#go to some other cesspit

[subconscious-deactivated20230229]

If anyone out there sees my blog, no the fuck you don’t.

[miiiwu]

.

[falesten-iw]

On this day last year, my family faced a choice no one should ever have to make: stay in their home in Gaza and risk death or flee south, clinging to the slim hope of finding safety. Spoiler alert: there was no “right” answer. In Gaza, there never is. Families like mine would run from areas labeled dangerous, only to be bombed in so-called ‘humanitarian’ zones. Because in Gaza, no place is truly safe.

Each time they evacuated, they had the same gut-wrenching, desperate conversations on repeat: “Should we stay or go? Where would we even go? Do we send the women and children first, or do we all stick together?” Imagine trying to make life-and-death decisions with bombs falling around you.

One evening, a family friend offered them shelter, hoping the madness would calm down in a few days. My brothers agreed to move everyone there the next morning. But the bombs beat them to it. Just hours after that phone call, Israeli airstrikes hit our friend’s house. Thirty-five people, including children, gone. They never got a chance to move, and instead, they grieved for the lives lost.

They ran to Khan Younis, only for tragedy to follow. In November 2023, Israeli bombs hit my cousin’s house. I lost three cousins, their wives, and their children. It was chaos. Pieces of people scattered everywhere. A small child’s body lay unrecognizable until my cousin realized it was her son, Odi. His head was almost gone, but she knew him. She knew him by the shape of his teeth, his little toes. That’s the kind of loss no mother should ever face.

Since then, my family has moved over 50 times, haunted by the same questions: Where can they go next? How can they afford to survive another evacuation? Will they even manage to set up another flimsy tent?

And speaking of tents, imagine trying to live in one with your children. Picture makeshift cesspits serving as toilets, which fill up in a few weeks, forcing them to dig another. Comfort? Safety? Those words mean nothing. How do you sleep at night when your ‘home’ is a tent and your bathroom is a hole in the ground?

Talking about my family and Gaza breaks me, yet it also brings me a strange comfort. I refuse to let their stories fade. Their memories are beacons in the darkness, bittersweet reminders of joy and sorrow.

My family needs urgent help to survive this ongoing nightmare. Please, donate if you can. Share our story with your friends and family. Help us keep fighting, keep surviving.

Vetted and shared by @90-ghost: Link.

Verified and shared by @el-shab-hussein: Link

Listed as number 282 in "The Vetted Gaza Evacuation Fundraiser Spreadsheet" compiled by @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi : Link

Listed on the Butterfly Effect Project, number 957: Link

Additionally, Al Jazeera News has documented apart of my family's case: Link

If, for some reason, you couldn't donate via GoFundMe, you can donate via PayPal instead.

Note: There’s even a raffle for a handmade Palestinian thob if you want to participate : Link

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[inky-duchess]

Fantasy Guide to Royal Children - Heirs and Spares

The lives of Princesses and Princes are of interest to most fantasy writers, it's where many of our heroes, side characters and antagonists hail from. But what is there life like? Is it always ballgrowns and servants? Or something more?

A Strict Order of Precedence

The first thing to know about royal children and siblings is that there's a very strict precedence of importance. Is it fair? No. But this is a system, it doesn't have to be fair. The heir comes first without argument. They are the most important child, they are always greeted first, they are the one to stand next to the monarch or their parents at occasions, they literally go first - and this doesn't change with age, if the heir is the youngest, they still have precedence over their siblings. After the heir, order of predence goes by age and the order effects the life of the children. For example, the older sister will marry begore any of her sisters. This order of deference will be so engrained in your character's life that they will believe it the norm and rarely question it, it probably won't spark any in-fighting.

Accommodation & Staff

Royal children are usually raised one of two ways. Either they are raised at court, in the same Palace as their parents or they are raised away from court under the care of trusted servants. Being raised away from their parents isn't a sign of remoteness or dislike or terrible parenting, it was a way of break a child into the constraints of royal life while giving them freedom of scrunity or danger. Usually these children are raised in the countryside for their health, as cities are usually cesspits for disease. Their parents would come to visit them or allow them to visit them at court. Children raised at court are raised with a higher level of scrunity and attention. They will be in the public eye.

Royal children will always be surrounded by staff. There will be nurses to wash and dress them, nannies to discipline and direct them, guards to protect them and usually, a guardian known as a governess to run their household and care for their needs. Staff are not allowed to hit royal children and must obey their commands. Some royal children were very close to their staff:

Kat Ashley and Elizabeth I

Baroness Lehzen and Queen Victoria

Klementy Grigorievich Nagorny and the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich

Lala Bill and Prince John

However, some royal children faced neglect from their staff. George VI was abused by his nanny, who would pinch him during important occasions, openly favour his elder brother over him and deny him food, which many have been a cause of his speech impediment. After the Russian Revolution, another of the Tsarevich's nannies proved less loyal than the other. Andrei Yeremeyevich Derevenko abandoned his charge, but not before ordering the boy around and insulting him.

Day to Day Life

Royal children would be educated withing their home by tutors. They would usually take lessons all together (the heir may take other lessons). A royal child would recieve an education in languages, arithmetic, geography, etiquette, dancing, music, sports such as riding and literature. Sometimes they would even share lessons with the children of trusted nobles or their cousins. Only the heir will be taught statecraft and how to reign. There is no rhyme nor reason a spare would learn how to rule.

Some royal children are taught the value of their position. Many royal children will be raised strictly to adhere to their social standing and their place in it. Some children may be raised in isolation, kept from mingling and raised to think of themselves as higher than those around them. Some royal families preferred to raise their children as "normal" as possible. The last Romanov children slept in camp beds, with no pillows and we're expected to tidy their own rooms and help the servants. They didn't even use their proper titles, they were called by their names and given a tight monthly allowance to spend. Alexandra of Denmark and her sisters used to make their own clothes. Some royal children could even be encouraged to play with the children of servants and staff as well as nobility (Kolya Derevenko and Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, Winifred Thomas and Prince John). Companionship was a great honour for noble and common child alike as sometimes, they would be invited to live or be educated alongside by the royal children.

Royal children will not undertake royal duties until they are of age. Younger children be be present for large scale events such as jubilees but would not be expected to partake in any duties themselves. When they are of age, they will usually be granted an annual allowance, be invited to social events, invited to be patrons of charities and participate in royal duties.

Heir Vs Spare

Heirs have more responsibility, all the prestige, more power but they have less freedom, less room to explore their own lives and be expected to always be the epitome of perfect. Heirs will be given responsibilities in government, sitting in on state meetings or undertaking state duties.

Spares have little in the way of real power but have the ability to live less regimental lives and gave more agency in their personal lives. Spares may act as ambassadors to other nations or undertake state visits on behalf of the monarchy or even take positions in the army. Spares are encouraged to find positions to support themselves outside the family, either in a marriage or undertaking some service to the country. Spares who stay in the country, tend to act as unofficial advisers to their sibling when they become monarch.

All Grown Up

When royal children grow up, there are usually certain expectations and limitations.

Heirs will be married quickly, the lineage must be secure. Heirs will usually marry either as part of a political alliance or marry somebody suitable - from a good family, the right background, and able to fit into a certain mould (i.e malleable, amiable and loyal). They will be expected to focus on the country, it's needs and support the monarch at all times. Their social circles will be scruntised, their every move will be noted and remarked upon. Heirs will never gave to worry about funding their lifestyle, the Crown is their job and it supports them.

Spares can marry or remain single if they choose, (but if the monarch instructs them go marry they must). Spares can travel, they can be idle, they can even persue amusements not permitted for the heir. Spares can win glory on the battlefield and mix with all sorts of people. That isn't to say spares are useless, spares often occupy very important spaces in society and government. Spares will usually take these positions not for just status but also for the pay. This is why spares are granted royal titles such as dukedoms (they can make money off the lands, be able to build a dynasty for themselves and their heirs and gain status).

[pseudowho]

In Flagrante Delicto

Higuruma Hiromi will fight your help and guidance every step of the way...until one night, he catches himself needing you desperately.

An AU where Higuruma is forced into the employ of Jujutsu High after his role in The Culling Games.

Warnings: 18+, sex pollen!, angst, smut and fluff, Hiromi being willing to argue with anyone about anything, with a little bit of sex pollen needy Hiromi

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Higuruma Hiromi was undoubtedly the most difficult mission you had ever been given.

Tasked with walking Hiromi through 'the systems' of the Jujutsu world, you, a sorcerer who had been introduced to this world more conventionally, had absolutely nothing in your armory to counter the veritable force of nature that this man was.

You argued, constantly. He forced you to acknowledge the hideous insufficiencies and injustices in the system you worked for, at the most inconvenient of times.

Your patience was a finely tuned machine. You had perfected your ability to debate and discuss the ethics and morality of Jujutsu sorcerer activity, both legal and illegal, over a number of years.

But Higuruma Hiromi had driven you to drink. One evening, sat at home, deeper into a bottle of wine than you had anticipated, you received two messages in quick succession; one, from Yaga ("Mission with Higuruma tomorrow. Details to be sent over by Ijichi") and the other, from Higuruma ("I look forward to continuing our discussion tomorrow"), and you groaned, sinking the rest of your wine, and hoping it was enough to get you through the chaos of Higuruma's mind.

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"So," you started, approaching the subway with Higuruma, "lots of late-night civilian disappearances on this one line," you pointed to your map, "and two Second-Grade sorcerers have already disappeared in separate incidents. What does this tell you?"

Higuruma was silent, musing as he tapped his gavel lightly against his hip. Reaching his conclusion, he turned to you with a wry smile: "That your higher-ups knew, by the first Second-Grade's death, that a Second-Grade wasn't strong enough, but sent another Second-Grade anyway."

You sighed, deep and weary, "While that's probably true, we don't know they're dead--"

"Well they're not playing Scrabble, are they--"

"--and that's not the answer I'm looking for--"

"Well, I'm not here to be charitable, or unrealistic."

"Oh, are you here to be insufferable?"

Higuruma half-laughed, "Preferably. God forbid I should be sufferable--"

You swiped his gavel from his hand, and tapped him sharply on the forehead, "Higuruma. Please. I'm begging you," you clasped your hands for dramatic effect as he assessed you, a sardonic half-smile in his hooded eyes, "the quicker you play the game, the quicker you and I can go our separate ways and you can just go out and do this by yourself."

Higuruma's lip curled up in bitter distaste. He wiggled one finger into the knot of his tie, loosening it with an irritated twist of his neck. "I'll reiterate," he said, considered and flat, "that my joining the Jujutsu sorcerer's established hierarchy is a Hobson's Choice."

"If I want to go about making some positive changes to this cesspit," he spat, "I have to prove myself trustworthy in their eyes, and atone for my crimes by playing their game." Higuruma approached you, his chin tilted down as he looked through you, with sombre eyes.

"And the sad thing is," he said softly, now inches from you as you burned under his scrutiny, "you've been playing their game for so many years, you've convinced yourself that the rules are fair."

You swallowed, meeting his gaze; your agreement with him passed as an unspoken pact, but you were, as of yet, unable to betray your established part in this system with words. Higuruma nodded, slowly, understanding.

"So I'll inconvenience you as little as possible," he reassured, "and try to be a good boy today." You closed your eyes, breathing in through your nose, and out through your mouth, counting to ten. Opening your eyes, you caught up to Higuruma, who was already halfway down the empty subway steps.

"Please don't go ahead without me," you pressed, "I know you're not completely inexperienced, but fighting Curses is much more nuanced than fighting Curse-users."

"But they're brainless, right? By all means they're probably easier." You tilted your hand from side to side.

"They fight on instinct. We can be guilty of overthinking something that's primal for them. I'd never assume I can out-think evolution."

Higuruma hummed, satisfied with your answer. You were relieved to have averted another argument. Reaching the bottom of the steps together, your shadows were short in the low eerie glow of the empty subway system.

"So the victims got on a train, but never got off it," Higuruma confirmed with you.

"But it hasn't been the same train every time, so it seems to--"

"--pick a host. Right. And you've asked the station master to keep to the same train schedule tonight?"

"Mhm. No people around though."

"So, we could always just get on trains until we're attacked."

"That is completely reckless, and I won't--"

Higuruma breezed away down the corridor, his slim suited figure sloping away so lackadaisically that you felt annoyance bubble up in your throat.

"You don't have to come," he called back, relaxed and confident, "I've got this covered." You ran after him, grabbing his upper arm. He stopped, annoyed and impatient.

"Just...trust me," Higuruma urged, "try something new. You may be pleasantly surprised." He gripped your hand, firmly breaking your grip as he stared you down.

"How can I trust you? I barely know you."

"Then why are you worried about me?" He taunted, heated and scathing, "Not really what you lot do, is it? Worry about each other?"

"Well I worry about you," you snapped, "I worry about you every day and every night since they tasked me with taking care of you." You swallowed, embarrassed by your outburst. Higuruma hesitated briefly, looking...touched? He spun round, his back to you now, tapping his gavel in irritation against his thigh.

"That settles it then," he said, convicted and grabbing you by the hand, "you've got to come with me. It would be cruel not to let you worry. Come along."

You were pulled through the dim corridors of the subway system by Higuruma Hiromi, protesting the whole way.

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"-- so stupid, you could have died--"

"-- but I didn't, and I'm fine, so stop worr--"

You slapped the wounded shoulder you were currently patching up for Higuruma, and he made a noise of protest as you scolded him, "Stop telling me to stop worrying," you cried, pressing gauze to his cuts, "because I've worked in this shitty system for years, so I know that if we don't worry about each other, nobody else will worry about us, and you have no regard for your own wellbeing--"

Higuruma's head snapped up, smiling, "So you agree," he pressed, excited by the new development, "that the higher-ups have no intention to safeguard any of you--"

"--I never disagreed with you, Higuruma. You just...missed the point. As usual."

Higuruma turned, unable to look you in the eye as you continued dabbing the back of his shoulder. His eyes beseeched you to continue, dark and quizzical.

You continued, your voice tight and upset, "Whether or not we fight back against the higher-ups, makes no difference. Almost every sorcerer in this wreck would go where they were sent anyway, because at least we have a chance of defending ourselves against the monsters out here."

You sighed, taping bandages down, Higuruma's bleeding now settled, "So that's what I decided to do. I expend my energy protecting the non-sorcerers because they're the weakest link in the equation. They can't defend themselves. It's the right thing to do. I'll fight the big fight on my days off."

Higuruma was quiet, allowing himself to be chastised. He rolled the gavel between his hands. He suddenly felt so exposed, shirtless in front of you, feeling every touch of your soft hands as they assessed his ribs, and he gulped, unusually unable to find the words to say.

