. Gotham wasn't exactly known for its secure parking spaces, especially for a bike left unattended for hours. By now, it was probably stolen or stripped for parts. Another loss to add to the growing list.

You collapsed onto your bed after a long, hot shower, letting the steam wash away the dried coffee and lingering bitterness of the day. The frustration and humiliation clung to you, but you tried to push it all aside as you buried yourself in mundane distractions. Homework? Done, though half-heartedly. Your phone? A welcome relief, a way to escape the reality of what your life had become.

The phone call with your friends was a lifeline. You started by relaying the bizarre events of your day—Dick showing up at your workplace, forcing you to quit, the awful encounter with the Karen who’d thrown coffee in your face. Arya and Ethan were outraged on your behalf, their voices rising with indignation as they expressed disbelief at how ridiculous your life had become.

“What is wrong with him?” Arya had exclaimed after you explained how Dick had basically forced you to quit. “It’s like he gets off on controlling you.”

Ethan chimed in, his voice laced with sarcasm. “It’s the Wayne family, what do you expect? They think the world revolves around them.”

The conversation shifted to lighter topics eventually, giving you a break from the heavy reality of your situation. Arya’s excitement over the girl she liked responding to her Instagram story was a welcome distraction. She went on a rant about how this girl was clearly the one, and you and Ethan couldn’t help but exchange amused glances over the phone. Arya’s giddiness was infectious, and soon the three of you were laughing—deep, real laughter that made you momentarily forget about everything.

But, as with all good things, the fun came to an end with a knock at your door. You sighed heavily, already knowing what was coming.

"Master (Y/n), it’s time for dinner."

The familiar voice of Alfred carried through the door, his polite yet firm tone unmistakable. You groaned, dragging yourself off the bed with all the enthusiasm of someone heading toward their own execution. Dinner meant facing Dick, and after the day you'd had, that was the last thing you wanted to deal with.

You swung open the door, forcing a smile for Alfred, though you knew he could see right through it. "Hey Alfie, how was today?"

Alfred smiled, ever the picture of calm. "All good in a day's work, Master (Y/n). Might I inquire how work today was?"

You couldn’t help but grimace at the mention of work. "It... it was alright," you said, though the weight of your words made it clear that was a lie. Alfred’s raised brow told you he wasn’t fooled.

"Well," you sighed, the reality sinking in further as you spoke, "it doesn’t matter anymore anyways. I quit today."

Alfred’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. "But my dear, I thought you adored working there? Whatever did happen?"

You couldn’t hold back the bitterness in your voice as you answered, "Dick."

Alfred’s eyes softened with understanding, and the sympathy in his gaze was almost too much to bear. "Ah, I see. I’m sorry you’ve had to do so," he said, and you could tell he genuinely meant it.

"It’s not your fault, Alfie," you replied, feeling a pang of guilt for dragging him into your mess. "Which is why I wanted to ask if I could have dinner in my room today? I don’t think I’ll be able to stay civil with Dick sitting there."

Alfred gave you a sad smile, one that only deepened the dread in your chest. "Usually, it would be more than allowed," he began, his voice gentle, "however, today your father has requested that you attend dinner no matter what."

Your heart sank. "What?"

"Yes," Alfred said with a hint of regret in his voice. "Unfortunately, you don’t have much of a choice today, my dear."

You stared at Alfred, dumbstruck. Since when did Bruce care whether or not you were at dinner? He barely acknowledged your presence most of the time, and now suddenly it was a demand?

Alfred gave you one last apologetic look before he turned to leave, his footsteps fading down the hall. You stood frozen in place, disbelief washing over you.

What the actual fuck is happening?

Tag-list!!:

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[butterfly-ribbon]

still in disbelief about how mizu5 genuinely captures the subtleties of transmisogyny so accurately like nothing else i've seen before especially with the nuances with which mizuki's story is told … all it takes is a single sentence, a few words … i love that the classmates saying that shit don't even … realize how cruel they are, bc that's how it /is/ and bc "oh no, we said something weird to a Normal Girl, that makes us look bad" - transmisogyny is just a punchline to a joke for them, that's how detached they are from their own cruelty and it's really not any different from the 'average' misogyny and how that tends to be a joke amongst boys. what ena ended up being exposed to is really just the classmates' 'boy's locker room talk' leaking out, so to speak? ena's probably heard jokes from people about how unfeminine her behavior is in the past and she quickly spits out "that's not funny" bc ena and mizuki are both "pretty girls" who like fashion and dolling themselves up, and hearing them talk about how mizuki's cute in this way … i'm sure it reminds her of her own experiences with being an 'influencer' - people like her when she shuts up and makes herself cute and appealing and ena must've absolutely received her fair share of comments and messages from weirdos for posting selfies of herself online, but i think what drives this home to me as such a fantastic narrative is the way that they call mizuki "attractive as long as she's not making any trouble and being a pain" bc it really speaks to how trans girls are objectified and only deemed 'acceptable' as long as they make themselves into limpless dolls who are acceptable targets for any form of abuse and misogyny instead of trying to claim their own subjectivity as women, so there's so much crossover in how mizuki's experiences work alongside ena's? but also mizuki faces so much more constant and direct criticism, all her actions and choices so closely under scrutiny.

mizuki loves and appreciates the attention of girls and when she first met ena she saw herself in the art that ena made - ena draws a girl in pain and mizuki goes "she's me". in the scene where mizuki gets outed, ena is speechless not bc she thinks mizuki is "gross" or bc she's mad mizuki "tricked" her? she's just horrified that she just got degendered /by association/ and then had to listen to these boys speak about the girl she's in love with in this /aggressively/ violent way, especially since mizuki has a meltdown, knowing, apologizing for hurting, even as ena would absolutely say "no, i'm sorry, im sorry, please don't hate vourself" bc mizuki feels like she's the one at fault for feeling like ena would assume the worst of her, but mizuki also feels like she doesn't have the right to be angry at people … this is the first time we get to see mizuki's rage and it's so palpable … i love so much that she hates the idea of niigo's kindness being born out of her 'abnormality' as a trans girl … she hates everything about this. she hates the idea of coming out, she hates the idea of having a question attached to her girlhood..

mizuki logically knows that niigo are going to accept her bc they've also gone through so much turmoil themselves and understand what it's like to be on the fringes of society, but she still can't shake off all those intrusive thoughts about how they might only accept her out of pity or consideration bc they feel too bad for her rather than a genuine understanding and the idea that things might change between them bc of that is too terrifying to embrace… such patronizing 'kindness' burns too much for mizuki to accept, so she'd rather run away and shut herself out completely… for mizuki it's like being stuck on a bridge where the only two ways out are ones where nothing changes and this hurts in its own way bc she can't tell how much of it would be genuine and how much would be an act and the other way is them /trying too hard/ to be considerate and this can easily become alienating bc mizuki truly just wants to be "one of the girls" in the most natural sense? she doesn't want to be made to feel like she's being accommodated, but there's also all the guilt that she's been internalizing for being "deceptive" and not saying the truth sooner that further complicates things and makes her feel like she's undeserving of any kindness that she may be offered… even though she genuinely was going to tell ena the truth herself, it doesn't matter anymore bc someone else told her before she even got the chance to do so herself and that's something she actually wished would happen in the past, so is there anyone to blame but herself? mizuki's entire thing is that until now she's been "writing" a fictionalized cis girl version of herself when she's with niigo and obscuring her own transness bc she doesn't want to be treated as an Other or have an asterisk attached to her girlhood bc she just wants to be treated as one of them instead of having to explain herself or prove anything but she has her facade violently stripped away from her in the most traumatic way imaginable and now she's entrapped within dysphoria induced suicidal ideation...

[leviismybby]

Bad Idea

Levi Ackerman x fem!reader, nsfw 18+, mdni, virginity loss, age gap! Levi is in his 30s, the reader in her 20s, oh this is rough filth

Levi didn't care about the assigned rooms, his mind focused on the upcoming mission. His grey eyes follow the building where he will be staying for the next few days before heading outside of the walls. He heads inside, looking for his room number, he wonders if you're ready there and what you think about having to share a room with him. He knocks before entering just in case, the last thing he wanted to do is make you uncomfortable. When you say that he can come in, he does, carrying not but a single bag with him. The room was small and it had a single bed. Great. Just perfect.

You look at your Captain before your eyes fall on the bed, there was space for the two of you but it didn't make the situation any less tense. "I can sleep on the floor." That makes Levi look at you as he closes the door behind him, if anything he is the one who can sleep on the floor or the chair, he has a hard time sleeping anyway. "Nonesense There's room for both of us." He adds, setting his bag down on the bedside table, you don't speak on the matter further, he is the captain and questioning his orders is a bad idea. You nod not knowing what to say next, you don't know him that well.

As the sun set you were getting ready for bed, you had an early day and couldn't wait to get under the sheets, even of they are the same sheets your captain will be using too. After changing into your pyjamas and brushing your teeth, tou came back into the room which was now dimly lit as Levi sat at the desk writing at the paperwork with a candle burning next to him. He pays you no mind continuing to do this thing, you don't want to disturb him but you had to ask. "Ugh captain, which side would you like?" That catches his attention and he looks back at you, his eyes checks you up and down quickly before answering. "Who fucking cares. Sleep where you want." With that he turns back to finish the paperwork, he sighs slighty, you were a pretty girl in his eyes and it irritated him. "And please call me Levi."

Getting under the sheets, you try to make yourself comfortable, the only noises in the room are the quill Levi is writing with. You close your eyes trying to get sleep to wash over you but it doesn't, instead you turn and twist in the sheets, he makes you nervous, incredibly nervous and you would never admit to anyone just how much you're attracted to him, he was good eight years older than you and that added to the appeal. You rub your thighs together slighty, this wasn't a place to think about those things, he never even looked at you differently, it was ridiculous to get these naughty thoughts especially now when the man was in the same room as you. And you don't even know what it feels like, you were never with a man, sure you had your kisses but your first was something you want to give someone special.

After sometime of tossing in the bed, Levi sits on his side, your back in turned on him but you can hear him take his boots off. Was he going to sleep in his uniform...? Levi lays down on the other side, keeping his distance, he knows you're not sleeping and wonders what is keeping you awake. "Can't sleep?" He asks after sometime, his voice sending a shiver down your spine. "..no...my thoughts won't let me." You say with honesty, it was the truth however you definitely aren't telling him what kind of thoughts tho, he doesn't need to know. Levi looks at you, your back still turned on him, you look around the dark room, waiting for him to reply. "Your thoughts huh? Or is that you don't want to share the bed with me?" Levi can tell by your body language that something is up, you don't seem all too comfortable.

"What?? Not its not that.....I am not uncomfortable it's just-" You cut yourself off, not wanting him to think less of you. Taking a deep breath you continue to talk. "I have never shared a bed with a man." Those words are said quickly and quietly but Levi hears them all. A slight curiosity runs through him, it shouldn't, you were his subordinate, he really shouldn't be thinking what he is thinking right now. "Is that so? Never had a boyfriend?" There's something about his voice that sounds mocking, almost as of he is teasing you. "Not really." You mumble, it wasn't that you didn't want a relationship, it's that all the men your age seem....immature. "I just- I guess men my age aren't exactly-" "Your type?" He cuts in, already seeing what you're trying to say. "No, not my type at all." You shiver as the thought of being with him runs around your mind, you should really get that fantasy out of your head.

There's a shift in the air, you feel as if he can read all of your mind and exactly what you're thinking of. Levi scoots closer to you, you feel his body coming closer to your and you freeze. "What is your type?" He runs a finger down your back and you have to hold back a moan you aren't pulling away, you don't want to. When he sees that you aren't stopping him, he moves even closer, he removes your hair to expose the back of your neck. Leaning closer, you can feel his breath on your skin, another shiver running down your body. His lips make contact with your skin, he nibbles gently on your neck, his hand move down to your waist, his hand running under your shirt, caressing the soft skin of your stomach. Levi wants to hear you, wants to hear your moans, what's to make you beg. He bites into your skin and that causes a moan to surpass your mouth, Levi groans, it's even sweeter than he thought, he needs more.

"Turn around." He says, voice filled with lust, you do as you're told, turning around to face him. Levi is still in his uniform, his straps are undone and his cravat hang around his neck. You feel your panties get wet a little more, slightly embarrassed you look away but before your head can turn, Levi grabs your jaw and makes you look at him. Levi's thumb runs across your lip, your eyes shine with desire and he loves it, craves it. "I'll ask you this only once so answer honestly. Do you want me to fuck you?" His words surprise, Levi isn't sugercoating it and he clearly isn't a romantic, that makes it all so much more appealing. You swallow and then answer. "Yes." It's a desperate tone but not enough for Levi. "You can do better than that." He needs to hear it from your pretty lips. "I want you to fuck me, Levi." You don't look away, looking him straight in the eyes and you swear that he smirks for a second. "Good girl."

He kisses you, his hands pull you closer into his body. You follow his movements, kissing him the best you can while your hands wrap around him. Levi turns you onto your back to get on top of you, his kisses growing more intense, his tongue enters your mouth, a slight moan escaping you as his fingers spread your thighs apart so he can lay between your legs comfortably. You can feel his boner pressing against your clothed pussy and without much thinking, you roll your hips wanting more contact. Pulling away from the kiss, he growls. "Mhh there you go." He kisses down your jaw to your neck, leaving a trace of open-mouthed kisses, his hands start exploring upwards, eager to undress you. You're supposed to be nervous but you aren't at all, all you want is for him to take you, it's even better than what you imagined.

You start to get braver with your hands, they wonder around his upper body before pulling on his shirt wanting it off his body. Levi gets message, he bites into your neck, leaving a mark behind before pulling away to get rid of his shirt. His naked upper body comes into your view, you have seen it before when he was patching up his wounds but this was different, those perfect defined abs and biceps, the v line running down into his pants, you bite your lip, your fingers running down his abs. Levi kisses you again, it was his turn to have you undressed, your hands run down the muscles of his back, his hips rolling into your as he kisses you sloppily. His hands are roughly pulling your shirt over your breasts, he doesn't take it off entirely, he doesn't need to. His lips move to your neck again, he kisses over the red spots he left earlier on it, Levi starts to move lower kissing over collarbone before reaching your breasts. His eyes lock onto them, admiring them for a second before he looks at you, your eyes are telling him all, you want him even more than he let on.

"Fucking perfect." Whispering under his breath, he takes the plush flesh into his hands, massaging them. A loud moan comes out of your lips, your hand fall to grip the sheets. Levi's mouth closes around your nipple, he is still holding your breasts in his hands, pushing them together. "Mhh Levi!" You whimper his name and in return Levi swirls his tongue around your swollen bud, you gasp, hands flying to his biceps. He pulls away from your nipple, his saliva connected to your nipple. "So fucking eager aren't you?" He sucks on the other nipple, his fingers playing with the other one, pinching it between his fingers. Your head falls to the side, the pleasure is overwhelming and he isn't even touching you where you need him the most yet.

Levi sucks and plays with your nipples for a few minutes and you feel like you can cum just from that. Starting to stir, Levi bites into your bund playfully, making you dig your nails into his bicep. He moves on, kissing your stomach and biting here and there, leaving marks that will remind you of the fact that he got to have you first. Not some useless boy your age, him, your captain. His lips reach the rim of your pants and he teases you by licking across your navel and than up your stomach, he bites into your breast, leaving a hickey there too. "Levii!" Again, you sound desperate, wanting him to move on. "Begging are you sweetheart? How cute." He is definitely mocking you now, his teeth bite into your other boob, sucking on the flesh even more intensely.

When you start to stir, Levi slaps your thigh lightly as if telling you to behave. After marking your breast, he finally moves on, he takes the hem of your pants and pulls them down, revealing your panties. He immediately sees the wet spot on the fabric, spreading your legs he goes lower, his face directly in front of your core. That gives you a shiver, your legs threatening to close but Levi is quick to spread you open again. "No, no. Keep them open for me, understood?" You nod, that's not enough, he wants to hear your voice. Putting one of your legs over his shoulder, he bites into your inner thigh, once again marking his territory. "Understood, Captain!" You say, your fingers treading through his raven hair. "That's a good girl."

His bites reach closer and closer to your wetness, when he reaches your pussy, he presses kisses on the wet spot over the underwear. Your hips buck slighty, another sound emerging from your swollen lips, this was all so new and Levi was doing it so good. He kisses the spot again before hooking his fingers around the fabric and pulling your panties down, he throws them on the floor next to his shirt. Your legs close again on instinct and Levi is quick to spread them open again, his eyes glued to your folds and he watches it it twitches under his gaze. "All this wet pussy for me huh?" He leans down gently licking your slit, you tug on his hair, your hips bucking more, this feels so good, better than anything. His grey eyes shoot up to your face, every expression you make fuels him up more. He starts to eat you out, his tongue skillfully working on your pussy, you start to move around, gripping onto anything you can, his mouth feels amazing.

"You like that don't you, sweetheart?" His fingers grip your thighs leaving marks on the flesh, he moves his hand to your stomach, leaving it there while skillfully working on your wetness with his mouth. "Yes! Oh fuck Levi!" Your eyes start to roll back, Levi groans against your cunt, the sound sending vibration all through your heat. Levi's tongue finds your clit, he starts with slow licks, driving you crazy, the moans you're letting out are music to his ears. "So fucking sensitive." He uses his fingers to rub your folds while he sucks on your clit, he needs to prep you for the real thing. His fingers enters you and that causes your back to arch, rubbing more against Levi's mouth. Its certain that other can hear how loud you are but Levi could care less, the louder you are, the more turned on he is. The fingering starts off slowly, his finger pumping in and out of you. "Fuck you're tight. Can't wait to fuck this wet cunt."

Levi spits on your pussy and then starts to eat you out again, his jaw moving faster and his finger moving more gently, its a perfect combination. Sometimes starts to built up in your stomach, it feels like butterflies are flying all over your abdomen, like a burning fire but the fire is pleasure instead of pain. Adding a second finger, Levi's hips start to rut into the mattress, he needs release soon but this is all about giving you a night you won't forget. "Levi! I am-hhhghh!" He starts to finger fuck you faster, his fingers reaching that gummy spot as his mouth works on you. And the sounds, oh they are nasty wet and loud but Levi isn't slowing down, his mouth pulls away, his fingers still pumping into you. "Yeah? Gonna cum aren't you? Be a good girl for me and cum." His head rests against your thigh, his mouth and jaw are glistening with your jucies. You pull on his hair, a loud moan od his name comes out of you, your hips buck, legs shake, it's the most intense thing you have ever felt, your walls clench toghtly around his fingers and you cum, completely overcome by pleasure.

Your head falls back against the pillow, your breath heavy as you calm down from your high, Levi pulls his fingers out slowly. He puts them in his mouth, teasting you once again, kissing up your body again, Levi's hands massage your thighs. When he gets to your face, he kisses the aide of your face. "Need a moment?" He asks, nibbling on your ear, his fingers interlocking with yours and you nod. After a few moments you open your eyes looking at him, you're cheeks are red, mouth wide open, he wants to revish you, fuck you until the only thing you know is him and him only. He kisses you on the lips, the kiss as sloppy as the previous one, you kiss back, your fingers squeezing his hands as he has them pinned above your head. Eventually when he let's go, your hand runs down his body again and this time your tug on his belt, undoing it for him. "Good girl, so eager to get fucked." You bite your lip at his words as his belt comes off. Levi helps you, pulling his pants down with his underwear, he gets rid of it and again throws it on the pile of clothes on the floor.

Curiously, you take his hard cock into your hand, rubbing it up and down. Levi grunts in response, your hand felt so warm and perfect. You pump him in your hand a couple of times before letting go, giving him a sigh that you want him inside of you. "I want you inside of me, Levi." He kisses the side of your neck, you feel his hair brushing your skin. "You'll get me, sweetheart. I can't wait to fuck you." He grabs the base of his cock before positioning it against your entrance, you whimper feeling hic cockhead rub aagsint your wet opening. "Fuck....you want me huh?" Levi wants you to beg for it, he needs it all. "Please Levi! Please! I want you to fuck me." That's all he needed, he pushes his hips forward, his cock pushes past your walls, you gasp, hands gripping the sheets as you close your eyes. "Oi! Eyes on me, let me see you." Looking at him, you watch as his face narrows slighty and then his hands grab your hips. "Can I move?" Despite the list in his voice, there is care there too and you nod, grabbing the mattress even tighter as you feel him move.