"Do you, uh...do you want to grab a drink? After we're done here," he offered weakly, eager to spend time with you outside of these roles you were forced to play.

"No," you emphasised as he rubbed his nose, "you'd probably tell me my drink order was wrong." Higuruma sunk his face into his hands, laughing.

"I'm not that bad--"

"You are dreadful. I love the...the passion you have, but I'm just...I'm tired. I'd rather go home." Higuruma nodded, thoroughly shot-down, respecting your refusal.

Sloping home that night, insisting he'd prefer to walk over being dropped home by Nitta, Higuruma considered he may have been fighting the wrong person for weeks now. Torn between 'playing the game' to get out from under your feet as soon as possible, and resisting becoming part of another broken, unjust system, Higuruma found himself erring unusually on the side which benefitted you over anyone else.

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In the midst of battle, you found yourself separated from Higuruma, cold dread seeping into your belly as you realised there was nobody else here to save him from himself. Distracted, you took a major hit, thrown by some sordid thrashing beast down an old brick staircase.

You had largely protected your body in swathes of your own Cursed-energy, but still had the breath forced out of your lungs as you had hit the wall below. The Curse, enormous and puce-coloured, roared down the stairs after you.

Trying to stand on a dice roll, your numbers came up short and you stumbled, heart lurching into your mouth.

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You and Higuruma had been assigned to clear out a growing populace of curses in an abandoned block of flats. Trying to talk to him, to plan tactics and methodology, Higuruma had seemed quietly indifferent towards you on the journey there. Refusing to engage with you on any serious level, he seemed almost bored of you, staring impassively out of the window throughout.

You tried not to be hurt, reminding yourself you were here to assess whether or not Higuruma was safe to act independently as a sorcerer. After his series of murders in the Culling Games and before, he was offered two choices: work for Jujutsu High, or refuse and face being hunted down and executed. But, he was an adult, and his safety was ultimately not your jurisdiction if he refused to take your advice.

And yet...the thought of his death by any means filled you with a sickly dread.

Because in reality, Higuruma represented the idealism, the ethical standards that working within a broken system had steadily stamped out of you. Your anger towards him was a projection of your own shame at having fallen into line when you wanted nothing more than to rebel, to protect the weak, including your own colleagues, despite the resistance.

Even worse, Higuruma saw this, and his disappointment in you only deepened your shame. You were meant to be 'helping him' to adapt to your world, and you felt sick to your stomach as you tried to contaminate this man. You felt sicker still as you felt yourself creep closer and closer to his way of thinking, wondering if you fit in this world anymore.

You couldn't tell him how deeply you admired him for being everything you had fallen so far from.

After efforts to interact had fallen flat, you sat beside each other in stony silence. Still, you felt, despite his feigned indifference, anger poured off him, not cold, but white hot.

"What have I...what have I done?" you asked, afraid of the answer.

Higuruma looked at you, eyes still glowing like little coals in his impassive face; "What have you done?" he retaliated. You sighed, a short breath out of your nose.

"...you're not ready to be sent out alone yet. You're reckless and you've got by on luck so far, but--"

"--so you saw fit to carry on this babysitting charade by telling the higher-ups that I'm a danger to myself and others around me." Higuruma scowled at you, not trying to conceal his fury anymore. You blushed, feeling the shame twist in your throat.

"...you...assume you're going to come out on top in every fight, so you don't assess the danger before you jump in, and it's just a matter of time before-- before you--" You reached out to take his hand, desperate to communicate your fear for him in a way he would understand. Higuruma moved to pull his hand away and you held on harder.

"I just...couldn't stand to see you die some pointless death," you urged, "I need-- we need men like you." Higuruma appeared unmoved, silently allowing you to squeeze his hand. Eventually, his long fingers slowly closed around yours.

"I don't think anyone's cared about me this much in years," he replied, as lightly as if he were talking about the weather.

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Brickwork and rubble clouded your vision as the floor rumbled beneath your feet, the Curse blown sideways, shunted by a comedically large gavel. You felt a taut-muscled arm loop around your waist, yanking you to stand-- "get up, come on-- NOW!" -- and you half-ran, half-staggered through a devastated corridor. Your heart sank as you spotted the staircases downward completely collapsed, leaving you both stranded on the fifth floor.

Higuruma appeared, dusty and spitting, wiping residue out of his eyes and slamming his hand to a button on the wall. In a wild flurry, the Curse turned the corner, screeching and hissing, and with a *ping* the lift doors opened. Not looking back at you, Higuruma shoved you into the open lift, slamming his hand on the button again for the doors to close.

"No-- Higuruma! Hiromi!" You skidded across the lift on grazed knees, wedging your arm between the doors with a yell as they closed around it. The lift didn't move down, and you heard Higuruma's incoherent shout of rage at you as you forced the doors open, reaching out for him and dragging him in by the back of his collar, and hammering the 'close doors' button repeatedly as the Curse, still dazed and staggered, made its headlong rush towards you.

As you fell into the lift with Higuruma, you felt a hand press behind your head, its fine bones crunching as it cushioned your head's strike against the wall. You sat, slumped, Higuruma's body over yours in a protective cage, as the doors slid closed, denting inwards as the Curse hit them with a metallic thud, and a roar.

Silence. Higuruma, silent and seething, reached behind him to press another button. The lift started a smooth descent downwards.

"I had it," he spat, lips curled upwards, nose wrinkled in animated fury, "and you stopped me-- for what? Why?"

You gulped, coughing brick dust out of your lungs as you croaked, "You were lunch. You were that close to being killed--"

"--do you really think I'm that inept--"

"--you're not inept, just inexperienced--"

"I'm not a fucking child!" Higuruma's voice rang, deep and final, around the lift. The lift pinged as you reached the bottom floor. You sighed again, pushing him away from you as you stood, moving towards the doors.

"We'll regroup and consider our plan of--" A wiry arm blocked your path, holding down the 'close doors' button.

"We are not finished," Higuruma pressed, enunciating every syllable with gritted teeth. You rested your hand on his forearm, gentle and weary.

"I am. I'm finished." Higuruma stared at you incredulously, hackles still raised. You continued, "I can't coddle you anymore. You're a smart man, you're happy you know what you're doing. So I'm finished. I won't keep fighting you for your own life, Hiromi."

Hiromi deflated slowly, unable to fight without an opponent. His lip still curled, he refused to move his arm from blocking the door, looking away from you as his fury simmered low.

"I'll clear you with the higher ups. Do what you want to finish up here. I'm done." Still, Hiromi didn't let you go, silent as your hand stayed tenderly on his forearm. A few heartbeats passed between you.

"The thing is, Hiromi...you've already lost the fight when you think the result is the most important thing. Being willing to put yourself forward to defend people, going through that fight for them...that's the really noble thing. Any idiot can win a fight. It takes guts to stand up and decide to fight in the first place."

Reaching past Hiromi to press the 'open doors' button, the lift flooded with daylight, muted by the external veil. Hiromi's arm dropped, beaten. As you moved to step past him, his fingers gently tangled in yours, your hands ghosting together between your bodies.

"Can I...can I buy you a drink? To thank you." You swallowed, throat thick with conflicting emotion. You hesitated, then nodded. Hiromi smiled down at you, something unreadably tender in his eyes.

He leaned slowly down, and pressed a soft-lipped kiss to your forehead; "thank you."

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You didn't get to go out for that drink. After giving the higher-ups your approval for Higuruma to be released, he was thrown headlong into mission after mission.

You sent him occasional texts, and he messaged back, usually dry witty commentaries on the jobs he'd been given. You found yourself missing him, feeling little golden bubbles of joy when your phone pinged, his name on the screen.

It had been a week since your disastrous argument in the lift. You still felt guilty for having abandoned him, still not feeling he was ready, but knowing he had to find his own footing at this point.

Late one evening, you dried your hair with a towel, padding around your apartment in just your underwear as you got ready for bed. You jumped and squeaked with alarm as someone hammered on your door. Grabbing an oversized t-shirt from a pile of laundry, you pulled it on over your head. Approaching the door, cautious, you were alarmed to feel--

"...Hiromi?"

Hiromi leaned against your doorframe, his head on his forearm, and he looked at you with feverish eyes, panting, apparently in pain. His dishevelled suit, and a blossoming bruise beneath his right eye placed him as a man fresh from a mission.

Without hesitation, you gripped Hiromi by the hand and pulled him into your apartment, closing and locking the door. Immediately your hands grasped his cheeks, looking deeply into his eyes, a look of such sweet concern on your face that he gulped, overwhelmed, desperate.

"What happened? Why are you here? You should get to Shoko--"

"I don't want Shoko," he spat, chest heaving as he turned away again, pressing his forehead to his fist against the door, "I want...I want you." You blushed, pleased he had come to you for help, but your medical knowledge was limited.

"What happened?" You asked again, hands cautiously ghosting over his abdomen, checking for injuries.

Hiromi groaned, low and slow, as he burned from the inside out. Your touch shot through him like a thousand arrows. His fingers seared his skin as he fumbled, trying to undo his own tie, and you took pity, reaching round him, your small hands cool against his neck as you removed his tie for him. You felt him tremble against you.

As his collar opened, you spotted a narrow, inch-long dart in his neck, like a cactus prickle. Curious, you plucked it out and dropped it onto the sideboard near the door. Is he poisoned? You questioned yourself in a panic, and you grasped him by the cheeks again, looking deeply into his eyes, terrified you'd watch the life ebb out of him, unable to do anything.

"What do you...what are you feeling?" You took him by the hand, guiding him to your sofa and forcing him to sit as you stood in front of him. His sloped eyes were narrow, taking in your barely-covered legs, the barely-concealed nubs of your nipples beneath the t-shirt fabric. Hiromi reached out with a shaking hand, grazing his fingers up your calf and your breath hitched.

"...Hiromi?" His hooded eyes flicked up to yours as his fingers stayed on your calf. Oh, you looked so uncertain, so concerned for him, and it was...delicious.

"It hurts," Hiromi croaked, "I need-- I-- I need--" His throat was tight, and you took him in, how desperate he looked, how needy, and the realisation clicked into place.

"You need...me?" Hiromi shuddered, recalling how he'd walked directly into an obvious trap while hunting down this godforsaken Curse, not taking in his surroundings, stubborn and certain in his ability to prevail--

"I'm sorry," he whimpered, cock throbbing, trapped against his thigh, his whole body burning from the inside out, "I was wrong."

"Oh, so you do know how to flirt," you teased and he huffed out a laugh, groaning again, in agony, and he begged, shameless, his head leant forward to press against your tummy as his hands crept up, eager to grasp your hips and pull you straight to his mouth.

"Please...please--" he whined, and you shivered feeling his hot breath on your belly through the fabric of your t-shirt, tangling your hands into his hair. Hiromi trembled, letting out a sandy growl against your clothes.

"Don't stop me, please," he urged, "I can't...I can't stop myself." He flipped your t-shirt up and you gasped, his strong hands sinking into the plush of your hips, holding you to his mouth, his tongue tasting you as he swiped open-mouthed kisses just above your underwear.

You felt sweet pleasure throb between your legs, all good sense thrown out of the window as you felt how deeply you had missed Hiromi, how ridiculously grateful you felt to be needed by him in this way, and you breathed to him, "You know I'd always help you."

Hiromi moaned his appreciation, his mouth now slipping down to the front of your underwear, and his tongue traced the shape of your pussy, groaning at the taste of you on the tip of his tongue. Your knees buckled, weak with the feeling of his mouth against you.

His lean arms hooked around the back of your knees, lifting them over his shoulders as he leaned you back against him. You cried out, when leaning forwards to grasp the back of the sofa, your clothed pussy pressed firmly against Hiromi's face.

You blushed as he breathed you in, his hips bucking instinctively upwards, aching to be inside you, cum heavy in his balls and desperate for release. His teeth grazed your pussy through your underwear, and he nuzzled into you, trying to part your folds with his nose through the fabric. Impatient, and feeling your hand sink into his hair again, he used two fingers to swipe your underwear aside, sinking his tongue instantly between your folds.

You whined so beautifully above him, and he undid his trousers, pulling his cock out of his trousers, gripping it tightly as he rubbed his nose and tongue urgently between your soft lips. Hiromi began to stroke himself furiously, squeezing hard at the tip, pre-cum dripping down his fist, shivering at the pleasure.

You allowed Hiromi to use you, your keening voice rising as he latched onto your clit, sinking two fingers into your pussy with no warning, thrusting them roughly into you. You bucked your hips against his face as he whimpered his approval. You blushed as you heard the frantic plaps of Hiromi pleasuring himself, your brain foggy with bliss.

Hiromi's fingers bullied into you, desperate to study you, imagining how deliciously his cock would stretch those plush walls. The constant pressure of his fingers against your cervix and his desperately nuzzling tongue and nose between your folds had you reeling, humping his face as you trembled and shook, Hiromi encouraging it as you approached your orgasm.

Your pleasure peaked, sharp and sweet, and Hiromi held you tightly to his face, still determined to taste you, drawing your orgasm out until you quivered, overstimulated, feeling your heart pulse between your legs. As Hiromi shook from his own orgasm, but not at all relieved and panting, cum dribbling down the front of his shirt, he dropped you into his lap.

You gripped the front of his shirt, his cum sticky against your belly. His hand tangled into your hair as he crushed his lips to yours with bruising force, forcing you to taste him. Nipping your bottom lip between his teeth, he whispered, begging again.

"Inside you...please, please..." You nodded again, and Hiromi threw your shirt off over your head, leaning back to drink you in; panting, trembling, straddling his lap, what the fuck was he playing at by fighting with you for so long--

Your hands worked nimbly at the buttons of his shirt, unbuttoning and pressing it down his arms and you leaned forwards, almost as hungry as him as you took his nipple into your mouth. Hiromi hissed with delight, kicking off his trousers, shoes and socks and rocking your hips against him.

Hiromi grasped your hands, pressing one to his cheek, and one to his chest, forcing you to lean forwards as you shamelessly cast your eyes up and down his lean body, his muscles twitching with the electricity of your core on his aching cock. His teeth scraped against the thin skin on the inside of your wrist, your shivers like a sedative to him.

His eyes burned into yours, hot and pleading in the dark. His body was a furnace against yours, desperately craving a cure for the agony he was in. You lifted one leg off him, intending to stand to remove your underwear, but stopped as Hiromi all but sobbed against your wrist at the sudden loss of pressure on his cock, throbbing and sticky with cum against the neat, black hair on his belly. His fine-boned hands pressed you hard against him, before methodically tearing the sides of your underwear, flinging the scrap of fabric to the side.

When you grasped his aching cock, Hiromi was almost blinded by the anticipation, his hands flinging out sideways to grip the fabric of the sofa, and he panted, whimpering and pleading as you rubbed the angry red head of his cock between your folds, gathering wetness.

When you sank slowly down onto him, crying out as your walls fluttered around him like wet velvet, Hiromi came again with  a shout, faint with bliss and temporary relief, feeling his own seed drip out of you and onto his thighs. He growled in frustration when, after his cock had stopped twitching inside you, he felt the need to cum again build up within his belly, overwhelming him with an almost violent urge to pursue it.

"...Hiromi? Do you...is this...?" You rode him slowly as he twisted in pleasure and anguish beneath you. Reaching up to grasp your breasts like stress-balls, Hiromi shook his head desperately at you, feeling pathetic and helpless. He was corseted by his intense need to not hurt you. You leaned into him, whispering reassurance and soft nothings in his ear.

Hiromi couldn't take it anymore. Standing up, holding himself inside you and locking your ankles behind his hips, he flipped you over, crushing your thighs to your chest. Grasping the back of the sofa, Hiromi snapped his hips against yours with determined precision, his shoulders tight and mouth slack as with every thrust he felt the urge to push harder, deeper, to empty himself inside you again and again, until you were putty in his hands, until he had cleansed himself of this unscratchable itch.

You clawed for purchase on anything as you were pounded into the sofa, drunk on the sensation of being so full, your insides feeling thrillingly bruised, the tenderness building, slow and intense. Reaching up, you plaited your fingers in Hiromi's at the top of the sofa, and he leaned down, nipping and kissing your knuckles in grateful affection.

The air was filled with the wet slaps of your joint bodies, and Hiromi's constant soft whimpers as you came again, this orgasm burning through your body as you hiccuped, tears streaming into your hair.

"Please please please...please, please," Hiromi begged as his next orgasm surged ruinously through him, dropping him to his knees on the edge of the sofa. Hiromi felt his senses return to him with each pulse of cum that left his body, relieved...for now.

Weak, exhausted, Hiromi flopped onto you, wrapping your arms and legs around him in a full-body embrace, suddenly feeling so touch-starved. Hiromi almost wept his thanks into your hair, and you stroked his hair in soft circles with your nails, all reassurance and acceptance.

By the time you had made it to your bedroom and slipped, sticky and spent, between the soft covers, Hiromi's eyes had returned to you, hungry and burning, his fingers stroking through your folds, fascinated by the drips of his seed still leaking out of you. He had flipped you over and pinned you prone to the mattress, sinking into you and moaning your praises as you had clenched, trembling with overstimulation, sucking his cock into your aching body.

Throughout the night, his relief had waned, with longer and longer gaps between him seeking out the warm acceptance of your body. You would wake to his body flush against yours, Hiromi lifting your leg over his hip as he sunk into you, mewling and panting in the night.

Finally, you had woken with sunlight streaming through the windows, Hiromi draped around you, looking soft and exhausted as he slept; Hiromi woke to the smell of coffee and you, very much ready to be cared for...and, occasionally, argued with.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Ugh, yes. Debate me, lawyer daddy.

[artbyblastweave]

I may have mentioned this before, but there’s one thing I find cesspits like, for example, r/kotakuinaction useful for, and that’s for periodically reestablishing a grounding kinda baseline for misogyny. Like, as much discourse about feminism and sexism that you see on this site, when you get down to brass tacks that entire digital slugfest is occurring within the shared frame that misogyny is a bad thing to do and a misogynist is a bad thing to be. People are going after each other, a lot of the time, for second-order signifiers of misogyny, unexamined biases and un-unpacked ideas. And that’s at least a start, right? But then you go on kotakuinaction or some similar space and whoa Nelly. Hoo boy. Good golly fuck. This is unreconstructed misogyny. Undiluted 100-proof woman-hating. This is the thing casting the shadow on the wall of the cave

[pikahlua]

Wait pika do you really mean don't ask you about predictions? Some of my favourite Tumblr posts of all time are your thoughts, theories and predictions! :((

Please sleep also, but when you can let us know what's going on in that head of yours. I'm desperate for someone with a brain cell to discuss this chapter! (Twitter is a cesspit)

I mean, you can ask lol. I just sometimes get these vague "any predictions?" asks and it's like, YES. YES I HAVE SOME. BUT IT'S FAR TOO MANY TO JUST LIST LIKE THAT, CAN YOU PLEASE BE MORE SPECIFIC?

Okay, I'll tell you about my thoughts.

This is a new frame of the scene in chapter 1. This perspective doesn't exist as a drawing in chapter 1, but we know pretty easily what this scene was about. Why is Horikoshi putting the scene here though? Why does this scene have the line "Let go of One For All"? Why not draw Kudou saying it, or Izuku's reaction to it? Is it because this is a memory of the scene where Izuku receives OFA, so giving OFA up is coming around full circle to this moment again?

I don't think so.

This is not the moment where All Might proclaims "you are worthy of inheriting my power" and Izuku looks up in shock. This is the moment where All Might says the words Izuku has longed to hear his whole life: "You can become a hero."

We're coming back to this moment now because the emphasis is on Izuku's upcoming choice. This is about the MEANING Izuku places in OFA. All Might told Izuku "you can't become a hero without a quirk," then shows up to tell Izuku he can become a hero...by giving him his quirk.

To Izuku, letting go of One For All is sacrificing his greatest dream. He believes by giving up One For All, he can no longer be a hero. Even though there have been moments where All Might let on that the reason Izuku deserves to have OFA is because he's already a hero, Izuku never seems to internalize that answer. He thinks his heroism is tied to being the bearer of One For All.

No one has ever told Izuku he can be a hero without a quirk.

I said before I had a big guess about why Katsuki's memory was wiped at the end of Heroes Rising. Notably, he is allowed to remember most of what happens. His memory cuts off from the moment Izuku passed One For All onto him. Do you remember what Katsuki said after he got OFA?

"This is the end of your dream then, too, huh?"

That's the last thing he ever says on the matter. Sure, it's the moment where Izuku answers with "It's okay if it's you" and all that, but Katsuki never responds to that. We don't know what he's thinking about this moment.

The only clue we have is the fact that he accepted the quirk from Izuku, and how he reacted to that. He seems quite upset by the prospect, but in the end he relents and accepts OFA willingly.

Perhaps the issue he is grappling with in his heart in these moments is not the fact that he has to inherit OFA but that Izuku has to lose it. Which means...the reason he loses his memory is because his reaction is important. It's a moment we will have in the manga, which makes it a spoiler.

We've never heard Katsuki tell Izuku what he thinks of quirklessness now. All he's ever told Izuku is that way back when, he thought it meant Izuku was supposed to be beneath him. He doesn't even tell Izuku why he felt like somehow Izuku was actually above him.

He's also only ever told Izuku his actions were correct ever since he received One For All, nothing about before.

I think Katsuki's reaction to Izuku losing OFA--which could come before the final battle or after--will have to be about his feelings regarding Izuku's quirklessness. I think Izuku is going to be incredibly hurt by losing One For All because he'll think he has lost his dream, and Katsuki is going to have to set him right, because only Katsuki knew who Izuku was before he had One For All. All Might is the only other person who had at best a glimpse of Izuku.

I think Katsuki has been coming to terms with just how special Izuku is, how heroic he always has been, and that he's the only one capable of acknowledging it in a way Izuku will be able to hear because he knew Izuku before he got One For All. I think he's been grappling with this possibility ever since DvK2.

And I think he grapples with it again in Katsuki Bakugou: Rising.

In the same way Izuku saw something great in Katsuki that he wanted to cling to so he could see what Katsuki would one day become, Katsuki has always seen something great in Izuku, which awed and scared him. Their greatest divide was in not knowing what greatness the other saw in them. Katsuki has to tell Izuku what Izuku is to him.

Katsuki has to tell Izuku the words he's always wanted to hear, that he can be a hero, quirk or no, that Izuku always has been a hero, more than anybody else. Katsuki knows the truth of it firsthand.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Ketheric continues to be the member of the Chosen I struggle to get a grip on. Like the other three I can tell you the details of why (I think) they grew up to monsters:

Long post.

-

Let's start with Gortash: spent his childhood being told he was a selfish monster for his thoughts - apparently from birth - for the way he perceived the world, for *checks notes* wanting his parents attention as an undeveloped human being that relies on its parents to survive and thrive.

Then his parents send him to hell as part of a deal. Because that's where monsters go isn't it? They go to hell to suffer eternal damnation because they were monsters in life.

So you grow up in one of the literal cesspits of the universe, where the only people you meet are the literal scum of the universe, or those you're going to learn to see as weak fools who had to rely on others - and were ultimately willing to commit atrocities themselves - who were taken advantage of by the scum of the universe. You get to the Hells by committing atrocities, either because you want something so badly you'll fuck somebody over for it (out of greed, or because you couldn't fix it yourself (weak)) or because you did them of your own volition. And curiously, some of these people had their price tags wrapped in such subtle terms they don't even realise they did anything wrong! Lesson learned; anyone will willingly be a monster if you make the evil sound nice. Every single devil you meet has had the humanity flayed from their soul, and they got to where they are in their existences by fomenting (and committing) hate and rape and murder and everything evil under the sun as a regular Monday morning in the ultimate goal to make the universe an evil place. Devils are also 'self made men', everybody started from nothing as a lemure and clawed their way to where they are now. Every social interaction in the Hells is manipulation and abuse. Everyone there hurts everyone.

But you do have one example of a good person! There's Hope! Lovely lady, kind and sweet... Trapped in hell being abused forever going insane because of it because your ambitious sister fucked you over. That's where trust and love being a good person gets you.

And that was his entire social life. That was the people he had to look to for examples. All his early experiences were limited to a sample of the absolute worst it has to offer, and he has a very skewed view of the universe.

And the fact that he's apparently so damn good at sex a lady gave him a ring worth everything she owns after growing up around a pleasure devil whose role is harming and corrupting people with sex and has built in charm person at etc is not ringing alarm bells(!) I'm not side-eyeing the boudoir at all.

I wonder why having a child/teen spend their formative years in the evil factory literally designed to spit out monsters... spat out a monster? Kudos to Karlach, though: just how many layers of defence mechanisms has she got in her brain?

Gortash's thought processes are 50% through the lens of engineering and 50% through the lens of a devil's perspective to me. People will sell out others for their own gain, because they're too weak to do it themselves or because they're bastards. If you don't get with the programme you're the victim. You only get ahead by being ruthless. Everybody is untrustworthy, and relying on them will get you betrayed. The world is divided into the weak and the ruthlessly strong who take what they want. Yes, he's a monster. And so are his parents. And so is everyone. And then Bane saw this perfect example of his way of thinking and said 'that one.'

-

Orin: obviously we've got grooming. The fact that her formative memories include her mother trying to murder her, and the fact that she feels like the only person who has ever cared about her or supported her is her grandfather. Who is implied to have been raping her, or intending to. All she's permitted is to have her brain poisoned by her faith, which her life revolves around, and then her kin 'does it all wrong' and inherits everything she's been groomed to believe is hers. But no, 'they're not wrong,' says everybody around her 'you are!'

She's a Bhaalspawn, so her relationships with her kin are "kill or be killed," as Helena proved. You will please father by slaughtering your siblings, or you will die - or worse. You must be and stay favoured by Bhaal above all the others to be truly safe ("safe"), and Durge outranking her is a threat to her existence. Actually Durge existing is a threat to her well-being. She has no way to live a life outside the cult, never has and never will. Her life is insanely lonely and mostly consists of paranoia.

But the overlaying theme here is that she's a changeling. She's mirrorkin with no unique physical identity of her own, she can only reflect those of others. To be dnd canon accurate: she has no real facial features, no pigmentation. She's not permitted an identity of her own, and was punished for trying. She's a mirror born and raised to reflect the glory of Bhaal, the glory of her failed grandfather, the rise of Bhaal's favourite child. Never her own. Gee, I wonder why she literally wears people's skins.

Denied the ability to do anything but live according to what she's told, she does her best to live up to it because to fail is to become her parents and the countless aunts and uncles currently enjoying their damnation in the Throne of Blood. And then she's told she's doing it wrong. By everybody. She's a 'rabid dog'. She, despite having doctrine poured into her ears and probably carved into her flesh her entire life 'doesn't understand Bhaal.' And everybody is insanely patronising about it! You're never allowed to be anything but what we tell you to be, but you're still not good enough! Which is death. The Temple of Bhaal needs murder feminism.

-

The Dark Urge is my favourite little nightmare, and I've talked about them at length: much of Orin's trauma also applies to them, although where she's a mirror made to reflect the egos of others, Durge is only allowed one identity: Bhaal's. Where Orin can never seem to reach the standards forced on her, Durge is never allowed to fail to meet them, or else. Every outside connection they ever had was brutally sabotaged, and they've had 'you're a monster and only I (your abusive Father) can love you' drilled into their mind. They hate themself. We got the threat of sexual exploitation (assuming it didn't happen), there's a subtle undercurrent of incest to some interactions. The prayer for forgiveness kind of sums it all up: 'I'm sorry for forming an emotional connection that isn't blind love for you father, but don't fret, I'll destroy it with my own hands just like everything else and then finally get to kill myself just like I've always wanted.'

-

But Ketheric? Like villains don't need tragic backstories to be terrible people, but it does make them more interesting.

OK, so your bio family is fucked up and I definitely get the impression that they sucked (Malus is giving me vibes that say he'd have been a villain anyway, and might've been secretly Sharran to start with; Gerringothe seems to be drowning whatever her issues are in gold), and then the loving family you made for yourself broke: your wife died, and your daughter died, sure. But plenty of people on Toril probably have similar if not the same stories and didn't go evil overlord! Why are you doing this? What is informing these decisions? Why does your existence hinge so much on your dead daughter that your son is basically named after her and you seem to hate him for existing and not being her? Does Shar have something to do with it? Has Ketheric just carved out so much memory and emotion, so much of his own identity, that all that's left is the grief and the hunger for the pain to stop but, as per Shar's intent, it keeps coming back, with less and less positive memories to soften the pain. A wound that festers and never heals. Is the obsession with Isobel because she's the icon of everything that was good in his life, and her loss was the moment everything good was gone? Was he a rational man who turned to Shar to stop the pain in a moment of understandable grief and rage at her sister, and then was trapped in a cycle that destroyed everything that was good in that man until we get the General?

Just guess working my way through his entire backstory...

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

"Oh dear, what an awkward situation."

Awkward indeed… 😅

With this, I’ve completed the “Rollo is tormented by visiting the dorms” series of headcanons 🫶 Hope you enjoyed, Roro-chan 💕 (I still have some Rollo at the Writing Desk interactions to post after this, so technically his torment isn’t over quite yet…)

A Big Diasomnia Welcome to Rollo!