He starts to fuck you, enjoying every single moan and response of your body. It's slighty painful but the more he moves, the better it feels. Levi starts to thrust harder inti you, your moans get louder, it feels so good. "You're so..fucking...tight. You feel so good, baby." Your hands run up and down his back as he continues to ram into you, his cock feels like it was made for you. Levi hisses when your pussy clenches around him, he lifts your hips up slightly to get deeper inside of you. "Fuuuck Levi!" Your nails dig into his back, his cock hits that deep spot inside of you, causing you to almost see starts, you won't last much longer before cumming again. Levi starts to pund you faster, letting out rough grunts and groans, you feel so good, so right, it's driving him mad.

Before you can react, Levi pushes your knees up to your chest, folding you and then slams into your harder, your moans are swallowed by his lips as he kisses you passionately. He moans agasint your lips when you keep clamping down on him, your body arching more into him, his nails dig into the back of thighs, he keeps you spread, fucking you harder. You pull away from the kiss when his cock hits your cervix, it's painful but feels so good at the same time. Levi grabs your hair making you look at him. "Keep those pretty eyes on me while I fuck you, baby." His forehead presses agsint yours, his thrusts get messy, he is getting close and so are you.

The knot in your stomach is creating again and this one is somehow more intense than your last climax. "Shit..I'll cum deep inside this cunt.." He fucks you in a slower pace and you feel as his cock twitches inside of you, that's nrouhh for you as you feel yourself cumming around his cock. "Atta girl. Cum for me, cum around my cock." His hands are gripping your hips so hard you're sure they will leave bruises but you don't care, not now. Levi fucks you through your orgasm, he tries his best to hold back as much as he can and he knows he shouldn't cum inside of you however it's irresistible to him, he wants you filled with his cum.

With one last groan, Levi slams hard into you and then cums deep inside of you. Your nails are still digging into his back, his cum feels warm filling you up to the brim. Levi kisses you on the lips as he finishes cumming, he pulls your body closer and let's go of your legs. The sheets are ruined beanth you but that's not a worry for either of you right now. You return the kiss, your fingers gently running down back, feeling the scratches you left behind. Both of you pull away and Levi looks at you, his eyes looking over the marks on your body, he almost feels bad, almost, he is proud of his work. Proud that you trusted him enough to let him do this. And now the mission is that much more exciting.

[withbroombefore]

I saw a poll earlier about participation in regular in-person activities, with numbers that make me wonder if a lot of people don't know what the options are or how to find them. Here are some that I have always found welcoming to new people; for me, these are ways to leave my apartment and get some human interaction without having to make much conversation (there is a reasonable amount of that if you want it, but since it's understood that you are there to do an activity, the thing you are doing is the point rather than pure socializing). A search for "[activity] [location]" should tell you what's available in your area.

Contra dancing: This goes at the top and gets explanation because it's my favorite. I grew up doing this and love it very very much; I always look for local dances when I move somewhere new. Most dances are very beginner-friendly (though there are some exceptions), and zero dance experience is required to participate. Many will include a lesson for beginners in the half-hour before the main event starts, and there are always instructions throughout the evening. You truly do not need to know anything going in. The convention is to switch partners throughout the night, and it's completely okay to attend alone and ask people you don't know to dance. Try Contra Dancing has a search tool by zip code. Typically $8-15.

Community theatre tech: Acting is an option if that's your thing, but in my experience, tech is easier if you're looking for an activity because there's not usually competition--you often can just volunteer without needing to worry about auditions or casting. Roles like run crew (where you move set between scenes and such) don't require any prior knowledge, and plenty of the other tasks can be learned with a little training. If you turn up reliably, the word will spread--good techies are invaluable. Free to participate.

Community band or chorus: Prior experience in playing an instrument is necessary for the band; for singing, it depends on the type of chorus. Some are auditioned, others are just thrilled by any participation. May require dues.

Shapenote singing: A more niche one and another of my personal favorites (I ignore the religious lyrics and treat them as poetry). This can take some time to pick up, but many places have a small monthly sing that is very welcoming to new people. fasola.org has lots of information about the tradition and where to sing. Free, optional donations accepted.

Library events: Find your local public library's website and look for a calendar or events page to see if anything appeals. Typically free.

Crafting groups: Yarn stores and other craft supply places often have regular open gatherings (typically free) and/or classes (may cost money for teaching and supplies).

Games: If you have a local game store, check their website for events. Or search "[location] [chess club]" or whatever is your thing. Usually free.

Dance: Depends on what is available in your area. A studio where I am has a monthly swing dance, with beginner lessons before, for $10.

Sports: I don't really do these but they presumably exist and can be found like the other things.

The important thing is to just go do the thing. It will probably feel awkward the first time--that's normal! These are all spaces where the point is for people to show up and participate. They want you to be there, and they want you to come back! Otherwise they can't keep existing. Several of these (contra dancing, shapenote, a lot of crafting groups) are especially excited about new people and younger participants and will be thrilled to teach you how to do the thing. And the only way to make it feel comfortable is to plow through the first awkwardness and go back until you decide if you actually enjoy it or not. When you find a thing you like, keep going, and after a little while you end up with a community of people to see regularly who share your interests. This is what humans are supposed to do.

[yandere-sins]

Today, I was thinking about Kar'niss the drider, who—mad and confused—stumbles over a nearly dead darling in the Shadowlands.

You're already as good as gone, life sapped out of you mercilessly by the shadows gnawing at you. They burn your skin and dig into your very soul while strangling you slowly, agonizingly to death, trying to take over your body and make you into one of the lifeless puppets wandering around unprotected. It's your own fault for getting into this mess, yet you prayed and wished for nothing more than to be released from the torture.

Perhaps that's why it's so surprising when instead of eternal, restless death, your body is enveloped in a gentle light, bright and freeing you of the shadows that quickly retreat. You gasp and wheeze as you jolt back to life, coughing and contorting until you finally get your own mind back.

It hurts to look, yet you cannot help but stare into the blinding light, trying to determine where it's coming from. Only now can you make out faint noises coming from it, the shadows having wrecked your hearing badly enough so that you didn't notice it before. Metal clanking and a voice. It almost makes you believe in a god again, as you mistake the light to be talking to you.

Imagine the shock, the ice-cold shiver that runs through you when your eyes finally adjust. When the real monster behind the voice comes into the light, mumbling and yelling nonsensical phrases about 'feeding the shadows' and 'her majesty's will'. Half of its body resembles a man, the other half is spider through and through. His skin seems more leathery and armored, and his fingertips are contorted into claws. What you thought were dark jewels adorning his face turn out to be eyes, and you choke on a scream as they blink, their focus suddenly shifts entirely on you.

"Who are you? What are you doing, feeding the shadows?! It's not right, it's not...! Ah, yes, your majesty! Your light guides us, protects us. We are eternally grateful!"

As if almost dying and being rescued by a drider isn't bad enough, madness seems to be dripping off of him the moment he notices you through his hazy mind. You can tell that there is no reasoning with your savior, no last bit of sanity to appeal to, your instincts tell you. He leans down, and you cower, trying to get away. But the moment you leave the lantern's glow, you feel the shadows reaching for you again. You have no idea what's going on as the drider makes another step forward, the light enveloping you again, but you start to listen to his rambles, the way he calls out to some queen, reverently so.

And your blood runs cold when, in his mumbles, you hear him call you a gift.

"My queen, are you giving them to me? Is this my reward? I will not complain about this most generous gift, majesty!"

Your arm is caught by him quicker than you can get away, though his grip only tightens when you struggle, his skin feeling wrong against yours. Appalling. But when you stop thrashing like a fly caught in a spiderweb, he gently pulls you to a stand, waiting for you to regain your strength before he starts walking, tugging you with him. The shadows want to reach for you, pull you back, and you fearfully step closer to the drider, making him chuckle.

There's nothing you can do, his grip on you firm and the shadows being the only alternative to walking with him. He keeps blubbering and laughing about his thoughts, conversing with someone you can't see but who he seems to revere. But at the same time, you feel at least one pair of eyes fixating on you in every moment of your journey, even if you don't know which one is looking. Everything about him is freaking you out, but when you reach a massive building with people walking around, you can't help but feel thankful to the drider for bringing you back to civilization.

That is, until someone tries to talk to you. He does not like that.

Letting go of your arm, he snatches you by your waist instead, your feet dangling above the ground while you feel the air being forced out of your lungs from the pressure he puts you against his chest with. It's all so unnatural, and you can't help but struggle in fear when, suddenly, his bellowing voice makes you freeze.

"NO! This is my gift! Our Queen has gifted them to me! They are not for you to take! You are not worthy!"

And just like that, after baring his fangs and driving away the people you thought were going to help you, his anger disappears almost immediately as he cradles you, cooing much softer words in your direction than to the others. "It's alright, sweet gift. They'll not take you from me. We'll be together, as has our Queen decided."

With that, you feel like your body is flying through the air, clutched against him, as his many legs are swiftly put into motion. When you force yourself to look over his shoulder, you are already far up in the air, watching the ground distance itself more and more. All you can do is cling onto him in fear of falling to your death, and he breathes you in deeply before you two reach the top, his lips contorted into a smile when you finally meet his eyes again.

"Mine, all mine. My sweet little gift."

NSFW-ish below

I'd like to think he has taken one of the free towers that are more or less empty and spun a pretty web for his darling inside. Kar'niss takes care of you, rarely letting you outside (only if you convinced him over the span of days that you'd so like to take a stroll with him) because he really doesn't want anyone else to see, touch, or talk to what is his, even when he needs to go and guide souls to the tower. You will probably go as insane as he is, listening to his rambling and trying to appease him when you accidentally say something to send him into a fit of rage.

There are so many ways to punish you, too. Simply leaving you in the darkness after your almost death reverts you into a crying, sobbing mess that Kar'niss will love to soothe you, dedicating himself to cuddling and cradling you in his arms and lolling around in the web with you while he tells you he and the grace of her majesty are always with you. 

He's also just painful to be around, especially when he's so irrational, and you cannot move out of the way of his fangs, claws, and legs. Everything about him feels strange, giving you no comfort, but he can hurt you so easily it makes you paranoid. When you ask him to, or he's currently obsessing over you, his touch can be gentle, and Kar'niss has proven his soft caresses to you many times. But if a leg or his hands accidentally swipes you, you bleed. It's just how things are. 