“At last, I have completed my itinerary. There is nothing more for me to see here, nor do, at Night Raven College.” That’s what Rollo tells himself as his stay crawls to its final few days. He has done it—through sheer mental fortitude and hatred he has endured this cesspit and avoided being dragged into Draconia's domain!!

Rollo is returning to his temporary quarters for the night when he notices that the fireflies are out. Glowing orbs flit by him in a slow, showy dance. Strange, he thinks. It’s well into autumn now. They shouldn’t be out past summertime.

... But something is wrong. The fireflies are swarming, coalescing into a single humanoid form. There is a blinding flash, and the glowing orbs are flung outward again, ushering in a new presence. Tall, dark, handsome, and crowned by a distinctive set of devilish horns. Rollo takes a stumbling step backwards. "YOU!!"

Malleus Draconia, in the flesh. The fae prince gives a toothy smile, reaching out a hand to him. "Good evening, Flamme. What an honor it is to be reunited with you. It has been far too long.”

“Not nearly long enough if you ask me,” Rollo snaps. He turns away and briskly walks toward his housing, prepared to slam the door in Malleus’s face—but Malleus has poofed away and reappeared to block his path. “Going so soon? But we’ve yet to have the chance to properly catch up. I was going to extend an invitation to a most extravagant dinner party in Diasomnia."

"I have no interest in such a thing," Rollo declares, weaving around him. "Good-bye." This time, Malleus does not follow. He stands there, eyes intensely bearing into Rollo as he flings open the door to his abode and... "What in the world?!"

Beyond the frame is not the usual foyer, but instead a sinister new scene, morbid stone and diamond-stitched furniture faintly illuminated by eerie green candlelight. An ominous throne waits along the far end and up two mirrored slights of stairs. The Diasomnia lounge.

Rollo whips his head back, glaring at Malleus. "You're responsible for this wicked enchantment, aren't you? You're not giving me any say in this matter." To that, Malleus only darkly chuckles. "It is the duty of any good host to ensure that his guest is comfortable and feels... welcomed. Fufufu, I am playing my part well, wouldn't you agree?"

"Feh! To weaponize your magic for such a trivial, petty thing... I never thought the great and powerful Malleus Draconia would be so low as to stoop to kidnapping," Rollo glowers. "You continue to drop the bar of my expectations for you. I would be impressed if I didn't utterly loathe you and your entire existence. Know this, Draconia: I won’t fall for such an obvious scheme. I would sooner set myself ablaze than play into your hands."

Malleus doesn’t seem to be bothered by the declaration so full of passion and hatred. He grins mysteriously and waves a hand. “Silver, Sebek. You may do as you will with our dear guest.”

A collective “YESSIR!!” sounds from behind Rollo—he turns too late, for the two guards have emerged and reached out from the magical doorway to Diasomnia. Rollo (helplessly struggling like a fly caught in a spider’s web) is seized by the two burly men and hauled through the gate, Malleus casually strolling in and closing the door after himself.

Rollo is (aggressively) seated on (well, more like chucked onto) one of Diasomnia’s couches. His body aches from the impact, his vision swimming from the shock. Sebek and Silver loom over him, preventing his escape.

“Sorry about this,” Silver says apologetically. “Malleus-sama’s orders.” Sebek, on the other hand, is far less forgiving. “Hmph!! Consider yourself fortunate that the young master is as merciful as he is! AND THANK HIM FOR THE INVITATION IN SPITE OF YOUR PREVIOUS TRANSGRESSIONS!!”

“Now, now! Let’s not scare the poor lad, boys,” a deep voice advises them. FWUMP!! A short boy with dark hair and magenta streaks descends from the ceilings, spooking away what is left of Rollo’s soul. “Lilia Vanrouge, vice dorm leader of Diasomnia."

Lilia vigorously grabs and shakes Rollo’s hand. His grip is immense—a contrast to his youthful appearance—practically crushing Rollo’s fingers. Rollo yanks his head back in alarm. "Teehee, did I do that?" Lilia asks innocently. "Silly me, I don't know my own strength!" (... Rollo doesn't believe him.)

"So excited to finally meet you! I’ve heard so many stories—like how you’re the first person to have struck fear into the heart of our Malleus.” Beaming like the sun on a cloudless day, Lilia leans into their guest’s ear and whispers, “There had better not be any of the same stunts you tried to pull the night of the masquerade~ You try any of that funny business again and Lilia-chan will make sure you regret it <3”

Rollo is unnerved by the message—it’s friendly and teasing, but a vaguely threatening tone lies beneath it. When he looks again at the young-looking boy, he sees the darkness radiating off of him, the ancient wisdom in his eyes. A shiver rolls through his spine.

"Kufufu. Juuuust kidding! Let's all be the best of friends, okay?" Lilia says with a cheeky wink. Rollo's not sure if his cheer or his seriousness is more disturbing.

Malleus is so glad that everyone has gotten acquainted! It’s been so long since they’ve had the opportunity to host someone. He looks as jubilant as a kid in a candy store (whereas Rollo looks like a cat on the side of the road that someone splattered with a puddle’s worth of muddy water).

Before the meal, Malleus is eager to show Rollo the dormitory (“You enjoy history, Flamme. Diasomnia has plenty of it to offer. Allow me to show you—”). Rollo is sandwiched between Malleus (who leads the way) and Sebek, Silver, and Lilia in the back and at his sides. (He glares at the back of Malleus’s head and quietly wills for him to meet a fiery and painful end.)

... Likewise, Sebek is glaring and thinking the same of Rollo. He's only keeping his trap shut in the presence of Lilia-sama and Malleus-sama!! (Silver sighs to himself, wondering if this evening will really play out alright.)

Malleus rattles off details the past and the antiques which decorate Diasomnia. (There is of course a segment about gargoyles too.) In any other scenario, Rollo would have found the information fascinating--but darn that Draconia for tainting this experience for him!! (With each fact Malleus provides, Rollo's face increasingly twisted with disgust.)

Every so often, Sebek interjects with loud praise for Malleus's wealth of knowledge. His fanboying is so incessant that it echoes in Rollo's head long after the compliments have already been uttered out loud. Where's the brain bleach when Rollo needs it the most?

He thinks he’s hallucinating things when he sees a stampede of animals heading for him from the other end of the hallway—but as they get bigger and louder, Rollo realizes that no, it’s very much real. The animals surround Silver, who greets them with a soft smile and introduced his friends to Rollo.

“Do you want to pet them, Rollo-senpai?” Silver offers. Rollo calmly replies, “No thank you. I do not make it a habit of handling animals outside of the occasional horse—” Too bad for him though, squirrels and birds are already nesting in his hat and a deer is chewing on the ends of his robes…! Rollo’s eyes twitch in annoyance as he goes about untangling himself from the deer and shooing away the birds and squirrels.

When they arrive at the dorm rooms, Lilia pipes up with an idea: "I know! I'd like to show our guest some things from my room. It'll be just like a sleepover." (Rollo frowns. "... In what way is this like a sleepover? If possible, I would like to avoid it." Sebek agrees, vehemently advising against showing "the enemy" their private quarters.)

Lilia shakes his head and wags at finger at him. "You should be more accepting, Sebek! Yesterday's foes can be today's friends." (Silver and Malleus agree with Lilia, so it's 3 votes to 2.)

"Welcome to Lilia-chan's ultra-cute heart-thumping bedroom <3" ... It's the most cluttered place Rollo has ever laid his eyes on, even worse than Idia's. He strains to hide the disgust on his face. Lilia for his part, is ecstatic. He rushes about the room, collecting armfuls of trinkets and artifacts to show off. Each comes with its own story from a different part of Twisted Wonderland.

Lilia even shows off a massive cleaver he claims he used “back in the day to cut my enemies down~” It launches Sebek into another round of extolling his superior. Meanwhile, Rollo stares blankly at the weapon and wonders how much of what Lilia just said was fact and how much of it was fiction.

"You know, Rollo-kun, there's so much we can learn from other people and cultures," Lilia tells him, holding up a handkerchief of his own. Rollo recognizes it as one from the City of Flowers--the joke items children blow into to release smoke and confetti, startling others. (Hmm? Did Silver purchased an extra one for his vice dorm leader? Hadn’t he just gotten one for his father?) "I hope that you can keep an open mind tonight."

“… Yes, I will try.” (It’s a lie.)

Using his own handkerchief as a makeshift mask, Rollo does his best to not inhale too much of the air of this magic-infested place. Lilia asks him if he's feeling ill (Rollo is tempted to respond, "Yes, I am sick... sick of you lot of fools!"), to which Rollo replies that he's feeling peckish.

“Shall we head into the dining room?” Malelus suggests, but Lilia tells him, Sebek, and Silver to go ahead of him and Rollo. (“You boys run along and make the necessary preparations! We’ll catch up later.”)

When it’s just the two of them, Rollo finds Lilia staring wistfully into a tin. Some withered old acorn bracelet is inside. It’s nothing special, but Lilia looks at it as though it’s the greatest treasure in the entire world. He replaces the lid and regards Rollo and a serious expression.

“… I empathize with you, you know. Losing a loved one is never easy. I don’t wish for anyone—not even my worst enemy—to experience the pain that I did. It hurts, I know—but there is an opportunity to heal, to learn, to grow. That’s why I will do everything in my power to protect that dream, to bring about a world of peace and love, not war and hate. It is my hope that you, too, recognize this. The last thing I would want to do is to obliterate Malleus, Sebek, and Silver’s first friend from Noble Bell College.”

Rollo frowns, disconcerted by the promise of peace and love. No, it’s just not possible in a world where magic exists. “We will have to agree to disagree. I have my convictions as well. I do not intend to waver. And a correction: we are NOT friends.”

Lilia giggles. “What are friends, if not people who spend time together and get on each others’ nerves? You are plenty friends with them, if only you would allow yourself to be.” He prances over to Rollo and taps him in the heart. “Riiight here.“

“Wha…?! G-Get away from me!!” Rollo bats at the ancient fae, who only laughs and runs off with Rollo in hot pursuit. He chases Lilia all the way down the hall, where they’re both stopped by the sight of the dining room.

It’s lovely—an obsidian black tablecloth thrown on a long table, their best china and silverware out, crystal vases of fresh cut roses and candelabras alit with pulsating green flames welcoming them. Platters of succulent food and drink float in the air, suspended by magic.

“Dinner is served,” Malleus announces. With the way of his hand, the dishes slowly settle onto the table. The dorm leader beckons everyone to sit. Silver and Sebek nod and obey. Lilia claps his hands in delight. Rollo wants to vomit in his mouth.

The seating arrangement is deliberate. Malleus at the end of the table, Lilia on one side of him and Rollo on the other. Silver sits next to Lilia, and Sebek next to… Rollo… “Why does HE get the honor of the seat across from Lilia-sama and next to the young master?! THAT SHOULD BE ME!!!” Sebek thunders. (The entire meal, Rollo feels the first year angrily staring at him.)

Rollo forces himself to eat the food that has likely been prepared by magical means. He figures that if his mouth is preoccupied with eating, then he won’t have to engage in whatever stupid conversations Diasomnia brings up.

Sebek talks about a book he has been reading. He visibly puffs up as he recites the details of it, like he’s an eager puppy expecting praise for his memory. Silver mentions that some of his bird friends will migrate south soon, and that he will miss them until their inevitable return in the spring. Lilia tells a story about a raid he went on with his gaming buddy (Gloomy Samurai) and how he dove off the stage during one of his club meetings. (One of these things is not like the other, Rollo thinks.)

At one point in the meal, Silver almost falls asleep in his soup and a flock of birds have to work together to lift his head up and avoid disaster. Rollo cringes at the wild animals being so close to their food—who knows what manner of diseases they carry or where they’ve been?! Thankfully, he manages to keep his mouth shut, as he’s sitting far enough away for his own food to be safe.

Though Rollo keeps avoiding speaking to Malleus, Malleus certainly doesn’t do the same. In fact, he seems to delight in provoking Rollo. Malleus will talk excitedly about gargoyles and then make an aside to ask Rollo, “how do the gargoyles of Noble Bell College fare?” The same trend occurs for other topics as well. It makes Rollo nearly choke on his food or spit up a drink more than once.

He tries to keep his replies short and to the point, but Malleus often presses for elaboration or continues the conversation from Rollo’s response. (Sebek looks on enviously, chewing on his napkin to stave off the anger.)

Lilia declares that he has a surprise for everyone!! He runs off and returns with a dish covered by a silver dome. Silver pales, Malleus is taken aback, and Sebek is suddenly grinning deviously. “Ta-daaaah! I made dessert in advance!! I thought to myself, ‘I can’t let our dear guest walk out without trying some of my world-famous cooking!’”

Lilia whisks the lid off, revealing… a bubbling blob in shades of brown, violet, and murky green. Chicken bones, bits of chopped fruit, and shredded greens peek out from its mushy surface, which appears to have the consistency of a liquid and a solid at the same time. It smells like skunk juice and death. Rollo uses his handkerchief to hold his nose and to keep from being ill.

“Rollo-senpai, I don’t think you should…” (“Come now, human!” Sebek says smugly, interrupting his fellow knight. “Lilia-sama went to the trouble to prepare this treat for you! Do not waste his valiant efforts!!”)

“You think I would sample a dish so obviously dubious?!” Rollo cries, offended at the idea. “How foolish do you think I am?!” (“Oh my, no need to fight over my cooking, boys!” Lilia chirps. “There’s plenty to go around!” But no, Sebek loudly insists that their esteemed guest eat it all up—after all, when will Rollo have the chance to be graced with Lilia’s cooking again?)

As they’re arguing, no one noticed Malleus scooping a spoonful for himself until he has the bite hovering close to his lips. Sebek, horrified, begs his liege to think better of it. Silver, too, warns him. (Lilia cheers him on. “You have such a healthy appetite!”)

“Please, young master!! You know what the consequences are…!!” Sebek pleads with him. Malleus insists he must do this. “It is a show of good faith—and furthermore, a leader is expected to make sacrifices for the good of his people.” (Rollo feels like he’s watching a historical soap opera.)

Malleus brings the spoon to his mouth (Sebek leaps across the table, fully intent on eating that bite just to protect his prince from it) and… collapses onto the floor in a heap. His knights immediately rush over, calling out his name and trying to rouse him. Lilia claps both hands over his mouth.

Rollo rises from his seat too, but not for the reason anyone expects. His expression slowly shifts from neutral to a frenzied excitement. “Hm… hm hm hmm… ha ha hah… HAAAH HAH HAH HAH HAAAAAH!! At last… At long last, Malleus Draconia’s revolting presence has been wiped clean from this world! Slain by the hands of your own retainer…! Betrayed by your trusted ally, done in by your own hubris!! Oh, how ironically delicious!! There could be no better way to conclude what has been an otherwise odious evening!!”