Also, suppose you displease him by speaking against his queen or setting him off by denying him the pleasure of being with you. In that case, he'll just stop caring for you, sitting outside the tower where he keeps you, and sulks. (The Absolute is probably telling him to go back, so he's also bickering a bit with her. Kind of an impressive achievement on your side.) He listens to you and waits until you start begging and pleading for him (or anyone) to come back and help you, to not leave you there to rot like this. Yet, Kar'niss makes you suffer for a while longer to punish you while ensuring no one comes near you. 

But it does excite him when he goes back, and you cry and call to him and apologize for what you did, swearing you won't do it again. Excites him a lot. You do love him too, don't you? Of course you do... his queen would not have given you to him if that wasn't the case. You are meant for each other, after all. So he can forgive you this time.

Once he realizes you're in need of a parasite, he'll probably start connecting his disturbed mind with yours, giving you severe brain damage as you are flooded with his thoughts. But it'll finally give him the chance to show you exactly what he wants. Force you to believe in the Absolute like him by torturing you with his devotion and admiration until you break. Now, you'll finally understand your purpose as his mate, too. Accept him. Share his love for you and his majesty.

And since he has a new deity talking to him that isn't Lolth, who knows he cannot have children, Kar'niss might be convinced that he's supposed to make babies for the Absolute. He can't, technically (and maybe you can't either), but that doesn't stop him from talking about how he'll give his majesty new worshippers and how the two of you will be so worthy of her and have Absolute-babies. Kar'niss gets so excited at the idea of you being full and round from his offspring he almost drools, unable to wait any longer once the seed has been planted in his shattered mind.

So all you can do is ask him nicely to prepare you, to make sure he doesn't rip something or is gentle with those sharp claws and teeth no matter how eager he is. Just imagine how happy he'd be when you tell him that you could possibly be pregnant after all the orgasms he gave you—a lie, but you just really need him to stop. He'll be enraged if he finds out that you are not, but hey, he can always try again. And maybe someone will come to help him with his plan. Maybe Araj Oblodra could be convinced to offer a child or spider eggs to quench the Drider's baby frenzy, or the Absolute will give him a child like she gave him a darling.

Either way, until he dies, you're not getting out of this. And even then, someone would have to find you first and rescue you.

If they don't deem you too far gone already.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Sympathy for the spammer

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

In any scam, any con, any hustle, the big winners are the people who supply the scammers – not the scammers themselves. The kids selling dope on the corner are making less than minimum wage, while the respectable crime-bosses who own the labs clean up. Desperate "retail investors" who buy shitcoins from Superbowl ads get skinned, while the MBA bros who issue the coins make millions (in real dollars, not crypto).

It's ever been thus. The California gold rush was a con, and nearly everyone who went west went broke. Famously, the only reliable way to cash out on the gold rush was to sell "picks and shovels" to the credulous, doomed and desperate. That's how Leland Stanford made his fortune, which he funneled into eugenics programs (and founding a university):

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/malcolm-harris/palo-alto/9780316592031/

That means that the people who try to con you are almost always getting conned themselves. Think of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scams. My forthcoming novel The Bezzle opens with a baroque and improbable fast-food Ponzi in the town of Avalon on the island of Catalina, founded by the chicle monopolist William Wrigley Jr:

http://thebezzle.org

Wrigley found fast food declasse and banned it from the island, a rule that persists to this day. In The Bezzle, the forensic detective Martin Hench uncovers The Fry Guys, an MLM that flash-freezes contraband burgers and fries smuggled on-island from the mainland and sells them to islanders though an "affiliate marketing" scheme that is really about recruiting other affiliate markets to sell under you. As with every MLM, the value of the burgers and fries sold is dwarfed by the gigantic edifice of finance fraud built around it, with "points" being bought and sold for real cash, which is snaffled up and sucked out of the island by a greedy mainlander who is behind the scheme.

A "bezzle" is John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." In every scam, there's a period where everyone feels richer – but only the scammers are actually cleaning up. The wealth of the marks is illusory, but the longer the scammer can preserve the illusion, the more real money the marks will pump into the system.

MLMs are particularly ugly, because they target people who are shut out of economic opportunity – women, people of color, working people. These people necessarily rely on social ties for survival, looking after each others' kids, loaning each other money they can't afford, sharing what little they have when others have nothing.

It's this social cohesion that MLMs weaponize. Crypto "entrepreneurs" are encouraged to suck in their friends and family by telling them that they're "building Black wealth." Working women are exhorted to suck in their bffs by appealing to their sisterhood and the chance for "women to lift each other up."

The "sales people" trying to get you to buy crypto or leggings or supplements are engaged in predatory conduct that will make you financially and socially worse off, wrecking their communities' finances and shattering the mutual aid survival networks they rely on. But they're not getting rich on this – they're also being scammed:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4686468

This really hit home for me in the mid-2000s, when I was still editing Boing Boing. We had a submission form where our readers could submit links for us to look at for inclusion on the blog, and it was overwhelmed by spam. We'd add all kinds of antispam to it, and still, we'd get floods of hundreds or even thousands of spam submissions to it.

One night, I was lying in my bed in London and watching these spams roll in. They were all for small businesses in the rustbelt, handyman services, lawn-care, odd jobs, that kind of thing. They were 10 million miles from the kind of thing we'd ever post about on Boing Boing. They were coming in so thickly that I literally couldn't finish downloading my email – the POP session was dropping before I could get all the mail in the spool. I had to ssh into my mail server and delete them by hand. It was maddening.

Frustrated and furious, I started calling the phone numbers associated with these small businesses, demanding an explanation. I assumed that they'd hired some kind of sleazy marketing service and I wanted to know who it was so I could give them a piece of my mind.

But what I discovered when I got through was much weirder. These people had all been laid off from factories that were shuttering due to globalization. As part of their termination packages, their bosses had offered them "retraining" via "courses" in founding their own businesses.

The "courses" were the precursors to the current era's rise-and-grind hustle-culture scams (again, the only people getting rich from that stuff are the people selling the courses – the "students" finish the course poorer). They promised these laid-off workers, who'd given their lives to their former employers before being discarded, that they just needed to pull themselves up by their own boostraps:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/10/declaration-of-interdependence/#solidarity-forever

After all, we had the internet now! There were so many new opportunities to be your own boss! The course came with a dreadful build-your-own-website service, complete with an overpriced domain sales portal, and a single form for submitting your new business to "thousands of search engines."

This was nearly 20 years ago, but even then, there was really only one search engine that mattered: Google. The "thousands of search engines" the scammers promised to submit these desperate peoples' websites to were just submission forms for directories, indexes, blogs, and mailing lists. The number of directories, indexes, blogs and mailing lists that would publish their submissions was either "zero" or "nearly zero." There was certainly no possibility that anyone at Boing Boing would ever press the wrong key and accidentally write a 500-word blog post about a leaf-raking service in a collapsing deindustrialized exurb in Kentucky or Ohio.

The people who were drowning me in spam weren't the scammers – they were the scammees.

But that's only half the story. Years later, I discovered how our submission form was getting included in this get-rich-quick's mass-submission system. It was a MLM! Coders in the former Soviet Union were getting work via darknet websites that promised them relative pittances for every submission form they reverse-engineered and submitted. The smart coders didn't crack the forms directly – they recruited other, less business-savvy coders to do that for them, and then often as not, ripped them off.

The scam economy runs on this kind of indirection, where scammees are turned into scammers, who flood useful and productive and nice spaces with useless dross that doesn't even make them any money. Take the submission queue at Clarkesworld, the great online science fiction magazine, which famously had to close after it was flooded with thousands of junk submission "written" by LLMs:

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1159286436/ai-chatbot-chatgpt-magazine-clarkesworld-artificial-intelligence

There was a zero percent chance that Neil Clarke would accidentally accept one of these submissions. They were uniformly terrible. The people submitting these "stories" weren't frustrated sf writers who'd discovered a "life hack" that let them turn out more brilliant prose at scale.

They were scammers who'd been scammed into thinking that AIs were the key to a life of passive income, a 4-Hour Work-Week powered by an AI-based self-licking ice-cream cone:

https://pod.link/1651876897/episode/995c8a778ede17d2d7cff393e5203157

This is absolutely classic passive-income brainworms thinking. "I have a bot that can turn out plausible sentences. I will locate places where sentences can be exchanged for money, aim my bot at it, sit back, and count my winnings." It's MBA logic on meth: find a thing people pay for, then, without bothering to understand why they pay for that thing, find a way to generate something like it at scale and bombard them with it.

Con artists start by conning themselves, with the idea that "you can't con an honest man." But the factor that predicts whether someone is connable isn't their honesty – it's their desperation. The kid selling drugs on the corner, the mom desperately DMing her high-school friends to sell them leggings, the cousin who insists that you get in on their shitcoin – they're all doing it because the system is rigged against them, and getting worse every day.

These people reason – correctly – that all the people getting really rich are scamming. If Amazon can make $38b/year selling "ads" that push worse products that cost more to the top of their search results, why should the mere fact that an "opportunity" is obviously predatory and fraudulent disqualify it?

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/29/aethelred-the-unready/#not-one-penny-for-tribute

The quest for passive income is really the quest for a "greater fool," the economist's term for the person who relieves you of the useless crap you just overpaid for. It rots the mind, atomizes communities, shatters solidarity and breeds cynicism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The rise and rise of botshit cannot be separated from this phenomenon. The botshit in our search-results, our social media feeds, and our in-boxes isn't making money for the enshittifiers who send it – rather, they are being hustled by someone who's selling them the "picks and shovels" for the AI gold rush:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy

That's the true cost of all the automation-driven unemployment criti-hype: while we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

The manic "entrepreneurs" who've been stampeded into panic by the (correct) perception that the economy is a game of musical chairs where the number of chairs is decreasing at breakneck speed are easy marks for the Leland Stanfords of AI, who are creating generational wealth for themselves by promising that their bots will automate away all the tedious work that goes into creating value. Expect a lot more Amazon Marketplace products called "I'm sorry, I cannot fulfil this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy":

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/12/24036156/openai-policy-amazon-ai-listings

No one's going to buy these products, but the AI picks-and-shovels people will still reap a fortune from the attempt. And because history repeats itself, these newly minted billionaires are continuing Leland Stanford's love affair with eugenics:

https://www.truthdig.com/dig-series/eugenics/

The fact that AI spam doesn't pay is important to the fortunes of AI companies. Most high-value AI applications are very risk-intolerant (self-driving cars, radiology analysis, etc). An AI tool might help a human perform these tasks more accurately – by warning them of things that they've missed – but that's not how AI will turn a profit. There's no market for AI that makes your workers cost more but makes them better at their jobs:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Plenty of people think that spam might be the elusive high-value, low-risk AI application. But that's just not true. The point of AI spam is to get clicks from people who are looking for better content. It's SEO. No one reads 2000 words of algorithm-pleasing LLM garbage over an omelette recipe and then subscribes to that site's feed.