Silver gaped at him in horror. Sebek is consumed by anger and upset. “WHY, YOU NO GOOD—!!” The first year charges, tackling Rollo to the ground. Silver follows, trying to pry the two apart. There’s shouting and laughing, fists flying and fumbling for a magical pen to exact righteous judgment—

Lilia calmly walks over to the body and crouches down. He pokes his fallen dorm leader’s cheek. “… Malleus, don’t you think you’ve scared them for long enough? I’m all for theatrics, but it’s a rather cruel prank to pull on our guest~” He pouts. “Besides, it’s not like my cooking is bad! You’re being overdramatic.”

“HUH?!” The three boy look on (Sebek and Silver in relief, Rollo in horror) as Malleus smoothly rises like a corpse from the grave. He chuckles darkly at their shocked expressions all the same, drinking in their surprise like a monster might relish in fear. Malleus dusts himself off and gives a luminous smile. “Forgive me, I could not help myself.”

A teary Sebek flings himself at Malleus to happily sob at his revival. Silver shakes his head, but he’s smiling too.

Rollo comes down from his high, and embarrassment sets in to replace it. He sits back in his seat to keep from collapsing himself, taking steady and deep breaths through his handkerchief.

They clear up Lilia’s dessert (no one’s in the mood to try any more of it since the prank) and move into the lounge to unwind after dinner. (Rollo tries to leave early, but Malleus isn’t having it.)

Sebek happily volunteers to prepare coffee for everyone! He parades in with a tray of it, passing them to Malleus, Lilia, and Silver—in that order. “… I’ll take mine with a little milk,” Rollo requests, as he’s usually used to a cafe au lait to go with his lunch every day.

Sebek needles him a bit for the request, going on and on about how he can’t believe an adult would still take their coffee with additives and how truly immature Rollo must be if he can’t stomach coffee black. He’s (unintentionally) undercut when Solver bluntly points out that Sebek usually takes his with tons of milk, creamer, and sugar to balance out the bitter edge. This causes Sebek to flush red and stammer out a weak defense, and Rollo smirks. It’s the little victories like this that curb his temper.

Malleus puts on a violin performance for them all. He plays a stringed rendition of the Kindly Bellringer’s song, a wish for a hope-filled future. (Rollo hates to admit it, but Malleus has impressive technical skill as a violinist.)

Sebek is nearly moved to tears just listening. Silver has to stop Lilia from rushing to join in with his electric guitar, offering to dance with his vice dorm leader instead. Their height difference makes for a silly sight as they swing together, but they have a lot of fun doing it.

… Rollo doesn’t understand it. How can this group of misfits be so happy like this? Looking at them, they almost come off like some happy-go-lucky family. Even though they don’t share blood. Even though they’re so different…

It is late. Again, Rollo tries to excuse himself. His mind is fried and worn out from all the excitement and the stress of forced friendship with Diasomnia. Unfortunately for him, Malleus has one more trick up his sleeve. The prince promises, however, that it is the last one. “… Why should I trust you?” Rollo asks, to which he gets no answer. Malleus and Lilia only exchange a knowing look.

The group is led out into the garden. Unlike that of Heartslabyul or even Pomefiore, Diasomnia’s is not lush. Thick plants grow over everything, bearing bramble sharp enough to draw blood and driving onlookers away.

One powerful wave of ice magic is all it takes to convert it into a winter wonderland. Light snowfall drifts down upon an icy road, the thorns turned into abstract works of art encased in glass. Rollo begins to berate Malleus for his lax use of magic for his own pleasure, but Malleus just laughs and tugs Rollo along insisting that they build a snowman together.

Sebek calls after them, asking Malleus to please wait for him too! It’s Lilia who tells Sebek to stay behind and to give those two some space to settle their differences. “B-But Lilia-sama! What if that dastardly man attempts to take the young master’s life again?!” Sebek protests. (“I’m sure our Malleus can handle it!”)

Lilia whips out his cleaver (where was he hiding that on his body this entire time?!) and carves down blocks of ice into shaved ice for everyone! This, he claims, is his dessert redemption arc now that everyone is in good spirits once again.

Sebek helps with fetching bowls, spoons, and an array of flavored syrups for everyone to customize their shaved ice. Silver and his animal friends contribute toppings for them: fresh fruits and nuts!

… Rollo begrudgingly joins Malleus in the snow but males his own snowman instead of collaborating just to spite him. Malleus’s Olaf snowman comes out short and lumpy with a tall head and a carrot nose. Rollo’s is tall and thin, lying on the ground with Xs for eyes and two sticks shoved into its head. “It’s you,” he tells Malleus, pointing to the stick “horns”. (“Oh? I’m flattered.”) “You’ve perished,” Rollo clarifies. To his dismay, his rival barely bats an eye.

Malleus starts to blast alternating water and ice, creating dynamic sculptures—platforms to hop on, odd shapes to climb and to slide down. He easily navigates them (with an angry Rollo struggling to keep up, shouting at him about how he needs to keep “a leash” on his frivolous use of spells).

Malleus lands on the ground again, practically skating on just his feet alone. With a glance at the big moon above, he laughs. It reminds him of the night of the masquerade—and so he turns to Rollo, extending his hand a second time and asking to share a dance.

“Have you lost your MIND, Draconia?!” Rollo huffs. Malleus assures him that he hasn’t, then pulls him onto the ice anyway. They’re set effortlessly gliding, their robes swaying in the wintery wind. Rollo’s not even bothered by the cold now—he’s operating on the hot fury that’s burning within him.

“Are you happy with this evening of tormenting me and having me dance in the palm of your hand? Well? Are you?!” Rollo hisses. Malleus grins, and he looks particularly wicked under a veil of moonlight. “Very. It’s good to know that you are still as amusing as you ever were, Flamme. How goes your repentance, hmm?”

“I don’t have to answer to the likes of you. You and your minions have already out me through quite a bit of distress tonight.” (Malleus doesn’t seem to be bothered by the response. “Fufufu. Looking away so stubbornly has its own charm as well.”)

“I won’t press you further. There will be plenty of time in the future for us to catch up.” Rollo begins to object, but Malleus isn’t listening. He raises one hand to the sky, his volume booming. “Allow me to offer you a parting gift to end this evening… a token of our everlasting friendship between man and monster.”

Who is man and who was monster? a small, doubtful voice in the back of Rollo’s head wonders. He rushes to squash it before those embers turn into an all-consuming wildfire.

A brilliant aurora shoots out and overtakes the night. So many colors crackling and melding into one another, its ribbon-like motions seemingly never ending. From all around Diasomnia, mob students look out of their windows and stare at the sky in pure wonderment. It’s like a dream has come to life before their very eyes, and everyone is dancing under it. Even Rollo is stunned into silence by the beauty of the aurora.

No, he tells himself. This is wrong. It’s a product of magic. It’s not meant to be like this. Magic is ugly and harmful and selfish and…!!

A shooting star streaks the dark, diamond/studded sky. “Make a wish, Flamme,” Malleus encourages.

Rollo looks at him, then takes the deepest breath he possibly can. His shout resonates throughout Diasomnia, rattling antiques and rousing sleepy Silver awake.

“I SWEAR IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO, I WILL BE THE ONE TO TEAR YOU DOWN ONCE AND FOR ALL, MALLEUS DRACONIAAAAAAAA!!”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How monopoly enshittified Amazon

In Bezos’s original plan, the company called “Amazon” was called “Relentless,” due to its ambition to be “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” Today, Amazon is an enshittified endless scroll of paid results, where winning depends on ad budgets, not quality.

Writing in Jeff Bezos’s newspaper The Washington Post, veteran tech reporter Geoffrey Fowler reports on the state of his boss’s “relentless” commitment to customer service. The state is grim.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/amazon-shopping-ads/

Search Amazon for “cat beds” and the entire first screen is ads. One of them is an ad for a dog carrier, which Amazon itself manufactures and sells, competing with the other sellers who bought that placement.

Scroll down one screen and you get some “organic” results — that is, results that represent Amazon’s best guess at the best products for your query. Scroll once more and yup, another entire screen of ads, these ones labeled “Highly rated.” One more scroll, and another screenful of ads, one for a dog product.

Keep scrolling, you’ll keep seeing ads, including ads you’ve already scrolled past. “On these first five screens, more than 50 percent of the space was dedicated to ads and Amazon touting its own products.” Amazon is a cesspit of ads: twice as many as Target, four times as many as Walmart.

How did we get here? We always knew that Amazon didn’t care about its suppliers, but being an Amazon customer has historically been a great deal — lots of selection, low prices, and a generous returns policy. How could “Earth’s most customer-centric” company become such a bad place to shop?

The answer is in Amazon’s $31b “ad” business. Amazon touts this widely, and analysts repeat it without any critical interrogation, proclaiming that Amazon is catching up with the Googbook ad-tech duopoly. But nearly all of that “ad” business isn’t ads at all — it’s payola.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/not-an-ad/#shakedowns

Amazon charges its sellers billions of dollars a year through a gladiatorial combat where they compete to outspend each other to see who’ll get to the top of the search results. May the most margin-immolating, deep-pocketed spender win!

Why would sellers be willing to light billions of dollars on fire to get to the top of the Amazon search results?

Prime.

Most of us have Amazon Prime. Seriously — 82% of American households! Prime users only shop on Amazon. Seriously. More than 90% of Prime members start their search on Amazon, and if they find what they’re looking for, they stop there, too.

If you are a seller, you have to be on Amazon, otherwise no one will find your stuff and that means they won’t buy it. This is called a monopsony, the obscure inverse of monopoly, where a buyer has power over sellers.

But monopoly and monopsony are closely related phenomena. Monopsonies use control over buyers — the fact that we all have Prime — to exert control over sellers. This lets them force unfavorable terms onto sellers, like deeper discounts. In theory, this is good for use consumers, because prices go down. In practice, though…

Back in June 2021, DC Attorney General Karl Racine filed an antitrust suit against Amazon, because the company had used its monopoly over customers to force such unfavorable terms on sellers that prices were being driven up everywhere, not just on Amazon:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#prime-facie

Here’s how that works: one of the unfavorable terms Amazon forces on sellers is “most favored nation” status (MFN), which means that Amazon sellers have to offer their lowest price on Amazon — they can’t sell more cheaply anywhere else.

Then Amazon hits sellers with fees. Lots of fees:

Fees to be listed on Prime (without which, your search result is buried at the bottom of an endless scroll):

Fees for Amazon warehouse fulfillment (without which, your search result is buried at the bottom of an endless scroll)

And finally, there’s payola — the “ads” you have to buy to outcompete the other people who are buying ads to outcompete you.

All told, these fees add up to 45% of the price you pay Amazon — sometimes more. Companies just don’t have 45% margins, because they exist in competitive markets. If I’m selling a bottle of detergent at a 45% markup, my rival will sell it at 40%, and then I have to drop to 35%, and so on.

But everyone has to sell on Amazon, and Amazon takes their 45% cut, which means that all these sellers have to raise prices. And, thanks to MFN, the sellers then have to charge the same price at Walmart, Target, and your local mom-and-pop shop.

Amazon’s monopoly (control over buyers) gives it a monopsony (control over sellers), which lets it raise prices everywhere, at Amazon and at every other retailer, even as it drives the companies that supply it into bankruptcy.

Amazon is no longer a place where a scrappy independent seller can find an audience for its products. In order to navigate the minefield Amazon lays for its sellers (who have no choice but to sell there), these indie companies are forced to sell out to gators (aggregators), which are now multi-billion-dollar businesses in their own right:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/10/monopoly-begets-monopoly/#gator-ade

This brings me back to the enshittification of Amazon search, AKA late-stage (platform) capitalism. Amazon’s dominance means that many products are now solely available on the platform. With the collapse of both physical and online retail, Prime isn’t so much a choice as a necessity.

Amazon has produced a planned economy run as capriciously as a Soviet smelting plant, but Party Secretary Bezos doesn’t even pretend to be a servant of the people. From his lordly seat aboard his penis-rocket, Bezos decides which products live and which ones die.

Remember that one of those search-results for a cat-bed was a product for dogs? Remember that Amazon made that dog product? How did that end up there? Well, if you’re a seller trying to make a living from cat-beds, your ad-spending is limited by your profit margin. Guess how much it costs Amazon to advertise on Amazon? Amazon is playing with its own chips, and it can always outbid the other players at the table.

Those Amazon own-brand products? They didn’t come out of a vacuum. Amazon monitors its own sellers’ performance, and creams off the best of them, cloning them and then putting its knockoffs above of the original product in search results (Bezos lied to Congress about this, then admitted it was true):

https://nypost.com/2021/10/18/jeff-bezos-may-have-lied-to-congress-about-amazon-practices-reps/

If you’ve read Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin’s and my new book about market concentration in the entertainment industry, this story will be a familiar one. You’ll recall that Amazon actually boasts about this process, calling it “the flywheel”:

https://twitter.com/rgibli/status/1561761732108107777

Everything that Amazon is doing to platform sellers, other platforms are doing to creators. You know how Amazon knocks off its sellers’ best products and then replaces them with its clones? That’s exactly what Spotify does to the ambient artists in its most popular playlists, replacing them with work-for-hire soundalikes who aren’t entitled to royalties.

You can learn more about how Spotify rips off its performers in the Chokepoint Capitalism chapter on Spotify; we made the audiobook version of that chapter a Spotify exclusive (it’s the only part of the book you can get on Spotify):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/#stunt-publishing

Entertainment and tech companies all want to be the only game in town for their creative labor force, because that lets them turn the screws to those workers, moving value from labor to shareholders.

Amazon is also the poster-child for this dynamic. For example, its Audible audiobook monopoly means that audiobook creators must sell on Audible, even though the #AudibleGate scandal revealed that the company has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from these creators. (Our chapter on Audiblegate is the only part of our audiobook on Audible!)

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audiblegate

Then there’s its Twitch division, where the company just admitted that it had been secretly paying its A-listers 70% of the total take for their streams. The company declared this to be unfair when the plebs were having half their wages clawed back by Amazon, so they fixed it by cutting the A-listers’ pay.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/22/amazon-vs-amazon/#pray-i-dont-alter-it-further

Twitch blamed the cut on the high cost of bandwidth for streaming. If that sounds reasonable to you, remember: Twitch buys its bandwidth from Amazon. As Sam Biddle wrote, “Amazon is charging Amazon so much money to run the business via Amazon that it has no choice but to take more money from streamers.”

https://twitter.com/samfbiddle/status/1572667269284777984

As Bezos suns himself aboard his yacht-so-big-it-has-a-smaller-yacht, we ask him to referee a game where he also owns one of the teams. Over and over again, he proves that he is not up to the task. Either his “relentless” customer focus was a sham, or the benefits of cheating are too tempting to ignore.