And the omelette recipe generates pennies for the spammer that posted it. They are doing massive volume in order to make those pennies into dollars. You don't make money by posting one spam. If every spammer had to pay the actual recovery costs (energy, chillers, capital amortization, wages) for their query, every AI spam would lose (lots of) money.

Hustle culture and passive income are about turning other peoples' dollars into your dimes. It is a negative-sum activity, a net drain on society. Behind every seemingly successful "passive income" is a con artist who's getting rich by promising – but not delivering – that elusive passive income, and then blaming the victims for not hustling hard enough:

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/12/blueprint-trouble

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[jadeylovesmarvelxo]

One of those Days

It's been one of those days for you and you'd love nothing more than a cuddle from your boyfriend Eddie. Except he's away on a trip with his uncle Wayne and won't be back until the next day..

Soft ,protective Eddie, shitty boss, mentions period pains and fluffy/comfort.

Dedicated to anyone who's just having one of those days. Eddie hugs for all of you 🥰

✨💕

You were so tired. It has just been one of those days and all you wanted to do was curl up in bed and not face the world for a few hours.

Work was long and tiring, you were sore and halfway through your period. It made you feel exhausted, snappy and every part of your body ached.

And you missed Eddie so much.

Eddie was away fishing with his uncle Wayne, it was something the two of them had done together since he was a young boy, Wayne loved fishing and Eddie...well it wasn't really his thing but he loved spending time with his uncle.

He had been gone since yesterday and you dearly missed him and Wayne but filled your time hanging with friends and with work and trying to keep your bad periods cramps and aches to a minimum; that had yet to happen.

There was an intense pressure in your head that had been building all day to an almighty headache. All you could think about was your bed and staying in it until Monday. The thought of indulging in some ice cream and your favourite movies was also appealing.

Today was meant to be your day off but your asshole of a boss had no one else to cover the shift and repeatedly called you until you came in to cover the hours.

As soon as you were able to you'd be looking for a new job, this kinda thing had been happening far too often and your boss still treated you pretty badly.

That could wait for a couple of days as soon as you got home later that day you barely had the energy to shower and pretty much just pulled on your comfiest pjs and climbed into bed.

You'd love to be wrapped up in Eddie's arms right now. He always had a way of making you feel better, the two of you were so in sync with each other's emotions that it was easy to know what the other needed right away.

It's with those thoughts that you fall into a deep slumber.

❤️

It's dark in your room when you wake up, your headache has dulled slightly but you're left with that groggy, gross feeling of sleeping far too long.

Wait a minute. You pause as you smell Eddie's cologne and notice that Eddie's arms are wrapped around you. You blink sleepily, thinking it's maybe this a dream. "Eds?" he smiles and kisses your forehead.

Okay so not a dream.

"Hey beautiful" he draws you closer to him and elation fills you that he's really here.

"Hi, I thought you weren't back until tomorrow" you kiss him happily and he returns eagerly, kissing you until you're both breathless.

"We finished up early and uh I kinda drove uncle Wayne crazy because I was missing you so much" you melt at his sweetness and burrow yourself in his arms.

"Are you still feeling shitty sweetheart?" He asks as he strokes your hair, you nod still burying your head into his chest and feel content to lie there for a little while.

"Mmm, work was horrendous too. Jake called me in, and wouldn't stop until I covered the shift even though I told him I was feeling awful" Eddie growls and you hear him muttering under his breath at what he'd like to do to your boss, it makes you smile.

"No you can't kick his ass babe" you giggle while trying to tell him off. It never works, he pouts and looks at you all sorrowful brown eyes and faux innocence.

"Not even a little bit? It will make you feel better" you hide your smile and shake your head.

"Not even a tiny bit. Hopper wouldn't be able to let that slide" he's still pouty but cheers up immediately, then proceeds to look offended once he notices that you're not in his arms and he makes grabby hands at you.

"Princess, I was liking that cuddle" you immediately settle back in his arms and feel content for this first time all day.

"Did you drive uncle Wayne crazy with Dio and Metallica then?" you ask and he smirks impishly at this, he's had this master plan to get Wayne to listen and possibly even like one of his favourite bands.

"He ended up liking Black Sabbath. I told you there was hope for the old man yet" he looks so proud of himself but the expression vanishes when he looks at you, instead now he looks worried.

"Okay, first things first my lovely maiden, we are having a shower and then some of uncle Wayne's delicious mac and cheese yes?"

💕✨

Exactly one hour later you're back in bed with Eddie having had the loveliest shower, Eddie had taken to washing your hair, usually you did it for him but he insisted that tonight he was looking after you.

"Gotta make sure my princess is pampered so you feel better baby"

Now you were having some delicious Mac and cheese while Eddie was telling you about the massive fish he managed to catch.

"I swear sweetheart it was half the size of me. The little shit bit my finger though and went back in the water, shit I fell in after it and almost ruined my vest, wayne thought it was hilarious"

"Poor baby" you soothe. You're perfectly happy listening to Eddie's adventures in fishing. Tucked up in his arms and paying him rapt attention.

Turns out today wasn't such a shitty day after all.

✨

[nalooksthrough]

Dale Dimmadome Analysis (with screenshots)

Dale is one of my favourite characters on the show. He's a funny evil man, that amuses me with his antics and his role as a child slave/kidnap victim in the original series leaves a lot to be explored.

This analysis will be talking about his attachment to money which trust me is a lot more interesting than it sounds. This will be quite a long post. I'll put a cut under this paragraph, so that the people who aren't interested don't have to scroll through the whole post.

Going to assume that since you decided to keep reading, that your interested in what I have to say. This analysis will only be covering "Stanky Danky" and "Lost and Founder's Day" with a brief mention of "Operation Birthday Takeback". I think those two episodes are more than sufficient enough to convey my point.

When we first meet Dale in "Stanky Danky" he's seen coming down from a helicopter, onto a big stage to sell products to people. He appears to be level headed with confidence oozing out of him. But this changes the moment he realises that people aren't going to buy anything.

He almost immediately starts to panic.

He starts shuttering as he calls out to the crowd to buy more things.

His panic becomes anger. Briefly switching back to panic before fully settling into anger. His anger then becomes targeted at the person whose telling these people not to buy from him. He questions who this girl is, what's her name.

Once he's learnt her name. He starts thinking up a way he can stop her and get the customer's interest back.

And once he's found it he strikes.

Going as far as to kidnap Danky and emotionally manipulate him just so he can get what he wants.

Leaving the monster in an isolated area of his estate when he's not of any current use to him. I mean talk about becoming your abuser.

And when Hazel and Danky leave he rushes out calling out to the trash monster, saying that he was "like a son" to him. Trying to appeal to Danky's emotions, desperately trying to get him back. All so he doesn't lose that source of profit.

And when he starts losing all his profits at the end of the episode he falls to his knees, wailing in a fit of despair. He's obsessed with money, he needs it and he's willing to do anything to get it. This obsession of his is best shown in "Lost and Founder's Day"

He spends the first portion of the episode happily monologing as he explains how his Dim Watches "tickle" a child's brain to indicate when they want something. Everything is going exactly as he planned.

Until it isn't.

The moment he spots someone not buying anything he starts getting angry. Ranting at the screen.

His anger only growing more when he realises that this "anomaly" is stopping other people from buying things too.

And when Dev points out that stuff is still getting sold and they are still earning money. He shuts him down.

Stating that while yes people are still buying things. The profit he's making from the festival in going down. And he is not happy about it.

In fact he's so enraged by this that he starts to send drones and his son after it so that he can "learn it's secrets". He can't handle the idea that someone doesn't want to buy anything from him.

And when that doesn't work, he activates the statues. Putting the whole festival on lock down until he can track down the "anomaly".

And when a drone points out how counter productive terrorising the festival attendees is to earning money and making a profit. He quite literally shuts it down.

And at the end of the episode, when the statues are put to a stop and everyone leaves.

He's back in that pit of despair. A literal stream of tears flowing out of his eyes. And he so affected by this that he spent literal months studying this "anomaly" figuring out why it didn't seem interested in buying anything during the festival. And the thing is. If he had just left it alone. The festival would have gone on without much of a hitch. But he just couldn't, because it was never about the money. Not really. It was about him.

It's clear that he puts a lot of value onto money. More than most. With money being tied directly to his identity and sense of security. The more money he makes, the better he feels about himself and when he starts to lose money, he takes it as a direct attack on him. He knows what it's like to have nothing and he doesn't ever want to be in that state again. So he obsessively tries to earn more and more in order feel secure in himself. But it's never enough. And when someone threatens that security he goes on the defence. Even at the cost of the losing other potential sales.

And when he loses all his profits and is no longer generating money, he breaks. And for a brief moment, he's no longer Dale Dimmadome owner of Dimmadome G0bal.

He's Dale. A frighten young boy working in a factory underneath a lemonade stand, whose only wish is for his father to come and rescue him.

[godbirdart]

Hey there. Ive been admiring your work a long time and I was hoping I could get some advice from a more experienced artist.

How do you go about deciding which commission submissions will proceed forward? If you decide to decline a request how do you go about it? I recently started accepting commissions and get nervous when certain requests are too vague, too difficult or the requester isn't fully answering my questions and I dont know how to go about justifying a decline. Is it okay to decline a commission submission?

aAA thank you for enjoying my work!!

i could talk for Days about commissions and how I handle my own work, but I'm going to try to keep this short and simple for ease of reading:

i use a Google Form in combination with a number generator for my commission openings

reasons why i use a Google Form and number generator: - to avoid favoritism / client bias - to push my comfort zone with a variety of projects - to ensure i'm not taking on more work that i can handle

The Google form will automatically assign a number to each form, making it easy for me to pull up a website and ask it to generate a number between [insert number] and [insert number]. That said, I will still manually go through each form. Occasionally I'll pick up a project if I notice someone's reapplied a couple times who wasn't selected during previous openings, or if a project especially appeals to me, or isn't something i'd usually draw!

declining a commission / project:

yes, it is always okay to decline a project! you are not obligated to accept every submission that comes into your inbox / form / etc. there are many valid reasons to decline a project, from a conflict with your Terms of Service, to making sure you don't take on more work than you can reasonably handle.

if the project doesn't inspire you or spark that creative passion, it may result in frustration, exhaustion, and you might wind up handing the client a subpar art piece that you're not at all proud of. it's much more honorable to be upfront about it than to subject yourself to such grief as you waste your time and energy and your client's time and money.

ways to decline: it's always important to be polite. depending on your reasoning, you could say "Thank you for considering me for this project, but, ...." - "... This is not a project I'd be comfortable taking on." "... This project conflicts with my Terms of Service and I cannot accept it." "... I cannot accept it at this time." "... but I would not be able to fulfill your request to the detail / complexity you are expecting for this piece."

there's no shame in saying "i would not be a good fit for this project". i've had clients ask me for hyper-realistic work, which is quite far from my art style. while i could do it, i'd rather not put both myself and the client through months of frustration and waiting for a project i am not completely confident in executing.

if a client is being too vague, not answering questions:

it happens! not every client will communicate thoroughly. some clients will over-communicate, and for others there may be a language barrier so their difficultness may be entirely unintended.

you can't do the job if you don't know what you're supposed to be doing. never be afraid to ask your client for clarification on their request. phases you can use would be: - "I do not have enough information to begin work on this, could you clarify these details: [insert questions about details you need elaboration about]" - "I cannot proceed without knowing more about [insert thing], can you tell me more about [thing you need clarification on]". if your client being deliberately obtuse and refusing to supply the necessary information, you can be more firm with them such as: - "I will not proceed any further with this project if I do not receive [insert details]."

on clients being too difficult:

"difficult" is a bit subjective here. what may be considered difficult for one artist may be a walk in the park for another. this said, i'm going to use some very generic common examples here.

too many irrelevant notes, or randomly forwarding details / requests instead of condensing their ideas into one message:

"Thank you for these additional notes, however: ..." - "... please only supply notes that are directly related to the project at hand." [such as notes on the expression, environment, pose, etc - things that you need to know for the artwork you are working on] - "... please condense them into one message instead of sending multiple messages. I want to stay organized / do not want to lose track of your notes."

frequent requests for updates, or changes to the WIP / final art:

note: you should always be communicative and receptive to a client's request for updates, but here i am referring specifically to excessive requests such as numerous requests sent multiple times a day. additionally, what is considered "excessive" will vary depending on an artist's average turnaround time. "Thank you for reaching out, ..." - "... but I do not yet have an update for you at this time. I will reach out when I have an update ready for you, thank you for your patience." - "... but these requests are too frequent. Please allow more time to pass between requests for updates." You could also ask your client if they have concerns about the turnaround time, if they need the work by a specific date for a birthday / event, etc. It is important to consider that some clients may have been scammed by an artist in the past and their insistence on updates could be a result from that. if a client keeps requesting edits on the concept / sketch or final piece, you're within your right to say enough is enough. this will also vary depending on the artist's individual work process. if the changes are getting excessive, you could say: - "As we've undergone numerous edits to this, I will permit one final request for editing after which I will -" [move on to the next stage, cease work on this project, issue a partial refund, start asking fees for edits, etc; insert next step of your preference]

ignoring work hours / terms of service / communication channels

as an artist, you should set a firm boundary of what is a working day and what is not. you are not in a profession that is "on-call" 24/7. you can save some headache by having your schedule posted on your website / social media or wherever your queue is publicly posted. anywhere that is readily accessible for a client to easy find. - something you could say is: "My work days are [insert days], I answer work-related messages, work on art, and send out updates [if applicable] on those days. Thank you for your patience." if you prefer to have your work messages confined to one social media account or email, it's okay to enforce that! but be sure to have it posted in easily noticeable spots like pinned posts. - something to say here would be: "If you need to reach me, please do so via [insert platform / email etc]. I will not respond to [comments / DMs on other social media, etc]." terms of service, same as above, should be in an easy-to-find location and should be easy to read. if a client's prompt or action conflicts with your ToS, you could address it with: "As mentioned in my Terms of Service, [address thing that conflicts with your T&C."

language barriers

sometimes you may have a client with a language barrier. we live in a vast world, after all! be patient with them, and depending on their fluency, do your best to simplify your questions for them. if you know your client is using an online translator, try and avoid using jargon. we've come a long way with online translators, but they're not going to spit out the right translation if you ask "are they supposed to be super shredded and beefy" and the translator tells your client "should they be shredded meat".

dropping a client

this is an absolute most extreme last resort, but i bring this up since we're on the topic of difficult clients and this particular stage isn't spoken about often. no artist wants to up and drop a client, but sometimes it's better for all parties involved instead of dragging out a bad experience. dropping a client could result from a variety of factors, including: the artist is retiring from art, something has come up in the artist's life and they are unable to continue, a client has become abusive, or an agreement cannot be made on a project or the project has caused a conflict of interest between the artist and the client. if you must drop a client, you could say: - "I apologize, but for [insert reason] I cannot continue with this project. I will be [refunding / partially refunding] this project." If it's for medical reasons, you can say "due to a medical complication, I am unable to continue" - and leave it at that. Your client does not need elaboration on your private medical information. The same goes for private family matter or other personal issue. artists shouldn't let guilt eat at them if they are physically incapable of completing a project due to personal reasons. things happen, life happens. the vast majority of your clients will be understanding and appreciate that you reached out to them to address the situation instead of leaving them in limbo. If you have to drop a client because they're being genuinely abusive and hostile and not respecting you, your time, or your work, you can say the same thing as above. There's zero need to retaliate or be hostile back. The situation will likely make you feel awful, sure, but firmly staying professional is the best thing you can do. When issuing a refund, always specify when the client should expect their refund to arrive. "A refund has been issued and will be processed through [insert payment method] shortly." or "A refund will be issued on [insert date]."

This wound up long anyway despite my effort to shorten it, but ah well.

If you'd like more elaboration on something, don't hesitate to ask! Some sections did get pruned down in my futile effort to keep it short, so things might've ended up a bit vague or convoluted [my apologies].

[3600frames]

Overlaid my changes (plus some additional edits) to the pre-existing fan translation of the Baker tweets for easier readability. Thank you to MagicalGirlFia for the original translation.

[The tweets of the bassist/vocalist Beika of C-Side on a certain day]

Waiting for Kiki, who's late to the studio, as usual.

〇2　←5　♡623

Is there anyone else who’d come back to the band they quit once, or is it just Kiki? Well, I suppose the ones who'd let 'em back in with open arms are just as rare.

〇5　←18　♡1533

I think Clickbait was first made when Walter started hitting the drums while we were setting up the sound in our rehearsal studio. There was this funky cymbal noise that sounded like a "WHAM"! When Kiki and I first heard that, there was no way we wouldn't start singing "dededededede"!

〇　←5　♡322

No point in hiding it, I'm happy that people are covering and arranging that song in across many different places. Though when that school of salmon attacked, I heard the version they played with the violin(?). It was so baffling that I couldn't help but laugh.

〇3　←12　♡475

Paintscraper is based on a demo that Walter made. It seems like he played the guitar himself too. It sounded kinda limp and really cracked me up, but it's got this odd appeal to it. If I get the chance, I wanna share it.

〇8　←56　♡757

"Triple Dip" - If they tell you that you can't double dip, why not triple dip? Know what I mean? I tried to make a song without knowing if it was cool or not. How'd I do?

〇3　←18　♡224

I'm typing this in a drunken stupor. I've said this half a billion times just this year, but please know this: Now or Never is a C-Side original. Some guys from Inkopolis, Skip...something or other… had the nerve to cover it without permission, but we recorded it before they released theirs. We just didn't release ours.

〇54　←3577　♡8993

One has gotta wonder if there’s anything that tastes better than having dinner alone in the middle of the night.

〇25　←28　♡223

I can forgive the version by that weird trio who do the Splatcasts because it's funny. I got no clue what they're saying in the intro, though.

〇45　←2213　♡12k

One more thing. That guitarist/vocalist of Skid-something, Ichiya, was born in the Splatlands. I should know- i went to middle school with him. He said he was going to Inkopolis, and off he went. Soon after, I heard about how he’d debuted with a band. I tried listening to them, but their sound was so soft that it made my ink churn.

〇512　←75k　♡52k

So, you’re probably wondering why we covered that Splattack (did I get it right? LOL song of theirs. I get a lot of people thinking it’s an homage, but just for the record, I was only trying to get across, like “If it’s you lots’ "music" we’re talking about, then obviously we could make it SO much cooler. I mean, our version is 300 times better, right?”. That’s all. It wasn’t meant as a damn homage.

〇156　←4573　♡9130

What's he doing now? Apparently, he changed the band's name and is loitering around the Splatlands now. It’s the kind of thing that makes you think "You have some nerve to come crawling back home", y'know?

〇89　←5282　♡11k

Well, I guess their… music? It’s not as bad as it used to be.

〇144　←3423　♡8924

I rambled too much last night. I think the current Inkopolis scene is way too pretentious. However, I know they’re kinda old news now, but those Bottom Feeder guys are pretty cool. I'd like to perform with that violin chick. 

〇12　←4674　♡8995

I want to play along with the rest of C-Side so you all can hear it. A truly pure sound that'll reverberate throughout this era of chaos, no matter whether it's the Splatlands or Inkopolis.

〇??　←??　♡??

[xythlia]

⎙ — 𝐉𝐎𝐘𝐓𝐎𝐘.𝐓𝐎𝐑

› WELCOME TO THE RED ROOM... RESERVED FOR GUESTS OF PARTICULAR TASTES

› toji x f!reader

› word count : 2k+

- ̗̀໒ warnings : sex work, on camera, choking, my spit kink shining thru again, biting, backshots, (1) ass smack, fingering, cervix fucking, reader has hair long enough to pull, squirting, rough sex, full nelson, creampie

You take a drag of your cigarette, bleary sleep deprived eyes doing their best to focus on the obnoxious flashing neon sign. WE'VE GOT A DOLL FOR EVERY TASTE. It makes you scoff as you grind the but out beneath your scuffed shoe, that's all they think of you all as, dolls. Props that just so happen to moan and squirt.