Historically, we understood that businesses couldn’t be trusted to be on both sides of a transaction. The “structural separation” doctrine is one of the vital pieces of policy we’ve lost over 40 years of antitrust neglect. It says that important platforms can’t compete with their users.

https://locusmag.com/2022/03/cory-doctorow-vertically-challenged/

For example, banks couldn’t own businesses that competed with their commercial borrowers. If you own Joe’s Pizza and your competitor is Citibank Pizza and you both have a hard month and can’t make your payment, will you trust that Citi called in your loan but not Citibank Pizza’s because they had a more promising business?

Today, all kinds of businesses have been credibly accused of self-preferencing: Google and Apple via their App Stores, Spotify via its playlists, consoles via their game stores, etc. Legislators have decided that the best way to fix this isn’t structural separation, but rather, rules against self-preferencing.

Under these rules, companies will have to put “the best” results at the top of their listings. This is doomed. When Apple says it put its own ebook store ahead of Bookshop.org’s app because it sincerely believes Apple Books is “better,” how will we argue with this? Maybe Apple really does believe that. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it does, but only because of motivated reasoning (“It is difficult to get a product manager to understand something, when their bonus depends on them not understanding it”).

The irony here is that these companies’ own lawyers know that a sincere promise of fairness is no assurance that your counterparty will act honorably. If the judge in Apple v. Epic was a major shareholder in Epic, or the brother-in-law of Epic’s CEO, Apple’s lawyers would bring down the roof demanding a new judge — even if the judge promised really sincerely to be neutral.

https://marker.medium.com/moral-hazard-and-monopoly-42e30eb159a8

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if Amazon’s enshittification is because Bezos was a cynic or because he sold out. Once Amazon could make more money by screwing its customers, that screw-job became a fait accompli. That’s why it’s so important that the FTC win its bid to block the Activision-Microsoft merger:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/23/exclusive-feds-likely-to-challenge-microsofts-69-billion-activision-takeover-00070787

The best time to prevent monopoly formation was 40 years ago. The second best time is now.

Anti-monopoly measures are slow and ponderous tools, but when it comes to tech companies, we have faster, more nimble ones. If we want to make it easy to compete with Amazon, we could — for example — use Adversarial Interoperability to turn it into a dumb pipe:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/01/dumb-pipes/#original-asin

That is, we could let local merchants use Amazon’s ASIN system to tag their own inventory and produce a realtime database. Customers could browse Amazon to find the things they wanted, with a browser plugin that turned “Buy It Now” into “Buy It Now at Joe’s Hardware”:

https://doctorow.medium.com/view-a-sku-32721d623aee

But this only works to the extent that Amazon’s search isn’t totally enshittified. To that end, Fowler has a few modest proposals of his own, like requiring that at least 50% of the first six screens be given over to real results, not ads.

“Perhaps 50 percent sounds like a lot to you? But even that rule would force Amazon to show us at least some of the most-relevant results on the first screen of our device…Amazon wouldn’t comment on this suggestion.”

[green-eyedfirework]

There were few places Slade hated as much as the Upper Eastern Seaboard.  New York City, Bludhaven, and Gotham—all stinking cesspits of cities, all with too many heroes to be healthy, and, most unfortunately, all thriving with crime.

Once, just once, couldn’t someone pay him to murder someone in Hawaii?  A nice, easy vacation in the middle of the Pacific, some actual fucking sunshine, air that doesn’t smell like a rotting dumpster…  But no.  Instead, Slade gets the scent of decomposed fish over brine, neon, garish lights, and the shallow, glitzy, faded glamor of Bludhaven.

Party cities are the fucking worst.

Not for his job, no, it makes his job very easy as he tracks down a Mr. Winston Cokewell to the Palais, a mid-range casino and hotel that is definitely owned by someone on the wrong side of the law, if the guards and their nonstandard guns are any indication.

Slade cases the building, noting multiple entry points but also multiple guards—Cokewell isn’t major enough a player to have his own security, and given his client’s discretion, is probably unaware that there’s a contract on his head.  But Slade has no doubt that the moment he steps into that casino, every criminal in this city is going to know that Deathstroke’s here.

People tend to get a bit twitchy when he shows up.  Can’t imagine why.

Luckily for him, there isn’t a business in this city without fingers in multiple pies, and it was easy enough to rustle up an invitation to the underground auction taking place the floor below the casino.  Slade casts a glance across the rooftops on habit, making sure there’s no costumed hero trying to sneak up on him, and descends to the alleyway behind the casino.

As predicted, the guards freeze at the sight of him.  One grabs his gun, wide-eyed, the other just looks terrified as he stalks towards the back entrance.  “I believe I’m on the guest list,” Slade said, fully suited up and mask on.  If he was in charge of security, he’d never let someone in without confirming their identity, but the two guards look relieved that they don’t have to stop him and just wave him inside.

Amateurs.  Slade reminds himself that it makes his job easier, and lets it go.

The stairs leading down would be dark to a normal human’s eyes, and the corridor he emerges in shadowed and gloomy.  There’s several people standing there—his target is nowhere to be seen, but half of Bludhaven’s underworld is milling around in tight-knit groups.

“Mr. Deathstroke!” the host exclaims, placing himself into Slade’s path, “I wasn’t—we didn’t know if you were going to make it—this truly is a wonderful surprise—we’re so very honored—”

Slade can recognize a stalling tactic when he sees one.  “What happened,” he growls flatly.

“Ah, we’re just—just slightly behind time—nothing to worry about—we’ll be underway soon—”

Slade makes a clipped, unamused sound to cut him off.  The host looks ready to disappear through the floor.  “I don’t appreciate people wasting my time,” Slade says shortly.

“Of—of course, Mr. Deathstroke—we’re really very sorry—if there’s anything we can get for you while you wait—”

“I’ll find something to amuse myself with,” Slade strides past him, ignoring his spluttering to duck down a side corridor.  Like he cares whether this auction is delayed or not.  This is a great opportunity to eliminate his target, and Slade efficiently slips out of his Deathstroke gear and into a more conventional suit, slipping on a pair of sunglasses before he heads up to the casino.

It’s laughably easy to complete his contract.

Cokewell is drunk, the casino security is clearly more focused on what’s happening below him, and it’s child’s play to crack Cokewell’s head against the bathroom counter and leave the mess behind for the next guest to find.  His contract specified a natural-looking death, with his involvement as hidden as possible.

One drunk guy slipping and hitting his head in the bathroom, done and done.  Slade retreating back downstairs, avoiding security cameras, getting back in his Deathstroke armor and creeping through now-empty corridors to reach the auction room, also done.  He’ll stick around as long as it takes to establish his alibi, and then he’s out of here.

The auction’s already begun, and Slade’s distaste for this garbage fire of a city sinks even deeper as he realizes just what they’re selling.  Or who.  Human trafficking, how very original.  Slade suppresses his groan and slinks deeper into the shadows.  If this night was interrupted by a Bat or two, he’d call it an improvement.

Though, come to think of it, it is surprising that he’s seen neither hide nor hair of the little bluebird tonight.

~#~

Everything feels…woozy.  Like he’s underwater, blinking and blinking and never able to clear his eyes.  The floor sways underneath him, rumbling with the voice of too many people, and he can’t help the stifled shriek as the red-tinged darkness is yanked away, leaving him under the harsh glare of stage lights.

“And now, my fellow compatriots, the item you’ve all been waiting for…the thorn in all our sides…our very own little Bat, Nightwing!”

No, no, no.  He’s not a Bat, not anymore, Robin, Robin and Batman, the great partnership that ended, and any hope Dick had that he could go back was dashed by the photos of the new black-haired, blue-eyed child trotting at Bruce’s side.

He’s not a Bat.  He’s a bird, and he’s been caught, and he’s staring out through cage bars at a blurry, seething audience of people yelling out crude insults.

Something in his stomach churns unpleasantly.

“Let’s start the bidding at a hundred thousand.”

Oh, fuck.

This isn’t the first time he’s been captured, or the first time he’s been drugged with something that makes him feel like a limp, overcooked noodle, or the first time he’s listened to people haggling over him like he’s a thing and not a person.

It’s the first time he’s been alone, though.

No Batgirl to give him the intel that the traffickers had cottoned onto him and had laid a trap.  No Agent A tracking his location and vitals.  No Batman speeding through the Batmobile for a rescue.  No, Dick’s alone and no one is coming.

“Do I hear five hundred thousand?  Five hundred thousand for Nightwing!”

[nightowl33art]

How To Make A Toxicsona- A Master Post!

!This page may update over time! So I was looking at my inbox and noticed I got sent an ask. Likely due to site bugs, I was not able to answer directly, but I'm sure the asker will be able to see this post.

Hello Anon! Firstly, thanks for the fun ask! Keep in mind this post will apply to most toxicsonas. I'll be using my own designs and process as examples. What I recommend does NOT have to be followed. In the end it's your design and it should be for fun most of all. I'm just presenting what the "ideal and average Phisnom toxicsona/toxic blob oc" should have.

For those tuning into this lengthy post with no idea what I'm on about, I'll be excerpting the toxicsona submission form Phisnom/Phil made for his toxicsona review streams. (Phil being the leader of the Toxic Cesspit community.)

(Despite "sona" being in the name, a toxicsona does NOT have to be representative of you! Toxicsonas can also be regular ocs!) Now to the advice!

1. READ UP!

Read the Toxicsonas For Dummies character guide! This image contains all the basic lore and traits for toxicsonas! What I say going forward may reference it. (Reading may also give you some fun ideas!)

You should also peep this from the toxicsona submission form:

In order to have a toxicsona you need* a:

Dark body for a base with accents (ie lines) that must be neon/brightly colored.

Mouth(s) with sharp teeth. Ideally will have at least one extra mouth somewhere on the form.

Unique pattern image for the body.

*You may not need it but it's more or less what makes a toxicsona a toxicsona. I'll be going over each point in detail later!

2. Purpose

What purpose will your blob fill? Are you creating an oc, a sona for yourself, or something else? This will affect what you create and how. If you have a preexisting design/sona you want to toss into the slime, reference off that design! Use what you know about that character/person to create this new form!

Starting from scratch? What I do is come up with a basic idea to concept off of! Think of something you want to design! If you need help, try using one of the countless idea generators out there or put your head together with others and see what you come up with! Moodboards, playlists, and Pinterest albums also serve well! Whatever type of brainstorming gets your inspiration bug flying, go for it!

Regardless, one thing to make note of is who was this design in life? Most blobs were once living beings. They all come from a liquid superorganism called The Substance. When a living being with a consciousness foreign to the slime (like a person) is absorbed into The Substance, it'll be spit out and reanimated anew if it has a strong will. Your blob must've been alive or had a connection to living things. Then it must have undergone some sort of transformation after making contact with The Substance. Asking who your blob was before the slime will be very helpful!

3. Body

You likely either have an idea of what your design will be, or you're jumping headfirst into the doing part. Either is okay! Everyone's process is different. If your design is based off a preexisting one, you're likely to make the new form into a similar shape. Some things to think about when coming up with a body:

A slime body is meant to reflect the ideal self. What are your toxicsona's ideal traits? If you're making a sona, what are YOUR ideal traits?

What were they when alive? Were they a feral stray cat? A human? You may want to stick to a shape that resembles their former appearance, especially if they are in denial of being a slime.

Who were they when alive? Did they like a certain animal a lot? Give them physical traits of said animal! Maybe your toxicsona wanted freedom, so they develop the wings they always envisioned. Maybe they believe they were a terrible person and so deserve the devil horns on their head. Were they two-faced? Give them two faces!

Is this the only form they have? Do I want to add a simplified blob form? Do I want to make a bigger/smaller form? If my character has an alter ego disguise, should I make a form for it?

(Most toxicsonas have a simplified little blob form, reflecting what they looked like at default after The Substance. They're super cute and puntable!)

How much mass do they have? The more mass a blob has, the more they have to work with physically, the more developed they are. What appendages have they formed with this mass? Many toxicsonas lack legs, including Phi himself, who is simply too lazy to use legs. Why your blob does/doesn't have legs can have a reason too!

What colors are they? Common dark colors for the majority of the body include black, gray, and dark shades of any given color (ex dark blue.) The neon can be just about any color! If the design is a sona, pick your favorite color(s)! Keep the color vibrant- it's supposed to stand out from the dark color! Your slime will always be surrounded by a dark/black outline around the very edge.

Where's the extra mouth(s)? The best designs have a mouth placed with thought, but not all are. Thoughtfully placed mouths have significance to the toxicsona. Scars/important wounds on their living body can become mouths. Perhaps if they were a gluttonous or starved person, you'll put a mouth on their belly to represent their hunger. If they're anxious about their mouth or general appearance, maybe it's hidden. (Ideally let the mouth be visible. It's visually appealing.)

(Dutch's extra mouth is on his back. Wings were always a big part of him, both appearance and story-wise, so the mouth emphasizes that. His wings come out of the mouth like tongues!)

Being a cartoonist, we're personally big on shape language and like to have designs with strong, recognizable silhouettes, but you do not have to do this.

Some advice on basics for drawing your slime!

Here's how I create the lineart, clothing coloring, and the outline that surrounds the blobs. (Some steps may be done at the same time or skipped entirely. This is the Nightowl 33 method so your mileage may vary.)

Draw lineart.

Alpha lock lineart layer. Recolor it to neon color.

Clip new layer on lineart. Color clothes black.

New layer for body color.

Move body color layer under lineart.

Color body colors. (I clip different clothing coloring layers on the main color layer. This main base color layer gets colored black when ready.)

Make a folder. Place all lineart, lineart coloring, and all body coloring layers in the folder.

Add a dark color outline in a layer beneath the folder. (I use the "stroke (outer)" tool in my art program, ibisPaint X.)

How I draw eyes!

Draw eye lineart.

New layer, clip on lineart layer, draw dark circle.

Layer sclera coloring under lineart layer.

Add pupil layer below lineart layer and above sclera layer.

(Coloration used to show different steps/parts of the eye!)

(Without the weird example coloring, your end result should look like this!)

4. Pattern

Much like how everyone has their own unique fingerprint, every toxicsona with a well defined identity develops their own unique pattern. Coming up with the right pattern is tricky! Patterns are made up of symbols, lines, or a combination of. They have a rhyme and reason to them. A pattern to the pattern, so to speak.

(Here's a bunch of example patterns, created by me (sometimes with the help of CrystalKleure), or Phil and StupidButterfly. Stare at them for a while and take some notes on what rhythms you recognize.)