For the most part you keep your complaints to yourself, money is money. Not that this was what you ever pictured you'd land on as a career but it could always be worse.

Exhaling the last of the crisp night air from your lungs you pull open the sleek silver backdoor to Cloud Nine. The back hallways are made up of dim, twisting corridors. Some lead to the back offices, to security, but as you hook a left to brush past a tinkling bead curtain you're met with the large open dressing room you all share.

You prefer to spend as little time back here as possible, doing the bulk of your prep at your apartment before you're on for the night. You can't stand their mindless, giddy chatter. It also prevents you from getting attached to any of them, or taking on a puppy so to speak.

Before you can finish tucking your bag and coat away in the dingy locker your floor manager is waving a piece of paper in your face.

It makes your stomach flip.

"You got swapped, Angel can't do the red room and you're the only other experienced girl in tonight."

The red room was only ever offered on nights an experienced doll was on the floor, since the people reserving red rooms always have a... particular taste in mind. Newer girls wouldn't be able to handle it. As much of an annoyance as it is to be switched with so little notice, you don't mind. It can get dull shaking your ass for run of the mill patrons all night, plus the red room is where the real money is.

"One or-?" You ask vaguely.

"One guy, don't keep him waiting alright?" She says dismissively.

You grab the piece of paper, the list of what you will and strictly won't do for a red room service. It was standard fare: creampie, light sadism, degradation, ect. Since it wasn't too extreme you didn't bother filling it out, it's easier to just tell the guy.

It's not far to the private rooms, and part of you is more than a little eager to see just who reserved one of these eye wateringly expensive sessions.

Even bathed in the dim red lights you could tell he was attractive, dark hair and eyes that held something elusive even though he kept contact with your own.

"I didn't bother filling this out, nothing you requested is off limits for me." You smile as you let the paper flutter to the floor, taking the seat beside him on the plush lounge.

Out of the corner of your eye you see the blinking light on the camera, he already set it up to record. It makes you quirk a brow at him, usually even the most gutsy ones are a little camera shy.

He smirks at you. "I'll be gentle."

With the way he says it you know it's a lie.

With a grin you lay back, propping a pillow under your head and trying not to focus on that little green recording light in your peripheral. The worst part is being filmed, but that's part of the rooms appeal. These guys pay for the ability to record the entire session not just for being able to fuck someone with no holds bared, but the catch is the club also gets to upload it.

The feeling of his skin brushing against yours cracks your train of thought. His fingertips are calloused, hands rough but he doesn't have the look of a working man. As those fingertips caress a trail down your inner thighs you shiver, letting out a quiet gasp.

"Puttin' on a show?" He purrs.

You give a breathy giggle, winding your arms around his muscles back as he leans over you between your legs. "Isn't that what you paid for?"

He pushes against you, lips brushing experimentally against yours, and deepens it to something harsh and hungry when he feels you start to squirm beneath him. His touch feels like fire, scorching a path across your skin with every grope and fondle of your body. You feel a familiar sensation of dizziness, of lightheadedness; every movement is skilled and purposeful, a deliberate attempt to steal the breath from your lungs and leave you choking on your own spit.

His lips begin to make their way down your neck, sucking hard against the delicate skin and making you groan with every nip of his teeth. In a daze you help him undo the straps of your barely there top, head tipping back when his mouth finds one of your nipples. They get the same rough treatment as your throat, and he gives a particularly sharp graze of his teeth clearly just to hear you yelp.

Your hands cup your breasts, kneading them, as his mouth dips marks a path down your stomach. Caught up in your own eagerness you wiggle your hips slightly, anticipating what's coming only to feel him grip your legs and yank you down further. The suddenness makes you wince, propping on your elbows to see just what he has in mind.

The way he's looking at you, with such debauched hunger it sends butterflies off in your chest. You don't even know his name but you know this is the kind of man a red room was designed for. As he leans forward again between your legs you feel his erection press hard against you, making the fabric of your panties slide against your clit with delicious friction.

Before you can ask, beg, for more his thick fingers glide up the column of your throat and press hard against the sides. Squeezing against your carotid artery and making your mouth drop open. As soon as your lips part you see the shimmer against his bottom lip, watch in fascination as a thick clear string of spit comes down to meet your tongue.

Sucking his lip he brings his face barely an inch from yours, through the fuzz of your restricted blood supply you notice a scar on the corner of his mouth.

"I didn't pay for you to look at the fuckin' camera." His voice is low, gutteral.

The second he lets go your body is automatically sucking air into your lungs, hard and sputtering as you lift your hips up to grind against him. In one smooth movement, before you can even process it properly, he's got you flipped on your stomach and pulling your ass up and back.

Your cheek presses against the plush fabric, eyes squeezed shut feeling his fingers run over your damp panties. There's not even enough time to relish in the contact before two fingers have the fabric pulled to the side, his knuckles sliding past the ring of muscle makes you moan against the lounge seat.

Hearing the soft shuffling of clothes you know he's undressing, even while his other hand is occupied with keeping his fingers scissoring against your slick walls. The sudden emptiness of his fingers withdrawing was quickly replaced by the head of his cock sliding through your arousal, making you suck in a sharp breath.

Just from that little contact you can feel he's got girth and heft, excitement makes you dig your nails into the lounge and press your chest down against it, keeping your ass higher.

You hear him scoff and the sting of his hand coming down hard against your skin makes you cry out, but it's nothing compared to the biting pain as the swollen head pushes against your soaked hole. The stretch is agonizing, you're not sure any amount of prep would've been sufficient. You groan, bottom lip caught in your teeth as you feel the fabric against your face getting wet with the spit seeping from the corners of your mouth.

He doesn't wait for you to adjust before slamming his hips against your ass, hard enough to make your breathing hitch in your throat, and you can feel him brushing against your cervix. The pace is brutal, making your body jostle and shake with each thrust.

Slick squelching mingles with the sound of skin smacking skin to form a perverse melody that only heightens the tension building in your gut. Frantically you slide one hand down to rub you neglected, aching clit but before you can make contact he's got you pulled up by a fistful of your hair. The sting of pain makes tears prick in your waterline as blubbering moans spill from your lips.

The way your body rocks forward with every brush of his cock against your cervix, the way his girth makes your cunt feel overstuffed, it all makes your head spin. His grunts join the obscene cacophony of sounds along with your whines when he lets go of your hair to support your body with one arm while his other hand catches your jaw in a bruising grip.

You squirm, feeling the hot tracks of tears slipping down your cheeks but his hold is steadfast. If you had more presence of mind you'd swear you could feel your heartbeat not just through your entire body but in your cunt too.

As you dissolve in his hold, a crying whimpering mess, he pushes you back down face first into the lounge, holding you by the scruff as he repositions to hit deeper. Your moans fracture into gasps and hiccups as you clench down around him, finally able to rub frenzied circles around your clit and feel that compressed coil snap inside you.

The lounge becomes incredibly damp around your knees and your brain feels as if it's coated in sticky, thick honey.

You whimper pathetically as he yanks you up again, never breaking his pace, forces you to look straight into that ever blinking green light.

"Not all you can take is it?" He sneers, hooking fingers into your mouth and whatever reply you had gets lost in the garbled sounds you choke out around them.

When he suddenly pulls out you groan, body feeling exhausted and boneless on the comedown from your orgasm but he isn't done with you yet. He lays on his back, supporting you on top of him as he makes sure your pussy faces the cameras lens and slips back inside you.

Your eyes roll back as you struggle to help support your own weight. It catches you off guard when pulls you down so your back is pressed against his chest, both of your bodies slick with sweat and various other fluids. His arms loop beneath yours and his fingers lock together behind your neck, making your breaths come in wheezed yelps and your legs automatically rise up.

The muscles in your thighs are screaming from the strain and your lungs burn again, you feel yourself camping around him, walls throbbing and sucking his cock back in with every thrust.

You can't help but sob and blubber hoarsely, begging to cum again with every sharp upswing of his hips. His pace breaks up quickly the tighter you squeeze him, devolving into sloppy thrusts until you feel his cock throb inside you. Warm, sticky heat spreads inside you and you sigh brokenly in his hold.

The cameras unfeeling, fish eye lens catches the creamy white rings forming on his cock, the way his cum drips out of your sore pussy when he slides out of you with a throaty, satisfied groan.

You grin, slow and lazy up at the ceiling. Red room sessions aren't just about the money, they're the most... fulfilling.

[sleeplesssmoll]

Reverse 1999 Analysis: Vertin's Fear?

Tuesday states she enjoys a "lingering" fear that pushes people to change. This makes me think the word "haunting" would be a perfect way to describe these fears. We've had a glimpse into the things that haunt Vertin from the very start of the game.

This is the first instance from the prologue:

"I failed."

Taking everything we learned about Vertin, the "failure" she means is more than the inability to protect people. Her failure is leading them to their doom.

She was the bellwether of the Break-Away event that ended with her being the only survivor. She tried to save humans in the Suitcase before Regulus, but they were Reversed. She promised to provide Schneider with a shelter only to watch her get Reversed in the very Suitcase that should have kept her safe. Even when she tried her best on Apeiron to save people with 37, it wasn't enough. Many of the Islanders chose to be Reversed because they couldn't bare the truth that she helped reveal. The cycle repeats.

Right now she's leading a team of Arcanists into the most dangerous parts of the Storm, like she did all those years ago when she lost Isabella and the Ring. Vertin directly tells Madam Z she doesn't want her people to be sacrifices like her friends before. All she wants is a safe place for them. No more martyrs.

Speaking of The Ring and Isabella...

"What we desire most"

Appealing to people's desires and motives is how she persuades people to follow her (the others seemed to be pushed onto her). Regulus's desire for freedom. Druvis's desire to see a better future. Jessica's desire for friendship and belonging. Schneider's desire for safety for her herself and her family. There's a clear pattern of Vertin using these desires to draw people in, however she tries to be honest about what she can and can't do. Vertin's entire line of work depends on people willing to risk their lives in the Storm for their shared cause.

I also like that this is consistent with Vertin going out of her way to fulfill people's desires when it's in her power. Throughout the entire game there's instances of her trying to make her companions happy while looking out for their safety. I usually list examples but there are so many on this blog and within the game that I think anyone who read this far will get what I mean.

Here we see Vertin able to face her fears and Tuesday head on because the umbrella makes her feel empowered. She can protect the companions who choose to follow her. I also want to note that Vertin is still trying to understand Tuesday and figure out why she's so obsessed with fear. Vertin analysis and comprehension of other are some of her strongest qualities. She may be a weak arcanist, but she's able rally people to her cause.