For maximum appeal, your pattern cannot be too complex or simple! Try to select 2-4 symbols/lines to create your pattern. These symbols/lines should be thematically relevant to your blob. Ex: A spiderweb pattern for spider-themed toxicsonas, checker pattern for a blob that likes checkers/chess, a UFO for an alien slime, eyes for an angel slime or a slime that loves/fears being watched! (You may also want to reference off the emotion patterns if your blob is heavily associated with an emotion. Ex: sparkles for a very happy/excited slime!)

Feel free to pick basic shapes, like triangles and circles, for one or more symbols.

Create a few variants of your chosen symbols. Draw them big, medium, and small. Fill some of them, leave others empty/"hollow."

Patterns are seamless! This means when you apply a pattern to your toxicsona's clothing or body, it must be able to consistently loop! While you may wing it, below is a handy lifehack to easily make a seamless tiling pattern by @crystalkleure !

1. Draw a base design 2. Split that design in half, and arrange the two halves like this. [You might want to use guide lines/a guide grid to make sure the pixels line up in such a way that these two halves will stitch back together correctly, so they'd make clones of the base image again if you were to tile sets of these halves horizontally.] 3. Stitch the two halves together by adding more to the design 4. Split the image again like you did in step 2, except this time split the top and bottom apart instead of the sides. 5. Add more stuff to the design again, in any way that crosses the "seam" made by step 4 [where the top of the bottom half meets the bottom of the top half]. And if you lined up the pixels correctly while you were splitting and rearranging the chunks, you now have an image that tiles seamlessly both horizontally and vertically. The trick is just splitting an image into halves, swapping those halves' places, and then adding more to the image to hide the seam made by splitting and rearranging parts of it like that. Do it with the sides and you get a horizontally-tiling image, do it with the top and the bottom and you get a vertically-tiling image, do it with both the sides and the top + bottom and you get an image that tiles in all four directions.

Here's a speedpaint where I make a pattern using this method! While creating, double checking that your pattern looks good when looped is important! Don't forget to experiment with placements!

(Wow! What a cool pattern!)

Your pattern doesn't have to be insanely unique, hell you don't even HAVE to have one, but it's honestly better if you come up with one. There's no reason NOT to have a pattern unless it's for lore reasons, such as a confused identity or a mimic character. (Do NOT copy others' patterns and make them your own, especially without permission!)

(Phee, Pho, and Phum have the same default pattern as Phi because they're copycat scammers! They try to convince others they're related to Phi to get what they want.)

Gradient and pattern application!

Now you may want to give your slime a gradient! Gradients tend to appear on the lower halves of blobs but can be placed anywhere! Below is a guide to show how I apply the pattern and gradients to the body! While defaults apply to many toxicsonas, like Phi, they do not have to be followed.

Clip pattern layer over body color layer. (Pattern transparency default is 47%.)

New layer (add mode), place under pattern, clip over body color layer. Draw gradient. (Gradient transparency default is 40%.)

Alpha lock the pattern layer.

Airbrush the upper half pattern layer with the dark body color.

The pattern is often the same color as the neon lineart, while the gradient is often a darker version of the color.

(Weird bright green coloration used to emphasize the layers clipped onto it.)

(The finished gradient, sans weird example coloring, looks just like Phi's!)

Here's how to apply a pattern to clothing! Create a new layer with the pattern. Clip it to your base. (Pattern layers on clothes are usually somewhat transparent. The default is 65% but you can deviate.)

5. Outfit

Clothing is a HUGE self expression that extends to the world of toxicsonas! Blobs can harden mass they acquire, turning it into wearable cartilage clothing! Below are some tips but the bottom line is DESIGN WHAT YOU WANT.

Who they were before the slime often heavily influences their outfit(s). Ex, if your blob was a clown when alive, they may dress the same as a slime.

You'll often find the body pattern on the clothes, but you don't have to do this.

A popular addition to blob fashion is caution/hazard tape! While often black and yellow, feel free to deviate the colors.

(A bunch of fashionable slime outfits with caution tape themes that I made or had a hand in making!)

Phil does not like hoodies on toxicsonas but you can totally join the #hoodiesweep nation. (It would be super funny.) That aside, many do put their blobs in hoodies, so avoiding a standard hoodie is preferable if you want to make a super unique design.

You don't have to give your blob any clothes, especially if they're non-humanoid. Accessories are still recommended to personalize your design and make it stand out from an average ...whatever it is.

Unlike the rest of the slime body that has colored lineart, clothing almost ALWAYS has black/dark color lineart.

Any slime overlapping atop non-slime materials requires a black outline, including over clothing.

(While the consistency of this rule varies with established toxicsona art (ie Phi), I personally try to apply it as much as possible, even when slime overlaps slime. It makes things look nicer and allows the neon lines to stand out more. It's also easier to make out what's going on when looked at.)

Misc. tips!

Bananas are the main unit of measurement in the cesspit! Giving your blob a height can help people draw them to scale, especially when drawn next to other blobs! To get the accurate height: 1. Conjure a length of your choice. 2. Convert your length to inches (in). 3. Divide the inches by 7. (Because 7 inches is the average length of a grocery store banana.) 4. Congrats! You have banana height! Now you can also reverse the order and get standard heights!

Too gay or lazy to do math? Click here for faster conversion! http://bananaforscale.info/#!/ (Note the results will be slightly shorter than my method above but the measurements are about the same so who really cares about that.)

Come up with a backstory for your toxicsona! If you haven't already made one during the design process, you may want to now! -Consider what life was like before they came in contact with The Substance. How did they feel about their old life? -How did they come in contact with The Substance? (Preferably avoid the basic backstory of accidentally falling into a vat. It's overdone, mainly due to how vague lore was before the toxicsona review streams. I'd suggest letting Phi lure them into the slime or tossing them in, if you want something traditional. Phi's goal is to make a blob army, after all.) -What is their life like now, post-Substance? How do they feel about their new life?

(Canon backstory comic on how Phee, Pho, and Phum became blobs!)

Feeling social? Working with other cesspit members (or your own ocs), you can develop links between your toxicsonas! Make your friend's blob their friend! Or maybe enemy! Why not ship them? GO NUTS????

(Phee is a massive flirt in the cesspit. Mr. Sex/Noctus belongs to @corovusin !)

-Consider how your blob may feel about others. Are they a social butterfly or a shut in? Who do they like? Who would they rather avoid? -What are their thoughts on Phi, the leader? (Generally avoid giving them a super strong, personal bond with Phi, such as relatives, best friends, or close partners of any kind. Phi does not have a family and she's a total bitch to just about everyone!) -Phil says there's no love in the cesspit but he's literally just a hater. Make your ocs gay kiss!!

Feel like cooking a little more? Why not design a pre-slime form if it doesn't already exist?

(Phee and Phum before their fatal scam attempt on Phi.)

Many cesspit users also create a "living disguise" form for their toxicsonas, so the slimes can wander among others without rousing suspicion! Blobs have the ability to learn to shapeshift. It's a skill that must be mastered with experience and time, so disguise forms often have "flaws" that give away an inhuman quality, like extra mouths, eyes, patterns, or gradients on their skin.

(Dutch is very good at shapeshifting, so his disguise lacks most flaws. The flaws that are there are mostly intentional, since he's proud of his slime qualities. A blob who perfects the skill of shifting can look like an ordinary human, but where's the fun in that?)

Most toxicsonas can change color based on emotion. (They may also change based on other factors so feel free to get creative with it.) -As a slime has a base pattern and color of choice, these will change based on their mood and that mood's assigned color! Many toxicsonas share patterns and colors with Phi (like red and triangle pattern for mad, blue and flowered squiggles for sad, etc.) but this is not a rule. You can assign any color to any mood. You are not limited to Phi's emotion set either! You can even make your own patterns for your blob's moods if you feel like it! -Some color changes are very subtle in some slimes! Is this true for yours? -Modifying the design of your blob to match their mood is a fun way to create expressive and interesting variants!

(Dutch's hair, horn shape, halo, face, and hands can change with his mood! He has an array of emotional patterns, both preset and custom-made, to match the different colors/moods.)

(When Goober was alive, they had DID. Mimicking the behavior of their former life, the three alters, Ziggy, Skrunk, and Wumbus, became separate blobs. They still need to work together to function properly. They combine to bodily become "Goober." Goober's left eye functions as a collective eye, while their right eyes that can emote separately reflect their respective alter.)

(Goober's default color is green, indicating all alters are co-fronting. When there is a primary fronter or two, the upper body color changes to match!)

Design a shell for your toxicsona! Shells are foreign objects blobs use, often to live, sleep, or hide in. Shells are protective. ANYTHING can be a shell. Not all toxicsonas need one, but those that do often have a thematic shell that relates to who they are. (Ex: Phi-barrel, Bucket-bucket, Collette-chocolate box.)

(Thanks to his angelic theming, Dutch's shell is a reliquary- a display container for holy relics, often being remnants of holy figures. Goober's shell of choice is a mini UFO!)

Stuck? Want to grow your design with less work? Collaborate with others or take their advice if you like what they give you. Ask people what they'd change about your design!

You should NOT be designing just for the approval of Phisnom, You should design for YOURSELF (or whoever is paying you- I see you, adopt/custom ppl.) He's just another person out there. Yes, a creator of the species, but he does not have to dictate your choices or give your design an S tier ranking just to validate it. The satisfaction should come from inside, not outside.

Hope these tips help, best of luck creating your own toxicsona, and feel free to ask any additional questions regarding this! ✌️

[badaziraphaletakes]

Submitting this... it's a long one, sorry 🥲

*Shakes out very, very long scroll*

*In Bildad voice* "Shall I summarize?"

✅ Demanding that an ab*se victim have a plan for how to fix their ab*ser's Evil Scheme

✅ Saying you would handle the situation better than they did

✅ Acting like outsmarting an ab*ser would have been as simple as writing a sneaky lil note on a sneaky lil piece of paper, like I'm sorry but holy sh*t y'all that is just the most patronizing, trauma-invalidating BS I've ever heard

✅ Saying "idiotic"

✅ Using it to describe an Autistic-presenting character

✅ Who is also an ab*se victim

✅ Calling an ab*se victim "egocentric"

✅ Which is even more problematic given that that ab*se victim is also feminine

✅ Assuming Aziraphale actually wanted Crowley to come back with him, when we aren't yet in full possession of the facts

✅ Assuming Aziraphale meant literally anything he said in the entire Final Fifteen

✅ Assuming that, if Aziraphale really did actually want Crowley to come back with him, he didn't have a valid reason for it (maybe he actually thought it was the safest possible option for Crowley! We don't know!)

✅ Obliquely blaming Aziraphale for maybe being scared to go back alone? Or just not wanting to be lonely when he knows he might very well die up there?

✅ In short, eviscerating an ab*se survivor for having the audacity to respond to the horrendous situation their viewer has trapped them in, in anything short of an entirely morally irreproachable manner, and acting like their (supposed) moral failings gives us license to pronounce judgment on their situation

✅ Accusing Aziraphale of thinking he's always right and Crowley is always wrong, when we know Aziraphale says all that stuff like "You, I am sorry to say, are evil" in the knowledge that heaven and hell might be listening in at any moment

✅ Calling the things Aziraphale said under the ever-watchful eye of his ab*sers "starting a fight"

✅ Ignoring that, if Aziraphale is to blame for "starting a fight" , then just maybe Crowley might share some of the blame. (For the record, we don't think either of them are to blame here, considering Metatrash deliberately trapped both of them in a pressure cooker and turned up the flame, while simultaneously trying to manipulate each of them into thinking the situation was their husband's fault. A strategy which, incidentally, to have worked on a good portion of the fandom... << But we digress. :p )

✅ Saying Aziraphale "meant" the things he said while those ab*sers were possibly listening to him, and had literally just made an extremely explicit death threat

✅ Implying Crowley "doesn't have any spirit left"

✅ Accusing Aziraphale, rather than his and Crowley's ab*sers, of bearing the real responsibility for Crowley's distress

✅ Ignoring that Aziraphale was every bit as distraught as Crowley

✅ Saying Aziraphale "refuses to listen" because he cut Crowley off, even though he was stressed at the time and that's something all of us, especially the neurodivergent folk, do when we're stressed (AND even though he also probably stopped Crowley from saying something that would might have gotten them both roasted on a spit in the flaming cesspits of Abbadon)

✅ Saying that an ab*se victim has been "ignoring" their problem and needs to

✅ "confront"

✅ the "consequences" of

✅ "their" actions

✅ Acting like Aziraphale hasn't already (like any other ab*se victim/survivor) suffered more than enough for a million lifetimes

Did I miss anything lol?

(And okay, yes, the OP is responding to the "Aziraphale has a perfect plan to fix everything" take, which is an arguably slightly-problematic take in itself - but honestly, given that they responded to it by piling on a bunch of crap that was a thousand times more problematic, I'm not feeling disposed to make allowances.)

[drunk-on-dk]

you asked for hard thots and i can’t shake the absolute cesspit of brainrot that is vernon as your long-term-best-friend who is also your “platonic”-but-why-is-this-so-intense-why-is-he-looking-at-me-like-that date to a family wedding, in your hotel room afterwards and roasting your choice in pyjamas b4 ploughing you into the mattress😔✌🏻

anon u are so sexy for this ask ilysm <333 please tho I am EATING THIS UP, sorry it took me some time (uh oh this is NOT a drabble) but I hope you enjoy it, my dear!!! (i don't know if I did a great job making it super intense as it's a bit more lighthearted, but nonetheless, I hope it hits the mark!)

warnings: smut (minors DNI i will bite and block), some plot at the beginning, mutual pining, teasing, fem! reader but no pronouns, unprotected sex, cunnilingus (female receiving), let me know if i'm missing anything w/c: ~2.5k

"When does it end," you groan, finally peeling off those pesky heels that you've somehow managed to wear the whole wedding and falling back into the comfort of the springy hotel mattress. You're immediately curling into a little ball, hands massaging the aching balls of your feet. "This is like the millionth wedding we've been to this year."

Vernon watches you amusedly, removing his own suit jacket and discarding it onto the decorative armchair. Snorting, Vernon states the obvious, "a million weddings in one year would be impossible, Y/N."

"No shit, Sherlock," you laugh, rolling your eyes as you sit back up, already feeling your eyes falling heavy after the night you've had entertaining your family's antics. "Thanks for saving me yet again though. It's nice having a friend at these things, makes the time go by a lot faster."

A dejected sigh from Vernon goes unnoticed as you spring back up to your feet and walk to the bathroom, PJs crumpled in hand whilst you continue to ramble and rant about your family.

"But seriously, how many weddings can my family have in one year? Also, why are they so convinced we're together? I don't know how many times I have to reiterate that you are my best friend to them? They've known you for like how many years now?"