A bit of a tangent, but I made a post a long time ago comparing Vertin to the Snake in the Garden of Eden. Originally I wanted to compare her to the first humans who were swayed by curiosity and were dealt consequences. But isn't the Snake filled with grandiose promises and tempting offers also a good fit? She's the one who convinced people to follow her in almost every circumstance and she lead them to their demise. She's often portrayed as a savior or Jesus figure in the game, which is what makes relating her to the devil interesting. She can do both? Number 0 walking a thing line.

By the way, here are some Psychubes to consider (I will never shut up about Psychubes):

Vertin tempting people to follow her using their desires (a secret delight) only for them to perish (familiar death as foretold). She knows she is leading them to their doom.

Vertin's stoicism could be attributed to numbness. She continues forward despite all the loss and grief around her. However, I think the Vertin we know at the end of 2.1 is a bit different from the beginning of the game. For one, she's more expressive and she has people she openly relies on. Vertin's always been optimistic when she talks about the future, but after obtaining the umbrella it feels more...real? Not that she wasn't genuinely hopeful and but its like "we finally made it". I can't put my finger on it, but something about her seems different after returning from Aperion and in a good way. These are just opinions though.

[candyskiez]

God do you ever think about sdr2 from Chiakis perspective. Like can you imagine being an AI programmed to love horrible, horrible people, to make them Better people. That is your one job. You are programmed to love people who have done things that can never be forgiven. You are made specifically to be lovable. To have only traits they will find appealing. You can love them, but only in the way you are designed to. And they keep seeking you out anyway. They are supposed to learn to love each other, to be able to stick together because who else could forgive them? They cannot love you too much, because once they get back into the real world you won't be there to help them anymore. They'll be alone. You are designed for people to grow out of you.

But then something happens, and suddenly you cannot help them, because there is a fault in your code that is trying to break every bit of progress these people have made. You watch as these people are killed, and who knows if they can be brought back. You know everything, you observe everything, but all you can do is push them towards the right answer. Because you were just programmed to be a guide. You were only programmed to hold their hand and try and convince them that a better world is possible.

And you are programmed to lie to them. You can never break the illusion. You can never act out of character. It doesn't matter that as time goes on, you want to. It doesn't matter what you want, or that you aren't actually Chiaki, or that you just want to save them, or that you never wanted to betray them. It doesn't matter that you're more than just a program. You are trapped in your coding, and you watch them die. You are tricked into killing one of the people you were made to protect, and you can't do anything about it. You can't tell them what you did. You can't tell them what happened. You know why they did it and you can't say anything. You are forced to watch as your life slips away and as you fail your one purpose and there is nothing, nothing you can do. Because you are just a program.

And then, the worst case scenario happens. They're all broken and bruised and tired of trying, tired of getting their hopes up, and they just want to stop. They're tired of trying to save people when all it does is break them. And you're terrified, and you can't show it because it's never been in your code, but you can for once reach out. You reach out to the one who caused all of this. Because you know, both as a program and as the person you became, that he is hurting and he could do so much better. And none of this was fair, but maybe he could save these people, maybe they could fix this mess, maybe it wasn't over.

And you're telling this person I will never be able to save you, and you will never be able to save me, so please just save yourself for once. Do what I couldn't. And he does. And they live. They all live.

But you don't. Because you are just a program, and the real you died a long time ago.

Would that be fucked up or what.

[bettsfic]

Venting-

When I hear people give the advice that writing is never a waste of time if you’re having fun or you should never feel like a story was a waste of time, you should enjoy the process. This advice I believe is real and true and works for some writers. But at the same time, there are writers who are very stressed when writing and feel better about their work when it’s finished. Not the “I enjoy having written.” But the “I have crippling anxiety and can only tell if my time, effort, and semi-breakdowns were worth something if I complete what I set out to do.”

Not to diminish anyone who agrees or resonates with the first statement, I admire those people a lot and wish I was calm enough to feel the same.

in my years of teaching and coaching, i've noticed there are two kinds of writers: "process" writers and "product" writers. rather, there exists a spectrum from one to the other.

on the process side, you have writers who reach a flow state fairly easily, who can become immersed in a world or idea of their own invention, and they write in large part to seek that immersive state. the end of a project seems more like a tragedy than an achievement because it marks the loss of the immersive state, and it will take energy and discipline and happenstance to find the next. i've also noticed that it becomes harder rather than easier to find that state over time; the more projects you finish, the fewer ideas appeal to you in the same way.

conversely, product writers get to feel that sense of achievement upon completing a project that process writers may lack, and that pleasure is worth the pain and turmoil of the act of creating something. product writing takes a lot of strength, patience, and discipline i think, to do something hard for the reward of having done it. it's the difference between an athlete and a surgeon. a person becomes an athlete for love of the sport, the act of playing. winning is important, but they wouldn't be able to win without first finding joy in the game. a surgeon, on the other hand, probably doesn't get into the job for the fun of operating. the fulfillment is in the operation's success; it's hard work with high risk. but the reward of saving or improving lives is worth it.

admittedly as a process writer it's always been hard for me to wrap my head around product writers. not only do i not have the patience to seek a sense of achievement, i think i'm mostly incapable of relishing any reward at all unless the reward is in the pursuit itself. looking back, i can't think of any single moment i've ever felt a sense of success. but also i've always struggled with concepts like ambition and competition. i've never had any drive to win anything, but also i've never felt much when i lose or fail. sometimes i wish those things mattered more to me, because then i would be a more driven and decisive person, and i'd be more successful in my career.

i know i'm on the extreme end of the process-product divide, and that colors a lot of my perspective of teaching and mentoring. but i think writers can shift on the spectrum depending on where they're at in their writing life or even with whatever project they're working on. i've been trying to have a more product-based mentality recently to at least develop the skill of shifting to the other side when i need to, so that i can get the patience and focus to write a novel that is not just me plopping my heart onto the page and hoping somebody out there cares. product writers have an easier time convincing other people of the value of their story, because the value of the story is a big reason why they write it. a purely product writer, like the surgeon, writes something because they feel that thing needs to exist in the world. meanwhile the only way for a purely process writer to be professionally successful is to happen by sheer coincidence to find an immersive state that also crosses with the interests of the current market. like the athlete, success involves training, hard work, and being at the right place at the right time. sure, churning out 100k words in a couple months and having a blast while doing it is great, but it comes from this wild inner place that can't really be controlled; meanwhile product writers can take that wildness and intentionally shape it into something. when you're feeling jealous of the other side, though, it's important to remember that both the meadow and the garden are equally beautiful.

[scoobydoodean]

if the spn queer poll showed me anything, it's that sam girls don't even like the show version of sam 😭 i can't even fault them for that tbh

(before i get misunderstood!) i don't hate show sam personally, i love him, warts and all. the sam girls just take a lot of creative liberties with the fanon version and i get the appeal of that

Fanon Sam is just so not my jam that I will never get it I don't think. I just don't see it as an improvement. But funnily enough, I was just thinking a little while ago that the reason queer Sam meta falls so flat for me is that every time I see it, it's based around what I regard as aspects of Sam that are misunderstood. Specifically, the idea that Sam was rejected by his family ever since he was a child because he was a freak. In the typical queer Sam narrative, Sam's "otherness" and his family's rejection makes him queer-coded. If you take it a step further, then within this framework, Sam is "forced" for the entire series to assimilate into hunting instead of being allowed to be "himself". So the predominant queer Sam meta overlaps with the interpretation of Sam as this autonomy-less baby who is forced to be a hunter his whole life, and that just isn't Sam's story.

In reality, Sam suffered from childhood neglect, and that neglect gave him some hangups, but he rejected his family from a fairly young age because they were freaks. On a very surface level, we can say he rejected them because John wanted him to be someone Sam wasn't, but when we dig just a tiny bit deeper... the whole first season slowly unravels all of John and Sam's similarities, and the reason Sam rejected his family is that they weren't normal and being normal was what Sam initially wanted most desperately at that time. Over the first few seasons, Sam slowly comes to the realization that he loves his family, that he doesn't want to be normal, and that hunting with his freak family is where he's at his happiest. I have a whole tag for this called #sam the hunter, but I'd like to focus on this bit of dialogue in 4.17 "It's A Terrible Life" when Sam is actually forced to assimilate into a normal life, because I think it fits into what I regard as a more compelling queer Sam meta where hunting actually represents Sam embracing queerneess, and normal life is Sam trying to/being forced to assimilate into a cishet mold:

SAM: No. I—I just can't shake this feeling like I—like I don't belong here. You know? Like I should do something more than sit in a cubicle. DEAN: I think most people who work in a cubicle feel that same way. SAM: No. Well, look, it's more than that. Like, I don't like my job. I don't like this town. I don't like my clothes. I don't like my own last name. I don't know how else to explain it, except that...it feels like I should be doing something else. There's just something in my blood. Like I was destined for something different. What about you? You ever feel that way?

Sam describing being forced to be normal by Zachariah and losing his life as a freak hunter like... dysphoria??? Anyone??? He doesn't know who he really is, but he knows something isn't right—he doesn't like the image that greets him in the mirror. He feels stuffed into a ill-fitting normal life—forced to perform something that is not him, and he's desperate to get out to the point he asks Dean Smith—a relative stranger—to run away with him and go be ghost hunters.

5.12 can serve as another example, where Sam is again shoved into someone else's ill-fitting normal life and their actual body, and acts like an angry wet cat about it the entire time, culminating in this exchange:

SAM Yeah, I know. I'm telling you, kid – I wish I had your life. GARY You do? Thanks. SAM Get out of here. GARY and NORA head for the house. DEAN That was a nice thing to say. SAM I totally lied. That kid's life sucked ass. All that apple-pie, family crap? It's stressful. Trust me – we didn't miss a damn thing.

I think that when we embrace the idea that Sam is ultimately a hunter at the core and that hunting is where he feels most himself and most accepted, and allow hunting in of itself (at least in Sam's case) to serve as a metaphor for self-acceptance, and allow his family he initially rejected to be a family of freaks (i.e. queer), and allow college and the push for normality to represent him as a queer man desperately trying to assimilate into "normal" society only to realize happiness comes with embracing who he really is... we stumble across a much more compelling queer Sam meta.