You can hear Vernon humming in agreement as you unzip your dress in the safety of the bathroom, a soft shuffling sound in the other room indicating that he is rooting through his own suitcase. You hope he doesn't hear the wavering of your voice as you mention the word 'best friend' yet again.

Admittedly, it's been slowly becoming harder to read Vernon these past few months, even though he's been your friend for as many years as you can count on two hands and then some. You had invited him to be your plus one to one of the many weddings you had to attend this year a few months ago, and ever since then you've been quelling thoughts of 'what if?'

Vernon has to suppress another snort when you emerge from the bathroom, the sudden reappearance of you in your tattered, old pajamas has him smiling crookedly in amusement.

"I'm sorry, but what are those?"

"What are what?" You look like a deer in headlights, hands dropping to your sides before taking in fistfuls of your pajama bottoms that should have been retired a long time ago. "Are you making fun of my pajamas?"

Vernon's laugh and smile are enough to make your heart feel like it's about to pound its way out of your chest, your own awkward chuckle combining with his as he approaches you.

"Y/N," he sighs, shaking his head with that ridiculous smile of his still adorning his features, eyes twinkling as he makes you spin for him. "These are ridiculous, how old are these pajamas?"

You shrug, still fisting the extremely soft material as you ponder jokingly about his question. "Maybe like 10 years. What? Do you not find Hello Kitty pajama bottoms cute?"

Vernon and you hold eye contact for a second longer until you are both bursting out into laughter.

"Cute," he ponders adoringly, pinching your arm before heading to the bathroom to change into his own pajamas. "Sure thing."

The interaction has your cheeks burning, noting the way Vernon seems to drink you in before going to change, soft eyes observing you in adoration briefly.

Yet again, you're quick to shake yourself out of it, shuffling into the hotel bed and cuddling with the heavy covers. Still, you're left to your own thoughts.

Why does he keep looking at you like that? It's that same stupid, endearing look in his eyes that seem to soften every time you come into view. It's the kind of look that makes your heart beat a little too fast for your liking. It's that kind of look that has you returning to those 'what if' thoughts.

Vernon is soon joining you in the bed, slipping under the sheets comfortably and shimmying in closer to you, utilizing your body heat as a source of warmth.

You've shared a bed with Vernon many times before, during sleepovers when you were children all the way to accompanying you in bed to make sure you were okay after a night of heavy drinking.

However, you swear with each wedding that you grow uneasier being this close in proximity to him. You are no longer able to avoid the ebbing feeling of butterflies fluttering in your lower stomach.

Vernon hums contently to himself as he relaxes deeper into the sheets and turns to face you. The soft sound of his breathing has goosebumps running down the back of your neck and you don't think you can bear to look at him, so you opt to flip around onto your side and face away from him.

You can practically feel his eyes burning a hole into the back of your head, your hair burning and ears tingling knowing that he is staring at you. It's making you feel restless, so you turn around with a hmph to face him once again.

"What," you whisper harshly, even though it's just you two in this dark, hotel room. The only bit of light is the soft, blue flickering light of the TV that Vernon refuses to turn off. "Why do you keep staring at me? You did it earlier when you picked me up for the wedding, on the dance floor, and even when I changed into my pajamas. You've been doing that too much lately."

He seems a bit guilty, jaw falling slack as his eyes become saucer-like, yet there is still a palpable tension in his stare. "What do you mean? I'm just looking at you."

"Like that!? Who looks at someone like that!" You exclaim, one hand escaping from underneath the covers to motion to his face, the other arm now propping you up to get a better look at him.

Vernon seems to be deep in thought for a second, thick eyebrows bunching up as he takes note of your frazzled demeanor. He also takes note of the undeniable blush that can still be seen even in the dim lighting.

"Y-you-" you're stuttering idiotically at this point, tripping over your words as he continues to stare intently at you.

"Does it make you uncomfortable?" His voice is soft and raspy. It shuts you up for a second as you blink stupidly down at his painfully handsome bare face.

You're falling face first into your pillow, groaning loudly and shoving your face deeper into the plush fabric to escape the prison that his gaze has you in.

"No," you mumble loudly into the pillow. "It doesn't. I just feel weird."

He's laughing and it has you smiling like a fool into the pillow. There go those darn butterflies in your stomach again. "It makes you feel weird?"

You sit back up, this time crossing your legs and readjusting so you're not laying next to him. He's way too calm and cool for your liking, not liking the way his lips fall into a lopsided smile as he watches you adjust yourself.

"I don't know, Vernon. I don't know what I feel when you stare at me like that."

"Do you like it?" He's still unserious, but his voice is teetering between what seems like amusement and hopefulness. Your hands are subconsciously playing with the tattered hem of your pajama bottoms, and the habitual motion is enough for Vernon to grasp your hand with his.

"Maybe."

One heartbeat.

Another heartbeat.

Oh god, your ears are pounding from the way he's looking at you.

Vernon is tugging on your hand and pulling you into him, soft lips colliding with yours and knocking the wind out of you.

"Do you like this," he pulls away for a second, seeming just as breathless as you.

"Yes, I do."

"Cool," it's such a Vernon response, but in this case it's almost dizzying. With that, he's pulling you back in, lips hungrily reconnecting with yours, and both of his hands are coming up to cup your face to help guide you as he licks into your mouth.

The kiss is just as intense as his stare, almost as if Vernon is channeling all that pent-up energy into the delicate care and passion encapsulated by his lips on yours.

You feel as if you could overheat when his hands travel from your jaw all the way down to your hips, playing with the waistband of your pajamas. He grabs hold of your hips and flips you onto your back, never once disconnecting from you as he nibbles and suckles on your bottom lip.

"These," he finally breaks away, eyes roaming wildly over your features, and snapping the waistband of your bottoms against your skin. "These ridiculous things have to go."

"Please," you mewl, eyes screwed shut in need as his fingertips continue to tease at your hipbones. "Take them off, Vernon."

He's chuckling, but this time it's almost teasing, the sound making arousal burn at your core when he begins to tug at your bottoms. Your hips buck upwards to help him slip the slinky material off your body, ultimately turning Vernon's chuckle into a pained groan upon being greeted by your dripping pussy.

"Y/N," he mumbles softly, hands running up and down your thighs after discarding your bottoms. "Can I please?"

"Can you please what?" You know what he's asking, but seeing him look so desperate between your legs has you wanting to hear it directly.

"Can I taste you?"

You're nodding profusely, yelping in pleasure when he dives down between your legs, rough hands wrapping around both your thighs to keep you still as his wet tongue comes in contact with your throbbing clit.

"Fuck," you're immediately panting, his tongue working quickly as it runs firm circles around your clit. Vernon is staring up at you from between your thighs, thick eyebrows raised and dark, hungry eyes catching yours once again. "F-fuck, Vernon, you're giving me that look again."

This time he raises one brow, tongue running down your pussy and plunging teasingly into your sopping cunt. "What look?" He mumbles into your core, "taste so good, Y/N."

At this point, the warmth and pressure of his tongue has you reeling, the burning pit of arousal in your lower stomach heightening as he continues to messily eat you out. You're soon pushed over the edge, walls pulsing as Vernon continues to work his tongue from your little hole to your clit.

You're fisting a handful of his hair, feeling overstimulated way too fast after your first release, and pulling him back up. He's quick to engulf you in another kiss, the flavor of your lips and juices like ecstasy on his tongue.

He's shuffling out of his own pajama bottoms as you plea between fleeting kisses, begging to have him fill you. Vernon's innocence resurfaces for a minute as he panics, realizing there is no way he packed a condom. (He's not looking for a random hook-up at your family weddings, nor did he think this would ever actually happen, no matter how long he's pined over you.)

"Fuck, Vernon," you moan, pussy throbbing in need as Vernon continues to rut his length teasingly between your folds whilst he searches for a condom anywhere - maybe there is one in his wallet. "Just fuck me without one. I'm clean and on the pill."

"Ah," he hisses, the thought of you taking him raw making him feel like he could burst. "I'm clean too, are you sure?"

"I've never been more sure," you confirm, hands grabbing at him to pull him closer to you.

"F-Fuck, Y/N," he's obliging, his thick, leaky tip dipping in between your folds and sinking into your tight, little cunt. His body shakes as he plunges deep inside of you, hips bottoming out and getting sucked in completely by your walls.

You're shaking too, heavy breaths soothing you as you adjust to his thickness and length. He wasn't massive, but he was more than enough to deliciously stretch you out. Vernon's convinced he could bust just from the feeling of your walls fluttering and adjusting around him, staring down at you with starry eyes as your face contorts in pleasure.

Vernon suddenly feels as if he has a purpose, watching as your jaw falls slack when he experimentally pulls out just to thrust back in, immediately finding the spongey spot deep in your core.

He's addicted to your reactions, the way you look so beautiful with each precise thrust and spear of his cock inside of you. He's memorizing the way your eyes roll back and clamp shut, remembering how your pouty lips scream his name, noting how your cheeks turn a lovely shade of pink.

Vernon's come to realize he can't get enough of you. He's going to forever be hooked on everything about you, and now that he's tasted and felt your perfect pussy, you won't ever get rid of him.

This passion he feels is reflected in the way he roughly fucks you, hips snapping into yours just to pull another delightful moan from your lips. You can feel the bed rocking as he fucks even deeper into your pussy, legs wrapping tightly around his waist as you feel your impending orgasm build.

His motions slowly become sloppy, and the explicit squelching of your walls sucking him in has him groaning with each messy rut of his hips. Vernon is still keen on watching you though, wanting to see your features as you come undone beneath him.

"C'mon, Y/N," he beckons, his length continuing to fill you so perfectly as your walls flutter around him. He can feel you getting impossibly tighter, loving the way your legs keep him close as he pounds into you. "Look at me, please, let me see you."

You're listening to him, eyes opening to look back at him in the same way he's looking at you. There's that damn look again, but this time it has you falling apart for him. The way your walls spasm around his cock and the orgasmic glow of your features has him coming with you, filling you deeply with his cum as your core throbs in pleasure from the intensity of your orgasm mixing with his.

You're absolutely fucked out, the two of you breathless as Vernon reluctantly pulls out, and opts to clean you up quickly. You can't help but hide your face when he happily joins you back in bed, that same stupid look on his features that landed him here in the first place.

You're positive you'll be receiving a noise complaint from the hotel. Hopefully, none of the other wedding guests are staying around you, especially after you've been parading around with him as your "platonic" friend for the past few months (ahem, years).

[liesmyth]

i’m new to the fandom and am incredibly surprised that more people aren’t sad about tamsyn muir not having an official website for tlt or all her works. Not even at least a tlt official insta account. Like what.

I think most people in the fandom understand that she values her privacy and mental health and respect that. In general, I think that not being accessible to the fandom is a good thing for creators, especially queer creators writing queer works that are quote unquote problematic, especially works that attract a large fandom, who can start to feel entitled to the creator's time or opinions or attention, or demand updates or that they should weigh in on the issue du jour.

Also: as a new fan, you might not know that TazMuir got fandom cancelled in 2020 for fanfic crimes, and that's why she stopped being online. She still might be if she hadn't been harassed, or maybe she'd have peaced out for different reasons, but as things stand it's not as simple as her not being online — she was run out of fandom spaces by an angry mob. (x) (x)

(Broader rant you didn't ask for: I understand everyone does fandom differently but personally I'm not enthusiastic about doing fandom on Instagram or other algorithm fuelled platforms. I understand it's necessary for some authors to be online to promote their books.... #booktwt #booktok #bookstagram etc all seem soulless cesspits to me and I'm glad that TM is successful enough that she can market her writing without having to farm for clicks on social media if she doesn't want to. This isn't to dismiss the authors who DO, and I'm sure some of them might actually enjoy it, just like I know for a fact many people have a grand time on fandom insta or tiktok. But here in my lil tumblr cave, everything I hear about book social media is controversies and someone's 15 mins video essay where they dissected a book they knew they weren't going to like just to cash in on the outrage hype, and I'm glad I can be a part of the TLT fandom without having to stay up to date with that)

[spacechild-glitchypix]

A lot of people are making a lot of public statements considering this is a situation that has pretty much nothing to do with them.

Look, I'm usually one to be pretty civil on conversations like this in public because I generally feel like people are less likely to listen when you're angry and shouting but I'm also acutely aware that none of you are really paying any attention. You're glossing over statements, you're intentionally reading Rose's statements and apologies in bad faith. If you aren't going to have the good graces to truly listen to either Kab or Rose then, respectfully, back away. You're not contributing anything positive to the conversation, you're talking in circles about points already being addressed and claiming they aren't because the answer doesn't suit your narrative

You can think Rose's comments made in the privacy of his own server are unprofessional until the cows come home but, frankly, his professionalism isn't any of your concern unless you're employing him. And, as for the biphobia comments, I'll speak as someone who was literally in those discord screenshots.

The stuff said in Marshie's post is true but, on a larger scale, this was a common discussion in this server. It wasn't started by Rose, it certainly didn't end with Rose, this was an entire server of queer people who were just sick of the heteronormative way some people would develop their MCs. And if you took that as a personal attack then I apologise but I can't help you with your own feelings. We never expected this to reach public eyes, none of us would've actually said this to a person's face about their own MCs. We're not bullies, our words were posted in a public setting without our permission, the fact you people seemed to have missed that (or even claimed that we apparently weren't private enough because somehow we were supposed to just know one of our members was leaking screenshots of our conversations which is a stance I have seen at least one person take) is honestly very telling.

No one should be expected to be 100% polite or civil in their own spaces (this also includes Rose's blog, before one of you fires blossoming-attorney's post at me), we're allowed to have areas where we can speak our own grievance with friends and be hyperbolic without having to worry about people taking our works out of that space to be put completely on blast to the public. Have none of you people ever complained about a boss before???

But more importantly than that, I just think the level of tone-policing and dogpiling and harassment being leveled at one of my friends over a racist smear campaign is fucking appalling. I don't care if you do not think this is racist because race wasn't brought up, if this wasn't racism then why is Rose the only person you people have thought to go after. Why is he the only person that was named, why did no one try to find anyone else in those screenshots.

This fandom is, quite frankly, a racist cesspit, the people who started this harassment campaign by publiclly posting this bullshit on a throwaway reddit account are scum, the people who pushed it without any sort of critical thinking should be deeply ashamed of themselves and every major artist in the community making a statement as to their stance on this whole ordeal needs to back off

This community has destroyed an incredibly important space where me and many others made a number of good friends for nearly a year over the adrenaline rush of jumping on a bandwagon. You've hurt one of my good friends and tried to get him fired from his job to further a racist smear campaign because you didn't like that he's an outspoken black person.

I hope you're fucking proud of yourselves